shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,707
|
Post by shaxper on Oct 16, 2020 14:56:57 GMT -5
I dunno. When the devil and the angel appear on Tom's shoulders, if the angel wins he just leaves Jerry alone. Story idea: Mr. Mxyzptlk casts a spell on Two-Face so tha for 24 hours his coin always comes up on the good side. 18 pages of Two-Face helping old ladies across the street and paying for the car behind him at the drive-thru. I would buy this so hard the counter would shatter from the impact as I slapped down my credit card.
|
|
|
Post by String on Oct 17, 2020 11:27:03 GMT -5
1) Didn't Hawkman and Hawkgirl ostensibly stay on Earth to study and learn about human law enforcement methods? What does that even mean? How have they implemented any differences they may have learned? Did they ever report on these new methods back to Thanagar? Yet it seems to me they became more preoccupied with their secret ids as museum curators and archeology mysteries/crimes.
2) The X-Men supposedly serve the ideal of Xavier's dream of 'peaceful co-existence between mutants and humanity'. Yet for 30+ years, they did little to promote such an ideal let alone achieve it. They were far more reactive than proactive (and then one could argue they became militant in the '00s over the whole thing but that's another survival/extinction/what-are-we-doing?! discussion).
|
|
|
Post by brutalis on Oct 17, 2020 12:41:03 GMT -5
Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze. A carnival stunt biker makes a deal to sell his soul (stupid deal at that) to save his "father figure" from dying with Cancer. So his deal is of course altered by the Devil when his "dad" dies in a stunt instead. Rather than take Blaze's soul, he is bonded with a demonic spirit, initially just at night. Then he learns to control said demon possession allowing his transformation at any time. In the beginning Johnny is in control with not much demonic influence, but that changes over time with the spirit gaining more control/influence. Now today Johnny and his demonic spirit of vengeance are ruling Hell?
Would say a wee bit of straying over time.
|
|
|
Post by Icctrombone on Oct 17, 2020 15:16:47 GMT -5
Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze. A carnival stunt biker makes a deal to sell his soul (stupid deal at that) to save his "father figure" from dying with Cancer. So his deal is of course altered by the Devil when his "dad" dies in a stunt instead. Rather than take Blaze's soul, he is bonded with a demonic spirit, initially just at night. Then he learns to control said demon possession allowing his transformation at any time. In the beginning Johnny is in control with not much demonic influence, but that changes over time with the spirit gaining more control/influence. Now today Johnny and his demonic spirit of vengeance are ruling Hell? Would say a wee bit of straying over time. That was such a great origin story with great art by Ploog.
|
|
|
Post by MWGallaher on Oct 19, 2020 6:50:17 GMT -5
The Hulk. An act of selflessness exposes Bruce Banner to radiation that gives him tremendous power, at tremendous cost: his intellect, his safety and security, his love life, his respect and reputation. The backfiring of the superhero understanding that powers are supposed to be a glory and a boon, not a curse, and the notion that in the heart of the most mild-mannered of us lies a primal beast that can both appease our impulses and destroy our carefully constructed outward selves. So much of what makes the concept interesting is diminished by origin drifts. The "beast" is a manifestation of Bruce's abused childhood, not a universally shared and suppressed tendency. The transformation was not the consequence of an act of uncharacteristic bravery on Banner's part, it was because he was experimented on as a child. The cost is only short term, The Hulk gets the brains and the brawn and the girl and social acceptance.
Earlier mention of Two-Face reminds me that I've always thought that playing him as a multiple personality disordered person was way off track and inconsistent and too obvious and easy. Yes, the best of Batman's villains can be interpreted as personifications of specific mental illnesses/disorders, with the Penguin as megalomania, the Riddler as OCD, Joker as psychopathy, but Two-Face is, in my reading, not MPD, he's bipolar disease. One person, see-sawing between extremes constantly, not two distinct personalities in the same body.
|
|
|
Post by profh0011 on Oct 19, 2020 11:32:21 GMT -5
One of the problems (if you look at it that way) with the 1966 "BATMAN" tv series was... after using The Riddler in the pilot to sell the show, DAMN NEAR every villain after him used a variation of his schtick-- that of sending clues to the police. That was originally THE JOKER's thing back in 1940. Years later, The Riddler came up with an interesting variation of that in the comics. But most of the villains on the TV series had NO business sending clues to the cops. They'd have had much more successful careers as criminals without doing so.
"Zelda The Great" (added to a story from the comics that featured Evol Ekdol) was a rare case on the show where Batman had to really use detecting just to figure out WHO the bad guy was. Absurdly, some fans of the show diss the story because "it has no Bat-fight". (I guess some people want to see the same story every week.)
|
|
|
Post by chadwilliam on Oct 21, 2020 18:17:48 GMT -5
Jimmy Olsen maintained a really fun series during the Silver Age based on the lengths he'd go to to get a story as a cub reporter. At some point however, he went from being a kid looking for a great story, to being something more akin to DC's answer to Peter Parker when it was decided that he was just a photographer.
|
|
|
Post by tonebone on Dec 4, 2020 8:40:59 GMT -5
Ostensibly, The Outsiders were formed because Batman realized he was spending too much time fighting world-threatening menaces which was taking him away from fighting the type of street level "crime alley" crime he had vowed to eradicate. As a practical matter it only took a few issues before The Outsiders were fighting world spanning and super-powered threats. Because that's what DC was about at that time. Actually, the very first mission, the whole reason for Batman forming the outsiders, involved Batman enacting a regime change in a remote Mediterranean/middle eastern country. He was upset the JLA didn't want to get involved in a "world-threatening menace", as he saw it. That's where the team meets Geo-Force. The balance of the first year or two of the series involved mostly stories relating to the characters' origins, etc. But they certainly did a lot of globe-hopping.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 4, 2020 10:32:56 GMT -5
Ostensibly, The Outsiders were formed because Batman realized he was spending too much time fighting world-threatening menaces which was taking him away from fighting the type of street level "crime alley" crime he had vowed to eradicate. As a practical matter it only took a few issues before The Outsiders were fighting world spanning and super-powered threats. Because that's what DC was about at that time. Actually, the very first mission, the whole reason for Batman forming the outsiders, involved Batman enacting a regime change in a remote Mediterranean/middle eastern country. He was upset the JLA didn't want to get involved in a "world-threatening menace", as he saw it. That's where the team meets Geo-Force. The balance of the first year or two of the series involved mostly stories relating to the characters' origins, etc. But they certainly did a lot of globe-hopping. Yeah. But that's not what his diatribe when he quite the JLA was about.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Dec 4, 2020 20:45:19 GMT -5
Story idea: Mr. Mxyzptlk casts a spell on Two-Face so tha for 24 hours his coin always comes up on the good side. 18 pages of Two-Face helping old ladies across the street and paying for the car behind him at the drive-thru. I would buy this so hard the counter would shatter from the impact as I slapped down my credit card. It never occurred to me before but you could speculate that Two-Face in his evil phase would cheat and substitute a rigged coin so he could stay evil no matter which side came up; or of course he could just give up the coin toss altogether and stay evil that way, but that wouldn't be as comic-book logical.
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 5, 2020 11:24:20 GMT -5
2) The X-Men supposedly serve the ideal of Xavier's dream of 'peaceful co-existence between mutants and humanity'. Yet for 30+ years, they did little to promote such an ideal let alone achieve it. They were far more reactive than proactive (and then one could argue they became militant in the '00s over the whole thing but that's another survival/extinction/what-are-we-doing?! discussion). Very true, and this change was, I think, an interesting evolution. I particularly liked how initially, when Cable first showed up with his activist and sometimes brutal agenda, the old X-Men saw him as a bad influence and a threat to Xavier's vision, which they defended... but later events and a succession of tragedies got them to change their position until even the starched underwear-wearing Cyclops became a figurehead for a mutant revolution. To me, seeing Xavier's dream subverted like that was akin to seeing Martin Luther King forced to turn to armed resistance, and a real tragedy unfolding before our eyes. Resorting to self-imposed segregation as a gesture of self-preservation, while the initial dream had been one of peaceful co-existence. The theme was eventually drowned in resets and semi-reboots, but for a while it offered a lot of promise.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 6, 2020 11:10:48 GMT -5
1) Didn't Hawkman and Hawkgirl ostensibly stay on Earth to study and learn about human law enforcement methods? What does that even mean? How have they implemented any differences they may have learned? Did they ever report on these new methods back to Thanagar? Yet it seems to me they became more preoccupied with their secret ids as museum curators and archeology mysteries/crimes. 2) The X-Men supposedly serve the ideal of Xavier's dream of 'peaceful co-existence between mutants and humanity'. Yet for 30+ years, they did little to promote such an ideal let alone achieve it. They were far more reactive than proactive (and then one could argue they became militant in the '00s over the whole thing but that's another survival/extinction/what-are-we-doing?! discussion). 1) In the early Hawkman stories, they did, in fact, report back to Thanagar regularly... and even travelled back there a couple times... I remember a convention of some sort too. 2) X-Men has always been super inconsistent... I mean, back in the days Cerebero had lights for each known mutant, yet as time goes on and new mutants were discovered Prof. X always seemed to know all about them all the time. I suppose you could say the X-Men fighting evil mutants is in the interest of peaceful co-existance, but it's a stretch. As for Tony Stark, he never claimed to want to help POWs that I can recall (though I admit I haven't read the early ones as much)...he just promised to stop making weapons, which he stuck with for the most part. You could argue that's not really solving the problem, for sure.
|
|
|
Post by tonebone on Jan 19, 2021 14:52:22 GMT -5
Actually, the very first mission, the whole reason for Batman forming the outsiders, involved Batman enacting a regime change in a remote Mediterranean/middle eastern country. He was upset the JLA didn't want to get involved in a "world-threatening menace", as he saw it. That's where the team meets Geo-Force. The balance of the first year or two of the series involved mostly stories relating to the characters' origins, etc. But they certainly did a lot of globe-hopping. Yeah. But that's not what his diatribe when he quite the JLA was about. Ha yeah... little bit of a disconnect, there!
|
|
|
Post by profh0011 on Jan 19, 2021 16:44:58 GMT -5
I recall a large contingent of longtime BAT-fans complained about how hard-headed and one-dimensional Mike Barr's depiction of Batman was in THE OUTSIDERS. But after Denny O'Neil took over as BAT-editor in '86, Barr's version suddenly seemed warm & cuddly by comparison.
|
|
|
Post by Randle-El on Jan 19, 2021 17:34:35 GMT -5
I sometimes wonder if, as our collective social consciousness evolves, certain characters will require revision in order to not appear outdated. Batman's violent treatment of common street thugs doesn't always look so great in the context of today's discussions surrounding police brutality. I'm surprised that portraying super villain behavior as the result of mental illness does not get more pushback than it currently does.
|
|