Joss Whedon directing Avengers. In other news...

[seriousfic]

Whedon feels that comic books, for a long time, got too nihilistic and killed too many characters.

Comic book dudes, when JOSS FUCKING WHEDON thinks you're too nihilistic and that you've killed off too many characters... Jesus, I don't even know. That's like the Buddha telling you you're too mellow.

Comments

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

... What the fuck.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I, just ... this can't even be parodied anymore. I can't even think of a joke.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I doubt any given comic book writer has killed off any more major characters than Whedon has.

The difference is, Whedon's longest running series (Buffy) only ran seven years. Give BTVS or Angel or Firefly or Dr. Horrible thirty, forty, fifty years of continuous production with god knows how many creative teams...and you'd get the same kind of body count as as we see in comics.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Jeph Loeb.

[pendown.livejournal.com]

In other news, Frank Miller claims comics have got too dark. (Seriously). But I think sianju makes a good point - Whedon doesn't see the death toll for his own work because he's the only one killing there.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

it could be a shocking lack of self awareness.

Or perhaps its the combination. Maybe nihilism is okay without total slaughter and killing characters is okay without nihilism.

[v5-vendetta.livejournal.com]

That could be it. Whedon had a lot of characters killed off during the runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, for example, but he never really had the characters lose their moral compasses. Struggle over their morality perhaps, but they didn't completely lose their sense of right and wrong. Not to mention that by the end, Angel was by no means a nihilist; sure, in his world, evil would never be permanently defeated, but as far as he was concerned that didn't mean it should go unopposed. The overarching theme, ultimately, was showing that even if evil was a never-changing constant of human nature and society, it could be challenged, and every act of kindness and basic decency put a dent in evil's armor even if it couldn't fully penetrate --- and that made it worthwhile to keep fighting.

In contrast, American comics, particularly Marvel Comics, have sunk into a black-and-gray mire where so-called heroes routinely make Faustian pacts (literally and metaphorically) for the sake of momentary gain that they've told themselves is "for the best" and villains pretty much commit wanton mass murder or even outright genocide without real consequence. At least in most of Whedon's work, the bad guys ultimately had to face consequences for their more heinous actions; if "Firefly" had been conceived as a comic book series, the Alliance would have still figured out a way to come out on top and the crew of Serenity would have died accomplishing nothing. That's real nihilism.