Nostalgia Article by aviewaskewed, 02:09 AM 07th Nov Disclaimer: The following column is entirely the opinions of the author (even at that we aren‘t sure), any similarity to the opinions of any other staff or affiliate of theendlesscrew.com is entirely coincidental and unintentional. Unless specifically noted otherwise, all creator comments have been gleaned from other sources and no creators have actually endorsed any aspect of this column. Boondocks is on, good, good Adult Swim stuff. So this is actually kind of funny. This week’s column is about something in comics, but was totally put together by influences outside of comics. I’ve been playing the new DBZ game all week, picked up Hardcore Homecoming on Friday, and have been reading through the deluge of Infinite Crisis type reactions that are still coming, thanks to the current issue of Wizard. What do all these seemingly unrelated things have in common? Nostalgia. See, DBZ is done with any new material at this point, now they’re just going back and putting all the footage chopped from the not so popular episodes back into it (though five bucks and a pizza says if they re-run the Freiza saga again, they STILL aren’t going to show Krillin’s violent impalement and bleed out on Freiza’s horns, only the uncut DVD is gonna do that). Hardcore Homecoming is a remembrance of ECW, a wrestling company that hasn’t been in business for nearly 5 years now. Infinite Crisis? Infinite Crisis is just the latest in comic’s cashing in on nostalgia. Remember when Devil’s Due launched G.I. Joe? And Dreamwave had Transformers? Huge sales there, huge sales, all based off the nostalgia those properties have. Nostalgia is nothing new in pop culture, we all know every few years motifs repeat, either in blatant rip off form, or just simply somebody trying to re-invent an earlier successful idea. Now DC is attempting to cash in on it with the big reveal of brining back at the least the history of their multiverse, and Marvel is going to try and re-invent X-Factor. So we go from smaller publishers doing 80’s nostalgia and cashing in, to Marvel and DC attempting to use some the nostalgia in their own history to bring in some readers. The benefits of this is obviously that long time readers get to see characters and concepts back they enjoyed. I, like a lot of people, am perfectly happy with the idea of DC acknowledging their history, and bringing back the epitome of heroics to show a bunch of guys who have lost their way, and can maybe finally find a way to get us out of the unrelenting darkness 90’s comics have left on most super hero work these days. Marvel has a chance to redefine themselves a bit here too, and are going to use established brand names to do it. House of M has taken the X-Universe and shrunk it, something it’s been argued has been needed for awhile. Then they’ll take aim at redefining the whole universe it seems with the “Illuminati” crossover event. Ah…the nostalgia for those crazy crossovers is strong. Of course, there’s the downside here in that many of these events may not actually push anything forward. Marvel seems like no matter what they do with these events, they’re at least going to bring some semblance of new product to the table. But DC it’s been heavily rumored, is going to use Infinite Crisis as a way to go back to that “shiny, happy” era of “perfect” heroes. Which is something I don’t think we need in comics. I don’t want to read a new interpretation of 1960. I agree that maybe things have been taken a bit too far, maybe some heroes have been stuck in situations too alien to their personality. But we don’t need to just go back and hit the reset button, and head back to where it all started. We can draw from that sure, and go forward. I’d say the same to Marvel. But I think we also need to realize that this “event” stuff has got to stop at a point too, I mean, the ONLY reason that the current crop of crossovers has worked so well I think, is because they haven’t been done in awhile. Sure, the creative teams on them are good, they’re doing something new, rather then just “standard crossover formula A or B” (though Johns needs to be careful as Infinite Crisis could possibly head down that road) but it’s that they’re trying to give us something honestly new, and we just haven‘t seen this type of story for a few years. But at the same time, the only way to make events and crossovers work, is to do them sparingly, and to make sure that when they’re done, they fundamentally CHANGE the characters, and the world they live in. There’s also an overall downside to nostalgia, something that I think helped put down Dreamwave, and may be hurting Devil’s Due a bit as well. Nostalgia is not a good business model, not in the least. See, nostalgia is that yearning for a thing you haven’t seen in awhile, and when it’s brought back, oh man, it’s big money. It’s guaranteed money even, when Devil’s Due and Dreamwave got G.I. Joe and Transformers back, they were making cash hand over fist, and they broke off from Image. But I watched them do this and said “oh god, here we go” because it seemed to me they weren’t taking into account the fact that G.I Joe and Transformers wouldn’t sell like gangbusters forever. They hadn’t been in comics in about what? 15 years or better at that point? I’m not sure of the exact number there. My point though is that these titles are good to get you off the ground, but you’d better have some of your own content up and running behind those books, because eventually? The demand is going to die, the yearning is going to wear off, and people are just not going to care anymore, they’ll move on. One more thing about nostalgia before I drop off on you for the week. You really have to wonder how nostalgia is going to work down the line in the medium of pop culture, and in turn, that’s going to effect comics I think too. We’re living in an age now where just about every movie, tv show, the things that have been propping up the comics nostalgia movement the last few years, is hitting DVD. We are now seeing a situation where this material can be preserved, crystallized, and kept for all time without the lag or “disappearance” that plagued it before. So I wonder, is the availability of the old Ninja Turtles, or Transformers, or even some 90’s properties going to come back and bite comics? Is having the license of something like this really going to be able to generate the bucks it generated when the nostalgia publishers like Devil’s Due, and Dreamwave started? I don’t know, I kind of want to say “no” though. I’m not saying the licenses will be worthless, because they’ll always have value, especially Transformers, I’m just saying that they won’t be able to almost single handedly sustain a publisher the way they were previously doing. Going to be some interesting times going forward. Some random things that I read this week: Hey, DC? HIRE HARVEY PEKAR!: Bought Pekar’s The Quitter, and I recommend everyone else do so too. It’s an auto-biographical work about Pekar’s childhood, and early life. It’s quietly powerful, and wonderfully genuine work. Harvey is very candid about his past, his present, and his anxieties for the future. If I was DC? I would try to get Harvey’s American Splendor under the Vertigo banner, and give him a nice steady pay check. Well worth you’re time. JSA treading water: Ok, this current arc isn’t necessarily BAD, or uninteresting, but dang, this fight with Mordru is the lamest yet, when Mordru has shown up in the past, it’s an event, it’s a big deal…here? He kicks some ass one issue, then gets pretty well defeated here, I realize magic is out of whack…but this is still a bad way to go. Oh, and hey, what is with Jakeem? Ok, he’s bad, got it…now could we EXPLAIN why he’d try to kill his friends already? Pretty please? This arc is three issues, and two of them are some of the weakest JSA I’ve read in awhile. At a point when DC has a real chance to elevate this team’s status, and make them, at the very least a very solid “number 2” behind the Justice League, and get that name out there to the public, they are putting out one of the more lackluster stories I’ve seen. More “get the pieces in place for Infinite Crisis” type work I guess. Sorry for the short column this week, and the rather unfocused nature of it, I’ve had a lot of drama this weekend at my other internet job (if you’re a frequent Newgrounds BBS visitor, you know precisely what I’m talking about), not to mention my regular job, video games, and the three DVD’s I snagged at the video store have really eaten up my time. Next week I’ll try and do better, as I plan on examining why the super hero costume is still important, and have some thoughts on Infinite Crisis #2. Hope you’ll come on back for that one. Have an excellent week! Back to Rants