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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7484
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| Posted: 12 April 2024 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | 1
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It wouldn't be hard to have a scene in some book where characters are asking, "Hey, what happened to...?" and insinuate that some heroes and villains just stop their careers after a while--they aged out, they got hurt too often, they had other priorities...
...but, as noted above, any such would be treated as a desecration of the highest order.
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Andrew Bitner
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 7484
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| Posted: 12 April 2024 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | 2
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The easiest solution, as JB noted, is simply to stop using them.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 30901
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| Posted: 12 April 2024 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | 3
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Just Chuck Cunningham the lot of them.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2292
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 8:18am | IP Logged | 4
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I feel like the editor & writer of any particular comic should have first "dibs" on whatever happens to any character who originated in that series. If they want to massacre all of, say, Luke Cage's old villains (Black Mariah, Diamondback, Cottonmouth, Chemistro, Mace, Piranha Jones, Comanche & Shades, and more), that's up to them.
I fear a general "culling" (a la the Scourge, Crisis, or whatever) would have an unrelated creative team killing off characters they don't have a right to--or "jurisdiction" over. I don't want the editor and writer of CAPTAIN AMERICA killing off SPIDER-MAN villains or vice versa.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | 5
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When working on the FF we were able to use that “rule” to save the Sub-Mariner. Another editor had decided he didn’t like Marvel’s portrayal of Atlantis, and declared his intention to kill Namor by way of “fixing” everything. FF editor Mike Carlin and I went to Shooter and insisted that Namor having been brought back as an FF character meant we “owned” him whenever he didn’t have his own book.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6106
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | 6
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“The last So-and-So Story” (fill in the blank) is an easy story to write for an
ongoing character. It’s all harvest: Easy pathos. Cheap sentiment. Final
answers.
When a writer pitches this story, it’s usually a sign that writer shouldn’t be
on that character.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | 7
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“Writing in the middle” is the main challenge. Write the most important story in the careers of the characters—in full awareness of the next issue also having to be the most important. (That was how Chris and I worked on X-MEN, constantly striving to top ourselves, but knowing we’d have to come back for more next issue.)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | 8
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It wouldn't be hard to have a scene in some book where characters are asking, "Hey, what happened to...?" and insinuate that some heroes and villains just stop their careers after a while--they aged out, they got hurt too often, they had other priorities...••• But what you just did, Andrew, is ask a question SOMEONE is going to want to answer.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4531
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | 9
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Killing mostly became a short term sales booster. If you have to kill something for that reason mainly, to make a profit, eventually you might even run out of anything to kill? The pinnacle being the whole Superman in a black baggie with a collectable mourning armband, but was it a pinnacle in terms of being a great story? I have a reprint of one of those issues which I got for free and it really didn't grab me. I have avoided a lot of the stuff that followed it for a couple years after working more in the other direction back to maybe where I check out the stuff just before Man Of Steel which I did have some of at the time (Gil Kane).
I wish I'd kept the Doom Patrol #121 I used to have just to sell it for a lot more than I did however. The more deaths the more you realize how trivial they usually are in comics... the death of Fat Freddy in The Freak Brothers moved me more than most of them. Only the Dark Phoenix thing packed a punch, maybe because it didn't (at first anyway) wallow in it afterwards beyond one issue. I kind of thought Elektra's supposed demise was overwrought in Daredevil, that cover on #182 for example, like DC parading Supergirl's dead body on a couple different comics. Now they 'knew what they were doing'... special double-sized death product here folks, sure to be a 'key etc., and as usual things were better or more real somehow when they didn't. I think probably Starlin's death of Captain Marvel was being thought of before Phoenix's.
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Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16430
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | 10
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I've long been against the idea of killing off ongoing characters. To me, it cheapens the concept of death and robs the stories featuring the character in the future, when they certainly, inevitably return, of any real drama. After all, when the character has died once, there's no real threat in them dying again, especially when, yep, all likelihood is they will also return again. You can't put that bullet back in the gun once its fired. Since death in real life is the biggest thing that can happen to a person, what can top the death of a character even in fiction? Death of a major, or at least well-known character, is just a cheap, sensationalistic marketing ploy.
And look how many characters have died and returned:
Justice League: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Hawkman
Avengers: Captain America, Thor, Iron Man... And on and on...
I don't see how any of the characters fear death as they've all seen friends and even themselves die and return.
So lazy, the use of death to generate "interest" (i.e. "sales"). If a character is killed, they should remain dead. And, for this reason, the death of a character needs to be strongly thought out with all the ramifications of such an action considered. Naturally, a character like Superman and Batman will never remain dead, if for trademark concerns alone, so they should never actually die in a story.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4531
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | 11
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Having unanswered questions is something of value to a good writer, they're often what keeps the reader going! Sometimes I think I like comics others see as lesser because there is more for you as a reader to bring to it, it's not an 'airtight garage' to use a term from Moebius. A lot of those overly-worked out (and more importantly shown to be so) conceptual worlds have no place for the reader. Hate to mention Watchmen at all disparagingly again (because it was a good comic) it's all only about superheroes and their world taken to a sort of one further step, complete, closed, it's all there why go back (no room). A lot of more recent superhero comics seem to be like more the first third of Dune or the background notes to Lord Of The Rings and lack the real meat that engages and pulls you along; they've got it too worked out with answers that don't lead to something more. The Ozymadias guy had it all worked out turning them in upon themselves, he was right and it worked, the end, bye. Maybe Starlin while doing things 'wrong' in some ways provided an openness or vagueness the reader could supply and give it a meaning not spelled out. Besides all the cosmic multiversal jazz I mean. I can return to most of that like I can return to late '70s-early '80s X-Men and get fired up again (or late '60s X-Men I dare say). Obviously there's something I'm not getting from a lot of other comics, but found in Mantlo Rom or even fairly poorly drawn DeMatteis Defenders. A respect for the characters is a respect for the readers, and while it's great to have all that background stuff worked out to whatever firmness but showing it all off is not respect, Elfquest probably had all kinds of things thought out that didn't naturally materialize in the course of telling it's stories for another example. I think there are fan books of it I don't have, might or might not want. Doctor Who mostly through accidents of it's production and changeover in creators had all sorts of things for the viewer to wonder about, reconcile or elaborate upon as they wished, and thus there have been literal tons of fanzine there!
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6106
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| Posted: 13 April 2024 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | 12
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When I think of the "Death" of Superman, I picture everyone at D.C. holding their breath and looking around at each other as it rolled out. They must have been wondering constantly: "Is this REALLY going to work? Are the readers REALLY this gullible?"
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