So the other day I was thinking about endings in comics, where a character/franchise was allowed to come to its natural conclusion. Not just “well, this series of Avengers has reached its conclusion/dropped enough in sales, time to end it and start a new series with the same name.” But, like, creator-owned characters, ones where there is a person in charge who can say “well, that’s enough of that” and wrap everything up, without anyone to gainsay them.
Probably one of the most famous examples of this is Cerebus. Dave Sim created his Conan parody in the 1970s, plugged along at it, and eventually announced this series was going to run 300 issues and would end with the main character’s death.
And good golly, Dave done dood it. I mean, things were either a little rushed or kinda padded at the end there, depending on where you dropped in during the last, say, 50 or 75 issues of the run, but Dave didn’t lie to us. The gray little bastard croaked in #300, and that was that. Well, except for all the Cerebus in Hell webcomics published afterwards, but man, that’s a whole ‘nother post.
So that’s kind of what I mean by a comic “ending.” A definitive ending is provided for the character and his story…but if the creator is, like, still alive and active, they can still do, like, flashback issues or silliness like the Cerebus in Hell books, and not worry that their life’s work will be incomplete if they’re in a parachuting accident or something.
And look…I’m specifically talking about your standard American monthly-or-whatever comics here. I know there are plenty of graphic novels and manga and whatnot that are designed with specific endings in mind. What I’m focusing on here are the serialized titles that resemble the “would continue forever if they could” brand of books from Marvel and DC, but have the potential to conclude if their creators so desire.
Like Hellboy. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting this when it happened, but all the supernatural conflict and hoohar going on in the ongoing Hellboy/B.P.R.D. storylines came to a head and, well, the world came to an end. That, as they say, was that. This was the end of the forward progression of Hellboy’s story, so, if creator Mike Mignola wanted to, he could just say “yup, Hellboy’s done, all the Ts have been crossed and all the Is dotted, his adventures are over.”
But of course, they’re not over. Even with his story come to its final conclusion, Hellboy is still getting new comics made that take place over the long prior history of the character. And we’re getting more minis that take place in Hellboy’s world, like Lady Baltimore. On top of all that, we’re getting post-ending stories, mostly in the form of the Frankenstein series exploring the new and recovering Earth.
Mignola reached his character’s ending, and now no longer has to worry about finishing that story while he’s working on new ones in the same franchise.
Which puts me in mind of Concrete, where creator Paul Chadiwck had noted a way to the series. I talk about it here, but in short Chadwick’s idea is that the final story would begin when the other person who received a Concrete body showed up on the first Concrete’s doorstep. As I noted in that older post, given that the origin was revised to show that other Concrete’s apparent death, it seems like this story is out of the question.
Or it may not be, of course…”it was just a scratch!” Other Concrete says by way of explanation. Or maybe Other Concrete is dead and it’s the aliens returning that brings about the end of the character. All a moot point anyway, given it’s been nearly 20 years since the last mini-series and like 13 years since that one-shot collection of shorts from the revived Dark Horse Presents. I don’t know that we’re ever getting another mini…or if we do, it’s probably not going to be The End.
And then there’s Dreadstar, where, if I’m recalling correctly, Dreadstar’s compatriots from the end of “Metamorphosis Odyssey” would return for whatever ending the comics would take. Given that we’re getting new Dreadstars in the form of group-funded graphic novels every few years, I feel like this is an ending that’s probably not coming.
This all has me wondering…have other creators said that they’ve got potential endings in mind for their characters? Does Erik Larsen have a conclusion for Savage Dragon? Did Todd McFarlane extend the possibility that Spawn could have a final battle in its future? I’m curious who has ideas to wrap up their comics, even if it’s unlikely that it’ll ever happen.
On the subject of comics without endings…
I wish ‘Halo Jones’ had run to its intended 9 chapters instead of the 3 we got; I wish ‘Thriller’ had ended how Fleming and Von Eeden had wanted it to end; and I wish Shirow Masamune hadn’t used the 1995 Kobe earthquake as an excuse (IMHO a rather distasteful excuse) for never finishing ‘Appleseed’.
Was there ever a final “Beanworld” story?
I’m only here to post a comment on Invincible & The Walking Dead written/co-created(well conceptualised/so really created and then/or simultaneously visualised by Cory Walker & Tony Moore) which I read mostly in collected trade paperback editions I borrowed from the public library.
I no longer remember how each series ended or most of what happened. This is good for me watching the Invincible animated adaptation as I have no idea what happens next(for that matter, I barely remember previous season’s events unless mentioneed/earlier episodes of current season sometimes.
But that’s all I can think of vis a vis American floppies/comic series that had a definitive ending(even tho I’ve forgotten the ending and if either series could continue if Kirkman wished to) NB Invincible Battle Beast is now being published(tho again I have no idea if it’s an ongoing or limited series; also no idea of the timeline)
Speaking of Dreadstar, well it was a First Comic at one point: I always wanted to read Jon Sable, Freelance continuation/ending/finale but I doubt Mike Grell is inclined to do it anymore. Also American Flagg, Grimjack, Badger and maybe Nexus(while both Baron and Rude are still doing their separate versions, I still wish for maybe a Nexus: The End a la those Marvel limited series).
Beanworld seems to have hit a terminal point as far as Larry Marder having done Volume 4 in 2017 and no sign of any more in sight(till now).
If Beanworld counts then Bone and Strangers in Paradise surely do too(?)
Thought I’d love more Bone. SiP had a 20th(?) Anniversary continuation which was nice to read/have published/continued by Moore(Terry).
Can’t think of others at the moment.
Todd McFarlane used to promise that he had a definitive ending in mind for Spawn, I think comparing his character to Cerebus. He’d continually talk about how Spawn’s story would end when the time was right in the letter’s pages of early issues, but then he quietly dropped that when he realized he could continue to cash in on Spawn forever, like it was a typical Big Two superhero book, much like he assured the readers back in the early-‘90s that he did not want his character to become.
Maybe McFarlane will still end Spawn if the sales are no longer there or if he wants to retire from comic books, but I doubt it would end up the same ending as he said he planned for Spawn from 40 years ago. I don’t know, as I gave up on the character at issue #100, when I realized that there was no ending point on the horizon for Spawn. The book had lost my interest around issue #50, but I kept it on my pull-lost because I believed McFarlane was building to his end point (Spawn’s popularity was hitting a low-point around the year 2000 before it had something of a resurgence in the past decade).
My picks for the greatest endings to a comic would be Hellboy and Moore’s Promethea.
Mignola has the perfect opportunity to have his cake and eat it too. The story of Hellboy and the supporting characters is over. Do you want to read what happens next? There were immortal characters introduced in the Hellboy Universe who can survive into the new world. You miss Hellboy? He had an entire history of untold tales which can be revealed in flashback stories. You still want to see the occult history of Hellboy’s universe fleshed out even more? Mignola has a mini-series coming out later this year which he says is going to show the origin of modern humankind on that Earth.
Not to be nit-picky, but Lady Baltimore doesn’t take place in the same universe as Hellboy. It’s an alternate universe where vampires invaded the Earth during World War I.
I feel like I’m the guy that only posts here to talk about Savage Dragon, but it is one of three comics (the others are Groo and Usagi Yojimbo) that I’ve been buying for most of my life!
Since the book happens in real time, and he plans to work on it for the rest of his life, Larsen’s said that it’s impossible to come up with a “final” story, because he doesn’t know where the series will have gone by then (the book currently stars the original Dragon’s son and his family, and it’s entirely possible that by the time it ends, his kids will be adults and starring in the book.) If I remember correctly, the “final” Savage Dragon story will be whatever pages are finished at the time he passes away.
As far as endings I wish we saw, I wish that Howard the Duck had been a creator-owned series and that Gerber had been able to write an ending for the character.
Bone (ending complete) and Beanworld (feels like there should be an ending, but who knows if we’ll get it) immediately came to mind, as mentioned by others above.
Does Saga count? Maybe the ending has been contemplated from the beginning; im not sure. I’m not concerned so much that one of the creators will die before it is complete as I am that *I* will die before it is complete.
Sandman? Could have gone on indefinitely, the original author wrote a definitive ending for his character, passing the reigns to Daniel, etc.
Kieron Gillen tends to have an idea of how long his creator-owned series will run – “X issues, but if it sells well enough Y or Z issues.” I remember Garth Ennis having an idea of how long Preacher and Hitman would run, sales permitting. I don’t know how long Michel Fiffe planned to publish Death of Copra, but he just did so.
It makes sense that a lot of indie creators publish mini-series. Who knows how long anything will last in the current landscape?
I’m pretty sure The Maxx’s ending wasn’t planned, given the fact that Sam Kieth used the title and a spin-off (Friends of Maxx) to publish whatever kinds of stories he wanted, but the last issue was poignantly melancholy and was a fitting endpoint.
I remember Robert Kanigher mentioning a couple of times that he had a final SGT. ROCK story in mind — one where Rock and Easy Co. would meet their fate at the very end of WWII. I don’t think he ever got around to writing it, though.
I’m sure we all remember that notorious Michael Fleischer JONAH HEX story, where Jonah ends up as a taxidermied display in a “wild west” museum.
@ Chris V
Agreed that it would have been great if Steve Gerber had gotten the rights to Howard the Duck back and could have worked out and eventual ending that he wanted.
@J.Kevin Carrier
It would have been interesting if Kanigher had written that final Sgt. Rock story, but it would have most likely been contradicted by several Brave and the Bold stories that Bob Haney wrote where Batman and Sgt. Rock team up (and I think at least one of those stories is set circa the early 1970s), unless we consider those stories to be set on “Earth Haney.”
Re: Michael Fleischer and Jonah Hex–that is such a a Michael Fleischer thing to do! It brings to mind the infamous –or slanderous –remarks that Harlan Ellison made about Michael Fleischer.
Re: comics that never got endings, I will just say that there were many independent ’80s comics which I wish had continued longer than they did, although some might have had some sort of wrap up ending at the time. Most of these I would buy again if the original writers and artists ( or artists with a similar style) were to bring them back: DNAgents, Crossfire, Silver Heels, Coyote, Scorpio Rose, Starslayer, Aztec Ace, Sabre, Sun Runners, Airboy, Warp, Southern Knights, Eternity Smith, and Justice Machine.
In order for Spawn to have an ending it would need to have a plot.
I’m going on dredged memory here, but I’m pretty sure I read David Lapham say (a long time ago) that Stray Bullets has an ending (probably what happens immediately after the events of the very first issue) but the way he set up the series, he can get there while still having plenty of other in between stories to tell about the characters. I hope we get to see more of that, but I would like to see that ending he has in mind in case he never gets to the rest of what happened to Ginny and Beth and Monster, et al.
I believe Stan Sakai also wrote or spoke somewhere that Usagi Yojimbo has an ending but it seems like he’s still quite far away from reaching that point at the glacial pacing of the series. I’ve been re-reading over the last year, and I’m fairly certain that (ignoring flashbacks to his youth and the battle at Adachigahara Plain) only about 2 or 3 years have passed at most from the early canonical stories (just prior to the Dragon Bellow Conspiracy serial) to the most recent Ten Thousand Plums miniseries. Assuming his intended ending resembles the non-canonical Senso story and its sort-of-prequel TMNT/Usagi Wherewhen series of a couple years ago (because they lead-up to a final battle with Lord Hikiji) there’s several years of Usagi story left to tell to reach to point without him using an uncharacteristic time jump forward. (He’s been laying the groundwork over the last 75 issues or more for some significant attempt by Hikiji to overthrow the shogun, without seeming to advance that story.) But if he never reaches his planned ending, Senso is a great substitute and I hope it gets the quality color treatment we’ve seen for Space Usagi lately.
I feel like Jaime and Gilbert have both said that they tried to end their classic L & R serial charachters’ stories but that the characters keep coming back. I stopped keeping up with their comics when the new magazine series started, but I feel like The Love Bunglers is the best ending for the Maggie & Hopey stories and I really wish Gilbert had stopped the Palomar/Luba stuff with the original #50 as the entire Fritzi era (including all of the Luba’s family in America stuff) of that work has just depressed me.
In the last year or two there was a Larry Marder interview at tcj.com where he talks about hoping to write more Beanworld but have someone else draw it. It’s a pretty depressing but realistic discussion of how even without calamities (and he’s had some tough ones) time will be enough to prevent certain great works in comics from being finished.
And I wish I wish I wish Steve Gerber had been able to finish the story of Omega the Unknown the way he wanted to.
Can we count 100 BULLETS?
“and I wish Shirow Masamune hadn’t used the 1995 Kobe earthquake as an excuse (IMHO a rather distasteful excuse) for never finishing ‘Appleseed”
WHAT THE FUCK.
“Grimjack,”
That one kinda did have an ending, as the later mini-series was a flashback story.
“Bone”
Had a better ending than CEREBUS, from what I know.
“There were immortal characters introduced in the Hellboy Universe who can survive into the new world.”
“RA-RA RASPUTIN/FELL IN LOVE WITH A RUSSIAN QUEEN!”
“I feel like I’m the guy that only posts here to talk about Savage Dragon”
I LOVE Savage Dragon, but my LCS has trouble getting copies now!
“Preacher and Hitman”
those certainly had endings!
“in order for Spawn to have an ending it would need to have a plot.”
And it would have to actually make sense!
MIKE! Nice tribute to Lonnie Anderson at the top corner box. WKRP RULES!
I know this breaks the rules you set out in multiple ways, but Grant Morrison basically did something similar in their run on Doom Patrol.
By the time their last issue hit (#63), the entire team was either dead, depowered, or on another planet (or they *were* another planet — hard to explain).
At the time, I couldn’t believe DC allowed that kind of definitive ending. But given how many times the Doom Patrol has died, it’s possible all involved thought of it as an homage.
In any case, long-running characters were given a definitive ending by their original creator (at least Jane, Rebis, and Danny) — even though stories were told about them later.
—-
More in the original spirit of things: Did Sin City have a definitive ending, or did it just end?
Seconding Thom H here, and adding Morrison’s ANIMAL MAN where the last GM issue was literally the author breaking the 4th wall and telling the reader thanks for reading, we are done here, story’s over.
Many of the New Universe titles got defintive endings once it became clear the project was doomed (STAR BRAND and D.P. 7 for sure), plus a couple of prestige mini-series (THE PITT, THE WAR) to wrap up all the storylines and box up the whole New Universe.
I’ve heard that the infamous “non-ending” to Helfer and Baker’s Shadow series (issue #19) was absolutely planned to be the last issue, that they knew the series was done and created a completely ridiculous cliffhanger that would never be followed up on. No idea if it’s true, though.
On the subject of (unfinished) cliffhanger endings, the very last ‘Tintin’ page sketched by Herge before his death depicted Tintin, mid-adventure, being led to his execution by the crooks. Herge’s long-standing assistant Bob de Moor would doubtless have been capable of finishing the story, were it not for Herge’s wish that Tintin end with him.
@ Oliver
It sounds like a very existential “in aeternum” moment for Tintin! It makes me think of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce.
Actually, since Tintin is now in the public domain, somebody should resolve that particular cliffhanger. Perhaps Rin Tin Tin could rescue Tintin…
James Robinson’s STARMAN … ?