On the heels of its interview with Brian Michael Bendis, The A.V. Club asks, “Are superhero comics played out?” Contributors Noel Murray and Keith Phipps mull over the question and conclude no, not really. Mr. Phipps?
… The titles I like best tend to be the ones least dependent on these company-wide meta-narratives, ones that let the writers breathe a bit. I’m as much a sucker for crossovers as the next guy, but the trouble with weaving all your little stories into one big story is that if the big story tanks you’re in real trouble. I think DC is running into this trouble a bit these days for some of the reasons you mentioned. (Not to mention shipping delays and relaunches that kind of fizzle out when they should spark.) Marvel’s won back some of the good will it lost with the anti-climax of Civil War thanks to the good-and-getting-even-better World War Hulk. But if the tide turns they’re in trouble. And if I were an outsider looking in, I’m not sure why I’d care that Hulk was so mad in the first place.
And while both think the future of the genre lies in “good writing” — well, yeah – Murray goes further to suggest Marvel and DC should “ditch continuity altogether” and “set the good writers loose on a series of graphic novels.”
August 10th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
“set the good writers loose on a series of graphic novels.”
Yes, please! Give me mythic stories that are full and glorious between just two covers.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
No, please give me anything but! There’s nothing that Marvel or DC brings to the table that’s unique (save for nostalgia mind you, which really shouldn’t count), save for the massive shared universes(all but unique in other genres/mediums) and decades of backstory and development for their characters.
If you want something else, there’s plenty of other superhero comics out there from other companies that aren’t tied to anything.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
The trouble is, a lot of those “Good writers” are slaves to continuity themselves and love to bring it back at the first opportunity.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
The trouble is, a lot of those “Good writers” are slaves to continuity themselves and love to bring it back at the first opportunity.
Bingo. Bendis and Millar are proof positive that most people are only libertarians until they get elected to office. Back when they were just the guys doing the Ultimate Marvel titles, they bitched about the constraints of continuity not allowing them to tell their stories in the original Marvel Universe, but now that they’re basically in charge of the Marvel Universe, they’re enforcing their own continuity onto everyone else, worse than Jim Shooter or Bob Harras ever did.