Monday, September 30, 2013

MY REBOOT RANT

Reboots seem to be the thing these days.  Whether in comics, movies, or TV shows, the reboots keep coming—even though the public seems to have made it clear that they don’t really want reboots!  Do it right the first time, and KEEP doing it right!  DC Comics can’t help but keep rebooting their entire line every few years, while Marvel Comics has always striven to strengthen its world’s continuity.

Reboots in the movies have Christopher Nolan to thank.  His incredibly successful reboot of the BATMAN film franchise led to everyone else thinking they could do reboots too—even when unnecessary.  Did the SPIDER-MAN film franchise really need to be relaunched?  Not really.  Most of what was good in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN could have fit in nicely with the Sam Raimi SPIDER-MAN trilogy, and the things that disagreed with that previous trilogy (a new origin, a new death for Uncle Ben, a sort of bratty attitude for Peter Parker, etc.) didn’t need to be filmed at all.  I enjoyed THE INCREDIBLE HULK which, instead of just wiping away the events of the first HULK movie, just kept GOING!  Maybe it’s a reboot, maybe it’s just a sequel.  Same thing with most of the JAMES BOND movies—are the Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore movies sequels to the Sean Connery run or are they a reboot?  I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters.  One can argue for or against the necessity of the Daniel Craig BOND reboot, but at least they waited 20 movies.  Why in the world redo something that just ended 3 years ago?

SUPERMAN RETURNS disappointed a lot of people, and it seemed to change the Superman character too much.  He left Earth for five years?  He has a son?  It was obviously intended to be the next chapter in the life of the Salkinds/Christopher Reeve Superman, which might be fine—but we weren’t done with the original Superman premise yet!  And, so, a reboot was eagerly anticipated!  However, the Superman in MAN OF STEEL is dumb, careless, sort of causes the destruction of most of Smallville and Metropolis, and puts the whole world in danger.  Thanks a lot, Supes!  Meanwhile, I just found and finished reading the SUPERMAN: MIRACLE MONDAY novel by Elliot S. Maggin from 1982.  Maggin gets it!  (He always “got” Superman!  Green Arrow too!)  The novel starts with Jonathan Kent’s worst nightmare—his son being careless and destructive!  Can we just have good comic book writers write all the super-hero movies?!?  Now, a FANTASTIC FOUR reboot is in preparation and Ben Affleck has been cast as the new BATMAN.

Though Christopher Nolan’s DARK KNIGHT Batman trilogy was well-loved and made billions of dollars, people are looking forward to a reboot.

Rebooting is not inherently bad—if you have a plan.  Christopher Nolan had a plan with BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT.  He may have rebooted from the Tim Burton and (ugh) Joel Shumacher movies, but he actually went back to the comic book basics!  (Much of BEGINS was taken scene by scene from key BATMAN comics!)  So, with the first two movies, Nolan gave us the Batman we always knew existed and had just been waiting to see realized.  The third Nolan movie, however, is an “Elseworlds” kind of future Batman story that ends Batman’s story.  And it’s also not exactly the Batman we all knew and loved.  Nolan’s Batman had two adventures and then retired for almost a decade (and yet was as injured and broken down as if he HAD been fighting criminals all that time?!?), and so I’m fine (so far) with Ben Affleck stepping into Bruce Wayne’s shoes.  Continuing with the John Blake character would not have been BATMAN, it would have been a SEQUEL to BATMAN, and we didn’t really need that yet—maybe after 20 movies.  So, like SUPERMAN RETURNS, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was the END of a story we didn’t really want ended yet.

TV too has its fair share of reboots.  TV failed with its reboot of THE FUGITIVE a number of years ago, but it has succeeded with the more recent HAWAII FIVE-O.  It failed with an African-American version of KOJAK a while back, but it will try again soon with an African-American IRONSIDE.  Some things, like new versions of CHARLIE’S ANGELS or STAR TREK, are not technically reboots, they are really SEQUELS, which I have no problem with.  Whether bad or good, I have to give them credit for trying to keep an old friend alive.  (DR. WHO wins this prize, of course!)

Recently, I made an erroneous conclusion, but the idea still feels valid.  I thought (until I looked it up) that the word “reboot” originally meant to reset a computer to its original settings (instead of just “restart”).  I don’t know the technical term, but let’s call that kind of reset a “true” or “complete” reboot.

In a complete “reboot,” you reset the computer (or whatever) to its original settings, wiping away whatever junk had piled up on it since the beginning.

That’s what I wish DC had done two years ago with its “New 52” company-wide reboot (IF it HAD to start over, that is).  But it didn’t.  It just gave us new histories for the characters.  Histories that were not really better than the “real” histories.  And, as with the previous big reboot 30 years ago—CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS—we see that saddling your characters (and writers) with histories that didn’t really happen is like telling a complicated lie that can’t help but unravel before too long.

Marvel also attempted a “reboot” of its own a number of years ago.  It started the “Ultimate” line and brought Spider-Man back to his high school age and roots.  It was a valiant attempt, but they also failed by making the Hulk gray and Reed Richards a teenager.  (EVERYBODY knows the Hulk is green!!!)  Instead of Ultimate versions of their flagship characters and titles, it soon became clear that these were just alternate versions.  I have no doubt that if the Ultimate line had been wildly successful, the main Marvel line-up would have been closed down at some point.  Unfortunately (or, really, fortunately) the world that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and all the writers and artists that have followed them over the last 50 years created was too good to do away with.  The foundation was too strong.

Starting with Stan, it was clear—the Marvel Universe was a tightly knit continuity and all the stories were canon.  Even the least of them, they meant something.

DC, on the other hand, seems to think its readers are stupid and that they need to be spoon-fed an “easy” line-up.  CRISIS happened because a handful of readers didn’t understand why there was an Earth-Two Superman with gray hair and an Earth-One Superman who was younger.  It’s called “Julius Schwartz was brilliant and you CAN have your cake and eat it too!”  And then, ironically, their “Post-Crisis” world got ridiculously complicated and they undid it about 5 years ago with FINAL CRISIS and then AGAIN 2 years ago with FLASHPOINT and the NEW 52!  The New 52 DC world looks to be overly complicated and micromanaged and has all the indications that it will fall under its own weight at some point in the future.  And if the stories won’t matter THEN, why should I think that they matter NOW?

In Ed Brubaker’s recent 8-year run on CAPTAIN AMERICA, he referenced minor story elements that I first read when I was 9, decades ago!  That’s awesome!  Over at DC, I have no idea how Batman could have a 10-year-old son with Talia if he met her halfway through his Batman career, a career that is now said to be five years old.

And here we come to my point.  Here is my open letter to Christopher Nolan and Zach Snyder, DC and the New 52, the guy that’s going to reboot the FANTASTIC FOUR movie franchise, and Jim Shooter or anybody else trying to reboot MAGNUS, TUROK, THE SPIRIT, DOLL MAN, or whoever: Don’t stray too far from the foundation.  The farther you stray, the less relevant YOUR version becomes!

Frank Miller did a great version of Batman in his DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, BATMAN YEAR ONE, and even his and Jim Lee’s BATMAN AND ROBIN had something—but Selina Kyle was not a hooker and Dick Grayson’s parents didn’t get shot in the head!  It’s all actually very well done, but that’s MILLER’s VERSION!  Not the real Batman.

Christopher Nolan did a great trilogy of movies—but Batman didn’t retire for a decade after only two adventures and meet Catwoman when he’s middle-aged and only fight the Joker once.  It’s a great version, but it’s only NOLAN’s VERSION!  The moment he’s done with Batman, Batman springs back to the Batman we all know.  Even little kids that grew up on Nolan’s Batman somehow know that Batman has had hundreds of adventures and fought the Joker dozens of times.

And even though Batman hasn’t worn his blue shorts for two years in DC’s New 52, people across the country and the world know that he still has them--or even if you want to give him a new costume (I will admit he looks good all in black!), don't tell me he NEVER had the blue shorts!  Not when the best Neal Adams and Marshall Rogers stories clearly show me that he does!  And Superman still has his red shorts—in Legos and other toys, children’s books, and the Halloween costumes available for adults and children alike.




And though Superman has worn a stupid mandarin collar and “armor” for the last two years in the comics, nobody in the world knows or cares.  Seriously, even Jim Lee who designed the thing can’t draw it and make it look good!  Perhaps it’s a good thing that these comics sell less than 100,000 (or 50,000! or 30,000!) copies these days, while Curt Swan’s issues reached an average of half a million readers for two decades.

When the New 52 is over, these characters will snap back to their “default” settings.  Somewhere there is a 16 year-old kid who can’t wait to, maybe ten years from now, work for DC and get rid of that stupid collar and reboot it so that Superman never had a collar or armor!  And he was also never dumb and destroyed Smallville and Metropolis in a careless battle with Zod.

And that’s also why Adam West’s campy, jokey BATMAN TV show from a couple of seasons in the 60’s still resonates with so many people—because it actually held true to the FOUNDATION of Batman!  There was the classic costume, there was Robin, there was Batgirl, there were the villains played by fantastic distinctive actors, etc.

I have three DC collections right now.  I have the pre-CRISIS classic stuff from the 60’s and 70’s (that I am buying more and more of at comic cons); I have the new stuff (I’m a sucker for keeping updated, and books like WONDER WOMAN and THE FLASH are well done and worth reading on their own merits), and then I have a whole cabinet full of post-CRISIS/pre-FLASHPOINT comics—which might as well be packed up and put in the basement.  Sure, I might want to read things like John Byrne’s revival (or reboot!) of THE DOOM PATROL and maybe a few other things here and there where I liked the talent on a particular storyline, but the rest I almost want to throw in the fire.  I would try to sell them, but I don’t think anybody wants them.  It’s not old (classic), it’s not new (fresh).  It’s just throwaway.  I feel bad for any writer or artist who did any work for DC during that whole period.  It was just a waste of time.  And when the fresh has worn off of the NEW 52, I’ll feel the same way about those too.

Is the Susan Lucci version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL your favorite?  Probably not.  And while a lot of people loved Bill Murray’s SCROOGED, that was just a fun diversion.  If you’re a movie director and somebody gives you $200 million to remake the story, you’re probably going to go back to the original book and look at the Alastair Sim or George C. Scott version.  Nobody’s going to remake the Bill Murray or any other alternate version.

Superman never had a mandarin collar, Robin’s parents were never shot in the head, Wonder Woman’s boots aren’t blue, and the Creeper was never some demon that possessed Jack Ryder’s dead body.  I know this.  Every kid in the country that watched the Bruce Timm cartoons knows this.  Why doesn’t DC?

If your version is TOO different than the foundational, classic version, then what’s the point? You might pull a paycheck right now, but your work gets thrown on the bonfire five years from now.

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