Status Quo Is God/Comic Books

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Status Quo Is God in Comic Books include:

  • Marvel/DC Comics live by this trope. They've really put themselves into a Catch-22 situation, they can change things around and kill off characters and whatnot, but killing popular characters will cause an uproar among fans; if they pursue their current strategy of keeping things the way they are, then people get to come on this wiki and put them here in this trope for not changing anything.
    • It's a little more complicated than that. Things can and often do change in comics over years and decades, but there's always the possibility of another writer or editor coming in later and changing it back. Other times, a writer may introduce a change that is intended to be temporary, but allows them to spend a few issues (sometimes even a whole year) exploring a new concept. If it proves popular enough, it can even become a permanent change... that could end up getting changed back years later by a new writer that preferred things the old way, and/or wants to bring the character "back to his roots". The latter is a big part of Running the Asylum.
      • Of course in each specific case the details matter. Some things should probably stay the same, other change permanently, to make a good story. One of the reasons the X-Men comics (in their various iterations) became so popular was that for a long, long time, one man was in charge, modulo a big of executive meddling. Chris Claremont wrote the characters for years on end, could maintain long-running plot-lines, his changes and his not-changes were part of a larger coherent picture. Even his occasional retcons usually served a larger ongoing theme and usually didn't strain too much WSOD in context. The classic examples would be the Dark Phoenix Saga, or his ongoing revelation about why Magneto is the way he is, complete with gradually revealed explanations about his youth, real name, personality, etc. He turned Magneto from a cardboard villain into a character. Note how fast it all fell apart when it was no longer under the guiding hand on one person.
    • For example, old Batman foe the Riddler reformed in 2006 and has become a private detective, which not only is he good at and indulges his obsession a bit, but also seems to be changing him morally for the better. But nobody, anywhere, expects it to last (unfortunately).
    • About another Batman foe: Poor Harvey Dent is a victim of this. No matter how many times his face and sanity are restored, soon he is driven back to his (half)disfigured face and insanity, even in some out-of-mainstream-continuity stories, like Batman: Black and White. In an Alternate Future from Frank Miller's limited series The Dark Knight Returns, only his face is restored, not his sanity. It Gets Worse: His good side vanished, leaving him all "normal" outside and all monstrous inside.
    • One of the most obvious and dramatic examples is Guy Gardner, who lost his power ring after it was destroyed by Parallax. Guy went on to get a full rework, including new powers, a new look, a new supporting cast and a new job. This lasted for several years—about a year and a half of which was actually in his own ongoing monthly—until Geoff Johns wrote Green Lantern Rebirth, which snapped him back to his '80s status quo without any real explanation.
      • Guy Gardner may be back to being a Green Lantern, but his character is not what it was in the 80s and 90s. He's changed over time. Gardner isn't the dumb obnoxious jerk he used to be, though his attitude is somewhat similar. Instead he's simply a jerk with an attitude on the surface, while showing far more depth of character and loyalty beneath, particularly with Kyle Rayner. And that awful bowl haircut is gone too.
    • Charles Xavier of the X-Men was first introduced as an invalid who uses a wheelchair. Several times during the comic's run, Xavier has regained the use of his legs; however, it's only a matter of time until something comes along to reverse this situation, be it undoing whatever allowed his legs to heal or sustaining a new injury, like a broken back. How many times has his spine snapped? That wheelchair is his status quo.
    • No matter how strained the metaphor gets the X-Men will always be discriminated against to the point that an elected official can openly proclaim he's going to "get rid of" a gazillion mutant children with nobody batting an eye. Imagine if a politician said "I want * insert ethnicity* to be destroyed" in real life.
    • Poor Benjamin Grimm will always be The Thing. Reed Richards' various attempts to find a cure to his condition will never work, or if so always be reversed.
    • Not only can Dr. Doom never be killed for real, but he'll never lose control over Latveria for too long, since him being King and Dictator is a very important part of the character's concept. Is there such a thing as Joker Diplomatic Immunity? Also, his face will never get better, though this seems to be a conscious decision on his part so that he'll always have a permanent reminder of Reed's "crimes" against him.
    • Spider-Man. Oh Galactus, Spider-Man. Marvel is dead-set on dragging him back to a single guy living with his Aunt May, no matter how many Ass Pulls or Voodoo Sharks it takes. See The Clone Saga (an attempt to drastically change things, only Marvel chickened out, and some things that did change like Aunt May's death got reversed almost immediately afterward) and One More Day (which restores things to the status quo of twenty years ago), both terms considered practically synonymous with "Dork Age".
      • Speaking of Spider-Man... As of the "Spider-Island" arc, his current girlfriend dumped him, the psychic block preventing people from learning his secret identity is gone, and he and MJ have decided to rekindle their relationship. It also gave Spider-Girl back her powers, which she had lost a few years ago, and Eddie Brock is no longer Anti-Venom.
    • The thing is that while both companies may use this trope in regards to a handful of characters, over the last decade they've defined themselves by subverting this trope... constantly. Every year seems to bring a new Crisis Crossover that promises to "shake up the status quo", to the point that not only is Status Quo Is Not God, but it doesn't even exist in any meaningful fashion. Things never have time to settle into being normal and regular enough for there to be a status quo before everything's uprooted and shuffled around again.
    • Hell, Batman/Spiderman villains thrive on this policy. The Joker especially, who has a trope named after him. He can kill and destroy as many lives as he wants, (including many of Batman's friends and family) and all Bats seems to do is punch him a few times and send him back to an easily escapable prison/asylum. He'll always be there to menace the Bat, and the ramifications of this continual (and destructive) cycle never seem to dawn on the Caped Crusader's mind much. Because if he WERE to be taken out, it'd recquire NEW villains being created to try and take his place, and that can be a bit hard when it comes to Bat villains, as he's already faced quite the litany of psychopaths.
      • Same goes for Spidey nowadays too, because for a long time most of his villains seemed to stay down for a while after each run-in. Now it's like they can mend broken bones within mere days and be back on their feet within a week to menace him again.
  • Villains are generally hard-hit with this trope in comics if they ever try a Heel Face Turn. No matter how much Character Development they're given, somewhere along the line someone will decide that they were "more interesting" as a villain and send them right back to knocking over banks or trying to murder the heroes again, with little to no explanation as to why they've gone back to their old ways.
    • Not to mention that Joker Immunity ensures that they'll never endure the kind of trauma that the heroes go through. Joker will never get his spine broken and struggle to recover, nor will Lex Luthor have to deal being killed and revived. This trope may become a subtle form of Villain Decay as putting the heroes through so much and the villains significantly less in comparison, could see cynical readers lose interest if they can't see why the villains are a threat aside from plot purposes and the usual "willing to kill" trait.
      • Well..during the '90 Luthor died (sort of) and revived as his very hairy clone/son. The Riddler too "died" and was reborn (to cure his brain cancer) before the Hush storyline
    • This is what has given everyone the Foregone Conclusion of Loki eventually going back to his usual self, despite being turned into a kid with about half his memories, who, for the moment, practically worships Thor. A lot of the impact of the arc comes not from wondering if the change will stick (because it won't), but on the possible effects it will have once things are back to Status Quo. The change will never be major for an establsihed villain like Loki (even if he gets some Draco in Leather Pants treatment for fans; others like him the way he is: evil), but sometimes the sublte things stick.
      • The current writer of Thor (for the moment renamed Journey into Mystery) is making sure to point out that Loki turning evil again IS NOT a foregone conclusion, since Thor destroyed the Ragnarok cycle which contained the norn's writings that decreed the destinies of the Asgardians, enabling all of them to Screw Destiny, Loki included. For the moment he's a Kid Hero-Antihero combination. Not that any of that will matter, of course, the moment someone else is writing it.
    • DC Comics once had an anvilicious way of showing why Superman doesn't take a vacation - by having a bunch of children murdered by one of his lesser-known foes. And this was after he died and came back to life!
  • Sometimes, the more psychotic villains of comics will be an inch away from winning, when they realize that defeating their long-time nemesis just feels too weird or empty, and willingly give up and surrender, eliminating any trauma that they may be inflicting on the hero, and destroying any chance of power or control they might have assumed through the victory.
  • The Archie Comics Love Showdown storyline promised that Archie would chose either Betty or Veronica once and for all. The four part story ends with him choosing Third Option Love Interest, but was followed up with a special that essentially sets the situation back to normal.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog, the Eggman that Sonic's been fighting is from another universe (the original Robotnik died relatively early in the comic's run). When Sonic told Zonic the Zone Cop about this in #197, he didn't care, because "Sonic Prime has to fight a Robotnik."
  • You didn't really think a character called Deadman would get to be alive for very long, did you?
  • Les Légendaires is probably the only case where this trope is played straight and adverted at the same time: the heroes' main goal is to break the curse that turned everyone on their world into children, so as long as the story goes on, they are not allowed to succeed, or there would no longer be any main plot. On the other hand, the characters and their universe do go through changes, and, safe for Book 5 and 6, none of these change are ever removed; The most notable time this trope is defied is the Anathos Cycle, which involve the main characters getting savagely scarred and crippled, their leader becoming a villain then dying, their Arch Enemy losing his Joker Immunity to be finally Killed Off for Real, the protagonists getting new powers and looks, and, finally, getting their reputation retablished. All those change are permanent, and there were no Reset Button.
  • Many heroines have become little more than eye-candy in modern comics with Stripperific outfits, but it can be very hard to actually fix this. DC once tried giving Power Girl a modest costume for The New 52, only for what seemed like half the world writing in demanding her old one.
    • On the other hand, Sue Storm has always had a modest costume, and changing it is not very high on fans' wish list. She once tried a skimpy outfit that exposed her cleavage and midriff; it just wasn't her, and surprisingly, the fans knew it. She got rid of it quickly.
    • Wonder Woman's costume is fanservice-y enough as it is, but there was one short period in the 90s when someone in DC got the "smart" idea to change it to this fashion nightmare. Claiming she looked like a stripper with a biker theme was a common observance, and fans hated it. In fact, DC seemed to be doing a bit of Self-Deprecation when the Amalgam Comics one shot Bullets and Bracelets comic, where the gun-toting heroine's costume was similar.
    • Taking the opposite approach didn't work either, as this costume (from issue #600) wasn't well recieved either - practical and realistic, yes, but nobody seemed to like the heroine with pants.
  • Frequently used in The Beano and similar comics (The Beezer, Whizzer and Chips, The Dandy) when a strip ends with a major change to the characters occurring there is often a Note From Ed acting as a Reset Button saying the character will be back to normal by next week.
  • Any time a Government Conspiracy and/or the Suicide Squad is part of a story in DC Comics, you can bet Amanda Waller is going to be a part of it. In most cases, Waller is a middle-aged, overweight, unattractive woman and a Non-Action Big Bad. This was changed in the 2011 Suicide Squad title, where she was young, thin, attractive, and a Dark Action Girl; fans and critics hated it. It seems sometimes the Most Common Superpower is not a requirement for a character to be interesting.
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