(continued)

Sorry had to run, carpool wanted to leave earlier than expected. For those asking "Carpool? Didn't you say you were going to ride your bike?" please wait for upcoming TaerTime entry.

Watchmen the comic turned the industry on end as well. It was as big a deal as Spider-Man (or is it back to "Spiderman" now?) compared to the icons of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

The earliest superheros were just that: super in many ways (including Batman, who had super-gadgets) and heroic in all ways. Their lives (up until then) were largely trouble-free. After all, the worst thing Superman had to worry about was a love triangle with himself, or Lois finding out his secret identity.

Spider-man (I'm going to stick with one. I'll go back and edit this if there's enough hue and cry.) turned things upside-down because he wasn't absolutely heroic. Remember, he started fighting crime because of his guilt over not bothering to stop a robber because he was on his way to some appointment (nature of which varies depending on which retelling we mean.)

Spider-man had everyday problems - self-esteem, bullying, being an outcast, rent, and many others. (Yes, he had the same "Can't let the love of my life know my alter-ego" weight, too.) He was super, but his normal life was part of his story from the beginning, not a footnote to the issue's battle royale.

Along comes Watchmen. It turned heroes into burnouts or worse. I don't know how much the movie hews to the graphic novel (that's "comic book" in fanboy-ese) so I won't go into the plot for fear of spoiling the film.

From what I heard, the Watchmen came about when DC purchased/licensed Carlton Comics rights to their canonical characters. They handed the task of 'integrating these characters into the DC universe' to a relatively esteemed comic book creator from the UK, whose Miracleman (not to be confused with DC's own Mister Miracle, originally called Miracle Man) should have warned them that he was a bit ... unconventional.

He kill them. The characters, that is. His story was how the lantern-jawed (or gravity-defying, in the case of the sole female) heroes had to deal with the grinding realities of government oversight, burnout, disenchantment, and the general "what am I doing here?" midlife-crisis.

"Uh, wait a minute. We just paid good money for these characters. We can't just kill them."

(This brings to mind a segue into a favourite quote of mine, from Aliens:

"Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."

"Uh, this station has a substantial capital value to the company."

"They can bill me.")

Hence, if you look up the old Carlton Comics heroes and compare them to the Watchmen, you'll see some barely-sanded-off serial numbers, such as Doc Manhattan and Captain Atom, and Night Owl and Blue Beetle.

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Ahem. Long digression aside, the point is that completely breaking the mold works as well, especially if the mold is ... well, moldy.

If something is so trite, tired and cliched as to feel as a by-the-numbers exercise, then by all means experiment with the form. But do so by uprooting the whole mess. Little changes here and there will only annoy those who expect the same, and those who expect novelty.

In writing a series, the author has to stay within the narrow band of the audience's comfort zone. However, as the life of the series goes on, that comfort zone narrows. At some point, the author is left with a tightrope, and a rather stark choice: to follow it by rote, or to jump off.

Because not jumping completely off the tightrope, but also not landing squarely on it, will lead to some prolonged agony.