The Major Problem No One Wants To Admit With Superhero Comics
1. Why Comics Can't Just Be Like The Movies
Prior to the release of House of X, writer Jonathan Hickman chimed in with his own piece of wisdom regarding the comics medium's tendency to try and sync their efforts up with Hollywood in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. While it's not the only reason why superhero books are so afraid of genuinely seismic change these days (bar the X-Men, who are something of an anomaly), it's certainly a big one.
"I think one of the big mistakes that some people make at Marvel Comics is that we are reactive to what they’re doing in the Marvel films. We should not be taking our creative cues from the direction they’re taking things in the movies. That kind of defeats the point. They have a billion dollars to play with, and we don’t. You can’t compete in that matter, and you shouldn’t. My argument has been [that] I should always be way out in front of that stuff. All of that stuff is being drawn from source material. It goes back to, are you being destructive or are you being additive? If you’re being additive and you’re on the big books, it’s inevitable that some of that stuff is going to get used. When Marvel films gets around to the X-Men and we’ve done interesting stuff and they want to use it, that’s awesome. If they don’t, then they don’t. One makes your job expendable, the other one makes you priceless. I like having value to my work."
Too often, Marvel and DC have endeavoured to make sure their comics match up with whatever's transpiring on screen. The year Infinity War premiered in theatres also saw the introduction of a whole new event about the Infinity Gems called Infinity Wars; legacy heroes are chopped and changed to accommodate on-screen trends all the time, and it's not too infrequent to see characters altered to more closely resemble their on screen counterparts, either visually or even personality wise.
The main issue currently is that comics are meant to be the vanguard of superhero pop culture, and yet they're too often afraid to take the bold steps they were famous for during their formative moments. That may yet change, but when the most mature and - dare I say it - exciting depiction of Spider-Man over the last decade comes in a video game, one that was brave enough to depict the character as an adult with changing relationships and responsibilities, something is evidently not right.
Has the sheer expanse of these mythologies prohibited more lasting change? Is it the increasing dominance of big screen superhero fiction? Or is it just the case that there's a genuine anxiety that comic book characters can't survive past their most recognisable incarnations?
Whatever the cause, comics cannot afford to stand still. They never used to, and they certainly shouldn't now.