Relevant. Fucking. Content. Part the first: Comics.

[winneganfake]

So, yes, when I planned for this week, I had some targets topics set up in advance. And after having thrown a good number of paychecks down this particular toilet, I feel I'm allowed to at least speak on the subject.

Specifically, the concept of the re-boot. We've seen it with comic-book movies, offshoots, and in the comics themselves, mostly because no story is really intended to stay as a static entity for decades. You can't truly let the characters evolve- if Batman ever really came to grips with the death of his family, he'd lose his motivation. If Jesus Christ Superman could ever truly be defeated, we'd lose faith in his ability as the savior of all mankind. And readers would lose their happy Wednesday evening pablum of the identical stories they'd grown up on since childhood. The Crisis books and similar are just extensions of it- it may look like the universe of the comic has been shaken up, but in reality, a few months later, it's back to the usual status quo. Yes, I realize that things have shaken up some with the actual death of Batman, but at the same time, there's still going to be a Batman after this.

Now, here's what I'd like to see. (DC execs? if you're somehow reading this, feel free to steal it. Seriously. I'd pay to read this. You don't have to owe me a fucking cent.) It's a bit of a ballsy move, especially from the standpoint of the industry these days, where even the big companies aren't exactly raking it in. Anyways, here it goes- stop publishing. Just for a month. Don't give any warning to the customers, don't accept payments from retailers for that period, do whatever you have to, but no new comics for an entire month. The beginning of the next month, ship one single comic. Call it: "No More Heroes," volume one. Just a simple cover design- solid black with white type. (Invert it! Sell an alternate cover version just to appease the 1990's collectors!) Inside? 108 pages of story. Start with the team of archaeologists sent into the Fortress of Solitude. Cut to the spelunkers exploring what's left of the Batcave. The wreckage team sifting the remains of the JLA space station after it crashed in the Amazon Rainforest. Allude in dialog towards the "disappearance," but give away no details whatsoever. If a threat comes up, regular human beings defeat it. With their own determination, tools, and skills.

As issues continue the stories of these groups, we see the occasional new hero pop up. Nothing as overpowered as old Supes, but nonetheless, heroes. With superpowers. These characters ultimately get their own books, as they build followings from the readers of No More Heroes. But still, DC- you've got essentially a new universe- don't fuck it up. No gigantic crossovers. No Crisis. And no superhero that can save all of us without even hardly trying. Try stressing the fact that supers, despite their capabilities, are still people. And people are what fucking saves the day. Not tights or capes, or the ability to launch supersonic farts that can split asteroids.


discuss.

Comments

[hafwit.livejournal.com]

No capes? :-O

[winneganfake.livejournal.com]

No capes!

[darkmane.livejournal.com]

Even after Level 20?

[fear-the-cow.livejournal.com]

CoH reference FTW!

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

I see possible differences, but I think they might have to explain themselves to the creators of the Heroes tv series.

I've just spent a week watching four seasons of it, and bar the backstory I think the bit after the disappearance of the old-school, overpowered superheroes as similar to Heroes as "Discord in Scarlet" by A. E. Van Vogt was to the film Alien. The original word on that was it was an inspiration, but there was eventual monetary compensation.

[darkmane.livejournal.com]

No gigantic crossovers. No Crisis. And no superhero that can save all of us without even hardly trying. Try stressing the fact that supers, despite their capabilities, are still people. And people are what fucking saves the day. Not tights or capes, or the ability to launch supersonic farts that can split asteroids.

We're sorry, you're idea has been rejected because with out cross-overs we can't redirect attention to less profitable characters.

And we think capes and spandex are still going to come back in style.

[machine-logic.livejournal.com]

I don't watch Heroes, so I may be wrong, but that sounds dangerously close to the idea behind that show.

That said, if that were to be published in comic form, I'd start buying comics again.

[pretentiousfool.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I want to do comics, but can't really pull of the scope I want. I would love to have a comic universe where things change, people die (and stay dead), and there is actual growth and a sense of realism. However, to really get the detail I envision, I would need access to actual DC/Marvel heroes. That feeling of legacy can't be done well without actual history to the characters.

[elainecorvidae.livejournal.com]

"Try stressing the fact that supers, despite their capabilities, are still people. And people are what fucking saves the day. Not tights or capes, or the ability to launch supersonic farts that can split asteroids."

THIS would bring me back to mainstream comics. It's one of the big reasons my pull-list has been purely indies for the last several years. Admittedly, I have a weakness for this sort of character-driven story-telling (my all-time favorite review ever for one of my own books - TYRANT MOON - reads "These are not the overnight heroes that much adventure fantasy suffers from. These are real people, faced with extraordinarily hard situations and decisions from which magic cannot always save them.").

The sense of status-quo is also why I eventually gave up on DC/Marvel comics. If everything always goes back to the way it used to be, none of the events ever really MATTER. There's no point to being emotionally invested in the stories, because nothing will ever change as a consequence of them.