Survival of the Supernatural

It's pretty much official now that vampires have been slain as being cool and demonic in the wake of the Twilight series, and with zombies being shown in a variety of ways (i.e. The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, World War Z, and Warm Bodies), it's tough to imagine they'll last very much longer as well. By that I mean in the mainstream, popular form they have now. Zombies have been around for a very long time, as have vampires. But the problem with vampires is that now whenever someone mentions them, they have to also add in at the end, "Oh, and they don't sparkle." I should know, as a human being, vampires don't naturally sparkle, you don't have to tell me. But as of late, one would have a reason to.

Wait, there's one more supernatural group being left out. The werevolves, the other creatures from the Twilight series that were...Native American? I don't know, didn't care to read/ watch any of it, but that's how they came off to me.

Anyway, werewolves, in my opinion, will last longer than any of the other Big Three (vampires, zombies, werewolves) simply because of what werewolves bring to the table: nothing new. There is nothing new about werewolves that we've discovered in this new generation. Get their power from the moon? Yup. Become strongest under full moon? Yup. Turn into full-on wolves? Well...sometimes. Other times we get like a hybrid wolf-man, which is also pretty cool to see (like MTV's Teen Wolf...which I will touch on quite a bit).

That's not to say that vampires have been totally ruined, or that they don't have a chance in the future. Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate, two anime series (one an actual series and the other an OVA series) tell the tale of Alucard the vampire, and he is quite the badass and is super awesome. It's not a series for kids...at all...but it still shows how vampires can be anti-heroes. And another manga/ anime, Rosario Vampire comes off as just another high-school anime, but, Moka's vampire transformation is one of the strongest things you'll see, even able to overcome a vampire's distaste for water against the mermaids.

Speaking of mermaids, I don't think they'll ever gather a reputation of being something other than singing women with tails under the sea thanks to how kind they usually come off as. Sure, you've got your sirens, but, they come rather infrequently in our world.

So werewolves it is, huh? It seems that they've only recently gained their following, too, with, of course, Twilight and Teen Wolf. But outside of that, I can't really think of anywhere else that they are famous. Which, I think, is a good thing. It means they will lack overexposure. Think of it this way: one day you hear a really cool new song on the radio. Then after two weeks of hearing that song played over and over again, you get sick of it and hate it. Does that make it any worse? No. Otherwise you would have hated it in in the first place. That's kind of what happened to vampires, what is happening to zombies, and what can happen to werewolves.

Luckily, Teen Wolf is doing them right. At first it was a show about, you guessed it, teenage werewolves doing teenage things (with actors who look not a thing like teenagers) and just being teenagers. Now?

Well...




Thought that was the Devil at first. Nah. Just the good old Darach.

And sure, that's not a werewolf, but, does that thing look like someone you would want to date? Maybe. I don't know you. But speaking in generalities, no you would not hit that. What the heck is this show?

Awesome. That' Teen Wolf seasons 2-3.5 are. Season 1 doesn't count, because teenagers doing teenage things is a horrible gimmick that needs to end.

Of course, zombie shows do go the extra mile as well. The Walking Dead, in both television and in comics, seems to push the boundaries every week. I mean for Pete's sake a baby dies. Not in the show, but, it certainly looks that way. Heck, we even get a scene of a baby being born. Gross. Oh, right, the zombies. Well, they don't look the prettiest either. In one episode, we get to chop one up. Each week a cool new zombie kill is utilized and it is...cool. Yeah, adjectives for the win.

Vampires have not really done that lately outside of, like I said, the Hellsing series. Alucard is one messed up dude, and he'll drink yo' blood if he needs to, but, usually he just uses his guns to kill you. Not very vampiric, but, hey, better than twinkle-toes.

Werewolves, also, seem to always be the darkest of the bunch, meaning, they will always need to be around as a villain of some sort. Rosario Vampire, for example, sees them as villain. I believe Twilight pits werewolves against vampires...? Maybe? In Teen Wolf, it is werewolves against werewolves, but, the werewolves you would expect (the murderers, the cunning ones), those are the villains of the show (THE DEMON WOLF). Classic.

The thing that pretty much all supernatural things kind of need to do is fade into the foreground and let the super-heroes have their moment, because, I think we can all sense that while Marvel and DC are on top of the world right now, it won't last forever. What can Marvel do after Phase 3? Phase 4? Is it even still the Avengers at that point? And what's DC got after the Justice League? A Green Arrow movie? Yes? Okay, yes, definitely that, otherwise they are dumb.

Werewolves are winning that battle, thus, since they are technically in the foreground by standing grounded in MTV. The fanbase is indeed very large but the show is not nationally discussed or talked about like something of The Walking Dead's nature.

Yet that's another thing that shows like these could do, sort of like True Blood. Move to a channel like HBO or something, allow growth. Be more grotesque. Eventually, with Negan coming up so soon, The Walking Dead may have to do that. Just look at what HBO has done, though, for the fantasy genre with Game of Thrones. True Blood was a very successful vampire show, too, and though I did not watch it, I can assume it was better than any vampire movie (even vampire spoofs suck). If you were to put werewolves and a zombie-survival show onto HBO, very good things could happen. Though they would not necessarily be in the foreground, they would be able to gain popularity and stand on their own in such a way that it is not longer annoying to watch.

See you next time!