Like most of you, I read comic books. I wouldn’t say I was a great collector, I’m quite particular about what I like and I have a wife who thinks there are better things to spend money on. I’m also currently in the middle of a thesis about postmodernism in superhero comic books, so these days my reading has been mainly for work purposes rather than for pleasure. It’s because of this that I’ve been pondering on some of the more academic notions regarding our shared literary choice.
Let us take Batman. Batman has been around for as long as I have been alive. He’s been around for as long as my Dad has been alive. He’s almost as old as my Grandad! This isn’t a remarkable feat in literature. We have literature from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. What makes Batman special however is that he is still part of a current, continuing series. And this is, I think, unique to comic books. You could say the same I suppose about Sherlock Holmes, maybe James Bond, but those characters have gone out of fashion and have been resurrected, they are not as long lasting in popularity as Batman. I can’t think of a time, and I’ve read around, when Batman wasn’t popular. Maybe through the 1970s, after the TV series before Tim Burton came along, but even then there was a regular Batman comic book. This, I think, is a remarkable achievement for the creators of this characters. But then we can go further than this. Superman is in the same situation. Everybody knows Superman. People who don’t read comic books know Superman. My Nan, who has never read a comic in her life, knows Superman. These characters have penetrated our culture and have stood the test of time.
Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Avengers, Captain America! How wonderful it must be to be Stan Lee. Obviously this is a short list, restricted to what I would say are the most well known of the Marvel Bunch. Yes, I know, I’ve missed out your favourite, I apologise. It begs the question, as comic books become more popular, and comic book movies become the staple summer blockbuster, which seems to be the case, in 100 years time will people be discussing Stan Lee in the same way we currently talk about Shakespeare? The answer I’m afraid is no.
Because this is where the dilemma comes in. I like to call this the Bourne Effect. Although the characters are still with us, they are written by a variety of different authors. Authors who sometimes go out of their way to reinvent the characters so much that they don’t resemble their original forms. The much loved Dark Knight Returns features a Batman that I daresay Bob Kane doesn’t recognise. Yes his costume is the same, but this Batman could be a completely different character. I lent a copy to my Dad to read, he didn’t enjoy it at all. I suppose growing up with Gold/Silver age Batman would be a very different experience to living with Modern Age Batman. And that there is the key to this whole feature, although the characters are based on the same thing, I couldn’t say that Batman has lasted for 70 years or more because he hasn’t. The Batman my Dad knew died long before he ever defeated the leader of the Mutants. So why do we still read about these characters? Well comic books has an advantage that no other medium has. They are completely open ended. The characters have no life span. They are able to change with the times and constantly reinvent themselves to stay relevant. A bit like Madonna, though not as muscular.
So as much as I’ve moaned about the changes to the characters, I’m not naive enough to think that Batman from the 40s would be popular today. He wouldn’t. Even 60s Adam West Batman is looked back on with a nostalgic, ironic view.
The characters themselves remain iconic because of what they stand for, and I suppose because of what they mean to us. I like comic books because my Dad bought me comic books. I presume the same goes for him. My son will no doubt like comic books because I do. But I’m also certain that when the seminal Batman story of the 2020s turns up, my son will explain the wonders of it to me, and I’ll smile at him, know he’s completely wrong and that the seminal Batman story came out in the mid 1980s!