Independant versus Main

It should be easy to identify and define the Main comics publishers: Marvel and DC (or DC and Marvel, so as not to play any favorites). While easy is a subjective term, the real clarity of the definition comes when identifying the characters of these Big Two:

Marvel – X-Men, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Captain America, The Avengers, Iron Man, Wolverine, Thor and many more!
DC – Superman, Batman (and Robin), Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern, The Flash, The JLA, Teen Titans, Green Arrow, Lois Lane (not even a superhero!) and several others!

This doesn't go into the villains, such as The Joker, or Lex Luthor, or Green Goblin, but what is a hero without a villain? The very definition suggested by recognizing these characters (or group of such) easily incorporates the villains.

When I first read my first comic book, it was a collection in the Book-Mobile that came to my elementary school once a week. I didn't know what I was starting. Sure, who didn't love to read the occasional comic strip, like Garfield, or Wizard of Id (or a collection of such) but this was the Fantastic Four! Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm (respectively, I hope already know without my needing to say, Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing!). I have no idea what it was I read. Was it something that was reprinted from the main comic line? I don't care. It was elementary school, and I liked the letters and the phenomenal story.

Years later (ok, just a couple to a few really), I pilfered through my older brother's collection of Uncanny X-men, X-Factor and Excalibur (during the INFERNO run, which we all know is awesome). I can't begin to tell you how many times I've read that story, again and again, because it never ceases to be awesome. Perhaps I'll read it tonight now that I've brought it up.

My point is, I love the X-men. At my peak, I was collecting all the X-men books with the full nuances of characters that "family" has to support. I've even been trying to get all those books into a semblance of reading order, so when I read them again (as I inevitably will several more times) I don't have to keep going between boxes. I want to go through Box 1, which covers the beginning, to box 2 and so forth as new teams come up.

We could even say the same thing about Batman! Of course, collecting Batman came much later, but once I caught on, of course my enthusiasm had to grab a lot of the back issues. It starts with Knight's End (the breaking of the Bat, if you will, and Bane). So I've read that several times of course, and many of the other Bat stories (who can't remember No Man's Land, and who hasn't read it so much that it was better to get the TPB in order to maintain the integrity of the original comics?).

But, with all that, and the several other side stories I've occasionally picked up over the years, what about things like Spawn? That was monumental back in the day. I don't follow it now as it went a little too...I have no idea where it went, to be honest, since I don't follow it. It just wasn't consistent enough in what I love to get me to continue.

But now you have independent publishing getting some pretty good art with some decent stories. To me, regardless of how often the Big Two try to open a gateway to bring on new readers, you really are hosed if you don't have the entirety of the back-story. Well, you used to be, until writers like Grant Morrison (anyone remember the New X-men run? Or some of the recent things with Batman) decide that they don't have to be true to where previous RECENT authors left the characters (or really, they aren't true to what's at the core of those characters).

Does that happen with the independents? Do they have enough of a history for it to even matter? I think of Devil's Due Publishing, or Dabel Brothers, or IDW. Time will tell.