Thanks to all these reboots, and to the ready availability of back-issues on +comiXology, I have therefore read an unbelievable quantity of "issue 1" series launches in the last six months, including first issues of Captain America, Avengers Assemble, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Superman, Action Comics, Detective Comics, Batman, Batgirl, Earth 2, Worlds' Finest, The Movement, Red Sonja, Pantha, Justice League, Katana, and Justlice League of America. What I have noticed, compared to the "old days" (pre-2000), is a dramatic shift in the style, pacing, and content of a typical first-issue series launch.
How comics used to launch a series
Years ago, a first-issue series launch was used in a very specific way. That first issue was seen as a way to introduce the character or the team to the readers, and to establish the basic rules of the series. Let's use the 1979 series Rom: Spaceknight as an example.In issue #1 of Rom, Rom arrives on earth and for the first few pages, seems almost evil, even attacking and seemingly killing some humans. By page 8, however, Rom uses his translator to talk with the human woman Brandy Clark, and explains his background and origin. He is 200 years old. He hails from the planet Galador, a peace-loving place. The Galadorians entered an uncharted area called the Dark Nebula, and were attacked by Dire Wraiths. Galador's armada was destroyed and the wraiths moved in on them. To save the planet, the flower of Galador's youth would be asked to sacrifice humanity, becoming cyborg warriors (Spaceknights). Rom was the first to volunteer. The Spaceknights prevailed, and drove the wraiths back. But the wraiths, in defeat, scattered to other worlds. As shape-shifters, they could blend in, as they have done on our world. Rom is here to track them down and send them to the plane of Limbo. The army, led by some wraiths in disguise, attacks Rom, and he defeats them, dispatches the wraiths, and flies off. Word of his presence spreads to other wraiths, who now have to decide what to do about it.
This first issue of Rom accomplished everything a classic series-launching number 1 issue used to do. It established the character. It set up the dramatic tensions (in this case, between Rom and the wraiths, and between Rom and the humans who think he is killing them, as well as between wraiths and humans, though humans don't know it). It established one of the main supporting characters (Brandy Clark, who quickly became a love interest for Rom). And it told the backstory in enough detail that the reader knew exactly what was going on, and could easily follow the relationships between the major "sides" in the story (Rom, Human, and Wraith). The ending leaves one in suspense, as a wraith in the local area hears of Rom's arrival and shape-shifts into a bird, flying away to warn her fellow aliens.
Now let's look at what Rom #1 did not do, relative to what #1 launches are like today. Rom #1 did not confuse the reader. It didn't leave the reader wondering who the heck this alien was or why he was blasting people. It didn't leave the reader wondering who the shape-shifting guys were, and whether they were good or bad. It didn't defer important, foundational explanations about the key elements of the series until later issues.
How series are launched today
If Rom #1 had been written in today's series-launch style, it would have been very different. For example, no background of Galador and the Spaceknights would have been provided -- this would have been left until the 13th issue, which would have been called Rom #0. Instead, we'd see an alien who can't speak any English, walking around blasting what appear to be humans. We'd see other seeming-humans suddenly change shapes, or whip out ray-guns, and blast Rom, and him retaliate. But we wouldn't know yet if Rom was an evil murderous robot, or an angel of mercy. We'd probably see Rom rescue Brandy Clark from something, but there would be some ambiguity -- was he really rescuing her or just trying to kill her?By the end of 'Marvel Now!" Rom #1, the reader would probably have no idea if Rom was going to be good or bad, or, frankly, what the hell was going on at all. And this confusion would be purposeful. The hypothetical "Marvel Now!" Rom writer would deliberately string the reader out, probably waiting until several issues in to reveal what a Dire Wraith was, and perhaps refusing to give Rom a translator, the better to keep things confused and uncertain.
What I've described above is, of course, pure invention -- there is no modern re-telling of the Rom story. However, my description is typical of the first-issue launches of today. Whereas in the old days, the goal of a first issue was explanation and providing a solid foundational base, these days, the goal of a first issue appears to be obfuscation and confusion. Although I can't say for certain, I believe the probable motivation for this is that the companies believe the confusion will increase sales. Readers of the fictitious modern Rom #1 would buy the next issue, and the one after that, because they want an explanation -- who is Rom? Where did he come from? And why is he shooting humans with a ray gun? These questions, which were answered in the 1979 series halfway through the first issue, would probably not be answered in a modern re-telling for at least the first year, maybe more.
A major driver behind this new style is the tendency, in much modern storytelling, not just comics, to start a tale in the middle, rather than the beginning. In the original Action Comics #1 in 1938, we saw Superman's origin told in a linear fashion - he came to earth in a rocket, and his alien body made him super-strong, able to leap buildings, and so forth. The tale began at the beginning and worked forward. Compare with 2011's Action Comics #1 relaunch, which starts with Superman floating in mid-air, with his Super-symbol already on his chest, apparently (somewhat) known but not yet understood by Metropolis, holding a rich white-collar criminal out over a ledge to scare him into confessing his evils. The back-story of Superman's arrival on earth is not told until much later (issue #5), and even that is incomplete (more pieces are told later on).
But it's not just the "start in the middle" style that leads to confusion, because many movies and novels start in the middle today, but still don't leave the reader confused. After all, the original Star Wars starts in the middle of a story, but we are given clear explanations of everything that is going on by the end of the first act (indeed, a lot of the explanation happens in the opening sequence, when the scroll of words tells us who Darth Vader is, who Princess Leia is, and that the Empire is evil, setting up the entire story for us in very clear, unambiguous terms). So in comic-book launch issues today, it's the combination of starting in the middle, and not bothering to explain anything for several issues, that leads to seemingly disjointed, and definitely confusing, stories.
Which way is better?
Clearly, the style of the first-issue launch of a series is dramatically different today from the way it was in 1979. Which way is better?There is no objective way to answer this question, because it's largely a matter of preference. If you like being informed, and having the overall themes and rules of the series laid out for you right away, so that you know where you stand, then you will obviously prefer the classic way to launch a series. If you prefer being left in the dark, and don't like to be told why things are happening too quickly (maybe because you like trying to guess or figure them out yourself), then you will obviously lean toward the modern style.
My preference is for the classical style (I know, you're shocked). Here's why: The classical style established everything up front, which made it a snap to decide if I was going to like a series or not. I could easily tell, by the end of the real Rom #1 (the one actually published in 1979, which established all the major rules and players of the series), that I was going to like it. I knew where I stood relative to the comic. The classical first issue really set the stage for me.
The modern style doesn't do that. For example, I just read #1 of Gail Simone's new series The Movement. I have no idea if I'm going to like the series or not based on just this one issue. The sides and lines of dramatic conflict are murky at best. The characters are hard to tell apart (some of this is the fault of the artist). I can't tell who the protagonists are, vs. the antagonists. I'm not even sure who the major characters are going to turn out to be. After an issue, the only thing I can say about whether I'm going to like this series or not is, "We'll see." Compare with Rom, which after just one issue, I was easily (and correctly, since I stuck with it for 65 issues of its 75-issue run) able to say, "Count me in!"
I've never really enjoyed being confused as a reader. I don't have to know the answer to every question (I hate mysteries where the killer is revealed to the audience at the beginning, for instance). But I do like to understand what is going on, and I don't enjoy when seemingly random events occur for no known reason. Too long of a separation between the event and knowing the reason for that event destroys the reader's sense of cause and effect, leading to the impression that the writer is making things happen for arbitrary reasons (although many events do occur for arbitrary reasons too, and not coincidentally, in many of the same series that are the most obfuscatory).
From what I have seen, the obfuscatory method of confusing the reader and taking many issues to clear things up, does not seem to be working. For example, the New 52 Superman, which started out with strong sales, had a very confusing first story arc that left the reader unsure of what was going on for six issues. If we are right in guessing that the confusing nature of the story is purposeful, because the execs at DC think obfuscation will make readers keep coming back to find out what the heck is going on, then we should see strong sales from this arc. But we don't. Instead, Superman's sales went into free-fall, plummeting from 118,000 copies sold for issue 1, to 70,000 for issue 6 (rounded off to the nearest thousand). That's a 41% decline, and a loss of almost 50,000 fans in six months. Thus, 50,000 people who started out reading Superman, did not stick around to find out the explanations for all the confusing events of the first issue. Does that sound like a win for the "make it confusing" model? Not to me.
As a second example, Action Comics, written by Grant Morrison, is a prime specimen of a story written for maximal obfuscation. I stopped reading this series on issue #6, and by then, hardly anything had been cleared up or explained. Morrison adds more and more complications and threads, without explaining any of the old ones, and ends up with a disjointed and very confusing story. Again we can look at sales figures and ask, was Steve the only one turned off by this? Did the sales ploy, if it is one, of suspending explanations until much later on, work?
Once again, the answer is a resounding "no." Although I can't say when any story threads were explained or plot elements were resolved, I can say definitively that none had been by issue 6 (when I finally gave up). Action Comics began as a top-seller, with 183,000 print copies purchased. Over the first six months, when the vaunted Morrison's patented obfuscation was in top form, sales of Action Comics plummeted by 47% to under 97,000 copies. By issue 7, which is the earliest the confusing elements could have been cleared up (since they had not been as of issue 6), the series had lost fully half of its original readership. Now I ask you: does this sound like a marketing ploy that is working? It seems to me that at a good half of comic readers don't like stories that remain confusing for months at a time, or else these sales numbers would be better.
Now, I have heard it argued that one must read the totality of Morrison's run on Action Comics, which lasted until issue 18, to really "get" it. Only in toto, the Morrison-apologists assert, can the whole logic of the story he crafted be appreciated. I have no desire to read any more of Morrison's sewage, but we can look at the numbers and see whether many other fans were willing to wait eighteen months to have the events in this series explained to them. Once again, the answer is a resounding no. By issue 10, Action Comics had fallen out of the top 10 (remember, it debuted in the top 3 and stayed there for the first few months after the reboot), having lost another 11,000 readers since issue 7, and by number 15, Action Comics fell out of the top 20, and never recovered for the rest of Morrison's run. By the time he left, he had lost fully two-thirds of the readers who started out with him at the beginning of the series. I find it hard to imagine how anyone could argue that this was a successful run. And since one of Morrison's core "strategies" is to confuse the hell out of the reader, I conclude that a majority of comic-book readers don't like to be confused for long periods of time.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love being surprised at appropriate times in stories, and I like having explanations revealed slowly to me. But as the story is going along, I need to understand what the hell is happening. For example, J.K. Rowling doesn't explain how Voldemort used Horcruxes to prevent death in the first Harry Potter book. But she provides enough (although vague) explanation of how Voldemort had used magic to "cheat death" that the book is entirely comprehensible and stands on its own. You don't have to wait until book 6 to understand what happened in book 1. Certainly, you will have a better appreciation for the book 1 events after reading the whole series. Going back and re-reading the books leads to many "aha!" moments. But while you are reading book 1 for the first time, you don't feel completely at sea with the story, the way one does in both Superman 1 and Action Comics 1 (and many, many others).
I've said before on this blog, and I will say again today, that I believe the comic-book writers of today need to go back and re-read some of the old classic series, like Rom. And they don't need to just peruse them casually -- they need to study these books, and understand what made them work, and what made them great. Like the Harry Potter series, Rom's first issue provided a good, simple, basic explanation for what was going on -- it gave the reader a baseline -- and then slowly, over the next 30 or 40 issues, more details about the explanation evolved. That is how to write a good series -- not giving the reader absolutely no baseline and then filling in random details in a deliberately confusing way over the course of a year or more.
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