Arrested Development, Or Why We Don't Need More Starman

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Green Lantern #20, very minor spoilers for Arrested Development Season Four and a look back at older comics that hardly count as spoilers anymore, being a number of years old.

Here at ComicBook.com, we've lamented in the past the fact that so few of our favorite comic book superheroes actually get anything resembling a happy ending. That's partially the effect of the monthly, serialized format that demands everything return to the status quo periodically and every character be ready to suit up for their next adventure--but occasionally it goes deeper than that. When a franchise is in trouble, a character can be pulled out of the mothballs to rescue it, even at the expense of organic character or story development. That's what happened when Geoff Johns's terrific run on The Flash ended with Wally West, happily retired, only for Wally to be brought back in a disappointing return when his successor failed to take root with the readership. Ultimately, Wally was replaced by his predecessor, Barry Allen, and ultimately retconned out of existence in the New 52. But the strength of The Flash #230, a touching and well-done final chapter in Wally's story, is undermined a little by the return. Additionally, he never really got a second "finale" that's as good as he deserved.

Which brings us to Arrested Development. Netflix's revival of the long-cancelled cult classic Fox sitcom is perfectly serviceable (at least from the first four episodes, which is all I've managed to catch so far), but something's missing--and it isn't a question of the comic timing problems we've been warned about since some of the show was shot on green screen. Recapturing the ecstatic energy of the show all these years later was always an unlikely proposition, but some fans were more worried about whether the show's producers could come up with a plausible enough reason to draw them back into familiar patterns after the series' previous finale. After three years of threatening to "never see any of these people again," Michael Bluth finally tired of the family's artificially-created and never-ending drama in the season three finale, taking a yacht, his son and a bunch of cashier's checks to his father's secret house in Mexico, where he would finally put himself and his son first and have at least the possibility of a normal life. Fast forward seven years and fans finally got their first look at Season Four today, as all fifteen episodes went live on Netflix this morning. It didn't take long at all before it was revealed that Michael's decision to let the family keep themselves together for a little while was short-lived, as he turned around and brought himself, George Sr. and George Michael back to land and family drama almost immediately after the last season ended. In the time since, he's become a shadow of his former self, with bad business deals and bad decisions making him just another deeply flawed Bluth brother (not that he was perfect to begin with...). The show's still funny, the characters are familiar but--like when Family Guy came back from cancellation--it's not the same show it was before the hiatus. It really casts doubt on whether or not these kinds of revivals can ever truly work the way we want them to.In an increasingly sequel-driven, franchise-driven entertainment environment where content creators would rather slide into familiar routines than take a chance with something new, we're likely to see more and more of them--but how does one ensure that bringing something back from the "dead" doesn't turn into another Community?

Certainly, there's an element of the audience being to blame in some of these situations. James Robinson's The Shade was a perfectly good book, but it wasn't enough of a Starman sequel for some people and for others it was too mired in that world to be enjoyed in the context of the New 52. If Arrested Development is good, does it really matter whether it holds up against the old ones, which have been built up in the collective memories of the audience? Is it Mark Waid's fault that he couldn't live up to the reputation of "Mark Waid's Flash," and that he was given a mandate that prevented him from leaving the aforementioned Johns ending pristine? Arguably, the answer is no. But the fact that it happens so consistently tends to back the position of some authors that their work, perhaps, doesn't need to be "brought back." Would the reputation of Twin Peaks as arguably the best show in the history of television be sullied by a third season, regardless of the best intentions of all involved? It's impossible to know without seeing the new episodes, but the fact that Lynch and Frost have consistently backed away from the idea, even when things recently sounded like they might be moving forward, could be telling. Sometimes the artist has to be trusted to know these things. James Robinson has, for instance, always maintained that there isn't anything left for Jack Knight to prove, and that his Starman would likely not return under his own pen. DC Entertainment have allowed that to stand as gospel, at least for now, refusing to allow other writers access to the character either. When you considering the diminishing returns of Before Watchmen--that by the time it was over almost nobody was still talking about it, and sales weren't anywhere close to what they had been at the start--it's hard to argue their logic, even from a business point of view, as adding a lukewarm sequel to the market could run the risk of hurting the "evergreen" nature of the market for DC's existing Starman backlist by making the series just another ongoing, rather than one of the enduring, short-lived classics of its generation. Of course, sometimes you get The Sandman--widely considered one of, if not the, best long-running serialized comic in the history of the form, Gaiman's masterpiece has periodically seen acclaimed tie-ins and sequels over the years, never diminishing the "brand" of the series, and now Gaiman will give fans a full-fledged prequel in the fall or winter of this year. We'll see how that does when it comes along. Meanwhile, Geoff Johns learned his lesson from The Flash and managed to make his Green Lantern finale a slightly different animal. While he gives Hal, Sinestro and company their happy endings, he does so in a widescreen, long-term kind of way, leaving the short-term storytelling wide open to interpretation. This gives the incoming creative teams as much flexibility as they need/want, while still leaving the characters tethered to their (eventual) happily ever after. Arguably, in this kind of storytelling, that's the only way you can truly make sure your ending stands.