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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 9:53am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Reading about the changes in the FF, and other things over the years, I have decided that the single most important and unbreakable rule for a writer or editor who takes on an existing title should be this:

MAKE NO CHANGES TO THE BASIC PREMISE.

Take MAN OF STEEL. In the eyes of many fans I practiced a Scorched Earth policy on the Superman Mythos, razing it to the ground. But, while I made many changes, indeed, the basic premise was unaltered. In fact, I did much to scrape away the barnacles and restore the basic premise.

But other writers on other characters (and Superman) had approached looking for things that could be "not as they seemed". Niles Caulder arranged the "accidents" that created the Doom Patrol. Reed Richards knew exactly what he was doing when he launched that rocket. "Revelations" like this do not serve the characters. They may serve the ego of the writers ("Hey, look what I did!") but that's not supposed to be what we're here for!

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David Allen Perrin
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 11:19am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

So Let It Be Written!  So Let It Be Done! 
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

MOS certainly did restore the basic premise. I never understood some of the criticisms.

I think making changes to a basic premise, especially incrementally, is akin to peeling an orange. What will be left eventually?
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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Would Peter Perker becoming a successful scientist and marrying a
super model still fit with the basic premise of THE AMAZING SPIDER-
MAN?
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Maybe if you bring in something substantial to replace something ending or taken away (but in-keeping with the original intent) you might be on solid ground still? The original 'The Cat' became Tigra (and The Cat didn't go to waste either thanks to Patsy Walker finding the outfit, so you got two 'properties' where there'd been one). Also maybe the protoplasmic Supergirl to make up for the removal of the real one? Or Hawkeye, The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver can become 'good' (or Phoenix turn bad).

But basic stuff like mutants are logically feared by most humans, Lois Lane thinks Clark Kent is a putz... you can't replace never mind improve stuff like that, it just works. If Jimmy Olsen is a black guy these days we can handle that, but not so sure about him being a part-time superhero too maybe (in the Supergirl tv series, although they have a tech-wiz character named Win who seems to function as Supergirl's Jimmy Olsen kind of).

Yeah, if it's worked for decades, then "it ain't broke". The Thing should still dream of being 'normal' again and be grumpy about things at the very least. The Hulk does not just go to anger management therapy or Green Lantern get a second purple ring that can deal with the color yellow, at least not with permanent results.


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 18 February 2018 at 1:08pm
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Brian O'Neill
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I just recently read a few Hulk comics from the mid-90s(around 8 years into Peter David's dozen writing Gray/Greenskin), and they have a 'twist' in which, after the various multiple personalities had been merged through hypnosis, the 'calmer' intelligent version of the Hulk regresses because Betty is in danger...and so we get an angrey Hulk who transformers..into an angy Bruce Babber...with the mind, but not strength level, of the 'Hulk will smash' persona. To my knowlege, David didn't overuse that angle.
I'd quit reading comics about a year before that point, so 'Banner with Hulk's brain' was a new one on me...and didn't really work.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

There was one story (I think it was an Iron Man two-parter, #131 & 132) where Tony Stark and Doc Sampson 'cure' the Hulk with a device, surgically implanted, which Banner had designed; but what happens is he gets angry and we end up with a Bruce Banner body that says it will smash all the puny people etc. Naturally by the end of the second issue all is restored to how it had been. Iron Man has totally shut down in giving the greatest punch of his life to knock out The Hulk, and the new Ant-man has to do a Fantastic Voyage on him in the next issue.

Twists are great unless they are meant to stay permanently. Revisions like Reed deliberately put them through the cosmic rays could be done to seem like they are true, even Reed thinking he must've done it deliberately, but turn out to be someone interfering with someone's memory to split the group up over it. It's all the form of ongoing melodrama, unless it's some kind of intended-to-be-limited creation like Camelot 3000... so you can have the appearance of change more than real change. The crudest way of getting away with big changes and twists was when DC used to label something an "imaginary story"... as in this issue Supergirl marries Jimmy Olsen (or Superman becomes a witch-doctor and marries Jimmy to an ape in a bridal veil)! I'm not sure when it happened for me but at some point I thought, hey, wait a minute... aren't they all "imaginary stories"?

I also remember looking at some 'super' type comic when i was really little thinking they were somehow trying to fool me that these things were real and happening somewhere (unlike Chip N'Dale not existing in a park someplace)... at that moment it seemed like the superhero comic was for someone younger than I was. It might have been a Neal Adams comic looking particularly real, but it did something that struck me as trying to make out that it was real.


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 18 February 2018 at 4:11pm
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Wallace - it might. The question is, what is the basic premise of Spider-Man? I read it "Nerd high school student is bitten by a spider, gains super powers, and learns that with great power must come great responsibility." 

In which case, I cannot see a high school student as either married to a super model nor becoming a successful scientist. To me, those don't fit the basic premise... so I would say that fails. Of course, once spider-clones and spider-totems blow this up anyhow...
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Ditko apparently said Parker should not have left high school because that's the last years in which someone can be that dumb.
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Brian O'Neill
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Wha...? 
But, Peter wasn't...Ditko actually thought Peter was..
*sigh*
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Marcio Ferreira
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

So Let It Be Written!  So Let It Be Done! 
+++

Creeping Death - Metallica
S2


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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 18 February 2018 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Ditko apparently said Parker should not have left high school because that's
the last years in which someone can be that dumb.

---

JB, I was trying to remember what you said about Peter becoming and adult
a while back, but couldn't recall the exact wording. It was something along the
lines of him doing certain things as a kid were forgivable/understandable, but
as an adult, not so much. Am I misremembering?
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