Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login
The John Byrne Forum
Byrne Robotics > The John Byrne Forum Page of 7 Next >>
Topic: What is wrong with Grown-Ups? (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
Author
Message
Michael Todd
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 07 September 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 4115
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 3:07am | IP Logged | 1  

Seeing the post about the new teen-aged Wasp got me to wondering, why do the major comic book companies keep trying to make all of their heroes and heroines either teen-agers or twentysomethings?  If the majority of the readers are men in their 30`s and 40`s what is so wrong with older Super-Heroes?

I`m not talking 80 year olds but what would be so wrong with a 35 year old Super-Hero?
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15881
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 3:35am | IP Logged | 2  

Nothing, provided the hero starts out as a 35-year old and stays that way.

If you let your teen heroes grow into a 35-year olds, it follows that eventually you should end up with 80 year olds.

Back to Top profile | search
 
Michael Todd
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 07 September 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 4115
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 3:38am | IP Logged | 3  

Anyone know how old Mister Fantastic or Iron Man are supposed to be in current continuity?
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 4:35am | IP Logged | 4  

Because Marvel's target audience are a bunch of pedophiles? 
Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 
Carmen Bernardo
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 08 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3666
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 6:13am | IP Logged | 5  

   It's gotta be the Hollywood mentality.  Old age is just SO OLD.  Nobody is a 30-something any more.

   I remember cringing a little inside when Peter Jackson decided that Frodo Baggins and his companions had to be Tweeners.  When JRR Tolkein wrote those books, Mr Frodo and Sam were bloody adults, dammit!

   Ah, the Fall is going to be so hard on those kids...

Back to Top profile | search
 
Patrick McNally
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 10 February 2010
Posts: 33
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 6:45am | IP Logged | 6  

I know that as a kid the great appeal of Marvel Comics Group was in the way that the stories went beyond one issue and propagated across the Marvel Universe with plot lines developing on multiple levels.  But I think that this does impose some aging process on the characters which should have been better anticipated and planned for by the company heads some 30 years or so ago.  It's probably too late now.

We start with Reed Richards and Susan Storm not yet married.  We're informed in one of the issues that Reed and Benjamin Grimm served in WWII.  That by itself means that they were at least 18 in 1945, hence 34 in 1961 when the FF began.  Eventually  Reed and Sue marry and Sue becomes pregnant and eventually gives birth.  You can count that as 9 months right there.  Then we see that Franklin Richards does eventually grow old enough to be dressed in kid clothes by his governess Agatha Harkness and to say things like "Goodbye Mommy."  That must constitute a few years there.

Let's also not forget that the time-frame in which Peter Parker finished up high school was fairly close to ordinary calendar time, whereas his time in college was greatly stretched.  You can't say that he was just graduated from high school early for his age because of his brilliance, since all the others like Flash Thompson and Liz Allen also finished it around the same time.  Didn't Flash do a run of military service in Vietnam?  That would have to account for at least 6 months at a minimum.

While it is to be expected that the time-scale will be bent and twisted around in comic books, I thought as a kid that part of the appeal of Marvel was an odd sense that time was sort of moving forward with the characters.  The only way that I can think of that one might resolve such a conundrum is by a planned phasing out, retiring down and killing off of old characters and the introduction of new ones.  To be effective, something like that would probably need to have been initiated from the top management with a gradual shift being enacted over 30 years or so.

Back to Top profile | search
 
Don Zomberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 23 November 2005
Posts: 2355
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 8:56am | IP Logged | 7  

...a 35 year old Super Hero?

Considering Dick Grayson is now in his twenties, Superman and Batman are more likely pushing 40. Ditto for guys like Captain America and Iron Man with respect to Peter Parker.

Back to Top profile | search
 
Dwayne Gassmann
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 22 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3448
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:15am | IP Logged | 8  

I don't really care what age they are suppose to be, just as long as the content is decent. As long as the characters "act" grown-up.

Edited by Dwayne Gassmann on 17 February 2010 at 9:27am
Back to Top profile | search | www
 
Craig Bogart
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 18 June 2008
Posts: 407
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:16am | IP Logged | 9  

Viet Nam vet Frank Castle is in great shape for a guy closing in on his 60s.

Back to Top profile | search e-mail
 
Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14831
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:18am | IP Logged | 10  

Have to disagree with the premise of this thread. I wish the companies were more averse to 30-something heroes. It seems to me that younger heroes are being added to fill in the gaps because the companies keep aging or killing off their current ones.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Paulo Pereira
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 24 April 2006
Posts: 15539
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:27am | IP Logged | 11  

Teenage Wasp?
Back to Top profile | search
 
Dwayne Gassmann
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 22 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3448
Posted: 17 February 2010 at 9:28am | IP Logged | 12  

Viet Nam vet Frank Castle is in great shape for a guy closing in on his 60s.

What about Nick Fury?


Edited by Dwayne Gassmann on 17 February 2010 at 9:29am
Back to Top profile | search | www
 

Page of 7 Next >>
  Post ReplyPost New Topic
Printable version Printable version

Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

 Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login