Ch-Ch-Changes

Originally published April 21, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1379

“Things were better the way they used to be.”

“Why can’t they leave well enough alone?”

“Why do they have to change everything?”

I’ve been reading that a lot lately in relation to comics… and in relation to me and my humble endeavors. I’ve read it everywhere from message boards to internet columns.

It’s not something that I can deny, of course. My run on Hulk was marked by repeated changes to the character, driving some fans to distraction as they proclaimed that my version of the Hulk was not true to the original character. The response to that, of course, is… what original character would that be? The one who spoke in short but grammatically correct sentences and changed at night? The one who was basically a mute puppet of Rick Jones? The thuggish bruiser who changed because Bruce Banner voluntarily stepped in front of a gamma machine? All versions which occurred in the first six issues alone.

My endeavors on Aquaman were received with vituperation by no less an authority than acclaimed (and rightly so) director Kevin Smith (whose own career has been utterly unmarked by controversy.) The fact that the series was actually being read was, to many, almost beside the point.

As for Supergirl, it would have been easy to transform the series into a virtual clone of the other “S” titles. Very easy. And then I could have spent a few months watching fans complain that she’s not Kara, and why should they buy a book that’s a virtual clone of the core Superman titles when the Superman titles are right there? After which the book would likely be canceled. I knew I couldn’t count on the Superman audience to support it, so I opted to give the series an entirely different tone and style and developed the entire Earthborn angel mythology. I hoped that by developing a separate audience while picking up at least some of the Superman readers, I might help the title survive.

After all, these days that’s the name of the game. It’s not just about creative decisions or entertainment. It’s about pulling in enough readers just to keep yourself, and the title, above water. That’s the job I’m being hired to do. And recently fans of Supergirl celebrated what they felt was a milestone as the current series rolled past the total number of all previous series starring Supergirl combined. Like the song goes, “I’m Still Here.”

Much of the protest is raised by something that publishers never used to take into consideration: Long time fans. Once upon a time, the conventional wisdom was that there was a complete turnaround in readership every four years or so. The notion that there would be readers who would even remember, much less care about, stories that happened ten, twenty, thirty years ago simply didn’t factor in to creative decisions that were made. Naturally I wasn’t privy to those decisions, but I think it’s a fairly safe assumption, considering the way that histories would be blithely reinterpreted (how many totally different races did Mars have, anyway?)

The thing is, what I hear a lot is the “sandbox” theory. The “caretaker” theory is another. That as writers of work-for-hire characters, we are playing with someone else’s toys, so to speak. That we are merely the “caretakers” of these characters and are obligated to treat them, not like people whose lives change, but rather like blister packed action figures whose adventures must ultimately leave them perfect, untouched… mint.

The obvious answer is that, by dint of the fact that the stories appear at all, we’re in violation of neither. After all, the companies own the characters. The editors, the powers that be, are approving publication of the story. Legally, they are the ones whose toys these are. So when I replace Aquaman’s hand with a harpoon, when I transform Supergirl into an Earthborn angel, when Bruce Banner’s personalities are merged into one wise-cracking-but-tormented individual… it’s “okay” because the owners of the properties have approved it.

The problem is that the fans feel they have a proprietary interest. They like the characters just so. And when the characters aren’t that way, why, the person making those changes must be disrespectful. Aquaman used to be a cheerful, short-haired, pleasant guy who chatted with fish and had no problem with the mantle of kingship. Supergirl was a pleasant, naïve cousin of Superman (Superman in a skirt, as some would uncharitably say). Sure, they had been unable to sustain their own titles in those guises, but so what? Why couldn’t Aquaman be just like he was before… so he could be safely cancelled? Why couldn’t Supergirl be Kara Zor-El once again… so she could be ignored and tossed on the dustheap once more?

Fans say it’s disrespectful of the character… but is that really what it’s about? I mean, the fans have to know on some level that this is just fiction, the works just comic books.

Is it disrespectful to the original creators? I don’t think so. Creators understand that change is what stories are all about. Indeed, if a character is adaptable enough to still have something to say to new generations of readers, albeit in different form, that’s a compliment to the character’s versatility, not a slam at the original concept. My God, look at the original incarnation of Batman: A solo and grim vigilante, armed, shooting at criminals, showing not one iota of pity at the death of his enemies. Contrast that to the Batman of barely a decade or so later, sworn off guns, accompanied by Robin and undergoing adventures so far out that they bordered on the hallucinogenic. And are we to feel that the entire Silver Age can fairly be summarized as a massive dissing of the Golden Age as new characters bore the names of old ones?

Face it, guys… it ain’t about the characters, nor is it about the original creators. It’s about you, the fans. More specifically, the fan ego. Because you like the characters the way they are. So if they change, fans feel (I believe) that it’s an insult directed at them and at their taste.

I’ve never been a big fan of retcons precisely because of that, because there’s an implied message that there was something wrong with those stories and, by extension, if you liked them, there’s something wrong with you, too. I’ve tried to avoid doing that myself. I didn’t contradict stories that went on with Aquaman, Supergirl and Hulk before I started on the title (well, not intentionally, at any rate.) I tried to build on what had gone before and go off in a different direction. But for some fans, even that is a transgression, an abomination. The characters “worked” as they were. Why not keep them that way?

Well… because if they are kept that way, they’ll probably cease working. What fans say they want is a very different thing from what they actually want. What you guys actually want is to have your imagination engaged. I know because, hey, I used to be on that side of the fence. When I was reading comics as a fan, I remember the astonishment when Green Arrow changed literally overnight from a pleasant Batman-clone with a sidekick and trick arrows into a bearded, angry activist. Oddly enough, I didn’t know enough to feel outrage (as would surely have been the reaction nowadays.) The entirety of my reaction was, “Cool. This is different. What happens next?”

Change is nothing new to comics. Change is part of comics. Grim Batman becomes Goofy Batman turns into New Look Batman. Kryptonite-Vulnerable-But-Otherwise-Invincible Superman becomes Kryptonite-Gone-But-Less-Powerful Superman. Green Arrow becomes Mean Arrow. Those who are self-appointed defenders of comic book tradition might want to acknowledge that in making changes to characters, modern creators are in fact upholding a genuine tradition of change, rather than adhering to a fan-created mandate of frozen-in-amber status quo. A status quo that evolves, not from any realistic look at the history of comics, but rather an ego-centric view that says, “I like what I like when I like it, and anything that varies from what I like is disrespectful of me.”

Except nothing can be further from the truth. If creators really had no respect for the fans… we’d just give you same-old same-old and figure you won’t care. Coming up with something different is a lot more work than recycling what’s gone before. Fans are entitled to better than rehash.

Come to think of it… when the new version of Green Arrow showed up… if he’d lost his hand and had it replaced with a bow, that’d have been even better…

(Peter David, writer of stuff can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)