Marvel Comics General

As expected from the minds that conceptualized Peter Parker in response to Batman's ever expanding roster of Robins.

Part of the reason why Spider-Man was so unusual when he was created was that he was a teenaged superhero who wasn't an older hero's sidekick. It makes sense that Marvel has generally chosen to reject the 'kid sidekick' concept afterwards, and create 'kid heroes' who either get a solo book (Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Ironheart), are in a team with peers of their age (Power Pack, New Mutants, Runaways, New Warriors), or are in a non-duo team of mixed ages (X-Men).

'd, kind of.

That is correct. Unless you want to count the original Batgirl (Bette Kane), created in the '50s, as another 'Robin'. I believe the second, more famous Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) didn't appear until the late '60s.

Ooh, good point.

Edited by ClancyGardener on Apr 29th 2024 at 12:26:06 PM

Trimming the hedges, one trope at a time.

I'm pretty sure only Dick existed when Spidey was created. Jason first appeared in 1983.

Edited by lbssb on Apr 29th 2024 at 3:11:38 PM

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When the Fantastic Four started, Johnny was Peter’s age. So you had a teen, his young adult sister, and two college graduates who were also veterans of war

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The closest thing to a traditional teen sidekick would be, like, Rick Jones, but I guess we don't count him for the same reason we don't count Jimmy Olsen.

They were all kinda disappointing, NGL.

Their biggest issues amounted to feeling like they were neither Marvel stories or Zombie stories.

#IceBearForPresident

The first Marvel Zombies is pretty good. The ones that came after are much more... varied in quality. They kinda ran the concept into the ground after a point and than just kept going.

That said, there is a potential Bad Future where Thanos leads an army of them and kills Thor.

Disgusted, but not surprised

I wonder if that particular plot thread - which kinda got lost in the shuffle of Cates run going wrong if I remember right - is what Al Ewing is building to in Immortal Thor, what with the subplot about Odin and Skurge trying to prevent a prophecy about Thor's death.

We might be following up on that.

The ending of the recent Thanos mini had Thanos trapping Death in a black crystal, similar to the one he has shown in the prophecy.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

It's more so that after Batman got Robin, Aquaman got Aqualad, Flash got Kid Flash Captain Marvel got Captain Marvel Junior, Captain America got Buckey, The Human Torch got...his name escapes me, but they were all over the place.

Steve Ditko then reworked Jack Kirby's rejected Spider-Man pitch not as a Beetle type vigilante but as Spider Queen-Blue Demon hybrid, if Spider Queen and Blue Demon were angry teenagers.

The funniest one for me has always been Captain Marvel Junior, since Captain Marvel was already a kid. That and Captain Marvel ended up taking the concept so far he started his own trope, the "super hero family", that was then copied by both Batman and Spider-Man. Batman more immediately and more obviously. Spider-Man more slowly. There was a Spider-Woman, but she initially had nothing to do with him. There was a Madame Web. There was a Spider-Girl, but she was a long running low selling fan fic. There were a bunch of symbiotes, and clones, who were mostly villains but they were nonetheless around. There was that weird initiative to remake every Marvel character as a teenage girl, which lead to another Spider-GirlArana. Then Marvel was like you know what, forget what Avery wrote. She's Spider-Girl, she has direct ties to two Spider-Women(the European one and Arachne), we're bringing Kaine back, Flash is Venom, Toxin is back as Eddie, Ben Riley is back, the spider that bit Peter is back, what other excuse can we use to introduce another spider character? Here's Silk, the sheltered recluse spider!

Human Torch’s sidekick was Toro

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You'd think I'd be able to remember four letters.

Anyway, they did make Arana Miss Marvel's kid sidekick during Civil War and the resulting "Lightning Storm" arc after the pro registration side won and the regular soldiers and agents initially assigned to Carol Danvers just weren't cutting it. The entire point of Miss Marvel and Arana seemed to be showcasing why teen sidekicks were a bad thing though. I know Miss Marvel was a proregistration book, and the registration side won, but as far as I can tell Gil's arguments against his daughter having to register and Carol/SHIELD/Initiative causing her to get harmed far more than Anya ever would have without them in her life were never proven wrong. The only thing in Carol's favor was that Anya started calling Carol "mom", and even that was eventually undermined when it became clear Carol didn't want to be Anya's Parental Substitute.

Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on Apr 29th 2024 at 8:24:16 AM

Hm. Carol probably doesn’t have positive associations with being a mother. Given events.

I don’t know if any future timeline story has given her children.

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Part of why Carol and Jess are such good friends is that both are the exact opposite of mother material. And I maintain that remains true even now that Jess is a mom herself.

Edited by immortaleditor on Apr 29th 2024 at 6:18:05 AM

I can relate to being "adopted" by children who have lost their parents. I couldn't at the time the comic book came out, but I have since learned firsthand that it does happen. At the time I didn't like the story development, and not just because I already didn't care for Tony Stark becoming Peter Parker's "dad". I'm not as harsh towards it now, but you're right about Carol not coming off as motherly.

I imagine I'd still reject that plot development altogether, but if I for some reason did write it I'd have given it a happy ending. Getting the Machineman-Sleepwalker-Arana trio out of it was a net positive though.

Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on Apr 29th 2024 at 9:03:57 AM

She had a daughter with Cap while possessing Rogue in What If #114.

Blood Hunt is out and the first issue's big twist is that the vampire conspiracy is being led by Blade, who arranges an ambush for the Avengers and stabs Doctor Strange In the Back as he tries to destroy the vampires via the Montesi Formula.

Marvel certainly isn't running away from those shock value accusations.

Admittedly Doctor Strange might be the first character one needs to get rid of for a vampire takeover to work, and Blade is a strong contender for number three after Monica Rambeau, but there were other ways to get there.

Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on May 1st 2024 at 7:52:21 AM

I wonder if this has anything to do with Blade’s recent solo where he leaned hard into his vampire side to get strong enough to beat an apocalypse monster lady.

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Is anyone else getting the impression that Marvel Unlimited is getting a little bit sloppy?

We've had "remove this first page before publishing" moments, several vertically scrolling Infinity Comics loaded in horizontal comic page format rather than Infinite Canvas, issues released and then pulled, and regular cases of "Loading Error - 0" when something new is listed as released on the main screen but not actually there yet...

Edited by Mrph1 on May 1st 2024 at 3:00:27 PM

I've had a couple cases where books were accidentally released on unlimited early and then removed and now they're stuck in the library on the app because the remove library button isn't available if the issue isn't public.

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New Immortal Thor

So Roxxon Thor was a wash but that was all as planned. Thor managed to feel his intelligence decrease by the bad writing so he instead embraces the parody and keeps all the bad one-liners in his head as he overpowers Roxxon Thor who is revealed to be the Keep. Amora Skurge reveal their true plan, get Thor so aggressive he winds up executing Roxxon Thor in front of a whole audience of people. Thor tries to wave it off as the Keep not being real but Roxxon Thor's corpse doesn't go away leading people to believe Thor just killed someone.

And finally Amora and Skurge backstab Dario, Skurge planting his axe in his back as Amora calls for security on the Roxxon CEO's murder. Thor then summons his axe where its revealed that Skurge killed Dario with Tormod, leaving Thor holding a bloody axe to the sight of the crowd gathered.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

And Amora is now head of Roxxon.

Damn, Amora took a level in good schemes

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