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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | 1
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I never understood how "eternally 29" for Superman or "eternally 16" for Spider-Man is less "realistic" than eternally "only" aging "7 to 10 years."
It was a dangerous step to allow for "Marvel or DC time" because once "7 years ago" was established, it wasn't long before fans looked at the stories published afterward and announced it was now "10 years" since the FF went up in the rocket and Superman debuted.
Fans also could not accept "Peanuts time" -- the sense that time might pass for some characters but not for others. Narratively, it works for Batman to have "experience" as a crime fighter and a long-term relationship with Commissioner Gordon. Same with Superman and his life as Clark Kent at the Daily Planet. However, narratively, I think it works better for Spider-Man to forever be within his first year of crimefighting. He should always be "new" and "green."
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133334
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | 2
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I think the decision to age characters period isn't one that can be made across the board. Case by case basis is how it should be handled.•• That's how DC used to do it -- and we ended up with Hawk and Dove being older than the Teen Titans, after having formerly been contemporaries. Once a shared universe is posited, there are some things ALL must share -- and thus it is often wise that those things be avoided!
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Erin Anna Leach
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 February 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 746
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | 3
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I think we lose something when we age a character like Peter Parker or Dick Grayson. We lose what it was that drew the younger readers, if not all the readers, to the character in the first place. Peter as a high school student worked very well, way better than Stan himself thought he would. I wonder how many Jr High and high school kids were initially attracted to the character because of this? The same thing applies to Dick Grayson as well. He was the kid that got to work with the cool adult, Batman. How many kids were attracted to the character of Robin, because they could fantisize themselfs into the role of Robin while reading the comic book? My vote, don't age them. If it isn't broke, don't try and fix it.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133334
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | 4
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Spider-Man won readers away from Superman for a very simple reason: he was a kid like them. Reading about Superman was like reading about your parents -- he was a guy almost in his thirties, with a steady girlfriend, a job, etc. Sure, sometimes he did cool stuff, but Peter Parker, as Spider-Man, also did cool stuff, and then took off the costume and lived a life with which his readers could very much identify.Marvel writers and editors, while relentlessly mocking stodgy old Superman, have done everything they can to turn Peter Parker into -- well, THEMSELVES. Middle aged guys whose concerns are wife and kids and job and mortgage.
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Brandon Frye
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 November 2004
Posts: 1319
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | 5
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I wonder if part of the problem is how younger age gaps seem to shrink to those who are older. I don't know how common it is, but I notice this in myself.
There is a 5 year gap between a 16 year old high school student and a 21 year old college student. Looking at it through my 44 year old eyes, I see a very small gap indeed.
When I was 21 however, the age gap between myself and a 16 year old seem a light year apart!
Hell, the older I get, the more a 30 year old looks like a teenager.
The key though is that I remember how I viewed things at that age.
Maybe if some of these older folks at the companies have good memories, they should start trying to look at things as they did through younger eyes.
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Daniel Gillotte
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2662
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | 6
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In the 70s I remember my older brother very carefully describing to me how time in comics worked as if it was a total truism- (Or at least for Marvel) 7 years of real time equalled 1 year of comic time "more or less". I took that as truth for a long time. Did someone at Marvel suggest that this was the "truth of Marvel U time" at some point or did my brother concoct that?
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uko smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 April 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 101
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | 7
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I remember when you, JB, gave either Sue or Reed a birthday celebration in the FF. It's cool to see something like that every once in a while, but not on a consistent basis.
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Mike Norris
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4274
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | 8
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I recently discovered that Kitty Pryde is in her early twenties. To which I responded, "Does that mean its been ten years since Kitty joined the X-Men? Yet Franklin Richards is Eight???? Which means Kitty joined the X-Men before Franklin was born???!!!!"
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | 9
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JB: Marvel writers and editors, while relentlessly mocking stodgy old Superman, have done everything they can to turn Peter Parker into -- well, THEMSELVES. Middle aged guys whose concerns are wife and kids and job and mortgage.
SER: And they gave Peter a sad Gen-X parody adulthood: Aimless, not settled into a career, romantic life that is far too similar to what it was when he was in college. That's the sort of adulthood that would depress me if I read it as a child.
Classic DC presented perhaps an idealized adulthood but one we'd prefer to see: Men doing well professionally, who know who they are and what they want from life and how to get it.
I recall when Wally West, as the Flash, was written as DC's answer to Peter Parker. But unlike the high-school-age Peter, Wally was a 20something loser who behaved like a teenager. Kyle Rayner would later have the same problems. I remember when Batman and Superman were depicted as beginning their careers around that same age.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15955
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | 10
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I think we lose something when we age a character like Peter Parker or Dick Grayson------------------------------------------ Not that I think either needs to be aged, but Dick Grayson and Peter Parker are very different cases. As JB points out, Peter Parker was a teenager and the hero all by his lonesome. Dick Grayson, on the other hand, was set to play second fiddle to Batman in perpetuity. Unless he grew up and moved on.
Dick Grayson being in the Teen Titans works well enough that I'd say aging him in itself wasn't disastrous, provided DC had decided that Batman was going to be solo permanently and the status quo would then be a late-teen/early twenties Dick Grayson and a Batman without a Robin.
The disaster for Batman is that they have got stuck in a cycle of deciding to age Robin, then wanting Robin back, so they introduce a new one, but then someone decides they want Batman to be solo, so they age Robin. But then another writer thinks up a new Robin.... Repeat ad infinitum.
I think the answer for Batman might have been to have stuck with Detective Comics as a solo book where Robin just never turns up and have Batman as a book with a permanently youthful Robin.
And the idea of Batman staying the same age while his youthful ward ages ten years is more problematic than just keeping them both perpetually the same age.
Overall I'd say that for serial fiction as long-running as Marvel and DC's popular characters, it's really a no-brainer that the ages are best off being frozen in time.
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17699
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | 11
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Barry Allen is the Flash. Wally West is his kid sidekick. Wally West becomes an
older teen and becomes a Teen Titan. Wally West becomes an adult at
least 10 years older than he was when he first appeared. Impulse is the
new *12-year-old* speedster. Impulse goes from 12 to late teen as a
member of the Teen Titans. How old does that make the Flash? If Batman and
Superman are older than the Flash, how old does that make them?
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 3239
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| Posted: 08 July 2013 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | 12
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The moment that WE decide that WE want the characters to age with US, we've ruined them for the next generation. One of the reasons that I couldn't handle the FF book by Matt Fraction is that he had Alex Power in either his late teens or early twenties. They had Julie Power in her teens in a title a few years ago. They've aged freaking Power Pack?!
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