By J.C. Lebourdais

Has anyone noticed how low the degree of innovation in U.S. comics is these days ? All over the place it looks like the powers-that-be’s only move is to revive ancient series, revamped or not, reprint some of the " greatest moments " of their past fame, expecting a new generation of readers not to see that this is nothing but blatant rehash and déjà vu.

You don’t believe it ? Okay, I’ll give you a few hints :

At Marvel John Byrne rewrites Spider-Man’s origin ; fans ponder then realize that Steve Ditko really was a genius.

The Onslaught/Heroes reborn/Heroes return extravaganza is Marvel's equivalent of DC's Crisis on infinite earths : a tabula rasa on which to feed a younger audience with modernized old stories for the core .Marvel titles. The " Golden age of Marvel " collects stories from Timely’s era, much to the reader’s disappointment that such seminal comics could be so unspectacular, to say the least. The silver age isn’t forgotten with not one but two formats: the hardbound " Masterworks " and the paperback " Essential " series which at times reprint the very same comics (FF, Avengers). New titles like " Sentinel of Liberty " and " Marvel Universe " give us " untold " stories of times past.

At DC, 80-page Giants have replaced the annuals ; old name, same recipe. The 30+ volumes of the " Archives " collection and numerous paperbacks (the " Greatest stories ever told " and lots of more recent TPB reprints) show outdated out-of-continuity tales of simpler days. Today’s creators get a stint at old heroes (Starman, Martian Manhunter) ; in the superboy regular series Karl Kesel rewrites bronze and silver age comics like Kamandi and Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen ; he also reintroduces in the DC Universe the notion of parallel earths, despite it was banned after the Crisis.

As a matter of fact, even outside the comics field, can you see that phenomenon happening : U.S. movies recycle old comic book and TV series concepts, stripping them of what was their soul. Why is a movie like " Mission : Impossible " called that way and not " Tom-Cruise-in-another-run-of-the-mill-spy-flicker " ? For the same reason that the new Hourman DC ongoing series got that name : to cash in on nostalgia. Same for " The fugitive ", " The Avengers ", " The Wild wild west " (heck, even " Charlie’s angels " will be given the motion picture treatment !), etc. What’s next ? " The Dukes of Hazzard " ?

On TV, " Peyton " is now called " Melrose " and " Perry " was rechristened " Ally ".

Present-day music , too, is made of shameless sampling (plundering would be more appropriate) and remixes of garbage from the sixties and seventies, that trend being continued in the domain of fashion (I’m puzzled considering those orange-coloured baggy things in which women garb themselves and irrationally believe it fits).

I could go on singing like this forever.

I can clearly remember a time not so long ago when the comics field was bursting with new ideas or at least bright new directions where tentatively " no man had gone before ".

The sixties brought us the Marvel age of comics, birthing the Fantastic Four, Spider-man, The X-Men, all in all a solid dozen viable concepts ;

The seventies gave us Kirby’s New Gods, Neal Adams’ Deadman and that’s about it ;

The eighties dawned the broadest range of independent titles ever, from Love & Rockets to Omaha the cat dancer and Cerebus.

What about the nineties ? What about today ? Has it become impossible to come out with something even remotely original ? I look at most critically acclaimed series like, say, ASTRO CITY and see nothing but Oh-so-clever retelling in a trendy, " realistic " point of view.

Fine. Some may argue that the last hundred years or so has definitely not spawned the tiniest piece of fine arts or literature that could be dubbed " original " and not be traceable back to a previous reference, an older source of " inspiration " (the technical term for swipe). Yeah, right. By the way, wasn’t it Jesus who invented nautic skiing and fast food ? Did I err ?

Some could also say that toward the end of our millenium, an insidious chill strains this very audience to dedain investing ourselves into risky, uncertain territory, to rather comfort with what we know for sure to be safe and familiar. Assuredly that is a definite possibility (I really bought myself some of these books). The end of the world is nigh, prepare thy doom, and that sort of things. Could it be true a cycle comes to its end ?

Well. Then again there’s always this great Murtaugh saying : " Maybe I’m getting too old for this crap. "

Go figure.

JCL

--Arthritis Lad

May 1999