Comics are Awesome II

[138 Scourge]

Hey, comics aren't just Marvel and DC, y'know. Los Bros Hernandez have stuck with the same characters since the early 80s, and a lot of those characters have grandkids now. They've all aged and gained weight and the ones that died haven't come back.

The sliding timescale in superhero books doesn't bother me. I've gone as far as rationalizing it in my head by saying "Eh, alternate universe, time works differently there". I just like all their crazy adventures, even the dumb 90's stuff, being part of long and full loves these dudes have had. I think Morrison's rule in his Batman run was "everything counts" and I like that. Even if I hates the Clone Saga, I like that parts of it still float around to annoy Spidey. Not sure about JMS's stuff though.

[Gomess]

I'd love to be able to talk about more obscure comics, but the Big Two are just so bloody ubiquitous I just can't help it, sorry.

So I should really make it clear I'm talking about "mainstream populist spandex superhero" comics.

And hey, everyone bear in mind I'm an X-Men fanboy at heart. But that's purely an emotional thing, I'm trying to come at this from a literary perspective. Like. Whatevs.

[Sparky Prime]

Well, alright, since it seems we have fundamentally different approaches to the issue, lemme just get down to brass tacks and ask if you think Marvel are among the best storytellers going? That's not meant to be facetious, I really want to get a relative idea of where you're coming from calling Tony Stark a well-constructed character. Or maybe I'm overstating things, and there's plenty of stories you consider better crafted than Marvel's.

I actually haven't bought a Marvel comic book in over a year because I don't like the direction they've taken any of the story lines that I had been reading. So no, I wouldn't say I think they're the best storytellers. At least not currently. That's not to say they haven't done some stellar stories in the past, or wont in the future.

It could be as simple as you having grown up liking comics and therefore better equipped to deal with what I see as their faults, of course.

I didn't really start reading comics until I was in high school, but I did watch a lot of the super hero cartoons while I was growing up. Many episodes of which were based on some classic comic stories. But I think we just have different views of how they handle the stories considering how opposite some of our opinions are on some of the points that have come up.

[JediTricks]

30 is old to a kid. I remember when I was younger, I wasn't that interested in characters like Superman or Batman because they seemed so old to me. I was a bigger fan of their sidekicks because they were closer to my age.

I dunno, maybe I was weird, even by comic fan standards.

When I was 14, I read Dixon's "Robin" books because they were good, not because Tim Drake was about my age.

I could not identify with Tim Drake. Tim Drake was an orphan (or maybe a runaway) who lived in a fabulous house (and later in suburbs that are still alien to me now) and was a gifted athlete (not at all like me) and was fighting crime at night (while I was barely keeping up on my studies) and still had time for social activities (which I could actually manage at that age).

Similarly, I read JSA when I was maybe 15 or 16, not because I was an old man....but because I liked the damned book.

I really liked the Tim Drake series, he wasn't originally a runaway or an orphan, his mother was killed and his father paralyzed. As a kid I liked Batman and Spidey and Supes and the Flash (and Trek and SW), but mostly I read Archie and New Teen Titans because that was what was around the house. I didn't care about how old the characters were, I identified with the characters themselves, and the stories are what mattered.

Avengers #1 - this is a ton of fun, Dom derides it but in terms of sheer entertainment, it's a blast and it does a good job setting up everything. Ant-Man is a dick even here, while Wasp is boy-crazy. Loki really does a good job using his tricksterism to mess with everybody. I forgot how much the Hulk talks on the page, it's refreshing compared to just "HULK SMASH" in other media. Art is what you'd expect from the period, but does its job well and has a few thrilling moments (along with low points of the Hulk made up as a robot clown).

And, with Stan Lee's writing, the Hulk's inarticulate gibbering sounds like everybody else!

Sorry, I couldn't understand you with that stick so far up your ass. Here's every single line the Hulk utters in the issue, pardon the all-caps but that's how it's written (I left out the bolded words, and the lines next to each other are text from directly-connected panels):

ALL SAFE! ... CAN'T HOLD ANY LONGER...

{THEY THINK I'M ONLY A MECHANICAL MAN! AND AS LONG AS THEY GO ON THINKING IT, I'M SAFE!} (this one is a thought bubble -JT)

UGHH... WHAT..??
I'M TRAPPED IN THIS CREVICE! CAN'T BE AN ACCIDENT! SOMEONE MUST BE WISE TO ME! DON'T KNOW HOW THEY DID IT, BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT NOW! CAN'T STAY HERE... GOTTA GET OUT!
THERE'S NOT A PIECE OF GROUND ANYWHERE THAT CAN HOLD THE HULK!
I'M FREE!!
WHAT'S THAT FLYIN' PAST ME?? JUST A COUPLE OF BUGS! NO... THEY.. THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE!
I DON'T GET THIS! ... BUT I DON'T LIKE WHAT I SEE! GOTTA LEAVE HERE! THEY'RE STARTIN' TO CLOSE IN!
GO AWAY! I SPEAK TO NO ONE! I HAVE NO FRIENDS!
YOU ARE A FOOL! NOTHING CAN STOP ME!
OOOFF!

SO! YOU REFUSE TO STOP?? YOU INTEND TO KEEP HOUNDING ME, DO YOU?
ALL RIGHT, THE MASQUERADE'S OVER! I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS WHO I AM! SOON AS I WIPE THIS STUPID MAKE-UP OFF, I'M GONNA RIP THIS PLACE APART WITH MY BARE HANDS! WHAT HAVE I GOT TO FEAR! NOTHING CAN HURT THE HULK!

THE INSECT-WOMAN AGAIN! WHY DO YOU BUZZ AROUND ME?? YOU MUST BE AN ENEMY! I CAN FEEL IT!
YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE ME BECAUSE OF YOUR SIZE? NO ONE ESCAPES THE HULK!
NO ONE CAN SAVE YOU NOW!
IRON MAN!

ARGHH!

NO ONE CAN STOP THE HULK!
BAH! I DON'T TRUST ANYBODY!

IRON MAN'S STILL AFTER ME! CAN'T LOSE HIM!

YOU'RE WASTIN' YOUR TIME, IRON MAN! THESE PUNY THINGS CAN'T HURT THE HULK!
BUT NOW I'M SICK OF RUNNING! NOW IT'S MY TURN TO ATTACK!
COME CLOSER, IRON MAN! CLOSER!! AHHH... NOW!!

YOU THINK THIS CAN TRAP ME!?
GOT TO GET OUT! NEED ROOM TO MOVE! ROOM TO FIGHT!
THAT'S IT! CLOME CLOSER... JUST A LITTLE CLOSER! ONCE I GET MY ARMS AROUND YOU, EVEN THAT IRON SUIT WON'T HELP YOU! I'M THROUGH BEIN' HOUNDED!
WHO'S HE HOLDIN' WITH HIS HAMMER?
LOKI, HUH? YOU GOT ME INTO THIS JAM! LET ME HAVE 'IM, THOR!
HEY, THAT GLOW... WHAT'S HAPPENIN' TO HIM?

I'M SICK OF BEIN' HUNTED AND HOUNDED! I'D RATHER BE WITH YOU THAN AGAINST YOU! SO, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, I'M JOININ' THE... THE... HEY! WHAT ARE YOU CALLIN' YOURSELVES?
I PITY THE GUY WHO TRIES TO BEAT US!

Some pretty big words and thoughts in there. It is the brain of a brilliant scientist, after all.

Dark Avengers - The runup issues are nearly all a waste of time, and having only read IDW and digital comics lately I had forgotten how annoying the ads every other page in Marvel books could be. Once we get into the Dark Avengers stories proper, some of the setup is interesting but the story is like a compressed look at a decompressed story, so it's frustrating. Every issue seems to land on a cliffhanger like a soap opera, some of the payoffs work and others are not good. The idea behind the series is compelling but a bit of a stretch even for comics, and so far hasn't lived up to its promise. I'm missing issues 7-8, was considering getting them on Comixology but it looks like they're not important to the rest of the volume, I hate when that happens. The art shifts so often it's hard to keep track of some things. I'm of a mixed mind so far on Dark Avengers, it's compelling but kinda problematic.

Those first few issues are Bendis establishing tone and setting and the like. My god, he sold me on the series with the first issue man. What is wrong with you?

Osborn's conversations with "Bob" and with the other characters are genius.

The runup issues I referenced were Secret Invasion: Dark Reign, and Dark Reign: New Nation. In the former, Norman Osborn comes on the scene and lays down the foundation for how he's making this work, even though the first issues of the actual series make hash of it. He makes threats and promises which get taken seriously despite the lack of any actual sign of being able to back up. Then Normie kills a guy and flips out despite nobody noticing or giving a shit. New Nation is basically a $4 catalog of ideas you get to buy into later, there's nothing here but hints of ideas promising more to come in a bunch of disconnected books.

Then there's FINALLY issue 1, which you seem to be gushing over and defending heavily there. It's an origin story where essentially nobody does anything, they talk and make deals and spout endless exposition, Venom gets fed a Skrull, there are germs of ideas and it's not terrible, but it's SO SLOW. Issue 2 is essentially them getting ready to fight their first battle together, and a taste of the actual battle, but really there's so much exposition and so little actual stuff going on that you wonder if the letterer was getting paid by the balloon. There's compelling ideas in the characters but it's slower and less compelling and takes its audience less seriously than I'd have liked, certainly worse than MTMTE which you've derided for all those faults. You cite the stuff with "Bob" and yeah, it's interesting stuff, but since the issue does a piss poor job explaining who the fuck Bob is to me, someone who doesn't recognize the character, it's hard to know how to feel in those moments - there's a LOT of that.

Issues 7 and 8 are irrelevant to the rest of the series. Bendis took two months off and some other guy came in to handle the "X-Men" cross-over. It was not bad, but it does not match Bendis' writing. (Everybody talks like a jerk or a tough guy. Osborn comes across as a common mafia thug rather than as a charismatic business man.)
It is not a bad story. But, it is not necessary to read.

Ok, thanks, those are a pass then as I suspected. Fucking Marvel.

do wonder what kind of mental gymnastics it requires to convince oneself that it's worth getting into modern Marvel/DC/whatevs on the basis of seeing one of the movies, just general curiosity or even nostalgia. The comics are so far removed from their actual mainstream representation, and so bogged down by their histories, that I'm amazed the numbers are as high as they are, like JT implies.

Marvel: Bendis' run on "Avengers" and related books. Current (Gillen) "Iron Man".

DC: Earth 2, Legends of the Dark Knight, Final Crisis, Countdown (if only to be able to reference it as being terrible), Blackhawks, Captain Atom.

And how are they supposed to know that, how are they supposed to find those in a sea of interwoven titles? I can barely make out what's going on in Dark Avengers and I know most of these characters better than 90% of the audiences that went to see any Spider-Man or The Avengers and connected movies.

In theory, comics are trying to do the right thing by trying to appeal to more literatue audiences (and distributing in book stores). But, in practice, they are missing the mark and failing to convince the relevant audiences to buy in.

Comics by the big boys aren't literarily honest anymore, they've broken the trust, they aren't telling individual stories, instead trying to hook readers like a drug dealer promising a better fix next month.

The real problem is when having to comb through the back-story and minutia becomes obligatory.

That's the fucking truth, it took me a LONG time to get caught up on new Venom, "Bob", Marvel Boy, the Thunderbolts, and the events with the real Avengers and Tony Stark preceding this book which are woefully under-explained in the opening blurb. I didn't even bother looking up Aries or Daken or Emma Frost as leader of the X-men, so basically all I knew was Norman (who they do an adequate job rounding out) and Bullseye and barely Ms. Marvel. So in order to make it through Dark Avengers 1 and its prequel book Secret Invasion: Dark Reign, it took me hours of digging through wiki listings on all these different people just to understand the whos and the whys enough to move forward. And don't get me started on Dark Reign: New Nation, that was a total fucking mess. If you want to know why comics aren't building audiences well enough, look to editorial for giving shitty leadership, for allowing books to tell wisps of stories that are meant only to ensnare, not to tell their own stories, and for allowing the far too little foundation to be built into issues.

Sparky and G's last few replies in this thread make me want to see Marvel try a social experiment: They announce that a 'BIG CHANGE and NEW DIRECTION' is going to occur for Iron Man...and then reveal that it's going to be to have Tony Stark shave off his mustache. I want to know exactly how much the fans would bitch about this, and what their arguments would be.

Because they would bitch, and it would prove pretty much everything we've said before about comics fans and their problems with change.

I'd enjoy it. Couldn't be worse than the Ultimate universe's Tony Stark not being a caucasian white guy. OH MY GOD HE'S FUCKIN' BROWN!!! So what??? Just let them tell the story, who cares, fucking fan rage is the very vessel that holds back the fans that creates fan rage in the first place.

I think what bugs me most about fan rage in regards to change is the idea that they can't go back and read their old comic books if they want things to stay the same. That's one of the things that I like about TF:RID and MTMTE, change has happened, their war is over, "now what" is the question they must face and that's scary; it's an allegory for how we in America no longer have enemies, there are no Russians, no cold war villains anymore, so we are left to define ourselves in economic terms and what we build, who we are, what quests we undertake and how we face failure.

And hey, my argument isn't that *I* think Tony is defined more by his physical appearance- i.e. his tache, as it's his only distinguishing feature- than the cohesiveness and meaning of his life experience; it's that Marvel use it to define him.

Tony's 'stache helps define him as a Howard Hughes type, a dashing mature man who is a captain of industry. Little things like that can matter.

Why did his alcoholism never trouble him back in the 60s? Because Marvel hadn't made him an alcoholic yet. Why did they? They could've done it to *anyone*. It was tacked on, and had no meaningful link with the character as far as I could see. Soap opera stuff designed to create drama for drama's sake, y'know?

Why did Speedy take up heroin? To tell new stories, to resonate with the new world. Same with Tony. It's not intended to be soapy, it's intended to be comic booky: a life lesson that humanizes the character told in a way that connects to the audience. What is done with it, that's what becomes either soapy or not.

The sliding timescale in superhero books doesn't bother me. I've gone as far as rationalizing it in my head by saying "Eh, alternate universe, time works differently there". I just like all their crazy adventures, even the dumb 90's stuff, being part of long and full loves these dudes have had. I think Morrison's rule in his Batman run was "everything counts" and I like that. Even if I hates the Clone Saga, I like that parts of it still float around to annoy Spidey. Not sure about JMS's stuff though.

It doesn't bother me because comic books are the most decompressed thing ever. Dark Avengers issues 1 through 6 take place across a few days.

I'd love to be able to talk about more obscure comics, but the Big Two are just so bloody ubiquitous I just can't help it, sorry.

Archie has had more summer vacations than first AND last days of school. Think about it!

And Archie has been a comic book hero series in 3 different expressions, Pureheart the Powerful (superman ripoff), Red Andrews (indiana jones ripoff), and The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. (spy ripoff, title obvious).

[Onslaught Six]

My point still stands. Tony Stark has not always been Iron Man. Rodney was able to effectively fill his shoes for some time. And even became a super hero in his own right with the War Machine armor. Marvel is capable of replacing the character if they really wanted to.

Except he was still going around calling himself "Iron Man," which is 'really' the more marketable property.

This talk of comics numbers being down, I think part of it is the weight of an entire universe on a single title's shoulders, everything that came before has to be caught up on in order to understand what's going on in these current Marvel books, there are so many inside references and call-backs that one could spend all day on wikis and still feel like they are missing a piece of the puzzle, and some of that puzzle is contradictory and some of it is just crap, so it's frustrating.

Exactly!

That's what makes RID and MTMTE so good, they're not dependent on each other and they're written so that you don't need too much backstory to get into them, and yet they're selling less than a tenth of the big boys.

Their numbers are about average for IDW's TF, though.

How can the Avengers be the third highest grossing film ever, and that barely make a dent in the sales of the comic? There's a disconnect somewhere. And the same thing is true of Transformers comics. The movies have been very successful, and yet the comics with movie characters (and by association, the other Transformers comics) don't shift all that many more books.

I was just talking about this with a friend of mine the other night, and the real problem is that there's a disconnect between the media portrayals (movies) and the comics themselves. If you see Iron Man and you absolutely love Tony Stark in those...well, good fucking luck finding an Iron Man comic where he's actually written like that guy. (Fraction's run is as close as you're gonna get, and even that goes off the rails.)

If Marvel had a "movieverse" series of books, I'm sure those might actually be through the roof.

Marvel: Bendis' run on "Avengers" and related books. Current (Gillen) "Iron Man".

And Venom and Scarlet Spider, two books you really need to read; financials aside.

No one is saying it's the best possible way of telling a story, but some people don't have a problem with it like you do.

Those people are wrong and stupid.

I think what bugs me most about fan rage in regards to change is the idea that they can't go back and read their old comic books if they want things to stay the same. That's one of the things that I like about TF:RID and MTMTE, change has happened, their war is over, "now what" is the question they must face and that's scary; it's an allegory for how we in America no longer have enemies, there are no Russians, no cold war villains anymore, so we are left to define ourselves in economic terms and what we build, who we are, what quests we undertake and how we face failure.

My favourite part of that setup is how a large portion of, well, everybody is so willing to be antagonistic to pretty much any group, because they just want to label someone "the enemy" and beat the tar out of them...a lot like America. (Look at all the racist crap that spewed forth after the Boston bombings.)

[Dominic]

No white hair bits for Richards

That one might actually happen.

And hey, my argument isn't that *I* think Tony is defined more by his physical appearance- i.e. his tache, as it's his only distinguishing feature- than the cohesiveness and meaning of his life experience; it's that Marvel use it to define him.

Why did his alcoholism never trouble him back in the 60s? Because Marvel hadn't made him an alcoholic yet. Why did they? They could've done it to *anyone*. It was tacked on, and had no meaningful link with the character as far as I could see. Soap opera stuff designed to create drama for drama's sake, y'know?

In fairness to Marvel, and as stupid as the booze-hound was, there is more to Stark than the mustache. It is a distinguishing visual trait, not unlike Superman's "s-curl". But, it is not defining. There have been some good runs of that book. And, making Iron Man/Stark a drunk works in a sense given the life-style that the comics implied he led. (In the 1970s, Stark was depicted as a corporate raiding Bohemian, complete with late nights of work and partying.) The "Iron Man" comics were dealing with ideas like corporate espionage, protecting IP and the responsibility of researchers before those idea become fashionable.

It could be as simple as you having grown up liking comics and therefore better equipped to deal with what I see as their faults, of course.

I have always read comics, and have gotten less tolerant of those problems over the years.

I'd love to be able to talk about more obscure comics, but the Big Two are just so bloody ubiquitous I just can't help it, sorry.

So I should really make it clear I'm talking about "mainstream populist spandex superhero" comics.

For years, indy comics generally meant crap. That has changed considerably in the last 20 years, (ironically, Image Comics should get credit for that). But, Marvel and DC had a good 3 decade head-start to establish dominance over a market. The fact that there are as many indy publishers making professional grade work is a sign of progress.

Some pretty big words and thoughts in there. It is the brain of a brilliant scientist, after all.

Those examples of Lee's writing are everything wrong with comics. After reading that, I really want to curb-stomp somebody.

The runup issues I referenced were Secret Invasion: Dark Reign, and Dark Reign: New Nation. In the former, Norman Osborn comes on the scene and lays down the foundation for how he's making this work, even though the first issues of the actual series make hash of it. He makes threats and promises which get taken seriously despite the lack of any actual sign of being able to back up. Then Normie kills a guy and flips out despite nobody noticing or giving a shit. New Nation is basically a $4 catalog of ideas you get to buy into later, there's nothing here but hints of ideas promising more to come in a bunch of disconnected books.

I agree that "New Nation" should have been a freebie, or at most a dollar book. But, the set-up in the "Secret Invasion" book was good. Bendis can set and write a scene. I am not sure why you think that the early issues of "Dark Avengers" make hash of the scenes with the Cabal.

It's an origin story where essentially nobody does anything, they talk and make deals and spout endless exposition, Venom gets fed a Skrull, there are germs of ideas and it's not terrible, but it's SO SLOW. Issue 2 is essentially them getting ready to fight their first battle together, and a taste of the actual battle, but really there's so much exposition and so little actual stuff going on that you wonder if the letterer was getting paid by the balloon. There's compelling ideas in the characters but it's slower and less compelling and takes its audience less seriously than I'd have liked, certainly worse than MTMTE which you've derided for all those faults.

Would you rather have 20 odd pages of the characters punching each other? We have read that scene how many times over the years? It has been done. Nobody cares at this point.

And how are they supposed to know that, how are they supposed to find those in a sea of interwoven titles? I can barely make out what's going on in Dark Avengers and I know most of these characters better than 90% of the audiences that went to see any Spider-Man or The Avengers and connected movies.

"Dark Avengers" was the first ongoing Marvel book that I had read in *years*. I knew next to nothing about any of the characters save for Osborn (who, as far as I was concerned should have been dead). I had some familiarity with "Secret Invasion".....and not much else.

I had no trouble following "Dark Avengers" and could understand what was going on. I knew enough to assume that the important stuff would be covered before the end of the series.

and the events with the real Avengers and Tony Stark preceding this book which are woefully under-explained in the opening blurb. I didn't even bother looking up Aries or Daken or Emma Frost as leader of the X-men...

You also do not need all of the back-story. The real Avengers are irrelevant. Ditto for Tony Stark. Osborn is in charge, which is all you need to know and more than obvious from reading the comics.

That's what makes RID and MTMTE so good, they're not dependent on each other and they're written so that you don't need too much backstory to get into them, and yet they're selling less than a tenth of the big boys.

There is a question of the "ewwww Transformers" stigma to deal with here.


Dom
-and most fans do a lousy job of selling their respective hobbies.

[Sparky Prime]

Except he was still going around calling himself "Iron Man," which is 'really' the more marketable property.

No he didn't. He had a secret identity at the time. No one knew who Iron Man was.

Those people are wrong and stupid.

What a mature argument. Just because you personally don't agree with it doesn't make it wrong or stupid in the least for those that do, O6.

[Gomess]

Except he was still going around calling himself "Iron Man," which is 'really' the more marketable property.

No he didn't. He had a secret identity at the time. No one knew who Iron Man was.

The *comics* were going around calling him Iron Man, is the point. Try to take a more metatextual view of the issue, again, you're being too literal and sticking too close to the stories to see O6 and my point.

Literary criticism doesn't work unless you can view a media text as just that; something created by a company to fulfil an objective, rather than a self-sustaining fictional universe. What was going on *in* the comics doesn't matter half as much as their relationship to what was going on outside them.

Those people are wrong and stupid.

What a mature argument. Just because you personally don't agree with it doesn't make it wrong or stupid in the least for those that do, O6.

Come on, we've both known him long enough to know he wasn't being serious.

[Sparky Prime]

The *comics* were going around calling him Iron Man, is the point. Try to take a more metatextual view of the issue, again, you're being too literal and sticking too close to the stories to see O6 and my point.

First of all, O6 said "he was still going around calling himself "Iron Man"", referring to Tony Stark calling himself Iron Man, not the metatexual view of the comic book calling him Iron Man. Secondly, the comic being titled Iron Man isn't necessarily calling any particular character Iron Man. And finally, you're confusing my point here by trying to stick only to a metatextual view rather than look at anything actually in the story. Iron Man is a bit of a unique super hero in that it isn't unique super powers that Tony Stark has that makes him Iron Man. It's a suit of armor that anyone can wear. And at that time Tony Stark wasn't wearing the armor, Rodney was. Meaning Rodney, for that time, was Iron Man.

Literary criticism doesn't work unless you can view a media text as just that; something created by a company to fulfil an objective, rather than a self-sustaining fictional universe. What was going on *in* the comics doesn't matter half as much as their relationship to what was going on outside them.

I have an English degree, so I know all about literary criticism. You have to be able to look at both the story internally as well as externally, not just as something a company created to fulfill an objective. The thing is, you're confusing two different points here. And as I see it, what happens in the story matters more than what happens outside of it.

Come on, we've both known him long enough to know he wasn't being serious.

If he's going to make an argument like that, I'm going to call him out on it.

[Onslaught Six]

The *comics* were going around calling him Iron Man, is the point. Try to take a more metatextual view of the issue, again, you're being too literal and sticking too close to the stories to see O6 and my point.

First of all, O6 said "he was still going around calling himself "Iron Man"", referring to Tony Stark calling himself Iron Man,

Quit deliberately misreading posts. I meant Rhodey. For a time, Rhodey was Iron Man. IRON MAN is a marketable property--not Tony Stark.

Peter Parker might be dead right now, but sure as shit is Marvel going to have a dude named Spiderman in the Ultimate universe. THAT'S the point.

Come on, we've both known him long enough to know he wasn't being serious.

If he's going to make an argument like that, I'm going to call him out on it.

Anyone who thinks a story doesn't have to end has a problem understanding the point of stories. Homer didn't write The Odyssey, and then after Homer died, some other dude kept writing it for 50 years after that, continuing the never-ending adventures of an eternally youthful Odysseus. Conan dies a king. Beowulf doesn't live forever. The mythical Thor doesn't live past Ragnarok. Rorschach is a casualty of his beliefs. Why the hell are Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne allowed to persist?

There cannot be life without death, and a story should have three crucial parts: A beginning, a middle, and an end. The first thing they teach you is that every story has a conflict that needs to be resolved by the end. Mainstream comic characters never do this--they just deal with the same handful of problems, over and over again, forever, occasionally with some new ones being thrown on top. (To put this in perspective: Cyclops is dealing with the Dark fucking Phoenix right now, in 2013. The fact that I even typed those words makes me want to drive to Marvel's offices and burn them down.)