User blog comment:Nicolas Yami/It One Piece really long?/@comment-972068-20150422211611/@comment-972068-20150423181610

Characters go through major arcs that can completely change the way the characters are seen (just look at what happened to Green Lantern in the past couple decades). Some arcs last only a few issues, while other arcs can last over a period of years across multiple issues. You can't honestly look at something like 52 or Final Crisis and tell me there was no epic quest being undertaken.

Neither storytelling method is objectively better or worse. They're just different ways of telling a story.