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Author Topic: Favorite Superheroes Besides Superman & the Superman Fam  (Read 27743 times)
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« Reply #24 on: October 05, 2005, 01:22:00 AM »

Captain Marvel was created in 1940.

Mr. Mxyztplk was created in 1944. While he wasn't based on anyone per-say, he was created in order to add some of that wacky humor of Captain Marvel in Superman's comics.

Saying magic names backwards is an old magic bit, that dates back long before there were even comic books.

However, it is clear that Otto based Bizzaro in part on his old creation Niatpac Levram.

Later, Alan Moore paid tribute to Niatpac Levram in the form of the dreaded Emerpus and Shadow Supreme! Smiley
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« Reply #25 on: October 05, 2005, 01:53:41 AM »

Julian Perez writes:

Quote
A lot of people mention their favorite as being Green Lantern in some way, I've noticed. This isn't a criticism, just an observation: is it possible it isn't so much the character himself, but the amount of worldbuilding that went around him? In my own Top Ten list, I mentioned that I loved the Black Panther, but less so for him than for things like the Techno-Jungle and the Dora Milaje, which surround him.


Yes, but this is true of Superman in a way as well.  Superman's got a bit of depth with the lost alien heritage gimmick, but really he's just a guy who does the right thing, always.  How "interesting" is that?  What made him work for me was the "Superverse" Uncle Morty and his stable of geniuses built around our boy Kal.  And yes, that's true of Hal as well; he was a straight arrow without a lot of the idiosyncrasies and quirks we usually use to define a "character."  But that whole mythology of the ring and lantern, the Universe-spanning corps, the Guardians, the "pre-history" with the Manhunters, the rogue Lantern Sinestro...it was all great.  

This is the kind of universe-building we just don't see anymore.  Most modern comics, to my eye, focus on intensely "personal" stories of angst and doubt and what not, or if they deal with peripheral elements at all it's to tear them apart: kill off the sidekicks, break up the Corps, etc.  We need more creators on the payroll and less destroyers.

Oh, and the ultimate example for me: the Fantastic Four.  Never in the history of comics have there been four duller or less interesting people who managed to keep a book in print for over 4 decades!  But the stuff Kirby and Lee built around them was mind-boggling: this one title gave us Dr. Doom, the return of the Sub-Mariner, the Inhumans, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, Him (later Warlock), the Skrulls, Annihilus, the Negative Zone and the Microverse, just to name a few concepts that would go on to shape the whole Marvel Universe.  A modern creator would give his eye teeth to create even one concept as cool as these, and Stan and Jack cranked them out on a monthly basis.

But if I had to look at Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben by themselves for 22 pages?  I'd be asleep in no time.
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« Reply #26 on: October 05, 2005, 04:49:57 AM »

Quote from: "nightwing"
Yes, but this is true of Superman in a way as well.  Superman's got a bit of depth with the lost alien heritage gimmick, but really he's just a guy who does the right thing, always.  How "interesting" is that?  


Ah, but Superman IS interesting!  Cheesy

Superman's origin is deep and profoundly meaningful, in its own way as Batman and Spider-Man's, because Superman by definition is lonely and isolated from the rest of mankind. That's why the Fortress of Solitude makes SENSE: it fills a need. Your own article explains what a tragic figure Superman's parents are. There is something very sad and poignant about how Superman and Supergirl don their headbands and light their space-menorahs to celebrate Kryptonian holidays that are only meaningful to them.

One half-criticism I have of Alan Moore's SUPREME is that it did not have this sort of tragedy or poignancy to Supreme's origin. This is only half a complaint, because his origin introduced the trippy element of Supremium and a fascinating time paradox which may partially replace the gut-wrenching emotions of the story of the character who was the central inspiration for the Ivory Icon.

The way I see it, Stan Lee did Superman a favor.

In the Silver Age, most of the DC heroes had a similar, possibly identical personality in many respects: confident, resourceful male authority figures with a strong ethos centered on serving and protecting. If the nobility of heroes was no longer cookie-cutter, then Superman's pure incorruptibility becomes DISTINCTIVE and exclusively his.

Quote from: "nightwing"
What made him work for me was the "Superverse" Uncle Morty and his stable of geniuses built around our boy Kal.  And yes, that's true of Hal as well; he was a straight arrow without a lot of the idiosyncrasies and quirks we usually use to define a "character."  But that whole mythology of the ring and lantern, the Universe-spanning corps, the Guardians, the "pre-history" with the Manhunters, the rogue Lantern Sinestro...it was all great.  

This is the kind of universe-building we just don't see anymore.  Most modern comics, to my eye, focus on intensely "personal" stories of angst and doubt and what not, or if they deal with peripheral elements at all it's to tear them apart: kill off the sidekicks, break up the Corps, etc.  We need more creators on the payroll and less destroyers.


How true! And it makes additions to a long-standing mythos all the more rarer and appreciated; see above for my example of one such addition, Kurt Busiek's Silverclaw.

Quote from: "nightwing"
Oh, and the ultimate example for me: the Fantastic Four.  Never in the history of comics have there been four duller or less interesting people who managed to keep a book in print for over 4 decades!  

But if I had to look at Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben by themselves for 22 pages?  I'd be asleep in no time.


While I agree with what it is you're saying (that Stan and Jack created incredible, mind-blowing worlds and have remained unequaled at this since) I cannot agree with the statement that the Fantastic Four, all of whom had contentious, complicated personalities, were boring. They were anything but! Why? Because they changed and developed as the comic went on!

One of the most meaningful, powerful moments in the Lee/Kirby run was when Johnny Storm, pursuing his love Crystal, was told by Reed that "a man has to do what he things is right." In thought bubbles, ol' matchead thought "That's the first time he ever called me...A MAN!"

Johnny Storm's maturation to adulthood, ignored by later, inferior writers (Waid, Byrne) was one of many things that made the Fantastic Four's mindbending jaunts much more fun: because you cared about the characters. They were original in the sense that there was no way one would mistake them for other characters of their type.

Mister Fantastic, despite his role as confident leader, was very different from other heroic leader-types: he was forgetful, obsessive (growing a scraggly beard when working on large projects) and endearingly clueless when it came to money and women. He was very different from Superman and Captain America and could never be confused for either of them.

And Susan Storm? Many say that she was proof Stan couldn't write women. With respect, I don't agree; the proof that Stan understood female characters was in the fact that every time a morally ambiguous menace appeared, Sue's instinct was to nurture, to care, to show affection, instead of just punching it like her boyfriends.  This was how she subdued the Dragon Man, for example, by showing him kindness.

Alan Moore proved in LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN that antiquated views on race and gender are pretty hilarious today. I'd LOVE to see them do a FANTASTIC FOUR movie where Reed says things to Sue like, "Sue, I'm tired of you getting distracted by your female problems!" or "Hmmm! It seems Sue was right - despite being a woman!"

And Ben Grimm? Now there was a guy that had personality. Everybody's got their favorite Ben Grimm moment. Here's mine:
    SUE: Oh, Benjamin Grimm, you're just being OBDURATE!
    BEN: My religion's got NOTHIN' to do WITH IT![/list]
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    « Reply #27 on: October 05, 2005, 05:09:01 AM »

    Quote from: "JulianPerez"
    I'd LOVE to see them do a FANTASTIC FOUR movie where Reed says things to Sue like, "Sue, I'm tired of you getting distracted by your female problems!" or "Hmmm! It seems Sue was right - despite being a woman!"

    And Ben Grimm? Now there was a guy that had personality. Everybody's got their favorite Ben Grimm moment. Here's mine:
      SUE: Oh, Benjamin Grimm, you're just being OBDURATE!
      BEN: My religion's got NOTHIN' to do WITH IT![/list]


      Yeah, the FF movie we did get was a farce --a retro FF would have been quite a bit better.  Thankfully we also have the Incredibles.

      The list of FF characters always reminds me of Howard the Duck #16 wherein Howard asks Steve Gerber to name the villains in the first 20 issues of FF, like it is some kind of geek mantra that proves Gerber has lost touch with the important things in life, or something.  That issue really puzzled me as a kid.  For years!
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      « Reply #28 on: October 05, 2005, 02:37:19 PM »

      Julian Perez wrote:

      Quote
      Johnny Storm's maturation to adulthood, ignored by later, inferior writers (Waid, Byrne) was one of many things that made the Fantastic Four's mindbending jaunts much more fun: because you cared about the characters. They were original in the sense that there was no way one would mistake them for other characters of their type.


      That's an interesting point.  I recently read an article in the book, "Give Our Regards to the Atom-Smashers."  The article, written by Jonathan Lethem and titled "The Return of the King" postulates that the Lee-Kirby FF run was such a success because you had two great talents in competition with each other, and what Stan brought to the table was the accent on characterization you describe.  Lethem writes:

      "Lee and Kirby were full collaborators who, like Lennon and McCartney, really were more than the sum of their parts, and who derived their greatness from the push and pull of incompatible visions.  Kirby always wanted to drag the Four into the Negative Zone -- deeper into psychadelic science fiction and existential alienation -- while Lee, in his scripting, resolutely pulled them back into the morass of human lives, hormonal alienation, teenage dating problems and pregnancy and unfulfilled longings to be human and normal and loved and not to have the Baxter Building repossessed by the City of New York.  Kirby threw at the Four an endless series of ponderous fallen gods or whole tribes and races of alienated antiheroes with problems no mortal could credibly contemplate; Galactus and the Silver Surfer, the Inhumans, Doom, etc.  Lee made certain the Four were always answerable to the female priorities of Sue Storm...famously the "weakest member of the Fantastic Four."  She wanted a home for their boy Franklin, she wanted Reed to stay out of the Negative Zone, and she was willing to quit the Four and the marriage to stand up for what she believed."

      Lethem's point is that once Lee and Kirby split, Jack went on to create all sorts of characters for DC (and later Marvel again) that were god-like, imaginative, spectacular even...but in the end unrelatable and thus boring.  The New Gods, the Eternals and the rest all flopped because Jack focused on the cosmic at the expense of the human.

      Anyway, I see where both of you are coming from and maybe the word I should use, rather than boring, is tiresome.  I agree the FF at their inception were wildly different from any other characters in comics.  My problem is they soon became parodies of themselves, to the point where I dreaded dialog scenes: I always knew we'd get some agonizing from Reed over his failure to "cure" Ben or keep Sue happy, some hand-wringing worry-fest from Sue and so on.  My usual reaction was, "I get it already...enough!"  But on the other hand, it did make them real (if not always attractive) and I guess that was essential.


      JulianPerez writes:

      Quote
      And Susan Storm? Many say that she was proof Stan couldn't write women. With respect, I don't agree; the proof that Stan understood female characters was in the fact that every time a morally ambiguous menace appeared, Sue's instinct was to nurture, to care, to show affection, instead of just punching it like her boyfriends. This was how she subdued the Dragon Man, for example, by showing him kindness.


      Well, Lethem goes on to say that if you take his analysis above to the logical conclusion, Sue becomes the embodiment of everything that ties the FF to Earthly, familial commitments, and thus her importance becomes inestimable:

      "...if you grant that pulling against the tide of all Kirby's Inhuman Galacticism, that whole army of aliens and gods, was one single character, our squeaky little Sue, then I wonder: Invisible Girl, the most important superhero of the Silver Age of Comics?"

      JulianPerez writes:

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      I'd LOVE to see them do a FANTASTIC FOUR movie where Reed says things to Sue like, "Sue, I'm tired of you getting distracted by your female problems!" or "Hmmm! It seems Sue was right - despite being a woman!"


      Yeah, I just read one last night where a famous chemist (actually the Mad Thinker in disguise) shows up to consult with Reed and Sue says, "I'll go make some tea while you men talk." Smiley

      Quote
      And Ben Grimm? Now there was a guy that had personality. Everybody's got their favorite Ben Grimm moment.


      I have lots of them.  My griping about the dullness of the FF notwithstanding, Ben is one of my two favorite Marvel characters, the other being Dr. Strange.  Strange is a man who rejects his petty past to serve mankind in obscurity.  Ben is a man who endures isolation and other-ness with humor and courage...other characters in fiction who become monstrous in form soon follow in mind and spirit, but Ben rejects this fate for himself.  Along with Dr Strange, I think he shows what the Marvel approach can be if done right; heroes who do what's right because it's right, in spite of everything.  In contrast, I think Peter Parker's a whiny jerk guilted into doing right by the memory of all the times he's failed to, but ready to quit the second his powers fade.
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      « Reply #29 on: October 05, 2005, 06:36:46 PM »

      Quote from: "nightwing"
      That's an interesting point. I recently read an article in the book, "Give Our Regards to the Atom-Smashers." The article, written by Jonathan Lethem and titled "The Return of the King" postulates that the Lee-Kirby FF run was such a success because you had two great talents in competition with each other, and what Stan brought to the table was the accent on characterization you describe.


      Oh, sure. Fantastic Four was one occasion where the collaboration was greater than the sum of the parts, certainly; notice for instance, how memorable Roy Thomas’s post-Lee AVENGERS was (introducing Hercules and Ultron among others) but how eminently boring his FANTASTIC FOUR was (and to a far lesser extent, Thomas’s UNCANNY X-MEN; I for one, loved the Living Monolith and Mimic but this book was canceled for a reason). By the time they got to Gerry Conway, the FF greatness was a second or third generation hand-me-down. The moment my dissatisfaction with Gerry Conway’s FF crystallized was that one story where they find a lost city of Yeti in the Himalayas. It was pretty interesting, but...didn’t both JONNY QUEST and DUCKTALES do an episode with this very concept?

      While I agree with the concept that Stan and Jack’s competition pushed them to do work together that was better than anything either of them could do alone, I remember Mark Evanier saying on his blog that Mark thought it was a myth that it was Stan who did the characterization and Jack did the mindbending stuff; according to Evanier, Jack often proposed character-centered plots and Stan proposed the Negative Zone journeys. Evanier said that the kernel around the “Galactus Saga” was an idea by Stan, not Jack, for instance.

      Quote from: "nightwing"
      Along with Dr Strange, I think he shows what the Marvel approach can be if done right; heroes who do what's right because it's right, in spite of everything. In contrast, I think Peter Parker's a whiny jerk guilted into doing right by the memory of all the times he's failed to, but ready to quit the second his powers fade.


      I never understood why Spider-Man – of ALL the Marvel heroes - was the most popular. Yes, his stories were the comics equivalent of a suckerpunch and were a laugh riot of irony and allergy attacks when fighting to save mankind, but the FF had it all over the wall-crawler in terms of mindbending concepts and characterization, and AVENGERS too, for the same reasons, only slightly different dynamic and characters. If AVENGERS and FF were foods, they’d both be ice cream, only different flavors of ice cream.

      Quote from: "nightwing"
      Lethem's point is that once Lee and Kirby split, Jack went on to create all sorts of characters for DC (and later Marvel again) that were god-like, imaginative, spectacular even...but in the end unrelatable and thus boring. The New Gods, the Eternals and the rest all flopped because Jack focused on the cosmic at the expense of the human.


      I have a higher opinion of Kirby's space opera work, generally, because I don't think everything has to be relatable. Some things can work because they're trippy and weird and alien and detatched from normal experience. Kirby's strength was trippy concepts and his weakness was characterization and dialogue, and these were series that were made to play up his strengths and downplay his weaknesses. Granted, anybody that writes such an odious, mind-destroying self-introduction like "And ME, young but COOL Harvey Lockman!" should seriously get somebody to write their dialogue for them, but nonetheless, NEW GODS wasn't about Harvey Lockman; he was a supplemental character with zero screen time that wasn't able to detract from the series with unsuccessful character stories that he was the focus of.
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      « Reply #30 on: October 05, 2005, 09:31:53 PM »

      Quote from: "JulianPerez"
      Quote from: "nightwing"
      In contrast, I think Peter Parker's a whiny jerk guilted into doing right by the memory of all the times he's failed to, but ready to quit the second his powers fade.

      I never understood why Spider-Man – of ALL the Marvel heroes - was the most popular. Yes, his stories were the comics equivalent of a suckerpunch and were a laugh riot of irony and allergy attacks when fighting to save mankind,


      Spider-Man's gone through totally dumb storylines.  Too often, his powers fade because of a cold or something.  Too often do they have him chuck the mask for an issue or two at a dumb setback.  When written right, he's a witty guy who can do a little of everything, and I think that's where his appeal lies.  Since there was much gushing about the FF -- Spidey's strong, but isn't gonna beat up the Thing.  He's a smart scientist, but not Reed Richards.  He's exuberant, but tends to be more mature than the Human Torch (except when around Johnny and then they both regress Smiley ).  And he's got lots of "normal" problems and concerns that lots of folks can relate to, the sort of normalcy that Sue Storm brings to the FF.  Throw that together with a memorable zoo of villains and good supporting cast, add a snazzy "radioactive blood" theme song, and you have a great character.
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      « Reply #31 on: October 06, 2005, 11:16:05 AM »

      Quote from: "nightwing"

      Anyway, I see where both of you are coming from and maybe the word I should use, rather than boring, is tiresome.  I agree the FF at their inception were wildly different from any other characters in comics.  My problem is they soon became parodies of themselves, to the point where I dreaded dialog scenes: I always knew we'd get some agonizing from Reed over his failure to "cure" Ben or keep Sue happy, some hand-wringing worry-fest from Sue and so on.  My usual reaction was, "I get it already...enough!"


      On the other hand often Kirby or Lee would include some dialogue that explicitly commented on this situation.  Most commonly, the Thing would sarcastically mention Reed's speeches, etc.  Especially Lee, but Kirby was in on it too, ironically parodied themselves.  Not Brand Ecch notwithstanding.
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