The recent sale of the 1966 Batmobile (for more than FOUR MILLION BUCKS) was a pretty spectacular moment for pop culture and collectible fans, but I can’t help but feel a little bit of sadness at the loss of the one-of-a-kind Lincoln Futura concept car. (Yes, I realize that I am probably the only one lamenting the transmogrification of a Fifties bubble-top show circuit vehicle. I am occasionally inexplicably sentimental about weird things.) Still, it’s an idea that resonates with comics fans as well, given that no matter how wonderful Gail Simone’s Batgirl is, there are fans clamoring for Cassandra Cain, waffling over Stephanie Brown, and even six or seven who still miss Betty Kane. On a more heartbreaking note, I can’t help but feel sadness no matter how wonderful Karl Urban’s take on Leonard McCoy is, because it reminds me that there will never be another movie featuring DeForest Kelley. I can think of half a dozen deceased characters (Thanks a lot, Joss Whedon) without whom new material from their respective ouvres would be different to the point of meaningless, all of which leads to today’s query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds you that you can’t break an omelette without making a few egg-beaters, or something, asking: What pop culture loss (fictional or otherwise) do you feel the most keenly?
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When the Channel formerly known as Sci-Fi cancelled Farscape and Star Gate Atlantis. I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t watch any shows on that channel because, once the show starts getting good, they cancel it.
A fascinating question that I feel like I could write a book in response to…but will settle for 2 fleeting impressions that have been on my mind today…
I will always lament that the elegant, poetic, inspired “conclusion” to one movement of the DC universe that Grant Morrison offered in Final Crisis was not used as the springboard for the New 52, a re-fit that instead fell to the awkward, minor Flashpoint. Yes, I realize the multiple reasons this didn’t happen but can’t help but wish that time and space had been aligned in such a way that it could have.
And I wish Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, and Andy Hummel weren’t dead so Big Star could play one last show.
Its still Firefly for me. I came late to the party, but after watching the movie and the series there was so much potential there. I still love everything related to the show, but there is always a nagging feeling at the back of my mind when I watch it that laments what could have been. I still have no clue why Dark Horse has not made this an ongoing series. I remember hearing it was going to happen around SDCC but never heard anything after.
While I don’t believe it has been acknowledged in-continuity that Sarah Jane is gone yet, the death of actress Elisabeth Sladen broke my heart. So while I’m able to imagine that she’s still around in the Who universe, it saddens me that one of my heroes growing up is never going to be in another Doctor Who related show again.
Similarly, I was quite sad to learn Andy Hallett died, meaning that if they ever did an “Angel” movie or reunion, Lorne wouldn’t return. However, I think they gave him a beautifully fitting memorial in “Angel: Lorne – Music of the Spheres”.
While on the Whedon-verse, the deaths of Wash and Shepherd Book in “Serenity” reduced me to a bawling little baby like almost everyone else.
I could go on and on, but I think that is enough for now.
I fully understand that their continuity was a mess, and that keeping multiple Earth’s straight was a nightmare, but I still miss the pre-Crisis DC Universe, particularly Earth-2. I loved the mix of older and younger heroes, Bruce Wayne becoming Gotham’s police commissioner, etc. It probably had to go, in order to open the universe up to new readers, but I think they wasted some great story opportunities for a single unified world that they ended up splitting back up into multiple worlds again anyway.
Ironically, while pre-Crisis continuity was a bit of a spiderweb, all efforts to fix it (CoIE, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, and now Flashpoint) have just resulted in an even more tanlged, confusing clusterf*ck, to the point where it doesn’t even seem like the guys working behind the scenes know what the hell’s going on, which stories still “count,” etc.