Why are new superhero shows less about story and more about action?

See, that statement while exaggerated is somewhat truer to The Batman which over indulged on appearances of The Joker and Penguin, but Batman The Animated Series has a pretty healthy portion of non Joker episodes.

Plus there are actual moments of villains with a continual story such as Ra's Al Ghul, Mr. Freeze and Clayface. Heck, each Mr. Freeze story continues from where the previous story left off.



Well, you're not suppose to compare a serial to a non serial to begin with. That's like saying that Spongebob Squarepants is a piece of crap because it lacks the sophistication of Citizen Kane or Macbeth. Comparing it to The Ren & Stimpy Show or Barnyard would be a more suitable comparison.
 
First let me say that I actually prefer story arcs and ongoing stories to episodic shows and I hate shows that don't grow and evolve their characters.



Ah but its how the story is told and how intricate the plot is that matters because let's face it all Superhero shows (and action shows) can be summed up by "Bad guy does something bad, good guy shows up to stop him/her".

Now take BTAS: sure it had some bad "supervillain plot of the week" episodes but those were in the minority. Like the episode "Harlequinade" where the plot is that Joker has gotten a nuclear bomb and plans to detonate it over Gotham. The story however is not about that but Harley Quinn and how screwed up her relationship is with the Joker (plus some really funny scenes of her trying to ?help? Batman out). Very few episodes are just about "Batman captures X for the 560th time" but instead using the basic premise of ?Batman fights X? as a bases of interesting stories that vary from episode to episode making most of them unique form each other.



Let?s take another Batman cartoon for a second here: The Batman. Now this series is episodic with no overarching story and little ongoing stories, yet it had more character development and setting changes than you?d think possible. All of the main characters grow and develop throughout the series and end up different than how they began. Detective Ellen Yin started out trying to arrest Batman yet she grew to accept that he is needed and partnered up with him in secret. Alfred started out trying to change Bruce?s mind about being Batman yet grew to see that it was his calling and has helped him save the world. Bruce started out as a loner questioning if being Batman was helping or hurting Gotham yet over the course of the show he slowly became more comfortable being Batman and with allies, first with Yin, then Batgirl, then Robin, and finally being one of the founding members of the Justice League. Many more characters developed that I have not mentioned for simplicities sake.

Each season had a new theme of Batman?s world changing and growing. Season 1 he was hunted by the police, season 2 he had a secret partner in Yin, season 3 the police had accepted him and Batgirl came along as his first superhero sidekick (which took him a whole season to accept her), season 4 was Robin and the theme of family and the Bat-family learning to work together, and season 5 was the Justice League and Batman being a part of a big superhero team for the first time.

All this happened in an entirely episodic series that had more development than some series with a pure story arc from start to finish.



As I said I do like ongoing stories it?s just that I like episodic ones as well and I can?t dismiss one just because it isn?t the other. I just think BTAS had better plots and writing than Iron Man AA regardless of how their stories were structured.

To get back on topic I don?t think Superhero shows have gotten more action based sacrificing story in the process. Sure some are more action oriented than others but that?s just how some series are and it doesn?t mean all of them forgo story for action.

If The Batman, a fairly average cartoon for the most part, managed to have as much character and story development as I mentioned then surely there?s been some improvement to the average action cartoon.
 
I was never a fan of Inuyasha, but I'd probably watch it over any Batman cartoon out there. At least I know something's going to happen in that show and it has an actual story to tell. Batman not so much, at least not until he get a new series that's a complete reconstruction from the ground up. It's kind of an odd comparison since Inuyasha would win by default since it actually has a story.

So would you honestly say Spongebob Spongebob places just as much emphasis on telling a story as Avatar: The Last Airbender does? This is ignoring the glaring flaw of saying that Avatar only has one plot (defeat the Fire Lord) and it also doesn't have new things every episode, only structured in a way so most episode matter and mean something.

That's kind of a bad thing with that character. Without any kind of set goal or plan for a character, they end up deteriorating with each reappearance. Mr. Freeze's first appearance was alright, a man just wanting to save his wife and get revenge for what happened to him. Understandable, but he kept coming back, with no real goal to his motives or plan anymore. By his last appearance, he's deteriorated into the generic 'cause pain for everyone' motive as a robotic head and never really got any resolution (discounting Batman Beyond, which is cheating). That's a good example of why you should plan just how your characters and going to grow and plan out.

The problem with that is Harley Quinn is such a static character and goes no where, so any kind of focus on her is completely worthless. Even in the episode Mad Love, which would be the logical stepping stone for her to grow and change, is completely thrown away at the last second to keep the status quo. Sure, you can write different ways for the Batman to capture the Joker each time, but that's not really much in the way of an actual story.

You can have all the 'good writing' in the world, but if you throw it away and hit the reset button every time, it's not really worth noting. Why should someone invest time in these stories and characters if the writers don't even do that (it's like complaining Samurai Jack never had an ending, when it never bothered to have a story in the first place). At least Lex Luthor broke away from Brianiac in Justice League, that shows more plot than anything B:TAS had. Granted, it was kind of only a few episodes out of all of them and most Justice League episodes were stand-alone, but it showed progress in the right direction. So I'll stand by my comment that superhero stuff these days have more focus on telling a story than older shows. Some more than others, of course.
 
Maybe so, but shows like Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series has a much better way of doing character development than today's versions of the characters in animation form did. X-Men TAS was great with delving into characters backstories such as Rouge wanting to be a human or Wolverine being in love in the past, sometimes the writers of today's shows try this stuff and it does not come off as deep, or they fast forward it in favor of getting to an action scene, but that's fine because that's just what they do now and I still enjoy it regardless. It was just done better in the 90's, that's all.
 
I think the reason stand-alone stories are more popular is its easier to "jump in", since ongoing stories do run the risk of filler (not to mention too much continuity) which could turn off potential fans. Lets say B:TAS had an ongoing story as opposed to what we got, and the first episode a fan sees happens to be a "filler" story that just shows batman training. It would turn a fan off that show. Now if its done like X:Men:TAS/Evolution or JLU, thats better (ongoing story told via stand-alone stories). Heck, some of the greatest superhero comic stories ever are pretty much stand-alone ("this man this monster","for the man who has everything",etc).
 
But Batman DOES have many stories. It's just those stories are mostly self-contained (and while the stories themselves are self-contained, there is some character development and continuity that lasts from story to story). Longer doesn't necessarily mean better. Compare, say, Voices of a Distant Star with the two Pirates of the Carribean sequels. One tells a self-contained story in 25 minutes, the other tells a one clocking in somewhere near 6 hours. Which one has more meaning?
 
But the "static" nature of her character was part of what made her so tragic. She's in an abusive relationship and just wants to be loved, so whenever she's had enough and wants out a little bit of affection from the Joker pulls her back in.

Just because they're not going to drastically change a character doesn't mean they can't explore them. If every series with "static" characters didn't bother to explore their characters then we'd be left with a lot of one-dimensional characters.



Just because a series is episodic doesn't mean it hits the "reset button" at the end of the episode. BTAS didn't do that, Mr Freeze, Clayface, Harvey Dent, Barbra Gordon, and others all changed from their first appearances. BTAS didn't use continuity much but it didn't discard it either. There are many other episodic series that also do that.

And I will take good writing over continuing stories because it doesn't matter if has a full series story from start to end if it's badly written then it's not worth watching. Good writing, no matter in what structure, is better than bad writing. The structure of the show won't make bad writing better no matter how interesting the setting or structure.



I disagree with that as I've seen newer shows do character development as well, if not better in some cases, than older shows.

I also wouldn't really say X-TAS had that much development and it did play fast and loose with continuity (as I've discussed elsewhere on this site so I won't go into it here) so I don't think it's better as newer shows have a tighter grasp on continuity and character development.
 
REALLY oh of course cause stories are only significant if they run long with the ultimate goal that ends all things neat and tidy that's why we watch and read stories, NOT for good ideas,let's wipe out all episodic storytelling that'll make all stories significant ...being sarcastic

that's a cheapshot comedy versus action, but if spongebob only had the pilot episode and was canned it'd still was a pretty fun story, but seriously does a good self contained story mean nothing??



how is THAT cheating because he actually died so he follows your rules
people relapse ,characters relapse, just because you say you'd quit smoking doesn't mean you'll stop it'll take a couple of tries and even then some people slip back, like someone said on the WITCH thread (antiyonder) about spiderman the villians are important but so's the human aspect

but guys(everyone on the thread) this is Marinite we're talking too there's no point in convincing him if he's set in his ways(complaining about the same stuff any superhero hater does and the guy who complained about spectacular spider man despite how continuity heavy it was) and I'm not sure if anyone noticed he seems to be ignoring some of the statements WC reaf was making and even some on the WITCH thread, then everyone just argues more to him but he's responding to the negatives he sees in the posts, I think we're just wasting thread space
 
That's pretty much what I would presume. I personally have no problem with that, if a show has a nice story, then I'll watch from the first episode and play catch-up up I need to (like I did Full Metal Alchemist and Naruto: Shippuden). It just seems writers/executive think most people won't, or are too lazy, so they don't bother. Personally, I don't think anyone should dumb down their story out of fear of alienating new watchers, but it's a big problem with the industry I suppose. (Comics have written themselves into that corner already, always toting how something is 'a perfect jumping on' point)

Sure, every episode is a story, but it's broken down and restricted so much. Emphasis on 'some'. You can pretty much cheat the ending by looking at the clock (if the episode is almost over, the good guys are going to win).

Granted, maybe it's more of the fact they're not made with an actual ending in mind so the development doesn't push for that purpose rather than being episodic, but they pretty much go hand in hand with these kinds of shows. Or maybe it's just the writers. Our sample size is a bit small so it's hard to dissect and analyze where the problem lies.

I never found her tragic because I knew it wasn't an issue they were going to address or ever develop, and they never did. It was played for jokes more than anything (I know he's the Joker, but still). If the writers don't go anywhere with the character, then there's not much point in placing emotional value on them. Not when I can place it on more deserving characters like Maes Hughes or even Dinobot.

For example, half the time we get a Harley/Ivy episode we get some passing mention of "She had a fight with the Joker so she's staying her". We don't really see it, and it's just a passing line there to set up a Harley/Ivy team up episode, not really develop her character since there's no lasting consequences with that fight. Compare that to, say, Hawkgirl's betrayal, we see that go down and how it plays out in Justice League, and by the next episode everything just isn't back to normal for her. It's a developing part of her character that lasts until the end of the show. Harley? It's barely development for one episode before it gets written back to status-quo.

The thing is that bare-bones continuity is just about all we get most of the time. Some passing mentions that episodes have happened, but no real endgame conclusion or story on the horizon to wrap anything up. Sure, Mr. Freeze deteriorated (for the worse) as a character, but that ended up hurting him because the writers had no idea what to do with him; being more story focused (like, making it a 52 episode series) would probably alleviate that.



What one finds good and one finds bad is entirely subjective, though, so you might as well make the most of the series and structure it so it has much potential as possible.

Because anyone can go back years later and wrap stuff up from an old show when the show has already been over and cancelled and they know they missed the chance to end things.
 
huh huh that was pretty funny Marinite considering in a show like avatar the good guys win at the end of the series same could be said about naruto of course there gonna win in the end, actually the ultimate goal makes it even more predictable that the big bad guy and big good guy are gonna face off at the end espically with fullmetal alchemist which I thought wouldn't end that way(in just a big fight scene)

I think it's more unpredictable when batman fights joker cause the outcomes are different , each story can carve out something new from the character, sure they don't die but a new chapter between batman and joker has been written, they'll refer back to it even if they don't it that adds to there history as there relationship vaguely evolves over time, the 1st appearance of joker in btas is different from the last episode of btas and even stas and JL , but I know that won't break you Marinite why do I even bother..

oh and what a surprise more generalization of superhero comics (again) ,what superhero comics have you read?? though your stance on THE ULTIMATE GOAL basically wipes out the value of stories individually
 
Certain things are subjective yes but if something is plothole ridden with out of character moments galore then its bad writing. Pure and simple.

Potential doesn't make a good series. Every series has potential but it's the follow-through that makes or breaks a series. If a show doesn't follow-through with that potential then it's a bad show. Both serial and episodic shows are subject to this, just because something is serial doesn't make it better or immune to bad writing and not living up to potential.
 
Um, you are aware that Masashi Kishimoto has no ending in mind for Naruto at this point and is just making up the story as he goes along, right?

If you talk about things building up towards a planned ending as the only form of good storytelling, well, what's wrong necessarily with spontaneity? Life generally doesn't build up to some big finale, so why must art?
 
Look, I love progression, but I think you've mistakenly confused it with "development". Progression can be a great and interesting aspect of developing a character, but it's not a necessary aspect, and it's certainly not the sole defining feature.

Development also occurs when you explore a character's present state. Exploring the way their mind works, how they react to different situations, how they interact with other characters, and how they got to be the way they are now.
 
Was going to stay out of this discussion, but wanted to provide some last imput. If I can provide anything new upon further response, then I will continue.



The thing is, that BTAS isn't trying to be a serial and shouldn't be judged as a failure for being a standalone.

And while Inuyasha does get a final story, it occured in a follow up series made only when the manga concluded. If we can't count Batman Beyond, then Inuyasha Final Act should be dismiss.

Even then, the fact that the story ended, doesn't absolve it for it's pacing issues. And there are manga turned anime which have decent pacing like Dragon Ball, so there really is no excuse for other manga to anime stories feeling stretched out and tedious.

Now if you perceive Stand alone stories to be a flaw, then it's your right to believe that. But if you genuinely believe a flaw no matter how big or small to be a turn off, then Inuyasha should equally be deemed unwatchable for poor pacing.
 
I think the main difference is once you beat the big bad in those kinds of shows, it's over. Fire Lord Ozai/Father isn't going to come back every other week to do it all over again and try to conquer the world again. It's like the age old debate of why Batman doesn't kill the Joker to save lives (the answer being marketing, you wouldn't be able to use the Joker in your stories anymore and have to think of something new) despite the fact if it was any other format the hero would have offed the villain by then. That's kind of my beef with episodic stuff, it needs to remain status quo friendly. Current shows at least mix it up a bit compared to earlier ones.

A lot of them. A good example is Runaways. It was originally published under Marvel's Tsunami imprint, which was designed to hook manga-readers by trying out the 'set story' format. It was pretty good. The problem was sold a bit too well so Marvel nixed the idea of a set story and brought it back and milked it out similar to their other titles, completing missing the point of what it was originally meant to be (that is, a short series about a group of kids taking down their super villain parents). I think a 13 or 26 episode Runaways series could do pretty well in that regard. It could be very story-focused. There wasn't too much action and it was more character focused, but with some recent superhero shows having more focus on story, I think it could work pretty well. I definitely couldn't see it being made in the 80s or early 90s when those kinds of shows were purely episodic, though.

I think at the very least, being serial-focused prevents writers from falling into ruts and being formulamatic. Not to mention it has greater potential in the long-run. Similar to how live-action sitcoms are forced to address aging cast members by mixing up the story, while animated ones can stay kids for 20 years without any thought put into it. Certain formats do alter the way a story can be written.

It's safe to say 'the Akatsuki get taken down' is the ending for the series. How he gets there is up to him.

Because it's fiction, which isn't bound by real life, and and I enjoy a good story. Most people also don't live very exciting lives, so I find using 'real life' is a weak excuse since that's the purpose of fiction.

If it wanted to be episodic, that's fine, I'm just saying I wouldn't call it story-focused (especially compared to newer stuff which, quite frankly, puts it to shame) There's some episodic series that pull off having a story, but B:TAS wasn't one of them.

Eh, that's kind of different. Final Act was just another season of Inuyasha, just made later since the anime went on hiatus. Batman Beyond was intended to be it's own series with a new cast of characters/setting, and just threw an episode or two to wrap some old things up. They did it again with Justice League Unlimited's 'Epilogue' for (ironically) Batman Beyond. Two times is a bit of sign they didn't really focus on telling those particular stories in their respective shows properly, and were just kind of 'going with the flow' and telling episodic tales. If that's what they wanted to do, that's fine, but I'd say that's a clear indication they weren't focused on telling an actual story.
 
Ah but in serial shows writers can also realise they don't have enough stories to fill up all their episodes and make filler episodes, which happens quite a bit in serial storytelling. Every format has its good and bad points.



Again telling a story does not just mean telling a story for the whole series. BTAS was story focused in that each episode was about a story rather than excuses for Batman getting into fights.
 
I love a good story too. And I have to ask you, what's wrong with a good short story, and what's wrong with using many individual stories to develop interesting characters?

Now here's a good question for you, not about an action or superhero show, but a show I think excels at storytelling: what do you think of the storytelling in The Boondocks? There is a definite beginning and a definite end, several different story arcs, continuity, and very well developed characters. Each episode also works as a self-contained story. Seeing as it deals in topical satire, I seriously doubt all these stories were planned out from the beginning, but rather developed along with interesting developments in the world and in the creative crew's life and such. But there's still a lot of entertainment and a lot of depth, so why does it matter? What about Cowboy Bebop? Similar scenario, only a lot more tightly planned out. Still an episodic series with exciting stand-alone stories and a lot of character development.
 
not true DBZ had a big bad guy dead and then what happened an even bigger bad guy came,

hmmm considering batman doesn't kill, if he did then that kinda defeats the point of the character and even his mythos, he'd just be a killer, if he did kill then what we read a series about a guy who KILLS villians then it'd really devolve into what youre saying about milking a franchise

marvel wanting a book to fail and lose money how is that financially beneficial to them??, runaways season 2 comics was made by the originally creative team even BKV said he built the series so he could write hundreds of issues for it unlike his or works like Y the last man, even if the tsunami imprint was made for manga readers the titles themselves were NOT they were pitches by writers, runaways and spiderman loves MJ were pitches by sean mckeever and BKV even before the line was thought up
 
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