Comics. Yeah. This could be interesting.
Oct. 24th, 2007 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
litheraSo. I tried to go to sleep and I can't because this is beating around in my skull.
The longer I read comics, the more I realize that my tastes in them is getting more refined. I haven't read all of the comics there are to read but I'm also starting to realize that, for me at least, there is no era of comics that has more or less goodness in it. There is more and less goodness for MY TASTES but my tastes are not everyones. I'm sure there are people growing up reading this stuff and in 10-15 years they'll be cursing that things aren't the way they used to be, damn it.
Anyway. I'm also finding it ironic that the more I'm putting into comics these days (in time, emotions and money) the less I feel I'm getting back - though that isn't entirely true across the board. There are a few writers that I just seem to like and I'm happy to have found them but there is a reason there is a stack of comics sitting next to my couch that I haven't touched much at all.
So. I'm not going to touch Marvel things right now. I haven't been following along as closely.
Okay. This could be ugly but I'm going to try to write this out because I can't sleep until I do. Trying to break this down needs two sides. For the sake of simplicity, I will call the sides OOC and IC. OOC is for the writers and editors and IC is characters in the comics. There are things that have happened which have come from both sides of the fence. When you get 50 something years of continuity, things get complicated and crazy. So, you can either ignore the complications or you can attempt to do something about it.
In 1985 there was an event in DC Comics that attempted to simplify all of the back story and convoluted mess that happened. Before this, there were precious few characters who had a backstory that was any consistent at all. OOCly, this did denote some freedom to writers but was frustrating to readers. Characters started to carry their stories around with them and had started refering back to previous stories in current ones. ICly and OOCly, this caused a lot of confusion for anyone trying to follow along. The OOC objective of Crisis on Infinite Earths was to streamline all of these parallel worlds and crazy origin stories into a single, consistent backstory, hopefully making the DC Universe more "approachable" to new readers.
Now. There were a few problems with this:
- Not all of the problems were solved. There were specifically a few issues which were not resolved at all and in fact, shunted off into their own little place outside of the world.
- There were characters who remembered the way it was before. (Not many but any is asking for it.)
- The changes made in the wake of Crisis were not applied consistently. There were pre-Crisis stories published after it had finished. There were characters who remembered things they shouldn't. There were new versions of characters that showed up years and years later. (Please note examples Hawkman and Supergirl.)
Jump forward to 1994. Yes. Zero Hour. The idea here, originally, is to a) fix what was left over from Crisis AND fix the inconsistent future timelines in the DCU. There were a lot of retcons that were unpopular and a lot of them brought problems of their own. (BTW, if you ever want to see the real IC reason for Zero Hour - Go read Sandman World's End again. If you're not sure, we'll chat about it.) So:
- A lot of things after Zero Hour actually become more messed up. (Please see Hawkman again.)
- Any number of things that were banished in these two events were brought back by authors because they liked them. (Not that writers can't do that but it just muddies up the waters you've just tried to clear.)
Now. Take another jump forward. No. Not to Infinite Crisis. To Donna Troy's death. Yes. Donna's death was something unrelated at first but it was the launching point for a lot of ideas and concepts that were found through out the next ... Hell, they're still going on now. The major theme here is the nature of heroism, contrasting the often dark and conflicted modern-day heroes with lighter memories of past heroes. It started with Donna's death, went through Identity Crisis, went through Infinite Crisis. It addressed a lot of the past issues but caused some... but this seems to have been part of the idea.
You see ICly, what happened was some of the people who were left over from the original Crisis tried to 'fix' the mess. In attempting to 'fix' everything, they caused the heroes to fight back. Hard to tell if they'd have let the process go forward where it would have ended up but they didn't. So. At the end of Infinite Crisis - more things are broken than were before it. Thus there are characters coping with a broken world, noticing that there are some things out there that are seriously wrong. There are some who are trying to fix problems, some who don't know where to start and some who haven't even noticed. (It could be argued that there are people behaving 'out of character' because things are broken. It shouldn't be over used but there are a few cases I could make...)
Thus, we're heading toward Final Crisis where maybe things will be 'fixed'. (Though if the past is any indication it won't be - we'll just have new interesting problems. Because in something like comics there are very few final endings. Thus is the nature of serial stories.)
OOCly what DC tried to do here is actually a very brave thing. A lot of people have grumbled at the results of One Year later but I have to give them applause for the effort. They tried to change things up. They tried to make things more interesting from a writing perspective, which I appreciate. It didn't work out in a large portion of the storylines but experiments aren't always successful. There are other things that they've been trying, involving long running plots. The entire idea of 52 was a bold bet as well. (I have nothing against self contained issues or short story arcs but a lot of stories are crammed into them and I think that the story should take the time it needs to take - no more, no less.)
So. We're about 3/4ths of the way through what is happening. I'm disillusioned with a lot of it with DC but I'm giving them until Final Crisis. And then I might be chopping a lot of titles off my list. Or I could be happy with what happens. I don't know. I'd like to be happy with one of the two major companies but my chances of picking up more Marvel right now are pretty small.
I'm up far too late and I didn't get out the whole idea here I wanted to but there is some of it. Maybe I'll refine and expand in the future. Maybe I've finally gotten it out of my head. I doubt it.
The longer I read comics, the more I realize that my tastes in them is getting more refined. I haven't read all of the comics there are to read but I'm also starting to realize that, for me at least, there is no era of comics that has more or less goodness in it. There is more and less goodness for MY TASTES but my tastes are not everyones. I'm sure there are people growing up reading this stuff and in 10-15 years they'll be cursing that things aren't the way they used to be, damn it.
Anyway. I'm also finding it ironic that the more I'm putting into comics these days (in time, emotions and money) the less I feel I'm getting back - though that isn't entirely true across the board. There are a few writers that I just seem to like and I'm happy to have found them but there is a reason there is a stack of comics sitting next to my couch that I haven't touched much at all.
So. I'm not going to touch Marvel things right now. I haven't been following along as closely.
Okay. This could be ugly but I'm going to try to write this out because I can't sleep until I do. Trying to break this down needs two sides. For the sake of simplicity, I will call the sides OOC and IC. OOC is for the writers and editors and IC is characters in the comics. There are things that have happened which have come from both sides of the fence. When you get 50 something years of continuity, things get complicated and crazy. So, you can either ignore the complications or you can attempt to do something about it.
In 1985 there was an event in DC Comics that attempted to simplify all of the back story and convoluted mess that happened. Before this, there were precious few characters who had a backstory that was any consistent at all. OOCly, this did denote some freedom to writers but was frustrating to readers. Characters started to carry their stories around with them and had started refering back to previous stories in current ones. ICly and OOCly, this caused a lot of confusion for anyone trying to follow along. The OOC objective of Crisis on Infinite Earths was to streamline all of these parallel worlds and crazy origin stories into a single, consistent backstory, hopefully making the DC Universe more "approachable" to new readers.
Now. There were a few problems with this:
- Not all of the problems were solved. There were specifically a few issues which were not resolved at all and in fact, shunted off into their own little place outside of the world.
- There were characters who remembered the way it was before. (Not many but any is asking for it.)
- The changes made in the wake of Crisis were not applied consistently. There were pre-Crisis stories published after it had finished. There were characters who remembered things they shouldn't. There were new versions of characters that showed up years and years later. (Please note examples Hawkman and Supergirl.)
Jump forward to 1994. Yes. Zero Hour. The idea here, originally, is to a) fix what was left over from Crisis AND fix the inconsistent future timelines in the DCU. There were a lot of retcons that were unpopular and a lot of them brought problems of their own. (BTW, if you ever want to see the real IC reason for Zero Hour - Go read Sandman World's End again. If you're not sure, we'll chat about it.) So:
- A lot of things after Zero Hour actually become more messed up. (Please see Hawkman again.)
- Any number of things that were banished in these two events were brought back by authors because they liked them. (Not that writers can't do that but it just muddies up the waters you've just tried to clear.)
Now. Take another jump forward. No. Not to Infinite Crisis. To Donna Troy's death. Yes. Donna's death was something unrelated at first but it was the launching point for a lot of ideas and concepts that were found through out the next ... Hell, they're still going on now. The major theme here is the nature of heroism, contrasting the often dark and conflicted modern-day heroes with lighter memories of past heroes. It started with Donna's death, went through Identity Crisis, went through Infinite Crisis. It addressed a lot of the past issues but caused some... but this seems to have been part of the idea.
You see ICly, what happened was some of the people who were left over from the original Crisis tried to 'fix' the mess. In attempting to 'fix' everything, they caused the heroes to fight back. Hard to tell if they'd have let the process go forward where it would have ended up but they didn't. So. At the end of Infinite Crisis - more things are broken than were before it. Thus there are characters coping with a broken world, noticing that there are some things out there that are seriously wrong. There are some who are trying to fix problems, some who don't know where to start and some who haven't even noticed. (It could be argued that there are people behaving 'out of character' because things are broken. It shouldn't be over used but there are a few cases I could make...)
Thus, we're heading toward Final Crisis where maybe things will be 'fixed'. (Though if the past is any indication it won't be - we'll just have new interesting problems. Because in something like comics there are very few final endings. Thus is the nature of serial stories.)
OOCly what DC tried to do here is actually a very brave thing. A lot of people have grumbled at the results of One Year later but I have to give them applause for the effort. They tried to change things up. They tried to make things more interesting from a writing perspective, which I appreciate. It didn't work out in a large portion of the storylines but experiments aren't always successful. There are other things that they've been trying, involving long running plots. The entire idea of 52 was a bold bet as well. (I have nothing against self contained issues or short story arcs but a lot of stories are crammed into them and I think that the story should take the time it needs to take - no more, no less.)
So. We're about 3/4ths of the way through what is happening. I'm disillusioned with a lot of it with DC but I'm giving them until Final Crisis. And then I might be chopping a lot of titles off my list. Or I could be happy with what happens. I don't know. I'd like to be happy with one of the two major companies but my chances of picking up more Marvel right now are pretty small.
I'm up far too late and I didn't get out the whole idea here I wanted to but there is some of it. Maybe I'll refine and expand in the future. Maybe I've finally gotten it out of my head. I doubt it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 01:13 pm (UTC)I'm really starting to pare down my pull list, slowly, to just the books that elicit a positive emotional reaction when I see a new issue has come in. It's...starting to be a really small list.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 05:44 pm (UTC)Ehn. We'll see what happens. With Grant Morrison and Final Crisis.. Well, I either love or hate Grant's stuff without fail, so it'll be an interesting ride.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 01:30 pm (UTC)I just hope when it's all said and done it will mean something. I would to have followed this thing for three years only to have it all just go back to the same old way it was.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 05:47 pm (UTC)Yeah. I want some sort of payoff. And having talked to some of these guys about it, I get the feeling that there is something planned but whether I'll feel paid due or not, I don't know.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 06:29 pm (UTC)Someplace around Black Adam going crazy again, I picked up a book that looked interesting, read through it, started to attach to a character and go 'I'll have to read up on that'... and the character died four pages later.
That's the point at which I went on intentional hiatus from DC. Perhaps after the Triple Crisis is finally over, characters will live long enough for me to get interested again. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 06:39 pm (UTC)I'm okay with people dying. I'm even okay with people dying pointlessly some times. But we're starting to reach the level of parody. When people can be maimed and killed and all of that and it is starting to cause me to feel 'meh' about it... We've had too much.