Thinking this afternoon about comic book stasis and how Spider-marriage haters keep saying that Spider-Man should stick to a status quo. Which makes it funny that the big complaint about The Boys is that it keeps to a status quo season after season, with Homelander and the Boys plinking away at each other, scoring minor victories or minor defeats, getting a little more popular or a little less popular, but never achieving a lasting victory anymore than Tom or Jerry does.
Yeah, Doctor Octopus and Norman Osborn are drawings, you can keep them around forever, that’s a positive of comics books–but the downside of that is you keep them around so long that the only stories left to tell with them are ridiculous farces like Ock taking over Peter’s body and trying to rape his wife and then being best friends with him. Or Norman turning good and being best friends with Peter. Or Mary Jane becoming a superhero (yeah, that’s a more natural progression for her character than becoming a wife and mother).
I’m not saying there’s nothing good about a status quo, just that you lose out on as many stories adhering rigidly to it as you do actually letting characters die and mature. And some of those stories you get to hang on to aren’t really any good, they’re just cheap stunts that alienate the reader.
