INFINITY SEQUENCE
Corporate Hero Comics
by Dave Morris
What's up you crazy comic book readers!
Welcome to Infinity Sequence! My name's Dave and I'm here to write about the things I find interesting about comics. Hopefully you'll dig it. I see this as a way for me to learn more about the world of comics by throwing out my current perspective on things and hopefully getting some worthwhile feedback from you. Topics will be chosen at random by a phosphorescent organ grinder named Tosk that I keep chained up just beneath my corpus callosum.
So then, give me a moment to remove this rusty scroll from my ear and see what the first topic will be.
Hmmmmm....interesting choice, Tosk!
Looks like we'll be discussing "Corporate Hero Comics".
A little background:
I read a few comics as a kid but didn't really get into them until I was 23. I'm 30 now and after 7 years of devouring as much material as possible, I find myself with more questions than ever. I started with what I was told were the must reads - Watchmen, DKR, Preacher and Sandman. I was hooked and knew immediately that my thirst for sequential art would know no end.
I wanted to immerse myself in the monthly single issues and knew this was going to be an expensive endeavor - trying to sort out what was good from what was not. Superhero comics were, and still are, the most popular genre so I jumped into a ton of Marvel stuff. This was around the time that Civil War was coming out and I was fascinated to see how all of these books could actually work together in glorious unison with such elaborate continuity. I bought nearly all of the crossovers and tie-ins, along with the core books of course, and felt like I was a part of something special. Unfortunately, I would later realize that all I was a part of was cookie cutter connect-the-dots formulaic Corporate Hero Comics.
What a fool I had been. But such is the price of learning what is gold and what is garbage.
Bold statement, I know. Understand that I am not saying that all superhero comics are garbage. They can't all be painted with the same brush. But I am saying that after about 3 years of steady hero comics I started to see a pattern. I started to see the business side of it.
From what I can tell it works like this - The Corporations (Marvel/Disney, DC/Warner Bros) want to sell as many comics as possible, so they produce as many as possible. Their equation is simple - quantity over quality equals Mo Money. That's why you'll often see a staggering amount of different people working on the same title or even the same issue. Spider-Man is a good example. Not long ago, Amazing Spider-Man was coming out three times a month. There were three different writers and an absurd amount of artists sharing the workload from breakdowns to pencils, inks, colors and finishes. It is the perfect example of an assembly line mentality generated and enforced by the business people who care about sales and nothing more. They know that having the words "Amazing Spider-Man" on the cover is a licence to print money.
Obviously this isn't the best environment for creativity to flourish, let alone for anything original to be discovered. The best comics have, for the majority, been created by either a single person or by a team of no more than two who had the proper time and chemistry to collaborate effectively. And it makes a lot of sense right? I mean, how well can a dish turn out when there's too many chefs in the kitchen?
Another problem with Corporate Hero comics is that no real change will ever befall the A-list characters. We all know, for instance, that none of them are ever in real peril. They will never actually die or be changed irrevocably. Captain America appeared to have died five years ago but it turned out this wasn't the case. Batman died more recently but has already returned to star in several monthly titles. Johnny Storm died a year or so ago but that was around the time I stopped buying Corporate Hero Comics so I'm not sure if he's been given the inevitable treatment yet or not. Superman famously died at the hands of Doomsday, which I remember vividly in grade 6 but how long did that last?
The Corporations continue to bombard readers with various ad campaigns stating that "things will never be the same". Or "which of these superheroes is going to die?" It's amazing that people buy into that when they should know full well that things will always be the same and none of those main characters will actually ever "die" for good.
Another thing I find very unfortunate is that a character will never undergo any real change. In literature, a character goes through a transformative arc and is different by the end of the story from how they were when they began. This transformation is a key component in presenting an engaging story to the reader, and it is something that is fundamentally impossible in Corporate Hero Comics because of their inherent nature in keeping the characters essentially the same that they've been for around fifty years. For a reason that completely eludes me, people seem to love to read about the same characters doing the same things over and over and over again.
Personally, I'd much prefer reading comics created by artists who are trying to do something different. Who have birthed new worlds and inhabited them with characters who are capable of anything.
Bare in mind that I'm aware there are always exceptions to the rule. The current run on Daredevil for instance has been wonderful. But there is far too vast a landscape of other comic books that should take priority, at least for me, over the same old played out Corporate Hero Comics. In the meantime, if I have a hankering for some superhero stuff I'll pick up reprints of classic material from legends like Jack Kirby, Neil Adams, Joe Kubert (RIP), Jim Steranko, Steve Ditko, etc.
So I think that will about wrap things up for the first installment of Infinity Sequence. Thank you for reading and I hope you'll leave a few thoughts in the comments section below. Speaking for both Tosk (who fell asleep an hour ago) and myself, we wish you well and hope you'll come check us out again next time!
P.S.
I thought about getting into the various other marketing strategies like the far-too-frequent variant covers and embarrassing re-numbering systems but decided against it for now. Perhaps that will be a topic for another time.
Great blog Dave, it's been a year now since I've re-jumped on the comic book collecting bandwagon and I definitely know where you’re coming from. A perfect example is Marvel’s Avengers Vs X-Men crossover event. This long winded series has run out gas and I’m counting the months till it’s over. The tie-ins from the other titles are absolute garbage, but through some weird sense of dedication, I pick them up (only the monthly titles I’ve collected before the AVX event) because I don’t want gaping holes in my collections (sigh). The stuff you mentioned is right on the money, I’ve known for years that the mainstream characters never truly die. We all know it’s just a gimmick to make you buy more comics and the big cheeses at Marvel & DC know this.
The more I collect & read, the more I’m steering away from Marvel & DC. Companies like Image, Dark Horse, IDW & the newly revamped Valiant offer a fresh perspective for creator owned projects and I’m totally digging it. Actually Valiant might not be creator owned, but its titles still kick ass. On the other hand, I’m grateful to Marvel for introducing me to a whole new world of literature way back in 1986 when I picked up my first comics like the Punisher, Incredible Hulk & Web Of Spider-Man. However, the 80’s were a different time for comics, Marvel was a company publishing decent comics at 95 cents with colourful characters with interesting plots & stories. Today it’s all corporations regurgitating comics with point 1 issues, expensive variant covers & pointless relaunching (yeah I’m talking to you Marvel Now).
With my latest thoughts and your current blog, it has put a perspective on what I collect & read now and in the near future. Thanks again.
Most of the $$$ comic book company make are based off lucrative movie licensing deals, and merch. Avengers: The Movie made close to 1 BILLION. The dark knight rises is headed towards the same milestone.
They can sell comics cheap--almost like a loss leader--to cultivate the next generation of fans, super-heroes, and movie (sequels).