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Vinny Valenti
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8117
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 1
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"Actually there have been some flashback episode that have retconned
Homer and Marge's story."
---
I wouldn't go so far as to call it 'retconned'. THE SIMPSONS showrunners are
clearly not concerned with upholding a rigid continuity. There was even a
Homer/Marge flashback which took place in 1987 with a tongue-in-cheek
mention of THE TRACEY ULLMAN SHOW beginning to run a crudely-drawn
cartoon series that year.
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged | 2
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The difficulty with all this is that it was Stan Lee himself that moved Peter along and introduced Franklin. A lot of this had to do, I believe, with the fact that Stan discovered how many college kids were reading Marvel's comics.
The real problem in the system is the differing opinions of creators and editors in regards to how much these immortal icons should evolve. This started with Stan, who certainly was on the "pro-progress" side initially. It's completely arbitrary; one creator believes Peter should be in high-school, another in college, another 29, and so on.
I like the college years simply because it does reflect some growth, but doesn't force Peter into full fledged adulthood. Obviously, there is a cap placed on how much these characters can age/evolve; it can't really exceed a decade or so given the nebulous early 20's/early 30's age range of most mainstream superheros.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133318
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | 3
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The difficulty with all this is that it was Stan Lee himself that moved Peter along and introduced Franklin. A lot of this had to do, I believe, with the fact that Stan discovered how many college kids were reading Marvel's comics. •• It's only a "difficulty" if we insist on making it so. Stan, Jack and Steve moved the nascent Marvel "universe" forward several years during the early days, as noted. But they also stopped doing so, after a while. And THAT is the important part. ++ I like the college years simply because it does reflect some growth… •• Same selfishness we encounter all too often. "Well, I'M getting older, so these characters should, too!" And, eventually, fans-turned-pro, who had stuck around far longer than the five years that was the average traditional reading time, brought this notion into the books themselves.
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | 4
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To be specific, I encountered Parker after he'd graduated from college as a comic reader. I only read the Empire State years long after they were first published. Now I'm 36, but I guess I'm in the "he should be in college forever" group instead of the high school one. Like I aid, if we take an animated series approach, I feel that general era brings the best of both worlds.
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Don Zomberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 November 2005
Posts: 2355
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | 5
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What advantage is there to having Peter in college vs high school? Spider-Man was the first (non-sidekick) teen hero in comics--it was a huge part of his popularity with readers. Why so many fans insist on throwing that out the window in the name of some vaguely defined "growth" boggles the mind.
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Jason Scott
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 August 2012
Location: Scotland
Posts: 1173
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | 6
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I remember there was a funny blackboard moment in the opening credits once, (possibly in an anniversary episode,) where Bart scrawled that he should be twenty something by now.
To me that's as far as it should ever go. A little one time wink at the audience and then on with the show!
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | 7
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What advantage is there to having Peter in college vs
high school? Spider-Man was the first (non-sidekick) teen
hero in comics--it was a huge part of his popularity with
readers. Why so many fans insist on throwing that out the
window in the name of some vaguely defined "growth"
boggles the mind.
****
SER: Exactly. If Batman or Superman had "aged" five or so
years in "comic book time" since their debuts, it's
unnecessary but it's still the same Batman and Superman.
Age Peter Parker five years and he's an entirely
different character (15 year old vs. 20 year old). You
also wind up losing, as Don points out above, a lot of
what made the character unique (teenage superhero living
with his aunt).
I've long argued that Marvel aging its characters --
albeit temporarily -- was a mistake, as it inspired DC to
age its characters as well. But let's look at the first
30 years of Superman and Batman: No visible signs of
aging or "growth," no stories that drew "lines in the
sand" (weddings, births, and so on). Then Dick Grayson is
suddenly aged to his late teens so he can be shipped off
to college. From there, all bets were off.
I guess I never understood why a superhero comic was
considered "mature" if the characters age. How is it
pushing the medium or genre forward? I recall now 25 (!)
years ago, when Wally West was the Flash and there was an
issue in which he didn't appear in costume. Wow! How
innovative, claimed some fans. OK. I just didn't get it.
I liked to see the character in costume. Or when Mike
Grell insisted on having a "birthday" scene in GREEN
ARROW each year. Putting aside that the actual time
depicted in the comics themselves didn't add up to a
year, there was still a birthday scene that served no
purpose other than to announce, "We're *aging* the
character. How clever are we!" Yes, you're slowly killing
a character who is not your own.
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Jason Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2473
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | 8
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I didn't -- and still don't -- mind Dick Grayson getting (somewhat) older, only because I never liked Robin, the kid-sidekick-with-no-powers-and-a-really-bright-costume, anyway. Send him off to college (or the Teen Titans) by all means -- then we can get back to "Batman, dark avenger of the night" type stories.
A much bigger problem was turning Dick Grayson into Nightwing. Suddenly, there's no Robin at all, hence the introductions of Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and (ugh) Damian Wayne.
In retrospect Wolfman and Perez should've just redesigned Grayson's costume, kept him age 18-19, and left it at that.
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Aaron Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 10461
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | 9
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I didn't -- and still don't -- mind Dick Grayson getting (somewhat) older, only because I never liked Robin, the kid-sidekick-with-no-powers-and-a-really-bright-costume, anyway. Send him off to college (or the Teen Titans) by all means -- then we can get back to "Batman, dark avenger of the night" type stories.
A much bigger problem was turning Dick Grayson into Nightwing. Suddenly, there's no Robin at all, hence the introductions of Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and (ugh) Damian Wayne.
***
While I initially liked Nightwing (he was already Nightwing when I started reading Batman comics, and Jason Todd was Robin), as I got older and read more old stories and eventually came to realize the many reasons why aging serial characters is a bad idea, I started to think Dick Grayson should have been kept in his early teens forever, and remained Robin. Why did he have to be aged out of the role for Batman to have solo "dark avenger" stories? Have him stay home some nights. Have Batman tell him to take a night off from patrolling the city to do his homework or get some rest. Or, even simpler, have him just not be mentioned in some stories. There didn't have to be a way to get rid of him for him to not play a part in every Batman story. This way, we can have Batman stories with or without Robin, and questions of Batman aging if Robin has aged don't need to be addressed at all.
This doesn't mean I don't think there have been good, or even great Nightwing (or Titans) stories, but was aging him a good move in the grand scheme of things?
Edited by Aaron Smith on 25 June 2014 at 4:34pm
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4620
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | 10
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Don Zomberg wrote:
| What advantage is there to having Peter in college vs high school? Spider-Man was the first (non-sidekick) teen hero in comics--it was a huge part of his popularity with readers. |
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Since Peter Parker graduated in an issue plotted solely by Ditko, during the time Ditko was not speaking to Stan, it seems safe to assume the graduation idea was entirely Ditko's. Based on what Ditko has written and what he's told others about his general attitude towards heroes, I would guess he wanted Peter to mature into a young man who was more self confident and less tortured by self-doubt. That seems to be the direction he was moving with the character in his final issues, with Peter behaving in a more assertive manner. Whether that would have been the right move is debatable, but of course Lee and Romita immediately dialed that back when Ditko left, and returned Peter to being meek, self-doubting, and less mature, as he'd been in the early issues.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 25 June 2014 at 5:16pm
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | 11
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Batman as a "grim loner avenger" character lasted about a
year (and this was the same guy who chatted with
Commissioner Gordon over a pipe as Bruce Wayne and had a
fiancee). Robin was Batman's partner -- the Watson to his
Holmes -- for almost 30 years before Batman was
"restored" to a "grim avenger."
If you want to do "solo" Batman stories, that was always
possible without aging Dick Grayson. As Aaron said, have
Batman go on patrol alone and don't mention Robin (or if
you must, just say that he's home studying). For years,
Supergirl was Superman's "secret weapon" and even when
she was revealed to the world, Superman would sometimes
call on her assistance but mostly went solo (and fans
accepted this conceit without complaining that Supergirl
would have been needed in a certain adventure -- sadly,
that didn't last forever. Soon there were "off in space"
explanations for those fans who were slowly starting to
stop playing by the rules).
I liked the Wolfman/Perez TITANS though a part of me
regretted that the "hot" team book wasn't JLA, especially
once they began aging Dick Grayson more fully into
adulthood. Soon, the Titans was about young men and
women, which arguably the JLA should have been about, but
now in contrast, they were this group of old fogeys by
comparison.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | 12
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If you want to do "solo" Batman stories, that was always possible without aging Dick Grayson. As Aaron said, have Batman go on patrol alone and don't mention Robin (or if you must, just say that he's home studying). For years, Supergirl was Superman's "secret weapon" and even when she was revealed to the world, Superman would sometimes call on her assistance but mostly went solo (and fans accepted this conceit without complaining that Supergirl would have been needed in a certain adventure -- sadly, that didn't last forever. Soon there were "off in space" explanations for those fans who were slowly starting to stop playing by the rules).•• As I've noted before, one of the sillier things that bubbled up from fandom and actually took hold, was that all the stories that came out at the same time, happened at the same time. There had been some feeding of this kind of thinking earlier, with the occasional footnote telling us the story we were reading took place before (or sometimes -- SPOILER ALERT!! -- after) some other tale. A whole lot of effort was put into figuring out which story happened where, and when -- and very little of that effort came from Marvel and DC, at least at first. All this was, of course, just "real time" wearing a different hat. By forcing -- and then enforcing -- a chronology upon the characters and stories, by saying this story took place after that one, and this other story took place between those two, time was shown to be passing. This was very different from the kind of passive awareness that issues that came out in June contained stories that happened before issues that came out in July. Back in those simpler times, publication order was not a huge concern.
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Topic Closed)
