At a recent book reading and signing, Joe Hill responded to a question about his influences by recalling a particular quote, one stating that “all fiction is essentially just fan fiction.” And, believe it or not, it got me thinking about a lot of things, particularly in the world of comics.
For frame of reference before we begin, a brief story: every year for Free Comic Book Day, I have one small tradition. I like to go to a comic shop I’ve either never been to before or one that I rarely visit (I’ve been to most if not all Boston-based shops), and I try out something new. I don’t pick up whatever big thing Marvel and DC are giving away, but try and pick something up that I may not be familiar with, and I’ll usually get a trade or two as well (this year’s haul can be seen here, for those curious) of something I’ve never read before. After sitting down to read these books, the quote from the Hill signing percolated in my brain, to the point where one of the books I’d picked up made me groan with its assimilation of outside influence into a new narrative.
At which point, it hit me: Wow. A lot of this stuff only works because it is, in one way or another, spawn from Marvel and DC that isn’t being published at Marvel or DC. It’s fan fiction in the sense that while it may use new characters, all of our understanding of motivation and narrative comes from an already established world by the two biggest comic companies out there. And, in a manner of speaking, that’s a bit disappointing.
This isn’t a revolutionary thought, mind you. In fact, sometimes it’s the point. There’s an arc very early on into Kirkman, Walker and Ottley’s “Invincible” in which the Justice League (but not, like, the “real” Justice League) is killed off, and it only works because you assuredly know the joke that is being played here. But the disparaging aspect comes from stories that are masquerading as original and perhaps even “new” creator-owned superhero stories that are going to do something different — when, really, they’re just tricking the reader into believing it’s something other than what it really is.
In fact, I’d dare say that this idea of lightly changing already established characters and calling it creator-owned is beginning to be a bit of problem. While not to sound generic or petty but to make a point of example, look at most of Mark Millar’s creator-owned output. Most of it, except perhaps “Secret Service,” can be summarized with “What if ____ was actually ____?” Watch:
- “Wanted” – What if all the Marvel and DC villains beat all of the Marvel and DC heroes?
- “Kick-Ass” – What if every ground-level hero was kind of shitty, both in terms of who they are as people and who they are as heroes?
- “Hit-Girl” – What if every character from the Teen Titans cartoon was a homicidal lunatic?
- “Nemesis” – What if the Joker was clever like Batman?
- “Super Crooks” – What if the Rogues were in Ocean’s 12? (I’d say 11, but we all liked both versions of 11).
- “Superior” – What if Shazam was actually a cripple? And was also kind of like Superman?
- “Jupiter’s Legacy” – What if the people Superman inspired were really awful, vain, self-centered, etc?
This is a very simplistic look at all of his work completely ignoring the pros and cons of the work itself (depending on how you see them), but it’s never the less essentially true: everything Mark Millar writes in his creator-owned world is just stories he could probably have written for Marvel or DC if they would let him get away with it. (And, depending on how you view Icon’s role, Marvel does.) Hell, even Millar’s work on “The Authority” was just “What if Justice League ruled the world,” and that’s not ignoring the reasons the Authority were created by Ellis and Hitch in the first place. It’s just Millar and his collaborator of choice pushing an already established boundary and pretending that they’re knocking down brand new walls in the world of creator-owned comics. Good for him for figuring out the proper loop hole!
Continued belowThis would be OK to an extent if it didn’t spill out beyond Millar into the greater world of creator-owned fiction. It’s an uphill battle, but it’s a battle none the less: writer’s of creator-owned cape comics are often just writing books on that formula. “Youngblood” was born out of a “Teen Titans” pitch, “Supurbia” asks what if the Justice League were crossed over with Real Housewives, “Irredeemable” and who knows how many other books are just Superman What If stories, “The Boys” was just a book where Garth Ennis and Darrick Roberson killed half of Marvel and DC’s most famous characters, “The Victories” wondered what might’ve happened if Batman was molested, etc. These books have their own individual pros and cons that you can decide for yourself (I think “Supurbia” is charming in its own way), and while the books never the less start at a place that can at times be considered satire or perhaps even parody, the point is that they’re not; the idea is that these books are something new, which seems implausible based on it inherently being not new at all.
You can still get good books out of this idea, of course. The main thing is whether or not the story is being told well, right? “Invincible” is excellent, or at the very least the first 76 issues of it (I haven’t been crazy about everything post-‘Viltrumite War’). Despite not being published frequently enough, “Danger Club” is the best Teen Titans book around. “Powers” just does what “Gotham Central” did before “Gotham Central” was even a thing, just with more swears and a convenient facade. Where books like these succeed, though, is that they quickly evolve outside of their initial shackles; everyone wants to write a popular superhero title because that’s clearly where the money is, but not everyone can ostensibly take their stories into a place where they are truly theirs and not just knock-offs. Things like “Invincibles” and “Powers” clearly evolved from their initial points of origin, and that’s why these books are a success where others are less so.
I think it’s safe to consider “Powers” a creator-owned success. I don’t think “Kick-Ass,” even with a feature film, can adjust to the same claim, because it’s ultimately just parody attempting to masquerade as satire at this point. It’s creator-owned in the way that Meet the Spartans is an original film.
And sure, a lot of Marvel/DC output these days reads as fan fiction. It’s not inherently fair to just harp on the creator-owned world of cape comics for telling childhood dream stories. Geoff Johns’ career is built on fan fiction, and that’s the only reason you have the formally deceased Hal Jordan and Barry Allen supplanting their arguably more popular predecessors, Kyle Rayner and Wally West. Sometimes it all just works out, because really this idea of substitution is actually a rather common trope/element of comics in general. A lot of inspiration comes from a place of trying to recreate the magic of something else in a new format. Look at Alan Moore’s body of work, much of which exists solely as reflections of other works; they’re not quite fan fiction in how I’m talking about it, but books like “Neonomicon,” “Promethea,” “Tom Strong, “Top Ten” and “the League” owe a lot to their influences, especially in their comprehension, and Moore builds on that. “Planetary,” a series that I consider one of the best comics of all time, is literally just three creator-owned characters exploring and dealing with popular archetypes and genres, battling against the Fantastic Four and hanging out with Doc Savage. And in my opinion, that’s ok — you can have influences and be appropriately influenced. The issue comes from otherwise lazy storytelling trying to be something else, which is where this just ultimately dulls a genre down.
In turn, this becomes a challenge that I’m not sure all creator-owned titles are up to. So much of the cape territory has been treaded by Marvel and DC that it seems hard to come up with ideas that aren’t inherently riffing on something either company has already done (even in the case of their own material, where both Batman and Captain America “die” but are really lost in time and come back only to give their protege’s the mantle, only to take it back later because). The name of the game assumedly is to be the Next Big Thing, but to do so requires some true semblance of originality, and I’m not sure this mine has anything left to pull out of it. Or rather, a story whose influence is so hidden within the lines that it can be consumed as a new concept, one that doesn’t wear its influences on its sleeve shamelessly. It’s a lot easier to make a character like Batman than it is to make a character unlike Batman, because if you create another Batman then readers can attach to him. Creating someone from the ground-up? That’s practically a handicap in this game.
Continued belowTruth be told, I’m just getting tired of reading the same stories over and over. It’s a selfish complaint, but you get the gist of things after a while; there are seemingly only so many variations of a theme, and so many creators are ostensibly complacent with just telling stories at face value because they’re lucky enough to get to tell stories in the first place. That certainly has some merit in and of itself I suppose, but it’s this exercise in pseudo-creativity that makes people shy away from creator-owned comics, because if they want a story about Batman they can just buy Batman. They don’t need to buy fake Batman, so why is there such a need to write fake Batman? Or fake Superman? Or fake Spider-Man, fake Wolverine, fake Justice League and fake Avengers? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but only to a point.
I realize that, in many ways, this argument can be misconstrued as an attack. It’s perhaps even a bit more confrontational than it needs to be. I may even seem like a hypocrite somewhere in here. But if there’s one point I’d hope to make, it’s that up and coming writers and creators really need to take chances, to think outside of the box. A lot of pitches are done in the fashion of “What if ___ met ___ and became ___ by way of ___?”, but it’s all starting to blur together in a rather unimaginative way. Creativity — true, honest, unbridled and exciting creativity — shouldn’t need to be contained within the scope of a few established trends; it should be something that flows in its own direction and a story should tell itself. Looking at something like “Five Ghosts” is excellent, because clearly this book has an obvious influence (one of the ghosts alone looks just like a famous literary detective), but its used in such a way that you’re not just reading a comic that’s telling a Sherlock Holmes story, you’re reading one that brilliantly consumes and re-purposes a whole genre. “Theremin” may reference comic books’ existence a decade before comics exist, but it’s a real trip of a comic that takes no prisoners and gives a new spin on the revisionist history trend writers seem to be obsessed with these days. Coming out of the gate free of comparison seems impossible in 2013, but not being restricted by someone else’s established path is possible when actively trying to just do something different.
Seeing a few things fit to a mold rather than evolve in its own fashion isn’t a positive reflection of where storytelling should be in 2013, and frankly I’m just really tired of stories about Batman that aren’t found in comics called “Batman.” If you really want to tell fan fiction, just go ahead in do it. There’s even money in it, to an extent. I mean, if Yale Stewart’s “Little League” has proven nothing else, it’s that fan fiction can be done in smart and seemingly profitable ways. So it’s not like there isn’t precedent for just co-opting these characters in a creative way even if Marvel and DC aren’t shelling out the big bucks for your ideas.
What I’m saying is — if there’s one over-done trope in comics, it’s the idea that you can be exciting by just doing what you can’t do at Marvel and DC, by mocking or killing or re-inventing your heroes in comics and crossing your fingers that no one will notice. Not for nothing, but the books that truly stand out in the creator-owned world do so because they’re something else. People love “Saga” because there’s nothing quite like it in comics, and that’s true. Heck, people love “Hawkeye” because there’s nothing quite like it in comics, and that’s a Marvel cape book. We need more “Locke and Key’s,” more “Morning Glories’,” more “Walking Dead’s,” because while those books still fall into that idea of all fiction being fan fiction on some level (“Locke and Key” references to HP Lovecraft, “Morning Glories” to LOST, “Walking Dead” to George Romero), they’re definitely something that could only exist within their own universes. You can’t take the characters of those books and put them in a Marvel or DC setting, and that’s what makes those particular entrants into the creator-owned world so exciting. That’s what makes venturing into that particular creator-owned universe so worthwhile.
That’s the way it should be. Right?
You can read Marvel and DC’s heroes in Marvel and DC’s books. Use the creator-owned space to do something, anything else.
