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Kip Lewis Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2011 Posts: 2880
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Posted: 31 October 2014 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | 1
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Nova, (current) Ms. Marvel, Loki, Firestorm, Gravity, Sentinel, Cyclops; none of them are based on characters that existed before them.
••Captain Obtuse rides again. Of the seven names you list, five belong to pre-existing characters. The new ones may be "different," but the chances are zero to none that they would exist if the others had not been there first.
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Let us see.
Cyclops is the original character. Not a double, Not based on anyone. Just original character torn from his time.
Nova...Before you finished replying I fixed that because i was talking about the original 70s character.
Ms. Marvel. Name is reused but she was created for diversity's sake. So they reused a name. But the character would have been created even if they choose to give her an original name. They wanted to market, "We have a Muslim teenage girl hero. We are diverse."
Firestorm, again original version original character.
Sentinel. A kid with a "pet" Sentinel. Personally one of the most stupid ideas but not based on anyone existing unless you consider the Sentinel part.
Loki... Original character reborn in a younger form.
Even if you accept the idea that Cyclops as leader makes his teammates sidekicks (which I don't) that doesn't work on teams like Legion or Runways which don't have strong single leaders.
So, no if Spider-Man stayed a teen these last fifty years, he would not be a unique idea. He would be the first, the best, but he would not be one of a kind.
Edited by Kip Lewis on 01 November 2014 at 6:47am
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Stephen Robinson Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 5835
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Posted: 01 November 2014 at 11:25am | IP Logged | 2
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With respect, this seems like missing the point. The original X-Men were students, subordinate to an adult. Other members of teams had each other. Many of us related to Spider-Man because he had no one but himself, no one to confide in.
Tangentially, this is an issue that comes up with a lot of modern superheroes -- they reveal their identities to a core group of people who in turn become confidantes. The Flash series started this way from the first episode.
Spider-Man, for quite a while, maintained that disaffected sense of isolation readers would have recognized.
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Brad Krawchuk Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 June 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 5819
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Posted: 01 November 2014 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | 3
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The original Nova and the original Firestorm were both created as a way to replicate the solo teenager-as-superhero success that Spider-Man once represented, but by the late 70's/early 80's, had already matured beyond recognition from that role.
The problem with that sentence above is, of course, the use of the word "original." Both Nova and Firestorm themselves have aged beyond the point of being solo teenagers as superheroes, and now they have namesakes floating around bearing their names but which are, at best, third rate Spider-Man stand-ins.
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Ted Pugliese Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005 Location: United States Posts: 7985
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Posted: 01 November 2014 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | 4
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After years and years of this, you would think those in charge would simply stop aging their fictional characters. Who cares how old they are? Just stop! You don't have to specify their exact age, just agree that they aren't old and simply stop aging them.
Furthermore, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. No matter how much you would like to, you can't, so again, just stop aging them.
Peter graduated high school, went to college, and somewhere along the way finished college and got married to Mary Jane. Yes, it was too much; he should have never gotten married, but he did. It is what it is, but now you gotta stop. Peter and Mary Jane should be a young couple without children (forever). Just stop aging them (and simply forget about Gwen Stacey and never mention her again).
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133328
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Posted: 01 November 2014 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | 5
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After years and years of this, you would think those in charge would simply stop aging their fictional characters. Who cares how old they are?•• Simple: a small slice of fandom who fuss and fidget about such things, and who have infiltrated some of their own into the Companies, with the result that their whining has been listened to -- which is one of the factors that has driven away the casual readers upon whom we used to depend, and caused that small slice of fandom to become proportionately larger, and louder. Empty pitcher. . .
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Stephen Robinson Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 5835
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Posted: 01 November 2014 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | 6
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TED : Peter graduated high school, went to college, and somewhere along the way finished college and got married to Mary Jane. Yes, it was too much; he should have never gotten married, but he did. It is what it is, but now you gotta stop. Peter and Mary Jane should be a young couple without children (forever). Just stop aging them (and simply forget about Gwen Stacey and never mention her again).
SER: You touch on what I call the Continuity Sickness at Marvel. ONE MORE DAY supposedly resolved all of this -- the marriage was removed from Peter's past, and his secret identity was put back in the box. There was enough room to move forward writing him as an early 20something at most.
But within a few short years, Peter got his PhD and too many people know he's Spider-Man again. There's a determination, it seems, to make Peter 30 and only recognizably the guy from ASM 1 in regard to his powers, costume, amd wisecracking personality.
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Ron Chevrier Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 1641
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Posted: 02 November 2014 at 12:22am | IP Logged | 7
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I first started reading comics in the early 70's. Back then, the characters largely maintained the status quo when it came to aging. I liked it that way, and still wish it were mostly so. Two notable exceptions in the DC Universe were Supergirl and Robin, both of whom seemingly aged overnight, graduated from high school, and went on to university. I suppose this was an attempt to interest those Peter Parker fans who identified with him.
When introduced to the JSA and Earth 2, I liked them immediately, and wanted to know more about these strangely dressed heroes, some of whom I'd seen in 100 page reprints, others who had the names of my favorite JLA members, but different outfits. I loved the fact that they were somewhat older, and more experienced than their JLA counterparts. I didn`t ask or want them to be that way. They just were, and within the context of those classic teamups, it made sense. They were still strong enough to fight the good fight as they proved year in and year out.
It all started to go downhill when writers started to portray those characters as tired old men who constantly moaned about their age, then started killing them off one by one, and aging the rest to a ridiculous extreme. (Look! We`re edgy! We killed a Superman!)
Possibly, Starman was the one decent comic, featuring an aged Ted Knight, but I certainly would have preferred to see him in his fighting prime, or something close to it.
The so-called Golden Age characters should have been largely left alone, on their own Earth, enjoying blissful semi-retirement, and maybe popping up once a year to fight alongside the JLA, not ground into chum for the latest sales-goosing "event".
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