the thing about spidey is that these changes happened over the course of literally decades of stories. TV shows are rarely afforded over 40 years of time to tell their ongoing stories. it would be interesting, i feel, to see a show that took a season to explore an “era” in the character’s development. start them as an adolescent, put them in college in season 2, have them as a bachelor / bachelorette in season 3, and make them a parent in season 4. has that ever been done?

for Avatar, i’m glad we got the finite ending that we did. but it doesn’t feel, to me, like the story has actually completed. Robert McKee suggests that the optimal screenplay / story completes with an ending that’s so fantastic, you just can’t imagine how it could be topped. i agree with him in many respects. in that sense, i don’t feel that Avatar had that type of ending. i found the suspense and excitement of Book 2’s end to be far more “how can they top that?!” than the end of the series.

really, the ending is the hardest part when you’re taking something that was serialized and finishing it. Avatar and Y the Last Man both share a similar stumbling block in this respect, in my opinion.