What is it with this fucking business? Will someone please explain to me exactly what the attraction of writing a character created by someone else fifty years ago is? Without resorting to bullshit about a "legacy", or stories that rest upon familiarity, or fifty years of continuity?

I understand the motive that a lot of established writers have for heading over to Marvel and writing these stories about absurd people in skin-tight outfits. Money. This seems like a reasonable excuse to me. If someone backed a truck of cash up to my house and said, "This is yours if you write Sub-Mariner", I admit, I'd be sitting down and trying to write stories about a man who smells of fish.

But I'm not talking about established pros. I'm talking about aspiring writers. I'm talking about the people you see down your local shop, telling you that they're in the middle of pitch to so-and-so, or talking about the small press 'zine they've just put out.

Because it has become apparent to me of late that many (not all, but many) of these people are rejects and mutants, and need urgent shooting. Here's why: They want to write THOR. Or GREEN LANTERN. Or something similar.

'These deviants actually want to write these characters.' Not because it will bring them exposure for their other works, not because it's a means of getting a foot in the door. These are passable excuses, although frankly, there are other ways of getting exposure or a foot in the door.

No, many of these deviants actually want to write them. They would relish the opportunity. Worse, it's not just one or two of these freaks. It's not like Marvel and DC are lacking in submissions, is it? People actually spend their time making up new things to do with The Flash, without being paid for it. Am I the only one that thinks that that's a bit wrong?

And it's not just the company-owned stuff, either. I have a recollection of receiving an e-mail from Ben Peek, former editor of PopImage's Pi Comics section, in which he complained that out of a glut of submissions that he received for Web comics, only a tiny, tiny fraction were not for some form of superheroes.

All this plain terrifies me. Not just that people want to write superheroes. Not just that people want to work on things that they do not own and did not create. But that we're standing here, beside the twitching corpse of the comics industry, watching as the combined toxins of 50 years of adolescent power fantasies do their work, and there are people (fuckwits, obviously) standing around saying, "I know what'll help it recover! More of the same!"

You all know the drill: it's not that superheroes are intrinsically bad. There's nothing wrong with a bit of healthy fantasy, in moderation. But when they comprise the dominant genre, there's something wrong. How would you react if you walked into a bookstore, and found the shelves stacked with GOR novels, or some equivalent filth?

'It's not that superheroes are intrinsically bad...' But what really boggles me is that the people I'm talking about, these aspiring writers, are allegedly creative people. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't part of being a creative person that you should be, well, creating something?

I don't think I'm demanding anything unreasonable when I ask someone who claims to be a creator, and claims that their creative efforts deserve my money and time, should deliver me something new. Here's why:

We live in a world of astonishing wonder, terrible majesty, and abject horror. We live in a world where the pace of change is such that the computer I type this on, not three months old, is already running dangerously close to being yesterday's news. In the pockets of my jacket I have a computer that is also a camera, a device for playing music, and a phone. In six months time I plan to have one device that can replace all three. My wristwatch has more processing power than the computer I had ten years ago. There's a good chance that some or all of these things was produced in some of the most appalling conditions on this planet - labour just this side of slavery.

We live in a world like this, and the best these freaks can do, the thing they aspire to do, is to deliver me re-treads of the same tired old adolescent dreams that were relevant in the thirties, when almost everything I own would have belonged in the realms of science fiction. And these people expect me to awed and impressed at what they create? They expect me to become involved with it, to "ooh" and "ahh" with it?

'I can find better than Superman just by walking down the street.' I can find something more impressive than Superman saving the world again just by walking down the street with my eyes open. Don't fucking tell me that you're wanting to do something impressive or new or laudable with your dreams of writing IRON MAN. And if you're not doing something impressive, new or laudable, then why are you bothering to even try? Since when did "aiming for the status quo" become acceptable?

Understand, I am not asking for the earth. I am not claiming that everything that someone creates be the pinnacle of human achievement. I'm just asking for something new. Something, however small, that is original.

"But we can do that with Thor! We can introduce new characters, put him in new situations, give him a different outfit!"

No. Be quiet. Go away.

Thor and his filthy ilk are teenage fantasies. We read them when we were 14. They are not for thinking adults. Hell, they aren't even for children any more. Don't fool yourselves: we lost the kids a long time ago. They belong to a yellow rat-thing with a one-word vocabulary. Pikachu is much more entertaining to them than X-MEN. All we can do now is try and grow up a bit, and hope to catch them at the same time as they discover things like sex, alcohol and drugs. And we'll be up against serious competition, so it's going to require something with more of a spike in it than the fucking Hulk.

But no. The people who will be creating the comics industry when today's kids are groping each other in nightclub toilets aren't interested in doing anything serious or difficult, it seems. They're rather peddle the same tired old claptrap that they grew up with.

And so comics will die. Because they can't compete with sex.

Alasdair Watson is the author of the Eagle Award-nominated RUST.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.