Following Creators Instead of Characters

Having spent the past month or so diving back into my love of comics and again thinking long and hard about what I love about this medium, I’m ready to without any doubt state the following truth about my reading habits moving forward: my days of buying a comic based on character(s) alone are long, long behind me. I’m not judging those who choose to buy every Batman or X-Men comic just because their favorite character(s) are on the cover; I just cannot justify that purchasing rationale for myself any longer.

I also no longer give a shit about either the Marvel or DC’s Universes respective status quos, how one of their upcoming events or reboots is going to change everything in radical new ways, how certain characters or aspects of continuity have been retconned out of canon, or any other sort of questions I used to have to worry about as part of my job covering DC and Marvel comics for IGN. In short, I am now exclusively interested in reading and purchasing comics I find entertaining, well-crafted and interesting. And in terms of mainstream superhero comics, that means I am now pretty much only concerned with reading comics by creators whose work I enjoy, preferably those who have the freedom to spend a lengthy amount of time on one title or franchise.

If you think back to every memorable, acclaimed superhero run over the past four decades, almost without fail those runs came about from a very specific set of circumstances: Marvel or DC placed a character or franchise into the hands of one creative team and then allowed said team the freedom to tell an extended, serialized story or set of stories starring that character with little interference from editorial or the rest of the shared universe. 

 In the case of younger, unproven creators like a 1979 Frank Miller – or later, a 2000 Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev – on Daredevil, the talented greenhorn(s) are able to take a low-selling character and really break new ground in terms of both reimagining a concept and finding their own voice as storytellers. For flagship characters like Superman, Batman or X-Men, great runs come about when Marvel or DC place their trust in a proven, A-list talent like Grant Morrison, Joss Whedon or Geoff Johns to put their respective stamps on an icon or icons while enjoying that same level of freedom. In any case, the operative two words when it comes to what makes a great run are freedom and length. Without the freedom to take new risks, nothing exciting is ever going to be done with these decades old characters, and without a significant amount of space or length to tell those stories, no creator or creative team is ever going to get around to turning either themselves or the title into something special.

All of this got me thinking about where the Big Two of Marvel and DC currently stand in regards to granting their talent the freedom and length to tell great runs. On the surface, Marvel seems the most dedicated to providing creators the right environment in which to succeed. Matt Fraction’s Iron Man, Ed Brubaker’s Captain America and Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four are just three of the great, memorable runs that have garnered both critical and fan acclaim in recent years thanks to these conditions. Coincidentally, all three of these runs are coming to an end in the coming months thanks to Marvel’s NOW! Initiative, which, to Marvel’s credit, at least on the surface seems dedicated to merely shuffling creative teams around titles while still giving them freedom and length moving forward.

That being said, when you look at Marvel’s output and editorial philosophies over the past five years, it’s pretty damn hard to say with a straight face that any creator has enjoyed a real sense of freedom with any Marvel Universe series. With the company stuck in a seemingly never-ending cycle of building from one event into the next, no title has been free from the need to service the latest crossover in some way, shape or form. Even Fraction’s Iron Man and Brubaker’s Captain America became bogged down in each successive crossover, which I imagine will make it very difficult to go back and read those runs as extended, self-contained stories once they’re complete. More likely, when looking back at any modern Marvel creator’s lengthy run, I imagine very few will stand as freely and timelessly as say, Miller and Bendis’ respective Daredevil turns, both of which were virtually untouched by any other series or editorial edict.

DC is another story all together, and a far more depressing one at that. With the exception of Morrison, who appears to be the one creator who still has free reign to tell only the stories he wants to tell using DC’s flagship characters, nearly every single creator at DC currently seems to be charged first and foremost with servicing the greater needs of the New 52 initiative, with telling good stories coming in a far distant second. Scott Snyder, who is doing a phenomenal job with Batman, is the only possible second exception, yet even he appears to be burdened with crossovers designed to enhance sales of the other, lesser Batman books. Until DC gets their house in order, figures out what the hell they are doing from an editorial standpoint and what they want from each of their titles, I don’t imagine the New 52 turning into any sort of environment conducive to great, memorable superhero runs by one creator or creative team. And until that changes, I don’t think I’ll be buying many DC titles that don’t have the words Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder or Vertigo emblazoned on the cover.

Which is all a roundabout way of reestablishing the fact that I’m now more dedicated to reading and supporting creator-owned work than ever before. It’s there, in the creator-owned corner of the industry, where writers and artists are free to tell the stories they want to tell, the way they want to tell them, for the amount of time and space they want to tell them. Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ Saga; Eric Powell’s Goon; Kirkman and Adlard’s Walking Dead; Jason Aaron’s Scalped; Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Fatale, Criminal and Incognito; Fraction and Moon’s Casanova – these are the titles that get me excited to plop down money at the comic shop or Comixology. There are a few Marvel titles out there that do the same, like Mark Waid’s Daredevil and Snyder’s Batman. These days, though, the Big Two comics I’m interested in are greatly outnumbered by the independents. And I’m fine with that.

Finally, though it should go without saying, I still feel the need to point out that a fan who buys comics based on characters and titles regardless of quality has very little right to turn around and complain about Marvel and DC churning out shitty comics. You keep buying them, and they’ll keep printing them. Vote with your wallet. Support creators whose work you enjoy, or whose work is garnering critical or fan acclaim to the point where you think they might be worth your hard earned money. We all like these superhero characters – just because one is your favorite doesn’t mean you have to buy every comic with that character on the cover. Or you can listen to the rather extreme and vulgar advice of The Goon and Frankie, and give up superhero comics all together. I'm close, but not quite there yet. 

That’s it for tonight. As always, please pass links and word of the blog onto your friends. I’m still figuring this whole blogging thing out, re-polishing my writing chops and trying to find a vision for this blog. I’ll get there. For now, you keep reading, and I promise to keep writing.