Comics Recap #6: Event Fatigue

This is a follow-up to yesterday's recap post.  When I was on Goodreads to update my status on one of those graphic novels (Fear Itself, maybe) I saw a review where someone was saying they might have liked the book more but they were just so worn down from one event series after another that they were getting numb from the whole thing.  And I could definitely see that, especially since I read a lot of these in close proximity.

When you think about it, you could do these like in the Bible:  And yea Civil War beget Secret Invasion which beget Siege which beget Fear Itself, and so on...

Another part of it is a lot of these feature the same kind of stuff.  In a prior post I talked about event comics overusing parallel universes and time travel.  The ones I mention above don't really feature that.  Instead they rely on the idea of heroes beating up heroes.  Civil War involves a civil war between superheroes with Iron Man on one side and Captain America on another.  In Secret Invasion Skrull shapeshifters take the form of various heroes, which of course leads to in-fighting among the heroes.  In Siege Norman Osborne leads a group of heroes to attack Asgard and is opposed by Captain America and the Avengers.  And in Fear Itself the evil fear god's minions possess the Hulk and Thing and others, who of course have to be opposed by other heroes.  So you see the pattern there?  It's hard to blame anyone who gets sick of that stuff.

Now granted as a writer there are a few things I like to use again and again.  If you ever get the chance to read all my books (which you should do) you can note a couple of plot elements I use over and over again.  Maybe that's only natural for a person to gravitate towards one particular way of doing or seeing things.  But then I'm only one person whereas Marvel has a bunch of different writers, so you think they might not have this much conformity.  But then a lot of that happens in publishing.  If kids like one vampire series, then every publisher will scramble to put out one of their own.  Or they buy up werewolves, mermaids, angels, or whatever they think will be the next big thing.

What they don't think about is as a reader I don't necessarily want the same thing over and over again.  On my entry about reboots, I was saying it would be nice if they did something NEW, to which Tony said but if they did something NEW I'd probably hate it.  Maybe, maybe not.  It depends largely if it's something that makes sense or if it's something dumb, ie ninja butlers.  I'd probably have more respect for you at trying something new than if you just regurgitate the same old thing.

Anyway, in regards to series, sometimes it's good to take a little break from these big events.  One of the things I liked about Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine was that even though they had this involved story about a war with the Dominion, they'd still once or twice a year throw in a funny Quark episode or something.  Which is a good thing because it breaks up the monotony of the main story.  It gives people a chance to catch their breath before they're plunged back into the main story.  In the culinary world you call it "cleansing the palate."  It's a lot easier to do in comics that run monthly (or more frequently) than for instance when you're writing a series of superhero novels because each novel is essentially an event unto itself.

Really I think what the person on Goodreads was complaining about was there wasn't enough time between these events so he felt like he was being launched from one to another like a trapeze artist.  In my own reading it probably would be good to mix things up a bit, maybe switch more between Marvel, DC, or any other ones.  It would seem less monotonous that way.