Making iconic comic book characters more “realistic” or “grimmer” or “grittier” is most often the product of a bankrupt imagination rather than the opposite. These icons exist within a framework and have flaws built into their make-up given to them by their original creators.
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When your favorite, beloved character is revealed to be a deviant basketcase or found dead in an alley after being sexually violated it’s more a case of unbridled hubris rather than unbridled imagination. They’ve thrown out the rulebook, the characterization and decades of continuity and shrug when people object. It’s “what the audience demands.” That’s true if your audience is a steadily-shrinking one populated by increasingly cynical fans who fancy themselves as critics. Lately editors, publishers and/or creators have simply thrown in the creative towel with the lame “it’s all been done before.” Really? And why is this a problem now when it wasn’t over the prior fifty years?
Largely, the creators have eschewed plot for characterization. They want to explore what makes the character work and have that be what drives the stories. Try that with your iPhone and call me on a landline later to tell me how it all worked out.
In genre fiction, plot separates the men from the boys. Come up with an interesting, engaging story with rising action built into it and then set your character in motion within that plot. Only a dullard repeatedly extrapolates on a character’s personality and calls it a story. Only a dullard would enjoy that. Sure, you can get away with it once in a while and it’s cool to reward readers with some new revelation or reaction based on the antagonist’s core beliefs or conflicts. Those are moments that thrill longtime fans and add depth to the character’s world for casual readers. But these Tennessee Williams plays that go on for years and reach no cathartic resolution are tiresome; especially when presented in a medium and genre where we want to see the hero and his cast doing something.
