More characters returning just to be killed off
3 Comments Published by Avi Green on Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 8:36 AM.
As this topic at the Great Curve discusses, the trend/obsession with brining back notable characters who haven't been seen in awhile just so that they can be killed off or even turned evil, a subject I once wrote about earlier, may or seems to be continuing with DC's Infinite Crisis as well. Big question: do they intend to slay the Freedom Fighters in it? And will Geoff Johns be ruining his credibility in the process?
If there's anything it most certainly does symbolize, it's the lack of interest in developing any of these minor characters who've been used as the sitting ducks in the various stories they've been putting out lately, which is a leading problem with today's comics publishers.
If there's anything it most certainly does symbolize, it's the lack of interest in developing any of these minor characters who've been used as the sitting ducks in the various stories they've been putting out lately, which is a leading problem with today's comics publishers.
Labels: golden calf of death
My friend, you are preaching to the choir. The original Crisis on Infinite Earths left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know why DC feels the need to engage the wholesale senseless slaughter of minor characters. They can just ignore them til somebody wants to try to develope them. Heck, the Inferior 5 survived the Crisis and DC pretends they never existed. (oops...I hope I'm not gining them ideas) Besides, they will just bring the dead characters back on a whim. Remember how the Crime Syndicate was killed off in Crisis#1. It took about 10 years but they came back. It didn't take long for the Crisis to be more or less undone. It was a marketing ploy. Besides, all they have to do is retell the rigins and start over...they've done that with Superman at least 3 times since Crisis.
By the way, thanks for the trackback on that other matter
You're welcome. And you've got a good point. DC may have been wallowing in marketing ploys ever since Crisis back in 1985. It's even more a marketing ploy than Marvel's Secret Wars ever was, mainly because the difference there was that Marvel didn't publish their first crossover in 1984 or even its sequel miniseries in 1986 for the purpose of actually killing off characters. DC, on the other hand, did, and since then, it's tragically become a leading precedant for how a lot of casualties since then have been written. It's become such a cliche recently, that as a result, characters are practically not allowed to die natural deaths, or even in a simple car accident. Rather, they are, and it seems, must be killed off in a major "event" similar to a celebration. That they would make it into a virtual party is by far their single biggest problem, because it shows a lack of respect for human life, which is going against what comics back in the day really stood for.
Most appalling is how they put the idea of using the characters as plot devices and other such terrible notions before character development, which is also what's lead to a lof of good comics becoming damaged as a result. This is exactly why something must be done to persuade both DC and Marvel to repair their current managements, and to bring in people who've got genuine devotion to taking the challenging route rather than the easy one. Only when they begin to understand that character development for even minor ones is what makes for good comics will there come some again.