Another example of the sort of thing I'm talking about: there was a movie recently about Joan of Arc where she was presented as being someone that is insane and hears voices, instead of a dedicated nationalist, someone mystic and perhaps a little eccentric. It's very damaging to the Joan of Arc story, and to the power this character has over the imagination, to have her be crazy and hear voices instead of having a purpose.
Maybe this isn't the best example because Joan of Arc was a "real" person; I'm talking here about about the Joan of Arc STORY.
Even stories that have different versions need to keep some things in place to have them be effective. There are hundreds of different versions of Atlantis, for instance, but the really effective ones have Atlantis's sinking be a result of the actions of the inhabitants, usually lapsing into decadence, or dabbling in sorcery, or generally getting too big for their britches somehow.
An Atlantis story where they didn't deserve it brings an element of victimization in a story meant to be about pride.
Frankly even if Doc Savage started a crime college to medically remove their evil tendencies for the greater good there is still an underlying fear that maybe his definition of what is good and what is evil may change as time goes on.
That's an anxiety that can be true for some characters and not for others. For instance, it's hard to really get anxious about somebody like Doc Savage choosing between good and evil.
I recently got ahold of a Steve Englehart interview from the late 1970s or thereabouts, where Steve was asked if he thought Batman was a fascist.
Steve responded something to the effect of, "Batman isn't a fascist...Batman's RIGHT!"
Doc Savage doesn't brainwash. Doc Savage is RIGHT.
And for people who think that Marvel is more realistic...really? In real life, when you mutate, you get cancer and die. When you are bombarded with cosmic rays, you get cancer and die. If a spider is irradiated, it dies and doesn't bite you...and if it did, it would just hurt really bad. If some kind of gamma ray nuke explodes near you, you either die...or get cancer and die later. And Norse gods do not exist!
You are correct in pointing out that Marvel - JUST like DC - uses old school "magic wands" like radiation accidents and so forth. Superhero comics wouldn't be comics without dubious weather control rays and all that.
But Marvel comics ultimately ARE more realistic. It's not a question of the presence of costumes or fantasy elements or not; it's question of
outlook. The first is that in Marvel there was a sense that change is possible. This is an illusion, for the most part, but an illusion that is very important. Compare Hank Pym and the Wasp to Hawkman and Hawkwoman. The Hawks were in love, they were married, but there was never a sense that would change or be different; their status quo feels extremely static because they are an idealized relationship instead of a real couple.
Compare that to Hank Pym and the Wasp, who are just as much in love as the Hawks but are much more idiosyncratic: he is considerably older and more mature than she is, she flirts with other team-mates to make him jealous. They've been through some downs; witness the brief period in the sixties where Hank Pym was permanently trapped at ten feet in height and he refused to let anyone see him, including her.
This is not to say that characters should just go through downs, of course. But that downs should be POSSIBLE just like "ups" should.
The Marvel heroes had a sense of joy when using their powers and occasionally used them for mischief. In one early Gardner Fox/Mike Sekowsky issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE, "Snapper" Carr even once tried to use a device from a captive criminal to pass a history test, only to be rebuffed by Wonder Woman. "SHAME on YOU, Snapper!" She said. Compare that to Spider-Man leaving passive-aggressive "presents" for J. Jonah in his office, or how he had FUN web-swinging.
Marvel stories, especially in the beginning, were driven by characterization and character's motives on a story-by-story basis. The FF went back in time to Egypt to discover the Egyptians' cure for blindness. The Mad Thinker attacked the Avengers because he wanted to steal Tony Stark's electronic secrets. The Gray Gargoyle attacked Thor because he wanted to know the secret of the Thunder God's immortality. Johnny Storm sought for a way to break Maximus's Negative Zone because he and Crystal were in love.
In other words, there's a difference between the DC heroes and Marvel heroes that makes the Marvel heroes ultimately more real: the DC heroes were driven by GOALS, whereas Marvel heroes and villains were driven by FEELINGS, and more complicated motivations than "serve and protect" or "respond to a crisis" or "take over the world."
The Marvel heroes got BEATEN sometimes. Take the cover to SPIDER-MAN #39 where he was unmasked, captured and powerless before the Green Goblin. The Marvel heroes occasionally were underdogs.
(Bear in mind I'm talking about Silver Age DC - but these arguments could also apply to Bronze Age DC too, because really despite DC's best efforts they were never entirely successful in creating a three-dimensional, Marvel style world, even today. The DC Multiverse is trapped between being two-dimensional and three-dimensional, like an awkward, piebald teenage werewolf in mid-transformation. The exception is Steve Englehart's 1970s run on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, where for nine issues all of the DC heroes had personalities, could change, and were driven by motives...alas, it was all too quick and didn't last, but for a minute there....)
It's also self-defeating. Once you've established that stories can be undone at a whim, ret-conned away, twisted or turned on their heads, then there's really no reason to keep collecting comics, is there? The big draw, at least for repeat buyers, was always that sense of continuity and evolving mythologies. If everything that happens this month can be revealed as a lie next year, then nothing any creator does really matters at all.
Good point. In order to care about the characters you have to have a sense that stories and their consequences matter. You keep on reading comics because you have an emotional investment in the characters. And this is severely undone by any circumstance that you question what you're seeing as being "true."
I've said this before, and as much as I admire the incredible achievement that is AVENGERS FOREVER, it laid the groundwork for destroying the entire Marvel Universe forever: Space Phantoms.
Space Phantoms can duplicate another character's powers exactly, and sometimes don't even know they ARE Space Phantoms. Thank Rao nobody has picked up on this yet. Because think about it: at any moment, ANY character can be declared as having been a "Space Phantom all along." It destroys a universe if you can't really accept what you're seeing as being real or the truth.
Technically, the protagonist of a story is it's "hero." But that's not the same as saying he/she is "heroic." In the 70s and 80s I was okay with Wolverine in the X-Men and his own book because he was sort of like James Bond; effective and efficient if not at all the kind of guy you want as godfather to your kids. On the other hand, making Punisher a hero stands your syndrome on its head; here is a guy created as a villain, or at least an extremely misguided loose cannon, and transformed into a hero by 80's sensibilities. When the Punisher debuted, he was a blatant theft of Don Pendleton's "Executioner," but I got the impression he was presented almost as a parody, or perhaps it would be better to say indictment of that character. His methods and his mindset came off as deranged and abhorrent, if not totally unsympathetic.
This brings up an interesting point: the danger of taking irony seriously.
E.E. Smith's LENSMAN universe is entirely quite sincere. Though there is also Robert Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, which also has something of a fascistic military dictatorship...whether Heinlein was trying to be ironic or not ironic with that book is something people go back and forth about and have for DECADES, but still, there was a sense of humor about the entire proceedings and if somebody made a STARSHIP TROOPERS movie or TV show that doesn't pick up on the sly "hee-hee's" about military rule, who plays it perfectly straight...not only would it be creepy and obscene, it would miss the entire point.