Full Circle to OZ

Related tangentially to our seeing Wicked [Link]

I spend way too much time, probably, thinking about superheroes and pop culture and so on. Tracing the arc of how things have gotten to where they are today and this weird cul-de-sac Marvel and DC seem to be trapped in: I mean that state of arrested adolescence between juvenile entertainment and actual adult literature, that vague fan-fiction vibe that seems to hang over all of mainstream superhero comics like a cloud.

This week, though, someone suggested to me that you can find an alarmingly similar evolutionary arc that has taken place with another pop culture icon, and that it’s actually just a natural cycle of popular fiction. So let me try this theory on you all.

You start with the original creative work. A charming children’s story that caught the public’s imagination.

Read the whole thing.