I Don’t Believe There’s Such A Thing As A Bad Story Concept In Comics

You know, after having watched Atop The Fourth Wall for as long as I have and having read a few bad comics myself, I wanna share some insight that I’ve developed: For all the REALLY bad comics out there, I truly believe the concepts behind the stories they are trying to tell could still work if handled CORRECTLY. I really don’t think that I could ever truly say that a story concept is bad. Weird, bizarre, out there, difficult to convey, dark, grim, sad, sure I’d say those, but none of those make a concept bad, because while they can be one of or even several of those things, if the concept still has the potential to WORK, if isn’t BAD.

Amazons Attack

I’ll avoid going into too much detail about this, since the worst comics in the world have already been touched on by Linkara, and he has already gone into detail about how most of the concepts could have been done right and in much better fashion than I probably would be capable of doing. However, I will say that the reason they fail almost always has to do with one thing: the execution. The means by which the concept was conveyed. And the reason the execution fails is usually different. Sometimes the writer’s a hack, sometimes the editors get too involved and mess it all up, and sometimes the concept is simply misinterpreted and shit happens. But I don’t think that’s the fault of the concept.

Red Hood and the Outlaws

I will give one example: The one comic I tend to bitch and moan the most about is Red Hood and the Outlaws. I’ve already said this before, but having Starfire lose her memories of her time on Earth and of her time with the Titans and then teaming up with Jason Todd and Roy Harper does make for an intriguing story. Also, having Jason trying to put his past with Batman and Joker behind him and move on with his new life could potentially work. Having Roy Harper, AKA Speedy, AKA Red Arrow, AKA Arsenal, joining a new group and finding himself genuinely caring for his new comrades and accepting them as his friends and having some happiness after the crap he’s endured makes for a good concept. Where it got screwed up is that Kori was made an uninterested-in-humanity whore, Jason was made part of a super secret organization (which is really only bad because there’s like a dozen of them in the New 52) and most of Roy’s history (the loss of his arm and the existence of his daughter Lian) were wiped away. If they had just stuck with those first three concepts, we would’ve had a much better comic. Maybe not one everyone would love, but still way better than what we got.

Countdown

But anyway, that’s my take on comic book concepts. Comment as you like, and feel free to disagree with me if you want. Just don’t make it an argument, and please give facts to your case. That’s all I ask. Ja ne!

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