Every so often, I'll dip into the vast pool of information that is Wikipedia and bone up on what's going on in the world of comics. Everytime, I'm reminded why I'm not into comics with the exception of Mike Mignola's brilliant Hellboy and the odd stand-alone book like The Long Halloween or something by Alan Moore. For example, check out this summary of DC's current story arc, Final Crisis. Then, follow the links you find to read up on various comic book heroes, villains, and so on. It's all rather dizzying...an array of characters who undergo everything from death, resurrection and possession/manipulation, parallel universes and dimensions, gods, wizards, scientists, aliens. You'll find everything, including the proverbial sink, in play in the DC universe - something that applies to the Marvel universe as well. But how is it that a fictional universe can put non-powered characters like Batman and the Question alongside superheroes like Superhero, sorcerors like Dr. Strange, and even Neil Gaiman's sandman characters? In other words, what kind of fictional universe is it that sees science, magic, the divine, the hellish, and the supernatural co-exist? Answer: a narratively bankrupt universe. When anything can happen in a story's universe, the experiences characters have don't mean all that much.
It's the mad path of anti-climax, with all the drama and emotion sucked out of the story because the writers/creators are unwilling to set down limits that even they, as storytellers, can't cross. This is what happened with Season 2 of Heroes. Tim Kring and the writing staff not only jumped the shark, but catapulted themselves across it by indulging the very soap opera theatrics of mainstream comic book storytelling. Instead of killing Sylar off - he did get rammed through with a sword - they keep him alive, yet depowered, for an inane plot that does not develop his character but instead becomes a time-filler for him to regain his power and resume his wicked brain-eating (!?) ways. Instead of killing Nathan off - a noble sacrifice for his brother - he too is kept alive. But the clincher is Noah Bennett's death and ressurection. Forget that Mohinder was made into a douchebag and that it was probably not a good idea to stage Noah's death; the writers killed him and they should have had the guts to stuck with it. It was, after all, dramatic and filled with the promise of all sorts of interesting dilemmas for Claire. But no. He had to be revived. With Claire's blood. Now all the show's characters have to do is run around with an epipen filled with Claire's blood and jam in their legs whenever they get a big bad boo-boo. And to top it off, the Heroes graphic novels hint strongly that the immortal Adam, whose horrific but strangely poetic live burial created quite an impact, might yet be released from his from his underground prison. So there it is: no death, no permanence, no reason to care what happens because it can all be reversed at a writer's whim. And no reason to watch Heroes anymore.
It's the mad path of anti-climax, with all the drama and emotion sucked out of the story because the writers/creators are unwilling to set down limits that even they, as storytellers, can't cross. This is what happened with Season 2 of Heroes. Tim Kring and the writing staff not only jumped the shark, but catapulted themselves across it by indulging the very soap opera theatrics of mainstream comic book storytelling. Instead of killing Sylar off - he did get rammed through with a sword - they keep him alive, yet depowered, for an inane plot that does not develop his character but instead becomes a time-filler for him to regain his power and resume his wicked brain-eating (!?) ways. Instead of killing Nathan off - a noble sacrifice for his brother - he too is kept alive. But the clincher is Noah Bennett's death and ressurection. Forget that Mohinder was made into a douchebag and that it was probably not a good idea to stage Noah's death; the writers killed him and they should have had the guts to stuck with it. It was, after all, dramatic and filled with the promise of all sorts of interesting dilemmas for Claire. But no. He had to be revived. With Claire's blood. Now all the show's characters have to do is run around with an epipen filled with Claire's blood and jam in their legs whenever they get a big bad boo-boo. And to top it off, the Heroes graphic novels hint strongly that the immortal Adam, whose horrific but strangely poetic live burial created quite an impact, might yet be released from his from his underground prison. So there it is: no death, no permanence, no reason to care what happens because it can all be reversed at a writer's whim. And no reason to watch Heroes anymore.
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