Should comics be in real time?

After reading a couple of threads on legacy characters, I had my recurring thought that comics may be better if they occurred in real time? Would stories be better if characters were allowed to age at a normal rate? I think there are pros and cons to both sides. Arguing for the present system, fans are allowed to enjoy classic characters over many generations, and comic companies have proven commodities that they can count on to sell comics. The negative to that is that many stories are rehashed versions of older ones and companies are forced to create continuity cleansing events to account for how everything in their universe happened in the last 10-20 years. Arguing for real time progression, we get to see characters actually progress through life, and change can be permanent and not just a temporary storyline. We get to see the marriages which produce the children who grow into sidekicks who grow up to adopt their parent's identity. And we get to grow up with them. (I am 38 and Franklin Richards is older than I am). The downside to this is the downside to life. Heroes we love would retire and die of old age. (Bruce Wayne would be over 100 by now) Fans may reject their replacements. What are your thoughts on this?

It works very well for some (Constantine is just perfect for that), but most are like the greek mythology, they are just better outside of the time stream, just good stories with a nice plot, a few tricks and strong characters.

I'm two years older than you are and your statement about Franklin Richards just kicked me in the balls. Man, I don't want uncle Ben to get too old for me to have a drink or twelve with him when I go to NY.

We'd still have to wait a few decades for anything to actually change.

But it would be nice, I think.

Honestly, that's the only real way to bring back any suspension of disbelief when it comes to death in comics at this point.

Savage Dragon

I know fans would not like it, but I think it would be better for the industry if there were a statute of limitations on how long a character could exist. For example, after 75 years, the character has to either permanently retire or permanently die (no coming back to life). That's pretty much the only way the comic book industry (and fans) would move away from telling the same stale Batman story for the 2573rd time and make them tell a new story about a new character. Creating new characters (who were actually important, not on the fringe) would make the industry more accessible to newcomers and more sustainable long-term.

I wouldn't. Because then you'll have the "mantle" being passed to someone else, when the prior was your favorite. I don't want to have a favorite and then see him not appear anymore, and then have to deal with some new naive wannabe :P

Al Simmons >>> Jim Downing

@jinxuandi said:

Creating new characters (who were actually important, not on the fringe) would make the industry more accessible to newcomers and more sustainable long-term.

This.

But it's not like your favorite would be arbitrarily replaced. They would have a nice 20-30 year career and most likely would be replaced by their child or sidekick who you would probably also like and would have spent years anticipating the day they would become the main guy. Also it would give characters meaningful deaths that wouldn't be reversed 6 months later.

In DC comics, I always figured five real years equals one DC year. The math on this actually works pretty well pre-DCNU. For instance, you have Tim Drake joining Batman at age 13 in that late eighties. At the end of the DCU in 2011, Tim was age seventeen. That was about right.

With the five for one rule, Bruce would be in his mid-thirties, Dick in his mid-twenties, and Tim in his upper teens. Superman, Wonder Woman would have over ten years of fighting as superheroes while characters like Booster Gold and Guy Gardener would have about five years.

Anyway, this is all screwed up with the DCNU, but I kind of like this system. With characters like Batman, they could keep aging him for the next twenty or so real years (four comics years) before he would really start slowing down, and then they could do some stories about Bruce having to adjust to getting old (which would force some character development [God forbid!]), and then Bruce could take a dip in the Lazarus Pit or something because nobody wants to lost the Bat.

I like everything to be in continuity, but that isn't going to happen.

@ExtraLarge said:

Also it would give characters meaningful deaths that wouldn't be reversed 6 months later.

This is something that comic books are missing and have always missed. Major characters just don't die, we all know it, and it's a huge blow to suspension of disbelief.

I'll give a recent example. This week's Captain America and Iron Man ends with Iron Man is on his knees in front of Machete, who threatens to cut his head off. When I saw this, I just laughed. Iron Man isn't going to die. Anyone who's reader more than a few comics knows that, so the "cliffhanger" is really pointless and doesn't compel me to buy the next issue. If there were a chance he might actually die, I might be intrigued, however.

@nickthedevil: I actually like Jim Downing, but the Violator is the real gem in the Spawn series. Just my opinion.

Damn straight! Finally! Someone else who likes Violator!

No. If they were in real time we would just have generation after generation of flash and spider-man. The companies probably wouldn't actually try to come up with new characters but just recycle and slightly change them.

Isn't that what they do now?

sometimes we have to wait a month for events that happen immediately after the events of the previous issue. So no.

@jinxuandi said:

I know fans would not like it, but I think it would be better for the industry if there were a statute of limitations on how long a character could exist. For example, after 75 years, the character has to either permanently retire or permanently die (no coming back to life). That's pretty much the only way the comic book industry (and fans) would move away from telling the same stale Batman story for the 2573rd time and make them tell a new story about a new character. Creating new characters (who were actually important, not on the fringe) would make the industry more accessible to newcomers and more sustainable long-term.

So much this. @desmond006 said:

No. If they were in real time we would just have generation after generation of flash and spider-man. The companies probably wouldn't actually try to come up with new characters but just recycle and slightly change them.

This is an interesting possibility to bring up.

I'd be fine with this as long as it's done well as you've mentioned in an earlier post. I'd much rather have long lasting development at the risk of missing a character I grew up with than have seemingly never ending stagnation and repetition. I'd also like for deaths to make sense given the character's history and not just be stupidly arbitrary (I'm looking at you, Final Crisis). Very good point you bring up here.