Comics Memo #5 - Regarding Decompression

Writers-- Tell as much of a complete story each issue.

"Decompression" has become a buzzword among the superhero comic-reading community, often said with derision and maybe a little bit of spittle. (i.e., people don't like it.) A decompressed story is one whose start and finish may be separated over many issues, rather than having a clear beginning-middle-end in a single issue.  Basically, many feel that a decompressed story is less satisfying, especially when important plot points span months before finding resolution. 

With New Avengers volume 2 reaching number 7, and with 7 issues approximatley equalling half a year, it may be interesting to see how many "stories" we get over the six to seven month period.

But let's start first with the first volume of Avengers, in 1963, to establish a precedent and point of comparison.  In the first volume of The Avengers, each issue contained a story more or less in its entirety, with the exception of a two-part story featuring the Masters of Evil in issues 6 and 7:

#1: Avengers fight Loki
#2: Avengers fight Space Phantom
#3: Avengers fight Hulk/Namor
#4: Avengers fight "Medusa"
#5: Avengers fight Lava Men
#6/7: Avengers fight Masters of Evil 

I'm purposefully summarizing the issues this way to keep focused on plot/conflict elements. Again, it will become a point of comparison. I could write detailed summaries but that might threaten to "weigh" what happens in more subjective terms.

How does this compare to The Avengers volume 3, in 1998?

#1-3: Various heroes fight Morgan Le Fey
#4: Avengers fight Whirlwind (amid Recruitment Drive)
#5-6: Avengers fight Squadron Supreme
#7: Avengers fight Lunatic Legion

Not too bad. There is a lot of "action," but less diverse action-y moments. Perhaps I should factor in Big Name characters, in which case the "score" for these issues would bump up significantly. (Oh, and I don't count the Liefeld/Lee Avengers volume 2, purely due to my own civil disobedience in refusing to acknowledge them.)

There's no volume 4. Instead, the title became New Avengers volume 1, in 2005.

#1-3: Various heroes caught in the breakout of the Raft
#4-5: "New" Avengers fight Sauron in the Savage Land
#6: Avenges escape SHIELD from Savage Land
#7: Avengers start fight against Wrecker (amid Recruitment Drive)

On the face of it, there seems to be objectively just as much plot/conflict elements in New Avengers as there were in the relaunch of volume 3 (although both are pretty much half of the relatively more breakneck pace of volume 1.) If there is any dissatisfaction from the decompression, it might be in that the titular "Avengers" do not really establish themselves, within the story at least, until issue 7. That means for more than SIX MONTHS there is no resolution to the relatively random assemblage of heroes that appeared in issue 1. Story-wise, Volume 3 was more efficient, forming the team after only three months.

Let's look at the most recent New Avengers series, volume 2, starting in 2010.

#1-6: Avengers fight Agamotto
#7: Avengers find a nanny (amid Recruitment Drive)

For SIX MONTHS the Avengers are engaged in ONE fight.

That's pretty much all I want to say. I could use my armchair economics to talk about value-to-cost ratio, or maybe my armchair sociology to declare a fundamental shift in artistic creation/reader preference, or something else suitably psuedo-intellectual. But whatever *you* want to say about it, I just admit that comics are entertaining these days, but different than my experience when I started the hobby, and I do wish there were more noticeable and significant momentum in the narrative flow per issue.  

Comments

[snell]

The (Adjectiveless) Avengers was the same, although Bendis did a better job of hiding it by splitting up the team anf throwing time travel in there.

Of course, there's a simple explanation: Writing For The Trade, something Marvel has been moving to with ferocious devotion.

[Danny]

This is very true. I should have added the Adjectiveless Avengers in there, too.

And the whole Writing For the Trade could really be the symptom of pretty much all of these Comic Memos I've been thinking about.

[Irving Forbush]

I don't read comic books after the end of the bronze age exactly because of decompression. Even the benign decompression of the 1990s you mentioned is too much for me. For me the Marvel Age ended when Real Time ended. I refuse to give money for the current stuff on the market.