The Never-Ending Ending


never-ending storyWhat is the fascination with endings in comic books? It seems we just can’t get enough of them, and big comics companies just can’t stop giving them to us. Whether it’s the Ultimate X-Men or Y: The Last Man or the Final Crisis, it seems that endings are popping up around every corner, only, once we get there, it just shows a new path to a new ending, in a never-ending loop.

I don’t know how far back this trend goes, but let’s look at the most recent example of it. When 52 ended, the big tagline on the cover was, “It All Ends Here!” The very next week, the first issue of Countdown had the tagline reading, “So Begins the End!” One Year Later, the last issue of Countdown featured the tag, “The End!” Now, one week after that, DC Universe #0’s cover exclaims, “The Ending Begins Here!”

Aren’t you getting sick of it all? I know I am. I mean, it’s obvious that none of these were the real ending of anything, so why should we believe that Final Crisis will actually be the last Crisis that DC makes? Who’s to say that five years from now, there won’t be some new miniseries titled, “The Crisis of the Future” or something?

I guess I just don’t get the fascination. It’s like Margaret Atwood once wrote: “So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it’s the hardest to do anything with.”