The TV show Heroes started up once more this week. I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as an avid watcher of the show during its first season, but I kept up with it enough that I watched the season finale the night it was broadcast. Then that finale hit, and when I describe it as “unsatisfying” I’m being charitable — it may have killed the show for me. I did watch the season 2 premiere when the show returned, but never managed to get back to it: the remainder of season 2’s episodes sat unwatched long enough that now I’m left with the decision of whether to bother even trying to get back into the show now that it’s back for season 3. I’m leaning towards the answer being “no” for one reason: Jeph Loeb.
This week, two Loeb-written comics came out, and both were ostensibly “finales” in their own way, Ultimates 3 #5 being the last of the mini-series and Hulk #6 being the end of the story arc. Now, in case you haven’t been keeping up, Loeb only uses one plot for his comics lately: someone’s been murdered and there’s a mystery. There are very well-defined rules for writing this type of plot, and it’s best to stick to them unless you’re a genius because otherwise your audience is likely to feel cheated and will not be back for more. Amazingly, Loeb manages to break those rules in both books. Suffice to say, he is not a genius.
In Ultimates 3 #5, we do at least get a partial, half-assed answer for who killed the Scarlet Witch in #1, although the explanation makes absolutely no sense, like the rest of this series. Worse, an out-of-nowhere last-page reveal confuses the issue even more: okay, so a robot went nuts and killed Wanda. And then…Doom was involved somehow? To what end? To top it off, the second ‘mystery’ in the book — “who’s the Black Panther” — is answered but not solved. We see, yes, as pretty much everyone guessed after the second (first?) issue, Captain America is the Black Panther. But why? “Uh, I’ll tell you later.” FUCK YOU JEPH LOEB. That is not an answer.
Hulk #6 is even worse, though. The entire story arc has been based around one thing: who’s this new Red Hulk that shot the Abomination? And this issue DOESN’T answer the question at all — or even promise that the answer is coming. It feels like nothing more than the second-season premiere of Twin Peaks, where the entire show’s audience collectively stopped watching after the program failed to deliver on its implied promise to answer their questions. There again, by the time the answer to the mystery was finally delivered, no one was watching.
Both books fail to deliver satisfying endings, even given my lowered expectations. And when I’m wondering whether the addition of a red-suited superspeed character is intriguing enough for me to catch up on Heroes, I’m going to remember that, and my season 1 disappointment, and I think it’s going to be hard to suspend my disbelief and have faith that it’ll pay off this time as long as Jeph Loeb remains a creative force on the show.
Besides, Dexter is coming back, and that always rocks. Forget the weak bullshit — life’s too short to watch shows that could be good, or used to be good, or might get good.
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