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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 5:26am | IP Logged | 1
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JB how do you feel about something like this as explaining Superman's origin? •• What exactly is it "explaining"?
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Adam Hutchinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 December 2005
Location: United States
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 6:01am | IP Logged | 2
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Is "outlining" a better term? ;)
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Adam Hutchinson
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 6:03am | IP Logged | 3
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Let me add: Like Peter, do you think that's a sufficient explanation/reviewing/outling of Superman's origins for a comic? Do you think it hits all the necessary highpoints?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 7:24am | IP Logged | 4
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Like Peter, do you think that's a sufficient explanation/reviewing/outling of Superman's origins for a comic? Do you think it hits all the necessary highpoints?•• That's a good synopsis for someone who already knows the story. And that's a big problem with modern comics in a nutshell: so many are preaching to the choir. Note that that page does not even tell the reader than there is a baby in the rocket! (One advantage to the Golden/Silver Age version: the rocket had a transparent canopy!) As has been so wisely said, so many times, "Every issue is the first issue for somebody." This is something that should be tattooed inside the eyelids of all modern writers, so they see if every time they blink!
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Wallace Sellars
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Joined: 01 May 2004
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 7:51am | IP Logged | 5
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I used to like seeing the Marvel origin summary at the very top of every issue's first page.
Edited by Wallace Sellars on 05 October 2010 at 7:51am
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Michael Penn
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Joined: 12 April 2006
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 7:56am | IP Logged | 6
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Reminds of something that just came up...
Last night my step-daughter was doing Social Studies homework, trying to answer from her textbook the question -- how did Luther's teaching affect Northern Europe during the Reformation? The relevant pages had headings and she merely relied on them at first, as if stringing them together answered the question: Luther's preaching, Luther's teaching spreads, the Peasant Revolt, the Peace of Augusburg. Sure, there's nothing untrue there, but this outline is only valuable for someone who already knows the story.
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Michael Heide
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 July 2007
Location: Germany
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 8:01am | IP Logged | 7
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Usually, I'd agree with you here, but in the case of Superman, the origin is common knowledge by now. In comics alone, there's been at least half a dozen Superman origins, then there are the movies, tv shows (live-action and animated). It's come to a point where re-telling the origin is a waste of pages. That's why I like the All-Star Superman one-page summary. It tells you everything you need to know.
And in the highly improbable chance that the reader is not familiar with Superman at all, later issues have Superman speak of Krypton and that he was rocketed to Earth.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 8:19am | IP Logged | 8
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It's come to a point where re-telling the origin is a waste of pages. That's why I like the All-Star Superman one-page summary. It tells you everything you need to know.
************
SER: There was a time when I didn't know Superman was from Krypton or that Batman didn't have bat-like powers. It also seems troubling for the primary medium to rely on outside media to inform the potential readers on the background of a character.
Also, in the same page, you could have told a straightforward version of the origin.
I like All-Star Superman but it really only works if you know who these characters are. It doesn't really serve as the "first" Superman story for anyone.
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Michael Heide
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 8:28am | IP Logged | 9
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I don't think it was supposed to. Superman has become such a huge part of pop culture that everybody knows the origin. And those two or three people on the planet that don't know it get the blanks filled in later issues of the series, when he's interacting with Lois, with the Kents, with other Kryptonians, with the Bizarros, etc.
That first page is a refresher, not an explanation.
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Tim O Neill
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 8:38am | IP Logged | 10
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"I don't think it was supposed to. Superman has become such a huge part of pop culture that everybody knows the origin"
*****
Kids are a constantly new sets of eyeballs that don't necessarily know the origin. They should be the primary target when retelling the origin, even in brief.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 8:48am | IP Logged | 11
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Usually, I'd agree with you here, but in the case of Superman, the origin is common knowledge by now. In comics alone, there's been at least half a dozen Superman origins, then there are the movies, tv shows (live-action and animated). It's come to a point where re-telling the origin is a waste of pages. That's why I like the All-Star Superman one-page summary. It tells you everything you need to know.And in the highly improbable chance that the reader is not familiar with Superman at all, later issues have Superman speak of Krypton and that he was rocketed to Earth.•• It TELLS you NOTHING you NEED to know. It merely reiterates what the writer assumes you already know. You're looking thru the wrong end of the telescope at this. YOU already know this stuff. You have known it for years. But THINK BACK. There was a time when you DIDN'T know this stuff. You were not born fully conversant with the details of Superman's origin. This was something you had to LEARN. You may have learned it from a TV show, or a movie, or a comic book, or somebody telling you about it -- but whatever the source, the first time you encountered Superman you had NO IDEA who he was. You could not have. And it is the worst kind of arrogance -- the arrogance that permeates virtually every corner of this industry today -- to ASSUME anyone who reads that page ALREADY KNOWS what it is about. Its the fanboy circle jerk, and it has helped to destroy the medium. == That first page is a refresher, not an explanation. •• And a big ol' FUCK YOU to anyone who isn't already in the circle.
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Ed Love
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Joined: 05 October 2004
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| Posted: 05 October 2010 at 8:49am | IP Logged | 12
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I think it's a general problem with most of the All-Star and Ultimate lines really. They are supposed to be reflections of the main universes without actually binding the creators to the long continuity. Thus, Hot Creator A is able to do their own Bizarro story or the first coming of Galactus. You end up getting books that are touted as being different from the main U. but spend a whole lot of time actually referencing them such as reintroducing skewed or kewl versions of secondary and tertiary characters, and retellings of the same old stories and characters.
To the point that I don't really see the point of them. If I want to read Superman or Spider-man, I don't really want to read about some alternate versions, I want to be able to read the real deal.
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Topic Closed)
