What's with the predisposition to hate?

You know, in my countless hours of navigating around the forums I have noted that whenever a new creative is announced there is always the same response:

"Goddammit, I loved what "name" was doing, I'm dropping this book now!"

Of course there is also the opposite reaction if you hated the previous run in the first place (in fact "What's with the predisposition to love and hate?" could be a better title but just for this topic let's concentrate on the title's question).

I can understand that people were enjoying the work from last authors and you don't want a replacement (I can sympathize with that since it has happened to me a lot of times). However, it also simbolizes something even more worrying:: Fear of change.

Despite of what many comic fans may proclaim there has always been an evident fear of change in the fanbase and that's one of the main reasons why new books don't perform as well as classic properties and it's a shame (and annoying, especially annoying) to see people crying for diversity and once that they get it they just don't buy it.

Anyway, I'm getting a bit out of context so let's get back to the initial statement. Whenever a new creative team arrives to replace a previous successful one there's a sense of fear but also a predisposition to hate, some people simply can't accept the fact that their favorite authors are quitting or getting fired from the title and automatically receive the new writers/artists (But especially writers) negatively even if they're not doing a bad job per se (or even if they're actually doing a good or better job than the previous team).

This is course is an example of that classic bias that exists in the community and I can't simply understand. You need to be able to criticize any kind of work without letting that your personal feelings interfere with your reason. If you ask me, preconceived opinions are the worst aspect that any fan can show since it demonstrates that they're not willing to try anything different.

One of the most recent cases based on this topic happenned when Scott Lobdell, author of Red Hood & The Outlaws, was getting replaced by James Tynion IV. I must say that despite of the complaints I have against his Teen Titans, Lobdell was doing a quite good job in Red Hood by creating a creative, crazy and progressive work for the characters from that title. However, once that Tynion arrived fans immediately were making negative statements about his work despite that it wasn't really bad, I'm not going to say that it was great though since Tynion commited a few rookie mistakes in his writing.

Another instance is when famous Green Lantern writer, Geoff Johns, was replaced by Robert Venditti. Some people simply couldn't accept that Venditti was doing something different from Johns and started to scream loudly about how terrible his work was and how he was ruining the franchise despite that, again, he's not doing a bad job.

But these are not the only samples since I seem to remember that even someone like Scott Snyder, current author of Batman which is also the highest selling DC franchise today, got hate due to the simple reason of replacing previous writer Grant Morrison (and continues to receive it from some Morrison's loyalists).

Then again this is not only restricted to authors since whenever a character gets replaced by another one there's also a preconceived negative opinion towards the new ones (as seen in Batwing or what could possibly happen to Nightwing after Forever Evil ends) or when a classic character gets a new reinterpretation (This is a bit trickier though).

Hell, when Hellblazer was cancelled and DC announced that they were going to move Constantine to the New 52 in his own new series people were enraged and proclaimed that they were not going to buy the new series and that it was going to suck. For those people I have to say that they're missing a lot since Constantine (Forever Evil: Blight crossover aside) is one of the best DC series currently and you're losing a lot for not reading it.

So what causes this kind of reactions? Is it fear for change and you can't accept anything new or could it be that no matter what happens you will end hating something different?

Well, I'm only talking for myself of course, but those reasons are bullshit.

If something is good don't let your personal emotions get in the way of the enjoyment, just accept them for what they are. I'm not saying that you can't have your predilections, everyone has it, but you also need to understand that just because titles don't go the way you wanted doesn't mean that they suck.

Of course, if they truly end sucking then fuck them but there are better ways to judge something besides a predisposition to hate it.