Kring's comics naïveté is very genuine, and his outsider's perpsective and born-again fanboy energy on genre material is a big reason why Heroes feels fresh and fun. But at the same time, it's clear that Kring seems to view the comic book medium as being largely defined by its most superficial qualities when he says things like ''I really did approach [Heroes] from a place that nobody else had, in terms of looking at it as a real character-driven piece, and trying to veer away from the superpowers as much as I could. The powers play a part in the show, but they are not leading the storytelling. And so I think that in and of itself makes Heroes sort of different [from comics].'' Clearly, this is someone who has never read Dennis O'Neill/Neal Adams' Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Chris Claremont/John Byrne's ''Dark Phoenix''/X-Men saga, Gaiman's Sandman series, or — speaking ironically of superpowers — Brian Michael Bendis' Powers, to name just a few of the most famous superhero stories of the past 30 years. All of them ''character-driven pieces,'' by the way.
To be fair, having written comics myself, I can tell you the man has a point: You gotta give 'em the eye candy. At the same time, part of the motivation for doing so is not dissimilar from TV writing: The command is to reveal character through action. Both mediums demand it. In fact, the similarity between the two storytelling mediums contains interesting implications now that television is getting into the superhero storytelling act. Already, the comics biz has lost its place in the youth culture as the primary outlet for superhero fiction to videogames, cartoons, and movies; recent research has shown that most kids don't even know where to find comics these days, thanks to the industry's retreat from newsstand distribution to comic book stores. With the advent of Heroes, comic books themselves seem to be poised to become the fourth- or fifth-best option for traditional comics content. (And for the record: The common contention that pop culture exposure of comic book characters or comic-booky material can help drive sales of comic books themselves is debatable; given the demos of comics consumption are now decidedly adult, it might be several years before we can suss out the impact Hollywood's superhero boom has had/is having on sustaining committed, long-term comic book readership and producing new fans.)
But beyond the wonky debate over competing mediums, Heroes' very creative m.o. also threatens to rob superhero comics of their uniqueness, as it suggests the way others in Hollywood could very easily churn out even more Heroes. This killer app, ironically, comes out of superhero comics themselves: In the 20 years since the Watchmen revolution, the industry has indulged a subgenre that treats the totality of superhero fiction, produced by all its disparate artists and bitterly competitive publishers, as a kind of unified mythology, filled with archetypal characters and situations. Some of the field's smartest and most popular superhero comics belong to this category, including the nostalgic Astro City and the aggressively irreverent The Authority. Rising Stars, in fact, hits right in the middle of these polarities. All these comics have characters that are but disguised versions of Superman and Batman, Spider-Man and Wolverine. Heroes is basically the TV equivalent of this approach, and the perhaps case-closed defense it or any imitating Hollywood product that follows could mount against a charge of comic book copycatting is this: ''You guys rip yourselves off all the time!''
Straczynski himself puts it this way: ''Archetypes are archetypes for a reason. They strike something deep inside us. Superman has endured since the '40s because there is something powerful about the character that resonates with us all. The danger, of course, is... [if] everything is special, then nothing is special; if everybody is Superman, nobody is Superman.''
Take it one step further: If Hollywood can take away what has always been special and super about comics, then what happens to comics themselves? It's a question that some in the wilderness of comicdom believe the industry needs to be asking and answering. One of them is Matt Brady, who runs the proverbial CNN of comic book websites, Newsarama.com. Over a year ago, when it was announced that Will Smith was attached to Tonight, He Comes, Brady posted a controversial essay that was part sage analysis, part provocative wondering-aloud. Pointing out that the financially troubled comic book industry has been kept afloat in large part from licensing revenues generated by the recent boom of comic book-derived movies, Brady asked a simple Big Picture question: What happens to the comic book biz when Hollywood realizes that it doesn't need the comic book biz to make superhero movies?
In a recent e-mail exchange, Brady told me that Heroes taps those same concerns for him. ''As heretical as it may be for me to say this, there's nothing 'magic' about Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman that can't be captured and done by someone else, and even done better.... Frankly, I don't know what studios are waiting for, as they're reaching the second- and third-tier [comic book] characters to make movies out of. I mean, Ghost Rider [a Marvel comics character, soon to be a movie starring Nicolas Cage]... how many people do you think the actual [character] will attract, versus the number of people Dimension could've gotten to check out a flick about a demonic motorcycle rider who fights demons? Pay your legal team to make it dance clear of similarities to [Ghost Rider], gore it up (since you don't have to follow anyone's usage rules) to get some more butts in the seats, and DON'T pay for the license.''
And even better, if Brady's hypothetical doppelgänger Ghost Rider rip-off is a huge hit, the studio wouldn't have to share any of the ancillary revenues with the property's copyright holder from the sale of home video, videogames, toys, and ironically, comic books.
But Marvel's Quesada doesn't buy into any of this Chicken Little clucking. ''I think there's enough room for everyone,'' he says. ''For every Heroes that's successful, Hollywood is littered with failures. What [Heroes] proves is that when it's done well, it does well, but when it's anchored to something that's a proven commodity, like Spider-Man and X-Men, you can expect something explosive. That's one thing comics offer: You have a built-in mythology and iconography that's instantly recognizable. Heroes is the exception as opposed to the norm.'' Adds Straczynski: ''I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, in the sense that yes, you can always create your own superhero to sell, but you don't know going in if it's any better than anything else. … [In] the long run, the shows based on new characters will become comics themselves, completing the circle and enhancing, rather than harming, the comic business.''
In a way, Straczynski will get the chance to put his belief to the test: In something of a full-circle twist, he and Spider-Man director Sam Raimi are currently shopping a Rising Stars TV series to the networks. ''There's been a lot of interest in that property, since it's kind of the wellspring for a lot of projects that put the superhero genre into a mainstream setting, and they kind of want to go back to the source of that wellspring. The cool part of the story, of course, being that the group of characters — good or evil — all grew up together, with all of the secrets and resentments of any such group. And whoever gets the show gets 113 superheroes for licensing. So it's going to be a question of who gets it first.''
When asked what he'd do if a network turned him down by saying, ''That sounds too much like Heroes,'' Straczynski responded: ''There's always seppuku.''
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