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Another month, another tradition, and another summer survived with
putrid Annuals from both of the major companies. When brainstorming for a
topic to cover this month, the idea of annual specials struck me in a big way.
For a long time now both of the big two companies have been putting out
annuals for their major titles every summer with extremely varied results.
What once seemed like a very special event now seems like another drain
on the buyer's pocketbook.
In the early 80's Annuals would usually tie in with the ongoing plot lines
from the monthly series and often included major developments that
would affect the title throughout the year. Marv Wolfman and George Perez
were experts at this with their first three New Teen Titans Annuals. In the
first Annual the ongoing saga of Starfire's war with her sister was
wrapped up. The second Annual featured the culmination of Robin's
time as an extreme vigilante and introduced the Vigilante. The third Annual is
one of the greatest examples of wrapping up several years of subplots as
the Titans confront The Terminator and the traitorous Terra, Jericho
debuts as a Titan, and most importantly the debut of Robin in his new
role of Nightwing. This is a far cry from how DC Annuals generally work in
recent years.
Marvel Comics has suffered problems similar to DC and until this year
they have developed over similar patterns. Many of Marvel's annuals would
have poignant plot lines and work by excellent creators throughout the 80's.
Longtime X-fans will tell you that the X-Men annuals featuring artwork
by Art Adams and stories by Claremont in his prime would be worth seeking
out. The level of consistency was hit and miss, like DC in the same era, but
the Annuals would give the readers a desire to pick them up as well as
the ongoing monthlies.
The Annuals have been saddled with a new tradition: a company-wide
theme. Some of these themes have ranged from interesting (Evolutionary Wars,
Pulp Heroes, Who's Who) to the mediocre (Eclipso, Year One) to the absolute
ridiculous (Planet DC, the Serpent Crown Saga, Bloodlines). The problem
with having a guiding theme to the annuals is that for every theme that
provides a great springboard for a story idea there is another that
saddles the creators with bad gimmicks.
One of the themes that had the greatest potential was DC's Armageddon
2001. Viewing glimpses of the title's characters a decade in the future
provided for some excellent stories. Through the nature of the idea, a
man from the future named Waverider views the individual futures of DC heroes to
see who will become Monarch, the despot ruler of the year 2001. Each
title could tell a story independent of the other which still contained
fun possibilities for readers whether they were interested in the Monarch
story or not. Unfortunately, due to a major leak at DC, it became fairly
public knowledge that Captain Atom would become Monarch so a
nonsensical last minute plot change instead saw Hawk of the duo Hawk and Dove
become Monarch. What could have produced a major new villain with a sense of
awe instead became a joke and letdown.
Marvel has recently made moves away from the linked themes among
their annuals and this could be a move in the right direction. Even if the
stories have little effect on the major plot lines running through the
monthly book, it still could be a showcase for creators to tell a great
stand-alone story.
DC, on the other hand, seems to be plodding ahead with the themes
among their annuals. This year recycled the Bloodlines idea of introducing new
characters and from the sampling I did of the books they did another
bang-up job on introducing third rate heroes that will never be heard from
again. But the big catch is this year they introduced International
heroes! This ensured that not only would the characters lack any truly
interesting traits, but the traits they possessed would be based primarily
on stereotypes from their country.
With any luck DC will take a page out of Marvel's book and do away with
the guiding themes for their annuals in 2001. Of course, if we're really
lucky they'll bring back Monarch and we can see Armageddon Now! I'm
heading off to reserve my copies now.
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