As mankind slouched forward through the ages, he invented many things. One of these creations was art and entertainment. Gradually, man learned to need things like paintings and songs. And, of course, gradually the story was developed.
What must the first story have been like? At some point someone realized that there is more than the exact moment we are in. Someone realized that the time leading up to the present was important too.
And then fiction came from God knows where. Someone decided that they could tell about the history of a world that never existed. They probably took the poor bastard and trephoned his skull.
Now the fictional story is everywhere. It is the form of a thirty-second joke and in the form of a thirty million dollar movie. It is in the form of a two-hour play or a three hundred-page novel. It is in the form of an hour-long television drama and in the form of a black and white comic strip in the daily newspaper.
Everyone knows that there are many components to a story. There's the setting. There's the plot and conflict. And there's the characters. All forms of fictional narrative share these three things, in some form or another. However, there is something that separates characters in comic books from characters everywhere else.
Look at your favorite characters from movies, books, plays, etc. Most of them are in only one narrative, though perhaps they could reappear in sequels. The characters are frozen in those stories, and the stories appear only once. Harry Lime belongs to the year 1949, since that's when The Third Man came out. Holden Caulfield belongs to 1951, when Catcher in the Rye debuted. Even with plays, though they may be performed over and over again, the character still belongs to that story, in that time. A piece of literature or a movie can still be alive, since so many new people may be experiencing it, but it still exists only in its original time.
And that's where comic books stand out. Batman, Archie, Spider-Man, and Superman have been around for decades, and show no signs of going away. It's quite remarkable, in a century where things keep changing and changing, and trends and fashions become obliterated as quickly as they are started, that a fictional character would be able to last so long. Superman has been around since the thirties. How is this possible?
Well, for one thing, it helps when the character is intended for a serial. That's one of the reasons why James Bond lasted so long; Flemming intended him to be a reoccurring character.
Bond is very unique in this situation, because it seems that most pieces of serial literature are aimed towards younger people, as are serials in general. Of course there are always exceptions, like Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, but for the most part, all you see are things like The Babysitter's Club, or The Hardy Boys. Obviously, though, being a serial isn't enough to guarantee the character's longevity; Wonder Woman and Wolverine have lasted a hell of a lot longer than any of those other characters.
Another big factor, it seems, is the changing of creative teams. Spider-Man has a countless list of people who wrote and drew him. The changing of the teams enabled new thoughts and ideas to be given towards the characters. The characters belonged to the companies, not to the writers or drawers. This opened up doors to topicality, too. Characters could deal with the issues of the day (like Harry Osborn being addicted to drugs), or the issues of tomorrow (like Straczinski's World Trade Center issue of Spider-Man).
The longevity of these characters goes hand in hand with the evolution of the characters. Bob Kane created Batman because he wanted a slice of that sweet money pie. He thought he could market a vigilante dressed like a bat. Joker was made in order to play up on the universal fear everyone has of clowns. But somehow, over the decades (and thanks very much to the work of people like Dennis O'Neal and Frank Miller), Batman became a psychotic obsessed with keeping the law, and Joker became a madman embracing every aspect of chaos. The delicate balance between the two of them, of one man standing over the oblivion and the other swimming in it, is very intricate and dramatically interesting. How the hell did it come from a goofy character in a bat costume?
Somehow comic books became a timeless medium. Some of these characters made more appearances and were in more stories than any other literary figures. But that's all coming to an end, thanks to people like Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore.
If you are visiting this website, I'm sure you know how the eighties managed to turn comic books into a serious and respected medium. You also know about Sandman, and how it was discovered that a set of characters could belong to a creator, and not so much to a company. Jesse Custer is probably never going to reappear in a new set of stories. Dr. Manhattan won't be joining the Justice League anytime soon. Once Azzarello and Risso are done with 100 Bullets, Agent Graves will be put out to pasture. Sure, Batman and the X-Men are still fighting and will probably continue to fight, but we probably won't see many new characters like Batman and the X-Men, characters who will last a very long time. As the writing and stories get better, the characters become frozen. They've become better, but they've lost a little of the freedom that came with the adolescence of the old medium.
I remember when I read Ellis' The Authority for the first time. The superhero team managed to vanquish the villain's plan. I figured the son of a bitch would curse Jenny Sparks, and then go off to plan his revenge. No. He was destroyed. The heroes weren't trying to bring the bad guys to justice. They were trying to remove them from the planet. I suppose, in a way, that makes a whole lot more sense than letting the villain live to fight another day, but it still didn't feel quite right. No reoccurring villains. No more Magnetoes or Lex Luthors.
Oh well. As Guy Ryder and Bob Dylan say, the times, they are a-changing.
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