Thursday night "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" returned, sans the male leads and the the female lead. This choice of episode might have been wise in the middle of the season, but as a return from -- well let us say "hiatus" -- it is mystifying.
Who did they replace Matthew Perry, star of "Friends," Bradley Whitford, one of the main stars of the good years of "The West Wing," and Amanda Peet, whose main attribute is sex appeal so who cares with? Allison Janney, whom I adore, but who has no business trying to carry a show, as that same series "The West Wing" showed in its later years.
But I digress, I got to wondering, have any comics taken a similar tact of preseting something with a familiar title but lacking familiar elements?
Obviously many of the characters in the Silver Age sort of fit this bill, but the Flash and GL didn't really claim to be the same guys, and they brought back the old guys evetually, though I assume Matt, Danny and Jordan will also be back.
My choice is The Wanderers comic book, which for reasons kniwn only to Doug Moench and God chose to start the first issue by killing the anderers and resurrecting them as clones sans Celebrand the leader of the group. Why? If you like the characters and you want to write a book about them do it. If you don't but want to write about new characters, do that.
Apparently these guys wanted to write about new characters who were vaguely similar to old characters and thought they were they the old characters. Huh? In any event, I just think this was a weird episode to come from hiatus with.
Posted by Mike Chary at May 25, 2007 11:24 PM
Warren Ellis' run on Stormwatch may count. It was a rather drastic shift in lineup and direction all in the first few pages of his first issue.
Hmm. Giant-Size Uncanny X-Men #1?
It's just what DC's about to do with Infinity, Inc.
The X-Factor mini-series about a couple of government agents.
The 'Fight Club' era of Thunderbolts.
The current Deadman series from Vertigo.
"Five Years Later ..."
Both X-Force and X-Factor underwent dramatic shifts (X-Force when Allred and Milligan came aboard; X-Factor when Peter David came aboard). In both cases, Marvel was pretty up-front about it, but if you were a fan of X-Factor-the-team-that-consists-of-the-original-X-Men or X-Force-as-created-by-Rob-Liefeld, you were pretty much out of luck.
Vertigo seems to be based in large part on taking pre-existing DC trademarks and doing books that have little or nothing to do with what has come before. Start with Morrison's Doom Patrol and Gaiman's Sandman, and then take a look at Vertigo books ranging from Shade the Changing Man to Kid Eternity to Angel and the Ape to the Losers.
Man, the 'Fight Club' era of Thunderbolts -- that was just freaking bizarre.
The Reign of the Supermen to a certain extent.
And I agree with you about this episodes of "Studio 60" (as discussed here).
My understanding is that they took Studio 60 off the air a couple of episodes before the previously planned time, so this wasn't written to be the first return ep.
Avengers #16; the change from the have their own book (or half book) characters to Cap's Kooky Quartet of reformed pseudo-villains. Also see the Detroit JLA.