On updating a classic (Off-Topic)

by Avateur , Friday, April 19, 2019, 18:08 (1834 days ago) @ Ragashingo

One of the things I've always wanted was for the things I enjoy, be it a single great song, or a long running tv show, or a beloved video game, is more of that good thing. Why couldn't the fantastic last minute Chicago's Hard To Say I'm Sorry go on for an hour? Why couldn't Avatar: The Last Airbender have four more seasons that were just as good as the first three? Why couldn't Halo: Combat Evolved have another 10 excellent levels?

I've felt that way with a lot of things and agree. On the other end of the spectrum, I've also sometimes felt that things are so good with a particular game/movie/show/comic that I'm perfectly fine with no more. It's great that you named Avatar: The Last Airbender. That show right there is one perfect example on a personal level that I feel lasted precisely as long as it needed to, and it was perfect. More might have sullied it. I just couldn't ask for anymore or anything differnt, you know? But it's so damn good that I completely get why you or others would want more! Especially if they could somehow provide more that's just as perfect and satisfying and doesn't ruin it somehow? But in its entirety and its ending, I feel it ended as perfectly as it possibly could. I'm content.

And using comics as another example, Geoff Johns did a run on Green Lantern (fleshing out not just the Green Lantern Corps but the whole color spectrum of lanterns) that culminated in one of the best comic book events I've ever read. Once he finished his run and it was time to pass the torch to someone else, I dropped Green Lantern. It was all I could have ever hoped for, imagined, and needed. And I'm totally fine with it continuing with someone else's stories and another perspective on Hal Jordan and the many other Lanterns doing awesome things informed by the previous run or unrelated to it, but I'm okay finishing off that story for myself in the state that I saw it.

I don't really read many superhero comics at all anymore, but I've been on Amazing Spider-Man for well over a decade and probably will never drop it. I assume it's like Cody with his Sonic comics (though I'm not sure if he actually reads them). With Spider-Man, people hated it a little over a decade ago when Marvel did away with Peter and Mary Jane's marriage and changed/started all kinds of crazy situations, but it follows with being in the service of the new, daring, and providing a character a chance for growth and to explore new stories that couldn't have happened otherwise. Dan Slott just spent a decade of some of the best Spider-Man comics I've ever read (and there's so many people who absolutely hate Slott's run all because of the aforementioned changes). Slott's run just ended and we're on to a new writer who has definitely re-established some of the older things that got brushed aside, but he's also fully continued and built off of Slott's character arcs and stories for a multitude of characters. The universe continues to push forward in new and interesting ways (while also showing some of the repetitive things that Cody hates about comics). It can be hard to find a balance with the new and the old in something so long-running, and I really appreciate how it's being handled.

But to get back to your point in a way, with Spider-Man, I'm really loving the fact that I can have my cake of a thing I love that keeps going while also getting to experience things that Cody wishes comics as a whole presented, even if it's filled with the things that Cody readily acknowledges can hold a character or an IP of any sort back. And when all else fails, we get fantastic movies like Into the Spider-Verse that know exactly what story beats and characters and situations to zoom in on that allow a different showcasing of characterization, growth, and in-universe perspective. Yay fandom!