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Topic: Badguys Don’t Have to be Original! - 07.15.2015 Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Brian Hague
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Joined: 14 November 2006
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Posted: 21 July 2015 at 11:30am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Platinum Man was an emotional void; a cold, robotic sort whose only personality traits were negative. A diminutive nickname wouldn't have fit his arrogant nature. He later reappeared as a villain of sorts in Brave and the Bold #187. 

Super-hero names are like song lyrics. Finding just the right mix of syllables and points of emphasis is crucial. Perhaps we could posit an semi-mystical entity like Lee's Living Tribunal or Gruenwald's Anthropomorpho whose sole purpose is to metaphysically oversee the selection of super-character names. We can call her Euphonia...

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Brian O'Neill
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Joined: 13 November 2013
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Posted: 21 July 2015 at 11:31am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

The one superhero name that never worked for me is 'Mr. Fantastic'. 
Reed just doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd call himself something so frivolous. I guess, after a while, it didn't work for Stan and Jack, either, since the FF revealed their identities relatively early on. Since then, even if the average New Yorker might still refer to Ben, Sue, and Johnny by their code names(and btw, I prefer the 'shorthand' of Johnny, and others, identifying him as 'The Torch'), Reed has been almost universally referred to by his real name.
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Robert Ingrao
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Posted: 22 July 2015 at 4:12am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

great commission!!
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 22 July 2015 at 5:56am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

The one superhero name that never worked for me is 'Mr. Fantastic'.

Reed just doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd call himself something so frivolous.

••

I've talked with people who work in the sciences, and several have said, over the years, that "Mister Fantastic" is EXACTLY the name they would expect their boss or co-workers (but not themselves, naturally!) to pick! And do so without thinking twice about it!

My own take on that name is that it doesn't work as "Mr. Fantastic." Has to be spelled out in full, as I do above.

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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 22 July 2015 at 7:50am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

JB, if you had been given the power to rename Marvel Girl (same character, powers, pre-Phoenix), what would you have chosen?

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In 1963? Tough call. She is so embedded in my brain as "Marvel Girl," I can't think of anything else.

Amusing to note that Jean breaks Stan's "rule" about the names telling us something about the character -- Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, Hulk, etc -- except that she can be picked out of the group by a process of elimination. Not so simple once Lorna arrived!

Chris and Dave continued this "tradition" when they turned her into Phoenix, another name that tells us nothing at all about who she is or what she does.

(Chris and I occasionally butted heads over his tendency to ignore Stan's "rule." Some of you will recall, I'm sure, that this is how Kitty Pryde got her name. When I was building the character, Chris said "Whatever he powers are, let's call her 'Thunderbird'." He hated having been forced to kill the original, and wanted to do anything, ANYTHING to bring the character back, even if it was just the name. I wanted to follow the Stan Rule, and have the new character's name tell us something about what she did. But "Thunderbird" did plant bird names in my head, and I jotted down "Kittyhawk" at one point, which reminded me of Kitty Pryde. Thus was born a Legend!!)

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Michael Penn
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Joined: 12 April 2006
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Posted: 22 July 2015 at 8:21am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Phoenix doesn't seem to relate to anything about Jean Grey's transformation except that very first "resurrection" scene of her bursting out of the water. A mythological phoenix was said to perish in flames, but I don't see that telling us anything at all about Jean's psionic powers as Phoenix.

I sympathize with Chris Claremont being so disgruntled over being forced to kill Thunderbird. I remember reading those issues and really wanting to see where this character would go! But... to just hang onto the name... for its own sake? 
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