Posted: 16 July 2019 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | 12
|
post reply
|
|
Eric L, thank you!
Eric S, Nameless brings up a good point! She was an excellent addition to the cast, giving the team a charming romantic success story to go along with Tina's constantly thwarted affections for Doc. Time has proven however, that neither Doc nor Nameless were "essential." Both vanished during the original run, and while Doc eventually returned, with a tragic case of "comic book insanity," Nameless's departure went unnoticed and her last appearance was a decade or more later in a single issue of Brave and the Bold.
One of my favorite covers as a kid, was the MM walking out on Doc, telling him he could go order himself around for a while. Ah, the Aparo-ness of it makes my heart sing even today... :-)
Even after he was back and in relatively good shape, Doc could be left by the wayside with no real harm. One of my favorite MM appearances, DCCP #4, has Star Labs and Superman filling in as robot repair people with no Doc in sight.
However, even if a team member is not 100% "essential," that is not the only qualification for membership on a team. It's fine for other members to come and go sometimes, their membership lasting only as long as the story requires them. Some might even say that element is just as essential. You can't have every story be about Superman and Batman.
I came in to the Defenders much later than you, and for me, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, and the Hellcat were the "essential" building blocks of team, with the Hulk coming and going as his wont would have it. When DeMatteis stripped the team of that line-up, I was pretty much done with it. I get where the Titans Three line-up is key for many readers, as they were the characters the book was created to showcase, with the Silver Surfer as the one who came and went at that time. It's almost as if that team, more than others, has definite "eras" and lines of demarcation between them.
The Legion is unlike other teams, in that its membership rolls are vast, yet not a one of them carries their own solo series. They were all designed, from the get-go, to function as Legionnaires. If you don't see your favorite there, you don't see them at all. In that way, they're all equally "essential" which means none of them really are. The three who appeared in 1957 are regarded as founders, yet they serve no greater story purpose as such than any other member.
The two who come closest to being indispensable (and no one is indispensable as anyone in middle management will tell you) are Brainiac Five and Chameleon Boy. B5 serves as the team's Reed Richards, providing the exposition and occasional Frankenstein creature run amok. His simple existence also speaks to the book being the future of the Superman franchise more so than anyone else's. He is the descendant of an established DC baddie, unfortunately created at a time when that baddie COULD have descendants. A bit of narrative fast stitching and that was fixed, but the seams still show. :-)
Chameleon Boy is the team's Spock. He's the pointy-eared alien, reminding us all that this is a science fiction strip set in the future and we do interact with alien beings on a regular basis now. That turns out to be not so different from how super-teams operate "today," but the idea is still in there somewhere. His alien nature seems to demand that he be re-imagined with each reboot as a new and different type of alien being, either as stoic or as goofy as the new team feels fits their definition of "unearthly."
The Invaders are an interesting case because, like the original Defenders, they were designed by Roy Thomas to provide a place where a very specific team of characters could gather, in this case, the Golden Age Cap, Namor, and Torch of Thomas's youth. As such, those guys can't be removed or it isn't the same book anymore. I kind of liked his additions to the team, but I think they helped set up some bad habits in him that he carried over to DC.
The Champions were similar in concept to the Defenders except that where the Defenders were a non-team for people who would never join a team, the Champions were a mishmash of characters at loose ends after being dropped from other books. With Ghost Rider thrown in, I think, because the original idea for the book was just Warren and Bobby tooling about the country in a sweet car, Route 66 style, meeting Marvel characters from all around this great country of ours. Ghost Rider could be encountered, for instance, and we could do a story with him.
Marvel's editorial team said that wasn't how they did books. It has to be a team. So, yeah, you could have Warren and Bobby, but you also have to include Herc, a former Avenger, and Natasha, recently bounced from her own book. And hey, that Ghost Rider idea works, too. Why not put him in there? I don't think anyone wanted to do the Champions as a book of its own from the start, but hey, you get a "thumbs up" from the bosses, what are you going to do? Turn down work? I think they made a game attempt at making it fly.
Me, I still think Warren and Bobby in a hot rod would make for a fun mini-series at the very least.
The FF is a family at the core of it, and families grow and change. In the end, the core members remain in everyone's heart, but marriages occur, children are born, and people move. I actually kind of like how subject to change the dynamic has been, from a certain point of view. She-Hulk was at her best during her tenure there, and I dig how tense things got when Medusa and Crystal came in. I don't know if the FF is the right book for them, but I seriously want to spend more time reading the adventures of Ben, Tigra, Thundra, and Impy! "The Emerald and the Orange," maybe? I'll keep at it...
In any case, part of what defines the FF is their turbulent relationship with one another. Anyone could walk out at any time and did. That particular story line without Reed didn't work, but I could see one that might. I still probably wouldn't enjoy it much. I really do like Reed.
Edited by Brian Hague on 16 July 2019 at 11:10pm
|