Why does it feel like that so many writers these days are so busy trying to dissect reinvent or make their own "epic run" for a character they're on that they don't realize how to make a run at all? I was talking about this with a friend over the Immortal Hulk not long ago and it just sort of seems like there's no writers really interested in "writing" the characters normally anymore. It feels like there hasn't been a real classic run of any series for a long time where the super heroes are just... normal. Is really the only way I can put it. It's like everyone is in a rush to change the character for ever the way Alan Moore changed the Joker or Claremont did the Phoenix Saga but there's nobody really willing to put in the long form story telling that made these big moments and issues stand out. Most of the big famous writers and runs were only declared that well after the fact. There's so many people looking to redefine everything now but it's been far too long since these characters have had any of that definition at all.
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Because every writer wants to leave their mark on a character and they can't do it with many of these characters due to power creep and previous canon. And you can't get a good run with the way comics are written for the trades and events interrupting storylines/
The fact that everything gets rebooted for a new 1 constantly doesn't help matters. I guess it just bugs me that we've entered a point were 50 issues is considered a long run. It's not a bad run for any single person really but it's still a far cry from some of the majorly long runs you saw in older books.
On top of everyone trying to make a name for themselves by making some big change to a character that they hope sticks so they can leverage that for future work, the other huge problem is that very few comic writers are locked in for the long haul.
You've got some many people who are lucky to get a mini-series, let alone a 12-issue position just writing for a single character. So if they've got any ideas, they've gotta shit them out hard and fast, so the writing is already suffering, because they're just a few issues out from being retconned into irrelevance again. No time for build up or coherent storytelling or logical plot progression. Just fudge it and hurry to the good part that you think is going to cement your career.
>It feels like there hasn't been a real classic run of any series for a long time where the super heroes are just... normal.
Because last time that happened Spider-Man sales bottomed out and then we got Superior
If the characters you profess love so much were written "normal" even you yourself would stop reading religiously.
Grow up.
Evolve.
Change.
homosexual.
I think you underestimate just how much longtime fans would prefer the bulk of stories for long running characters and books to be "normal" status quo villain of the month stuff, so the big life-changing events actually stand out and are a big deal. Just not "normal" as written by people like Slott, people with a basic level of competency instead.
Also just so you know, we don't sign our posts here.
Right. There should be major character changing and defining moments but they need to act as tent poles. Things change, Gwen Stacy dies, Pete gets married years latter. That's all stuff that was MAJOR changes. But between those big events there was a lot, pretty much majorly more episodic adventures.
Perhaps, but that's not really my point. For things to change there has to be a normal. People complain about adherence to status quo but we haven't actually had a status quo in forever it feels like. Not a real one.
>Perhaps, but that's not really my point. For things to change there has to be a normal. People complain about adherence to status quo but we haven't actually had a status quo in forever it feels like. Not a real one.
My response to that is to look at Carol Danvers, a character they recreated and then just did safe by the numbers stories for for years. When it comes time to adapt the new and improved Captain Marvel for screen, what stories do they have to tell? Well, she has a cat that's actually an alien! ...And she's blonde! And Cool! The End.
They had an existing origin story tied to their first ogn they chose not to adapt, anon.
>I think you underestimate just how much longtime fans would prefer the bulk of stories for long running characters and books to be "normal" status quo villain of the month stuff, so the big life-changing events actually stand out and are a big deal.
I think you don't realise how fricking long this has been like this. I hear people with nostalgia for how it "used to be" then I remember the Clone Saga shit of the 90s went on for forever and sold well. Comics use gimmicks to sell.
New creative teams would throw out the old bath water and do what they wanted all the time. It is impossible to follow some stories and ideas. It is impossible to know everything that has happened before. People would try and one up others and allow themselves to be influenced by what else was going on too. People tried to put their mark onto characters. And people complained about it too. Comics are an ongoing soap opera and people used to understand that. The problem now is more how people want stuff to matter so much leading to multiplication effect and anger. Actual good books like how you describe tend not to sell well. So we still get the same gimmicks.
We never had a status quo. We had journeymen creators making single stories throwing stuff at the wall until it stuck. Companies reused ideas all the time. It was all being made up as it went along. It feels like a complete story retroactively. Ditko's Peter is someone more angry looking. Romita's Peter is better looking. It makes sense to us that Peter went to college and became more outgoing. But ultimately there is a difference in intent. For me this is like modern TV issue. People are going back to watching shit like Seinfeld and other comfy single episode story sitcoms because so many of the big TV shows with big multi season arcs end up shitting the bed.
Comics do have a bunch of entrenched issues I cba to list but I do see this conversation as being an audience issue as much as anything.
>Pic related
This sort of shit has always been part of an ouroboros of excuses modern Marvel/DC use along with bullshit about distribution being unsolvable because all the writers/editors want to do is be paid to play with their favorite action figures and not have to put in any real work to actually put out an issue weekly that people would actually read. Full stop. It's the same reason they screamed and b***hed and shit themselves throwing tantrums in the mid to late 80s at Marvel until Shooter was forced out and then they immediately started smearing shit everywhere and jerking themselves off the moment their metaphorical father wasn't there to give them the belt and make them behave.
>everything is just fine as it is
But it isn't! And you're a fricking moron. Please remove yourself from our genepool immediately, thank you.
And yet when they were written "normally" was the last time anyone bought them.
>Claremont did the Phoenix Saga
And some people hated it, change always brings opinions and new creative teams would always lead things in a different direction to an extent. People were more forgiving of it when comics were cheaper and single stories rather than decompressed.
You love hearing yourself talk without actually saying anything at all huh.
>le sigh, we must retvrn
And you'd be saying the same thing back then
It's a half-assed attempt at making these exhausted characters interesting. Normal, status quo-friendly characterization is beyond boring, but these lazy fricks aren't doing much for them either. They're wanting to be Alan Moore or Frank Miller without having the passion or putting in the effort.
A lot of better writers have had no trouble playing with the toys and making good stories to put them back in the box. Why is this suddenly a new problem? And don't tell me it's because all the good stories have been told because that's a cop out and you know it. Even a retread told well can stand out.
It isn't a new problem. Comics in the past were just as hit and miss. Time has distilled the past down to just the hits, what we feel nostalgia for, what is remembered and repritined.
The real issue is how much the industry has been destroyed and become a culturally irrelevant past time. Even good comics now are past over because people want to b***h about the same few things (see Youtube complainers). In fact the nitpick industry has itself become entertainment.
>It isn't a new problem. Comics in the past were just as hit and miss. Time has distilled the past down to just the hits, what we feel nostalgia for, what is remembered and repritined.
Yeah, no. It's a new problem. I haven't read much old comics but from what i've heard it was not like this at all.
>Even good comics now are past over because people want to b***h about the same few things (see Youtube complainers). In fact the nitpick industry has itself become entertainment.
Right, let's call out the people propagating the problem instead of the people perpetuating the problem.
Sometimes it feels like there are no good ideas left. Comics have done it all.
That's only for Marvel and DC who has decades of comics under their belt
There's plenty of room for more good ideas. Bane and Doomsday never had their epic team-jp, for example.
Sounds gimmicky as frick
Every possible story that can be told for these characters have been told. For years it's either been a greatest hits compilation or attempt at reinventing them.
>gimmicky
Yes. It's just room for ideas, anon. That's what a gimmick is.
No, a real idea has a purpose rooted in it. A gimmick is just a spur of the moment novelty that doesn't go beyond simply being a novelty.
>a spur
That's right - it opens the door, like a question mark or a purple monkey on your cover. The ideas get loaded behind that. I hope you have some of your own and you're not begging me, anon.
This has always been a strawman cope and you know it.
If you boil any story or concept down the right way, it sounds contradictory and moronic. It's in the execution that it can work, but that often takes a strong grasp of pacing, time, and effort.
Comics in the past were explicitly childhood power fantasy made by and for children. Everything since then has been either nostalgia for that, or self-concious denial or deconstruction. What they haven't been is that which made them what they were - childhood power fantasy made by and for children. Make of this very simple fact what you will.
How can we just get back to that than?
Give your kids the means to make their own comics. That's a start. Or try making some comics for your kids, and maybe their friends.
Isekai and a lot of modern anime are blatant power fantasies for children. They even get the girl audience by giving them their power fantasy.
Good times
name five
*crickets*
This.
crazy huh
Not surprised.
literally talking to yourself
Because that's all they can do. You have decades and decades of every day adventures, you can't build on that, it's all done.
Comics need NEW FRICKING CHARACTERS but executives are afraid to mess with "success" even when it isn't succeeding and hasn't for some time.
That's just excuses. In the case of at least a few characters they actually went backwards and undid all the growth they had to give themselves more room to develop things in different directions but they didn't
Because it's what happens.
>Alan Moore changed the Joker
You're one of those homosexuals that never read a pre-COIE Batman comic. You probably also think "Frank Miller changed Batman".