The Death of the American Comic Book III
The Raise-the-Stakes Doomsday Feedback Loop
Previously, we looked at how the Big Two abandoned the original audience, putting all their eggs in the Adult Nerd Audience Basket. There were other factors explored as well, and there are many informative articles out there about distribution follies, incompetent production, and so on. I also summarized how, by clinging to the narrative flavors of the Golden Age, superhero comics abandoned relevancy.
This time I want us to look at a blunder that is perhaps more blatant in film adaptations than in the comics. I would argue it’s one of many symptoms of careless and lazy writing, perhaps encouraged by talentless beancounter oversight.
Go back to the first Superman stories and you’ll notice a huge difference between the original character and what he became. I’m not focusing on personality or values, here, but abilities.
Remember, Superman could “leap tall buildings in a single bound,” but he couldn’t fly until the outstanding Max Fleischer animated serials depicted him doing so. Even by the time of the Superman TV series in the early postwar period, the fact that he could “bend steel in his bare hands” was impressive. And, in his first origin story, we are informed that “nothing less than a bursting shell can break his skin.”
Implying that a bursting shell could, in fact, break his skin.
By the time I came along, it was nothing for Supes to juggle asteroids the way we might show off with yo-yo tricks. A bunker buster could explode in his face and not even muss his hair.
The original concept of Superman was like a costumed Doc Savage (Man of Bronze<Man of Steel, get it?) on steroids. But as time went on and the bullpen staff changed with turnover, Superman grew increasingly powerful—to the point of all-powerful.
So powerful it became difficult for lazy, unimaginative writers to find interesting challenges for him to wrestle with.
Face it: Superman was a lot more fun when he could be knocked on his ass now and then. Wish fulfillment can be fun when the hero is capable of feats that normal men are not; but not when nothing can challenge him.
Rather than admit they had painted themselves into a corner, and take Superman back closer to his original conception by Siegel and Schuster, the lazy, dunderhead writers/editors came up with a loophole after the fact.
Kal-El has superpowers in our solar system because of our yellow sun, and because of his Kryptonian DNA. So let’s have him lose his powers, or even die, when exposed to a fragment of the planet he is native to. (Makes as much sense as only being able to kill a zombie by shooting it in the one organ that is clearly not working anyway.)
And, evidently, the rocks on Krypton were green.
Kryptonite became the all-purpose crutch for lazy writers to give Superman some kind of challenge. Every plot in every issue of the comic was built around Kryptonite. (The later seasons of the Smallville TV show also built the plot of every episode around it. But they called it “meteor rock” which makes them clever and original, see?) Suddenly Kryptonite was accessible to every crook and mad scientist in Metropolis. Somebody probably called out the writers on these hackneyed plots, so they gathered all their collective artistic genius and…and…
…Came up with different colors of Kryptonite that would affect Superman in different ways. Please clap.
The same artistic carelessness that caused writers to supercharge Superman’s powers beyond all possible verisimilitude is still at work not just at DC, but in the entertainment industry writ large, and has been noticeable for some time.
The incompetent-yet-arrogant creatives who handle superhero stories in whatever mediums (but especially film), after chugging their morning dose of Dunning-Kruger, are so obsessed with raising the stakes that the plot of every superhero story becomes the conquering or destruction of the entire world…if not the universe; maybe even the multiverse....by (insert cookie-cutter epic villain).
Evidently, the made men (and womyn) in the entertainment industry are unable to conceive of any other type of plot.
Our heroes have to prevent some nigh-almighty bad guy from capturing/collecting all three (or five, or nine, or whatever) Ancient MacGuffins, or else…or else…
Life as we know it will cease! Or something.
At least until the next sequel.
If anybody important died, they’ll come back eventually (even Bucky, despite Stan Lee’s career-long hindrance).
More hackneyed, lazy, stupid writing, you say? Ha, you fools! They’ll show you. They’ll bring the characters back in such a way that thou darest not question their imaginative genius!
In other words, they’ll reincarnate the dead characters as black, female, and queer.
Along the way, they’ll teach you how inferior you are for having the audacity to be born white. So shut your racist mouth!
Once in a while, an attempted world-domination plot would probably be fine. Not just fine—it could be truly epic, if such a plot is employed sparingly.
Back in my naive younger years, I would occasionally daydream about getting a chance to write and direct a Batman film. I wouldn’t need three or more villains, per the ongoing formula—I could make a compelling movie with just one. My villain would be the Scarecrow—an underappreciated villain who has never been written up to his potential. Without filming an actual epic, the struggle between Scarecrow and the Batman (two characters who use fear as a tool) would be epic. And Scarecrow wouldn’t have to take over the world (or even Gotham) to make it a white-knuckle thriller that kept the audience engaged.
But such a project could never get the green light. In Homowood, Commiefornia, every superhero flick has to be a BLOCKBUSTER!!!!!!!!! And, in a blockbuster, you have to “Raise the stakes! Raise the stakes!” to out-sensationalize the last cape comic/movie. The last one, of course, had the villain taking over the whole world, or universe, or multiverse. So we must go one higher!!!!!!
How can you go higher than the universe, or multiverse? A black, female, and queer universe, I suppose. Or this time, use red kryptonite.
With all their other self-inflicted ailments, the cape comic/cape flick mill has painted itself into another corner. I think audiences might have checked out after the 74th consecutive time the fate of the universe hung in the balance.
What do you think?
Man, as a kid I only ever saw the overpowered Superman who was weak to kryptonite, and I was totally not interested. I preferred Batman, who beat villains with his brains and gadgets (I grew up on the 1960s comedy series and took it dead serious), and Spiderman who was always the wise-cracking underdog who managed to win anyway. I watched the TV shows in the 90s because the comics were too dark and gross. I keep thinking that if they want to make money, they need to make kid friendly comics again, but this is anathema to every comic writer I've talked to. "But muh mature storylines!"
Yeah, and your hero wears his underwear outside his clothes. Your point is?
Superhero comics may need another spell on the bench to let other genres out to play, similar to what they had from about 1947 to 1956 (Showcase #4, Silver Age Flash origin). The removal of compliance with a Comics Code, to prevent excesses that lead to Lowest Energy State of Creativity, and out-and-out perversion, was a mistake of the first rank and it needs to be re-instituted in some form.
Perhaps just voluntarily adopting the current MPCA (https://mpcafilm.com/) definitions and putting that rating (G, PG, PG13, R, X) on the cover is enough. Parents would know what their kids are reading. If you as the creator or publisher aren't honest about it, you can be called out on social media.
Regardless, the Big Two characters need some time on the bench, but don't expect the IP farms to give it to them.