Ending Their Story.

[dasNdanger]

This is how I look at it...

Real life is full of crap...so full, sometimes, that we have trouble dealing with it. I have big 'death' issues, so I often turn to entertainment to pick me up, especially when dealing with loss. The last thing I want when I'm down is to have characters killed off. If stories become too dark and depressing, I will stop reading (or watching). However, not all ends have to be in the form of death. I prefer stories where one aspect of the character ends, and a new one begins. I recently watched the Solomon Kane movie, and it was just like that...an ending, and a beginning, and that made it really enjoyable to me. I'm not a big fan of yo-yoing a character, however...unless there's a reason for it. For instance, I don't mind Stark's struggle with alcoholism, or Wolverine giving into his more animalistic side.

Oh, crap. I'm gonna stop there because who the heck am I fooling?! Not myself, that's for sure. You know what I like? I like consistency and caricatures. My favorite characters have always been those who have very specific, often exaggerated traits that never change - Columbo, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Dirty Harry, and so on and so forth. Guess that makes me shallow, or something, but I really do like my characters to stay just as they are.


das

[Stressfactor]

Honestly, DC could kind of do it right. Earth 2 Batman was happy and got married. Died, and had a successor. Wouldn't mind them ending one universe's story and starting a new one.

This is why, as I've read more and more comics, the idea of a multiverse or hypertime or whatever you use to explain it, makes a hell of a lot of sense as far as creative freedom goes. And DC was kind of nuts to destroy their original one.

Alternate universes allow readers to have a version of Batman who finally got rid of many of his scars of the past and fell in love and got married and had a kid.

It allows Peter and MJ to grow up and have a daughter and get put through the rigours of raising a superhero teenager.

It allows someone to write a Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman story set in WW II.

It allows someone to play a game of What If and ask 'What would happen if Booster Gold had missed when he originally came to the past and instead of meeting and teaming up with Ted Kord he actually met and teamed up with Ted's predessesor, Dan Garrett?' Oooh, now I want to write that story. And I might even want to write it using the radio show version of Dan Garrett in which he was a police officer who gained super powers through a 'miracle drug' rather than the archaeologist version who gained his powers from the scarab.... FANFIC HO!

But anyway, you get the idea.

If people weren't so hung up on canon. Despite the arguements among Doctor Who fans they really have the best of all possible worlds as the BBC, the writers and the producers have basically said "If you want to believe it's canon then it's canon for you." So all the novelizations could be canon. All the comic book stories could be canon, all the audio stories could be canon. Or some of them could be, or some of them could not be. It all depends on what you desire.

If you want 1960's Spider-Man to be canon... then it can be. If you want May Parker to be canon then she is. etc.

[Stressfactor]

This is how I look at it...

Real life is full of crap...so full, sometimes, that we have trouble dealing with it. I have big 'death' issues, so I often turn to entertainment to pick me up, especially when dealing with loss. The last thing I want when I'm down is to have characters killed off. If stories become too dark and depressing, I will stop reading (or watching). However, not all ends have to be in the form of death. I prefer stories where one aspect of the character ends, and a new one begins. I recently watched the Solomon Kane movie, and it was just like that...an ending, and a beginning, and that made it really enjoyable to me. I'm not a big fan of yo-yoing a character, however...unless there's a reason for it. For instance, I don't mind Stark's struggle with alcoholism, or Wolverine giving into his more animalistic side.

Oh, crap. I'm gonna stop there because who the heck am I fooling?! Not myself, that's for sure. You know what I like? I like consistency and caricatures. My favorite characters have always been those who have very specific, often exaggerated traits that never change - Columbo, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Dirty Harry, and so on and so forth. Guess that makes me shallow, or something, but I really do like my characters to stay just as they are.


das

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

But yeah, for some characters continuing on works. And in many ways it's happier to think that in their own fictional universes Sherlock and Nero and Archie and Columbo are still doing their thing.

But, in a way, that can be an ending while not being an ending. I mean, look at the end of "Cheers". Sam is still there, he might have gained a little clarity but in the end he closes up the bar and you know that the next day he's just going to open up again just like always. It's an end that isn't really an end.

Other times, if a character has to walk off-screen or off the comic book panels I think it is important for them to walk off in a way that makes sense for the characters. Jack Knight, Starman, is still one of the classiest and most satisfying walk-offs.

[dasNdanger]

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

But yeah, for some characters continuing on works. And in many ways it's happier to think that in their own fictional universes Sherlock and Nero and Archie and Columbo are still doing their thing.

But, in a way, that can be an ending while not being an ending. I mean, look at the end of "Cheers". Sam is still there, he might have gained a little clarity but in the end he closes up the bar and you know that the next day he's just going to open up again just like always. It's an end that isn't really an end.

Other times, if a character has to walk off-screen or off the comic book panels I think it is important for them to walk off in a way that makes sense for the characters. Jack Knight, Starman, is still one of the classiest and most satisfying walk-offs.

Exactly - especially that part I bolded. I very much prefer the 'life goes on' storylines. I still imagine Columbo out there, doing his thing...not as Peter Falk, but as Columbo, the detective that I fell in love with as a little kid. There's just something that feels SO good about that sort of thing...so rewarding. And because it's rewarding, I can go back and watch those old shows over and over again...there's no sense of impending doom (I'll give up on a show and never watch it again, even in repeats, if a favorite character is killed off, simply because watching them 'alive' makes me sad, knowing what's to come).

das