It also plays into the too-close, incestuous relationship they have with fandom, and so often claim is a problem (if not THE problem) for the industry. "Because you asked for it!" and the idea that fans don't 'allow' them to take a more progressive tack.
That kind of reminds me of the time my undergraduate school cut almost two-thirds of the entire sports program in order to save momney and then told angry/concerned/upset students and alumnae who wanted to know why the championship-winning and extremly popular field hockey and volleyball teams had been cut that they were responding to a decline of student interest in those sports (the student body responded by actually raising enough money to fund the field hockey team's entire varsity season solely from student and alumnae donations, so it was very obvious that lack of student interest and support was not the issue).
If writers were actually giving fans what they asked for, recent Marvel and DCU canon would look very different, I suspect. For one thing, Steve would have come back from the dead over a year ago or never have died at all, Ted Kord would be permenantly back, lawsuits would be settled and Kon would be back, Stephanie Brown would have had a case in the Batcave, and there'd be at least one Marvel/DCU crossover issue a year entirely dedicated to Batman throwing down with Wolverine (I'm kind of surprised there's not one of those already, actually). The only examples I can think of off the top of my heas of writers truely giving in to fans' demands are Jason Todd dying and fanboy Jesus Hal Jordan coming back from the dead. Oh, and the X-Men titles bringing back Ilyana Rasputin - she's got a decent-sized fanboy following as well.
My impression has been more that comics writers do pretty much whatever they feel like/think would be cool without really worrying about whether or not fans will like it, trustng that those of us who are hooked on the characters will buy it anyway because it's Batman/Spiderman/whomever (or they have the confidence of all over-enthusiastic badfic authors that of course we'll think X thing is just as awesome as they think it is, which I suspect might be Mark Millar's problem).
If comics aren't taking a more progressive tack, I'm betting it's less because fans won't "allow" them to and more because the creative teams either just didn't think of a more progressive/original storyline or are using "what the fans do/don't want" as justification for what they've already decided to do anyway (you know, like how Hollywood claims people won't watch movies about women when actually people will and Hollywood just doesn't want to make said movies).
But then, I'm so bitter and cynical at this point that I make myself roll my eyes at me, and I have a profound personal dislike for several prominent Marvel writers (and Dan Didio), so my analysis is about as objective as Fox News talking about politics.
no subject
That kind of reminds me of the time my undergraduate school cut almost two-thirds of the entire sports program in order to save momney and then told angry/concerned/upset students and alumnae who wanted to know why the championship-winning and extremly popular field hockey and volleyball teams had been cut that they were responding to a decline of student interest in those sports (the student body responded by actually raising enough money to fund the field hockey team's entire varsity season solely from student and alumnae donations, so it was very obvious that lack of student interest and support was not the issue).
If writers were actually giving fans what they asked for, recent Marvel and DCU canon would look very different, I suspect. For one thing, Steve would have come back from the dead over a year ago or never have died at all, Ted Kord would be permenantly back, lawsuits would be settled and Kon would be back, Stephanie Brown would have had a case in the Batcave, and there'd be at least one Marvel/DCU crossover issue a year entirely dedicated to Batman throwing down with Wolverine (I'm kind of surprised there's not one of those already, actually). The only examples I can think of off the top of my heas of writers truely giving in to fans' demands are Jason Todd dying and
fanboy JesusHal Jordan coming back from the dead. Oh, and the X-Men titles bringing back Ilyana Rasputin - she's got a decent-sized fanboy following as well.My impression has been more that comics writers do pretty much whatever they feel like/think would be cool without really worrying about whether or not fans will like it, trustng that those of us who are hooked on the characters will buy it anyway because it's Batman/Spiderman/whomever (or they have the confidence of all over-enthusiastic badfic authors that of course we'll think X thing is just as awesome as they think it is, which I suspect might be Mark Millar's problem).
If comics aren't taking a more progressive tack, I'm betting it's less because fans won't "allow" them to and more because the creative teams either just didn't think of a more progressive/original storyline or are using "what the fans do/don't want" as justification for what they've already decided to do anyway (you know, like how Hollywood claims people won't watch movies about women when actually people will and Hollywood just doesn't want to make said movies).
But then, I'm so bitter and cynical at this point that I make myself roll my eyes at me, and I have a profound personal dislike for several prominent Marvel writers (and Dan Didio), so my analysis is about as objective as Fox News talking about politics.