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This thread is for comments and feedback about Fixing Superman, by Iain Jackson.
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Marshall_Perrin
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Reged: Oct 01 2007
Posts: 3
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To my (admittedly non-superhero-comic reading) self, this column raises a fundamental question: why?!? OK, I phrased that intentionally provocatively. Said more clearly, what is important about the superhero comic as a genre such that it needs to be re-imagined so completely? If you turn the superhero-ness of it---the powers and the crime-fighting and the costumes and the alien worlds---into the setting for a vast shared multi-year soap opera, then have you really retained the core essence of the superhero comic at all? And if so, to what end?
Note that I'm not asking about comics as a medium, here; I fully appreciate the power of comics to tell all kinds of stories, from teen angst to relationships to moral and ethical dilemmas up to and including the Holocaust. I'm asking specifically about the superhero bit.
You're completely right that plenty of modern fantasy is built around the model of the Chosen One. But I would argue that the best of modern fantasy avoids this cliche: George R. R. Martin, or China Mieville, or Guy Gavriel Kay's later work (the Sarantium world books - not Fionavar!). Or Terry Pratchett, for that matter. Generally, the "special chosen hero" books - by Eddings, or Feist, or even worse Goodkind - are nowhere near as creative or ultimately deep and meaningful. So if fantasy novels are best off when they discard the Chosen One paradigm, why wouldn't the same hold true for comics?
I hope this doesn't come across as too combative; I'm fully prepared to believe there's something I'm just missing, since as I said I lack any real familiarity with superhero comics. I'm honestly curious what your thoughts are, and look forward to being enlightened. :-)
- Marshall
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Iain Jackson
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Reged: Oct 02 2007
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To my (admittedly non-superhero-comic reading) self, this column raises a fundamental question: why?!? OK, I phrased that intentionally provocatively. Said more clearly, what is important about the superhero comic as a genre such that it needs to be re-imagined so completely? If you turn the superhero-ness of it---the powers and the crime-fighting and the costumes and the alien worlds---into the setting for a vast shared multi-year soap opera, then have you really retained the core essence of the superhero comic at all? And if so, to what end?
Superhero comics are a vast shared soap opera now, only with wildly improbable timelines. Since the core essence is the superheroness, so to speak, and how it affects other aspects of their lives, that doesn't necessarily change.
And the "why" gets more comprehensively addressed in a later column, but briefly, superhero comics need to do something or die. From a purely business sense, they're not doing well. The peculiar thing about that is that superhero themes do fantastically well; just look at the business that Batman Begins or Spiderman or Fantastic Four did at the box office. It's clearly the medium, and not the message, that's at issue.
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You're completely right that plenty of modern fantasy is built around the model of the Chosen One. But I would argue that the best of modern fantasy avoids this cliche: George R. R. Martin, or China Mieville, or Guy Gavriel Kay's later work (the Sarantium world books - not Fionavar!). Or Terry Pratchett, for that matter.
How on earth do you figure that Pratchett has avoided the Chosen One theme? He seems to have a few of them, in fact. Rincewind, Vimes, Moist, Tiffany Aching.
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So if fantasy novels are best off when they discard the Chosen One paradigm, why wouldn't the same hold true for comics?
I don't say that they shouldn't, for stories meant for older readers; in fact, I think they should. However, younger readers really do favor Chosen One sorts of themes, because it speaks to the sort of isolation that a lot of them feel.
And I wouldn't say that fantasy novels are best off when they avoid the Chosen One theme; I'd say instead that it's difficult to do well.
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Marshall_Perrin
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Reged: Oct 01 2007
Posts: 3
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How on earth do you figure that Pratchett has avoided the Chosen One theme? He seems to have a few of them, in fact. Rincewind, Vimes, Moist, Tiffany Aching.
Well, this is a bit of a tangent, but I think we have different interpretations of what it means to be a Chosen One. Merely being a recurring protagonist isn't enough!
Vimes wasn't anointed by prophecy, wasn't born with some super power or an inherited dragon's egg, or anything like that. Fundamentally he's a bitter man from a mean part of town, and it's equally plausible that he would've ended up on the wrong side of the law instead of administering it. The one theme which keeps repeating through the Vimes stories is that it is his own choices that make him who he is: to choose to be a copper and not a drunk, to walk the fine line between arresting Angua's brother versus murdering him in cold blood, to keep himself subservient to the law )mostly) because he himself is afraid of what he would do without that constraint. He's not Chosen; he makes choices.
Look at Carrot, for that matter. He clearly is the chosen one, the True King of the city, and he rejects that all, choosing to be a servant rather than a master.
I'll grant you Rincewind and Tiffany, though. Then again, I've never really liked the Rincewind books nearly as well. :-)
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GurneyHalleck
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Reged: Oct 18 2007
Posts: 1
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I am glad to see that someone out there is thinking along the same lines about comics. Tack on the fact that you are in Chicago, and now you have a new fan. :)
I agree with nearly everything you said, but there is one catch: comic producers don't want to change. Take for example one of my favorite comic books to come out in the last five years: Stormwatch Team Achilles. Now, I am not going to say that it was unfair that the book got the knife after 24 issues. The author Micah Ian Wright was caught in a pretty big lie about his military service at the worst possible time: the country was in a heated debate about the military in Iraq and (more importantly for the book's status) Wildstorm was ramping up for a re-boot. That aside, it was selling about 20K issues a month. When put against the juggernauts of Superman and X-Men, it was literally 1/5th of the sales numbers (if not lower depending on the month). Again, there were other reasons besides sale numbers that the book got the axe, I fully understand. But at the end of the day, what are the expected sales of a book like that?
For Marvel and DC, it is pretty apparent what they are shooting for a 50K+ readership to keep books going. As such, they pump out probably 20+ books a month dedicated solely to Superman, Batman and X-Men alone.
You take the biggest selling books, say 200K a month on the big crossovers, etc. Lets say that 10% buy multiple copies, which I see all the time at the comic store. That means you have at best 150K people out there buying comics, and that is what Marvel and DC bank all of their money on. They won't make any lasting changes because those 150K idiot fanboys will complain to high heaven. Sure, it might increase readership across the board and make for better books eventually, but these companies are too busy beating the Golden Goose to look elsewhere.
Now, why was S:TA one of my favorite books? It was a group of humans meant to police superhumans. The main character was a former member of a team that was meant to bag and tag superhumans, so he wasn't taking any grief. In the fifth or sixth issue, they put Midnighter down for the count. That is gutsy given all the stock Wildstorm places on the Authority.
In short, it was smart and took chances, two qualities I haven't been able to ever say about a Superman comic, and haven't seen in Batman in years.
One comic that flies under the radar that did it right was Strikeforce: Morituri. It was one of the only decent books coming out in the 80's. If you get a chance, dig around and find them: I think there are about 40 issues total when it is all said and done. The premise was amazing: people turned themsevles into superhumans to fight alien invaders. The catch? The process would kill them within a year. By the end of the run, none of the original cast was alive. And, it added an incredible five-part story after the run that revisits the world after the war. Please check them out if you haven't already.
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BradyDale
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Reged: Oct 23 2007
Posts: 1
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I liked this piece. If I got to start my own superhero company, here's my rules...
1) I like MOST of Jackson's rules, with one MAJOR acception. I would not want MORE powers. I'd want fewer. A lot fewer. I'd want powers to remain rare. My writers would have to beg and plead with me for new characters, because I'd really, really want to explore the ones we had.
2) No Superman analog. No Batman analog. I'd set a cap on power levels (somehow... editorial wisdom, I guess) and I'd refuse to believe a normal guy, alone, could really take on THE THING. And, also, just because it's so cliched to have the Superman and Batman knockoffs.
3) More fights against faceless evil. Big companies where no one person is the problem. Grouped decisions to do harm. Taken to a new level beyond our real world.
4) I really like the "real time" thing.
5) Judicious use of Magic (Jackson addressed this)
6) Great care with tech. In the real world, no one ever makes such dramatic advances that they could really become a supervillain, and as soon as they did someone could steal it anyway, right? So I'd be guarded about tech to make it plausible.
7) Hesitant about time-travel and alternate-universes.
8) Real life would interfere more. Time would be a larger factor. Superheroes would network better.
9) More emphasis on support staff. Like Marvel's NIGHT NURSE for example, or that guy who makes everyone's fancy costumes.
10) More realistic emphasis on what it costs to be a hero/villain.
11) Very few retribution or navel-gazing stories. Evil doer's would always be looking out for personal gain first.
These are my ideas... few of which, I think, really contradict the above (other than the first one, which is big).
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