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Trevor Thompson
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 7:00am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I got thinking about Stan Lee  (as well as other creators) and how he really capture the Zeitgest of the 60sand 70s. It was the age of science and space exploration. The House of Hammer was a popular on TV and Stan wrote about all these things in his comics. His heroes and villains were scientists (Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Dr Doom, Doc Ock) and monsters (The Hulk, The Thing, The Abomination, etc.).

What would Stan's heroes and villains be today? We live in an age where technology is absolutely everywhere so I guess he'd write Iron Man but his origins would be different. Maybe most heroes would be inventors or computer scientist and programmers. Just a thinking out loud, here.


(Edited for title — Tim)


Edited by Tim O'Neill on 10 May 2018 at 9:08am
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Robbie Parry
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 7:04am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Good topic!

Perhaps the Hulk's origin would not involve gamma radiation, but something else (super-steroids, genetic engineering, etc). Some characters' civilian occupations would be web designers, app designers, etc.

Peter Parker would receive an iPhone instead of a microscope!

Just throwing things out there, I am sure many will add to the list.
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James Woodcock
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 7:29am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I think there would still be scientists & monsters. Radiation might have less of a role while genetics might have more - a bit like the movies have done.

Although, having said that, I like how Marvel sidestepped that in the latest version of Spider-Man - everyone has seen one version of an origin for him so just get on with it.

I’m reminded how prominent mutants were in. The ‘80’s & ‘90’s where is seemed that every new character was pretty much a mutant, so origins seemed to become ‘I hit puberty’ & that was it. I’d still like to see more of Stan’s Origins - they were inventive, but told so quickly
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Brian Hague
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 8:57am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I would imagine a hero would come into being through an unusual interaction with computers and social media, perhaps drawn into the internet itself and re-emerging with super-powers. Also, young heroes would become YouTube sensations before they became heroes, and even while operating for the greater good (if they believe in such a thing), would constantly have recording devices going so as to maximize their hit counts. 

We'd have a great many "garage heroes," characters whose powers are a result of their having labored on their own in obscurity, until Bam! Something amazing happens, not out of coincidence or sheer luck, but because they intended for it to.

Radiation wouldn't be a prevalent factor in super-heroic origins, but self-involvement and self-interest would. Satellites would often play a role, as would a deep-space robot probe or two. Mutants wouldn't gather together at one location, but would be linked through social media and become a force for social change, with widely polarized opinions on both sides of the aisle. The clash between Professor X and Magneto's opposing philosophies would be a constant flame war online. 

Aliens wouldn't travel about in rockets or saucers, but by means of teleportation and spiritual advancement. Crystals would be involved in many cases, and Skrulls wouldn't be here because they mean to attack us. They'd be here because we brought them upon ourselves with our negativity and obstructive spiritual practices. If we could get our karma straight, we wouldn't be magnets for these "bad aliens" to come and inhabit the Earth. We could be free and participate in the universal community instead of fearing it and fleeing from the representatives it sends and we draw from it. Everything is explained in my new 17-course online education program, "Ohm Invasion." 

And Captain America could very well have been a rescue worker when the towers fell who has been preserved in a secret government facility since the collapse. Why? What does he know? What secrets does he possess? Or was he just a good man a team of scientists felt deserved a chance of life for his good works? 

Conspiracy theories could run rampant throughout a modern, unprecedented Marvel, with countless villains heavily invested in "revealing" the "truth" about so many topics to a disbelieving public. Countless bad guys would be all about tearing the lid off the Moon landing, black helicopters, and jet contrails. Thor could be a representative of the Realm of the Flat Earth, which he insists is our Realm, a "fact" we must all recognize as the Ice Walls have begun to close in... 

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Daniel Gillotte
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 10:55am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I definitely agree with many origins being from genetics and DNA research.
Definitely stuff with robotics and cybernetics. I like the idea of people augmenting themselves in their "garages" or at a school 3d printer lab. Could also see freak accidents happening with augmentation that has unpredictable and cool results.
Also, likely still chances for dimensional weirdness and explorations of the far reaches of space and even the molecular level Tardigrade-girl anyone?

If Stan was doing this I think you'd see interesting approaches to:
Social media (like was said above and even explored in X-statix actually, where heroes were like athletes)
Bullying- different than the  bullying that Peter Parker took I imagine.
WAY more racial diversity of course which would be great.
Gun violence and other hot issues of the day would get looked at at least somewhat. An origin built around easy access to guns and the impact of that...

Fun topic!
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Phil Kreisel
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Here's my take on this:  Some examples.

I think Captain America would have the same updated origin.  Maybe it wasn't the Avengers who found him, but the "floating as an ice cube" scenario from WWII still fits today.

The Fantastic Four could still get their powers from Cosmic Rays, but how they got into space would likely be different.  Sue Storm wouldn't be just the girlfriend who tagged along in the rocket ship (along with her kid brother), but have some scientific rationale for being there (similarly for Johnny).

The Hulk could still have a similar origin, but maybe wouldn't be subjected to the radiation in the USA.  Maybe he got created through North Korea's testing instead.

Spider-man's origins can be the same.  His personality might be a little different, but being a science nerd isn't out of place now as it wasn't out of place in the 1960s.

Probably the most substantial update would be more diversity in who was getting transformed.  Stan and Jack primarily used WASP as their blueprints back in the 1960s, which reflected what was going on in their world  Now, there would be more racial differences, cultural differences etc. as to who was getting what.

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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 10 May 2018 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I think when we watch the films with the
updated changes they've made, it would be
pretty close. I think the idea that many
or most of the superpowers characters
would be somewhat failed attempts to
replicate Steve Rogers. Where threat of
nuclear radiation played a large role in
the Marvel's original creation,
genetically engineered soldiers would make
up the backbone to a new Marvel.
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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 11 May 2018 at 7:46am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Today's Marvel might well give up on the idea of there being a hard, fast line between heroes and villains--that there are some folks who do the right thing, some who commit crimes, some who are indifferent and just want to live their lives, and others who are activists of one kind of another.

They might also not go with the idea of there being regular teams but maybe rotating groups of people who get together for one reason or another. One might be a group of military supers who fight other, foreign supers (be they terrorists or the military of other nations), another might be a government-sponsored team (or teams) that engage in high profile PR stunts, fighting paid "villains" and otherwise reassuring the people that all is well.

What I would most expect is that a modern Marvel wouldn't echo the past but would try to do something new and different. Stan and Jack and Steve and so many more were innovators, borrowing the tropes of what came before to do something new with them. Anyone looking to take up that mantle should think likewise, rather than try to create a new Deadpool, Batman, Wolverine... what have you.
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Ron Grant
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Posted: 11 May 2018 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

"The Fantastic Four could still get their powers from Cosmic Rays, but how they got into space would likely be different.  Sue Storm wouldn't be just the girlfriend who tagged along in the rocket ship (along with her kid brother), but have some scientific rationale for being there (similarly for Johnny)."
------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------      
 Maybe Reed could be more of an Elon Musk sort of character and the team (Susan, Ben, and Johnny)could be in a spacex competion to launch their rocket first.


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James Johnson
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Posted: 12 May 2018 at 11:21am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Wait!

Marvel already did this. It was called the Ultimates.
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 13 May 2018 at 9:34am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I couldn't answer this. If Marvel were formed today, that means it DIDN'T start in 1961 - and I cannot conceive what the modern comic landscape could be with only DC having produced comics in the Bronze age.

When Fantastic Four and Spider-Man started, they were so different and innovative that they basically started a new genre of comic books... human drama and situations. If that weren't around, could DC have made that transition? Would those editors and writers even recognize that market? And then, could they have written for them? (Bob Haney, try that he did, was no Stan Lee...)

The nature of the powers was never the impetus of Marvel; it was always the human stories with people with special abilities. Iron Man and the Hulk aren't quite the interesting aspect; Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are. But if, in some capacity, a wealthy industrialist were on an inspection tour of, say, a Chinese facility who was subject to a disastrous accident would be back in the U.S. for heart surgery immediately. A bomb test would be so controlled and automated that no one could possibly sneak on the test site, and there's no way ANYONE could get to the location in time to do anything about it; likely, it would be automated and any people would be miles and miles away.

Although it's possible the TV Hulk's origin might still be viable.

But again... the personal drama was the draw back in the 60s, and I can't imagine if it would work today, nor how.


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