I'm sorry? Are you saying it's not a comics creator's job to provide a fun, imaginative story in each and every comic s/he writes or draws?
What a curious notion. Still, it would explain a lot, if it were true.
i think it does explain a lot, actually. Marvel and DC hire people to service existing franchises, not to be creative in a free-form way. they seldom give the creators enough latitude to do anything that's too fun or creative, and increasingly creators don't seem to be looking to do anything fun or creative. most of the time, it's a moot point, because whenever the stars align and the editors and creators let something fun and creative slip through the cracks, the fans usually get pissed.
speaking of Superman in the Sixties, i remember being taken aback when i first read the ad copy for it somewhere, and it talked about how it includes the first appearances of Brainiac, the Bottle City of Kandor, the Fortress of Solitude, Krypto, etc., and it occurred to me how much those things were now part of the established Superman mythos. i tried to imagine what the Superman mythos would have been like without them: very Earth-bound and grounded, in some senses, and what a wild, crazy new direction the Superman books must have seemed like they were taking in such a short time, especially considering that Superman was already an established cultural icon. what an absolutely huge pair of balls that must have taken! what creative freedom they had! i was really hit by the degree to which the transition from the Golden Age to the Silver Age was a really crazy leap into unknown space, incorporating crazy sci-fi concepts and what was, at the time, really cutting edge science and technology.
i mean, honestly: Brainiac. i mean, if someone submitted this today, readers would bitch about this green alien dork who collects cities and puts them in bottles, but can you imagine Superman's world without a Brainiac? or a Supergirl? or even a Darkseid, who's not even strictly speaking a Superman villain to begin with? when did people stop inventing new characters and concepts like this? when did it just get to be an issue of servicing established pantheons of characters?
my hope is that the combination of creative freedom and GM's drug-addled imagination might actually add features this permanent to the Superman legend. |
