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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 23, 2022 3:43:40 GMT -5
(...) When I checked Angar's details before writing this, I was surprised to learn he was created by Steve Gerber, who I've always thought of a writer who was largely sympathetic to the counterculture. I think he was for the most part, he just didn't have an uncritical stance on it. I also don't think he felt like he was part of it, in contrast to some of his fellow Marvel scribes from that period like, e.g., Englehart, Starlin or McGregor (many are surprised to learn that Gerber never, ever took drugs - unless you count smoking cigarettes). Howard the Duck is kind of how he saw himself. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 23, 2022 7:55:24 GMT -5
Most of the mobsters/gangsters-type villains as portrayed in comics have very little in common with what remains of the Mob these days, more inspired by the various characters in movies like the Godfather or film noire. Similar with bank robbers (though it may be different in the US, but most banks over here have no cash money on premise). Yes. It’s different here. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2022 8:27:11 GMT -5
Banks near where I live don’t have cash - because they’re all closed. Okay, there’s one - and some ATMs that charge you to withdraw money. But banks long ago stopped caring about customers. I had to drive a neighbour, who is disabled, out of the suburbs so she could pay a cheque in. Her bank had closed down and you can only pay a cheque in to the bank you bank with.
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Post by james on Jun 23, 2022 9:33:54 GMT -5
I can’t name too many female villains in the 60’s or 70’s. But when I think back I always remember the female villains being strong and taking no crap while the heroes (Wasp, Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl) being very timid. It was as if being strong etc. = being evil/a bitch. Enchantress is an example of a very strong woman but she was a villain. More recently, in John Byrne’s run on both West Coast Avengers, and FF Sue and Wanda turned evil had their minds messed with to be strong characters. Am I wrong?
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Post by badwolf on Jun 23, 2022 9:39:45 GMT -5
I can’t name too many female villains in the 60’s or 70’s. But when I think back I always remember the female villains being strong and taking no crap while the heroes (Wasp, Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl) being very timid. It was as if being strong etc. = being evil/a bitch. Enchantress is an example of a very strong woman but she was a villain. More recently, in John Byrne’s run on both West Coast Avengers, and FF Sue and Wanda turned evil had their minds messed with to be strong characters. Am I wrong? Yes. They were already strong characters. Susan was never timid under Byrne. I think the difference you are noticing is that villains will do anything, while heroes have ethics and restraint.
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Post by foxley on Jun 23, 2022 10:00:07 GMT -5
I can’t name too many female villains in the 60’s or 70’s. But when I think back I always remember the female villains being strong and taking no crap while the heroes (Wasp, Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl) being very timid. It was as if being strong etc. = being evil/a bitch. Enchantress is an example of a very strong woman but she was a villain. More recently, in John Byrne’s run on both West Coast Avengers, and FF Sue and Wanda turned evil had their minds messed with to be strong characters. Am I wrong? Yes. They were already strong characters. Susan was never timid under Byrne. I think the difference you are noticing is that villains will do anything, while heroes have ethics and restraint.
I'll take your word for it. I've never been a FF, but I have seen a lot of panels of Sue swooning and saying stuff like "Oh, Reed. You're so manly. Tell me again to clean quietly like a good little woman."
(Paraphrased.  ) |
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Post by badwolf on Jun 23, 2022 10:06:21 GMT -5
Yes. They were already strong characters. Susan was never timid under Byrne. I think the difference you are noticing is that villains will do anything, while heroes have ethics and restraint.
I'll take your word for it. I've never been a FF, but I have seen a lot of panels of Sue swooning and saying stuff like "Oh, Reed. You're so manly. Tell me again to clean quietly like a good little woman."
(Paraphrased.  ) Wha-
Maybe in early Lee & Kirby. The Malice incident occurred about halfway through his run. I can guarantee that even before that she never swooned. Give it a try--you'll be very surprised.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 23, 2022 10:22:50 GMT -5
Most of the mobsters/gangsters-type villains as portrayed in comics have very little in common with what remains of the Mob these days, more inspired by the various characters in movies like the Godfather or film noire. Similar with bank robbers (though it may be different in the US, but most banks over here have no cash money on premise). I decided to double-check this with a buddy of mine who is a bank manager to be sure I was right. How much cash a branch has depends on its volume of business but it's almost never under $125,000 and can be up to well over $500K. What is the point of a bank without money? |
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Post by james on Jun 23, 2022 10:27:27 GMT -5
Wha-
Maybe in early Lee & Kirby. The Malice incident occurred about halfway through his run. I can guarantee that even before that she never swooned. Give it a try--you'll be very surprised.
I I was thinking Kirby/Lee era for most of the books. of course Byrne era was Much later and I do agree Sue did not swoon over Reed. And yes many parts of later Avengers Wanda was not taking any shit from anyone. So. Disregard my Byrne comments. |
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Post by tarkintino on Jun 23, 2022 13:24:03 GMT -5
I would say the evolved animal antagonists of Kamandi were of the time of their debut (early 1970s), when the influential Planet of the Apes franchise was a pop culture phenomenon. I always considered them a nod to Kirby's love of sci-fi and things like Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau. Marvel already has the Ani-Men appear as villains (in Daredevil initially) long before POTA was a cultural phenomenon and always saw Kamandi as stemming from that lineage and not a reaction to something new at the time it was published. -M Wells' story could have been an inspiration, but the uniformed, armed talking animal groups of Kamandi--and at the time the series was launched just look as strongly influenced by Planet of the Apes, and theoretically, if POTA never existed, you have to wonder id Kamandi would have been a very different title. |
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Post by Dizzy D on Jun 23, 2022 13:52:24 GMT -5
Most of the mobsters/gangsters-type villains as portrayed in comics have very little in common with what remains of the Mob these days, more inspired by the various characters in movies like the Godfather or film noire. Similar with bank robbers (though it may be different in the US, but most banks over here have no cash money on premise). I decided to double-check this with a buddy of mine who is a bank manager to be sure I was right. How much cash a branch has depends on its volume of business but it's almost never under $125,000 and can be up to well over $500K. What is the point of a bank without money?
Over here just about all transactions are digital and Corona accelerated that even more.
So a bank is a place to open and close accounts, get a mortgage, talk about investments, retirement funds, debts etc. over here. I don't think I've handled any cash money in the past 3 or so years and even pre-Corona I was one of the rare few that still paid with cash for things. My father does volunteer stuff for a local church and he was complaining that depositing cash at the local bank had become impossible.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2022 14:25:45 GMT -5
I always considered them a nod to Kirby's love of sci-fi and things like Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau. Marvel already has the Ani-Men appear as villains (in Daredevil initially) long before POTA was a cultural phenomenon and always saw Kamandi as stemming from that lineage and not a reaction to something new at the time it was published. -M Wells' story could have been an inspiration, but the uniformed, armed talking animal groups of Kamandi--and at the time the series was launched just look as strongly influenced by Planet of the Apes, and theoretically, if POTA never existed, you have to wonder id Kamandi would have been a very different title. Kirby was a conduit to the comics page of the vast amount of sci-fi he consumed in all mediums. It's been said his studio was filled as much with sci-fi volumes as with art supplies. Kirby was a sponge, absorbing all that stuff and then synthesizing it all into his particular Kirby vision of comic storytelling. Some of it was a reflection of the influences he consumed, some of it was well ahead of its time presgaing sci-fi elements in other mediums, but all of it was synthesized through the Kirby lens to be something different that a simple pastiche or plantation of ideas from one medium to another. Sure Kamandi would have been a different title without POTA, but Kamandi would have been a different tile if someone other than Kirby had been launching it as well. You only have to look a couple years ahead at the 2001 series to see how different a sci fi property would look when filtered through the Kirby lens. That series would not have existed without the cultural cachet 2001 carried at the time, but if it had been someone other than Kirby doing it, it would have been a vastly different kind of series even if it was borrowing form the same source. POTA may have been the reason the series got the greenlight to be published by DC, but POTA wasn't the primary reason the series came out as it did, it certainly was one of the ingredients, but it was the Kirby creation engine fueled by the long lineage of many sci-fi sources (plus Kirby's life experiences-as a street kid, as a WWII soldier, as a professional artist, as a lifelong fan of imaginary stories and many other things) that made the Kamandi stories that appeared on the page what it was. And that totality of the Kirby creation engine was not something of a particular time or cultural phenomenon, it was something greater than the sum of its parts. Putting that engine to work on a POTA inspired series was an editorial decision and an example of chasing trends that is woven into the DNA of the comics industry since its inception (there wouldn't be super-hero comics other than Superman if it wasn't), but the animal men antagonists and allies in it were not simple POTA pastiches that could only have been created in that particular timeframe and did not have resonate only to audiences in the context of that moment (i.e. something of that time). -M |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 23, 2022 17:15:07 GMT -5
Kirby laid the groundwork for the Kamandi concept back in 1966 with the first High Evolutionary story in Thor two years before PotA first hit the screens (though he may have read Boule's 1963 novel), and that wasn't the first time human/animalhybrids appeared in his work. Assuming DC greenlit it anyway, the book may well have come out pretty much the same whether PotA existed it or not. It was one of those tropes, like mankind caught between warring factions of gods or superhumans, that was a constant throughout his career.
Cei-U!
I summon the New-Men!
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 23, 2022 17:21:52 GMT -5
Kirby laid the groundwork for the Kamandi concept back in 1966 with the first High Evolutionary story in Thor two years before PotA first hit the screens (though he may have read Boule's 1963 novel), and that wasn't the first time human/animalhybrids appeared in his work. Assuming DC greenlit it anyway, the book may well have come out pretty much the same whether PotA existed it or not. It was one of those tropes, like mankind caught between warring factions of gods or superhumans, that was a constant throughout his career. Cei-U! I summon the New-Men! Even before that. Kirby and Simon had a talking animal story in 1957 that was reminiscent of what he would do in Kamandi.
It's more like he used the POTA references to grab the audience and then tell the stories he wanted to.
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Post by commond on Jun 23, 2022 19:22:08 GMT -5
Kamandi wasn't a book that Kirby wanted to do, so I don't see how it could have existed without Planet of the Apes. That's not to say that Kamandi didn't contain plenty of Kirby ideas, but didn't he pitch it for someone else to write and draw? The story I've always heard is that Infantino cancelled Forever People so that Kirby was free to do Kamandi. Legend also has it that the splash page with the Statue of Liberty was included at Infantino's insistence and that Kirby didn't want to do it because it was such a blatant copy. Kirby's connection to Planet of the Apes didn't end with Kamandi, either, as he later pitched an idea for an animated POTA series at Ruby-Spears.
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