#comic industry

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India’s Animation & Comic Industry Transformation | IBEF

How Manga Broke the US Comic Industry is a very good series of interviews with key players in the development and rise of Manga in the US. Well worth the watch. I worked with most of the players here and can say I was surprised by their candor in the interviews. 

Let’s put this on the table — no filters, no velvet gloves.

Marvel and DC haven’t been writing stories, but fragments disguised as narratives.

Note 👉 Don’t get mad before reading the whole thing — let me peel this onion with fire first."

(ಠ_ಠ) 🔥 1. Mainstream comics aren’t stories — they’re living franchises

The current structure of big publishers like DC and Marvel isn’t designed to tell stories with a beginning, middle, and end. It’s designed to:

●Keep an IP relevant

●Never allow a definitive closure

●Rewrite whenever convenient

●Feed the market with what “sells,” not what makes sense

That’s why you have a thousand versions of Batman, five reboots in 20 years, and timelines that look like Schrödinger diagrams on acid. (¬_¬)

The result? You’re not reading a story. You’re consuming loose pieces of pop mythology you’re expected to assemble with reader faith! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

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(￣ー￣；) 🧩 2. These series are puzzles… that sometimes don’t even fit

Each writer comes in to play with the toys the last writer left behind, but:

●There’s no coherent continuity

●There’s no emotional follow-up for characters

●There’s no real responsibility in psychological development.

●There are retcons that erase everything with no explanation

And if something written in the '80s is “inconvenient” or doesn’t match today’s ideology? It’s erased, reinvented, or ignored.

The result? Readers are left with a bag of anecdotes that don’t form a whole — just the illusion of one.

(｡•́︿•̀｡)🎭 3. Characters don’t evolve — they get recycled...

🦇 In the Bat-Family:

Bruce Wayne is the same in '89, New 52, Rebirth, Future State, and Elseworlds... and also not.

Every writer rewrites him in their style, but the character can’t truly grow or change — because that would compromise the “brand.”

Dick Grayson has been Robin, Nightwing, Batman, Agent 37, and back again. His entire arc is a constant loop of "leaving the nest" and being pulled back in. The illusion of freedom, never the reality.

Jason Todd is a victim of this: killed, resurrected, betrayed, forgiven, re-betrayed, cleaned, tainted again, and cleaned once more.

Narratively solid? No.

Emotionally explosive? Yes.

Coherent? Absolutely not.

Intentional? Only if you understand: the business isn’t storytelling — it’s product-selling.

(╥_╥)

Barbara Gordon was one of the most powerful disabled characters in comics as Oracle… then was put back in the Batgirl suit. They erased growth for aesthetics. One of the few times "representation" was reversed.

Tim Drake has been the "smart Robin," Red Robin, then maybe not, then renamed "Drake" (a branding flop so hard it still echoes). He’s constantly redefined but never allowed to mature into anything solid. (╥_╥)

Damian Wayne swings between bratty killer, redeemed hero, forgotten son, edgy loner, then brat again. His "growth" resets every two years.

Cassandra Cain, the silent Batgirl with one of the most unique arcs in DC, was shelved for years and then constantly rebranded — because DC didn’t know how to market someone not snarky, not white, and not loud.

(;_;)

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🕷️ Over at Marvel:

Peter Parker is a man frozen in high school values. Every time he matures (marriage, business, mentorship), he’s pulled back to broke, unlucky, single Spidey — because that’s what sells. One More Day exists not for story reasons, but because editorial said Peter being married made him “unrelatable.” (◎_◎;)!!

Jean Grey is a resurrection machine. Her arcs about identity and control are potent — and then tossed into the dumpster every time they need a Phoenix event. She doesn’t evolve — she combusts, resets, and repeats.

Scott Summers went from straight-arrow leader, to revolutionary, to pariah, to dead, to forgiven, to neutered sidekick again. His journey gets rewritten so often you’d swear he has multiversal amnesia.

Logan / Wolverine is always dying, healing, mentoring, rejecting, accepting, losing control, and getting tamed. He’s a raw wound that never closes, not because the story demands it — but because the brand does.

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(－_－)

🦹 Even villains get the rinse-and-repeat:

Lex Luthor has been a genius CEO, a mad scientist, a savior, a cosmic god, and back to bald businessman. Every time he becomes too interesting, he's reduced to "jealous of Superman" again.

Magneto has been a monster, a victim, a revolutionary, a martyr, a villain again — depending on the political winds or writer’s taste. He could be literature. Instead, he’s a moral ping-pong ball.

Harley Quinn went from tragic codependent to feminist icon to Deadpool-lite to multiversal gimmick. Her narrative depends less on who she is and more on what’s trending.

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🌀 Even when they break the mold… they glue it back together

Wally West had a complete arc: legacy, mentorship, struggle, triumph. He became the Flash — and people loved him. But editorial nostalgia for Barry Allen erased that progress.

Wally's reward for years of growth? Trauma, erasure, villainy, cleanup, erasure again.

X-23 (Laura Kinney) stepped up to become the new Wolverine in a heartfelt, earned transition. It worked. Until Logan returned, and she was demoted again — not for failure, but because the original had to reclaim the name.

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This isn’t growth. (｡•́︿•̀｡)

It’s character taxidermy: make them look alive, pose them for emotional impact, but never actually let them change.

No change is permanent, because change means resolution, and resolution means closure, and closure?

Bad. For. Business.

\(￣ー￣)/

So.. instead of arcs (ﾟヮﾟ)

(¬_¬) we get loops.

Instead of evolution (ﾟヮﾟ)

(¬_¬) we get emotional rearrangement.

Instead of characters (ﾟヮﾟ)

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ we get branded templates with interchangeable emotional beats!!

(－_－) 📚 4. The Illusion of Complexity Is Just That: An Illusion

Many fans defend comics by saying:

(¬‿¬ ) > “They’re complex stories — you just have to read more to understand.”

.... (╯°益°)╯彡┻━┻ — Let’s not confuse complexity with inconsistency disguised as depth!!

Many arcs are poorly written or simply abandoned. Massive concepts are introduced — Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Flashpoint, Final Crisis, The Forge, The Button, Dark Nights: Metal, Doomsday Clock, Dark Crisis, The Dark Multiverse, Heroes in Crisis, Future State, Convergence...

Then what happens? (ﾟヮﾟ)

(╯°益°)╯彡┻━┻ — They either fizzle out, end with a reboot, get retconned halfway through, or are rewritten by the next creative team with a handwave like: “This is canon now.”

The result? The reader is left in limbo — fed excitement, not meaning.

Ideas are stacked on top of each other without stable foundations.

Characters evolve — and then devolve.

Events build up stakes — and then erase them.

It creates the illusion of complexity, but what we’re really navigating is a maze built from editorial decisions — not narrative growth.

(；へ：) 👥 5. The reader becomes the real writer

Because you have to put the puzzle together, justify contradictions.

That’s why the community is divided:

'80s fans, '90s fans, Snyderverse fans, Rebirth fans, animated canon fans…

They’re all reading different things — even if it’s the same character.

And everyone argues from a personal lens because there is no actual thread.

Why? Because that thread doesn’t exist.

What exists is a floating continuity that only works when it supports your argument.

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⚖️ 6. Is it all bad? No. But it’s manipulative. (╬ಠ益ಠ)

This isn’t about saying comics have no value.

Some arcs are brilliant. Some writers work miracles.

But the publishing system isn’t built for comics to work like solid sagas or structured novels.

It’s built so there’s always something else to buy, but never something to conclude.

It’s a cycle without closure.

An amusement park with no exit.

A “story” that always has another version that contradicts it.

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💀 My conclusion:

Comics are (now at day) editor-driven franchises. They exist to keep you inside.

That’s why you, me, and so many readers end up writing essays, theories, and reinterpretations:

Because we want a story a good one.... But we just get pieces.

Can that chaos be loved? Yes.

But can it be called structured narrative?

Let’s be honest…