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Wayde Murray
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 October 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 3115
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 9:15am | IP Logged | 1
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A couple off the top of my head.
How about Captain America learning that Richard Nixon (as far as I could tell) was the leader of the Secret Empire which led to Cap dropping his government-issued identity to become Nomad?
Then there was the way mutants in the X-Men became a persecuted minority, even though there was no way for John Q Public to know that Spider-Man or Daredevil or Thor weren't mutants and they weren't being oppressed the way Iceman and Beast were.
Or the creation of villains like Firebrand in Iron Man's comic who specialized in rabble-rousing.
And so on.
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Wayde Murray
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 October 2005
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 9:23am | IP Logged | 2
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Here's a cover that goes to the heart of the matter.
Don't recall the issue, but it was right around the time of Firebrand's creation. This was a "straight from the headlines" type of cover, and showed how even though superheroes couldn't deal with real world issues, the writers kept exposing them to real world issues.
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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 9:57am | IP Logged | 3
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The problem I have with the socially relevant comics as done in modern times, it is used to hold up the shortcomings of the heroes, how they are ineffectual. Why haven't they fed the hungry, housed the poor, etc? But, they never actually address the reasons there are still hungry people of the world, homeless people. Why do we think that the superheroes would magically make those problems go away when we do such a poor job of it with all the resources we have? Why not ask the question if superheroes are so good at fighting crime, why are there still criminals?
What should be shown is that the heroes DO address those issues, fight those evils, but human nature being what it is, those aren't problems that can be solved by superpowers alone. Just as every crook that is put away, there's always another one out there. In the 40s, you had the JSA addressing problems of world hunger, kid gangs, etc. You had Superman fighting for labor rights, war profiteeers, organized crime. Marvel had their heroes fighting WWII in the 40s and the Cold War in the 50s and 60s, but the purpose wasn't to ask why didn't the heroes just end them, it just showed that whatever the problems and the evils of the day, the superheroes were willing to stand up against them and fight them. That changed in the 70s where the stories weren't just to raise the issues but to act as if the heroes were ignorant of the problems and evils of society and/or unable to do anything about them. It was less about them fighting it as blaming them for not solving the whole issue for us. The stories should educate us and inspire us, show us that we can stand up against bigotry, greed, drugs and that we can make a difference helping our fellow man, that's what makes the heroes relevant. If it's something that being a superhero cannot solve, you show them addressing it in their civilian identities, a hero through and through. Showing them as being ineffectual putzs makes them seem more irrelevant not less.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 10:41am | IP Logged | 4
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In "relevance" we begin to see the earliest whispers of the writers, artists and editors being embarrassed by what they do for a living. They want to make the work "important", as if entertaining millions (as it was then) of kids in a wholesome, fun manner wasn't its own kind of "important".And Ed is sadly correct. One of the ways in which this manifest was the sudden appearance of feet of clay on virtually ALL the heroes. Spider-Man we expected to be a goof-up. But not Iron Man. Not Captain America. It was around this time I started asking a question that persists to this day: if you don't want to write Captain America (for instance) as he is, why not write something else?
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Albert Matthews
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Joined: 09 August 2006
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 11:32am | IP Logged | 5
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As someone whose formative comic book reading years took place from the late 70s through the mid-80s, I must admit to being a fan of the "relevant" stories. But it seemed then that the "relevance" was really just A-1 Steak Sauce on top of a juicy, delicious hamburger that was still very much a superhero story at its core. But nowadays the superhero elements are simply chocolate sprinkles on top of social activism ice cream, and if I want social activism I'll rent a goddamn Michael Moore movie rather than read a bloody comic book.
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Mike Norris
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4274
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 11:39am | IP Logged | 6
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There's always been a certian amount on "relevance" in comics. Having real life events influence the stories or using the stories to comment on various topics. In the 40s the JSA strip in All-Star Comics had stories about racism, the plight of veterans and Juvenile delinquency (in addition to war related topics). The entire strip wasn't devoted to thes topics like GL/GA was and perhaps in small doses "relevance" works.
My Captain America is the one from the 60s and 70s. (as written mostly by Lee and Englehart), so I can't stand Ultimate Cap who seems to be the antithesis of My Cap. Partly because he comes across as an asshole. And I feel there are two characters who should never be written as assholes: Superman and Captain America.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4649
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | 7
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We had a thread on this a couple weeks ago, didn't we? Ed and
Mike sum it up nicely, though. I don't mind some "relevance" in
terms of subject matter, and I don't think there's anything wrong with
addressing current social or political issues in a comic. The
problems arise when attention is drawn to the fact that the hero is not
solving the aforementioned social and political issues, and when the
hero is made to look impotent or ineffectual. Problems also arise
when the story is preachy or comes down too hard on one side of a
political issue.
But I wouldn't go so far as to say "relevant" topics should be avoided
altogether. Stan did a fine job with this in Spider-Man (with the
exception of the drug issues which veered into preachiness). When
Stan dealt with topics like anti-war protesters or prison riots, he
didn't preach or take one side, and he didn't make Spidey look foolish
or impotent. I think there's definitely a place for that kind of
relevance in super-hero comics. Gerber's Man-Thing was preachy at
times, but Howard the Duck was absolutely not preachy at all, and the
series was enriched by the "relevance" in it. I think Englehart's
Captain America was also well-done and struck the right balance.
Notably, these things all did sell despite their relevance (Captain
America in particular was in danger of cancellation before Englehart
made it a strong seller). It seems the relevant stuff that didn't
sell was the stuff that was overly preachy, like GL/GA and Silver
Surfer.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 13 August 2009 at 4:03pm
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Sterling Brown
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Joined: 22 June 2006
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| Posted: 13 August 2009 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | 8
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What if there was a character created solely to address "relevant" issues of the day? I honestly don't keep up with current comics so perhaps there has already been something along these lines before but it seems to me that biggest mistake is taking an established character and shoehorning whatever the current writer advocates into those stories. The reason Marvel characters endured so long in my opinion was the consistency of character. You could rely on Captain America being Captain America and so on.
I went through my phase of believing all comics should mimic the Watchmen until I realized that what I liked most about that story was just that it was something I had never experienced before as a comic book reader. That and I was starting to get "older" and thought I needed my heroes knocked down to earth in order to be believable. Deconstruction is fine with me as a one-off, an Elseworld or a What-If? but oddly enough as I get older I want my heroes to be Heroes. I don't need to view them through the lense of the real world..I get enough reality just going to work in the morning.
That being said sometimes I want to create a superhero who could fly off and yank OsamaBinLaden out of a cave, irrigate the Sahara and help build a moonbase all in the same day. We fans sure are a fickle lot...
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Paulo Pereira
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Joined: 24 April 2006
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| Posted: 15 August 2009 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | 9
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I've been reading the Claremont/JB X-MEN and I'm at #122, wherein Storm, having encountered and subdued a roomful of kid junkies, asks Luke Cage "Is there nothing we can do?" Cage answers "We're superheroes, Ororo, not God. We can save humanity from Doc Doom and Galactus but we can't save it from itself." I think that sums it up quite nicely.
Prior to that, I'd just read AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #68, in which students at ESU protest the conversion of the exhibition hall into a private dorm for visiting alumni, wanting instead for it to be a low-rent dorm for needy students. Spider-Man couldn't offer any aid, though. He was too busy dealing with the Kingpin.
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Ted Pugliese
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Joined: 05 December 2005
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Posts: 7985
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| Posted: 16 August 2009 at 8:23am | IP Logged | 10
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as if entertaining millions (as it was then) of kids in a wholesome, fun manner wasn't its own kind of "important".
You did good, JB.
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Brian Miller
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Joined: 28 July 2004
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| Posted: 16 August 2009 at 8:29am | IP Logged | 11
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I love Gil Kane.
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Bill Mimbu
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| Posted: 16 August 2009 at 9:15am | IP Logged | 12
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What if there was a character created solely to address "relevant" issues of the day?
****
There's the SUPERMAN #4 that JB did, where the Rambo-like supervillain Bloodsport goes around shooting up places like restaurants (and innocent people within) due to his anger at the general public for having forgotten the sacrifices of the soldiers in the Vietnam war. From between start to finish, we get some slam-bang action JB-style, with the situation finally being defused at the end when Jimmy Olson brings Bloodsport's quadaplegic brother to the scene, revealing Bloodsport was actually a draft-dodger and his brother had taken his place in 'Nam (and lost all his limbs as a result). Nice dedication to the Vietnam Memorial at the end.
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Topic Closed)
