Of course, with the standard form DC and Marvel takes with their superhero comics, certain victories are hard to get. The basic model for the medium requires that supervillains don't really die, reform or are put away for life (if they do, they will be replaced by copycats or actual Legacy Character s) not because of bad writers or evil editors, but because tradition (and, it seems, the fans) says that they must remain so they can be reused.
When villains are allowed to be really villainous, no matter how hard the heroes are portrayed, this presents a problem because it seems they never get their comeuppance (especially if they are portrayed as Complete Monsters). It is not impossible to write such things well, but it is hard, and I sympathise with the writers if they dont succeed - writers who can use one-shot villains more efficiently (you can do that in standard superhero comics as well, but they tend to either be bad or forgotten, or good and reused) have an easier time.
In other words, it might be one of the bugs that comes with the system and you have to work around, but that wont go away.
Erik
edited 3rd Nov '10 8:43:39 AM by ErikS
"We don't have any such mandate in this day and age, so at best, we'll simply end up creating a new Bronze Age. At worse, we'll Flanderize what the Silver Age was meant to represent into shallow Shout Outs and Call Backs that make little more than a mockery of the original source material."
And both of those are good things, if you ask me. Bronze Age was awesome, and Silver Age was stupid waste of potential that does not deserve it's reputation.
I just joined the discussion, and I think that the marvel universe a tough universe to live in, but I dunno. I suppose the one thing that always has me crossing my fingers about the status of the universe is Captain America. Because for all the gloom and hate, cynics and antiheroes, so long as the man with a shield continues to press for Idealism and keeps the highest profile team pushing with him, it's not nearly as bad a world as one might assume.
I suppose in some way then, for all the bad things in it, the heroes of marvel are very hopeful in their fight. the X-men keep fighting for recognition and peace. Spider Man keeps fighting the good fight even if he's hated by the press of his home. Iron Man keeps having his weapons hijacked and misused, but he can't give up the suit because it helps him protect others. And Steve Rogers never stops fighting for Liberty, Truth, Justice and Goodness because it's all he'll ever really fight for: The Dream.
If Misery Builds Character, than the heroes of marvel already are of strong wills.
Lord Eric Wu, Grandmaster of the order of Troping.Let's bring up the X Men. You know, the mutants who are trying to achieve peaceful coexistence with humanity in general?
It has been decades and I'm afraid that the mutants are not even close to achieving this goal. Of course, there is Comic-Book Time going on, so we can never really be sure how much time has passed in the stories. The big reason this goal has not been achieved is due to Humans Are Bastards, I mean, Humans Are the Real Monsters. This here is a direct quote from the HATRM page:
- Given that the average human in the Marvel Universe seems to look at (and treat) mutants with the same level of rationality and compassion that the white Southerners of the 1930's treated blacks, or, as Magneto often lampshades, like how the Nazi Party in Germany treated Jews in 1938, it's no wonder why mutants continue to flock to Magneto's camp, even after the man has been depowered.
That portrayal just kills Willing Suspension of Disbelief for me. I mean, really, so every single average human on Earth is a Nazi or white 1930's Southerner? Are you kidding me? The sad thing is that Marvel Comics did have sympathetic average humans who tried to help mutants, but they seem to be completely gone now. Marvel really shot itself in the feet there!
More likely, prejudice is the prevailing ideology and while most humans find people like the Friends of Humanity, Graydon Creed and the like abhorrent, no one is in any position to do anything about it. Especially when people like Senator Kelly are Strawmen with a Point. Even people who want mutants and humans to live together can't really argue that they're dangerous, and just think the whole thing is Someone Else's Problem.
That's how institutionalized racism works.
I'm inclined to say that whether or not the Marvel Universe is a crapsack world depends heavily upon who you are. If you're a superhero, the world is a magical place of adventure and excitement. If you're a typical civilian, the world is a horrible nightmare place where your entire city block can explode into an orgy of violence and death at the slightest provocation at any minute of thay day. If you're a mutant, the entire universe exists to murder you, specifically, for no apparent reason other than that, as the extremists like to protest so often, God apparently hates mutants.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.About the whole "God committing suicide" thing, I believe that refers to the backstory of the Infinity Gems. You know, in the beginning, there was nothing...except for an entity the size of a beanbag. However, it became so lonely that it decided to put itself out of its misery by blowing itself up and created the cosmos, the Infinity Gems, and everything else. I would have to assume that The Living Tribunal and The-One-Above-All were formed from this fictional version of the Big Bang!
Oh, good. That means every last part of that rant is actually true! Can put the old description back?
Well, marvel is a crapsack world if you step back and take a look at it. Arch Angel Uriel is an All-Powerful Bystander, God is impossibly patient and even when they decide to step in and kill a notable demon lord, new writers will just bring him back with no explanation, which gives the unfortunate implication that God rarely acts because not even he can fix things. Or maybe he doesn't act because despite his rent free eternal paradise for anyone who proves worthy, next to no one decided to do anything about Zadkiel's attack on Heaven. The gate's breach was heard around the universe!
The Living Tribunal's official reason for not fixing everything is that he can't take an action if all three of his heads are not in agreement. This of course means that at least one of his heads is an asshole when it is fine with letting Thanos run rampant but they all take offense to Adam Warlock trying to fix his mess...wait, maybe all three of them are just assholes? The One Above All Is Nowhere To Be Seen..
Individual books vary. The only likeable guy between x-books and Hulk is Rick Jones. Whenever anyone else gets too positive they are revealed to be otherwise or die. Professor X has not become a better person! He ordered a bunch of students to their deaths and then erased the event from the survivor's memories! He tortured a lady and turned her into the danger room! The only real positive is that the villains inevitably get more sympathetic as the heroes decay.(Mr. Sinister is trying to stop Apocalypse in his own misguided way! John Sublime is just a scared jealous child who fears mutants are taking his place! Abomination is just lashing out because he hates himself!)
Fantastic Four, Spider-man, Thor, Ghost Rider, they tend to be more positive. Someone can stop evil dictators and cosmic beings, not every traumatized new yorker with a little power becomes a kingpin wannabe, a god who does not step on Puny Earthlings, agents of heaven actually delivering justice where it is needed... until the aforementioned fridge logic kicks in. Reed is useless, Spider-man's success is never long term, minus Thor the Norse pantheon seem to be petty Smug Supers, the Spirits of vengeance seem to be the only active powers of heaven not making the world a worse place.
At best, status quo means that the heroes will never ultimately lose either, so it could be a World Half Full or Half Empty rather than pure crap but everything in that rant in the first post is true...
edited 24th Oct '12 7:42:50 PM by Cider
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackHmph! And here I thought She Hulk was a likable character and thus averted Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy!
While the main Marvel Universe is not a picnic to live in, it's actually nicer than, say, the Ultimate Universe. The Ultimate Universe, even though it didn't start out that way, pretty much defines a universe of totally unlikable characters. The only reason the UU didn't get DIAA was because Spider Man was the only reasonable and likable character...but even he wasn't immune to Jerkassitude from time to time!
It's a pity that the main Marvel Universe borrowed pages from the UU, when it clearly shouldn't have!
I don't mind borrowing some things from the Ultimate Universe. It has some good ideas. It also has some terrible ones, but even if 95% of something is terrible, that doesn't mean the remaining 5% should be shunned along with it.
Regarding God's apathy: honestly, the fewer divine hands in the story, the better, as far as I'm concerned. I don't read Iron Man to see Tony Stark get down on his knees and pray, so that an army of archangels will fly down from the heavens and slay the Mandarin for him. There are great and terrible horrors in the Marvel Universe, but there are also great and powerful individuals to combat them. That's what a superhero story is all about, ultimately; amazing individuals combatting the amazing foes that threaten the world.
The Avengers, the Defenders, and others like them are what keeps the Marvel Universe from being truly crapsack in my opinion; the simple fact that when demon lords, alien invasions, extradimensional apocalypses or other things hit, there are people for whom this is just another day at the office, that will go to work and defeat whatever new eldritch horror has risen to wipe out all life on the planet.
I've heard the "Everyone's unlikable" argument before, but I've never been able to agree with it. Everyone IS unlikable if you hold your characters to Jesus standards, sure. It seems like as soon as any character takes any action that is less than pure, selfless virtue, they immediately become "unlikable"; that if the hero isn't as pure and incorruptible as Jesus, then he's a worthless scumbag who shouldn't be glorified by being the lead of his own story.
Honestly, I don't want all the characters to be Jesus. Maybe that's just me, but seeing a team of Avengers consisting of Jesus, She-Jesus, Kid Jesus, Jesus with a Growly Face, and Jesus 2: Faith Harder would be a pretty boring story to me. Ultimately, the characters are all human, and are all susceptible to the vulnerabilities that come with it. That means they make mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes. They get emotional and do stupid things in a moment of passion. They disagree, often violently, over matters concerning the fate of the entire world.
They're fallible people, no better than you or me. That's what attracts me to the Marvel Universe so heavily: the idea that any one of us could be a Marvel superhero. You don't have to be a holy paragon of virtue whose first, last, and every thought is "How can I serve the greater good today?" Anyone is capable of being a hero, by going out there every day and just trying to do right by the people around them. And you'll probably screw up, make mistakes, do things you know you shouldn't, give in to vices, etc. but that's okay. Everyone's human.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Not in my experience, there isn't. As soon as a superhero slips up in any way, shape, or form, someone slaps the "unlikable" label on them. Tony Stark is an alcoholic? UNLIKABLE. Captain America expressed a religious view? UNLIKABLE. Peter Parker took paparazzi photos to pay his rent? UNLIKABLE.
I've actually sat through a two-hour rant once on how Disney's Aladdin is an amoral scumbag and Disney is a terrible influence on children because their movie glorifies crime and encourages children to steal anything they want.
Honestly, to me, "unlikable" is an empty word with no meaning. The character isn't "unlikable" just because you disagree with a choice he or she made, or because they did something morally ambiguous or worse that one time. It's a casual way of dismissing a character's motivation and actions without having to provide adequate explanation for why; similar to saying that a villain is doing evil things because "he's insane".
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Well, that's a good point. It's so easy to cry "unlikable" the minute a character does something a reader doesn't agree with!
For example, Captain America seems to be regarded as The Messiah of Marvel Comics. Obviously, it's unfair to think of him that way, because he has done his share of mistakes. For example, he has consistently failed to fight for mutant rights, despite working with them and having mutants on the Avengers team. When you think about his actions in Avengers Vs X-Men, he came off as a racist and a Hypocrite.
Should I say that a better approach is "Love the sinner, hate the sin"?
edited 26th Oct '12 6:22:10 AM by TiggersAreGreat
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!Not exactly. The difference is that as comics have become more "mature", they've attempted to play the consequences of these characters for drama far more often. Reed Richards was a chauvinistic ass in the Silver Age, but his relationship with Sue was still portrayed positively and lovingly. The story were still largely bright and optimistic. At some point, though, people took the Fridge Logic and ran with it. So Reed and Sue often had the same problems as before, except instead of being a result of native Values Dissonance, it's because Reality Ensues. The result is actually less morally ambiguous than before because the setting is now magically progressive.
Another example is Ant-Man and his infamous mental breakdown. In fact, and The Hulk are probably Ultimate Marvel's most triumphant examples. One is a wife-beating, treacherous jackass who almost ruined the world for his own self-esteem issues (at least when Yellowjacket did it, he was actually out of his mind). The other is a raping, mass-murdering, cannibalistic monster. Why should I give a shit about reading about these characters more than, say, Ultimate Magneto or Ultimate Doctor Doom?
That's extreme, but that doesn't mean you let those opinions make yours just as extreme.
Yes and no. Not everyone has in-depth reasons or analyses of why they do or don't like a character. Particularly, when you're supposed to root for a character or care about their plight or the plight they live in, it's a good idea to have some sort of value assigned to them.
That being said, you're still creating a dichotomy just as false as the people you don't like. Only instead of denouncing any morally ambiguous character as "unlikable", you're denouncing any optimistic character as "Jesus".
edited 26th Oct '12 7:56:06 AM by KingZeal
I'm not denouncing optimistic characters. My point is that if the criteria of acceptance for a character were "As soon as they make any sort of mistake or take any action other than a completely selfless one, they immediately become unlikable," then every character has to be Jesus in order to meet that criteria.
My point is just that "Never makes mistakes, always does the morally just thing, has never committed any sin, has never experienced any vice, etc." is an awfully high standard to hold any character to and, honestly, would probably make for a very boring character. Sorry if I came off as denouncing optimistic characters.
The thing I don't like about the "unlikable" label is that you're right, people don't always need to have complex reasons for why they dislike a character. It's fine to not like a character. But there's a distinct difference between, "I don't like this character" and "This character is unlikable."
If I were to say, "I don't like Reed Richards," that's fine. But when I say, "Reed Richards is unlikable," I am suggesting that the character himself cannot be appealing to anyone. "Unlikable" is a blanket label that casts my personal opinion over the entirety of the fanbase. I am effectively saying "Nobody should like Reed Richards," and if I make a claim like that, I need to be able to support it.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I just came to realize something today: the reason why characters can be "unlikable" is that readers simply reach the point where they don't want to be associated with them anymore. I came to realize this when I was talking to a friend about a breakup he's going through right now. His ex was cheating on him for months and he only found out recently. The thing is, though, she was pretty cool and got along with the rest of our circle. In fact, that's what led to the cheating with another one of our friends.
So in this case, many of us are forced to choose sides. Do we continue to hang around people whom we know were willing and able to sneak around behind someone very dear to them and betray them? Most of us would choose not. A comic book character is much the same way—for everything you call "one mistake", there comes a point where a reader just doesn't want to "associate" with a character anymore, and it's up to them to stop supporting them with their wallet.
There is a difference between a character flaw or a mistake and outright derailment and evil. Comic book writers seem to think unfounded immorality and straw hypocrital Jerkassery are the kind of flaws that make characters interesting. Hence, Prof X goes from well meaning to lying, torturous asshole who does not break boundaries he refused to cross before, he already broke them. See kids, he was always an ass!
For the switch, Emma Frost's character derailment. She wasn't an amoral criminal from an amoral criminal family who slowly developed standards after she came to love her students then had to watch them die. No, she was just a spoiled valley girl. You know, all that stuff she had to get over, and had not yet gotten over? That never existed, you imagined it!
Grey Hulk, the smart one who quickly disappeared? He's coming back not as the misunderstood outcast he once was but as a racketeering, adulterous, hedonistic scum who is also kind of dumb. The point? Then again, readers actually like Joe Fixit so maybe it is not always done wrong.
edited 12th Dec '12 10:21:34 AM by IndirectActiveTransport
Buldogue's lawyer
To be fair, even in the Lee and Kirby days, Xavier was a jerk who did things like erasing people's memories at the drop of a hat and faking being disabled, sending his teen students into dangerous missions without his support, just 'to see how they could do by themselves'.
Changes for the jerkasser wouldn't be so bad if they didn't happen all the time now. It seems writers now are unable to change characters without making them pettier, more amoral, and more ethically broken.
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Retcons are a major factor in Marvel Comics. They're not supposed to be a bad thing, but those examples you listed are certainly controversial.
I liked Professor Xavier, and the fact that they turned into a big Jerkass later on was just sad. His death in Avengers Vs X-Men leaves me hopeful that he'll come back and start over into something better.
Emma Frost is an interesting character, but when she made that Heel–Face Turn and retcons were made to make her more sympathetic, it actually made her less interesting. Villains Act, Heroes React definitely worked against her there. Oops!
edited 28th Oct '12 11:58:32 AM by TiggersAreGreat
Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!![]()
As I aid before, that's basically morality-by-Cerebus Retcon
I'm with you, Tigger. I love Emma. I think purity-sue good girls are overdone, and I hate Villains Act, Heroes React with a passion.

Oh. I see. My misunderstanding.