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Anthony Frail
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 October 2007
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 9:41am | IP Logged | 1
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Mr. Byrne, what did you think of Squadron Supreme?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 10:11am | IP Logged | 2
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Mr. Byrne, what did you think of Squadron Supreme?
••
Unfortunately, I was too aware of what was going on behind the scenes --
Shooter's giant thumb print on every issue, bending and warping Mark's
intentions -- that I could not read it "clean", and so cannot offer a valid
opinion.
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Anthony Frail
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 10:15am | IP Logged | 3
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If it's not too personal to ask, what did Shooter alter?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 10:19am | IP Logged | 4
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Answering that would need a whole 'nother thread!
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Anthony Frail
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 10:36am | IP Logged | 5
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Fair enough.
Did you like the premise of heroes "going too far" and taking control of the
world?
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 10:52am | IP Logged | 6
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As long as it was kept in a "separate reality" I had no problem with it.
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Rob Spalding
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | 7
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Based on Anthony's last comment, I looked up the plot of Squadron Supreme.
It seems to have the same basic idea as The Authority, which is a comic I had heard of before I bought it. Wheras I was unaware of Squadron Supreme before this discussion.
Given that I've seen much to say that The Authority changed comics in terms of presentation and content in a way similar to Watchmen, might a more apt comparison be between The Authority and Squadron Supreme?
(A question I still couldn't answer as I have yet to read the latter.)
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Anthony Frail
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | 8
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I think that the Authority's change in comics was to make sex and violence
more acceptable for the mainstream; the concepts within the Authority were
already done a few times before.
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Christopher Alan Miller
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | 9
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The first heroes take over the world story that I can remember was in Avengers special #2 back in 1968 written by Roy Thomas. Does anyone know of an earlier example?
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Wayde Murray
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | 10
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David wrote:
Be careful about throwing around these kind of blanket "rules." Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater, I'd suggest reading some forty year-old comics such as Spider-man and X-Men. Slight cynicism, slight tweaking of genre conceits, and slight irreverence are part of what made Stan Lee's stories so interesting.
Sure, but Stan's tweaking of the conceits involved characters that were far less powerful and intrusive than Superman, Flash, or Green Lantern, all of whom have been shown to possess powers that can affect humanity on a global scale. Even the Squadron Supreme/Squadron Sinister, the Marvel JLA knockoffs, aren't anywhere near as powerful as their DC inspirations. Spider-Man is ultimately a victim of bad publicity, and the X-Men the victims of bigotry, but as conceived by Stan these characters could barely effect sweeping changes to the city, let alone the world. Compare this to what the DC heroes could do without effort. And until the advent of Phoenix in the late seventies, what heroic character in the Marvel Universe could change the world in the way the upper-level DC heroes could? And in comic book time, how long did even Phoenix remain a hero? (The answer to that is "right up to her death", with some serious mis-steps and failings along the way, but her heroism is what led her to suicide, in part because she knew that someone as powerful as herself couldn't exist in the world without changing it beyond recognition.)
Superman, like Dr Manhattan, is known to the general public of his world to be non-human, possessed of unlimited stamina, with abilities that flout the laws of physics, who can literally do anything he wishes, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful. If you're saying you'd be willing to give him a pass for not being there to save your loved ones in their hour of need I have to believe you, but I don't think the average person would be quite so forgiving if Superman was transplanted to our world, or we found ourselves on his.
Superman's powers got ramped up enormously in the sixties from what they had been, but because he had been a beloved hero in the years leading up to this he remained a beloved hero even after it was pretty much established that anyone who got injured or killed through violence or mishap was hurt because Superman chose not to intercede on their behalf. Stories were written to show how Superman made conscious decisions not to interfere too much, to not be too intrusive in the lives of humanity so that people would not come to depend on him for everything. But a new character with the power level of a Superman would almost certainly have been introduced as a villain in the seventies or later. This was effectively the case with Dr Manhattan.
As to my reading older comics, thanks for the advice, and I'm sure it's well meant, but I started reading comics around 1962. This of course won't keep me from being completely wrong in my views, but I'd like to think I've got a reasonably good handle on comics.
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Jim Muir
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | 11
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There are no 'rules' for comicbooks:
There's room for every type of story on the shelves. Not all superpower books have to have purely altruistic leads. Most do, yes, but Watchmen doesnt.
If you think it changed the landscape of comics, fine... but it's not Alan Moore's fault - he merely told the tale he wanted to tell... and moved on.
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Erik Larsen
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| Posted: 19 March 2009 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | 12
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It's nowhere near as good.
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Topic Closed)
