The problem with comic book heroes...

[hells_half_acre]

I think part of my reluctance to get into the Marvel fandom is the fact that comic books don't end... and nothing happy ever happens in them. Yes, the hero saves the day, but it's usually at the cost of their own happiness. Their best friends and/or lovers die... or they do, tragically. You need drama to keep a story like that going and the best drama is tragedy.

So, for instance, I've been enjoying Captain America fic recently, but the fic that I'm enjoying is the sort of stuff that would never actually happen in the official story - because it's the fic where everyone is broken and is never going to get better, yet they learn to live with their brokenness and they learn to be happy, and the fic ends with the premise that everything has reached a stage of "as joyful as possible given the circumstances" and it will remain that way until all characters die of old age. Whereas, I already know that depending on what comic-book plot they follow, and, to me, all evidence points to the fact that they are going to follow this one...there's a good chance that Steve Rogers is going to die and Bucky Barnes will become Captain America. And that's not a happy ending, because someone is dead and someone must live without them.

I like things that end. Ironically, it was part of the reason I got into Supernatural - I was convinced that it would end after S5, and even if it ended in tragedy (which, at the time, Supernatural had all the markings of a clear tragedy), I would be fine with that, because at least it would have a definite end to the tragedy - and the tragedy would not continue forever. Comic books just keep going and they are ALWAYS tragic and nothing ever works out, not completely. And even if one chapter ends on a happy note, you know the next chapter is going to destroy that happiness... and I don't think I can take that when there's no clear end to the misery in sight.

Comments

[cordelia-gray.livejournal.com]

So I'm just dipping my toe into Marvel fandom, and it seems pretty fun so far. I think superhero stories are like mystery plays, in a way - there's a set of stock characters and situations, and they get retold over and over in a variety of ways. It's not like things just continue and get darker and darker: it resets periodically, and everyone goes back to ones, and they do it again, with different costumes in different era, with characters being added or replaced. Batman's parents always die, but what happens after can vary a great deal.

It seems pretty possible to pick and choose the parts of canon that work for you, and skip the bits that don't. And the advantage of the movies is that you need to have moments of triumph where the good guys win in a billion-dollar movie franchise, so they are by nature going to be more upbeat.

Though, that said, both the last run of Batman movies and the current Superman film were pretty relentlessly grimdark, so maybe it's just Marvel, IDK. (I was really irked by how dismal the last Superman film was, actually - this is a story which is supposed to be rooted in a basically positive, morally optimistic worldview - I hated what they did with it.)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm starting to get the picture that Marvel is the light to DC's dark, these days at least.

I suppose comics are a lot like fanfiction - where you just have your base characters and then different runs/series with different authors and illustrators write different stories and it's all "canon" because it's all got that Marvel/DC stamp on it.

So, maybe *I'm* the one being doom and gloom and it's actually not that bad... or maybe it's just a matter of finding a story that ends on a happy note and then not reading anything else.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

It IS totally like fanfiction. I tend to approach it that way. Especially as canon is kind of a flexible thing- I mean, technically it's all there- like Doctor Who- but there's a lot of picking and choosing about what gets referenced/remembered. But it SO reminds me of reading fanfic. So maybe you liked character X / story Y for the friendship fic and casefic, and then comes along this writer who jettisons those themes in favor of manpain and h/c and a lot of brooding, and then someone else eventually else comes along and the character gets some therapy or is revealed to have been replaced by a shapeshifting alien (COMICS!) and you get something else, maybe also picking up on the themes you liked.

The one thing I think you can't really get stuck on in comics is ships, because no matter how perfect, someone will always eventually come along and decide that pairing a/b would be AWESOME instead. (which...yeah, okay, is ALSO like fanfiction).

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaa... yup, definitely sounds like fanfiction.

Speaking of people deciding that pairing a/b would be awesome... I wandered over to AO3 because I thought, "Oh hey, Clint Barton is sometimes deaf, and I like reading about deaf characters, I should see if there's some good Clint Barton fic..." and then suddenly Clint/Coulson fic EVERYWHERE and um, that is not a pairing I enjoy at all, so I quickly made my retreat. :P

Anyway, this is all to say that it sounds more and more like the challenge of reading comics is the same as the challenge of reading fanfic - you have to wade through the crap you hate in order to find the gems that you love.

So, I'm most definitely in the wrong when I paint it all with the same brush.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I feel like I might be a traitor to fandom for saying this, but...because comics are professionally published, there isn't quite the same....degree of variation in quality. I mean, there are stinkers. (yes indeed). There are also fantastic things (That's why it's addictive). But it only rarely reaches bad-fic levels of bad. (exception: most of the 90s. Apparently everyone was a badfic writer then.) But there's that definite kind of hunting around for the things that you like. On the other hand, you become adept at spotting the patterns.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Well that's good! And you're never a traitor for being honest - 14 year-olds have to start writing somewhere, and that somewhere is often fanfiction... and sometimes 14 year-olds are older than 14. :P

[cordelia-gray.livejournal.com]

The only DC thing I'm really enjoying these days is Arrow, which has buckets of angst, but also a lot of humour and fun stuff. It's not the greatest thing on TV by any means, but it's solidly enjoyable, and it has a pretty great cast.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've enjoyed the few episodes that I've seen of it - but only on a level of "this will mildly entertain me for an hour." That being said, I did manage to catch a few episodes when The Flash was on it, and I'm hoping that spin-off does well, because I enjoyed that character.