Today's
escapist storytellers share a rich legacy, from classic TV to great SF
novels. But most of us also guzzled superhero comics during our
formative years. And the writing of Stan Lee, John Byrne and countless
others shaped us, in good ways and bad. Here are seven story pitfalls we
picked up from classic superhero comics.
George R.R.
Martin wrote fan letters to Marvel Comics. And many of today's most
prominent television writers cut their teeth on superhero comics as
well. And it's easy to see how people benefited from an early exposure
to the work of great comics creators, including a sense of dynamism and a
love of escapism. You can learn so much about great storytelling from
reading classic superhero comics.
At the same
time, sometimes the influence of classic comics can be a mixed bag, and
you pick up stuff that could be a hindrance. Including these overused
habits:
1. Action scenes just happen, because it's time for one
Especially
in older superhero comics, fight scenes just sort of erupt every few
pages. When two heroes meet, they have to fight before they can team up,
villains just randomly attack or turn out to be robbing a bank nearby,
etc. etc. It's kind of awesome and beautiful, but also a smidge random.
Like, action happens not because it drives the story or even because it
makes you want to pump your fist in the air — but just because there's a
need for a few pages of punching here. And you definitely see that in
lots of movies and some books and television too. There's nothing wrong
with a gratuitous action scene, as long as it's actually awesome and not
just obligatory.
2. Ornamental Dialogue
Back in the
day, tons of superhero comics were written in the "Marvel style," where
the writer would supply a detailed outline, the artist would draw it,
and then dialogue would be added last. But even in other cases, often
the artist would wind up changing things around to the point where all
new dialogue had to be slotted in. (And in some cases, one writer came
up with the story, and a different writer got the finished pages and
made up dialogue, sometimes just coming up with random jokes to fit each
panel.) In any case, one of the hallmarks of comic book-influenced
writing, on occasion, is the scene in which the pacing is "off" because
unnecessary amounts of dialogue is being thrown in. Or there's a long
speech (akin to one designed to fill a splash page). Or — my favorite —
people pause in the middle of an action scene to trade quips or barbs.
3. Grim and angsty = tough and sophisticated
Especially
starting in the mid-1980s with the new, edgy wave of superhero comics,
comics creators took on the notion that "grim 'n' gritty" heroes and
copious amounts of angst were a reasonable substitute for depth. By the
1990s, everybody was going "dark," and wallowing in angst was the
preferred mode of emotional expression for everyone from the X-Men to
the Justice League. And the influence of grim/angsty storytelling on
heroic narratives can still be seen today, with fantastic superpowers
often portrayed as a terrible burden that weighs down your soul.
4. The Illusion of Change
Stan Lee
invented the notion of "illusion of change" to explain how, in his
comics, you would be tricked into thinking the story was developing
while it actually wasn't. And if you read those phone book-sized
Essential Marvel volumes, you really get a sense of this — the story is
constantly churning and the status quo constantly seems to shift. But
any actual change in the characters' circumstances is glacial or
illusory, or subject to sudden reversals. It's not that characters like
Peter Parker or Bruce Banner didn't change over time — but if you read
their comics month to month, you'd be left with the impression that
things were happening at blinding speed, while in fact it took years for
real shifts to occur. Lots of people creating serialized narratives
nowadays try to create the same "illusion of change," with mixed results
— when done badly, or overdone, it can just look like nothing in the
story makes any sense, because the superficial changes seem too random.
5. Over-reliance on "Origin Stories"
This one is
slightly more of a gray area — origin stories can be a powerful tool in
heroic stories, and they can help to make a hero or villain seem clear
and relatable. A single story sets up the hero or villain's motivation
and explains how they got launched on this path. But not everybody has a
single incident that causes all of his or her behavior. And not
everybody has a single, clear-cut motivation that "explains" everything —
people sometimes are just a product of their upbringing and a
constellation of random experiences. So not everybody needs an "origin
story."
6. Female characters are just love interests or distaff versions of the men
This is a
problem with heroic narratives generally, going back centuries — but
superhero comics gave us the stereotypical romance narrative, where Lois
Lane loves Superman but spurns Clark Kent, not realizing they're the
same guy. And while characters like Lois Lane or Mary Jane Watson are
tough and adventurous, they're also usually defined by their
relationships to their male heroes — plus superhero comics gave us the
weird trend of creating female versions of male characters, like
She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl or Ms. Marvel. Instead of
getting to be their own heroes, female characters often got stuck
becoming the "girl" versions of the "men." And writers who were
influenced by superhero comics often get stuck with this mindset. Supergirl/Batgirl art by Thony Silas Dias de Aguiar
7. Reboots, retcons, imaginary stories and insane redundancy
And
finally, there's the big one. Superhero comics really pioneered the
notion of retcons — aka retroactive continuity, in which some element is
introduced in the hero's past which we're told was "always" true. And
then, with stories like Crisis on Infinite Earths, superhero
comics also gave us the "reboot," in which a hero's past is completely
rewritten by someone punching reality or whatever. And going back to
the 1960s, superhero stories also gave us the "imaginary story," like
the saga of Superman and Batman's sons — which probably led to the final
season of Roseanne among other things. And finally, superhero
stories have given us insane redundancy, in which the same stories are
told over and over again with the details slightly changed each time.
All of this has helped to pioneer the notion that continuity is
important — important enough to obsess over — but completely gooey and
fungible. You can squash continuity and smush it and stretch it out and
warp it back on itself, and it'll bounce back somehow. Hence the years
of movies and TV shows (and sometimes even books) screwing around with
their own continuity and also endlessly mashing the "restart" button on
long-running sagas.
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