I had a list of possible subjects for this Wednesday, but when trying to think of what would be the most fun to write about I really only had one. It’s a subject that I’ve had many rants about privately with friends, and one I believe I’ve talked about (at least in passing) in blogs before, because it’s a subject that I’m very passionate about. I think there is a desperate need for new characters in comic books. And when I say comic books I do, of course, mean the big two, Marvel and DC, rather than any of the others. The others are constantly creating new characters and taking chances on them. However, those characters are never going to have the same exposure and potential for investment that Marvel and DC can provide.
When you look at the state of comic books right now it’s evident that something needs to be done. DC managed to revive what was a dying brand when they launched Rebirth, and despite a drop off from the initial relaunch it’s maintained a healthy amount of interest. However, for some – me included – they’ve put their comics in a nasty situation of having two per month for all the biggest characters, meaning that as a comic book reader I’ve got to spend out twice a month to follow those characters. That’s all well and good when I’m just reading one comic. Two lots of my favourite hero every month is even appealing (I’d love Marvel to do that with a few of its characters that I do actually like). However, when your interest varies from character to character it becomes simply a financial burden to have to keep buying every month. Then, when that burden becomes too much, you end up having to pick and choose what you want to read because you can’t afford to read what you want to read, and… well, ultimately that’s what led to me ending my spree of DC comics collecting after Rebirth. I’d imagine I’m not alone in that.
Still, DC did well in their relaunch and Marvel are now going to attempt to do the same (it would seem) with Marvel Legacy. I honestly don’t know what their plan is, for once I’ve NOT been avidly reading all I can on the subject because honestly the last few “big things” Marvel did have just disappointed me and I’m not in the mood right now to set myself up for further disappointment, but the general idea with this is that Marvel are going back to what “used to work”, or at least it would seem, in the same way that DC did. Personally, I don’t think that’s a great idea. Yes, it’ll probably lead to an initial boost in sales when all the new stuff gets launched and people will temporarily pay more attention to the brand, but ultimately what you want isn’t a temporary boost in sales, it’s for readers to stick around, to keep buying, and perhaps even to invest more time and money in your products. That means cross selling, getting readers of one character interested in others, and that’s been something that Marvel in particular have been failing at lately. And I say that as a predominantly Marvel fan-girl.
What’s Wrong At Marvel?
Let me prefix this statement by saying that I’ve actually enjoyed a lot of the different takes on the classic characters Marvel have been doing lately. For one, I’m a huge fan of the Jane Foster version of Thor, and have been buying her comics every month. Despite my initial rejection of the character (which was more about the fact that they killed off the Ultimate version of Peter Parker, whom I loved, to bring him about, rather than a rejection of the character himself) I’ve grown to really like Miles Morales. And, again in spite of my making jokes about it when it first happened, I really quite like the idea of X23 as Wolverine. Hell, I even read a few arcs of Sam Wilson as Captain America, and particularly enjoyed the first few arcs of the Avengers with him and Jane Foster’s Thor. Ok, so with all that said: replacing the classic characters with new, minority/female versions of the same superhero, is not a long-term plan for success.
I’m going to focus in particular on Miles Morales for a moment. I’m not picking on the character at all. As I said, I’ve grown to really like him. I’ve even collected a few arcs of “Spider-Man” (which is made all the more impressive considering my dislike of Amazing Spider-Man). But yet I think about how much I like the character of Miles Morales, as opposed to the fact that Miles Morales is Spider-Man, and I wonder how much better off Marvel as a whole would have been if they’d taken the risk on the Miles Morales character as an ORIGINAL creation, rather than as a new version of Spider-Man. Yes, there would be the immediate downside of the fact that he wouldn’t have had the name-appeal that arguably their flagship character has, but Peter Parker’s version of Spider-Man has always been front and centre there regardless. It’s still the Peter Parker version of Spider-Man that’s pushed as the big one, it’s still the Peter Parker version of Spider-Man that all the merchandise features, it’s still the Peter Parker version of Spider-Man that Marvel chose to put in their movie when partnered with Sony… so if they’d made the character of Miles Morales an entirely NEW character, with different powers than Spider-Man, with a new costume, new villains and new adventures… would they not have been better off?
As I said, they’d have the initial problem of getting the character “out there” in terms of getting people to realise he even existed. That is true. Making him the “new Spider-Man” did that. But it was never going to be a viable long-term strategy, was it? And what is the long-term goal here? Are Marvel just ALWAYS going to have two men called Spider-Man now? That will mean Miles is ALWAYS the “second” Spider-Man, and will never be accepted as a fully-fledged, marketable character in his own right. What’s worse for Marvel, because of the deal they struck with Sony back in the days when they needed the money to stay afloat, they can’t even really make Miles Morales a big star in the movies, because Sony will always have that right to the character due to the fact that he’s Spider-Man. Whereas, if he were created as an entirely new character they wouldn’t have that issue. He’d be his own entity, a new teen superhero with everything that makes Miles likeable, but with a different powerset and different name. Thus Marvel could market him to their hearts content, make movies about him, push him to the moon, and… shock horror… actually have a NEW CHARACTER!
And that’s what’s been wrong with Marvel’s recent strategy. Yes, the “new Captain America” was quite cool, and it was a decent story as well that Sam Wilson, the long-term sidekick, got to step up and be the new Captain America when Steve Rogers was unable to keep going. I liked the plan behind it. What I didn’t like is that they ended up bringing Steve Rogers back, putting him front and centre again, and Sam Wilson then became the “other Captain America”. And it seems that they’re going to do the same with Thor. Jane Foster’s incredible version is likely to ultimately become the “other Thor” (not that I dislike Thor Odinson, he’s one of my favourite characters and I used to collect Thor comics back before Thor was in the movies and was “cool”). But what good does it do Marvel to have “the other Spider-Man”, “the other Thor”, “the other Captain America”, and in the case of Riri Williams, “the other Iron Man”. I should probably have put “man” in quotes there as well, but you get what I’m saying. Hell, even She-Hulk’s run on the “Hulk” comic is likely to come to an end with Bruce Banner returning, and then she’ll be relegated back to the comedy character who’s “just She-Hulk” again.
What Marvel Need Is New Characters
New versions of classic characters are all well and good. Everyone likes a good “what if?” story, or a cool alternate universe story (don’t you dare take away my Spider-Gwen or I will cut you), but those “versions” of classic characters are never going to be taken seriously as new, majorly marketable characters. Especially not when it comes to the movies and we’ve got Steve Rogers as Captain America, Tony Stark as Iron Man, Odinson as Thor, and Bruce Banner as The Incredible Hulk, so that when new potential readers see the movies and pick up a comic and they see Amadeus Cho as the “Totally Awesome Hulk” they’re not likely to give the comic a serious read because he’s NOT Bruce Banner, he’s NOT the Hulk, he’s just some weird other guy who’s a rip-off of the Hulk. That said, Amadeus Cho himself is another example of a decent character. If he was his own thing, and not a version of The Hulk, he’d have a chance to stand on his own. New versions of classic characters really can be cool, but what Marvel need to invest in is brand new and exciting characters that we’ve never seen before. The same is also true of DC. Yet the only time that they seem to do that is when it happens by accident. Take Harley Quinn for example. She’s become one of the biggest name characters at DC, but she didn’t start out as a well thought out and created character in the comic books. She started out on the Batman cartoon as The Joker’s sidekick, and DC realised they had something and thus Harley has been marketed madly ever since…
Don’t get me wrong, I know that creating a completely original character isn’t easy. Even creating a derivative character isn’t easy. Take, for example, “Silk”. The concept behind the character was pretty decent. The execution of the concept was considerably less so. Once again, however, Silk was a Spider-Man rip-off, tied to Spider-Man forever more and forever in Peter Parker’s shadow. The character of Cindy Moon appeals to me far less than some I’ve already mentioned, but at least Marvel TRIED to make her an entity unto herself. It just didn’t work out. That doesn’t mean they should give up, however. They should actively push for new creators to come up with new characters. They should take on board these new ideas, push out limited series of new characters to see how the public take to them, maybe then tie those new characters into other stories to try and get them exposure to a wider audience, and just see where that takes them. Lord knows we’re crying out for a few new superheroes at the moment, because how many versions of Spider-Man do we need? At one stage recently we had Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Miles Morales (Spider-Man), Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099), Cindy Moon (Silk), Gwen Stacy (Spider-Gwen) and, to a lesser extent, Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman… ok, different “Spider” style character but still, similar name) every month. That’s six characters who’s origin (with apologies to Jessica Drew) is “they were bitten by a radioactive spider”. Seriously, Marvel? You can’t come up with something different?
The thing is, Marvel CAN come up with decent characters. Anyone who’s read Young Avengers will know that when they get a good creative team together they can actually come up with bright, new characters, who are interesting in their own right. Ultimately they screwed that up by making all of them pretty much just “young version of classic character”, but they COULD easily have gone a different route and chose not to. They could do that again as well. When I say create new characters I’m not necessarily saying flood the shelves with a dozen brand new people. That won’t work. But you have FOUR Avengers books every month (including Ultimates), so even if you included just ONE new, original character on each team, that’s four brand new, potentially exciting characters for us to read about. And if you launch a limited series for each of them, explaining in more detail who they are, where they come from, and giving us reasons to like them, then you won’t need to get rid of Tony Stark to have Riri Williams take over the comic, you’ll just be able to give that character their own comic alongside the existing characters, because you won’t have “new, female version of Iron Man”, you’ll have “new, female character who’s original and able to stand on her own, and just so happens to be in the same team as Iron Man”.
Oh, and before I go on, I need to add one more thing…
For The Love Of God Don’t Make All The New Characters White Men
I can’t put that any clearer. I’m also not saying we should have a new pandering minority character on every team, because while having four new minority characters may be cool, the world at large will react badly to that. But there’s no reason why those four characters couldn’t be one white guy, one black guy, one Latino, and one woman. When introduced across four different teams that’s not going to scream “push for diversity”, it’s just going to be four new characters that you’ve got original stories for, and if they take off then excellent, you’ve got yourself four new, potentially marketable characters… who just happen not to all be white men. It’s not only the comics that this could be a benefit to. There’s going to come a time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe needs new blood. We’re not there yet, I admit, but there will come a time when you can’t throw Chris Evans in the Captain America suit anymore. There will come a time when Robert Downey Jr. stops being interested in making more movies as Tony Stark (in any role). And when that happens, what are we going to do? Are we going to recast these characters and end up with more “reboot” movies? Are we going to recast these characters and then just continue on like nothing’s happened, even though we’ve got a different actor in our favourite role? Are we going to take a page out of the comics and just throw someone else in the same costume? Or maybe, just maybe, are we going to build a franchise with NEW CHARACTERS moving forward?
If the comic book movies are going to last then that’s what’s going to have to happen. There’s only so many times you can hit the reset button on a franchise before people just stop caring. We’re at risk of getting there with Batman. We’re at risk of getting there with Spider-Man (at least if the ticket sales for the movies are anything to go by). We’ve already suffered with Superman (Man Of Steel did better, but Superman Returns was terribly received). Can we just keep rebooting Iron Man, Captain America and Thor now? Can we do the same with Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman? I don’t think we can. I think we’re ultimately going to need new characters to star in the “team-up” movies alongside these franchise characters, with the new characters going on to launch into solo film franchises of their own, with the new characters ultimately anchoring the franchise for the next set of newly introduced characters, and with the cycle continuing on. I genuinely do think that if you just keep “rebooting” every time things don’t work out then you’re going to end up with people no longer caring when they see the fourth, fifth and sixth iterations of Spider-Man on the big screen, the fifth, sixth or seventh iterations of Batman on the big screen, and the same origin story, and the same back story, and the same villains, and… you get the idea.
Yet a new character, with the right level of quirk and with an interesting story to tell, could change all of that. A new character with a brand-new origin story that we’ve not seen six times before, with a new power set that we’ve not seen on the big screen before, with a new love story that we don’t already know the ending to before it’s even begun, and with a new set of supporting characters for us to get involved with and fall in love with, would take the movies in entirely new directions. And, no matter what you say to this, it CAN happen. I’ll give you one example which jumps out at me right now, and her name is Jessica Jones. You know, that one with the hit Netflix show, by far the best thing about the Defenders mini-series, with the greatest villain we’ve seen on any of the five Netflix series to date, with quite possibly the most interesting supporting cast (although Daredevil gives her a run for her money there) and with the most interest in a follow-up second season. She’s not “the new Captain Marvel” or “the new Daredevil”. She’s something new. Something the world hadn’t seen before. She’s got her own story, her own set of powers, and a story interesting enough to get critics and fans around the world raving about how amazing the Netflix show was. So why can’t we get more characters like that?
It’s Not Just Marvel That Are Guilty Either
I know this is primarily based on me ranting about Marvel characters and the mistakes Marvel have made and are making, but it’s not just Marvel who are guilty of this. I ask you now, how many version of The Flash have there been over the years? How many versions of Green Lantern? How many Batman-derivative characters are there? It’s just as bad, or worse, than Marvel. DC could do with some fresh blood in their line-ups as well, mostly so that they stop publishing so many different versions of Batman, and actually have another character to put in a crossover/team-up that’s not Harley Quinn. Honestly, I like Harley and all, but you’re seriously pushing your luck with that, DC. If she’s in five different comics one month, how the hell is she in five different places at the same time? If she’s put in danger in any of those five stories we know she’ll walk away completely unharmed or it would shatter the future of five different comic books, don’t we? And therefore that takes away a lot of the drama of putting her in perilous situations, because you’re not going to kill off or in any way seriously harm the character you’re shoving down everyone’s throats. It’s like Wolverine all over again… and ugh, don’t get me started on the number of Wolverine appearances in things…
At least DC are proudly capable of one thing that Marvel seem incapable of, and that’s letting a character grow. Sure, it took having Superman end up with Wonder Woman, and then a complete shattering reboot/”rebirth” to bring back a different version of Superman front and centre for it to happen, but HOLY MOLEY, Superman has a wife and kid! You know what that is, don’t you? That’s character development. That’s growth of a character. That’s an investment in years of storyline actually going somewhere, as opposed to Marvel with their “nope, being married makes them seem too old, get rid of that” bull[expletive deleted] that still has me angry to this day. Yet this kind of story doesn’t absolve DC from the number of times they’ve done insane things like killing off Supergirl and eradicating her from history so that Superman could be “the last Kryptonian”, only to then introduce a whole bunch more Kryptonians again. Yes, DC, I may only be 32 years old but dammit, I won’t let you forget the stupid things you’ve done in the past and probably haven’t learned from.
Could DC not benefit from new and interesting characters as well? Could DC not benefit from new characters to include in the Suicide Squad just as much as Marvel could benefit from new characters to involve in The Avengers, so that it’s not the same few characters over and over and over again in different combinations? Would new, engaging characters not give us all a reason to pick up the comics again to read about something different, rather than just reading rehashes of old storylines with slightly new twists? I, for one, would love to see a new hero – or anti-hero – in the DC world, someone that DC want to get behind, someone who’s just as capable as the other heroes, someone who’s a match for some of the world’s finest heroes and villains, and someone that we haven’t seen twelve different origin stories for before now. Don’t tell me that there’s nobody in comics that could create this new character. If there isn’t, then maybe DC and Marvel need to be looking outside of their current employees for those new creators, with ideas that are different to what they currently have? Because at this stage even a new character who’s “a bit like that character, but new” is preferable to yet another version of an old character we’ve seen before.
Diversity Won’t Kill You
No matter what the bigots, the misogynists and the racists who scream as loud as they can whenever they see someone who’s not a white male in a comic book will say, diversity seriously won’t kill you, guys. If you’re going to start making new characters (and I’d like to see new bad guys as well as new good guys, there’s only so many times you can keep bringing back the same bad guys after all before I just get bored and roll my eyes… and yes, I’m looking at you Dan Slott with your return of The Jackal), why not make them a bit more diverse? I know it’s covering a point I already mentioned, but it bears repeating. I’m not even talking black/Latino and female either. I’d settle for pink and green characters as well. I’d prefer not ANOTHER horny alien girl who falls in love with an Earth guy. I think we’ve seen that a few times. And I’d prefer not another green alien who’s come to earth who only Superman can beat up. But hopefully you get what I’m saying. A change of pace can be a good thing. A character who’s completely out of the norm can give them something visually interesting to appeal to readers straight away. So why not take more risks with characters than we currently do? What’s the worst that can happen?
I’ll answer that for you: the worst that can happen is that the fans don’t take to the new character. In that case, what harm is really done? We’ve seen entire universes exploded in the pages of comic books before because a few writers messed up a few storylines and the powers that be decided it was easier to just wipe them all out and start again. Is it really so hard to just drop a character who isn’t working if it goes wrong and try something new? And by “new” I don’t mean “tried and done before”. I mean new. I mean so what if the new Batman villain didn’t work out? Make up another one and try out something else. So what if Spider-Man’s new friend was never liked by the fans? Come up with something a bit different for a future arc and try again. Hell, even create a new villain to kill of that new friend and give the character a reason to be so angry at the new villain, while simultaneously giving that new villain something to be remembered by. Just don’t do what you’ve doe so many times before and bring back the “classic” bad guy for the seventeenth time, even though he’s already been killed fourteen of those times in various ways. Just keep trying out new and interesting things and eventually a few of them will work, and when they do people will thank you for the new character, the comics will have something new to read, the movies will have someone new to introduce, and the world of comic-based media will be a little brighter.
Or, you know, just keep rebooting and doing the same thing over and over again. Whatever makes you a few more bucks this month, right? To hell with the future, you can always just do another event book…