Age of the Geek

The End Of The World As We Know It

Well, let’s talk about last Tuesday’s big event.

     A lot of interesting stuff was said. Some of it pretty interesting, but most of it was predictable. I think it’s safe to say that there wasn’t much that was said that wasn’t already assumed. Especially since so much info gets out ahead of time.

     Naturally, there are those that are outraged over what was announced, but personally, I’m looking forward to what’s coming up.

     I am, of course, talking about Marvel Comic’s announcement of their upcoming “Secret Wars” crossover event. By the end of this year, the Marvel Universe will be destroyed once and for all. In its place, a shiny new universe with a new history.

     And I can’t wait.

     It’s no secret that I’m not the Marvel fan I used to be. Thanks to pointless re-numberings and endless crossover events, I long ago abandoned the habit of buying every monthly book that caught my eye. These days my buying habits are much more selective.

     How has Marvel fallen so far from my grace? It’s a tragic tale of a publishing company that wants to have its cake and eat it too.

     Most people know that one of the big selling points of comic books is their shared universe. What happens in one book can be referenced in another. The Marvel Universe isn’t a series of individual stories, but one grand mythology made up of many different parts.

     On their own, a single issue of a comic book is a terrible value for what you get. Nobody buys a comic purely for what’s in the pages. They buy it because of all the stories, past, present, and future, that are connected to each issue.

     Every issue is part of a larger run. Each run is part of a larger story that dates all the way back to the 1960s.

     At least, it used to be.

     In reality, it has been a long time since the Marvel Universe resembled the world that Stan Lee built.

     Creating a shared universe is hard. Maintaining it is even harder.

     As editor-in-chief, Stan Lee managed it, but that was when Marvel was publishing far fewer books than they were today. And Stan was writing most of them.

     Jim Shooter brought the company to even greater heights during his run in the EiC chair during the 70s and 80s, but at a cost. Shooter was not known as the easiest guy to get along with. He had a singular vision for the Marvel Universe and he held onto that vision with an iron grip.

     There is a story that Shooter once fired an editor for allowing Spider-Man to speak with contractions. That’s how important it was that characters be consistently written across the line.

     Following Shooter, the pendulum began to swing the other direction, and has kept swinging.

     When Stan Lee passed “The Amazing Spider-Man” off to Gerry Conway in 1972, there was no noticeable difference. The transition was so smooth that you could be forgiven for not noticing it happened at all.

     In contrast, a change in a creative team today generally means a completely new direction for a character.

     The idea of stewardship for these iconic characters has gone out the window. Instead of maintaining consistency, today’s comic writers come to the table with their own interpretations of characters, often with little regard for what came before or what may come after.

     Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that. After all, how many different versions of Sherlock Holmes or Dracula are there?

     But it does run contrary to the idea that these characters are the same people that Stan wrote 50 years ago.

     Which is why I’m excited about this storyline.

     This time next year, there will be a different Spider-Man. He’ll still be Peter Parker, but he’ll have a different history and different relationships. As will the X-Men, the Avengers, and whatever other characters get shuffled around as Marvel reboots their universe.

     Naturally there are people upset over all of this, but I have three different runs of “The Incredible Hulk” sitting on my shelf that couldn’t be more disconnected, even though they are supposed to be about the same guy, so it’s not like Marvel is doing something they haven’t been doing for years anyway.

     Jim Shooter kept his writers in chains. That benefited the readers.

     Future editors unlocked the chains, but made their writers pretend to keep wearing them. This has benefited nobody and ultimately created the worst of both worlds.

     Now, finally, the chains are coming off.

     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and is excited to be excited about comics again.