Cutting the cord

[dotsomething]

Certain individuals on a certain message board on a certain website which shall remain unnamed just can't seem to get that whatever problems the stories in DC and Marvel have, it's not because the superhero, as a story genre, is inherently a bad mode for storytelling.

Comments

[sdelmonte]

I think that part of the problem is that DC no longer treats its super-hero comics as "merely" super-hero comics. They want "realism!" They want "consequences!" They want to forget that super-hero comics are not supposed to be real. They want to make them relevant to the real world.

In other words, it's like trying to make Star Trek in the style of an indie film. A total mismatch.

[dotsomething]

That could be, in the sense that they are over-compensating in the "making it real" department. You know my view on this--I'm for the reality approach. But only if it doesn't involve a lot of out of character behavior that feels forced.

So maybe they've just gone too far in "making it real"--that in their determination to have consequences, they're wedging character into holes they just don't fit into.

Making it real

[jimmyknocker]

Isn't that what Marvel Comics does? That's the main reason why I won't read Spider-Man. No matter how much good Webhead does, bad things still happen to him.

*GKJD*
(Blame freakin' Jameson!)

Re: Making it real

[dotsomething]

Well, I'm not really talking about "bad things happening" to a character. More that if bad things happen, the characters react in the context of who they are. If they act contrary to character, then let there be a decent buildup to it, so we can see how they ended up at such an extreme point.

Identity Crisis did that very well. I'm still reading Nightwing because even though they have taken that character in a wildly different and morally ambiguous direction, there was a very good build-up to it, we see how he could end up there. (That's a subjective opinion, though, I know a lot of people who like this character who think it was forced and came out of nowhere)

But a break in characterization that just seems wedged in only for the sake of shock value just pisses me off.

Misery just for the sake of misery gets dull too. That's why I didn't like seasons 6 and 7 of Buffy.

[dotsomething]

In a need for retail therapy, I picked up Volume One of Denny O'Neil's Green Lantern/Green Arrow team up ("Hard Travelling Heroes").

Now I know why everyone loves Denny O'Neil so much.

Those books went for realism. O'Neil has the heroes confront racism, bigotry, poverty, and greed. But he also balanced it with the fantastic element and a great deal of hope. They're a bit heavy-handed--I think he's right in his introduction when he says they couldn't have sustained this for too long. But look at his Batman work. He made Batman darker, with emotional consequences. Yet Batman still offerred hope and was still humane and human.

I just think that "realism" isn't the problem. It's just bad writing. Also, that realism needs to be balanced with hope, something greatly lacking in the Batman books these days.