Tale Out of Time, Part 2

Last time, I mentioned how the comics in my local shop were pushed back from their original publication dates, and that issues meant to arrive in spring are just now coming out. There have been a lot of titles cancelled, too. It’s unfortunate, but predictable. Casual reading can’t be the first priority when people are under a lot of financial stress.

Something else struck me in reading the actual issues. So many of these tales have become very dark, almost nihilistic. For instance, after decades of fighting injustice, the X-men have given up on peace and become tyrants themselves. At the end of the latest Thor, it was revealed that the upcoming villains will be Marvel Zombies, one of the most grisly and horrific creations in comicdom.

My point isn’t that the writers and illustrators “owe” me a certain kind of story. It’s that the world has changed so much. We have a deadly pandemic, protests and rioting across the country, the approach of an incredibly tense election. Plus, massive fires and hurricanes! In this setting, the thought of Marvel Zombies is unbearable to me. I can’t read that stuff right now.

Could the comics writers have known, when they planned those titles, that all this hell would break loose? Maybe they might have realized the election was likely to set people on edge. That fires and hurricanes come every summer. But for the protests and the pandemic, these publishers, editors, writers and artists are caught in the tides of history just as much as the rest of us. Nihilistic storytelling isn’t going to work in this setting. They are going to have to find a new tale to tell, and fast.

Again, this isn’t to chastise a particular company and its creative staff. For all of us who are writing in the midst of this, we do really need to plan ahead, extrapolate, and make sensitive choices.

What world will our stories be born into? And how will our work help readers get through it all?

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