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William Lukash Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 17 May 2006 Location: United States Posts: 1405
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Posted: 12 August 2009 at 8:59am | IP Logged | 1
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Okay, I'm grasping for a more appropriate term, but nothing comes to mind so bear with me as I explain.
In the late '60s and early 70's there is a crop of new writer's coming into comics that begin to address social or individual injustices and/or personal empowerment, rather than crime or super-villains. Denny O'Neill, Steve Gerber, and Chris Claremont immediately come to mind, but there were others.
I don't understand how this radical change came about? Did the editors believe that the readers they found in the early and mid-60's were growing older and more sophisticated, and therefore a more sophisticated storyw was reqruired to keep them hanging around? Were the editor's not minding the store? Exactly what happened that super-hero comics moved from super-action to what they were at that time.
And, what caused the shift back to the focus on super-heroes during the '80s? Was there any one series that made people take notice? Were sales really tanking?
Thanks!
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Eric Lund Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 15 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 2074
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Posted: 12 August 2009 at 9:39am | IP Logged | 2
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The 70's were a period where grim and gritty social commentary and relization started to happen. The Dirty Harry movies and cinema in general at the time became socially reflective and "REALITY" was the big thing... They were just reflecting the times. The good times of the 60's were over and Vietnam, Kennedy being assasinated along with Martin Luther King Jr. etc, etc.... Drugs ,you name it...had taken its toll on America and the culture... Things were ugly...
O'neil and Gerber I'm sure were writing about evil they saw everyday right in front of them that wasn't a villian in a colorful costume.
Miller brought that back with Daredevil who used to be "The Swingin' Superhero" and happy go lucky. He was never grim and gritty or crazy in his conception.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 12 August 2009 at 10:08am | IP Logged | 3
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You're talking about the arrival of "relevance" in superhero comics -- which was the "grim and gritty" of its day. Which is also one of the first really marked downturns in sales.Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
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William Lukash Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 17 May 2006 Location: United States Posts: 1405
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Posted: 12 August 2009 at 10:25am | IP Logged | 4
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But why did this occur? Some editor must have said after review a prposed script, "this is awesome!" at some point. Can we point the finger directly at Roy Thomas at Marvel, or Stan the Man himself. I can't imagine the latter is true. I guess I'm just curious about who made the decision to let these writers through the door, and tell these types of stories.
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Ed Love Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 05 October 2004 Location: United States Posts: 2712
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Posted: 12 August 2009 at 11:05am | IP Logged | 5
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The difference that I see is that DC was playing catch up. Marvel in the introduction of their new heroes in the 60s, they were made more relevant from the get go. From the dangers of atomic science and energy leading to mishaps, the space race, war in Asia, political unrest, Cold War, the popularity of James Bond movies. Marvel reflected more the world outside the window, distrust, imperfection, unfairness. Clark Kent was a respected reporter with a gruff but kind boss, Peter's boss was small-minded, petty and who'd short-change him in a minute. DC's heroes were glamorous and powers were gifts, Marvel's tended to come with a cost. Tony Stark was wealthy and good looking and had a bad heart. Banner was a frail scientist with an uncontrollable alter-ego, the X-men were distrusted by the world and Cyclops always had to wear the special glasses. Matt Murdock was blind. The Thing served the purpose of showing the cost for power for the FF. Their villains followed the same lead, half of them being cursed by side-effects of science and/or radiation, others being political menaces, tapping into the fears and concerns of the people at the time.
They made DC's heroes look old hat and dated by comparison, their world unrealistic in its optimism. Super-science more casual and generally working the way it was supposed to. Captain Cold and Mirror Master didn't become villains because their experiments turned them into monsters, they were just opportunists.
I think this part of the reason why getting Ditko and Kirby to come to DC in the 70s didn't really work the way it was intended. I can see where in peoples' minds Ditko and Kirby were the established old-school creators, it was DC trying to cash in on two guys who created all this stuff in the 60s and still behind what Marvel was doing. The new guys were where it was at: that Barry Smith guy on Conan, Steranko doing Shield and Captain America, a new multi-cultural and multi-racial X-men
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Martin Redmond Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 12 August 2009 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | 6
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The big problem in comics, for decades now, is that there's too little genres being backed by companies with money and a good business sense. So everything gets crammed into super heroes.
Edited by Martin Redmond on 12 August 2009 at 1:09pm
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Steve D Swanson Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 04 May 2008 Location: Canada Posts: 1374
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Posted: 13 August 2009 at 2:50am | IP Logged | 7
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The problem with this kind of writing (in all genres, in all formats) is that you have to agree with the point the writer is trying to make in order to enjoy the story. If you disagree with the writer, the writer has to be extraordinarily talented in order to keep you reading.
After all, the trick isn't to make the reader buy the comic they're already reading (since presumably they already bought it), but to get them to buy the next issue. If I was a fan of Green Lantern when he was made 'relevant' I would have been more than a little ticked off (Hell, I was ticked off when I read that story years later. The art was beautiful but Hal looked like a chump, and an impotent chump at that.), not neccesarily because I disagreed with Denny O'neil's story (though in that specific case I did), but because a point was being shoved down my throat. I hate that kind of stuff and always have.
Gordon Korman was a great writer of kids books when I was growing up, funny, well structured, likable characters, and then he got infected with the 'lesson' disease and every novel had to end with the characters learning an important lesson. Knowing this, and resenting this, I find that I have to keep it in mind and read around it when I come to the end of his books. I don't disagree with the lessons, but I don't like being lectured to now, and I absolutely despised it as a kid and his books were a welcome respite from the lectures of the other kids books. And then he followed their lead.
By the by, there were lessons in his other books, but they were different sorts of lessons, about responsibility, about finding a way to fit in, about dealing with and learning to like the strange people around us, but they weren't presented as lessons. They were presented as part of life. But for some reason he had to make those lessons explicit and a part of me wonders if 'parents' groups (parents in quotes because I've found most groups that identify as parents groups usually consist of mothers, not exclusively, but predominantly) read his books, missed the subtle lessons (that were very boyish lessons in a way. Told by a boy, to an audience of boys, with boy characters doing boy stuff), and decided that it was fluff and unworthy of educating children (as an aside, giving a child a book in order to educate said child? Bad idea. Reading the book, giggling, then handing it to the child like my mom did? Good idea). So he responded by making his lessons more obvious.
There were some interesting stories in the relevant phase of comics but was it worth it? Or were the writers and artists and editors and companies suddenly more interested in chasing the accolades of the critics? And most importantly, they usually bled readers on those titles but I wonder if it had a chilling effect on all of comics? That those readers who liked those titles would look down on all the titles that weren't like that and make other fans feel stupid for liking them. That other writers would see those accolades and respond by being even more relevant and then bleed readers themselves.
The core of Spider-Man is such that any reader of almost any political bent can feel comfortable with the concept. A conservative can think that Peter's a conservative (since he's all about personal responsibility) and a liberal can feel just as comfortable thinking that Peter's a liberal (since he's all about helping his fellow man). The emphasis might shift but both camps can claim him.
But then a writer comes along who wants to claim him for their side and writes a story (if the writer is a liberal) where Spider-man starts spouting off about responsibility and how everyone should be as responsible as he is and then something happens to make him realize how everyone must help one another. Or to be even more explicit; the republican party holds their national convention in New York and the writer reveals them all to be former nazis who have found a long life formula and Spider-Man destroys their evil cabal and pledges to end the evil that those Conservatives represent.
This isn't to start a debate, I'm sure a liberal would be equally as irked to have the above scenarios reversed by a conservative writer. The point is that if you disagreed with the story, not only would you resent the story, and the writer, but I have a feeling you would start to resent the character. And that portrayal would taint how you feel about that character. Obviously you'd probably drop that comic.
By the by, I'm not saying liberals aren't responsible, or that conservatives don't believe in helping others, just that it would be easy to twist Spider-Man to fit either viewpoint.
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Wayde Murray Byrne Robotics Member
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Joined: 14 October 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 3115
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Posted: 13 August 2009 at 7:34am | IP Logged | 8
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Ed, Steve, great posts.
Stan (and later, Roy) seemed so proud of the fact that their comics were being read by college kids, I wonder if there was a conscious decision made by them and by subsequent writers to atempt to "write up" to the perceived audience.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 13 August 2009 at 7:57am | IP Logged | 9
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But why did this occur? Some editor must have said after review a prposed script, "this is awesome!" at some point. Can we point the finger directly at Roy Thomas at Marvel, or Stan the Man himself. I can't imagine the latter is true. I guess I'm just curious about who made the decision to let these writers through the door, and tell these types of stories.•• "Relevance" really begins with GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW, by O'Neil and Adams, edited by Julie Schwartz. The book was dying, so they tried a bold experiment --- which failed big time! The book was still canceled. Unfortunately, before it was, it won all kinds of awards and notoriety outside the normally very closed and insular comicbook community. How many times was that "What have you done for the black skins?" panel reproduced in "real world" newspapers?* This made "relevance" cool, and the utter failure of the experiment was overlooked as pretty much everybody jumped on that bandwagon -- and sales dropped across the board.
* Ever wonder, as I have, why GL didn't respond with "Well, I save the whole world about a million times!"
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Wayde Murray Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 13 August 2009 at 8:56am | IP Logged | 10
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I wondered why the black man didn't ask Green Arrow what HE had done for the black skins when he had millions of dollars at his disposal. Even way back then it struck me as weird that Oliver Queen was suddenly the spokesman for the oppressed, with intimate knowledge of their circumstances.
Of the regular cast of the JLA, there is nobody who jumps out as a likely liberal. We've got millionaires and fallen millionaires (The Batman and Green Arrow), scientists working for universities and police services (Atom and Flash), alien policemen (Green Lantern and Hawkman), an undersea monarch and an amazon princess. Superman comes closest, but even he would have been raised with conservative midwestern ideals (when he wasn't shouting "Great Rao" and being more Krypton than Kansas).
Talk about the characters being sacrificed to serve the story!
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Jason Czeskleba Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 13 August 2009 at 9:01am | IP Logged | 11
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I'm curious which titles/runs you guys would define as
"relevant." Aside from the Spider-Man drug issues, I can't think
of any Marvel books that featured the kind of ham-handed moralizing of
GL/GA. At DC, O'Neil wrote a handful of JLA stories of that ilk,
but other than that what else was there? I don't recall relevance
as being as widespread as it's being portrayed in this thread, unless I
guess it's defined as something a lot broader than the sloganeering of
GL/GA.
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William Lukash Byrne Robotics Member
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Posted: 13 August 2009 at 9:14am | IP Logged | 12
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JLA. Green Arrow/Green Lantern. I haven't read any other Denny O'Niell stories at DC because Showcase Presents reprints are just getting into that era, for the most part. Teen Titans has quite a bit. Heck, even Metal Men sort of gets into it a little.
At Marvel you can see it in some issues of Spider-Man, Man-Thing and I'm assuming Howard the Duck, as well. Captain America had a lot of it, although not as heavy-handed. I'm drawing a blank, but I know there is more.
Edited to add: Thanks JB, I didn't know that bit of informaiton, and that explains a lot.
Edited by William Lukash on 13 August 2009 at 9:38am
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