Author |
|
Eran Aviani Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: October 15 2005 Posts: 14
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 11:06am | IP Logged | 1
|
|
|
"That perhaps was the turn the character took with ASM 50 but it's not true to the character"
**************************************************

And I quote, "Is this the price I must always pay for being... Spider-man??!" This was no where near ASM #50. More like #17.
****************************************************
"It was always implied that the police or the other heroes in the Marvel Universe could handle the bad guys Spider-Man fought."
*****************************************************
Just like back in Amazing Fantasy #15 the police could've handled the burglar from the TV studio, or in Spidey's own words at the time, "Sorry, pal! That's your job!" But then something happenned that made him change his tune. Anyone remember what it was?
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
James C. Taylor Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: April 16 2004 Location: United States Posts: 4705
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 11:56am | IP Logged | 2
|
|
|
Eran Aviani wrote:
And I quote, "Is this the price I must always pay for being... Spider-man??!" |
|
|
But, Eran, you forgot:
Peter Parker wrote:
Why don't things ever seem to turn out right for me? Why do I seem to hurt people, no matter how I try not to? |
|
|
He's not blaming these things on Spider-Man, he's saying "Is having a sucky life the price I have to pay for the coolness of Spider-Man?"
Edited by James C. Taylor on November 08 2005 at 11:57am
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
|
Rob Hewitt Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: May 11 2004 Location: United States Posts: 10182
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | 3
|
|
|
I think you are reading into it James. Spider-man is making his wife worse in that scene. Sometimes it makes it better. But there is a lot of anguish that goes with being Spider-man in the early days, along with the fun.
But I'll let it go. No one's position is going to change here
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
|
James C. Taylor Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: April 16 2004 Location: United States Posts: 4705
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | 4
|
|
|
Rob Hewitt wrote:
Spider-man is making his life worse in that scene. |
|
|
How? (Not challenging you, just need to know the story specifics.)
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
|
Stéphane Garrelie Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: August 05 2005 Location: France Posts: 4260
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | 5
|
|
|
Peter J Romeo:
QUOTE:
Actualy, Stéphane I think JB has been extremely kind and patient with you until now. |
|
|
Excepted for his 2 rude answers that I put on a temper we heard about even in France before the internet and without real article or interview, I'ld say that JB is extremely kind to his fan, answers their questions and takes the time to talk with them more than any other comics creator. So you wont have me doing noise over the net of this as the new bad Byrne story. I still love his work. This being say, I don't like to be called an idiot so I leave this forum. For my adieu to everybody see the foot of this post.
QUOTE:
But your argument about being a policeman being the same as someone who risks the lives of his loved ones --and shirks his owns responsibililties-- was so far off-base, and so dramatically missed the point, that I think his comment to you was most likely an impressive show of restraint. |
|
|
No: my argument "You can work in the police and be adult too. thats exactly the same thing" means that like cops the superheroes risk their life against criminals, it means to that their identities are secret like the address of the cops and their familly to protect these families. It means to that the avengers, the X-SE, the Justice League, Batman, Superman and many others work in a legal set of rules, like the cops. It means that I think that JB was wrong to say that superheroes "place (...) [their] loved ones in geopardy while [they] shirk the real responsabilities of adulthood.": Peter Parker have a job that he does well and takes care of his wife and his aunt, Sue Richards takes care of her child, give him love and time as much as any active woman can do it, etc... and to be a force af the law, like the cops or the superheroes is a very adult responsibilty. The taste for adventure may be enough to explain a newcomer in the activity of superheroics, not for someome who do that for years. I stand on my owns.
To everybody:
I enjoyed these 3 months in your compagny. Thanks to everybody for all the great talk. You'll understand that after being called an idiot by John Byrne, even if in one of his legendary burst of anger, I can't continue to post here. Not that I overestimate the importance of his words, but i know what I owe to myself. I'll continue to buy and read the great "Blood of the Demon" series and I'm longing for the Stern/Byrne JSA classified, and if the rumor are true about the Simone/Byrne [spoiler]Batgirl[/spoiler] i'll be happy. Maybe from time to time I'll still lurk to see what you guys and girls are writing, and for the great pencils,... but for the rest i'm not sure that I'm welcome anymore. So Adieu and thanks for everything.
Bye,
Stéphane.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Wallace Sellars Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: May 01 2004 Location: United States Posts: 17734
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | 6
|
|
|
I don't see that JB has said anything so terrible as to warrant all of this, but... Take care, Stéphane.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
|
Roger A Ott II Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: April 29 2004 Location: United States Posts: 5371
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | 7
|
|
|
Regarding Spider-Man being a member of the Avengers, I don't think it fits either, but the occasional flirting with the idea was always fun.
And although I agree that Spider-Man works best as a loner, I really enjoyed the original MARVEL TEAM-UP series, so what does that say? Maybe because the team-ups were only temporary, it doesn't seem so wrong.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
|
Joe Zhang Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: April 16 2004 Location: United States Posts: 12857
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | 8
|
|
|
I've been called the approximate equivalent of idiot not just by JB but by others here. I still enjoy participating here.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
|
Andrew W. Farago Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: July 19 2005 Location: United States Posts: 4071
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | 9
|
|
|
Marvel has proven that the teenage Peter Parker is
more appealing to kids with Ultimate Spider-man. I
hate to say it, but it's true. My son is 12 and loves
Ultimate Spider-man, but has little interest in
Amazing Spider-man. He does ask me " Why is
Peter so much older in Amazing ? " to which I
grumble and tell him it's a long stupid story that has
more to do with ego.
Ego? Why give such a complicated answer? It
shouldn't be any harder to explain than the concept
that there can be a different Superman in Smallville,
Justice League Unlimited and any of other
Superman movies or TV shows.
I just don't see "creator's ego" fitting into the picture
at all when discussing the aging of Spider-Man.
After Peter had been in college for ten years (real
time), the writer and editor figured that his graduation
would be a good story, and would give them some
new ideas for future stories. Marrying him off ten
years later probably had the same motivation (that
and whatever sales increase they could get out of it,
I'm sure). Continuing to slightly age a character
who's been getting older since he first appeared isn't
high on the list of egomaniacal behaviors in my
book.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
e-mail
|
|
Eran Aviani Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: October 15 2005 Posts: 14
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | 10
|
|
|
Eran Aviani wrote:
And I quote, "Is this the price I must always pay for being... Spider-man??!" | | | But, Eran, you forgot:
Peter Parker wrote:
Why don't things ever seem to turn out right for me? Why do I seem to hurt people, no matter how I try not to? | | |
He's not blaming these things on Spider-Man, he's saying "Is having a sucky life the price I have to pay for the coolness of Spider-Man?"
********************************
I don't have a scan of the panel just before the one I posted, but in it he says, "A lot of good it does me to be Spider-man! Sometimes I wish I had never heard that name!"
It's from ASM #17 in which he keeps switching back and forth from Peter to Spider-man and as a result Betty Brant thinks he's cheating on her with Liz Allen and everyone thinks Spider-man is a coward for leaving in the middle of a fight with the Green Goblin.
I agree with Rob about no one's position about to change, but what the heck, I knew that 7 pages ago.
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Luca Too Byrne Robotics Member
Auto-Contrarian
Joined: October 29 2004 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 176
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | 11
|
|
|
John Byrne Byrne Robotics CEO
Robot Wrangler
Joined: 11 May 2005 Location: United States Posts: 14764 |
Posted: 05 November 2005 at 8:03pm | IP Logged |
post reply |
| There is a myth in certain vocal parts of fandom, to the effect that in order for characters to remain viable, they must be allowed to "grow". Peter Parker must graduate high school, and then university. He must marry. He must have a kid (even if it does not survive). The X-Men must pass beyond their tumultuous teenage years, and also marry, spawn -- go thru, in other words, the changes that are happened to the aging readers, who lack the fortunate happenstance of being fictional, and therefore timeless characters.
But I called this a myth, and myth it is. As I sat at my drawing board a moment or so ago, reviewing today's completed pages, I looked up and across the room at the shelf that holds all (or almost all) of the Batman collectibles I have accumulated over the years, mostly via the Warner Store. Most prominent among these is the 2 ft tall figure of a Carmine Infantion style "Silver Age" Batman. He stands not far from a similar sized representation of a Curt Swan Superman of the same vintage. Like the Batman figure, the Superman figure is surrounded by smaller statues, showing different periods of his long history.
This is what proves that the notion of "growth" is a myth. Superman and Batman of the Silver Age only superficially resembled the characters created at the dawn of the Golden Age. When first introduced, both were vigilantes with no hesitation about killing bad guys. Superman was even portrayed as seeming to take a somewhat sadistic delight in coming up with particularly nasty deaths -- tossing bad guys into airplane propellors, and like that. Batman killed, and also casually violated what we could today call the civil liberties of the villains he chased. Yet, by the time I was introduced to these characters, less than 20 years after their "births", both had mellowed to the point of being almost unrecognizable, when compared to their beginnings. Both were deputized members of their respective cities' police forces, for instance.
What is significant, is that both -- along with other characters, such as Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, etc -- were adapting to the world in which they lived. Superman in the 1950s reflected the world of the 1950s. Batman did the same, and the same again for the 1960s. Yet none of these characters adapted thru what we would today call "growth". None of the characters were seen to age in any visible way, for instance. Robin was introduced, aged 10, in 1940, and if he was a day older when I "met" him in 1956, he did not show it. Jimmy Olsen was eternaly youthful, and Perry White crept no closer to retirement age.
What changed, then? What made it seem "necessary" that these character not merely respond to the changing world as fictional characters had for years -- James Bond was just a few years short of retirement age when introduced in "Casino Royale", but this was never mentioned again as his series of books grew longer and longer -- but actually change the way we mere mortals do, by getting older and experiencing dramatic, life altering events in their chronicles?
First, there was a distinct change in the readership. Younger fans began to drop away as the 70s approached, and seeing this the companied -- without even realizing it at first -- began tailoring their product for an older audience. Stan Lee and his cronies at the embryonic Marvel Comics clearly had an older audience in mind, tho Stan was savvy enough to layer his tales so that kids could still find a way into the adventures of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. (Stan, in fact, tapped a subtle and brilliant gold mine when he elected to make many of his new characters "kids" themselves, mythical teenagers who, mostly, battled older villains. No accident that the teenaged Spider-Man fought people two and three times (and more!) his age, in the form of Doctor Octopus, or the Vulture, or the Sandman. No mere chance that the X-Men, teenagers all, battled a "brotherhood" of badguys all of whom were, as originally portrayed, older than them.*)
Next came the influx of fans-turned-pro, who brought with them, often in excess, the thinking they'd had when readers, seeking now as the creators to answer the questions they used to ask. Questions which, traditionally, had been neither asked nor answered.
It the early part of the 1970s we began to see this distinct sea change pick up speed. The lives of the characters began to unfold before our eyes in something very close to "real time" -- and sales, which had been dropping slowly but steadily for many yeas, began to drop even faster. Is it just a coincidence that the more "growth and change" the books contained, the lower the sales they commanded? Is there a direct connection between the "growth" in characters and the loss of readership? After all, a college age Peter Parker is not the guy I "met" in 1963, and he would not "speak" to a thirteen year old as the guy in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 1 spoke to me. A married-with-children Parker speaks even less to a young audience.
Superman, Batman and the rest appealed to large audiences (tho Batman's comics did not sell as well as Superman's, despite the number of readers who claimed him as their "favorite") for decades, changing to keep up with the times, as far as fashions, cars, politcs, and general story themes -- but not changing themselves. Not until those fans-turned-pro began making more and more of the decisions. Then Robin aged almost overnight and got shipped off to college. That was one foot on the banana peel.
It is almost (tho not entirely) impossible to un-ring this particular bell. But it is, I think, important to keep in focus one simple fact: when the characters "grow and change" they run a very real risk of losing whatever it was that made them popular in the first place.
------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------
What I don't understand then is why JB had Hank celebrate his 20th birthday at the end of XHY - an event that 'grows' the character beyond what he was 'one of the strangest teens of all' and seems to contradict exactlt what JB has said in his initial post...?
|
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
Eugene Nylander Byrne Robotics Member

Joined: April 16 2004 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 539
|
Posted: November 08 2005 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | 12
|
|
|
I think that's amazingly obvious Luca Too
|
Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
|
|
|