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James Johnson
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Joined: 16 March 2009
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:32am | IP Logged | 1
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Marvel has a Hollywood mentality. Looking for that 18-30 demographic that they can appeal to. Hence, make the characters young.
Plus, that age group is supposed to have the disposable income.
Edited by James Johnson on 17 February 2010 at 9:47am
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Don Zomberg
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Joined: 23 November 2005
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:39am | IP Logged | 2
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What about Nick Fury? Infinity Formula.
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James Johnson
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Joined: 16 March 2009
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:40am | IP Logged | 3
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Didn't DC go through this teenage/early 20s hero thing with Zero-Hour back in 1994 and it blew-up in their faces (see: Atom, Dr. Fate, )?
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Paul Greer
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 18 August 2004
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:40am | IP Logged | 4
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It's funny that comics used to appeal to the younger audience and most of their characters were younger. Then they allowed them to get older with the audience and they watched the market shrink. Now they are going back and making their characters young again to tap into a younger generation. In recent years many fans have cried out that characters shouldn't age, heroes should be heroes and that comics should be all ages. We were told how wrong we were. Now with the new "Heroic Age", "Brightest Day" events, new lines trying to reach all readers and now making establised characters younger it is a bitter sweet feeling. It's nice to know that some of us haven't been complaining for nothing. But it may all be too late for any real change and growth to the market.
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Patrick McNally
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Joined: 10 February 2010
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 10:01am | IP Logged | 5
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"making establised characters younger" I'd be doubtful as to how far that could really be carried. To the extent that the teenage Peter Parker had some appeal to young readers as a teenager it was as an actual teenager, not someone who has been reverted from adulthood back to teenagehood by the Cosmic Cube or some such thing. The more rational approach would seem to be one of gradually phasing out the aged character to be replaced by a new generation. The early Nova seemed like an effort to do this, with Richard Ryder being brought in as the new teenage superhero. But they didn't follow the effort faithfully and instead Nova was from the start more of a sci-fi character than a successor to Peter Parker.
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Matthew McCallum
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Joined: 03 July 2004
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 10:09am | IP Logged | 6
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Paul Greer wrote "It's funny that comics used to appeal to the younger audience and most of their characters were younger."
Yes, all those Golden Age teen age super-heores with their child sidekicks...
When comics were "popular to a younger audience" teen age as a demographic didn't exist! Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest were all adults with jobs and responsibilities. There were a handful of child super-heroes, but they often played against type: Billy Batson became the adult Captain Marvel, Star Spangled Kid had an adult sidekick, Superboy was an opportunity to sell another Superman comic every month and be different from Superman, Action Comics, World's Finest Comics, etc.
The Marvel Universe invested in teenagers as the demographic emerged, but even then they were not running the show: Johnny Storm was a hot-head kept in line by the three adults in his "family", Spider-Man was a teenager who matured quickly with the death of his uncle and struggled with the responsibility of being an adult, Rick Jones was a smart mouthed young fool, the various X-Men under the training of a intelligent mentor, etc. Adults still mattered and where in charge.
Now, in addition to a flood of teenage super-heroes, we have classic adult superheroes -- geriatrics in the case of Batman, given how everyone has aged around him -- who act like hot-headed teenagers. We've come a long way, baby!
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Steve Adelson
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Joined: 24 May 2009
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 10:53am | IP Logged | 7
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I remember cringing a little inside when Peter Jackson decided thatFrodo Baggins and his companions had to be Tweeners. When JRR Tolkeinwrote those books, Mr Frodo and Sam were bloody adults, dammit!
One of the first differences I noticed from the books was that between the time of Bilbo leaving the Shire for the last time and Frodo heading out to destroy the ring, a period implied by the movie to be a few months, was in fact 51 YEARS.
... although I don't remember the "tweeners" comment.
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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 11:16am | IP Logged | 8
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Wait, are we referring to the "Marvel Her-Oes" title when talking about the teenage Wasp? Because I thought that book was marketed toward teenage girls along the lines of "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane."
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Michael Todd
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 11:16am | IP Logged | 9
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It was also the case in the old days that comic books had a somewhat moral sense to them and tried to use adult characters to teach the child readers a sense of responsibility. At Marvel many of the characters, Richards, Banner, Stark were scientists and inventors which has always been a career for grown ups not kids.
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Paul Greer
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 18 August 2004
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 11:20am | IP Logged | 10
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Yes, all those Golden Age teen age super-heores with their child sidekicks... ***************** Sorry, I misspoke not taking into account how old some of the other forum members might be. I didn't know you were collecting comics back in the 30's and I hate to not include you in the mix. I stand corrected. Allow me to change my original musing to make it more current. "It's funny that MARVEL comics used to appeal to the younger audience by making MOST of their characters younger."
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Michael Todd
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 11:28am | IP Logged | 11
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Who Paul? Doctor Strange, Hulk, Captain America, Daredevil, Thor, Mister Fantastic, Giant-Man, Iron Man, The Thing, Captain Marvel, Sub-Mariner, Nick Fury, they were all adults, granted they had younger characters like the Human Torch, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Hawkeye etc. But I would say it was evenly balanced in the early days with the adult heroes being in charge.
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Ed Love
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| Posted: 17 February 2010 at 11:31am | IP Logged | 12
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It seems strange to me that they'd deem the Wasp worthless enough of a character to kill her off in the mainstream, and she certainly doesn't have that much appeal to have ever carried a book, one-shot or mini on her own yet, they spin her off as the lead teenage hero in another book? Why not have your cake and eat it too by introducing/creating a whole new character?
It is interesting that they do this but the tendency with most of the teen-age characters they do have is to grow them up. Nova and Darkhawk were both high-schoolers originally and are now adults. Power Pack and Cassie Lang (and the Wonder Girl Cassie) were not even teens five years ago and are now mid to late teen-aged heroes. Ten years from now, someone is going to treat her as if something approximating real time has passed and she'll probably be twenty-something. And, then someone decides to age Character A five to ten years while Character B has barely aged 2 years in the last 20. The only character cursed to stay pre-teen seems to be Franklin Richards.
My own feeling is that as comics have gotten to be more and more continuity-obsessive, pre-college age characters have become problem points as they give lie to the illusion of change/eternal now conceits and should be phased out of the mainstream continuity as anything more than supporting and tertiary characters.
Edited by Ed Love on 17 February 2010 at 11:35am
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Topic Closed)
