I nothing will ever be the same !!!
"Nothing will ever be the same" the kind of tagline anyone familiar with comic sees at least once a year from either of the big big 2. Any event is supposedly so earth shattering that you ve got to buy it lest you would never be able to understand the new world...
except nothing lasts, any of those change is all the more precarious than it s bold : new 52 was supposed to be the new paradigm and pandora the overpowerful mastermind until it wasnt and she was shot like a redshirt in a cheap star trek serial, batman became an organization of crime fighter, batman is gordon in a giant rabbit cosplay robot,otto is the new spiderman, and latest bomb captain america has been hydra all along. They re change for the sake of change - to shake things up just enough to make readers yearn for same old routine. As once famously said “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”
But even worse. Not only are those change stupidly out of character, not only do they barely last a few month but ultimately they dont bring anything to the table.One could argue that breaking Batman s back at least gave an epic retraining and it was very much in character, reminding the exceptional will of Batman and what he had to go through to become Batman - how crazy in the first place it was to jump every night in the void.
II Once upon a time...
But once upon a time, not only was there a meaning in those trial but they STICKED.When Joker shot Barbara s spine, gone was Batgirl leaving place to the Oracle. When the Joker killed Jason it became a failure that would keep haunting Batman for the rest of his days - and although technically Red Hood arrival might have cancelled the initial failure, his new attitude toward crime meant that nothing would ACTUALLY ever be the same. James Gordon Jr fall as a baby in Year one paid off decades later as he became a psychopath, . Lex luthor became a corrupt CEO instead of a mad scientist and stayed that way, Gwen stacy died and Mary Jane became the new love interest of Peter Parker,
One of my favorite character, Constantine cranks it up to eleven : he might have started with an already heavy past but by the end of Hellblazer run he s a tatooed old man with a beer belly, some hint of bisexuality, demon blood running in his veins, a golden twin and an evil doppledanger, his father and sister in hell and a mob lord for father-in-law (ok scratch that last part: everything related to milligan and especially epiphany is tainted - just saying right up to the end the character evolved).
New dynamic, new philosophy,.Actions had consequences, character evolved.
And frankly this is supposed to be the basis of storytelling - as famously explained in a hero s journey: at the end of the journey the protagonist has been changed by the trials and evolved into something different, hopefully better. That s what engage you in the story. Consequences. They gave the meaning to the journey. Neither Batman nor spiderman will ever destroy crime but it doesnt mean they cannot learn and change.
III where do we go from there
Frankly one of the reason I m more interested in Deathstroke and specifically the current book is because I feel Priest isnt boggled down by the past and a certain idea of the character : he can actually WRITE the character.
Now I can understand that each writer has his own idea of the character - so a new writer might scratch what has been done before not because of a corporate statu quo but just because he thinks the previous direction is wrong and doesnt fit the basis of his vision of the character. Still it speaks in my mind of poor writing : if the previous writer had written something actually good, it wouldnt be discarded that easily by the next writer. They would actually be eager to play with it. When Garth Ennis ended his run on Hellblazer, many moaned that he was selfish by purposedly taking out every characters he created except for chantinelle and the next writer brought back the First Fallen without wasting much time.. Also his anti-religious feelings sticked to the character. Same thing for Warren Ellis who in spite of a very short run gave key recurring characters like Clarice and Map and all that "magicians as a lot are bloody wankers" vibe. Even a run as maligned as Azzarello brough the bisexuality that many consider a key part of the character (which is all the more astonishing that I think it stems from a very deep misunderstanding of Azzarello story).
for batman the last meaningful change for me was Tomasi with Batman and Robin and how he created an actual father-son relationship. Morrison clearly left a dent, after all he s the one who created and brought back Damian in the first place, but his strokes are sometimes so bold they dont really last. Like he s so engaged in shaking everything things up that it eventually all fall back in place like killing Darkseid with a gun, Batman inc,etc... And what a better sign of Morrison ultimately weak impact as the very death of Damian. Although it was a team book, he had a much bigger impact on Batman with the JLA by creating the Batgod concept. In my book Tomasi filled out Damian and brought something new out of Batman, that I didnt feel even with the Robins - . Just like Joe Kelly created Deadpool and not Rob Liefeld.
for green lantern nobody can deny that Geoff Johns changed completely the character and its universe, and I dont even care about the lanterns and I really dislike Johns writing.
That s pretty much it. Everything else for me is pandora and other blue bird drivel...
With all this said, according to you when was the last time a character of DC/ his universe/ his book changed in a meaningful and lasting way??? Ideally it should coopted by another writer besides the original writer.
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