I've come to the conclusion over the years that fans don't want "new and original" from Marvel and DC. New and original tends to get eaten up or, at best, struggle with sales, whether its RUNAWAYS, LIVEWIRES, HUMAN DEFENSE CORPS, FALLEN ANGEL, Kyle Baker's PLASTIC MAN, GOTHAM CENTRAL, Ed Brubaker's CATWOMAN (practically did for that character what Miller did for DAREDEVIL), or JB's own GENERATIONS. I think the closest I've seen to a successful new concept is James Robinson's STARMAN, and of course one of the things that made it innovative is that the writer brought the story to a finale.

D'oh!

My sense is that it's all tied up in the graying of the audience. The rise of the direct market slowly cut off the influx of new blood into the industry, so we were left with largely the hardcore fans running the show. And for better or worse, the hardcore fans are largely the Marvel/DC devotees, largely attached to sticking with those familiar titles that kept 'em in the biz when others were dropping out. I see it everyday at my shop: folks complain about the lack of originality, but they keep buying every safe new iteration of the X-Men, or Spider-Man, or Batman, rather than trying out newer books or riskier approaches. There seems to be a comfort zone with the old characters and readers are drawn to them time and again.

In short: Marvel and DC are essentially nostalgia venues, though nostalgia takes a progressively stranger shape the longer fans stick with it.

And yet...some innovations are in the eye of the beholder. While Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN felt like a bastardization to some, a recycling of concepts to others, I found that he used classic concepts as a vehicle to truly modernize the idiom for the team for the first time since, oh, probably the Claremont/Byrne era. Of course, Marvel's undone it all now, and Whedon's doing a very polished Byrne/Claremont pastiche in its stead -- about as good a symbol as one can find for the inability of the "new" to stick in this day and age.

And Bendis's DAREDEVIL is an interesting creature. There can be little doubt that it's as different a take on the character as was Frank Miller's in the '80s, but a good segment of the readers at this site -- and sometimes me, as well -- question the appropriateness of Bendis's character-heavy, hero-lite approach. It was surely a new take, though, and a rare one that at least found a steady readership.

I'm meandering a bit, and lord knows I don't want this topic to get hung up on lightining-rod creators like Morrison and Bendis, but my point is that there are pockets of innovation out there - identifying 'em is gonna be a matter of considerable debate. Until the audience opens up through whatever magical means, though, pretty much all these innovations must necessarily skew toward the adult nostalgiast for approval. Hence Morrison sneaking in his "new and different" under the guise of classic X-plots, Bendis using familiar names like the Kingpin and Bullseye, etc. Truly "new and different" is pretty much the opposite of the comfort zone the adult readership seems to seek in Marvel and DC. And that's just the way it is without an influx of new readers.

A question: are we asking too much to hope for another huge spike of creativity at Marvel (and by extension, DC)? So much of the modern tone was established by Stan Lee and friends in the '60s that one can scarcely imagine another explosion of innovation without completely new characters and concepts. And, yeah, it does kinda feel like "it's all been done." What new outcast heroes could possibly match Spider-Man or the X-Men? What sci-fi heroes will have more appeal than the Legion? What powers are left to explore? What icons are cooler than Batman and Superman? To some degree, if we stick with these characters, I think we have to accept a level of creative conservatism. Which, if we had a greater turnover in readership, might not be a problem at all.

I often wonder what it must have been like to be reading those first comics, when Superman wasn't an icon with 70 years of history, or The Avengers hadn't been around since before your parents were born. I look at these things like they've always been there, but I know they haven't, and once upon a time a handful of people - and Stan and ___ more than anyone else, came up with a raft of characters.

And they were new and original. How many Apollos, Hyperions, Gadiators, Firsts, Supremes and whoever else do we see today, and we all know who they ape. Why can we not muster the same creativity now?

QUOTE: Why can we not muster the same creativity now?

See, I think we might be overburdening superheroes a bit on this count. Superheroes comics are in a unique position in that those heroes who qualify for ongoing titles pretty much have their adventures published perpetually from the moment they achieve that position - perpetually, month in, month out! So where Bond's only had a few dozen books and maybe two dozen screen outings, Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man have had hundreds upon hundreds of adventures. How to stay fresh when you have to tell so very many stories?

And if the answer is to develop more new heroes, well, will that really work in the confines of Marvel and DC's respective shared universes? Lots of superheroes filling lots of niches already - so there's already a certain sense of overcrowding - and it's not like you can muscle the big guns out in favor of newbie concepts. It's a bit like imagining a cable channel of nothing but cop shows. There's lots of variety within cop shows, but how many new spins can you come up with? How many can you expect to gain an audience in such a saturated, specialized environment?

I think there's tons of creativity in comics, but the new concepts have to occur in areas that aren't oversaturated. BONE was new, NEXT MEN new, GRIMJACK new, CONCRETE new, NEXUS new, WALKING DEAD new...I could list a hundred titles easy.

I think what it comes down to is that it's all but impossible to be truly creative at Marvel and DC, with their vast character counts and huge libraries of stories. You can tell stories with craft and wit, you can be a fine custodian of classic characters (like a filmmaker turning out a good, new Bond flick) but there just aren't many niches for true innovation anymore. I don't think the failure to come up with new heroes reveals any particular weakness on the part of Marvel and DC's creators.

Or, put another way, what part of my posting, above, in any way claims that I have not been as much a part of the problem as anyone else? Should we move this thread over into the Religion discussion, and insist that only those without sin may cast the first stone?

Been about three months, and I looked then at the Spider-Man, Avengers and X-Men titles. I thought about looking at the FF, but it felt too painful.

Examples?

John,

I think Marvel was trying some new things for a time when Bill Jemas was there.....but now???  Unless JR Jr., Millar, Kirkman or Slott or on a book, I am LESS than interested.  I have never seen more padding in comics than in the current Marvel books....I get more action at home and I've been married for nearly a decade!!!!!!!

And, actually, this board has been incredibly supportive of those writers and artists I just mentioned.....I think the board has a right to think eating the FUCKING eyes of our characters is worth bitching about.

David