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Post by electricmastro on Apr 24, 2020 12:15:45 GMT -5
The origin of Thin Man from Marvel Premiere #29 (April, 1976), possibly the first comic book hero who could morph/stretch his body:  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 24, 2020 13:12:58 GMT -5
^^ That Thin Man origin of Roy's shows him at his most lovably, enthusiastically OCD self.
First he has to refer not just to William Powell, the hero of the "Thin Man" movies, but Peter Lawford, who played Nick Charles in a short-lived TV series in the late 50s. Just in case someone was going to try to see if he'd not know about the TV show.
Then he pulls a Philip José Farmer and jams in Lost Horizon and Shangri-La, while also cramming in a note about Mystic #4 in case you were wondering if either the Chief of Elders or Bruce Dickson (unclear to whom he's referring) had ever shown up again.
I love it and hate it at the same time. Love the unmatched meticulous attention to detail, but hate that he can't not tell the reader about all the cool retcons, allusions, and links to popular culture.
This was the way with all his modern Golden Age stories. Better to let the reader either pick up on them as he reads, or be rewarded by giving the background in a text page; the unsubtle bits of information just overload and slow down the storytelling, and Roy winds up coming across (unfairly) as the kid who can't stop impressing everybody with his knowledge.
The danger when all of the references get slathered on and wedged into the story? (And maybe when you serve as your own editor?) You miss some of the details, like that the author of Lost Horizon is James Hilton.
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 24, 2020 14:00:42 GMT -5
I think Roy Thomas did an incredible job of reconciling the myriad of origins of the Superman-Batman team in World's Finest 271. It probably helps that Thomas' sources were other comics and not the diaries of the janitor of the 1939 World's Fair or whatever. Even though the pair met for the first time as kids on at least two occasions, and as adults somehow before that, Thomas wove everything everything together and even tossed the old Superman radio show into the mix to provide the Earth 2 versions of these characters with a first meeting to boot. Best of all, Thomas' story flows perfectly - an excellent illustration of the remarkable things you can do with history if you know what you're doing.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2020 14:08:04 GMT -5
As far as modern origins? Since it is hard creating a new idea (there is nothing new under the sun)... I like origins that mix together other heroes. XO Manowar has been described as Conan in Iron Man armor. Or a twist on an older hero like Prime being similar to Shazam Capt Marvel.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2020 14:11:17 GMT -5
And Roy Thomas made me dig out encyclopedias back then to read up on historical events in his titles about WWII. So yes comics for me were educational at times. They encouraged me to read a lot of other stuff too.
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 24, 2020 14:37:20 GMT -5
Hal Jordan and Steve Rogers' origins resonate with me the most because literally anybody could have gotten their powers/abilities but they were chosen because they loved their country and/or had the potential to overcome great fear
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Post by Batflunkie on Apr 24, 2020 14:38:49 GMT -5
As far as modern origins? Since it is hard creating a new idea (there is nothing new under the sun)... I like origins that mix together other heroes. XO Manowar has been described as Conan in Iron Man armor. Or a twist on an older hero like Prime being similar to Shazam Capt Marvel. I liked Prime a lot, but man those subplots of everyone thinking that Prime is a pedophile can get pretty old pretty quick |
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Post by electricmastro on Apr 24, 2020 15:12:06 GMT -5
^^ That Thin Man origin of Roy's shows him at his most lovably, enthusiastically OCD self. First he has to refer not just to William Powell, the hero of the "Thin Man" movies, but Peter Lawford, who played Nick Charles in a short-lived TV series in the late 50s. Just in case someone was going to try to see if he'd not know about the TV show. Then he pulls a Philip José Farmer and jams in Lost Horizon and Shangri-La, while also cramming in a note about Mystic #4 in case you were wondering if either the Chief of Elders or Bruce Dickson (unclear to whom he's referring) had ever shown up again. I love it and hate it at the same time. Love the unmatched meticulous attention to detail, but hate that he can't not tell the reader about all the cool retcons, allusions, and links to popular culture. This was the way with all his modern Golden Age stories. Better to let the reader either pick up on them as he reads, or be rewarded by giving the background in a text page; the unsubtle bits of information just overload and slow down the storytelling, and Roy winds up coming across (unfairly) as the kid who can't stop impressing everybody with his knowledge. The danger when all of the references get slathered on and wedged into the story? (And maybe when you serve as your own editor?) You miss some of the details, like that the author of Lost Horizon is James Hilton. I admit while Thomas can go overboard a bit sometimes, I still largely find his comic history-related riveting in a way that I feel is interesting with how I’m interesting in that sort of stuff to begin with, and can potentially enhance the story’s world building. And speaking of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, I imagine that was considerably inspirational for early superhero writers as well, with the idea of someone stumbling upon a hidden, mystical civilization, usually inhabited by lamas in Tibet, and that the character is taught their sacred ways, like Gary Preston as the Flame from The Flame #1 (Summer 1940, Fox Comics).  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 24, 2020 15:24:00 GMT -5
I admit while Thomas can go overboard a bit sometimes, I still largely find his comic history-related riveting in a way that I feel is interesting with how I’m interesting in that sort of stuff to begin with, and can potentially enhance the story’s world building. Agreed. Like any comics fan, I loved it, but as I said earlier, it's the way he did it at times that unfortunately interfered with his storytelling. I wish his incorporation of historical fact and popular culture could have been a tad subtler, that's all. Think of how Alan Moore did it in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell and Watchmen. |
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Post by brutalis on Apr 24, 2020 15:47:42 GMT -5
Compare historical inserts of comics between Thomas & Moore is apple's & oranges & impossible. Different times & different buyers & differences in what could or would draw in readers. Thomas was great for his day to include history/educate readers & still entertain with heroes/villains. If he didn't break omic book barriers with Conan & his WW II stuff Moore could never write what he did.
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 24, 2020 17:05:09 GMT -5
Compare historical inserts of comics between Thomas & Moore is apple's & oranges & impossible. Different times & different buyers & differences in what could or would draw in readers. Thomas was great for his day to include history/educate readers & still entertain with heroes/villains. If he didn't break omic book barriers with Conan & his WW II stuff Moore could never write what he did. Okay. One more time. I LIKED what Roy did. I LOVE history. I LOVED that he tied together the various ages. That is GOOD, AFAIC. I just said that I wish he would have done more of it on text pages instead of jamming it into every panel of every page. His stories would have flowed better. First rule of writing: Show, don't tell. That is all.  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 24, 2020 17:39:31 GMT -5
^^ That Thin Man origin of Roy's shows him at his most lovably, enthusiastically OCD self. First he has to refer not just to William Powell, the hero of the "Thin Man" movies, but Peter Lawford, who played Nick Charles in a short-lived TV series in the late 50s. Just in case someone was going to try to see if he'd not know about the TV show. Then he pulls a Philip José Farmer and jams in Lost Horizon and Shangri-La, while also cramming in a note about Mystic #4 in case you were wondering if either the Chief of Elders or Bruce Dickson (unclear to whom he's referring) had ever shown up again. I love it and hate it at the same time. Love the unmatched meticulous attention to detail, but hate that he can't not tell the reader about all the cool retcons, allusions, and links to popular culture. This was the way with all his modern Golden Age stories. Better to let the reader either pick up on them as he reads, or be rewarded by giving the background in a text page; the unsubtle bits of information just overload and slow down the storytelling, and Roy winds up coming across (unfairly) as the kid who can't stop impressing everybody with his knowledge. The danger when all of the references get slathered on and wedged into the story? (And maybe when you serve as your own editor?) You miss some of the details, like that the author of Lost Horizon is James Hilton. At least he didn't say it was Conrad Hilton. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 24, 2020 17:47:11 GMT -5
I think Roy was fine until he was editing his own stuff and kind of lost sight of how much time he was spending recapping a Golden Age story, leaving only a few pages for the modern story that was supposed to be linked to it. 2 p-4 pages was probably best; but, some of his later Infinity Inc stuff had over half the comic taken up by the Golden Age component. I suspect it reflected his frustrations (by that point) and probably burn out, as that was late in his tenure at DC.
Roy made good use of history, in his retro comics; I think sometimes he tried to cram too much reference in there. Roy did send you to the encyclopedias and the library, which is a good thing. These days, about the only reference I see is a link to a questionable wikipedia page.
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Post by profh0011 on Apr 24, 2020 18:01:54 GMT -5
Depending on the type of story one wants to tell, I also greatly enjoy characters without an origin. Conan: a yokel who wanted to leave his boring hometown and see the big cities. As a kid, I would rarely start at the beginning of anything. Much later, something that really would bug me is when some series would focus on "THE ORIGIN" almost to the exclusion of telling any other good stories. Hitting readers or viewers) over the head with "THE ORIGIN!!!" to the point where some writers were obsessed with it and didn't want to even let characters ever get past it and grow and evolve.
Then of course there was movies or TV series where they INSISTED on spending far too much time on "THE ORIGIN!" Even when-- using the above example-- THERE WASN'T one.
Two movies really come to mind, but in this case, I'll just focus on one... John Milius' "CONAN THE BARBARIAN", a film that has always disappointed me on virtually every possible level. But the main thing has to be how the entire "first" movie focuses so much on a horrific, downbeat origin that leads to a "revenge" plot, which, simply, NEVER existed for the character until that terribly-misguided (and OVER-RATED, in my view) film was made.
And then I got even more annoyed with John Milius a few years ago, when I was reading some 1970s comics I had never read before... and there it was... the "origin" in that movie. STOLEN outright from an entirely different character. It wasn't Robert E. Howard or L. Sprague DeCamp or Roy Thomas or any of the "Conan" writers that film was stealing from... it was JACK KIRBY. NO S***.
Hollywood just can't stop stealing from this guy.
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Post by electricmastro on Apr 24, 2020 18:02:16 GMT -5
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