I’ve been a comic book fan long enough that I don’t want to try to count the number of ‘reboots’ of superheroes that I’ve seen over the years. People always rave about the creative efforts that go into the re-imagining and repackaging of the same heroes to make them fresh and new for another generation of readers. But I’ve come to the conclusion that if the comic companies wanted to REALLY do something radically creative with their characters, all they would have to do is let the characters age and die naturally.
I’ve commented before about how death has no meaning in comics. Age doesn’t mean anything either. Spider-Man should be getting ready to retire right about now, but he’s still a teenager. If you want to challenge your creativity, let Peter Parker grow old and have a new generation of heroes take over. And make THAT storyline the REAL one….
For the most part I’ve enjoyed the Grant Morrison run on Batman. I think Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian as the new Robin have made for some interesting character interactions and great stories. I’m hoping that all the good new stuff doesn’t get tossed out of the window with the reboot, and we don’t end up back with a re-telling of the same origin stories that we’ve seen so many times before.
So don’t resurrect them and don’t reboot them. Let them die. It’s the creative thing to do.
