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Fantastic Four: The End is out – anyone reading? It follows X-Men: The End, which I didn’t follow, but picked up from The X-Axis that unless you’re a Claremont devotee it was unutterably uninteresting, and entirely failed to address the main themes of the series. I do remember liking Peter David’s Hulk: The End from a few years back. DC have done similar standalone not-quite-canon alternate future style endings, most memorably for the Batman in The Dark Knight Returns, and effectively for the JLA in Kingdom Come. So I’m sure it’s not a new trick, but it does feel like in the ongoing struggle for new material there’s a growing trend for speculative conclusions not just to individual storylines or books, but to the entire currently ongoing mythos of these characters. Which is fine. But what do people think? What’s the right ending for these characters? Is it worth distinguishing between the semi-official conclusions and the Twilight of the Gods themes that run through but do not disturb a series' basic continuity? What books exist that have nailed it - that have summed up the ideals and aspirations of a character or characters' origin and played them out till the right future? And if those books don’t exist, what (serious and non-serious suggestions welcome) should they be about when they do?
I think I remember from a hazy barbe-meet suggesting, possibly unwisely, that an ending story to the (Dark Age) Batman character where he “wins” would involve getting over himself, retiring his utility belt and devoting his time and money to eradicating poverty and the other “real” causes of crime. Which would be as dull as dishwater to read, and would pretty much miss the point of the “ludicrous-villain-battling hairy chested playboy” side to the character. So I don’t think all characters necessarily do have endings that we’d want to see in print. Are efforts like The End: books worth doing? Because there’s not going to be a definitive conclusion to any series making money now, we know that the writers and publishers will mine the myriad of alternate possibilities for each character as long as we remain intrigued. The ongoing debate about the difficulties of balancing a character’s growth and progression with fidelity to their original traits and goals must have contributed to the various retellings of the ending and origin stories (Ultimates, Mythos, Year One, etc.), never mind the moveable feast of their status quo. The sort of arrested bildungsroman of most superhero comics has had to accommodate various reboots, retcons, rejuvenations and rolling presents, as well as events like the marriages of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Nothing new there. But do these events fit into an eventual conclusion for each character, or do they limit its possibilities, leaving a series with nothing left to say? When a character has achieved all their original aims, save maybe the ongoing but ever so tiresome battling of evil, what’s left? And if conclusions show us that state of the character – are they a good idea? |
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