Returning to our somewhat infrequent (Is anything on this blog regular enough to be frequent?) series highlighting the Prattle's continuing efforts to establish a critical lexicon for comics, we humbly submit the following term of art for your consideration.
Publication Inertia--Term to describe a moment in a title's existence when, for lack of anything even remotely like a direction is lacking and yet it continues to be published for faintly little reason that it sells enough above the cancellation line to justify itself.
Notable examples of this would be X-Factor from issue 24 to about 70, which were so inconsequential and so deadly dull that it seemed the only reason that there was a new issue of X-Factor on the stands was because a new issue of X-Factor was on the schedule that month--no more, no less.
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A more recent example: Ultimate Fantastic Four. I'm sure Mike Carey did as good a job as possible after the Hat Trick of Bendis-Ellis-Millar, but by that point I don't think anyone even knew (or cared) that the book was still being published.
I totally forgot Ultimate FF existed. Even moreso, I forgot about it when it was new.
The idea of the FF hepped up as younger folks and still expected to work somehow was one of those profound cases of Not Getting It you see sometimes.
And that, kids, is why you shouldn't punch the walls of reality too often. :)
Well, it probably could have worked... maybe even a bit better, since I always found the age difference between Reed and Sue to be a bit squicky, but I think that ball was dropped because it wasn't entirely clear what differences - beyond the superficial - had been implemented. Ben was still the Thing, Johnny was still a clown, Reed and Sue still had their thing, Doom was still arrogant and good with tech... at least when the X-Men got the Ultimate treatment there were real, fundamental changes to the characters (which, over time, diminished until they were basically carbon copies of the originals).
Well, the problem is, if you try to realign the dynamic, you eliminate one of the things that make FF work as an enduring concept--the idea that they're a family and that they're explorer heroes. I agree with you about the Ultimisation ultimately (heh) amounting to "not very much change," however--cursory read-throughs didn't seem to have enough of a difference to distinguish the Ultimate stuff from the newer stuff either, which, really, was the problem. I mean X-Men Evolution ended up being a better entry-level X-Men than the UXM book ever did.
Does de-aging Reed really have that effect, though? I mean, the family dynamic evolved from the way the characters relate to each other; it's probably just a happy coincidence that Reed was originally old enough to be Sue's father (Freud Was Right!).
And I totally agree re: "X-Men: Evolution", though it wasn't without its flaws - some elements of the show always seemed a bit too sanitized for my tastes. But the characters were instantly endearing.
Well, in the FF Family map, Reed's the distant father figure, so to de-age him means you either slip him into Johnny's role or you have two Johnny's and in any possible respect, that's never a good thing.
They're rerunning it on one of my cable channels. I'm quite impressed by it--it manages to show the breadth of the X-Universe in a new light, providing the usual things in a new milieu for the die-hards and a more accessible entry point for people who would be daunted by X-Men in their native medium.
Not necessarily... I mean, substitute "father figure" for "leader" and it's pretty much the same dynamic. I can't see Reed being any less of an utter prat when he was younger. :)
Shame about the fourth season, though. Talk about a wasted arc...
But if he's just a leader, that's a different dynamic at play. Captain America's a leader, but not a father. Reed is a father, but not necessarily a leader. There is a difference and one that makes fundamental changes to the group dynamic. :)
Well, I think that was the beginning of cutting shows down in their prime. There aren't many shows that make it to 65 episodes total, and I can remember in the good old days of syndication when that was one season, really.
Good point...
To be honest, I always thought Evolution jumped the shark in the fourth season - none of the characters developed any further, the storyline was all over the place... not their best moment by far.
Yeah, I felt like, in the warm light of retrospect (one of my TV channels is re-running Evolution right now) that Season 4 started borrowing more directly from the comics and didn't work as much in the milieu they'd created in the previous 3 seasons.
The structure was pretty odd - they were doing done-in-one episodes, introducing characters like Danielle Moonstar and Legion that had nothing to do with the Apocalypse Myth Arc (or the Sentinel Myth Arc before that). And they were all open-ended even though the series was about to hit its Big Finale. Not quite sure what they were trying to accomplish there...
Funny how it went from being the ideal Ultimate X-Men to being exactly what caused Ultimate X-Men to finally disappoint, innit?
Writing analogy: I suppose that's what happens when you go from Captain Picard to Captain Stubing. :)
Ba dump-bump. ;)
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