And…Woo, Julio!

Hear hear on a lot of points you made here, getting to the hear of the matter on superheroes and what’s kind of missing from the storytelling equasion: ‘Protecting and Serving’, ‘bigger than the sum of it’s parts’, etc.

But I have to hold back on the idea of any new generations. That works FANTASTICALLY for DC; characters have families, sidekicks and successors and we get a sense of dynasty from them. That is Superman were to fall (I know, shock of shocks), that someone else might be a new standard for Truth, Justice and the American Way that would still jibe if following the same formula or some derivation thereof.

But Marvel doesn’t have that click. M2 Spider-Girl just barely pulls it off, because she’s a fully interesting and fleshed out character first, a superhero second. We remember X-Men by personality traits and then powers. We know that Steve Rogers stood for an age of heroism that defines the concept of Captain America.

I can go on and on about my Legend and Legacy Theory(tm), but if I say one thing in comic blogdom, it’s going to be my magnum opus. Stay tuned.

So here is a question: what comics do you think that could be benefit from actual change instead of the illusion of change? That is something that manga excels what with having real endings and all. Me, I would like to be reading some kind of Avengers Next that while comprised of sons and sucessors of the Old Avengers, had a style more akin to the original Avengers them the MC2 book that bears its names. Also, I would have liked to read the stories of the son of Superman battling Solaris, the tyrant sun a lot more than most of what I read nowadays (Kurt Busiek run excluded).

Is not that I need the characters to grow old with me, is just that if the characters could retire, we could have a more continuity free (and maybe even more new-reader-friendly) that only referenced its ancestors ocasionally, with real #1’s issues that would mark a real starting point for new readers… instead what we have is a time dilation more and more bloated until needs some kind of reset button.

But you make a good point about Tony saying Sentry isn’t ready for the big time. If that’s the case, why not put him on one of the lesser teams, like Wyoming’s super-squad or something? it’s not like they’re going to throw any of the rookies from the new Initiative series on the Avengers, why the Sentry?

Tony Stark makes me sad.