Brilliant Idea Of The Day: ORIGINS

[captain_slinky]

One of the biggest complaints I hear from Super Hero Fans is how often they retread the Origin Story of each hero. I have a ton of comics from the 70's that seemed to reprint the origin of the titular hero once every other issue as a "Bonus Back-Up Feature", and I actually *loved* it but most folks got really tired of it. As far as the movies and cartoons are concerned, that's where most of the complaining comes from because each time they reboot a franchise they have to redo the Parents Getting Killed/Spider Bite/Planet Explosion etc and a new generation of fans get to complain about how they already KNOW how the hero became the hero.

So this is kind of small-scale here, but how about a monthly series called "Origins". Eighty pages (a throwback to the old "80 Page Giant" comics of the 70's), contains the original origin story PLUS several 2-to-4-page reboots or reinterpretations by various current day artist/writer combos? Here's the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko origin of Spider-Man, and here's the Neil Gaiman/Charles Vess take on the origin. Next we have some new artist you've never heard of working with Kurt Busiek! Alex Ross and Brandon Jerwa! Stan Lee himself re-writing the story and being illustrated by Jim Lee! I know some of those pairings won't work due to contractual stuff, but you get the drift.

The next week could be Captain America. Then Ant-Man. Then Howard The Duck. Then whoever you like! Work with the Movie & TV people to make your release dates coincide with movie release dates and TV premieres. If Iron Man IV hits theaters on May 9th, you make sure that ORIGINS: IRON MAN is on store shelves by the end of April at the latest. When you have a TV or Movie version coming out, you get a "Variant Cover" with that image on it.