| Author |
|
Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 4:10am | IP Logged | 1
|
post reply
|
|
I'm reading the book WEBSLINGER, which contains essays about Spider-Man.
Darren Hudson Hick, a Ph.D student in philosophy at the University of Maryland (the book was published in 2006), writes the first chapter, discussing whether Spider-Man is a horror character. I can't obviously share every word, but this caught my eye:
QUOTE:
| In Spider-Man, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko gave readers all the elements of horror - nuclear fear, alienation, metamorphosis, and category mistakes - but wrapped them up in a colorful unitard. Spider-Man was something the comic-reading public had never seen before - the archetypal horror character, presented as an archetypal superhero character, a mixed message that captured the attention and imagination of readers. |
|
|
Interesting. I could never go as far as describing Spider-Man as horror. His world is rather too colourful for that.
That said, spiders are horrible. Spider-Man's movie incarnations are pretty dark. Horror films? No way, but quite dark. And I remember MARVEL TEAM-UP being very dark in places, a lot darker than the web-slinger's usual exploits.
I can't think of Spider-Man as a horror character, but I can certainly see the writer's point even if I don't reach the same stage as he did.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132239
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 4:40am | IP Logged | 2
|
post reply
|
|
Credibility vanishes with the use of the word “unitard”.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11247
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 7:02am | IP Logged | 3
|
post reply
|
|
I disagree, also the FF is not a body horror, as that
lame recent movie tried to foist upon us!
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006
Posts: 8515
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 7:03am | IP Logged | 4
|
post reply
|
|
Many of the earliest Marvel stories bear a resemblance of sorts to the Atlas monster comics that had been done by many of the same creators. The Thing and the Hulk are "science monsters" imported over to a super-heroic context. Spider-Man's origin could have taken a turn into Atlas monster territory had that spider-bite turned Peter into something a little more vengeful and multi-legged. Doctor Strange battled weird menaces of the sort that plagued Atlas characters such as living houses and entities attempting to draw them into nightmare worlds of their own making.
That said, once the characters were past the point of their original inception, they took their own path, and the Marvel books became their own separate thing apart from their Atlas forebears (the recent commercial success of Groot notwithstanding.)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12857
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 8:00am | IP Logged | 5
|
post reply
|
|
Prior to Spider-Man Lee and Ditko were churning out horror and downbeat science fiction stories. So of course we see elements of that in their superhero work together. But if it ain't a horror story, then it can't be a horror character.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Paul Gibney
Byrne Robotics Member.
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1076
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 8:28am | IP Logged | 6
|
post reply
|
|
WEBSLINGER wrote:
| Spider-Man was something the comic-reading public had never seen before - the archetypal horror character, presented as an archetypal superhero character |
|
|
That's flat out incorrect. The Thing and the Hulk both did that, not Spider-man.Joe Simon has stated the Captain America was a horror book, and you can see it in the S&K issues.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 7
|
post reply
|
|
Paul, it's not my quote. ;-)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2291
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 9:15am | IP Logged | 8
|
post reply
|
|
I think most scholars would put Spider-Man in the "wish fulfillment" category--hardly horror. Skinny nerd suddenly can beat up the school bully and the school beauty is soon interested? A life of freewheeling adventure and witty quips while you dispatch your colorful enemies above the rooftops?
Yes, Uncle Ben was murdered and then later Capt. Stacy---but those would have happened anyway! The only time things stop being wish fulfillment is when Gwen Stacy dies BECAUSE the hero made an enemy, but that's just tragedy, a part of heroic fiction.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132239
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 9:42am | IP Logged | 9
|
post reply
|
|
Faux sophistication is the enemy of fantasy. It drives us to dissection, and that in turn drives us to see what is not there. Out of this come a complete collapse of the fantasy motif — especially those created with tweens as the intended audience.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
Posts: 2188
|
| Posted: 22 September 2018 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | 10
|
post reply
|
|
Faux sophistication is the enemy of fantasy. It drives us to dissection, and that in turn drives us to see what is not there. Out of this come a complete collapse of the fantasy motif — especially those created with tweens as the intended audience.
_____________________________________________
Hence why most current Marvel and DC comics are not enjoyable and why their main audience is a shrinking small niche audience of adults.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
|
| Posted: 24 September 2018 at 11:28am | IP Logged | 11
|
post reply
|
|
John Byrne wrote:
| Faux sophistication is the enemy of fantasy. |
|
|
Feels like we've all got that in us.
I have to 'tell myself off' at times. I may be revisiting a 30-year-old movie, one which I derived much enjoyment from, and my brain may wander. It may see things that aren't there (it happened when I revisited THE INVADERS).
Not a trait I particularly want, but the brain goes where the brain goes at times, sadly. ;-)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132239
|
| Posted: 24 September 2018 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | 12
|
post reply
|
|
Hence why most current Marvel and DC comics are not enjoyable and why their main audience is a shrinking small niche audience of adults.••• Chronological adults, anyway. Intellectually still juvenile enough to be excited by Bruce Wayne’s wienie.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
