No Character to Be Out- Of

One of the most common complaints we fans utter is, "Character X is acting out character," but honestly... most characters in superhero comics don't have enough depth for *any* behavior, barring the most extreme examples (The Silver Surfer loves to torture cute, little squirrels!), to be considered out-of-character. You can't be out-of-character if there's no character there to be out of. Considering how often people I know in the *real world* behave in ways I wouldn't have expected, I have no idea why some fans have such rigorous, inflexible standards for how their favorites would act. Actually, I do have an idea why, but that's for another entry.

I think this lack of depth stems from how a lot of us start liking these characters when we're kids/young teens and our standards for characterization are, well, a lot lower. Think back to your favorite superhero when you were a kid and chances are, you liked him/her because of the powers or snazzy costume. By the time we're older and our standards have hardened, we're already hooked. There are so many flat characters because it's a market where flat characters can flourish.

Now that I think about it, it'd be interesting if someone conducted a poll to see what the correlation is between when a person got into the hobby and who his/her favorite characters are.

Hmmm, looking back at what I wrote, maybe a better name for this blog would be Belaboring the Obvious. Heh.