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Aaron Smith
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Joined: 06 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 10461
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| Posted: 25 June 2014 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | 1
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Who worries about these things? Seriously, when I was a kid encountering my favorite fictional universes, it never occurred to me to want the characters to age or to have to account for the whereabouts of all characters at all times in all stories. If Sulu didn't show up in an episode of Star Trek, i just assumed (if I even thought about it at all) that he wasn't on duty during that particular incident. As far as aging goes, considering such things or having writers actually do it, defeats the entire magic of comics. Unfortunately, we can't have a never-ending supply of Star Trek episodes because Shatner, Nimoy, and the rest are human and age (or die, in the cases of Kelly and Doohan), but in comics all we need is a story and art. Batman can be a fairly young superhero/ millionaire forever. We, his fans, need never lose that character.
When I was a kid and had only my allowance money, I struggled to afford the comics I wanted to read and dreamed of a day when I'd be grown up and could read ALL the adventures of the Batman I knew, or Spider-Man or the X-Men. Unfortunately, some of those who have worked on the comics since then (encourage by fans who wanted the characters to grow and change) have altered the characters to such an extent that I now have no interest in the characters I once thought I'd always want to read about. I would have been a grown man who still had the capacity to enjoy those characters in their original forms (or the forms they were in when I first "met" them) as a means of entertainment (and nostalgia). But those versions are lost to my generation and, even more sadly, the later generations who will now have no chance (unless they read reprints) to experience the magic of those characters as they were when they became popular enough to last for decades.
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Petter Myhr Ness
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Joined: 02 July 2009
Location: Norway
Posts: 3906
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 12:35am | IP Logged | 2
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A lot of (annoying) things would be unnecessary if they simply stuck to the simple principle of letting the stories play out NOW without the need to cram them down some forced continuity to appease the Sheldon Coopers of the world. Reboots, for example - utterly unnecessary.
The Bond franchise, arguably the most successful movie franchise out there, managed for 44 years without doing something that resembled a reboot. Superhero movies are rebooted all the time, after the third, second or even first (unsuccessful) outing. They seem to take their cue from comics, with convoluted plotting getting in the way of actually telling a story.
SIMPSONS is a shining example of how things should be done.
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Robert White
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 12:37am | IP Logged | 3
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I wouldn't be against Spider-Man perpetually existing in the world of Amazing Spider-Man #1-38 since I love the Lee/Ditko run, and it will always be Spider-Man in his purest form, but at this point I'm wise enough to realize that this would never be accepted by the majority of fans; the fan culture "is what it is" and the casual kid fans are never coming back as long as Marvel and DC continue to overprice their product to fleece the crack-addict 40 year old's.
That being said, does anyone here really think that anyone could reboot the Marvel universe to high school Peter Parker, and pre-Franklin FF, and make it work FOREVER? Sure, it might motor along for five years or so, but eventually someone will kill off Parker, or introduce a lost sibling or child and screw everything up again. Slow aging and facile "growth" is too woven into the DNA of mainstream superheroes at this point to ever be removed.
Basically, I agree, and would like to see ALL Marvel and DC characters handled like BTAS, but there are too many bad philosophies and myopic agenda's out there to make that happen. All I can do is continue to not buy that stuff and support the classic material.
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Jeffrey Rice
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Joined: 10 September 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1161
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 12:57am | IP Logged | 4
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While not as old as the Simpsons, Phineas and Ferb, a genius cartoon, has taken place over the course of just one summer vacation.There is the occasional reference to how long the summer feels, but they stick with it.
Nightwing's existence ages Batman, but when written well, is very interesting. But that is true of any character. I would still prefer Aaron's idea. Detective Comics could have easily been the grim and gritty loner Batman book with Robin joining in for the wackier villains in "Batman".
Why DC would create the Nu52 already 5 years in and four Robins along, just reinforces how little thought went into the relaunch.
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Aaron Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 10461
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 6:50am | IP Logged | 5
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I remember the first time I heard one of the mathematicians at work. Tim Drake had been introduced as the third Robin and some kid I knew was figuring the time frame out. "If Bruce Wayne was 25 when he became Batman and Dick Grayson became Robin in the third year and stayed from when he was 10 to when he was 18, then Batman was solo for a year, then Jason Todd was Robin for a year, then Batman worked alone for a year after Jason died ..."
And, hearing this, I realized we were now talking about a Batman who was almost 40 and it occurred to me that most baseball players have long since retired by 40 and those that are still playing at that age are not nearly as good as they once were, so how could Batman be in his athletic prime anymore? Why would the writers want to do that to Batman?
I hate hearing numbers being given to superheroes' ages. I'd much prefer to think of there being 3 archetypal superhero ages, with no specific number ever given. There are the teenagers (Robin, Spider-Man, the Human Torch); the mature but still young heroes who are old enough to have a profession (reporter, pilot, police scientist, lawyer) rather than just a job but are young enough to be in peak physical condition; and the older heroes who are experts in certain areas, are vastly experienced, and are just old enough to bear the standard indicators of being somewhat older but not old (Reed Richards, Doctor Strange, etc.) There are exceptions, I suppose, but I think the vast majority of heroes fall into one of those three numberless age groups.
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Robert White
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4560
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 7:13am | IP Logged | 6
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One thing about Batman being 40 -- which he isn't and never should be in continuity -- is that 40 today isn't what it was in 1939, particularly if you have access to modern sports medicine; Floyd Mayweather is almost 38 and Hugh Jackman, at 45, has the body of someone 20 years younger. Obviously Bruce has fantastic genetics, so it's no stretch at all that he could be working at 95% of what he was at 25 today. In 1939 this was virtually inconceivable.
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Don Zomberg
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Joined: 23 November 2005
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 7:16am | IP Logged | 7
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the graduation idea was entirely Ditko's
JB's earlier post in this thread disputes that. And even if Ditko did push for Peter to age, it was still a mistake, much like the birth of Franklin Richards was for the FF.
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Robert White
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 8:27am | IP Logged | 8
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Without question, Franklin aging would become a problem and almost single-handedly mandated the sliding time-scale.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 9:30am | IP Logged | 9
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Hugh Jackman looks great at 45 because his lifestyle is not anywhere
near as intense as a professional athlete. He is able to work out to
maintain a certain physique rather than pushing his body to punishing
limits daily.
My Batman -- the Dick Sprang-style Caped Crusader -- didn't abuse his
body. He didn't get shot every other night and you could imagine him
staying on the job until he was in his late 40s.
The crazy ninja obsessed Batman would be in a wheelchair by the time
he's 35, possibly even 30. He is regularly shot, stabbed, and
bludegoned. I'd argue that he has taken more on-screen damage since
DARK KNIGHT than he took his entire history prior. It's as if they are
depicting the Wolverine of the late 1970s who has a reasonable though
still impressive healing factor.
I don't find that more realistic and it just makes Batman seem dumber
and amateurish.
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Robert White
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 11:54am | IP Logged | 10
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Well...there are MMA fighters in their 40's (Hershel Walker competes...at 48! Randy Couture was a champion in his 40's and was still fighting at 50.) and their training regimens are grueling. Besides, you don't need to go to the Ninja Batman era to see him get abuse; the Adams/Aparo era Batman was constantly getting knocked out by thugs, stabbed, shot, etc.
The Sprang era Batman you're talking about lived in a world where there were no consequences to getting into frequent street fights with armed gangsters. He didn't abuse his body because the Comics Code Authority, paradoxically, forced the creators to write stories that made real life combat seem like a fun dance at the sock-hop. I like Golden Age Batman too, but let's be fair about this.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Joined: 30 April 2004
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | 11
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Don Zomberg wrote:
| JB's earlier post in this thread disputes that. And even if Ditko did push for Peter to age, it was still a mistake, much like the birth of Franklin Richards was for the FF. |
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JB didn't mention a source, but I think he must be either mistaken or misremembering in his claim that Ditko was opposed to the graduation. The graduation story occurred at a time Ditko was sole plotter of Spider-Man, when he and Stan were no longer speaking to each other. Stan has admitted that during that period he did not even know what was going to be in each issue of Spider-Man until he received the penciled pages for dialoguing. So it seems almost certain the idea was Ditko's. Even if we accept the unlikely premise that Stan suggested the idea to Ditko via a memo (since they were not speaking) if Ditko was opposed to it he simply would have refused to draw it. Stan would have had no way to force Ditko to do a story he did not want to do, since it's clear that at that point Stan was more afraid of losing Ditko than Ditko was afraid of losing his job.
Was it a mistake? I don't think it altered the nature of the character fundamentally. In the sense that it started the ball rolling toward further aging, it was a mistake, but if they'd stopped at freshman in college I don't see that it would have been a problem. Of course we don't know what Ditko would have done since he left shortly after. The evidence in the stories suggests he wanted to move Spider-Man towards being a more confident and mature character, and we don't know how that would have turned out.
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Stephen Robinson
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| Posted: 26 June 2014 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 12
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Was it a mistake? I don't think it altered the nature of
the character fundamentally. In the sense that it
started the ball rolling toward further aging, it was a
mistake, but if they'd stopped at freshman in college I
don't see that it would have been a problem.
***
SER: "Line in the sand" aging is the slipperiest of
slopes. And I can recall few instances where the aging
stopped with a graduation, or a wedding, or a childbirth.
They just seem to cry out to move the pieces forward even
more.
In theory, you could view such "growth" as a revamp of
the concept: Spider-Man is now a college freshman*.
Forever and ever. Robin is also a college freshman, which
allows for "groovy" solo backups, more "with it"
storylines with the Teen Titans, and he can still be
Batman's partner on occasion. Works out well, right? Yet,
the characters continued to age.
*I argue that Peter Parker as a college freshman greatly
alters the dynamic: He is no longer a minor who is
legally obligated to live with his aunt. He is also under
no obligation to ever see Flash Thompson again -- even if
there were in the same college.
**Checking online, I see that Peter Parker graduated
college (in the "most demanded story of all" -- really?
The lead character climbs walls and swings on webs
through Manhattan and fan outrcry is for him to...
graduate college?) in 1978. He'd graduated high school in
1965, so four years comic book time had passed in 12
years real time.
If this were a live-action series and not a comic book,
and you had the same lead actor as Parker rather than
simply recasting him like James Bond, you'd probably have
to do this story since your lead is now in his early 30s.
And you'd probably cancel the series because it's so far
removed from its original premise.
But these are self-inflicted wounds.
Although time clearly passes on THE SIMPSONS (several
Christmas episodes for example), Bart and Lisa are still
in the same grade they were in the first season. This is
a remarkable achievement when you consider that it only
took 15 years for them to age Peter Parker five or six
years (depending on how old he was in AMAZING FANTASY
#15). Similar aging would have produced teenage Bart and
Lisas during the 2004 season. And then someone would not
have resisted doing a special "high school graduation"
episode by now.
I have friends with kids who are around 10 and 8 who
laugh at THE SIMPSONS and aren't snidely told by fanboys
that if they want to see a 10-year-old Bart or 8-year-old
Lisa, they should just pop in a DVD from the first
season.
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Topic Closed)
