The Death of the Personal Life & Supporting Cast

I frequent the Penny Arcade Graphic Violence forums quite often and a topic came up about how few, if any, characters have personal lives or supporting casts anymore.  Try as I could, I couldn't find anyway to disagree with what everyone was saying.  Hit the jump as we discuss this comic book pandemic.

The Death of the Personal Life

In older comics, characters had secret identities and their personal life.  One was exclusive from the other and they would have to juggle duties as a crime fighter with their personal life.  Spider-Man was a perfect example of this.  He'd go to school, work for the Daily Bugle and juggle girlfriends and family obligations.  Even Batman would have to be Bruce Wayne and attend social functions on occasion.  

Most modern stories have shifted to a focus on the super hero.  To continue the example, look at Spider-Man today.  He's been fired from his job for doctoring fake images and, with Mary Jane no longer in his life, he's pretty much just Spider-Man 24/7.  They even did a storyline where he tried to be Spider-Man 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  

But this isn't just something restricted to Spider-Man or Marvel.  Geoff Johns's Green Lantern started out with a focus on rebuilding Hal Jordan's life and even set up his old supporting cast and job at Ferris Air.  They put a focus on rebuilding Star City and his job as a pilot and so on.  Today, none of those things exist.  He's Green Lantern first and even his love interests have disappeared. 

Another problem is that many characters, especially those that can no longer support a book, now only appear as super heroes.  Hands in the air, when was the last time you saw Jaime Reyes outside of his Blue Beetle costume?  What about Dick Grayson outside of the Batman costume or working at his former jobs (or new ones) as a police officer or museum curator?  Any X-Men not off killing people/holding war meetings and just chilling around playing baseball or having some fun?  Any Green Arrow people not killing people with cats or hiding in forests?  Or Steve Rogers's life?  The Avengers spend all of their time talking in their 23 different Bendis written titles, but rarely do they just go have a beer or eat a hotdog or be normal people.

I remember when our heroes (or villains) actually spent time out of costume.  

I remember the original Thunderbolts, a bunch of villains, just chilling and reading fan mail or going out shopping or finding clothes for Jolt.  Even when they went on the lamb with Hawkeye,  they found time to have relationships and get side jobs or attend school.  Does anyone have a personal life these days?  I know few, if any, are shown anymore.  Daredevil used to have a great balance between his personal life and super heroics.  That's gone by the wayside with Shadowland, but was still an integral part up until a few months ago.  Wolverine: Weapon X showcases Wolverine's personal life fairly often with him and Steve Rogers having some beers to celebrate his return or just introducing everyone to his newest girlfriend.  Secret Six has had the team go out for a night on the town here and there and showed them having downtime between missions, too, and they make for some of the best issues in that series.  These are only a couple of examples, but I was having a lot of difficulty finding more to balance this post out. 

The Death of the Supporting Cast

Some great new characters, but not a true supporting cast.

Going hand in hand with a character's personal life is their supporting cast.  The majority of supporting casts these days consist of other heroes or super powered people.  Continuing with previous examples, look at Spider-Man.  With no job, no wife, and no family, he's pretty much cut out his entire supporting cast they were attempting to build for him with Brand New Day.  There's no reason to see Jonah or the Daily Bugle/Frontline staff.  There's no reason for him to be with a girlfriend or potential girlfriend since a super hero, Black Cat, is his on again, off again flame.  There's nobody in his life that isn't super powered other than the random Aunt May appearance (like 2 pages in 8 issues or so).  We only know most of these people because they've existed for 60 years and if they were new, they became caracitures more than actual people you cared about seeing, like his irratic roommate, Michele, or the snarky reporter from Frontline, Norah.  

Uh...who are you again?

Another example from above is Green Lantern.  Show of hands, who remembers Hal's brother and his family?  They had some build up in the early issues and played a small part in Sinestro Corps War if you can't recall.  They were rolled out for a random shot during Blackest Night and that's the only time we've seen them again in like two years.  Ferris Air or the people that work there?  Anyone remember them?  How about his girlfriend, Cowgirl?  Anyone remember her?  Hell, Carol Ferris had to go and get a Star Sapphire ring and floss bikini to get some screen time.  The entire supporting cast consists of super powered people with multi-coloured rings these days.  They are more an extension of the story than an actual supporting cast.  

Blue Beetle had one of the best supporting casts in comics.  Will we ever see them again?

Again, with the lesser known characters that can't support titles, their entire supporting casts cease to exist.  Blue Beetle was like a modern day Spider-Man in my eyes.  His family was an amazing and supportive pillar for him.  They no longer appear in any comics to my knowledge now that Blue Beetle is only showing up in Teen Titans.  Manhunter's family and supporting cast was another great group of characters with personality and, while they had a few appearances in the 8-page back-ups for her, they are pretty much non-existent when it comes time to roll Manhunter out for a random guest appearance. 

Conclusion

The more I thought about this topic, the more readily apparent this problem became.  I think some of the frustration many people have with super hero comics these days probably stems from the fact that most consist primarily of people in capes beating each other up or brooding all the time.  There's no sense of connection with anyone anymore.  Stories have shifted from character driven to action and event driven stories.  Yes, it's gotten so bad I've started and ended a sentence with the same word. 

Now, I'm not saying there's no supporting casts or personal lives in comics.  Captain America (Bucky version) recently went out for beers with Steve Rogers and Falcon to chat about his problems in the current Baron Zemo storyline.  That's a nice change of pace to see them acting human and unwinding like that and not an uncommon thing in Brubaker's Captain America.  But few other comics do that anymore.  We get minor winding down of Dick and Damian in Batman and Robin, but it's mostly just an interlude to more Batman and Robin action.  You could argue the different corps members in Green Lantern, like Atrocitus or Sinestro, are a better supporting cast than 'normal' people, but that's not really the point I'm getting at.  They are just other super powered people bantering or arguing between punching things.

Ultimate Spider-Man is probably one of the few comics I've read that manages to balance between action, personal life and supporting casts.  No small feat with such a large cast of super powered people, but they'll go to jobs, on dates, to school or just hang out at Peter's place between the assorted battles and super villains they run into.  The characters come first in that series and it shows in how much you care about each one of them.

What do you think?  Do you agree with the assessment that comics have shifted away from the personal lives and supporting casts?  Are you upset with that?  Do you know any good examples of comics or characters with supporting casts and personal lives still in tact?  Let me know in the comments below.

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