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Topic: Should comic book characters age? (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Andy Mokler
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:01am | IP Logged | 1  

The Shadowcat figurine packaging in the Marvel figures thread got me wondering if comic book characters should age?  

Not evolve, but age.  Superman evolved from a leaper to a flyer so the way a character is introduced probably shouldn't be set in stone.  But the age at which a character is introduced?

Seems that if adjusting their age was off-limits, it would <ahem> "solve" a lot of the continuity issues that some people seem to get stuck on.
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William Roberge
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged | 2  

No.

The people that get stuck on continuity issues 
should move on and find a new hobby.
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William Roberge
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged | 3  

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William Roberge
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:16am | IP Logged | 4  

I guess that's all I had to say. 
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Paulo Pereira
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:20am | IP Logged | 5  

If they age, when do they stop? When they're dead?

Certain fictional characters are ageless. Why is that so hard for some people to grasp?
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Michael Ghekiere
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:28am | IP Logged | 6  

No. Next question.
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Kevin Brown
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 7  

It depends.

While not comic books, Lynn Johnston had her characters age normally in For Better or For Worse.  Whereas the Peanuts gang will never age.  And Tom Batiuk has done it both ways with Funky Winkerbean.  The first 20 years of the strip, the characters didn't age.  In the past 20 years, they have aged.

In comic books, JB showed us the characters aging in his Generations minis.  While those same characters do not age in the "regular DCU".

What it comes down to is story and what's important for telling the story.  Though for DC and Marvel to continue, their main characters should never age or age minimally.  Thereby resulting in having them "rebooted" every so often to keep up with the times.

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Jason Mark Hickok
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 11:09am | IP Logged | 8  

When I first thought of an answer it was no. I will stick with that.
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Brad Brickley
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 11:11am | IP Logged | 9  

No on the ones we all know and love. Serial fiction needs its constants. If it's your own character and that's part of the plan, sure why not. Just leave Superman, Spider-Man and all  alone.
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Peter Hicks
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged | 10  

Go check out Marvel's "New Universe" to see how well the concept of superheroes who aged realistically played out.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged | 11  

In creator owned or other such isolated titles, that do not impact on a "shared universe", the characters can age if the drivers of the bus are so inclined.

But in most fiction, aging the characters is very much dependent upon the needs of the stories being told. Look at James Bond, for instance, as a good example outside comics. In the movies, the fact that the actors playing him were aging was completely ignored -- and passing time for the character went largely ignored, too. (In Pierce Brosnan's first outing as Bond, M refers to him as a "cold war dinosaur", which is pretty absurd considering his age.)

In comics, we had a whole lot of years in which this question was simply ignored. The early Marvel books played around with something akin to "real time", but once Stan and the Gang realized they were going to be around for a while, steps were taken to put the brakes on. Steps which later, less wise writers (coming mostly from the pool of fans-turned-pro) all too often ignored.

Overall, then, and keeping in mind that all generalizations are false, the answer to the question in the thread title is NO.

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Joel Tesch
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Posted: 21 March 2012 at 11:36am | IP Logged | 12  

Go check out Marvel's "New Universe" to see how well the concept of superheroes who aged realistically played out.

I'm not sure I understand this. For all it's faults, this is not something I would pin on New Universe. Hell, it wasn't around long enough for it's characters to age more than a few years!

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