Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Prison breaks

In the old days, when editor's notes rolled across the prairie like an ocean of asterisks, the superhero books would show crooks being caught and, presumably, tried and incarcerated. Later, when it was time for them to cause trouble again, they'd be shown escaping from prison because, naturally, the escape would help demonstrate how dangerous they were. An editor's note might even pop up to remind us how long they'd been in the pen.

Does anybody show that part of the process anymore? Generally speaking, do DC and Marvel track their supervillains' movements that closely, or do they just treat them as free-range bad guys who are not so much captured as temporarily thwarted? If anyone has examples, please feel free to share. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm not thinking too hard....

2 comments:

Jeff R. said...

Both companies incorporated major prison breaks into fairly recent 'event' stories. (The Villians United special during Infinite Crisis and Bendis' first New Avengers storyline, plus a spider-man mini).

And the Suicide Squad revival one the one hand and the new version of the Thunderbolts on the other might give both companies a greater excuse to dwell on that side a bit, as well...

Tom Bondurant said...

I guess there's also Ed Brubaker's Daredevil-in-prison arc, which I haven't read.

I agree about the Suicide Squad and Thunderbolts. If (say) Captain Cold gets captured in Flash one month, it'd be great to see him in Suicide Squad the next, with a little footnote that says "See? Fresh from Flash #15!"

The strangest things make me happy, but seeing characters move from one book to another naturally, without the contrivances or overexposure of a crossover, just makes the shared universes more real somehow.