Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 gorgon wrote:
Disney is pretty legendary in Hollywood for screwing over its talent, and it's easy and cheap to 'hoist a glass' to someone even as you're taking them for all they're worth behind the scenes. But I don't know exactly how they would have screwed Lee over, given that he was more of a figurehead at this point than anything else.

Disney, ok, but PLEASE tell me that Lloyd Kaufman didn't mistreat Stan Lee to get him in Return to return to Nuke'em High, vol. 2 !!
Also Tromaville is officially part of Marvel universe when do we get Toxic Avenger in the Avengers or whatever? Disney need to give Troma all the monies for the licensing!!!



More seriously, do you think that Marvel Studio will EVER innovate a create a brand new character instead of only reusing preexisting characters? This is so boring…

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

More seriously, do you think that Marvel Studio will EVER innovate a create a brand new character instead of only reusing preexisting characters? This is so boring…

They've introduced tons of new characters...

They're unlikely to put much effort into creating new superheroes or villains, though, because that's already a very crowded pool.

That depends; are we getting NEW characters, or are we getting old characters, who have paid their pint of blood, retired for new kid heroes with different skin colors who do it “cuz it’s cool”? Or are man haters from another dimension? Chulk, Ri-Ri, and American Chavez come to mind as “garbage that should never have been made”. And yes, I will have that view until I don’t care about comics.

And in case anyone is curious, I prefer War Machine/Rhodey over Iron Man, approve fully of Captain Falcon, and enjoy seeing Jane Foster proven to be more worthy of Mjolnir than the Odinson. They’ve all earned the roles. Chulk...has not.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
That depends; are we getting NEW characters, or are we getting old characters, who have paid their pint of blood, retired for new kid heroes with different skin colors who do it “cuz it’s cool”? Or are man haters from another dimension? Chulk, Ri-Ri, and American Chavez come to mind as “garbage that should never have been made”. And yes, I will have that view until I don’t care about comics.

Meh, I'm totally ok with existing heroes finally moving on. I've thought for years that I'd love for someone to start up a 'real time' superhero setting, where there's an actual, sensible adherence to a calendar and characters age at a normal rate, eventually either dying or retiring and being replaced. As much as I love the characters that I grew up with, the fact that most of them have been caught in a Simpsons-esque time bubble where adult characters only age when it suits a particular plot (and doesn't seem to carry over to everyone else around them) for the last 30 years has always been a bit jarring.

How long can we suspend disbelief that the Punisher, who would be around 64 by now, is out doing what he does? At some point, you have to retire some of these guys instead of yelling at clouds about these jonnny-come-latelies who have been around for (checks notes) 13 years now, in Amadeus Cho's case.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
More seriously, do you think that Marvel Studio will EVER innovate a create a brand new character instead of only reusing preexisting characters? This is so boring…

What would be the point?

 Ouze wrote:
How long can we suspend disbelief that the Punisher, who would be around 64 by now, is out doing what he does?

Sliding continuity scale. Vietnam Vets become Gulf War vets become Afghanistan vets and so on.

Honestly I'll take that over DC's "Batman has always been operating for the past 10 years and not a second longer!".

Yeah I'm not the biggest of non-X-Men marvel fans but, barring editorial distractions (usually with Spidey, though time dependent characters usually have an anti aging serum, or get delayed regularly like the X-Men and Magneto), they have had a pretty good history of using their sliding timelines consistently. - I think there's an actual mathematical formula they use.

DC on the other hand uses their regular reboots to keep the characters at the ages they prefer. Even then, for example, the Robins have grown up.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

More seriously, do you think that Marvel Studio will EVER innovate a create a brand new character instead of only reusing preexisting characters? This is so boring…

Agent Phil Coulson says hi

For superheroes? Hell no. Not when they own such an extensive back catalogue.

 Compel wrote:
DC on the other hand uses their regular reboots to keep the characters at the ages they prefer. Even then, for example, the Robins have grown up.

I'd say that DC handles things with a proprietary mix of reboots and alternate universes, LOL. The Golden Age continuity and its older heroes survived on the original Earth-2. The current Earth One universe was created to allow room to explore younger, alternate versions of heroes without monkeying with the Earth Prime versions.

 insaniak wrote:

Meh, I'm totally ok with existing heroes finally moving on. I've thought for years that I'd love for someone to start up a 'real time' superhero setting, where there's an actual, sensible adherence to a calendar and characters age at a normal rate, eventually either dying or retiring and being replaced. As much as I love the characters that I grew up with, the fact that most of them have been caught in a Simpsons-esque time bubble where adult characters only age when it suits a particular plot (and doesn't seem to carry over to everyone else around them) for the last 30 years has always been a bit jarring.

You want Judge Dredd for that. Although now he’s canonically in his seventies, that might change.

Always makes me sad that people treat Amadeus Cho as a new character...

That said, there's little doubt that Marvel Comics is largely a pilot program for the MCU at this point. That's essentially been true since the original Avengers movie was immediately followed up with the Infinity event that created half the antagonists of 3/4. As a comic line, they've been stuck in this weird place where the movies have done a better line streamlining and reinventing their characters than the comics, which have been stuck trying to echo better versions of the characters they created rather than take them in interesting directions.

I used to be fairly on board with the idea of relaunches, but I've found they lot by trying to have to reintroduce iconic elements. They either fail to do it well or get stuck feeling repetitive. That said, I think I've been reading comics long enough now to appreciate that following authors is more important than following characters and reading great runs of characters matters a lot more than the specifics of their current status quo. They're not going to get an ending, happy or otherwise, but authors runs often do and are often a good time to pick up a different character.

I do think there's a lot of appeal to legacy characters though DC has a far better track record with it than Marvel. DC's biggest issue is just that they haven't figured out what to do with middle children. Eventually these characters need to take on their own mantle which we've seen done successfully with Nightwing and Red Hood. Too many of them fail to carve out a niche and get stuck in a limbo between their undying mentor they cannot replace and the new version of themselves that's taken the spot they've grown out of (hi, Tim!)

 insaniak wrote:
Meh, I'm totally ok with existing heroes finally moving on. I've thought for years that I'd love for someone to start up a 'real time' superhero setting, where there's an actual, sensible adherence to a calendar and characters age at a normal rate, eventually either dying or retiring and being replaced. As much as I love the characters that I grew up with, the fact that most of them have been caught in a Simpsons-esque time bubble where adult characters only age when it suits a particular plot (and doesn't seem to carry over to everyone else around them) for the last 30 years has always been a bit jarring.

I'm not a big fan of how the MCU handled Captain America, but I also recognize that it worked well enough for what they needed. The comics Cap moved on with his life in more ways than one, becoming a contemporary figure. The MCU Cap...mostly didn't.

But the open-ended world of comics needs more evolution and continuation. In a story with a defined beginning, middle and end -- and limited number of minutes -- having Cap being a man perpetually 'out of time', stuck on his first girlfriend probably works better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
DC's biggest issue is just that they haven't figured out what to do with middle children. Eventually these characters need to take on their own mantle which we've seen done successfully with Nightwing and Red Hood. Too many of them fail to carve out a niche and get stuck in a limbo between their undying mentor they cannot replace and the new version of themselves that's taken the spot they've grown out of (hi, Tim!)

Yeah, they have no idea what to do with Mr. Drake. I think he needs his own setting. Kind of like how Dick (Ric?) got Bludhaven to create that separation, but I think it has to be bolder/more different than that. Needs a writer with a real vision for the character.

To be fair, it's not a BAD problem to have when you keep creating interesting new Robins.

I'm pretty good with where Tim is (from Tynions Detective Comics Rebirth run at least) - the idea that this is precisely the issue he's struggling with is pretty interesting to me.

 Ouze wrote:
How long can we suspend disbelief that the Punisher, who would be around 64 by now, is out doing what he does? At some point, you have to retire some of these guys instead of yelling at clouds about these jonnny-come-latelies who have been around for (checks notes) 13 years now, in Amadeus Cho's case.

Ahem... Rambo would like a word.

I’m not sure that’s the greatest example - I mean, you’ve seen the ‘Last Blood’ trailer, right?

Punisher got cut into pieces and then stiched back together as a frankenstien monster called Frankencastle. He did that for a trade or 2 and then something happened involving the blood stone which grants immortality. It restored his body to peak (mid-late 20sish). So yes. Punisher is actually in his 70s/80s at this point. But physically hes fine because comic books are dumb.

The comics recentlyish explained that all the DC reboots were caused by Doctor Manhattan screwing with the timeline and doing little experiments. “What happens if I move this lantern six inches to the left?”

 insaniak wrote:
They're unlikely to put much effort into creating new superheroes or villains, though, because that's already a very crowded pool.

It's only crowded if you keep all of them and never get rid of them .
And yes, that's exactly what I was proposing, new superheroes. Not “new version of same olf superhero”, just a real, honest new thing!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AduroT wrote:
The comics recentlyish explained that all the DC reboots were caused by Doctor Manhattan screwing with the timeline and doing little experiments. “What happens if I move this lantern six inches to the left?”

Introducing Watchmen into stupid continuity gak.
I need a barf emoji.

Doomsday Clock is actually a pretty good story with some interesting meta-commentary on comics. It's a shame to overlook work like that because of handwringing about what continuity 'should' be.

 gorgon wrote:
what continuity 'should' be.

Continuity should not exist between two different authors, let alone, what, hundreds.

Exception of course when the original authors are just inviting other people to do, under supervision, guest appearances, like in Donjon. But I don't think Donjon was even translated in English so…