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Post by brutalis on May 30, 2021 17:44:56 GMT -5
How about someone at Marvel convinced both Steranko and Adams to long term commitment there. Imagine the stories which might have come from their pencil's if both men had placed their minds, hearts and souls into expanding the Marvel Universe. What might the reader experience been like?
Given what both did in their short period, I wonder how they would have influenced the evolution of comics in general and for Marvel specifically if they became the core of the company taking over from Kirby and Ditko's starting points?
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Post by chadwilliam on May 30, 2021 18:15:11 GMT -5
Alright, I'll give it a shot... Ok, I travel back to the mid-30s and convince one of the newspaper syndicates to buy Superman from Siegel and Shuster so they never have to take the bad for them deal from the fledgling comic book publisher that becomes DC for the strip and Superman comes to the world a few years earlier via newspaper comic strips rather than in Action Comics, giving Siegel and Shuster the compensation, fame and renown they deserved. And being in the newspapers from the get-go, gives super-heroes a little more legitimacy in the eyes of the public. -M Long term effect: The Superhero revolution initially occurs on the newspaper page instead of in comic books, and the comics page begins to dominate newspapers and drive their sales, with heroes like Captain Marvel appearing on front pages more often than actual news. Comic books attempt to launch their own superheroes, but folks with strong superhero ideas are rushing to newspaper syndicates first, so all-reprint comics become more successful than comics with original material in the short term. Eventually, licenses are made available for comic books to create new material featuring established heroes. While comic strip writers are still given better compensation and more artistic freedom, the second-stringers writing the comic books find that the page length gives them more room to develop these characters, and fans soon flocks to these volumes. By the 1960s, the comic book market ends up more or less the way it would have gone anyway, except that many Golden Age heroes began on the newspaper page, were creator controlled, and were of a generally higher quality. However, DC/National still launches Batman in response to Superman's success, and it tries to come up with its own Superman instead of paying for the licensing fees to use the newspaper character. It creates Superboy, spends years in court, and ultimately replaces him with Mon-El as part of a legal settlement. Superman remains a more rebellious, anti-establishment hero, while Mon-el becomes very much like the Superman we know in our timeline. And this is where I track down Bill Finger with my idea for an acrobatic crimefighter named Bat-Man, show him my sketch of a Flash Gordon-esque character in a red and black outfit, batwings, and domino mask, and point out the success Superman is having in the newspaper strip. To convince Finger that I'm not a madman plagued with scurvy, I make sure to speak the lingo of 1938 using appropriate finger-quotations when necessary. With history riding on this, I use them a lot. "Listen, daddio, you need to 23 Skidoo over to Vincent Sullivan's swinging pad like yesterday man, where the two of you will be dancing a Chatanooga two-step over this corker of an idea, man! You'll really be cooking with gas, man!" Finger looks over the sketches, suggests that the color scheme be changed to black and grey, that the outfit acquire a hood with bat ears/blank eyes, tosses in a few other ideas - scientist, detective - asks me what I think, and I respond with a quick moon-walk and shout of "DY-NO-MITE!" My one last piece of advice - "Stay the hell away from Bob Kane!" - reminds me that this time around, Finger won't be able to come up with Bat-Man's "Bruce Wayne" identity since that was a play on "Bob Kane". Instead, I suggest an ordinary, everyday name for this Caped Crusader he's just come up with - Elvis Presley.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 30, 2021 21:22:20 GMT -5
I know how I think this would go, but I'd love to see what Shax thinks:
Saturday, June 7th, 1958, I go to the Maneely household and slip one of the daughters some ipecac, so Mrs. Maneely calls the office and, the dutiful father, Joe Maneely goes straight home that night, instead of joining his friends for dinner, thus avoiding is tragic death.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 31, 2021 10:19:44 GMT -5
I know how I think this would go, but I'd love to see what Shax thinks: Anyone is free to make the consequences for a decision. Doesn't have to be me!
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Post by MDG on May 31, 2021 10:20:59 GMT -5
How about someone at Marvel convinced both Steranko and Adams to long term commitment there. Imagine the stories which might have come from their pencil's if both men had placed their minds, hearts and souls into expanding the Marvel Universe. What might the reader experience been like? Given what both did in their short period, I wonder how they would have influenced the evolution of comics in general and for Marvel specifically if they became the core of the company taking over from Kirby and Ditko's starting points? One big difference: Kirby and Ditko could hit deadlines.
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Post by badwolf on May 31, 2021 10:26:34 GMT -5
I'd convince Jim Shooter that John Byrne knows what he is doing and to just leave him alone.
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Post by tarkintino on May 31, 2021 12:03:31 GMT -5
Not sure if this applies, but here it goes: On a number of occasions, Jim Shooter has said: With that in mind, this time around, Roy Thomas has no interest in / does not acquire Star Wars for Marvel (Lippincott ends up selling it to licensed property king Gold Key instead). Well, if the point is just to dissolve Marvel in the 1970s, I think that would kill a lot of the fun of this thread and prevent others from being able to contribute much. Then try this one...
DC--1964. Irwin Donenfeld never gives Schwartz and Infantino that oft-stated six months to improve Batman, and title is eventually cancelled. Thereafter, Batman floats from The Justice League of America and other titles (the Brave and the Bold never transitions into a Batman team-up book)....
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 31, 2021 12:18:16 GMT -5
Well, if the point is just to dissolve Marvel in the 1970s, I think that would kill a lot of the fun of this thread and prevent others from being able to contribute much. Then try this one... DC--1964. Irwin Donenfeld never gives Schwartz and Infantino that oft-stated six months to improve Batman, and title is eventually cancelled. Thereafter, Batman floats from The Justice League of America and other titles (the Brave and the Bold never transitions into a Batman team-up book)....
From the first sentence of the OP... Let's say the CCF invents a means for travelling backwards in time with the explicit intent of making comics better. Not sure why you keep trying to destroy parts of comic history. That really isn't the point. Removing a post-Atom Age Batman from history severely limits what others can contribute to this thread just as much as eliminating Marvel in the '70s. What would you like to change for the better?
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 31, 2021 12:22:02 GMT -5
How about someone at Marvel convinced both Steranko and Adams to long term commitment there. Imagine the stories which might have come from their pencil's if both men had placed their minds, hearts and souls into expanding the Marvel Universe. What might the reader experience been like? Given what both did in their short period, I wonder how they would have influenced the evolution of comics in general and for Marvel specifically if they became the core of the company taking over from Kirby and Ditko's starting points? Still hoping someone else will take the ball and run with this one, as I don't feel I know enough about Steranko as a person to be able to discuss long-term consequences. I know Adams has always been looking to get out of penciling and do as little of the actual grunt work as possible. He would have moved into management at the first opportunity and had been regularly courting DC management in his time there.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 31, 2021 12:25:06 GMT -5
And this is where I track down Bill Finger with my idea for an acrobatic crimefighter named Bat-Man, show him my sketch of a Flash Gordon-esque character in a red and black outfit, batwings, and domino mask, and point out the success Superman is having in the newspaper strip. To convince Finger that I'm not a madman plagued with scurvy, I make sure to speak the lingo of 1938 using appropriate finger-quotations when necessary. With history riding on this, I use them a lot. "Listen, daddio, you need to 23 Skidoo over to Vincent Sullivan's swinging pad like yesterday man, where the two of you will be dancing a Chatanooga two-step over this corker of an idea, man! You'll really be cooking with gas, man!" Finger looks over the sketches, suggests that the color scheme be changed to black and grey, that the outfit acquire a hood with bat ears/blank eyes, tosses in a few other ideas - scientist, detective - asks me what I think, and I respond with a quick moon-walk and shout of "DY-NO-MITE!" My one last piece of advice - "Stay the hell away from Bob Kane!" - reminds me that this time around, Finger won't be able to come up with Bat-Man's "Bruce Wayne" identity since that was a play on "Bob Kane". Instead, I suggest an ordinary, everyday name for this Caped Crusader he's just come up with - Elvis Presley. Long-term Consequence: Finger considers your raving antics carefully, resolves to do exactly what you have said, and then his belly growls. He remembers the incentive paycheck Bob Kane has promised him for help with this new superhero concept, and history pretty much goes the way it did before. Until 1940, when the Caped Crusader receives a boy sidekick, formerly the offspring of the famed Flying Presleys, young Elvis witnesses his parents' cruel murder and, taken under the Batman's wing, becomes Robin, The Boy Wonder.
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Post by tarkintino on May 31, 2021 13:21:21 GMT -5
Then try this one... DC--1964. Irwin Donenfeld never gives Schwartz and Infantino that oft-stated six months to improve Batman, and title is eventually cancelled. Thereafter, Batman floats from The Justice League of America and other titles (the Brave and the Bold never transitions into a Batman team-up book)....
From the first sentence of the OP... Let's say the CCF invents a means for travelling backwards in time with the explicit intent of making comics better. Not sure why you keep trying to destroy parts of comic history. That really isn't the point. Removing a post-Atom Age Batman from history severely limits what others can contribute to this thread just as much as eliminating Marvel in the '70s. What would you like to change for the better? Batman's cancellation does not destroy or eliminate the character--he simply takes another path. As for improvements, one might suggest that without the New Look influence, William Dozier (and ABC) may not have believed Batman would make a good TV series (while he did adapt some pre-Silver Age stories, a great deal of his influences came from the New Look period). If a Batman TV series never existed in the form we know, and did not have its effect on Batman as a character (and not have DC spend time using, then moving away from the "camp" effect), I believe this would have given creators more time to work on a less visible "media" Batman and probably take him to the kind of Robbins/Novick stories that would come--only a couple of years earlier.
Maybe not as full-on mature as the Robbins/Novick work was, but imagine if their kind of Batman crept into DC around '65 or '66 and if it worked, it might have led DC to try that with other A-list characters. Seeing that kind of DC emerge at a time when (in reality) they were compared unfavorably to Marvel, may have made mid-60s DC more competitive for the older teen / college age reader, and not have the publisher play catch-up a few years down the road as seen in the real timeline. I would have loved to see that kind of DC emerge in '65 or '66. If it worked, it makes one wonder how Marvel would've responded to DC "walking on their block" so early.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 31, 2021 13:26:50 GMT -5
From the first sentence of the OP... Not sure why you keep trying to destroy parts of comic history. That really isn't the point. Removing a post-Atom Age Batman from history severely limits what others can contribute to this thread just as much as eliminating Marvel in the '70s. What would you like to change for the better? Batman's cancellation does not eliminate the character--he simply takes another path. As for improvements, one might suggest that without the New Look influence, William Dozier (and ABC) may not have believed Batman would make a good TV series (while he did adapt some pre-Silver Age stories, a great deal of his influences came from the New Look period). If a Batman TV series never existed in the form we know, and did not have its effect on Batman as a character (and not spend time flirting with, then moving away from the "camp" effect), I believe this would have given creators more time to work on a less visible "media" Batman and probably take him to the kind of Robbins/Novick stories that would come--only a couple of years earlier.
Maybe not as full-on mature as the Robbins/Novick was, but their kind of Batman crept into DC around '65 or '66 and if it worked, it might have led DC to try that with other A-list characters. Seeing that kind of DC emerge at a time when (in reality) they were compared unfavorably to Marvel, may have made mid-60s DC more competitive for the older teen / college age reader, and not have the publisher play catch-up a few years down the road as seen in the real timeline. I would have loved to see that kind of DC emerge in '65 or '66. If it worked, it makes one wonder how Marvel would've responded to DC "walking on their block".
Okay, so let me clarify: 1. The change you propose needs to clearly be an attempt to improve comic history. 2. You can't do your own longterm effects. So I'd recommend we toss this one aside and try a different one since you've already broadcast where you would like this one to have gone.
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Post by spoon on May 31, 2021 14:35:11 GMT -5
Let's say the CCF invents a means for travelling backwards in time with the explicit intent of making comics better. Not sure why you keep trying to destroy parts of comic history. That really isn't the point. Removing a post-Atom Age Batman from history severely limits what others can contribute to this thread just as much as eliminating Marvel in the '70s. What would you like to change for the better? There goes my post about Dr. Frederic Wertham being elected President in 1956.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on May 31, 2021 21:33:09 GMT -5
I know how I think this would go, but I'd love to see what Shax thinks: Saturday, June 7th, 1958, I go to the Maneely household and slip one of the daughters some ipecac, so Mrs. Maneely calls the office and, the dutiful father, Joe Maneely goes straight home that night, instead of joining his friends for dinner, thus avoiding is tragic death. Long term consequence: Lee, Maneely, and Kirby become the bedrock of the Marvel Universe. With a fixed limit on the number of titles they can publish in their early years, Maneely doesn't bring more to the early Marvel line-up, but rather ends up getting some projects that otherwise might have gone to Kirby. When it's time to pitch a superhero to headline Journey Into Mystery, Maneely pitches thrusting the Black Knight into the modern day, which seems a little more grounded than Kirby's idea for doing a comic starring the Norse god of thunder. Black Panther and The Inhumans are similarly rejected in favor of less "out there" ideas. While Kirby does bring us Silver Surfer and Galactus, we are never given the Kree nor the Skrulls. The Marvel Universe stays a little more grounded and squarely planted in the superhero genre for a good, long while. Given less attention and credit thanks to Maneely's presence, DC doesn't end up working so hard to seduce Kirby in the 1970s. Instead, frustrated with Marvel, Kirby leaves comics all together and gets into commercial advertising instead. He earns a steady paycheck and retires happier, even if the world never gets to experience the unbridled imagination he brought to the Nine Realms, the Fourth World, The Celestials or anything else of the like. In 1983, Marvel is looking to give a young Walt Simonson a new title to reinvigorate, just in time for Roger Stern's run on Doctor Strange to conclude. With no Thor at Marvel, Simonson brings a fresh take to Doctor Strange and his universe, giving deep and meaningful exploration to the extra-dimensional threats Strange regularly faces. Thus, whereas our Marvel concerns itself primarily with the Kree, Skrull, and Shi-ar once a character leaves the confines of Earth, Simonson ensures a Marvel that is ultimately more interested in the weird forces/entities and dimensions that lie beyond. Dormamu becomes a more constant threat to the human race than Galactus; Doctor Doom seeks to steal the powers of the Living Tribunal instead of The Beyonder.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jun 1, 2021 11:24:50 GMT -5
There had been superhero types in the newspaper strips before Superman, and I'm not sure the characters … or superheroes in particular … would have flourished to the same extent there.
OTOH, if someone had convinced Siegel & Shuster to demand a better contract, which gave them continuing ownership … and the character still became a hit … it might have potentially changed to standard conception of comic superheroes as being intrinsically 'work for hire' and American comics might have wound up more like the book publishing model (or the European comics model).
Also, Lois Lane certainly would have discovered Superman's identity far earlier and become his effective partner.
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