quote:Originally posted by A Jar of Cardinals: Examples of how stories that keep their characters in costumes deal less with their characters than stories that don't.
See above. We got to see a lot of Batman and Robin in that story but not enough of the people behind the costume.
Back then when the characters put on the spandex all they did was go through the motions of the plot.
As time went on exploring the characters secret identities (or real personalities, as it were) became more important.
Where as in the past you'd see Batman swinging over the city in costume looking for crime, in the late 80's you'd see stories where Steve Rogers, Clint Barton and other Avengers, in plain clothes, would go out jogging.
Having the characters jogging had nothing to do with the plot of the story, yet they did it because the characters had evolved beyond purely existing for the plot of the month.
quote:Originally posted by A Jar of Cardinals: The Rorschach example seems odd considering he's in costume for almost the entire thing, early flashbacks excepted.
And once he's out of costume we found out who he was as a person. It was what he did out of the costume that was more interesting and more three dimensional than what he did in it.
In costume he was driven by his investigation into the Comedian's murder. Out of it he was a flawed characters with very human problems, the kind of character exploration you wouldn't have seen if he had been in costume all the time.
He was literally two different people.
quote:Originally posted by A Jar of Cardinals: I should point out here that since the Gaiman book was a special and not a monthly it seems silly to complain that the characters end up in costume quickly.
