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Robbie Parry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 12186
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 6:39am | IP Logged | 1
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Many of us have criticised the de-uniquing of various characters. Personally, I feel nothing is really gained by having so many Spider-characters right now. With all due respect to Miles Morales' Spider-Man, the tales I have read feel akin to the high school tales that Peter Parker's Spider-Man used to be a part of.
What about DC Comics' Captain Marvel, though?
I confess, as a kid, and maybe even now, I did quite like the extended Marvel Family. Why? Because each character, whilst having the same/a similar outfit, felt unique. They had their own "flavour".
Captain Marvel Jr. felt very different to Captain Marvel. Mary Marvel felt differently to both of them. And Uncle Marvel, being an earnest character without any super powers, was just a fun character to read about.
Even the Lieutenant Marvels had a fairly fresh spin on things. Am I remembering rightly that they only had a fraction of Captain Marvel's power (I guess that's rank for you!)? Plus, there's the fact that they are a team - and hopefully team adventures are always going to have a different "flavour" to solo exploits.
I can't tell you what the current state of Captain Marvel's universe is. I don't know what is what, who is who, what is canon, etc. Or if any of the above characters even exist in the post-REBIRTH universe. But for me, the de-uniquing of Captain Marvel was at least a little fun. And probably a better example of de-uniquing than most.
Edited by Robbie Parry on 15 November 2018 at 6:40am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133317
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | 2
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I wasn’t introduced to the “Marvel Family” until I was in my twenties, thru Steranko’s HISTORY OF COMICS and DC’s relaunch. By then I was old enough to see the creative down side of such de-uniquing, tho I also remembered how much I’d enjoyed the introduction of Supergirl, Batwoman and Batgirl when I was a kid.
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Eric Sofer Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014 Location: United States Posts: 4789
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | 3
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Robbie, I'm minded to think that there's a lot of difference between Mary Marvel and Supergirl or Batwoman. The Marvel Family seemed to have a solid relationship while maintaining their own style. I'm minded of Marvel Family #10, "The Sivana Family Strikes at the Marvel Family." The middle sections of this five part saga each read as if it were literally a chapter taken out of each character's specific comic - art, story action, and all. At that time, the Marvel Family's powers were de-uniqued, but the characters themselves seemed independent enough - definitely not Superman or Batman in a dress!
However, I would have been quite happy if, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Earth-S would have been sealed off and completely inaccessible from the resolved Earths. Let them go on with their own lighter-hearted stories, not so science-oriented and drama-drenched. Did Mary Marvel encounter a fairy? Okay. Let it go. Did Captain Marvel battle an irate Earth who was jealous of him? Don't object to that as the genre - BASE the genre on it. And if Captain Marvel Jr. encountered a man who had a magical hand blender that allowed him to fly, it didn't require a crossover with Robin, Superboy, and Firestorm. It was just kinda fun and they made a story of it. Thus one fogey's opinion, anyhow.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133317
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | 4
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…after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Earth-S would have been sealed off and completely inaccessible from the resolved Earths.•• Which is what I asked for when I was going to do Captain Marvel. DC agreed, and I started. THEN they suddenly declared Cap had to be in the JLA. I think they were surprised when I quit in protest. (Some of you may recall I ended up reworking the splash page as part of OMAC.)
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Robbie Parry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 12186
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | 5
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Eric Sofer wrote:
Did Captain Marvel battle an irate Earth who was jealous of him? |
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Not familiar with that one, but I like the sound of it. Do you know the issue number, please? (I could Google, but sometimes one may as well ask first!).
John Byrne wrote:
Which is what I asked for when I was going to do Captain Marvel. DC agreed, and I started. |
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That's a shame, I would have liked to have seen that.
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Eric Sofer Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014 Location: United States Posts: 4789
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | 6
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Robbie, it was Captain Marvel Adventures #148 - "Captain Marvel Battles the World." I read the reprint in DC Limited Collector's Edition C-35, and it was also reprinted in "Shazam! The Greatest Stories Ever Told!"
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Robbie Parry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 12186
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | 7
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Thanks for that, Eric. It looks like a lot of fun, and now I really want to see the resolution.
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Matt Hawes Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 16499
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | 8
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Robbie, you can read that comic online here:
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Andy Mokler Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 January 2006 Location: United States Posts: 2799
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | 9
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Wow, the poor grocer! I always kind of wonder about things like that in stories with a hero. Many of the old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes were like that. Many deaths to help establish the villain(s) but if the hero is so great, it seems odd that innocents are dying.
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Adam Schulman Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017 Posts: 1717
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | 10
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I agree with Eric. The Big Red Cheese and his Family (and villains) would've been much better served if they'd been sealed off from the mainline DC titles forever, put in their own "line," and been aimed at the same audience as in the '40s -- ten-year-olds.
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Brian Hague Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006 Posts: 8515
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | 11
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DC might argue that ten-year olds are never going to receive enough exposure to the characters to justify their being the target audience. With the direct market as DC's only business model, they have to sell their product to those who shop there; forty and fifty year old readers with some awareness of the characters' histories, but a proven taste for grim and gritty content aimed directly at what they imagine to be their more evolved, more mature tastes.
Also, one unified platform across which all characters are marketed seems to be a working model for the company as well. So long as Character A can seemlessly meet Character B and they can both go after the villain who has killed Character R.I.P., everyone is happy. Having to journey from reality to reality via Transmatter Machine or somesuch device is clumsy and far too "old school" for modern readers.
And finally, if we do confine this wonderful, imaginative children's concept to books only manufactured for the kneepants brigade, won't we be depriving ourselves of the creative opportunity to burn down their house and give the whole lot of them a good, old-fashioned "Identity Crisis" style bloodbath? Someone mails Billy the severed head of his sister while Freddy is driven insane when his other leg is eaten by a carnivorous cadre of Mr. Mind's caterpillar brethren... Captain Marvel decides he's had enough! He is a soldier whatever else he may be, and if Billy can't see that they're at war, then maybe it's time for Billy to muster out and leave this fight for the big boys... C'mon! We can't confine ourselves to just the curtain-climbers and crumb-crunchers when we have stuff like this just idling in the garage, waiting to be unleashed onto the world!
As proven time and time again, kiddie comics don't sell in Comics Stores. Drone it along with me, everyone, "We have to sell to the audience we have rather than the audience we want..." There have been Captain Marvel kiddie comics done since Crisis and they're not on the shelves anymore. Why would DC want to throw good money after bad? Besides, there is this major subplot going through the Marvel Family and New Gods books about how Desaad became sexually obsessed with Mary during his time possessing her body, and how Black Adam feels when he discovers that for at least some of the time he had her under his power, he was sleeping with a gnarled, twisted old man animating her form... Desaad decides to impregnate Mary, and the only way to tell if he's been successful is to capture Marvel Bunny, which of course means vivisection for the poor condemned, carrot-cruncher... Be with us for, "The Rabbit Done Died!!"
Edited by Brian Hague on 15 November 2018 at 10:20pm
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Brian Hague Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006 Posts: 8515
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Posted: 15 November 2018 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | 12
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Back in the day, the Captain Marvel Family was unique unto itself. Just having a single hero without any family ties would have been making the guy just like everyone else on the stands. The idea became it's own thing, and as stories do, grew in the telling of it. Readers liked a book packed with Marvels just as later fans would love it when all the heroes gathered for big, Crisis-motivated Secret War punch-'em-ups. The shared power set and family identity gave those books a sense of fun and camaraderie unlike anything else on the stands. That made them unique.
Just as a couple of decades later, Superman became a more sci-fi oriented feature, designed to appeal to the same sort of readership via similar storytelling and marketing decisions. If there was no Marvel Family to bring in readers and their buying dollar, maybe a Superman Family could do as well. And what do you know? It did. Not the kind of business the Marvels did in wartime, but well enough just the same.
It's worth noting for fans who keen at irritating levels that Marvel was superior because they didn't engage in such shenanigans, that DC didn't at first either. It was twenty years into publishing their books that DC began to populate them with side characters in similar costume. Marvel, conversely, dove in more quickly to the de-uniquing biz, with Counter-Earth and Earth-A within their first dozen years of publishing; concepts that didn't simply add new side characters, but which flat out duplicated characters such as Reed Richards, Dr. Doom, and Tony Stark entirely. When Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, and the She-Hulk showed up in the late Seventies, they were merely on-schedule.
Edited by Brian Hague on 15 November 2018 at 10:53pm
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