Fantasy No More
Fantasy was the basis of comics and their characters. We read them to see what fantastic and obviously unrealistic powers and adventures the characters would have. It was a break from the real world. But that’s gone. Now everything needs a real world scientific explanation. Now things need to based on actual science and technology, civilian and government reactions. You can’t just step in some ooze and be transformed anymore. Now the ooze has to be made up of such and such chemicals which affects the DNA so and so yadda yadda yadda. The fantasy, and hence imagination, is gone.
And I want to know why SHIELD is using F-15’s and F-16’s as their main fighters? Not only are these real world jets far inferior to what SHIELD has used in the past, but they aren’t even the most advanced jets in the world today, being outclassed by the likes of the F-22 Raptor, Eurofighter Typhoon and Su-37 Berkhut. And speaking of SHIELD, they’re now little more than a UN peace keeping force. Gone is their real autonomy and proactive methods, rather they sit by and wait for word on what they can do. They’re run purely by politics, nothing more.
So if everything is run by realistic explanations and reactions, where does that leave room fantasy? It doesn’t leave a whole lot. Everything needs to be rooted in something real anymore, it can’t be a flight of fancy which is one of the main reasons people read comics to begin with.
Politics
A little politics is ok, like Senator Kelly in X-Men, when they play a pivotal role in plot, but they aren’t the plot nor does the story delve into more than the concept he was pushing. Now, it’s all about politics. We have to see what the senators or whoever are doing, time wasted on them talking to their aids and accomplices. Focus of stories are on something the government or a political figure is doing. It’s ridiculous. If I want to hear about politics, I’ll pick up a damn paper or political journal. I don’t spend money on comics just to have pictures with my politics. Plus, the writers are almost always biased and their writing shows it, making it even worse. Read Civil War and you will clearly see Millar drive the story to who he believes is right.
Retconning
Retroactive Continuity. The fans absolutely dread this concept but writers love it. Why the latter? Because it lets them be lazy. The writer can save the time of reading back issues and actually getting to know the character by merely changing them and their history at their whim. Marvel is such a convoluted mess right now there is no real history. Every new writer on the book wipes out what the last did so he can do his own thing and not work around it. The likes of Mark Millar and Warren Ellis are notorious for this (and the above mentioned politics also) and yet they are heralded as some of the current great writers. It’s quite sad really.
Some fans say “well as long as the story is good I don’t mind a retcon.” Here’s the problem with that line of thinking: in a few months, that story wont be the same story. It will be changed to suit the purpose of the current arc. Plus, good writers always pay attention to what was done in the past. You don’t see history writers saying how in World War II the Americans just kicked everyone’s ass with little problem because it sounds better do you? Well, that rewriting is exactly what writers are doing today.
Half of the interest of new arcs was seeing how it would be affected by the last. In other words we looked forward to the repercussions of the events and the decisions made. Now things are just changed or ignored because it’s easier. There is no creativity in the matter, just cop-outs.
I’ve created a simple graph that shows what a progression of a book should look like if continuity is followed. For the sake of ease, we’ll call the graph’s “Old Story Structure” to represent how things should be done, and “New Story Structure” to represent how things are currently done. At the center of each lies the origin of the character, normally the first arc of their series, which is followed by subsequent arcs. Each arc is built upon the other, expanding on what the character has done while using those past experiences. Each colored circle pertains to a new arc.
The current story structure though works a bit different with the retconning that happens on a regular basis. As each new arc happens a previous is ignored or changed so that it can fall in line with the current arc, effectively changing the story. That essentially makes every arc a complete new history for the character. Eventually though this divulges so much from what originally happened that the origin, the center of the character itself is changed to fall in line with what is being done. The more arcs that occur the less concise and firm each new one will seem until every arc is practically an alternate dimension in itself. (the graph is suppsoed to enlarge when you click on it, but is refusing to do so in order to see the comments you will need to click the link below. I apologize for the inconvenience).
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-10/866439/StoryStructureRevised.JPG
No Longer a World of its Own
The Marvel Universe is slowly mixing with our own. Current politics, global issues, wars etc. are all finding their way into comics almost as quick as they happen. But Marvel comics aren’t about what happens in our world, it’s about what happens in Marvel’s world.
A good point of this is Civil War. The idea of someone keeping track of super powered beings running around in tights has been around a long time, but it was ignored for a reason: that’s not how the Marvel Universe works. Civil War is a saga about what OUR world would do if we had super powered beings, not what the MARVEL world would do. There is too much emphasis on how our world would react to such things rather than how Marvel’s would.
I don’t mind having historic events like major wars or something referred to, but using them as a milestone is trouble. Iron Man’s origin was in the Vietnam War. It would eventually need to be changed since the war took place before his character was born given his look and demeanor. In the volume 4 reboot it was changed it to Afghanistan because that’s who the USA was fighting at the time. So what happens a few decades down the line when that’s too far in the past? New origin of course! The writers and editors made the same mistake that was made before. All that was needed was to have the time not be during the Vietnam War, it could have just been in Vietnam at an unspecified time. It’s idiotic mistakes like this that continue to hurt Marvel.
Joe Quesada
That’s right, the Marvel Editor in Chief himself. Why? Because Joe Q has facilitated all this under his reign of terror (or error, either is really fitting). In addition to allowing all the retconning, promoting the writer ahead of the story and letting writers do whatever they want, he has thrown any kind of schedule out the window. Artists are consistently late meeting their deadlines because Joe Q himself can’t make his own deadlines. Books that used to come out every month are getting pushed back more and more because he refuses to hold artists or writers accountable because he can’t hold himself accountable. I’m not sure whether that is more selfish or unprofessional.
In addition he wants things done based on what he likes, not what is the best. The current example of this is Spiderman’s Brand New Day arc. Joe Q said he never liked the idea of Parker getting married, so what does he do? Create an out of character premise of Peter making a deal with Mephisto to save Aunt May at the expense of his marriage. Peter would never make a deal with Mephisto, and he’s logical enough to figure out not to undo his marriage to save his quite elderly aunt. But now Joe Q has retconned more than two decades of stories because he never liked the concept. Talk about abuse of power.
And this will only continue to get worse. Marvel is bad now, but wait a few more years of this stuff. Hell, we’ll probably find out it wasn’t Stark who fired the satellites to stop the Hulk but Galactus instead because the Hulk became a threat to him. The Captain America killed was really Bucky all this time and Winter Soldier was the real Captain America? Of course it could work! Peter Parker is actually the love child of Magneto and Enchantress and he had his powers since birth? Brilliant!
As ridiculous as these things sound, you cannot rule them out because Joe Q seems to love outlandish things like this for shock value, whether or not it makes sense or is a good or interesting idea. But shock value means little when the story isn’t any good (kind of like M. Night Shyamalan movies). That leads us to the next part.
Epic and Shock Value is More Important than the Story
You’re probably wondering what I mean by this. Well doesn’t it seem every other arc in every book is supposed to be a defining and epic moment in the character’s history? That when it’s through everything about the character will be different? The infamous “nothing will ever be the same again” tagline being used once again? Writers keep going for something massive, meaningful and with long lasting repercussions just to wow people, but there are some problems with that. First is wow factor’s aren’t any good if the story suffers when it’s only written as a lead up to the end (again, I reference M. Night Shyamalan who forgoes the rest of the movie to get a big twist in at the end). It’s not that twists or wow’s are bad, but when that’s the whole point of the story and everything before it is filler, than the whole is useless.
Second is that it happens way too often. I mean honestly, I can’t keep track of each new “life-defining event with repercussions for all mutants” arc in the X-Men titles because it’s one after the other. By now it’s just lost its flare. Same goes for the Marvel wide events. Civil War was considered a bore by many, World War Hulk was just Hulk fanboys (who sadly are in charge at Marvel) getting their jollies off on the Hulk beating everyone up with the excuse for him being unbeatable “he’s never been this mad” (rolls eyes). Now the Secret Invasion is coming and the excitement for it doesn’t seem nearly as big as the others. This is what happens when you do them consecutively. I like the big crossovers, but not every year. There is a reason the old editors put extended times between them: they knew it would be bigger if there was time between events. Doing them year after year takes away from the luster. Yes, they sell well, but when you care only about the book selling on not how good it is, you’ve lost your way.
So now nearly every month we’re told the story for such and such character will change them forever. (Yawn). I hear that every arc now, it doesn’t grab my attention. It’s getting to the point of a broken record really.
Definitive Arcs
Notice how just about every arc in Marvel is always six issues? Part of the reason for that is to make it east for a trade paper back to be released, but it is putting a stranglehold on the writers. Not every arc needs to be a set length. Some arcs are better fit for fewer issues, some for more. This means the writers now have to tailor the arc to be six issues so the story will now either feel drawn out or too short. This has happened many times and frankly is a waste. If the arc doesn’t require six issues, there are better things to write about. If an arc needs more than six issues, don’t cut out chunks that need to be there. A well written story is worth more than ease to make a trade paper back. And to be frank, I feel like I am being screwed out of a proper ending when the latter happens. It’s anti-climatic.
Too Much Leeway for Artists
I used to draw myself, and every artist has their own style, but the problem is when they are allowed too much interpretation that things start to get icky. By this I mean how much different characters are drawn from book to book. Like I said, artist style will account for a part of this, so there is going to be iterations. But when characters start looking significantly different from book to book it becomes a problem. Case in point: Iron Man. He is possibly the most non-universally dawn character out there, and the armor looks like a different model in each book. It’s a bit much. There needs to be a basic design that everyone follows so the armor looks close to the same. While not as big a problem as other things I have mentioned, some better consistency would be nice. I’ve created a composite picture below so you can see what I’m talking about. For the full size image please click this link:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-10/866439/IMComposite.JPG
The Writer is More Important than the Product
Nowadays it seems that anyone who creates one good arc, or has made a name for themselves in the past becomes an authority on story telling and is allowed to do whatever they want. They can change the character, they’re history, anything really and it is allowed because of who they are. How often does Marvel play up the names like Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Brian Michael Bendis, Orson Scott Card, J. Michael Straczynski etc. rather than the name of the book itself? On the Ultimate Iron Man hard cover trade paper back, in big gold letters is Orson Scott Card, taking up over half the cover and in a bigger font the character name / book title (thanks to Roger A. Ott II for pointing that tidbit out).
As I mentioned, many writers now are given the freedom to do what they want, the editors don’t really do any editing on their end. They pretty much give the name writers a thumbs up as if anything they turn in is gold because the writers can do no wrong. Never are they held accountable for a bad story, and Marvel finds excuses as to why people didn’t like them. Marvel editors need to man up and tell these guys not everything they write is good, and they need to strop screwing with everything just because it’s easier for them. Of course when you have an Editor like Joe Quesada who undoes two decades of Spiderman continuity because he personally didn’t like the idea of Spiderman being married, you can’t expect that to happen.
I can understand promoting a creative team, but not more so than the book itself. How often during the past Marvel-wide events have we heard “So and so writes this epic tale” or “this even brought to you by so and so”? It has become more important to promote the writer than the book, and that’s not good.
Final Thoughts
Now, I don’t want to come off as acting like as comics are bad right now. There are some good stories and writers out there, but the problem is it’s all becoming a convoluted mess. There are too many big changes, big events, Earth shattering revelations and the like going on. Civil War was barely over then World War Hulk started, and just as everything recovered the Secret Invasion is launching, and that doesn’t include event like Annihilation, Brand New Day and whatever the huge X-Men event is this month. There’s retconning left and right, politics are a main focus and realism is more important than interest. Much of Marvel’s big selling points are the big events, all the side issues involved and in general things being rammed down people’s throats. It’s a perfect case of quantity over quality.
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