Storylines That Fizzled Out

[RichardWrite]

When I think of a storyline that seemed to have potential, but then fizzled out, I always think about an elf. In the 1970s, Steve Gerber was writing THE DEFENDERS, and there was an ongoing subplot about this elf who would show up at different locations and shoot and kill some random person. It may have been under a different writer (I don't remember that well, and I don't have the issue), but rather than letting this develop into some great enemy for the team, all of a sudden one issue, we see the elf get run over by a truck....and killed. And that was it for the elf storyline.

So I was wondering if anyone else has a contender for a story that had potential....but then fizzled out.

[Roquefort Raider]

When I think of a storyline that seemed to have potential, but then fizzled out, I always think about an elf. In the 1970s, Steve Gerber was writing THE DEFENDERS, and there was an ongoing subplot about this elf who would show up at different locations and shoot and kill some random person. It may have been under a different writer (I don't remember that well, and I don't have the issue), but rather than letting this develop into some great enemy for the team, all of a sudden one issue, we see the elf get run over by a truck....and killed. And that was it for the elf storyline.

So I was wondering if anyone else has a contender for a story that had potential....but then fizzled out.

That was an excellent example, although I think J. M. DeMatteis retconned the elf into being some kind of messenger for some higher power later in the run... wasn't he back right before the defenders disbanded to make room for the "New" Defenders (Beast, Angel, Iceman, Gargoyle et al.)?

Another apparently abandoned sub-plot that comes to kind was in a New Mutants issue that cross-over with Team America (f*** yeah!). The assembled heroes were after some crystal that AIM had been tinkering with in a desert base, and at the end of the adventure something goes ka-blooey in the laboratory and Xavier ominously feels the birth of a terrible intelligence. I believe that people back then reasoned that what he felt was either the Beyonder (who was about to enter the scene, although Xavier DID feel the Beyonder's mind probes in another issue and specified that it was not the same thing he had felt before) or Ahmal Farouk, later to be known as the Shadow King, returning to the mortal plane. For my part, I think it was just one too many disembodied evil presence, and it was simply dropped.

[Cei-U!]

That was an excellent example, although I think J. M. DeMatteis retconned the elf into being some kind of messenger for some higher power later in the run... wasn't he back right before the defenders disbanded to make room for the "New" Defenders (Beast, Angel, Iceman, Gargoyle et al.)?

I *just* read that storyline over the weekend and your memory is faultless: the Elf was but one of many "time agents" employed by the Tribunal, a band of cosmic entities self-described as "the anti-bodies of the universe." The Elves (yes, there are thousands of 'em) were charged with removing (not killing) certain individuals from the timestream who posed a threat to reality. Why elves? Because the Tribunal, misreading Earth's history, believed elves were a globally-recognized cultutal icon and would thus be "inconspicuous" while on their missions. Yeah, I know. I have to give points to DeMatteis for finding a way to halfway credibly tie up all the series' loose ends before turning Defenders into yet another mutant title but as far as I'm concerned, the book died at that point and just didn't know it.

Cei-U!
I summon the pulp paper zombie!

[Polar Bear]

I think the most frustrating one for me recently was after Superman nearly killed Batman while under the control of Maxwell Lord, who was then killed by Wonder Woman. These actions effectively split up DC's "trinity" on the eve of the Infinite Crisis. (Plus, Bob Harras did some ill-received final sequence on Justice League, splitting the heroes up even more.) Then ... nothing. If there was any big reconciliation scene, I missed it. They were all just buddies again, as if by magic and retcon. Hated it. People just don't act that way.

Earlier, I'd say the not-retconned-enough Omega the Unknown, such 70s cancellations as Stalker, Shade the Changing Man, and Freedom Fighters, as well as dozens of Uncanny X-Men storylines. Plus these, of course.

[shaxper]

Technically, don't they all? Major publishers are never going to let a hit story just end, so they keep titles going, creative teams onboard, and successful characters and plot devices reoccurring until the product gets excessively repetitive and isn't good enough to publish anymore. It seems to me that only independent publishers and major creative teams with significant "pull" are ever able to end a great story.

That being said, one of the most disappointing fizzles I ever read was Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory. So much potential, and most of it was never realized by the close.

[Venomous Mask]

Aliens: Colonial Marines was a perfect example. It was a ten-issue limited series that was really building up to a good climax, and then the ending was just so stupid. And then all all the good guys are killed, but because their reactions to the final events, you just can't bring yourself to care.

[dan bailey]

The derailing of Jim Shooter's plot threads by editorial fiat at the end of the Legion three(I think)boot comes to mind for me.

[berk]

That was an excellent example, although I think J. M. DeMatteis retconned the elf into being some kind of messenger for some higher power later in the run... wasn't he back right before the defenders disbanded to make room for the "New" Defenders (Beast, Angel, Iceman, Gargoyle et al.)?

Another apparently abandoned sub-plot that comes to kind was in a New Mutants issue that cross-over with Team America (f*** yeah!). The assembled heroes were after some crystal that AIM had been tinkering with in a desert base, and at the end of the adventure something goes ka-blooey in the laboratory and Xavier ominously feels the birth of a terrible intelligence. I believe that people back then reasoned that what he felt was either the Beyonder (who was about to enter the scene, although Xavier DID feel the Beyonder's mind probes in another issue and specified that it was not the same thing he had felt before) or Ahmal Farouk, later to be known as the Shadow King, returning to the mortal plane. For my part, I think it was just one too many disembodied evil presence, and it was simply dropped.

I *just* read that storyline over the weekend and your memory is faultless: the Elf was but one of many "time agents" employed by the Tribunal, a band of cosmic entities self-described as "the anti-bodies of the universe." The Elves (yes, there are thousands of 'em) were charged with removing (not killing) certain individuals from the timestream who posed a threat to reality. Why elves? Because the Tribunal, misreading Earth's history, believed elves were a globally-recognized cultutal icon and would thus be "inconspicuous" while on their missions. Yeah, I know. I have to give points to DeMatteis for finding a way to halfway credibly tie up all the series' loose ends before turning Defenders into yet another mutant title but as far as I'm concerned, the book died at that point and just didn't know it.

Cei-U!
I summon the pulp paper zombie!

I haven't read much of DeMatties's professional work, but it's hearing about things like this that makes me think he was probably much better at writing analyses for the letters-page than at writing the comics themselves.

[Gothos]

There's an old issue of STRANGE TALES from the 1960s in which Gabe Jones is seen masquerading as a member of "the Secret Empire," which was a setup for a new plot involving that group. No one followed up on it, and a hasty editorial note claimed that the story would be related later. Yeah, something like six-seven years later, when continuity-minded Steve Englehart worked the story of the Secret Empire into an involved Captain America opus.

For that matter, a couple of years before, Englehart tried to make sense of the dropped Jim Steranko plotline about Captain America assuming a new secret identity, though for the most part all his friends kept on treating him like Steve Rogers. Whether the public at large remembered the whole megilla, who knows. An early 1970s plotline did attempt to give Cap a secret ID as a police officer, which I rather liked, but I think the writer changed and so Cap the Cop was dropped as well.

[Reptisaurus!]

I *just* read that storyline over the weekend and your memory is faultless: the Elf was but one of many "time agents" employed by the Tribunal, a band of cosmic entities self-described as "the anti-bodies of the universe." The Elves (yes, there are thousands of 'em) were charged with removing (not killing) certain individuals from the timestream who posed a threat to reality. Why elves? Because the Tribunal, misreading Earth's history, believed elves were a globally-recognized cultutal icon and would thus be "inconspicuous" while on their missions. Yeah, I know. I have to give points to DeMatteis for finding a way to halfway credibly tie up all the series' loose ends before turning Defenders into yet another mutant title but as far as I'm concerned, the book died at that point and just didn't know it.

Cei-U!
I summon the pulp paper zombie!

Oh come on! He should get some kind of "Excellence in Completely Missing the Point" Eisner or somethin'.

[Cei-U!]

Oh come on! He should get some kind of "Excellence in Completely Missing the Point" Eisner or somethin'.

Of course DeMatteis missed the point, just as Steven Grant did earlier in wrapping up Omega. Neither one is Steve Gerber and it's a tad unfair to expect them to be. Their resolutions of his (involuntarily) unresolved plotlines may not have been inspired or clever or emotionally satisfying but I give 'em props for having the balls to even try. I sure as hell wouldn't want that job.

Cei-U!
I summon your real mission impossible!

[benday-dot]

Oh come on! He should get some kind of "Excellence in Completely Missing the Point" Eisner or somethin'.

Mark is right on. The elf "plot" I don't look at all as a fizzled out or unfinished storyline. I don't think Gerber had a grand conclusion. Life is often random and absurd, and sometimes that randomness and absurdity can include an elf with a gun.

Having said that I think DeMatteis, overall wrote some decent Defenders stories, just not in the same league as Gerber, Kraft, and at times Englehart.

[Aaron King]

Mark is right on. The elf "plot" I don't look at all as a fizzled out or unfinished storyline. I don't think Gerber had a grand conclusion. Life is often random and absurd, and sometimes that randomness and absurdity can include an elf with a gun.

Having said that I think DeMatteis, overall wrote some decent Defenders stories, just not in the same league as Gerber, Kraft, and at times Englehart.

I agree with all of this. I think I read somewhere (Comics Journal maybe?) that Gerber's intention with the elf was to show, thematically, that sometimes there are just unexplainable tragedies in life. Not everything has to have an end or an explanation.

I also think that Gerber and Kraft are so far beyond everyone else on Defenders. I could never get into Englehart's work on the series, which is too bad because I like some of his other stuff.

[dupersuper]

Whatever happened to Scorn and Ashbury Armstrong? Whatever happened to Malvolio? Whatever happened to the alien threat the mysterious alien warned Superboy and CM3 about? Whatever happened to the attack the aliens who trained Alpha Centurion had planned? Etc...

[Slam_Bradley]

Whatever happened to Scorn and Ashbury Armstrong? Whatever happened to Malvolio? Whatever happened to the alien threat the mysterious alien warned Superboy and CM3 about? Whatever happened to the attack the aliens who trained Alpha Centurion had planned? Etc...

It's like you're speaking Esperanto.