Stop Me if You Read This One Before — Or Don’t!

Last week, we spent some time discussing the potential for the new DC books to follow similar storylines since many of the titles were starting from a new beginning and, I feared, doomed to follow the same basic arcs as the months and years went by.  Your comments and feedback got me thinking, not for the first time, just what I was really looking for in these books.

During a recent podcast, Josh joked about how there were only four stories and how the fun of all this was watching how different creators tackled those four stories. Whether or there are more (or less) than four is not important, of course, but this new era has given me the opportunity to really think: what do I really want to read?

No, this is not a screed on how frustrating it is to read the same variation on a story (or event: I’m looking at you, Blackest Fear Itself Night). If we were irritated by this, we wouldn’t be reading comics. As the new DC books begin to find their way, I look at what stories I am reading from other publishers and realize that some of my books are stuck in a loop for me–which is fine, it’s totally fine, but I guess I am learning to accept that collecting comics week to week is a bit like spinning plates–lots of plates, to be sure, and they spin nicely…but eventually you’ll feel okay letting a few drop, because, well, they ain’t going anywhere and you’re getting tired.

As I think back on the last ten years of my being back in comics, I am definitely finding myself more willing to skip issues in favor of trades or just to drop a book when the story itself just does not thrill me. And while “quality” of the story does matter (I put that in quotes because that’s quite a subjective call), that’s not necessarily the defining factor.

For example, I am basically done with the “City/Planet/Universe as we know it is about to be destroyed unless the hero/heroes take action” story. I used to get as excited as anyone at the prospect of costume superheroes coming together from different books to save the planet, mostly to see how they would (or, more often, would not) work together to save the day. And while I do enjoy those character moments, these big stories have fallen pretty flat over the years, with a very strong beginnings, meandering middles and rushed/slapped together endings.  This reminds me of my friend Zak’s criticism of nearly every Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, where the crew would spend most of the story finding the problem and then solve it in the last few minutes, as opposed to the original Star Trek, where the crew would find the problem at the beginning and spend the rest of the show trying to solve it.  I’ve gone through my share of these kinds of stories for the past ten years and am unwilling to pay for more, partly because I am bored by them and partly because the publishers never seem to actually finish the damn things in a fulfilling way.

You know what? I had a list of other examples, but I actually deleted them because I’d rather be positive about comics — I really do love comics — and it seems unfair to trash stories that other people enjoy.  My point really is something positive anyway: that no matter what kind of stories you enjoy, there are comics that tell them, and, as I get older and have more comics in my brain, I find myself gravitating to different ideas.

I really like the “hero returns to help the new generation” kind of stories. The Dark Knight Returns is a great example of this, sure, but there are others as well – Red comes to mind. Any time a hero comes out of retirement to clean up a mess, I’m there, mostly because I like watching previously disparate generations figure out how to work together–and learn from each other. The “passing of the mantle” kind of story, when the older character accepts that it is time to swallow his pride and support the future, is timeless, and it is interesting to watch different creators tackle it.

Perhaps is because I have enjoyed Criminal so much over the years, I find myself really appreciating crime novels in a new way, especially when the “last” caper completely falls apart and takes the character on a completely different journey.  Indeed, most “this is the last time I ever do ____ ” stories tend to hit a sweet spot for me.

Meditations on growing older, on traveling, on coming to terms with relationships and/or one’s place in the world have become my go-to favorites; books like Local and Daytripper are the ones I seem to lend out the most. This is clearly because I of where I am in my life, where I have a pretty clear memory of what’s happened before and curious visions of the future. I love stories that show people growing up without them realizing it, where they mature in spite of themselves, when they learn to embrace their relationships, their realities, without worrying about what they might missing.

Despite all of the attention that DC has been getting for their relaunching, one of my favorites, if not my most favorite, has to be what is happening in Daredevil. And while there is nothing new, on the surface, about the story, it’s this new tone of the book, this glee in just living that makes me grin when I think about the title–indeed, I think Matt has smiled more in the past four issues of this new run than he has in the past ten years of the title! This shows how you can take a basic story and change one aspect of it, in this case, the character’s attitude, and make something that feels completely new.

I like team books a lot. I like the issues when the team comes together quite a bit, but my two favorite “teams” right now did not spend a whole lot of time at that moment, the characters are just kind of thrown together and, instead of coming together to fight in some huge overblown battle, they are kind of “stuck” together and find themselves on a mission. I am referring to the teams in Uncanny X-Force and, perhaps surprisingly, Demon Knights.  I love a team book with characters who are not really all that sure of each other, when characters harbor frustrations, worries and resentment but work together when they need to. Of course this kind of situation only works when you have writers who really enjoy those dynamics, but when properly handled, sign me up.

There is, of course, a theme here: I am beginning to gravitate to stories that are more personal in nature.  I like books where the creation and maintaining of relationships are central struggles. And while it is tempting to say, “oh, I still love the big explosions and big fights in my comics” to cover my ass, I’m not going to say it. With few exceptions, I no longer care about the big fights, because they are consequence free—which is totally fine.  I am glad those kinds of books sell comics, but I’ve seen my heroes get their asses kicked and torn apart, I mean, I saw Batman die, and he came back. Death means nothing in superhero comics, which is part of what makes comics timeless and ensures these characters can be around for audiences to come. Once you accept that death has no meaning…then you just end up looking for something else from which to generate conflict.

No story is original; I get it. The trick is telling stories that are so compelling that you don’t think about the similarities with other works until after you are done, when the moment is over. Then you can look back and tie themes and concepts together, which is fulfilling in a different way. But for the most part, there are certain stories that I am just kind of done with.

The DC relaunch has provided readers the chance to explore new takes on classic heroes. It has invited new and lapsed readers to start fresh on a new continuity that will define modern comics for decades to come – the ultimate “jumping on” point.  It was also the ultimate “jumping off” point, a chance for regular readers to decide whether or not they were “done” with those characters.  I know that I am committing to fewer books than I thought, precisely because I don’t necessarily need to see variations on the “usual” kind of comic book stories. I am picking up books like Resurrection Man, Demon Knights and Animal Man because the characters are new to me and bring with them different kinds of stories. This might be the best aspect of the “New 52”–the introduction of totally new books, characters and concepts, and if that means eschewing books like Superman and Detective Comics for something off that well worn and oft-beaten path, than so be it – I’m ready.

 Mike Romo is an actor in LA. For the record, he really like new Ultimate Spider-Man. Email/Twitter/Facebook/Google+ are all perfectly reasonable ways to yell at contact him.