Saturday, May 09, 2015

Comic book endings

The Atlantic has an article up talking about Age of Ultron and the "sagas" that the superhero comics have tactically developed to try to keep interest.  (This aspect of the Avengers movies is clearly now wearing thin with critics.)

Anyhow, following the article came this comment, which seems to summarise the problem well:
Meh, this is why I ultimately gave up on comic books. I was a huge comics fan in the late 80's/early 90's - mostly Marvel, but also DC and other imprints. I remember the huge crossover Mutant Massacre storyline in 1986 and the fallout thereof, creating new storylines for the X-Men and New Mutants, creating new teams like Excalibur. But I remember several storylines being drawn on an on, and eventually dropped. I still want to know what happened to the Morlocks! I believe this is a structural problem that comics have - the ability for storylines to get bogged down and reboot is also the frustration of never resolving any long running plots. Aristotle stated that every story needs a beginning, middle, and end. Comics are rife with beginnings (origin stories) and middles, but very poor on ends. This is their entire business model, and it's what ultimately pushed me away from comics.   

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