Superman Through the Ages! Forum

I'm picking it's Wolverine, in the 70s.

He's a superhero?  ???

Whoa, no mention of Jack Kirby's Fighting Fetus?  :)

Wolverine had a hardcore, "bad boy" coolness about him, certainly, and that issue where he singlehandedly takes down the Hellfire Club when all the rest of the X-Men had been captured was amazing to read. It was like you could SEE a star being born.

But there have been some original characters since then.

Not all of them are "truly great," but you can't blame the guy for trying. Most of the villains later-period Kirby created in the 1970s fits this mould, like Doughboy in CAPTAIN AMERICA.

Though the execution was uneven, the idea of Booster Gold - a guy becoming a superhero for money and endorsements - was certainly an original one. Then you have Sleepwalker, who lasted for several years and was a cult favorite, who was a creature that sprang into existence only when his secret identity was asleep and dreaming.

The great Roger Stern, Superman's best Iron Age writer by a long shot, gave the Super-Mythos the gift of Maxima.

I'd feel guilty if I didn't mention the Kurt Busiek characters that he created in the 1980s (before he became the big superstar he is today) like the heroes of the LIBERTY PROJECT. The concept itself wasn't wildly original, but you had a character like Slick, who had powers over friction.

That's the hardest thing you can possibly do, in superhero comics, is create a power nobody has seen before, or a power combination nobody's seen before. There was Jolt, who was a super-athlete, but also had an electrical release touch, or Charcoal, who was a big rock guy a la the Thing, but who could flame his body and fly, too - not behavior you usually see in your big strong guy.

Then you have the heroes of Busiek's Power Company, like Striker Z, who was a stuntman whose power is being a "living battery" to power an arsenal of gadgetry, or Skyrocket, that has a suit that changes energy from one type to another. When somebody asked Striker Z what he thought of being a superhero, his response was, "I ah. just never thought about it."

Englehart's STRANGERS had many original characters; with the exception of the robot girl that shoots electricity and the "ham and cheese sandwich" personality Atom Bob, just about every character on that team was an original idea. The guy that burns with rainbow colors, each color giving him a different superpower, for instance, or Elena a fashoin designer and her ability to hit anything.

I'm a big fan of Kurt Busiek, but I'm not as big a fan of his ASTRO CITY as a lot of other people are, because it depresses me to see someone as obviously bubbling with ideas and originality as Busiek waste his time with stories that feel like ideas he pitched to DC or Marvel and were rejected. "Hey, look, there's Superman and Wonder Woman out on a date!" (wink, wink) The best issues of Astro City are the ones that quite clearly explore an idea nobody has done before: Junkman, for instance...and the idea of a super-villain that just GETS AWAY with it, was as magnificent as it is original.

I may be the only person in the universe that prefers POWER COMPANY to ASTRO CITY. So be it.

A while ago, SuperMonkey and I got into a conversation where somebody made the observation that great new ideas aren't very common. SuperMonkey argued this is typical of writers and artists just not caring.

My response was that, since the DC and Marvel universes have been established for some time, pointing out that the flow of new ideas is slowing...is fundamentally misunderstanding how worldbuilding and serial fiction "work," and in fact, after a certain point, new ideas are not even necessarily desirable.

I used the example of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY: it's exciting to read the first few issues because they throw out a new idea every issue or so: the Odinsword, the portal to Olympus, Lady Sif, the Warriors Three, the Flying Trolls of Thryheim, etc. But after a certain point, we start to understand what Asgard looks like. After a little while, it would not be possible to introduce an idea like a new cousin of Thor, for example, without severely trying suspension of disbelief. This is why that Kyle Rayner villain introduced by Ron "Gibbon" Marz was such a horrible idea: if Darkseid had another son, don't you think we'd KNOW about him by now?

To use another example: in the original STAR TREK, beings like the Romulans and Klingons were introduced in the first season, because that's really the only time they COULD have been introduced: when we're learning what the Star Trek cosmos looks like. Something as important to what the Trekverse's shape as the Klingon Empire CAN'T just be introduced at a later point in the game. Thus, when "new" enemy races were introduced, like the Ferengi and the Borg, they had to devote some time explaining why we'd never seen them before.

This isn't "laziness" or lack of innovation. Why create a new race when beings as established and as charismatic as the Klingons would do just fine for the story? In fact, the only reason Next Gen had to create new bad guy races was because the Klingons weren't available anymore.

Returning this conversation back to comics...well, let me put it this way: I love the Mad Thinker. Why move heaven and earth creating a new character when an established character with as much history, goodwill, and interest as the Mad Thinker would be perfect for the story you're writing? This is what I mean when I say that after a certain point, innovation isn't necessarily desirable.

For humor's sake, The Ripping Friends by John K.

He hates those cartoons.

None of those characters have set the world on fire Julian.


Marvel created tons and vigilantes and anti-heroes in the 1970's: Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Punisher, Son of Satan, Blade, etc. But they were not Super Heroes, but something else.

DC created Swamp Thing in the 1970's, but he doesn't count.
Jacky Kirby did the whole 4th World for DC as well as OMAC, Kamandi, The Demon and the Eternals for Marvel, but those heroes never seem to work very well outside of The King himself.

Outside of the big two we have the Indies where people are forced to created everything.

There you find a few.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for one, they were just as big as Superman and Batman during the 1980's and early 1990's then nothing.

I am sure there are some cool characters that I have never read, but if I never heard of them then I am guessing that they do not really fit the bill.

I'd say Wolverine is a superhero, though like James Bond, he's no angel. It bothers me that a lot of writers - Morrison comes to mind here - try to make the X-Men out to be science fiction heroes, like van Vogt's Slans or the Lensmen, with no costumes and keeping the X-verse self contained. Maybe it's because of the influence of the movies, I guess.

But the X-Men, Wolverine included, as presented in the comics, are superheroes, they do wear costumes, and they do fight menaces - albeit weirder ones than the norm.

And I'd agree with you that Damien Hellstrom's superhero classification is indeed really iffy.


Yeah, but most of those seventies-eighties Kirby ideas were BAD. "Doughboy?" I gotta give the K-man props for trying, but still. And what does all this nonsense with Samurai lost cities have anything to do with what the Black Panther is supposed to be about? And though it may be sacrilege to say, I never thought Kirby's NEW GODS was as good as his and Stan Lee's MIGHTY THOR. True, even I cannot take away from the charismatic terror of Darkseid, but when we're introduced to all of Darkseid's loser toadies, you started to get a "Dan Quayle" vibe: a guy whose second in commands are all nitwits. Kanto? Verman Vundabar? They all have two things in common: horrible outfits that look like they were picked out by the color blind dog from TOP TEN, and a total lack of anything resembling charisma.

I will admit, Forager was interesting, but his story was never really resolved. And the moment during the Kalibak/Orion battle when Orion gets smacked and reveals his hideous face, gave me goosebumps. "What's the matter, Kalibak? You SAID you wanted to see my face, didn't you?"

Kirby's Eternals matches or even exceeds the incredible work that the King did in MIGHTY THOR or FF with Lee (Kirby actually DID what he was trying to do with the Fourth World), but in terms of giving us great characters, nearly all of the most interesting and fascinating characters, alas, were the fascinating side characters: Karkas, Sersi, and so on.

In fact, the book would have been hella cooler if they'd have called it the KARKAS AND SERSI SHOW or something. Kirby made a mistake setting the book around guys like Ikaris and Thena, the two most boring people on the face of the earth.


That's true, and what I'm saying is WHY and HOW that works. It's just what happens to any fictional world after a certain time: when a house is finished being built, you live in it.

Perhaps all the great Superheroes that need to be created have been created and there is no need for new ones at Marvel and DC. Of course, that doesn't mean that they will not stop trying, but the odds of creating another Superman or Batman or Spiderman or X-Men is slim at the big two.

There is a reason for that and it is not for lack of talent.

Indies have a better chance of creating the next big thing that Marvel or DC. The top writers and artists who have the talent of perhaps creating such a hero, rather keep them for themselves and release them as creator owned comics than to give them away to two huge faceless corps so that they could make billions off of them. Hey, if they ever want to see their hero team up with Superman or Spiderman, there are always crossovers. No need to make the same mistake as the giants of the past who died broke while the big two are still making millions of their ideas.

 

As far as I know, Ms. Mystic was the first super-hero to look at the big picture and fight for all life on Earth.  That's great, and original.


Miracle Man, although allegedly a continuation of the old Marvel Man series, was for all intents and purposes a new Super-Hero once Alan Moore got his hands on him.

You've made a mistake by including Wolverine in a list with those others. Dismiss him with an argument by all means, but I'm not convinced by the creation of a list of "non-super-heroes" that you can then discard.

He most certainly is a super-hero, and one of the truly great and popular characters. I'm not going to hold it against you because maybe you read Wolverine too late. I'd say, go back to the good stuff, with two words uppermost in your mind: Chris Claremont.

The only Wolverine comics that I have is a reprint of the Hulk Issues and some later stuff that had him killing everything in sight.

Marvel Comics's official statemant on their character is not that of a super hero:

http://www.marvel.com/universe/Wolverine_%28James_Howlett%29

My money's on Dazzler!

S-M --check out what Wikipedia has to say about supers!  The def includes Wolvie.

How fully fleshed out do they have to be before they could be considered "original" and "truly great"?  Does Neo from The Matrix qualify, or is being a "chosen one" so utterly pedestrian as to defy uniqueness?  How about Goku from Dragon Ball which has roots in Buddhist myth as surely as Superman does with Moses, but goes in a different direction?  Is The Tick unique, or just another example of someone going sane in a crazy world, simply an homage to Bakshi's Mighty Heroes?  Are Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer just "Wonder Woman with an attitude"?  Is The Great And Powerful Turtle really just another telekinetic like Scott Baio in Zapped?

If we're pulling in Japanese characters,

Guyver
Iczer-1
Sailor Moon<---This character has proven to be great with all the imitators


I can't bring in Devilman, various Ranger shows(like DaiRanger), Cutey Honey, Kamen Rider, Ambassador Magma, Ultraman and a few others since they were created during the 60's and 70's

Wikipedia?!?  ::)

Are you implying we should have a def of superhero in supermanica?????
  ???

no.

I am stating that since Wiki is far more open ended, it is not always right. Actually, they get a lot wrong.

If Marvel Comics doesn't market him as a Superhero then he is not a Superhero. That's pretty clear.

Some examples of Marvel marketing Wolverine as a superhero

http://www.marvelstore.co.uk/product.aspx?ID=MOBWOL2WALL

http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Super-Hero-Squad-SaberTooth/dp/B000M2FY8E

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marvel-Superhero-Showdown-Starter-Wolverine/dp/B0009F4YQM

Super Monkey, you have to let this one go. He's a super-hero, and I haven't seen anything in this thread that takes the subject title away from Logan, except maybe those turtles.

It doesn't make a bit of difference what a website says. (Maybe you get too much info from the internet.) My opinion is my own and it comes from reading the Uncanny X-Men comics when Logan was part of a super-hero group.

It also makes no difference how Marvel markets him. Coca-Cola marketed their drink as a health food for years, but is it? Drink the drink and read the comics, then get back to me.

It really depends on your definition of Superhero.  From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004:

"A figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon, endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime."

I haven't read enough Wolverine stories to know whether or not he fights any evil or any crime.

Turns out his name isn't even really Logan!

I am not a fan of him or the X-Men for that matter, I never did like them or Spiderman! LOL, it's true. I will be willing to say that since you have read far more books with that property than I, that I suppose that he could be look upon as a hero in some fan's eyes.

In addition, one of the main things to look for (that you can hardly miss) is the costume (eg. Superman, Batman, etc.) or the uniform (eg. Fantastic Four, X-Men). Any of the elements alone are not enough. It's not an exact science, is it, but you can see that Steve Austin and Gemini Man are not super-heroes, but other characters with the same abilities (ie. cyborg strength and invisibility respectively) are super-heroes, maybe because of the costumes and other elements that add up to something more than "secret agent".

Well, no, I don't suppose it is. Although, I will always think of him as Logan.

I was a big fan of the character when I collected "Uncanny X-Men". I never liked him solo. I didn't even like the '82 miniseries -- mainly because I hated the art, admittedly. Since the 90s ushered in X-Everything, and all the solo Wolvie stuff -- gah... I have my "Uncanny" collection wherein he was at his best.

I actually stopped buying Marvel cold at the start of the 90s when they brought out the X-Men 1 comic with four or five different covers on the stand. In fact, I stopped buying new comics altogether. I found it almost impossible to find a good comic amongst all the collectors' editions, number ones, and must-haves.

This is always fascinating to me: what defines a superhero?

Talking points: Peter Coogan's new book Superhero, secret Origin of a Genre makes a few interesting assertions.

A. Coogan distinguishes between superheroes (ie, Superman) and "heroes who are super" (Gilgamesh).

B. All superheroes must have the following 3 elements:

1. Prosocial Mission

2. SuperPowers - abilities beyond those of ordinary humans

3. Identity - a costume and codename

Wolvie, in his various incarnations, conforms to all 3.  The one that we might quibble about is #1 but the character has acted selflessly in many comics and worked for the greater good as an x-men, etc.  The fact that he kills people (like early Superman?) is not something that really affects the definition.  He doesn't always wear a costume but it is still there (is Superman not a superhero when he save someone with his superbreath while working as Clark Kent?).  The Wolvie of the movies qualifies, at least.

My own definition might even leave out #1 by which I mean, if it looks like a superhero it is a superhero.  And some great superheroes in my opinion, have no powers (and I don't mean Batman-types --more like Uncle Marvel).

Maybe 2. SuperPowers - abilities beyond those of ordinary humans should read 2. Abilities beyond those of ordinary humans because there are so many super-types without super powers. Is Blackhawk a super-hero? Seems like it, but you can't be sure. Is Batman? Yes -- but he hasn't any super powers. 

I might keep # 1 and leave out # 2.

I agree it's fascinating. Characters like The Punisher are a problem too. It's only a feeling, but I wouldn't be able to put my finger on why he isn't a super-hero. Super Monkey's aversion to killing doesn't help, because a few of the Golden Age greats were killers, eg. Hangman, and this is in the heyday of the super-hero. The fact Logan kills is not hard to swallow... What other purpose could those claws possibly serve? They're for killing. That doesn't change his mission statement.

Let's take a very violent super-hero and a very violent anti-hero

Sho Fukamachi aka Guyver I aka Super Inviciblis Guyver Gigantic.

Agito Makashima aka Guyver III aka Guyver Gigantic Dark.

Sho has morals compared to Agito and trys to make the best of a very bad situation.  Agito does things that are expedient and a bit easy.

Frank Castle doesn't even bother trying another way, he just kills.

Nick Fury does try to find another way, but when it comes down to it, he will pull the gun out and shoot to kill.

I think the confusion here is caused by the various writers, editors, etc who have deliberately shied away from making Wolverine a superhero in the traditional sense.  Because, let's face it, a lot of comics are written and drawn today by people who find the concept of superheroes embarassing and juvenile. 

With Wolvie, they've tried to have their cake and eat it, too.  He wears a costume (usually), he has superpowers and he typically fights characters demonstrably more amoral than himself.  On the other hand, he doesn't stop bank robberies, give speeches about virtue and courage, or hide his identity from a snoopy girlfriend.  It's a formula that's made him a favorite character for modern readers, who delight in the vicarious thrills of super-goings on but whose reaction to moralizing of any sort ranges from boredom to hostility. 

But in the end, Wolverine is a superhero no matter how much Marvel tries to downplay it.  If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and smokes a cigar like a (Howard the) duck, then it's a duck.

The "fights crime" requirement is one very few if any Marvel "heroes" would meet.  You almost have to go back to Lee and Ditko's Spider-Man to find a Marvel character who spent any real time stopping bank heists or muggings.  By now, the Marvel heroes seem (to me anyway) to be exclusively devoted to fighting costumed bad guys trying to blow up worlds, screw with time or loose monsters in the streets or whatever.  The don't fight "crime" any more than James Bond does; they're world-savers, not lawkeepers.  (I assume murders, rapes, assaults and robberies are handled in the Marvelverse the same way they are on our own Earth; by the police.)

I suppose you could change it to "fights evil," though again it gets cloudy.  Magneto and his band have a more violent and radical agenda than Xavier, but does that make it inherently evil?  (Well it did in the old days, when Maggie had the courtesy to name his group the Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants. :D )  Marvel goes to some effort to paint the world in shades of gray, to the point I'm not anything qualifies as truly evil.  The job of Marvel heroes seems more along the lines of limiting damage to civilians and property, or solving differences of philosophy through fisticuffs.  In fact, for the last year they've been exclusively devoted to fighting each other in "Civil War."

I'd argue a majority of comics today don't feature "superheroes" in the traditional sense.  I'm ready to adopt the less partisan appelation, "Meta-Humans."

Humbug...I hate "Meta-humans."

The term had to be coined because

a) people in the DC universe are typically not mutants, so that won't work.

b) It came about when Superman was no longer the first, after Crisis. Calling people superheroes before Superman wouldn't make much sense. Then again, I can't envision the Justice Society being called meta-humans in the early 40s...they would likely have been referred to by the Nietzchean term, Supermen, if Superman hadn't been around yet. And then it wouldn't make sense to call Kal-El that. So, it's a muddled sort of mess that DC made for themselves. But we've been over that a million times.

If "Superheroes" sounds too egotistical, they still could have come up with something better than "meta-humans." Even Fatemen, or Flashmen, or Zeustians would sound better.

Mmhh!No one has mentioned Deadpool and Cable...

I think Batman has mental, physical, and material abilities beyond most ordinary humans.  Definitely makes the cut, although I think Coogan makes some distinctions re: 30s-40s mystery men (although I think Sandman's gas gun is a unique "power").  Blackhawk seems another problem entirely --more on the fence.  Punisher ditto --but he was a villain/criminal in his initial scraps with Spidey and was created as a device to illustrate the difference between Spidey and a the problems of morality and heroism/vigilantism in the "real" world, I think.

I don't see why the term superhero, which predates Superman according to the Oxford folks and several other sources, would have to be abandoned by DC just because they change his origin.  I suspect metahuman is used as a catch-all term for superpowered types, good and bad, by media and gov't in the Dc-verse, whereas the folk apellation "superhero" still survives on the street.

 

Yes, as Telle says, "meta human" identifies a person as physically gifted without commenting on their morality or character.

Which is why I prefer it to "superhero."  Most of the best-selling books at both companies feature people I wouldn't classify as "heroic" at all.  Marvel's many mutants, for example, are chiefly interested in fighting each other over philosophical issues as opposed to stopping crimes or saving lives.

Although I found "Kingdom Come" disappointing overall, it was nice to see an acknowledgement of what comics have become: wall-to-wall mob scenes of super-types obsessed with battling each other and oblivious to the lives of the "normals" all around them.

If someone still have a doubt about Wolverine being a superhero please read The Uncanny X-Men annual 11,here everybody can find a full synopsis:

http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/issues/showquestion.asp?fldauto=2423

OK,

So guys are the following comic characters SuperHeroes or something else?

The Hulk
Ghostrider
The Punisher
The Spectre
John Constantine
The Sandman (Neil Gaiman version)
Deadman
Adam Strange
Space Ranger
Adam Warlock
Shang-Chi
Morbius the Living Vampire
Rex the Wonder Dog

I have that comic. A really good one. And it's Logan at his best, part of Uncanny.

It's worth pointing out that the X-Men were people (usually young) being drafted into roles which placed new and frightening demands upon their burgeoning powers.

Logan was the odd man out (and how). Apart from his very earliest appearances while he was still in development, one of his main points of difference was that he was older, seasoned, already an expert in his field (ie. tracking and close combat).

But I'm beginning to realise something:


Looking at some of these guys, what do they have in common? You don't think they're super-heroes, and you especially don't think Logan's a super-hero. When I look at Wolverine, Hulk, Ghost Rider, Deadman, and Rex, I can't see any characters like the usual Silver Age DC type, ie. six feet tall, muscled, good-looking, clean-shaven... and that's just the women.

No wonder you can't accept Wolvie as a hero. And maybe that's one of the reasons I liked him. Instead of being six feet tall with noble bearing, he's short and stocky with big sideburns; he smokes, he's hairy, he's hardly attractive, and he hits first.

These characters don't fit that DC mould. 

I didn't say I didn't think they weren't heroes, I just made of list of characters that do not fit the Superhero archetype.

They may not be archetypal superheroes but many of them are or have been superheroes.  Or else their adventures have been expressed using a "superhero comics idiom".  I would say at least The Spectre, Deadman, Adam Strange, and maybe Chang-Chi qualify.


Other terms not discussed yet:
Alan Moore's "science hero"
posthumans
Powers
Wild Cards
novas
ultras

I wonder why you put Rex on the list instead of Krypto. Rex predates Krypto, is smarter, and more heroic.

Again, he doesn't have the cutesy looks.