As we’ve written previously, in the comic book world, authors often have grand concepts to justify re-launching a series (Josh Wilding, “Make Mine Marvel? No Thanks. Why DC is now the place to go for quality comics,” September 11, 2013, www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites). Anthony Falcone summarizes the situation thusly:  “… in the majority of comic books a real story isn’t told but a series of things just happen and are put together in a slapdash fashion.” (Anthony Falcone, “Comics I Read Aren’t Sh*t,” January 31, 2013, www.comicbookdaily.com).

So, as we’ve also mentioned before, character deaths are often used as a simple dramatic springboard, without having any impact on the readers (Anthony Falcone, “Death be not proud ,” February 28, 2013, www.comicbookdaily.com), who simply count down until the character returns (Tony Guerrero, “Death and the Return of Characters: Jean Grey,”  April 11, 2013, www.comicvine.com).

 In her analysis of Daredevil, Christine is heading in the right direction: “the best superhero stories have at least something to say about some of our most human challenges.” (Christine, “Review of Daredevil # 26”, May 22, 2013, www.theothermurdockpapers.com). Heroes or superheroes can face superhuman challenges, but when faced with more down-to-earth challenges, how can their reactions be so different from the rest of us humans? 

Along those lines, Chris Sims draws an interesting line between the Marvel and DC universes: “What it comes down to is that the Marvel universe is built on limitations. That’s the core difference between the foundation of the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe. Even though they’ve largely been shaped by the same creators over the past few decades, they’re built around very different ideas that are expressed in the characters that define them. There’s nothing that makes me roll my eyes harder than when people refer to the DC characters as “Gods” because that’s such a goofy, high school way to look at them, but even I’ll admit that there’s an element of truth to it. The DC Universe, even before there was a DC Universe, was built around characters that have this uncomplicated aspirational ideal to them. You just need to look at Superman to see it.” (Chris Sims, “Ask Chris # 171: The Superman (Well, Supermen) of the Marvel Universe,” November 15, 2013, comicsalliance.com). These “simple aspirations” are too simple, we guess: so let’s give our characters more elaborate desires and we may end up with denser stories.