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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133334
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | 1
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Morrison's Doom Patrol, no matter what many may think, was faithful to the core concept of the group at the same time he used the everything is a lie approach. The lie part was that the Chief had evil designs and intentionally threw tragedy in the path of future DP members in order to form the group. On the other hand he kept the premise that the DP were social misfits. They delt with the weird threats that groups like the JLA weren't able to take on. Finally he put them on a collision course with catastrophe (DOOM!!!) which led to his run ending up very badly for the group. This is all part of the core concept. **** Why am I having a STAR WARS deja vu here? Can you honestly say that "revealing" the Chief to be a lying, manipulative bastard who actually caused the members of the Patrol to be turned into the freaks they are is not a fundamental change to the very core of the core concept? Is "band of misfits" really all that defines the Doom Patrol? As long as that remains unchanged, the Patrol remains essentially unchanged? Born out of the early 1960s, how many superhero teams weren't "bands of misfits"? The FF certainly were. The X-Men. Even Stan and Jack's first pass at the Avengers put together a team that fell a long way short of really "fitting". If the Chief is one of the "bad guys", this rips out the guts of the concept as surely as if, oh, Swamp Thing was revealed not to be Alec Holland after all, or MarvelMan was shown to be the product of a collosal mindfuck.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133334
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | 2
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It isn't like Alan Moore sidetracked a viable, ongoing
character in Marvelman. The original character was
a knock-off in the first place, the series itself had
been defunct for something like fifteen years...
****
Then why not a whole new character, instead of
piggybacking on a "defunct" name? This is "The
Honeymooners" in blackface, or "Starsky and Hutch"
as a comedy. What's the point?
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | 3
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"So writers can do their worst and with a new #1 issue all can be restored."
Not true, because the fans will do their best to kill the reboot. I saw
it happen on dozens of other messge boards during the most recent Doom
Patrol's run.
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David Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 3093
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | 4
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QUOTE:
| Then why not a whole new character, instead of
piggybacking on a "defunct" name? |
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Moore explained his thinking in the first issue of the Eclipse
reprints: if I remember correctly, he wanted to pick up an abandoned
continuity (not that he did it with Marvelman, which might explain why
he tried again with Watchmen), and play on the resonance of Mike Moran
having forgotten his magic word.
In Marvelman's case, I can see why creating an analogue wouldn't have
accomplished Moore's goals for the character -- Marvelman was already a
variant of Captain Marvel, and creating a character who says "Larekam!"
and turns into Makeralman (Moore's own example) doesn't really
accomplish anything more than using Marvelman in the first place.
A derivation of a derivation, if you will. When I first encounted
the Miracleman, I assumed the character was a stand-in for Captain
Marvel.
Was the name change to Miracleman in the US enough to accomplish what
you're asking? At that point, everything about the character was
different except the name of his secret identity, the name of his
antagonist and the color of his costume.
QUOTE:
| This is "The
Honeymooners" in blackface, or "Starsky and Hutch"
as a comedy. What's the point? |
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I haven't seen "The Honeymooners," but I did see "Starsky and
Hutch." The point in my mind is that Moore's revival of Marvelman
was a reflection and extrapolation on the original stories, characters
and concepts (and the Fawcett antecedents).
The latter-day remake of "Starsky and Hutch" used the character names
and concept of original show as a short-cut to developing an original
comedy about cops, and only relied on familiarity with the original for
in-jokes. Maybe there was more to it than that, but I don't
remember the original very well.
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | 5
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I'm certainly not trying to defend the attacks on JB's Doom Patrol, so please don't take this the wrong way. I think the DP backlash had far more to do with a segment of fandom's opinion of JB than of any love of Morrison's DP (or certainly of the original version of the team). Not helped by the appearance of it playing into their preconceptions of JB (Oh, so Byrne's rebooting another great comic so that he'll like it better!), despite both JB and the editor (can't remember the name) saying that it was an editorial choice to reboot the Doom Patrol (since only Morrison's take on the team, post original series, had been successful - I think at least two follow-ups had failed between Morrison and JB) and that JB was approached by them to do the reboot.
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David Brunt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 June 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 154
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | 6
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In terms of 'core concept' does it really matter what ethnicity the characters are? So having actors of a different ethnicity doesn't seem to have, for me, any impact on the remake.
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Matt Linton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 December 2005
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | 7
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Ethnicity can have an effect on the "core concept". Is Black Panther the same character if he's white? Or, Captain America if he's a black man from the 1940s? Ethnicity, particularly when a character is tied to a certain time period or area, can greatly influence that character's experiences, and consequently who they are.
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David Brunt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 June 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 154
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 8
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Yeah, wasn't clear there. I was referring specifically to the Honeymooners remake. Obviously ethnicity CAN have an effect in some cases. I just don't see it in that specific example that was given.
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Chris Newton
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 June 2006
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 9
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I've got nothing against the "everything was a lie" approach, retcons, or "darkening" of a boy scout character if it is in service of an engaging story. I said in an earlier post that I disagree w/ Byrne in that going altering a core concept doesn't automatically make a story bad.
What I think is bad is what I see as a cycle of alteration and restoral that in no way actually moves a character forward. In otherwords a creator makes a character bad, or substitutes a new hero for the old, or in some way alters the core concept, just for shock value. Sales go up. Then people get tired of it and want the old guy back. So they bring the old guy back and do a nostalgia trip on the original core concept. Sales go up. That is until people get tired of the core concept again.
It could go on indefinately as long as sales increase with each change. Neither situation requires the creator to actually tell any new compelling stories.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14857
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| Posted: 22 June 2006 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | 10
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What I think is bad is what I see as a cycle of alteration and
restoral that in no way actually moves a character forward. In
otherwords a creator makes a character bad, or substitutes a new hero
for the old, or in some way alters the core concept, just for shock
value. Sales go up. Then people get tired of it and want the old guy
back. So they bring the old guy back and do a nostalgia trip on the
original core concept. Sales go up. That is until people get tired of
the core concept again.
It could go on indefinately as long as sales increase with each
change. Neither situation requires the creator to actually tell any new
compelling stories.
--- Why is this bad? If the criteria you set for a good story is that it be engaging, then why does it matter if the character does not move forward or if the story is not new. Certainly it might not be engaging to you personally if you've seen it before, but it must be entertaining someone.
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David Brunt
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 June 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 154
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| Posted: 23 June 2006 at 2:38am | IP Logged | 11
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Indeed, if deviation from the original format is a bad thing then it's positively a good thing.
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Pedro Bouça
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 1465
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| Posted: 23 June 2006 at 3:54am | IP Logged | 12
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You can tell engaging stories without changing anything. My favorite X-Men (and indeed Marvel Comics) story is Days of Future Past, which, for all its sound and fury, doesn't change ANYTHING on the X-Men series! Brilliant comic.
Most of the really sucessful long running comics characters worldwide are pretty much unchanged since their creation. Disney comic characters (that sell on the millions outside USA, if you are wondering), italian western hero Tex, Tintin, Asterix, all pretty much static. Yet extremely sucessful to this day!
When you think of it, how much did Batman change after it's first year (i.e. after Robin first appearance)? The stories are obviously better done (and their tone has changed wildly with the times, but not their nature), the support cast is a bit larger, Robin is a different guy (not that you would notice the difference if no one told you) and the costumes are slightly tweaked. And that's it. Is he a worse character for that?
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