In the mid-1970s, Tony Stark added a nose to the mask of his Iron Man armor. His reasoning was it would (and I quote) "increase the fearsome aspects of my character to those who oppose me!" In the end, it was only slightly less embarrassing then the time the Avengers ditched him for a goofy teenager Iron Man from an alternate timeline. (Don't ask.)
One of Martian Manhunter's secret identities is an Italian alley cat.
Aunt May is an avid fan of Monty Python's Fying Circus.
The second Flash was Barry Allen, who died more than 20 years ago in Crisis on Infinite Earths. OR DID HE? Some years later in the Marvel Comics series Quasar, a race was held to determine the fastest being in the Marvel Universe. A mysterious, amnesiac blond-haired man wearing the tattered remains of a red costume materialized and won the race! When asked what his name was: "I don't know. 'Buried Alien', or something like that." Hmmmm...
Susan Storm used to get postcards requesting that she quit the Fantastic Four because she was a weepy, whiny load. It occurred to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby that maybe they had better give Sue -some- positive character traits. Plus they had Reed give Sue a bizarre, rambling pep talk about Abraham Lincoln's mother.
Madame Fatale was the first transvestite super-hero. "She" was secretly (and how!) a man named Richard Stanton, who would dress up like a harmless elderly lady. His theory was this would get criminals to let their guard down, allowing him to beat them up. DC Comics currently owns the copyright to this character, but they haven't used 'em much.
Way back when the "All-New, All Different" international team of X-Men were introduced, then writer Len Wein (with future famed X-scribe Christopher Claremont) decided to shake things up (and hopefully spike sales) by killing one of the members off. While killing off super-hero team members is common as dirt these days, back then such a thing was quite rare and rather shocking. They decided to kill off one of the completely unlikable members...which left them with Thunderbird and Wolverine as options. Yes, there was a time when Wolverine was considered unpopular and expendable! They decided to kill off Thunderbird, but sometimes regretted it...Wolverine's surge of popularity meant they had to almost completely scrap two of their original plans for the character and flesh him out in a completely different way...which lead to a pattern of retconning and revising Wolverine's origins, personality, and purpose that lasted decades.
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Hee hee. Super hero histories are always so crazy. I love that they just do whatever they want and figure out some way to explain it later.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by orlox: If DC didn't give express permission to Marvel, it couldn't have been Barry Allen.
Ah, but Mark Gruenwald (who wrote the story) never tried to claim rights to use the Barry Allen character. He just had a mysterious blond guy in a red suit who was faster than any other hero turn up. Could be anyone, really. *innocent smile*
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: Hee hee. Super hero histories are always so crazy. I love that they just do whatever they want and figure out some way to explain it later.
These days its more listen to what the big boss (Quesada at Marvel, Didio at DC) wants, while ignoring all else.
I miss the spontaneous, crazy, bold flow of some of the better comics. Let the writers and artists be writers and artists! Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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While the Legion of Super-Heroes has accepted members like Matter-Eater Lad and Bouncing Boy, they rejected poor Plaid Lad. As Matter-Eater Lad himself said- "We regret that we cannot accept you, as your powers pose as great a threat to us, as to our enemies."
The only Marvel super-hero with an undefeated record of wins against -every- villain they've ever fought is Squirrel Girl.
When Wonder Woman joined the Justice Society (the very first super-hero team) she was given the position of team secretary. She was a woman, after all. The fact that she could have beat most of the other members up never occurred to anyone.
Captain America was once going to be the subject of a big budget Broadway musical back in the 1980s. It got far enough that Marvel Comics advertised the show in their books...yet it never materialized. For which we can all be very glad. Does anyone -really- wanna hear the Red Skull belt out a power ballad?
Hal Jordan has one of the most powerful devices of any comic book universe...something limited only by his willpower and imagination. And yet, for many years his major weakness was one of the more random in all comicdom: His ring was powerless against the color yellow. Well, I guess that makes a lot of s-WHAT? Potentially, a villain armed with ripe lemons, fresh banana peels, and a big ol' sack of canary feathers could have had a field day fighting him.
quote:Now, it's quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him 'elpless.
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Whenever I have someone try to explain 'crisis on infinite earths' to me I can't help but think that comics never grew up, they just incorporated blood and swearing but otherwise are just as juvenile and cheesy as ever.
Or, they are secretly a fulfillment of the premises of Mostly Harmless.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Whenever I have someone try to explain 'crisis on infinite earths' to me I can't help but think that comics never grew up, they just incorporated blood and swearing but otherwise are just as juvenile and cheesy as ever.
Crisis on Infinite Earths was aimed at 9-12 year olds, in hopes that the epic story would draw them in and they'd stay with the relaunched, streamlined new DC line. (This was back in 1985, when kids could still actually buy comics in a drugstore, cheap.)
If we're going to talk about blood and swearing, nothing in Crisis could hold a candle to the gory EC horror comics of the 1950s, which were aimed at an even younger audience.
The super-hero genre !=the only genre explored in comics.
Corporate owned, exploitive super-heroes !=the only kind of "mature" super-heroes.
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I know, it's just that when you look at other stuff that Marvel does in particular, it's reliant on that whole general mish-mash of increasing implausibility.
The most common side effect being that if a character is profitable, they will never really die. They will always come back or be replaced by a hojillion spectral extras.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I know, it's just that when you look at other stuff that Marvel does in particular, it's reliant on that whole general mish-mash of increasing implausibility.
"The Devil hates Spider-Man's marriage! Iron Man is EVIL!" Yeah, they've been stuck in a rut.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by orlox: If DC didn't give express permission to Marvel, it couldn't have been Barry Allen.
Ah, but Mark Gruenwald (who wrote the story) never tried to claim rights to use the Barry Allen character. He just had a mysterious blond guy in a red suit who was faster than any other hero turn up. Could be anyone, really. *innocent smile*
It's exactly the same as "Lin", who showed up in a couple of issues of Fallen Angel as Lee's predecessor. She was clearly intended to be Linda Danvers, from PAD's Supergirl series, but of course, since Fallen Angel isn't a DC comic any more, they couldn't say it outright.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Hal Jordan has one of the most powerful devices of any comic book universe...something limited only by his willpower and imagination. And yet, for many years his major weakness was one of the more random in all comicdom: His ring was powerless against the color yellow. Well, I guess that makes a lot of s-WHAT? Potentially, a villain armed with ripe lemons, fresh banana peels, and a big ol' sack of canary feathers could have had a field day fighting him.
I never understood why Hal was dumb enough to let that stand in his way. I mean, so you pick up enormously heavy and hard objects and throw them at someone in a yellow suit. How hard is that to think of?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I still have all 12 original issues of CoIE. I used to love the annual JLA/JSA crisis stories, so I was excited about this one. Not to mention the fact that they'd been giving us sneak peeks at Lyta and the Monitor for months in every single book I was reading. Even Swamp Thing.
And then they killed off my two favorite characters. It felt like they were targeting me personally, as dumb as that obviously is. And to make matters worse, they changed things so that my single favorite character never even existed to begin with. Grr...
I moved to Israel the next year, so I can't really say that the reason I stopped collecting comics was what they did in Crisis, but it would have been a good reason.
And Puffy, you're dead wrong. They did it because they thought things were too complicated, and that fans couldn't keep up with it. Which is dumb, but it's what they thought at the time. The hoops they had to jump through afterwards should have taught them a lesson, but we've had crisis after crisis after crisis, lately, and I somehow doubt that the "Final Crisis" coming up is going to be anything of the sort.
Marv Wolfman wanted to start over from scratch after CoIE, btw. Sort of like Marvel's Ultimate universe or DC's All-Star Superman and Batman (okay, probably not like All-Star Batman), but he was outvoted.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: The most common side effect being that if a character is profitable, they will never really die. They will always come back or be replaced by a hojillion spectral extras.
It used to be fairly common wisdom that there were three characters you could count on never coming back, no matter what. Jason Todd, the second Robin. Bucky, Captain America's sidekick during WWII. And Peter Parker's Uncle Ben. Oh, and maybe a fourth: Gwen Stacy.
The only one left is Uncle Ben, and it won't surprise me one bit to see him return.
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quote:Now, it's quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him 'elpless.
What about a point-ed stick?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: And Puffy, you're dead wrong.
About what? They wanted new readers, they hoped that Crisis and the resultant stream-lining would pull people in.
That doesn't contradict any of the things you say, it just focuses on their other motives and hopes for the series.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: While the Legion of Super-Heroes has accepted members like Matter-Eater Lad and Bouncing Boy, they rejected poor Plaid Lad. As Matter-Eater Lad himself said- "We regret that we cannot accept you, as your powers pose as great a threat to us, as to our enemies."
I never understood how they could reject Polar Boy (who had a completely legitimate and useful power, I thought), and at the same time have Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl/Duo Damsel in the Legion. I mean, being a human beachball... not exactly the thing to strike terror into the criminal, now is it? And okay, maybe a Multiplex Man kind of power, where you can make any number of yourself, would be useful, only 2 or 3 seems kind of lame.
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I can actually understand Bouncing Boy...the guy is a nigh indestructible brick, capable of high speed ricochet attacks.
Plus, Rokk was sleep and listless during Chuck's try-out.
Triplicate Girl they (many years) later justified (at least partially) by making her a key member of the Espionage Squad, where such a talent was actually of great use.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Sorry, I meant about it being aimed at 9-12 year olds. Why do you think that?
Because I've read interviews with Giordino and Wolfman that they hoped just that audience would get hooked?
They were anxious to get past the label that Marvel was the company with characters kids could relate to, while DC was mainly for the older, stodgier fan.
Kids were watching the Super Powers cartoon, but they weren't going on to buy DC comics. Part of the reason for Crisis was to (at least in theory) rectify what they thought was blocking that.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: It used to be fairly common wisdom that there were three characters you could count on never coming back, no matter what. Jason Todd, the second Robin. Bucky, Captain America's sidekick during WWII. And Peter Parker's Uncle Ben. Oh, and maybe a fourth: Gwen Stacy.
The only one left is Uncle Ben, and it won't surprise me one bit to see him return.
Wait, wait...they brought Jason back?
Gross.
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: While the Legion of Super-Heroes has accepted members like Matter-Eater Lad and Bouncing Boy, they rejected poor Plaid Lad. As Matter-Eater Lad himself said- "We regret that we cannot accept you, as your powers pose as great a threat to us, as to our enemies."
Oh man, I actually remember this one. With Barber Boy! With his mousse vision!
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I never understood why Hal was dumb enough to let that stand in his way. I mean, so you pick up enormously heavy and hard objects and throw them at someone in a yellow suit. How hard is that to think of?
"...Is there anything that ring doesn't do?!... Yes. It doesn't make you any smarter."-Hitman
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Sorry, I meant about it being aimed at 9-12 year olds. Why do you think that?
Because I've read interviews with Giordino and Wolfman that they hoped just that audience would get hooked?
They were anxious to get past the label that Marvel was the company with characters kids could relate to, while DC was mainly for the older, stodgier fan.
Kids were watching the Super Powers cartoon, but they weren't going on to buy DC comics. Part of the reason for Crisis was to (at least in theory) rectify what they thought was blocking that.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: It used to be fairly common wisdom that there were three characters you could count on never coming back, no matter what. Jason Todd, the second Robin. Bucky, Captain America's sidekick during WWII. And Peter Parker's Uncle Ben. Oh, and maybe a fourth: Gwen Stacy.
The only one left is Uncle Ben, and it won't surprise me one bit to see him return.
Wait, wait...they brought Jason back?
Gross.
Yep. And he's just as much of a jerk as he was before he got killed. Incidentally, he was brought back when Superboy-Prime (the Superboy of Earth Prime, which had been DC's version of our Earth, the one without any superheroes) went insane and punched reality.
He recently became Red Robin, taking the costume made for his alternate version on Earth 51 by a Batman who went insane as well after his Jason was killed and murdered all of the supervillains on his Earth, turning it into a paradise (until it was recently destroyed).
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posted
Green Lantern was limited only by the creativity of his writer. Sadly, that was much of the time.
It's hard to take seriously a hero with the single most powerful weapon in the known universe who couldn't stop you from peeing on him.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that when Jason came back, he came back initially as a villain. So did Bucky. So did (sort of, I think... I haven't really been keeping up) Gwen. So if Ben Parker comes back, he's gonna be a bad guy.
And let me add to the category of "Do Not Resuscitate" the names of Thomas and Martha Wayne. For essentially the same reasons as Uncle Ben.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: And let me add to the category of "Do Not Resuscitate" the names of Thomas and Martha Wayne. For essentially the same reasons as Uncle Ben.
Oo! Oo! There's the most ultimate DC/Marvel Triple-Villian Team Up Crossover Event EVAR!!! Could this be the end of Batman & Spiderman?
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Actually, DC sort of did that. Probably more than once. They had someone go back in time and save the Waynes in order to keep Batman from coming into existence.
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