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Post by berkley on Oct 18, 2020 17:22:51 GMT -5
I've always thought Dormammu could and should have been used more effectively: the Ditko stories that introducde the character are closest to realising the potential but even then there were a few mis-steps, as I see them - most obviously the "pincers of power" episode in which Dr. Strange defeats him in physical combat, which detracted from the aura of mystery and power that had been so effectively built up in the preceding instalments of that ong story (still of of the greatest Dr. Strange stories IMO). And then someone - was it Roy Thomas? - giving Dormammu and Umar an "origin story" that, again, accompished nothing except to make the characters feel smaller, less mysterious, more mundane. But superhero writers can never resist trying to fill in the blanks. I think their background should have been left as vague as possible, with just enough hints given to enhance the feeling that they are in some sense unfathomable, primal forces that are extremely dangerous to deal with or even to speak of (as was established in that first introductory Dr. Strange epic). "The Dread Dormammu" should never be reduced to just a fancy title, the character should always be written in such a way that that phrase feels believable to the reader. That was Roger Stern in Dr. Strange (1974 series) #71. While I'm normally pretty enamored of Stern's Strange, I have to agree that giving Dormammu and Umar an origin--especially one revealing they began as ordinary (albeit extradimensional) humans--was a bad idea.
Cei-U! I summon one of Rog's rare misfires!
Yup - just like it was a bad idea when Kirby and/or Stan gave a similarly mundane, mortal origin for Galactus and arguably even the Surfer, or more recently when something along the same lines was done with Darkseid, IIRC from previews at the time. It can probably be thought of as a sub-division within the broader superhero trope of deflating or degrading characters seen as in any way "above" the ordinary run of mortals, super-powered or not.
And also related to the urge to "humanise" characters seen as difficult for readers to identify with - like when they give Thena a husband and children, or keep returning to the romantic relationship with Kro that she rejected in Kirby's original. Perhaps the Surfer belongs in this category as well.
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 18, 2020 19:43:17 GMT -5
I kinda like the pseudo-messianic origin Lee and Buscema worked out for the Surfer but, yeah, Galactus' origin truly diminished the awe and mystery that should surround the character. Byrne's retcon helped a little, but it remains a bad idea. Of course, I generally hate "cosmic" characters so...
Cei-U! I summon the ambivalence!
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Post by berkley on Oct 18, 2020 20:40:15 GMT -5
I kinda like the pseudo-messianic origin Lee and Buscema worked out for the Surfer but, yeah, Galactus' origin truly diminished the awe and mystery that should surround the character. Byrne's retcon helped a little, but it remains a bad idea. Of course, I generally hate "cosmic" characters so... Cei-U! I summon the ambivalence! Personally I think they can be great when the're utilised the way I think they should be - and for one thing, that means very sparingly. But when they're over-used, as they have been at Marvel (and I imagine probably at DC too, but I don't know as much about those), then, yeah, not so great.
Another pitfall, which might seem the opposite of what we've been talking about but is really just the other side of the same coin, is to turn them into power-fantasies themselves for fans to identify with - Marvel's Thanos being the prime example.
Tolkien's Sauron should be one of the models superhero writers look to in these cases: not in terms of individual characteristics but in terms of how the character is used: mostly kept in the background so that when it does make an appearance it's a very big deal. To varying degrees on both counts, obviously, depending on the particular circumstances. If your cosmic character isn't generating a sense of awe, then it ain't all that "cosmic", in my book.
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Post by profh0011 on Oct 19, 2020 11:42:50 GMT -5
just like it was a bad idea when Kirby and/or Stan gave a similarly mundane, mortal origin for Galactus and arguably even the Surfer An outstandingly classic example of misguided writing.
Without any input from Kirby, SILVER SURFER #1 gave the Surfer an origin that actually managed to COMPLETELY CONTRADICT everything about his character and personality that had been published up to that point!
A few years ago, a rumor came out that there were 3 different writers-- all uncredited-- who actually did the stories in that run of SILVER SURFER: Roy Thomas, Denny O'Neil & Archie Goodwin. As soon as I read that, I found it very believable. Roy's work was always overly-serious and pretentious; O'Neil's was the same, but if anything, even more downbeat and depressing (that pretty much sums up that entire run). Only Goodwin was a really decent writer... and my suspicion was, that he did the ONE issue that dealt heavily with science-fiction concepts, as it seemed better than the rest. (#6: "Worlds Without End")
In a more subtle and insidious way... Kirby was writing an origin for Galactus to appear in THOR... but somewhere along the way, the pages he did were published completely out of sequence, spread out over several issues, and with the dialogue totally altering everything Kirby had done when he wrote the story originally.
This is what happens when you have one guy doing the writing... and ANOTHER guy deliberately IGNORING everything the 1st guy did, altering the published work so it bears almost no resemblence to what the actual writer had intended.
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Post by Batflunkie on Oct 19, 2020 11:55:57 GMT -5
I have a few: Speedball, Blue Devil, and Howard The Duck
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2020 17:40:13 GMT -5
Well, I think Gerber certainly got Howard the Duck right, don't know the other two.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 19, 2020 17:52:48 GMT -5
I have a few: Speedball, Blue Devil, and Howard The Duck Two out of three of those are just wrong. I'm not aware I've ever read anything with Speedball in it. I'm not sure how Gerber failed to use Howard correctly. Or Mishkin & Cohn on Blue Devil, though it lost something when Paris Cullins left...and I haven't read it in 35 years.
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2020 17:55:35 GMT -5
just like it was a bad idea when Kirby and/or Stan gave a similarly mundane, mortal origin for Galactus and arguably even the Surfer An outstandingly classic example of misguided writing.
Without any input from Kirby, SILVER SURFER #1 gave the Surfer an origin that actually managed to COMPLETELY CONTRADICT everything about his character and personality that had been published up to that point!
A few years ago, a rumor came out that there were 3 different writers-- all uncredited-- who actually did the stories in that run of SILVER SURFER: Roy Thomas, Denny O'Neil & Archie Goodwin. As soon as I read that, I found it very believable. Roy's work was always overly-serious and pretentious; O'Neil's was the same, but if anything, even more downbeat and depressing (that pretty much sums up that entire run). Only Goodwin was a really decent writer... and my suspicion was, that he did the ONE issue that dealt heavily with science-fiction concepts, as it seemed better than the rest. (#6: "Worlds Without End")
In a more subtle and insidious way... Kirby was writing an origin for Galactus to appear in THOR... but somewhere along the way, the pages he did were published completely out of sequence, spread out over several issues, and with the dialogue totally altering everything Kirby had done when he wrote the story originally.
This is what happens when you have one guy doing the writing... and ANOTHER guy deliberately IGNORING everything the 1st guy did, altering the published work so it bears almost no resemblence to what the actual writer had intended.
Interesting - I remember an article in the Kirby Collector that tried to reconstruct Kirby's original intentions for the Surfer - have they ever done something similar with that Galactus origin story in Thor? I agree that it's always seemed an oddly un-Kirby-like thing to do with the character but I've always just written it off as a momentary lapse in judgment. It would be fascinating to see what he actually had in mind at the time.
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Post by Batflunkie on Oct 19, 2020 17:58:52 GMT -5
I have a few: Speedball, Blue Devil, and Howard The Duck Two out of three of those are just wrong. I'm not aware I've ever read anything with Speedball in it. I'm not sure how Gerber failed to use Howard correctly. Or Mishkin & Cohn on Blue Devil, though it lost something when Paris Cullins left...and I haven't read it in 35 years. Well I meant after their initial run it seemed like it
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 19, 2020 18:08:17 GMT -5
Two out of three of those are just wrong. I'm not aware I've ever read anything with Speedball in it. I'm not sure how Gerber failed to use Howard correctly. Or Mishkin & Cohn on Blue Devil, though it lost something when Paris Cullins left...and I haven't read it in 35 years. Well I meant after their initial run it seemed like it Okay. I'd say that's probably fair.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 19, 2020 20:33:05 GMT -5
I don't love what they did with Speedball during the Initiative, but they certainly used him in a logical way that brought attention to a serious issue (Self-Harm). It worked reasonably well.
If only Marvel would let their character grow and change, where he could have come out of it the other side as a mature adult, instead of just resetting him back to his old persona in later appearance.
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2020 21:02:37 GMT -5
Well I meant after their initial run it seemed like it Okay. I'd say that's probably fair. If we're talking about everything done with HtD after Gerber then yes, I strongly agree. But that opens up a whole new category of characetrs that have never been used properly after a certain point in time or after a particular creator or specific run: which for me would mean things like the Eternals and (for the most part) the New Gods after Kirby, etc.
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Post by brutalis on Nov 29, 2021 13:41:48 GMT -5
A pair of Daredevil villains which never quite seemed to fulfill their potential is Stilt Man and Masked Marauder. I really like both and their concepts were basically broken down to one note powers/capabilities where that became their default storyline possibility. The Owl kind of falls into this along with the Gladiator and Man-Bull.
All these villains might have had much more done with them.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 29, 2021 23:18:54 GMT -5
A pair of Daredevil villains which never quite seemed to fulfill their potential is Stilt Man and Masked Marauder. I really like both and their concepts were basically broken down to one note powers/capabilities where that became their default storyline possibility. The Owl kind of falls into this along with the Gladiator and Man-Bull. All these villains might have had much more done with them. Masked marauder went to the stars and founded a cybernetic race...
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Post by berkley on Nov 30, 2021 1:11:40 GMT -5
Speaking of Daredevil, I've always thought the Plunderer should have been a much more effective character: reading the DD/Ka-Zar story in which he first appears, he made a very strong impression in those early scenes as the modern-day pirate captain and when they first meet Ka-Zar. But it was all downhill after that. As soon as they gave him a superhero-style costume he turned into just another run-of-the-mill bad guy, interchangable with a zillion others. But in those early panels he had personality.
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