Highway 62

But even when Marvel was doing the shock of the new under Bill Jemas’ watch, you could be sure that all of the characters would be familiar. Sure, the takes on them might be different, but it’s still Daredevil, The X-Men, The Hulk, et al. Even the much-vaunted Ultimates are simply a reworked Avengers, essentially the same characters. You may choose to argue this point until you’re blue in the face, but the fact is that without The Avengers (particularly those early issues), there would not be an Ultimates.

Marvel didn’t create any new characters under that particular management team. Not new franchise characters, anyways. One can suppose that a lot of what Grant Morrison created for New X-Men will live on (particularly his take on Emma Frost, though again, an old character who’s been updated) and maybe even some of the kids like Angel, Beak and the Special Class might live on (those having being created anew.) Of course, those are exceptions. The rule is to take something familiar and slap a new coat of paint on it. Like Ultimate anything.

This does not make the Ultimate line bad comics. Ultimate Spider-Man gets a lot of good reviews, from people who’s opinion I respect. But the fact is that there’s nothing new there other than the spin. When the introduction of Ultimate Black Cat is made to be a big deal, though, I have to shake my head. And please feel free to correct me, but have there been any new villains introduced in the Ultimate Universe? Any new heroes? I’m having trouble naming one.

But this isn’t a problem that’s unique to Marvel. DC spends an awful lot of time and energy reinventing old characters (though I should probably call them ‘properties’) for the modern market. Oftentimes, it’s hugely successful. The Losers is a great, fun book, but it’s based (albeit loosely) on an old DC team of the same name. Doom Patrol is about to see a relaunch, Teen Titans was just a few months ago.

Hell, some of the most memorable comics out of DC ever have been retreads. Swamp Thing, which I love dearly, is a reinvention. Granted, it’s great work and exhibits a stunning depth of story and experimental technique. But it’s a retread of a (then) nearly fifteen-year-old character. Yes, Alan Moore and company added a lot to what had come before (including the creation of John Constantine, who would go on to anchor the Vertigo imprint). But it’s built on the work of others.

If I was to look at Mr. Moore’s DC work, I’d also point out that he did very little totally original work for them. V for Vendetta, which was started out of Warrior magazine in the UK, was finished at DC (pre-Vertigo, if memory serves) and was the only piece spun out of whole cloth. Watchmen, remember, was based on the old Charlton heroes, though at one time, the actual Charlton characters were going to get used in that work.

This is more than a little puzzling to me, as Alan Moore has gone on to create many memorable characters (as well as some classic reinventions), but not so many for DC directly (true, he went back to DC after a fashion, when Wildstorm was sold to DC). Yes, he played with DC’s toybox (rather extensively, and to great effect) but his best work was created outside it.

Now, I understand the impulse and desire to play with these mythologies, these universes created from the works of others and their raw imaginations, but it seems to me, particularly in the world of the superhero comic, that we’ve become addicted to it. I don’t know if it’s conservatism run totally amok or fear or what it actually is. But I do know that it’s going to kill us.

Whether you consider it necrophilia or laziness or unabashed fanboyosity, comics can’t survive on a diet of infinitely re-warmed leftovers. Sure, they might have started out as filet mignon, but enough trips through the microwave and they’re going to be tougher than the beef jerky that you found under the seat of your car that you’d lost three summers ago. It isn’t enough that we get new creative blood in the mix (which, thankfully, we seem to get fairly regularly).

We need new characters, new worlds, new visions. Reinventions are fine and dandy (I liked League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as much as the next guy, but The Invisibles, even with its flaws, is a far more satisfying and provocative work) but if you live by them, you’ll be stuck in some kind of endless loop. Even if the new work surpasses the original (which does happen, but that’s the exception, not the rule) it’s ultimately not much more than pastiche. Yes, there are reinventions that have made a place for themselves, right alongside the original. But honestly, out of the deluge of retreads, there are very few (Doom Patrol as imagined by Grant Morrison and the recent Catwoman series by Ed Brubaker, et al, strike me as two examples) that stand up on their own merits.

Does being an original work automatically make a work better? No, of course not. But an original work that succeeds so far outshines the other stuff, it’s startling. Sure, they’re not all going to succeed. They’re going to stumble along the way. They’re not going to be bought sight unseen (which is pretty much how comics are bought by retailers before you even see ‘em) because they have familiar characters Like You’ve Always Seen Them Before!

Original work takes chances that franchises could never take and they can succeed far beyond franchises (not to mention grab readers who won’t feel it necessary to bone up on thirty years of back history to enjoy the work.)

The toybox is a lot of fun to play with, no doubt. But the fact of the matter is that there’s only a couple hundred toys to play with, and some of ‘em are looking pretty shopworn by now. Sure, some new toys would be nice. But a new game altogether? Now that would be welcome.