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Post by beccabear67 on Oct 30, 2018 23:03:47 GMT -5
I was thinking about how Marvel's The Avengers comic in late 1979/early 1980 featured Pittsburgh; a couple of the earliest issues I bought actually. This could've been the first time I saw a city other than NYC in a comic (not counting the fictional DC ones) and I thought it was a great idea for Marvel to get readers in other parts involved like that... it even mentioned a local club in the comic (or subsequent one) and a fan named Ben Poindexter (going on memory being too lazy to go up two flights of stairs just to check my Avengers out, hope I got his name right)...  I was wondering what others' favorites among cities featured in particular stories in that same way might be. And if where you live was featured if you remember any local reaction. I had a couple of golden age Captain Marvels that featured cities, one memorably featured St. Louis and showed the arch which impressed me as having been erected by the mid-1940s. There was an Archie that featured Vancouver's Expo 86 circa 1986 that got a little bit of attention from the other media in this area. I posted that cover in the recent Archie cover contest thread here. Also the two X-Men comics introducing Alpha Flight set in Calgary made a big impression on me, but as back-issues. If you could have one character have a story take place in your city/town who would you hope for? |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Oct 31, 2018 4:09:17 GMT -5
It's easier to find stories set in actual non-NY cities in Marvel books, because DC had so many fictional ones. And there were some Marvel superhero titles set in other cities, most notably Los Angeles for the Champions, Chicago for the very short-lived Cat series and, for a time, San Francisco for Daredevil; Howard the Duck was sort of based in Cleveland, although he tended to move around a bit like the Hulk. The setting for that Avengers story, by the way, may have been influenced by EiC Jim Shooter, who was originally from Pittsburgh. And speaking of St. Louis, there was also a Fantastic Four 2-parter set there, which even featured the Gateway Arch one of the covers:  (That's another one that may have been influenced by the fact that writer Roy Thomas originally hailed from St. Louis.) One that sticks in my memory is an issue of the Hulk set in Berkeley (CA), where I later ended up going to college:  Since I grew up in Oregon about 30 miles south of Portland, there were never any comic book stories back then set anywhere nearby (I think my little head would have exploded if a superhero story had been set in Portland...) |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2018 4:17:01 GMT -5
Marvel did a thing with Godzilla destroying the Space Needle in Seattle ...  I don't know what the inspiration to do this story and/or cover ... but it was cool to see this. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Oct 31, 2018 4:23:39 GMT -5
Yeah, Godzilla moved around quite a bit; he also trashed the strip in Las Vegas and caused the city to get flooded (because he punched a hole in the Hoover Dam or something, can't remember, it's been ages since I had that comic):  |
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Post by The Captain on Oct 31, 2018 8:01:53 GMT -5
Spider-Woman was based in Los Angeles, as were the West Coast Avengers.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Oct 31, 2018 8:20:13 GMT -5
DC had two big exceptions to the fake city rule which jump to mind immediately: the post-crisis Wonder Woman series by Perez was set in Boston, while Mike Grell's Green Arrow was set in Seattle.
Archie is big in Canada, which might explain why they seemed to visit there pretty regularly. Besides the Vancouver Expo, they also visited the Calgary Stampede at one point (the event, not the football team). And they visited Canada on other occasions as well, usually tied to events, but not always; if I remember right, there was a Jughead storyline where he visited an uncle who lived in Toronto. etc.
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Post by MDG on Oct 31, 2018 8:35:40 GMT -5
Phil Foglio set his Stanley and his Monster series in "Hartsdale", the name of the town where he and I grew up (I knew him slightly from a library-based club). I never read the series to see if the comic version used anything local, like "America's largest and oldest pet cemetery" (wikipedia).
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Post by Prince Hal on Oct 31, 2018 9:04:02 GMT -5
Then there were the annual Hallowe'en trips to Rutland, Vermont, home of legendary comics fan Tom Fagan and the Rutland Hallowe'en Parade. The first of these visits by superheroes to the small town in central Vermont took place in Avengers, but for me the most famous Rutland story appeared here:  |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Oct 31, 2018 9:18:44 GMT -5
Spider-Man is quite the globetrotter. Knees up in London:  Sightseeing in Montreal:  Out to 'Frisco where Kane and Romita make Jack Russell scarier.  Innumerable others. We moved around a lot when I was a little kid, about once a year or so and always a great distance. It had the potential to be troublesome for me, being wrenched away from friends and teachers again and again. One of the things that helped it not be traumatic was seeing Spider-Man travel here and there rather routinely in the comics, as well as seeing him waiting for me on a spinner rack in my new (albeit temporary) home. There's no question that I would choose Spidey as the star of a story taking place in my hometown. However, as I live in extreme North Georgia, I don't expect that story would be particularly good. More like "Spider-Man visits Hee-Haw." |
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 31, 2018 10:28:17 GMT -5
It's easier to find stories set in actual non-NY cities in Marvel books, because DC had so many fictional ones. And there were some Marvel superhero titles set in other cities, most notably Los Angeles for the Champions, Chicago for the very short-lived Cat series and, for a time, San Francisco for Daredevil; Howard the Duck was sort of based in Cleveland, although he tended to move around a bit like the Hulk. The setting for that Avengers story, by the way, may have been influenced by EiC Jim Shooter, who was originally from Pittsburgh. And speaking of St. Louis, there was also a Fantastic Four 2-parter set there, which even featured the Gateway Arch one of the covers: (That's another one that may have been influenced by the fact that writer Roy Thomas originally hailed from St. Louis.) One that sticks in my memory is an issue of the Hulk set in Berkeley (CA), where I later ended up going to college: Since I grew up in Oregon about 30 miles south of Portland, there were never any comic book stories back then set anywhere nearby (I think my little head would have exploded if a superhero story had been set in Portland...) Bit of artistic license with the Arch there. There aren't any highrise buildings that close to it; there's a park surrounding it. You also can't stick your head out the observation windows (they are are also more of a rectangle, with wider width than height). Captain Marvel visited Kansas City, which was a big deal fo E Nelson Bridwell, as I recall reading. If memory serves, Bridwell sort of revisited that, when he was writing the DC series. I believe he had Billy and Uncle Dudley (standing in for Mentor) visit several actual cities in the later days of the Shazam comic, when the tv series was on and the comic followed suit with Billy and Dudley travelling in a Winnebago. New Teen Titans was set in New York and real cities became more common in the 80s. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2018 11:01:30 GMT -5
DC had two big exceptions to the fake city rule which jump to mind immediately: the post-crisis Wonder Woman series by Perez was set in Boston, while Mike Grell's Green Arrow was set in Seattle. Archie is big in Canada, which might explain why they seemed to visit there pretty regularly. Besides the Vancouver Expo, they also visited the Calgary Stampede at one point (the event, not the football team). And they visited Canada on other occasions as well, usually tied to events, but not always; if I remember right, there was a Jughead storyline where he visited an uncle who lived in Toronto. etc. Also, Black Canary was in Seattle too ... I'm a bit surprised that you did not mentioned this ...  |
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Post by beccabear67 on Oct 31, 2018 12:17:20 GMT -5
These other cities make for great covers! I wish I had gone beyond a back issue of Godzilla #1 now. I wonder if there was a thought that those areas might order more or sell more copies at least? I remember Spider-Woman moving to San Francisco and liking that as I knew of some of the areas... usually I found L.A. portrayed pretty generically (The Rocketeer made it historically fascinating). I had heard through the media about Green Arrow being set in Seattle but I had pretty much stopped buying super comics by that point (and DC had incurred my wrath by putting a dead Supergirl on a couple of covers, also killing Barry Allen, I became an anti-Crisis holdout from #7 of that and the Legion comic onward). Oh yeah, there was also that X-Men At The State Fair Of Texas comic, that must've been a big deal for Texans. Came with the Dallas Morning News newspaper if I remember correctly. I remember a shop getting in a small number and running a lottery where some people didn't get one but thanks to the lucky hat draw I got one.  Thanks for the responses and hoping for more! I remember an iron Man set in Hong Kong too which was pretty cool. Maybe it's from being a Carl Barks fan and liking stories where Donald Duck would venture far from Duckberg, Calisota... imagine actually learning something from comic books!  |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Oct 31, 2018 12:28:02 GMT -5
Archie comics used to do this thing fairly regularly where someone clearly knew the Archie publishers in real life, so Archie would write a story where the gang went to visit these people in whatever setting they were from. In one story, they went to the Bronx Zoo, in another it was a comic book convention (San Diego I think), I believe the Calgray Stampede story was like this where there were real people written into the story. Usually they were presented as friends of Mr. Lodge, who would fly the gang to wherever the story was set in order to meet these friends of the publisher.
At one point, the gang also visited Archie Comics headquarters in Mamaroneck, New York, and interacted with their own creative teams. That was a weird one!
When Veronica got her own series in the late 80's, for a while each issue was her jet-setting to some new city, like Paris.
Archie also did a couple World Tour stories, the most recent being a four-part battle of the bands storyline around Archie #650 where the Archies went on tour with the Bingos, the Mad House Glads, and Josie and the Pussycats, visiting places like Mumbai.
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Post by MDG on Oct 31, 2018 13:01:35 GMT -5
When Veronica got her own series in the late 80's, for a while each issue was her jet-setting to some new city, like Paris. In the 60s, Dennis the Menace would have "vacation" specials, highlighting places like Hawaii and the Grand Canyon. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Oct 31, 2018 13:11:54 GMT -5
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