Comics X: The Great Ten

[AverageGuy]

but with Miles Morales and maybe a few previously dead characters kicking around.

Ah, but who are they going to kill off during the event? You can get a year's worth of stories over some of the other heroes mourning the death of a character! And then another year's worth of stories after that when the character comes back (because let's face it, no one stays dead in comics except for Bucky and Jason Todd).

[Bastard of Boston]

I don't know if I'm in the minority, but I honestly don't care if Marvel reboots. Continuity is only important if it's relevant to the stories being told in 2015. We're getting to the point where some of these people writing the books were born in the 90s, nevermind whether they've actually read anything before that era. And, honestly, is it fair to expect them to? When it gets to a point where someone has to spend more time researching than writing, continuity becomes more of a hindrance than anything else. The alternative is allowing continuity to exist, but never engaging it. And, if continuity is never engaged, there's no point in having it. It just becomes something you have to work around, hoping you don't step on something important in the process.

Best case scenario? We get modern origins and more classic representations of these characters. Good stories trump all, reboot or not.

[Winterfell is Burning]

A reboot just means we'll see Uncle Ben dying...again, Tony Stark being taken hostage by some Asian guys...again, the Fantastic Four getting on a spaceship... again, etc. It's a horrible, horrible idea.

That said, I don't believe a reboot is happening.

Wait, Dan Slott and Mike Allred on a Silver Surfer book? How the hell have I managed to miss this!

Shame on you, sir! It's as entertaining as it gets.

[red snow]

Ah, but who are they going to kill off during the event? You can get a year's worth of stories over some of the other heroes mourning the death of a character! And then another year's worth of stories after that when the character comes back (because let's face it, no one stays dead in comics except for Bucky and Jason Todd).

There must be a non wife-beating HAnk Pym out there who is really old, didn't build Ultron and looks a bit like Michael Douglas. I wouldn't want to be the current Hank Pym anyway.

It also seems like they've been in a pointless rush to demutant scarlet witch and quicksilver when they could have done so in secret wars.

A reboot just means we'll see Uncle Ben dying...again, Tony Stark being taken hostage by some Asian guys...again, the Fantastic Four getting on a spaceship... again, etc. It's a horrible, horrible idea.

That said, I don't believe a reboot is happening.

Shame on you, sir! It's as entertaining as it gets.

I;m with you and not BOB on this one. Marvel is constantly retelling the origins of their characters anyway and they won't stray too far from the core if they were to do so. I bang my head at the number of times spider-man has been redone across all media and no=one ever thinks "what if Aunt may is killed rather than Ben"? It would be a surprise and keeps things slightly different while essentially being the same. I think I'd prefer Ben keeping him line.

[GallowKnight]

Shame on you, sir! It's as entertaining as it gets.

Yeah, it pretty much sounds like the greatest comicbook ever.

[red snow]

Yeah, it pretty much sounds like the greatest comicbook ever.

The comic book to end all comic books?

[GallowKnight]

The comic book to end all comic books?

Yes, and then to reboot them with 500 variant covers. Half of the covers will feature Wolverine.

But seriously, Slott, Allred and Silver Surfer sounds like a really great combination and I gotta check this out.

[Serious Callers Only]

Shared universes are the origin of everything bad in american comics.

[mormont]

Shared universes pretty much are comics. There would not be a comics business without them.

[red snow]

Shared universes are the origin of everything bad in american comics.

There's nothing wrong with the shared universes - it's actually pretty fun. The problem is more that they tend to gravitate to becoming a 30+ title a month ongoing story. Comics can be connected without having to cross-over all the time. It makes it far harder for books to develop a voice or their own style. There's a good reason why the most critically acclaimed Marvel books are the ones that are most separate (Hawkeye, Daredevil, Superior Foes, Thor). Unfortunately they aren't the best sellers but I still don't think books have to be tied into several others and the seasonal "event" in order to sell. Image is proving this with Saga and the Walking Dead.

I'm pretty sure in the 60s and 70s Marvel and DC characters existed happily on their own. You could have the FF turn up in Spider-man without having to buy 4 issues of each book. Which makes me sound old.

The same thing can be applied to DC as well. The only difference there is they currently seem to let a successful book dictate how the others work eg Snyder's batman and Johns' Green Lantern.

[Bastard of Boston]

A reboot just means we'll see Uncle Ben dying...again, Tony Stark being taken hostage by some Asian guys...again, the Fantastic Four getting on a spaceship... again, etc. It's a horrible, horrible idea.

That said, I don't believe a reboot is happening.

Shame on you, sir! It's as entertaining as it gets.

Not necessarily. Reboots don't have to start at ground zero. You can just as easily start the story where ever you want, engaging the origin when it needs to be engaged. You don't need to see Uncle Ben die again. He's already dead, using the same premise for his death. The only parts of the origin which need to be referenced are those that need to be updated as a result of the ridiculous sliding timeline. You can establish new origins via Lost-esque flashbacks which relate to whatever story is being told in the present day. Characters that require ties to WWII, for example, like Magneto, could have been made into popsicles for Nazi experimentation.

I can't even remember all of the plot devices they've had to resort to in order to explain away Prof. X and Magneto's ages, as they relate to everyone else. I know Magneto was de-aged, but I never could wrap my head around how Magneto has two 30-something children, being that he had Wanda and Pietro long before he was turned into a baby. Oh, but now Wanda and Pietro aren't his anymore, so...yeah.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Not necessarily. Reboots don't have to start at ground zero. You can just as easily start the story where ever you want, engaging the origin when it needs to be engaged.

Except of course this won't happen, just like it didn't happen in the Ultimate Universe or when DC rebooted.

Shared universes are the origin of everything bad in american comics.

Yet another snob attack. Well done, sir (or lady).

[Serious Callers Only]

I've been reading comics since the original secret wars, it's not a attack, it's a fact. 'New' standalone limited edition comics with a planned storyline and ending are much better even without the baggage of shortcuts taken by the history of the setting (like, 'me mutant, SHIELD suspicious uh, dont trust'). When they try to use their 'rich history' it invariably is fucked up by a later writer therefore retcons and reboots. Much better to sweep it all away - and in the process maybe tell some non superhero amazing powers, punch bad guys story, no? More frequently at least. Wouldn't it be much better to let the weaker writers languish in their own brands instead of pulling them into another writers character turf?

Marvel is especially bad nowadays it seems, with events infecting everything at least thrice a year, importing alien and dumb storylines into series they have no business being in - magneto was mentioned here. When even repetitive total gore trash like (the first few) Jennifer Blood trades felt like fresh air after some X-men trades where the evil son of xavier and the evil son of wolverine and mystique from a alternate future comes to the present, something is wrong (but that's xmen for you i guess, there's always something wrong)

[Serious Callers Only]

And there is another thing that annoys me about these megasettings, which is a bit strange because i like the books that are closer to reality or without superhumans.

They're too close to real life, using current events. Unlike, (for example) the Authority, i can be pretty sure than in the marvel-verses the USA will still be a entity throught the whole series (unless there is a actual real life revolution). The Authority had the balls to infer that if superhumans happened, the common institutions would fail, marvel-verse because it wants to be static in the fundamentals, says everything is the same, but a bit more chaotic. It's beyond obvious even when there is a 'event', even more sacred than the characters small lives are the institutions who never ever die, the 'mirror history'. So even when Stark starts concentration camps, everything is fine 3 years later, no prob. When they want to destroy something it's something 'added' (like Genosha, scarlet witch oopsie), often to bring the continuity closer to reality.

They don't even commit to their cheese, there is more progression of setting from most 10 issue vertigo standalones than all of marvel.

[Lady Octarina]

And today in comics, Autumnlands is still brilliant, All-New X-Factor's ending makes you only hate Marvel more than usual (Harrison Snow's plan, while absurd, would certainly result in a better event than anything in the past decade), and Magneto was weird, but satisfactory.

It also seems like they've been in a pointless rush to demutant scarlet witch and quicksilver when they could have done so in secret wars.

My guess is they'd rather go slowly with these changes so that the shock at some of them can be better absorbed by the readers. Like, imagine if they made Pietro and Wanda no longer mutants nor Magneto's children in the same event where they, I don't know, transported all X-Men characters from the main continuity to a different one? People would freak out, and not in a good way. (for the record, I don't really think, most of the time, that they're doing that to the X-Men, but whatever changes happen in Secret Wars, I have no doubt they'll do their best to make them shocking).

And there is another thing that annoys me about these megasettings, which is a bit strange because i like the books that are closer to reality or without superhumans.

They're too close to real life, using current events. Unlike, (for example) the Authority, i can be pretty sure than in the marvel-verses the USA will still be a entity throught the whole series (unless there is a actual real life revolution). The Authority had the balls to infer that if superhumans happened, the common institutions would fail, marvel-verse because it wants to be static in the fundamentals, says everything is the same, but a bit more chaotic. It's beyond obvious even when there is a 'event', even more sacred than the characters small lives are the institutions who never ever die, the 'mirror history'. So even when Stark starts concentration camps, everything is fine 3 years later, no prob. When they want to destroy something it's something 'added' (like Genosha, scarlet witch oopsie), often to bring the continuity closer to reality.

They don't even commit to their cheese, there is more progression of setting from most 10 issue vertigo standalones than all of marvel.

These are all good points, but when it's a company intending to keep publishing over 50 issues a month for the next 50 years, they can't shake things up too much, they can't take readers out of their comfort zones too much, because things like getting rid of government or rearranging world organization would mean general outrage and possibly half their readers or more would drop their titles, which would make them go bankrupt with no possibility of being saved by movie studios this time.

It could work, perhaps, if such changes had been there since the Golden Age, but now? Unfortunately, it's very unlikely, at least on the main continuity.

[mormont]

I've been reading comics since the original secret wars, it's not a attack, it's a fact. 'New' standalone limited edition comics with a planned storyline and ending are much better even without the baggage of shortcuts taken by the history of the setting (like, 'me mutant, SHIELD suspicious uh, dont trust'). When they try to use their 'rich history' it invariably is fucked up by a later writer therefore retcons and reboots. Much better to sweep it all away - and in the process maybe tell some non superhero amazing powers, punch bad guys story, no? More frequently at least. Wouldn't it be much better to let the weaker writers languish in their own brands instead of pulling them into another writers character turf?

I'm sorry, but reading this all I get is 'I don't like superhero comics and I wish nobody wrote them and everyone wrote the kind of comics I like'. All the stuff you're complaining about is more or less part and parcel of mainstream superhero comics, which you're perfectly entitled not to like, but lots of people clearly love them.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

I'm sorry, but reading this all I get is 'I don't like superhero comics and I wish nobody wrote them and everyone wrote the kind of comics I like'. All the stuff you're complaining about is more or less part and parcel of mainstream superhero comics, which you're perfectly entitled not to like, but lots of people clearly love them.

To have a "superhero" comic, all you need is a comic with a superhero. You don't need a shared world with dozens of other comics. You don't need 60 years of continuity that don't ever amount to anything because the status quo is essentially static and all major events of any import are either retconned or forgotten or simply don't register on a meaningful level with the characters when a new editorial team takes over.

It may be true that a lot of people like that stuff, but at the end of the day it's silly and undercuts things like legitimate drama (because there are no real consequences within the narrative), character development, etc.

Honestly, I don't even know how you can enjoy mainstream superhero comics at all without simply taking the good stories and separating them from their tortured continuities, and essentially treating the major stories as stand-alone anthologies riffing on a common theme. Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men is, for my money, probably the greatest single X-Men story of all time, because in my head, it ends with Jean Grey sacrificing herself and ensuring that Scott moves on with Emma and continues Xavier's Academy to prevent the dystopian future that was her present. How the fuck can any of that run have ANY emotional resonance if you have to accept Chuck Austen proceeding to shit all over it?

[mormont]

To have a "superhero" comic, all you need is a comic with a superhero.

On one level, the most literal, that's true. But the fact is, the only superhero comics that have any real staying power: the only superhero characters that have proven to have real mass appeal, are those with shared worlds and continuities. People have written superhero comics that were 'more realistic' and set in their own continuities where time passed and events had knock-on effects and so on and hey, I liked a lot of those comics. GRRM has been doing it in prose form for over quarter of a century: Wild Cards is probably the only such series that has shown any longevity, though it's not actually a comic.

But there's a reason writers good and bad go back to the well of Superman, Captain America, and the rest, and very few comics writers turn down a chance to work in that playground. Your X-Men example shows that. If that had been a comic about some other superheroes who didn't exist before that run started, would all of the moments in it have had the same resonance? Any comic where Jean Grey dies harks back to the classic Dark Phoenix storyline, inevitably. Grant Morrison would be the first to admit that. He's a writer who's repeatedly mined both mainstream pillars and obscure corners of the lengthy continuity for story ideas and thematic resonance in his writing. That story is not a standalone, and to say people should treat it as such is actually sort of missing the point.

Mainstream superhero stories with their sliding continuity and reboots and retcons are one type of comic book story. It's not the only type and it's not a type everyone enjoys. I get that. But it's a type lots of people like, just the same. They want the classic characters in a contemporary real-world setting, and that means continuity fudges. They might be silly, but really I think they're no sillier than anything else in the setting. (Advanced science that doesn't appear to have any real-world applications, an economy that can withstand massive property damage in major metropolitan areas on what seems like a weekly basis, and the fact that you're nobody in superhero circles unless you have at least one clone and a couple of resurrections under your belt, for example.)

I do accept that there are huge issues with the current insistence on mega crossover events that 'change everything', but that's a different issue.

[red snow]

Honestly, I don't even know how you can enjoy mainstream superhero comics at all without simply taking the good stories and separating them from their tortured continuities, and essentially treating the major stories as stand-alone anthologies riffing on a common theme. Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men is, for my money, probably the greatest single X-Men story of all time, because in my head, it ends with Jean Grey sacrificing herself and ensuring that Scott moves on with Emma and continues Xavier's Academy to prevent the dystopian future that was her present. How the fuck can any of that run have ANY emotional resonance if you have to accept Chuck Austen proceeding to shit all over it?

I guess that's part of Mormont's point. They continually reboot themselves and undo any "change" to maintain the safe status quo. Not sure if that's what people like about it but they do seem to keep on reading/buying because they know it pretty much starts over again with the next writer/new issue 1.

The way in which they undid Morrison's X-men run and JMS Spider-man run (which to be fair had some bad moments too) almost immediately jaded me. Thing is it was probably just because I hadn't been reading comics long enough to know that was the norm. Then again I was reading X-men at a time when writers were there for the long haul (for better or worse).

I can still enjoy comics but I tend to be like Nestor and take them for what they are at the time. I knew from the get go Superior Spider-man would be quickly undone but it was fun while it lasted.

[Serious Callers Only]

The only sort of consistent progression that exists in these settings is a sort of agglutinated character progression that is useful for the writers, like for instance you might forget that Hal Jordan was evil for a time because it's never mentioned again, but he's always going to be depressed about coast city (invented not to offend anyone) because the writers love to mention it when he's sulking. People get really mad when when this sort of thing is disrespected (like with Magneto estranged family now), because without it nothing makes sense.

Well, it doesn't make sense anyway. It's strange how a writers influence in the setting afterwards can be reduced to 'Hal gets sad sometimes because of coast city'. Real things end, they don't hang in limbo forever, therefore even this character history starts to feel trite, when you had 35 different confrontations of nightcrawler with his mother for example. If the impersonal is irrelevant and the personal is repetitive, what's left?

Some writers at least have caught on and are doing good work. She-hulk is a lawyer now, wonderful. Daredevil is outed and left NY, great. The sinister six is not being beat up by spiderman, unprecedented. Then there are the less successful experiments that don't actually touch the characters heroic identity like Peter Parker industries, trying to turn him into iron-spider fortunato, just ripe for a minor retcon because it's not interesting at all, he's still the spider making stupid jokes, with another nerd wet-dream girlfriend. Is it any coincidence that many of the critically acclaimed marvel and DC single character series are not about superheroing? And it's not just that, but that the characters there are finally doing something different most times.