shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,709
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Post by shaxper on Mar 19, 2022 8:53:17 GMT -5
A few quick facts we all presumably know:
In 1963, Marvel's The Avengers debut less than two years after the hit British television series, The Avengers, hit the airwaves.
In 1964, Marvel's Daredevil debuts nearly a full decade after publisher Lev Gleeson folded, "Daredevil" being its top superhero title.
In 1967, Marvel's Captain Marvel debuts a full decade after publisher Fawcett had to cancel its Captain Marvel title due to its legal battle with DC.
I guess my big question is whether any significant exploration has ever been made into this trend. And, beyond that, some smaller questions as well:
1. Are any other Marvel characters using recycled names from other publishers/sources (I'm not counting The Angel, The Human Torch, Captain America, and Sub-Mariner, all of which were owned by Marvel)?
2. Was there an explicit intention to block other parties from publishing books/characters with these names, or was Stan just lazy at coming up with names?
3. Assuming there was an explicit intention, how far did that go? Were these characters created IN ORDER to use up the trademark, or were they just attached to characters who were already about to be published?
Really, how many original hero names did the Marvel Age bring us? Certainly not Thor, nor Wonder Man, and even Captain America and The Human Torch were exhumed from past work. The remaining list of "original" names is actually pretty unimpressive:
Spider-Man is a terrible name, when you stop to think about it, and it's derivative of Batman. Iron Man. Same. Ant Man. Same. The Wasp. Okay, not bad. The Thing. Yech. Invisible Girl. Double yech. Mister Fantastic. Not bad, though it in no way indicates who he is nor what he does. The Hulk may be the best name of the bunch. The Fantastic Four. Not bad. X-Men is also pretty cool, but I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that came from somewhere else. We had plenty of movie serials about G-Men and b films about Doctor X and Agent X, so the mashup seems inevitable, and likely long before the 1960s. Dr. Strange also seems like an inevitability, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been used somewhere else first. S.H.I.E.L.D. is derivative of other acronymed agencies like U.N.C.L.E. and T.H.U.N.D.E.R., but also not particularly creative.
I guess I'm dumping a lot of scattered thoughts here, so feel free to reply to any and all parts of it.
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Post by MDG on Mar 19, 2022 9:40:27 GMT -5
As far as Daredevil goes, it's a good name and the trademark wasn't being protected, so why not use it? A little while after that, Myron Fass figured the same thing and started publishing stories of Iron Jaw, Plastic Man, and.... Captain Marvel, which lit a fire under Marvel to make sure they owned that name (I don't recall the exact story how that happened, but it ended up, as we know, that that Marvel got the name and DC got the character.)
The [Something] Man construct is a no brainer; it signals a superhero character and usually makes the theme evident.
But really, no character stands or falls on just the name--it's what you do with it.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 19, 2022 9:55:17 GMT -5
The use of Captain Marvel and Daredevil was dictated by Martin Goodman, Stan was only following orders.
Other hero names borrowed from earlier Timely/Marvel strips include Ka-Zar, The Falcon, Marvel Boy, and The Black Widow.
There also were Golden Age heroes named Thor (from Fox's Weird Comics), Dr. Strange (from Better's Exciting Comics) and The Black Panther (from Centaur's Stars and Stripes Comics).
More if I think of any.
Cei-U! I summon the recycling!
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 19, 2022 10:05:30 GMT -5
I think the selected names served the purpose--a definitive purpose of the characters they represented. For example, "Spider-Man" gets to the point; he's a mix or balance of his distinctive sides, which is better than say, a character called "The Arachnid," which carries with it a ton of negative, itchy, disgusting connotations.
The other names ending in "-Man," well, that's comic book creators going with something that was hammered into pop-cultural acceptance with the success of Superman, so Iron / Wonder / Radioactive / Molten / U- / Ice / -Thing / Titanium and the rest of that army of "-Man" men were going to get that treatment. The all-too popular default naming convention.
"The Avengers" always seemed to be a choice (among many) to create a team name that sounded more aggressive than the "Justice League of America," which--in all honesty--read like a Masonic Lodge group or union club name.
"The X-Men" had mid-century sci-fi novel & movie influences all over it (as the letter "X" was often used to imply danger, secrecy or being the "other"), but I do think such a "threatening" name was also an attempt to take yet another piece of the aura from the even more threatening-sounding Doom Patrol.
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Post by chaykinstevens on Mar 19, 2022 10:07:43 GMT -5
In 1964, Marvel's Daredevil debuts nearly a full decade after publisher Lev Gleeson folded, "Daredevil" being its top superhero title. According to Brian Cronin, Steve Ditko said Marvel had asked him to create Daredevil and told him he could use the Gleason character's costume if he liked. www.cbr.com/daredevil-steve-ditko-charles-biro/X-Men is also pretty cool, but I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that came from somewhere else. We had plenty of movie serials about G-Men and b films about Doctor X and Agent X, so the mashup seems inevitable, and likely long before the 1960s. I think X-Men was originally going to be called Mutants, but this was changed because Martin Goodman thought kids wouldn't know what a mutant was. Dr. Strange also seems like an inevitability, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been used somewhere else first. Marvel had already used the name for an Iron Man villain in Tales of Suspense #41 a couple of months earler. S.H.I.E.L.D. is derivative of other acronymed agencies like U.N.C.L.E. and T.H.U.N.D.E.R., but also not particularly creative. S.H.I.E.L.D. was derivative of U.N.C.L.E. but I think it pre-dated T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 19, 2022 11:06:37 GMT -5
Spider-Man turns out to be a pretty good nam.
Iron-Man was already a term used of strong men, so it has resonance.
Ant-Man is a perfect name considering the origins of the character.
The Thing is perfect, and reflects how the character sees himself. And 'The Ever-loving blue eyed Thing' is genius.
Considering he was in Strange Tales, yes. But it also fits perfectly.
SHIELD and Avengers, they were in the business of selling books, so latching onto pop culture makes sense. They were not out to make ground breaking original art, they wanted to sell books to kids and teenagers. That they did make original art is something we can be thankful for.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 19, 2022 11:24:54 GMT -5
First time I've ever heard that Spider-man, Iron Man or the Thing are horrible names. Are you kidding? They're friggin' awesome.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 19, 2022 11:33:28 GMT -5
The Myron Fass thing; he also presented a Dr Doom and at least one other villain, with a Marvel name and Marvel came knocking. They settled by him selling them his trademark for Captain Marvel. Fawcett licensed their Captain Marvel directly to DC; but, since Marvel now had a trademark on the name Captain Marvel, for use in a title, DC had to title their book Shazam; but, nothing prevented them from still calling the character Captain Marvel.
Roy Thomas added homages to the Fawcett character, during his run, like Dr Savana, the switching with Rick Jones and a couple of other things.
The Thing was recycled, I believe, from an Atlas monster story, aside from the classic film. Invisible Girl was derivative of both HG Wells and the newspaper strip The Invisible Scarlet O'Neil.
The Mandarin was another Fu Manchu rip-off (just as the Yellow Claw, though YC was a direct swipe, rather than a character type).
SHIELD was a specific swipe of Man From UNCLE. The tv series was hot and Stan admitted to the swipe, in Son of Origins. In the second or third issue, they introduced the New York HQ of the agency, which was entered via a barber shop, where the chair dropped through the floor, on hydraulics, to the hidden complex below. In the tv series, the UNCLE agents entered the UNCLE HQ via Del Floria's Tailor Shop, when the sentry activated a hidden door, via a steam press. the early issues also feature all of the SHIELD agents in suits, like UNCLE. Kirby then adds combat gear, when SHIELD gets into a shooting battle, with HYDRA and Steranko followed that with making the combat uniforms the permanent agency uniforms. He even had sentries in orange "dress uniforms."
They recycled several Atlas monster/story names, in the early Marvel days. Also some of the western character names. Ghost Rider was originally a Magazine Enterprises western hero, drawn by Dick Ayers. Marvel picked up the trademark on the character and produced their own Ghost Rider western comics. Then, they introduced the Johnny Blaze version and rechristened the western hero Night Rider, with reprints of the previous stories.
The name of the Scarlet Witch might have been partially inspired by a Centaur comics villain, The Witch. Quicksilver's name was derived from the Quality Comics character, which Mark Waid eventually revived (since DC owned it), as Max Mercury.
Shanna the She-Devil is likely derived from Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
The Nedor/Better/Standard character was called Doc Strange, invoking Doc Savage, rather than Dr Strange, like the Ditko character, though they might have used either title with him (I've only seen bits and pieces, but recently downloaded the issues of Thrilling Comics).
Roy Thomas homaged the Quality Comics characters, who comprised the Freedom Fighters, at DC, as the Crusaders. However, he also homaged the Nedor Fighting Yank, with The Spirit of '76 and the name Captain Wings was the title of a feature in Wings Comics, from Fiction House (which was a knock-off of Captain Midnight). Dyna-Mite referenced Dan the Dyna-Mite, the sidekick of the DC hero TNT.
Sgt Fury recycled a ton of things, from DC's Sgt Rock, the Atlas Combat Kelly, John Wayne's Sgt Stryker (Sands of Iwo Jima) and dozens of other sergeants in movies and war comics. Dino Manelli was an homage to Dean martin, while Izzy Cohen was visually based on Charles Bronson.
Some of the concepts in Spider-Man were borrowed from Simon & Kirby's The Fly. Kirby's early ideas were directly from The Fly, plus a sketch he had done for a character to be called The Spider or The Silver Spider, who was more or less the same character as The Night Fighter, which was advertised in Mainline Comics, but never debuted (I think, might have been a Harvey comic, while they were there). Ditko reworked it into what we know, which is part of why Kirby later claimed creation of it.
You can also point a finger at the Challengers of the Unknown, especially their origin, for the basic concept, minus super powers, of the Fantastic Four. Both have a group of people survive a crash and then decide to stay together for further adventures, usually involving monsters and other scientific mysteries. The FF diverts from that once they bring Dr Doom into it (you could also argue the Sub-Mariner, though that first story still has a lot of monster elements).
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 19, 2022 14:45:16 GMT -5
Sgt Fury recycled a ton of things, from DC's Sgt Rock, the Atlas Combat Kelly, John Wayne's Sgt Stryker (Sands of Iwo Jima) and dozens of other sergeants in movies and war comics. Dino Manelli was an homage to Dean martin, while Izzy Cohen was visually based on Charles Bronson. I'd heard of and read about many of these you mentioned, but not that Izzy was based on Bronson. Bronson had made his first big splash in the movies in 1960's "Magnificent Seven," so it makes sense. In this pin-up you can see Bronson in Izzy. And Percy Pinkerton was David Niven, right? Not sure if Eric Koenig was based on a specific person. I have read that Hogun the Grim's look was based on Bronson, though. EDIT: That thought balloon to the right makes me think that Hogun also consciously owed a lot to the Bronson persona. (Fandral was clearly based on Errol Flynn and Volstagg on Falstaff.)
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 19, 2022 15:27:06 GMT -5
The Nedor/Better/Standard character was called Doc Strange, invoking Doc Savage, rather than Dr Strange, like the Ditko character, though they might have used either title with him (I've only seen bits and pieces, but recently downloaded the issues of Thrilling Comics). The strip and character were both "Doctor Strange" for approximately the first 18 months* before the less formal "Doc Strange" was finally made official.
Cei-U! I summon the name change!
* I'd have to dig out my nores to be more exact.
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Post by spoon on Mar 19, 2022 15:48:39 GMT -5
X-Men is also pretty cool, but I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that came from somewhere else. We had plenty of movie serials about G-Men and b films about Doctor X and Agent X, so the mashup seems inevitable, and likely long before the 1960s. I think X-Men was originally going to be called Mutants, but this was changed because Martin Goodman thought kids wouldn't know what a mutant was. S.H.I.E.L.D. is derivative of other acronymed agencies like U.N.C.L.E. and T.H.U.N.D.E.R., but also not particularly creative. S.H.I.E.L.D. was derivative of U.N.C.L.E. but I think it pre-dated T.H.U.N.D.E.R. I think I've an interview from the 1990s or so where Stan Lee told the story of The Mutants getting rejected as a title by Martin Goodman. Yes, per Wikipedia, the first appearance of S.H.I.E.L.D. was in an issue of Strange Tales with a cover date 3 months before the first issue of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 19, 2022 16:01:04 GMT -5
Sgt Fury recycled a ton of things, from DC's Sgt Rock, the Atlas Combat Kelly, John Wayne's Sgt Stryker (Sands of Iwo Jima) and dozens of other sergeants in movies and war comics. Dino Manelli was an homage to Dean martin, while Izzy Cohen was visually based on Charles Bronson. I'd heard of and read about many of these you mentioned, but not that Izzy was based on Bronson. Bronson had made his first big splash in the movies in 1960's "Magnificent Seven," so it makes sense. In this pin-up you can see Bronson in Izzy. And Percy Pinkerton was David Niven, right? Not sure if Eric Koenig was based on a specific person. I have read that Hogun the Grim's look was based on Bronson, though. EDIT: That thought balloon to the right makes me think that Hogun also consciously owed a lot to the Bronson persona. (Fandral was clearly based on Errol Flynn and Volstagg on Falstaff.) Pinky I've heard Niven, I think and, possibly, Peter Lawford (though Niven would seem to be more in Lee & Kirby's wheelhouse). I've never heard of an inspiration for Keonig. He was a Lee & Dick Ayers character and always seemed kind of generic; but, they wanted a German who turns against the Nazis. Visually, the only name that really comes to my mind is Christopher Plummer, in The Sound of Music....
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Post by badwolf on Mar 19, 2022 17:22:52 GMT -5
"Hulk," too was recycled from the monster comics. The original Hulk was cuddly alien overlord Xemnu, later subtitled the Titan, and a recurring foe of the Defenders, among others.
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Post by berkley on Mar 19, 2022 18:29:54 GMT -5
When did Charles Bronson start wearing a moustache? Or I suppose the question should be, when did become part of his trademark look? I ask because I thought that happened a bit later than some of these comics meant to be based on him.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 19, 2022 20:58:55 GMT -5
When did Charles Bronson start wearing a moustache? Or I suppose the question should be, when did become part of his trademark look? I ask because I thought that happened a bit later than some of these comics meant to be based on him. Great point. Plus Bronson did not emerge as a real screen presence until a few years after Sgt. Fury #1, so maybe Izzy wasn’t based on him. Which makes me wonder if Jack Palance might have been an inspiration for Hogun. He wore a mustache and long hair in “Sign of the Pagan” (1954) when he played Attila.
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