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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: 21 June 2019 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | 1
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Peter had lost girlfriends before, but they’d “gone away”. Going away is a vague, fuzzy thing. But death has a Before and After. Plus, we’d begun to cross over into the realms wherein anal fans exerted more and more control, so Gwen’s death could not simply fade away. Like Phoenix, later, it had to be constantly referenced. ++++++++ Yep. There’s a definitely correlation between the rise of the anal-retentive fanboys and the morbid fixation on deaths and dead characters. No longer was there room for a story to be well-told and then simply left alone.
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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 12:05am | IP Logged | 2
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Peter Martin wrote:
| Death is a part of life; death is the one fate we all must face. Comics should be all ages -- and this brings us back to Brian's insightful comments about the importance of how death should be handled -- but to strip death from comics would be to condemn comics to a ridiculously narrow strata of readership. Even young children understand death as a general concept. Yes, we need to think twice about how we present it, to ensure it isn't too harrowing for a young readership (cf. Mufasa in the Lion King, though), but to say Stan and co. never went there is simply not true. |
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This. ALL of this.
And to the Disney reference? Death is all around the lovable cartoon classics in Disney every bit as much as it is the childhood fables of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Death is a part of life. How you handle it is up for discussion (mainstream comics being basically soap operas means life/death/resurrection/wash/rinse/repeat), but to say it has no place? That's a fantasy even fanatics can't get behind.
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Shawn Kane
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 November 2010
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 6:35am | IP Logged | 3
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Death is comics for me is all about how it's handled.
I was 8 when the Marvel's G.I. Joe comic came out. Cobra soldiers were killed because it was, for lack of a better term, a war comic. I expected the bad guys to get captured or killed. It happened on many of the television shows I watched so it came with the territory. Three major deaths happened in issue 19 and one of those was one of the "good guys". That death caught me off guard but it also hammered home that consequences of violence can affect those doing the right thing.
I would argue that when Larry Hama killed off a bunch of Joes later on in the early 90's that he was trying to do more than just write some characters out. I think he wanted to show the real consequences of war and had an opportunity to show them. A bunch of Joes were killed in a desert battle in that storyline and there is definitely a serious tone over a gratuitous one in it. Unfortunately, the covers of the issues had messages like "Body Count: 7 and Climbing!" and "...The War Continues! And The Body Count Rises...". One more cover basically announced the death of a sub-team of characters. I'm pretty sure the sensational aspect of those covers was not what Larry Hama was writing about. But comic book companies (no doubt spurred on by magazines like Wizard at the time) believed fans thought killing characters in comics was a cool thing.
Edited by Shawn Kane on 22 June 2019 at 6:37am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 7:07am | IP Logged | 4
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This thread reminds me of an oft-told tale. When Mark Gruenwald died, I reported his death on a message board, back in the old AOL days. About the third response was (paraphrasing) "I hope he recovers!"
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 7:57am | IP Logged | 5
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ITEM: I think Mr. Claremont's infatuation with Phoenix hit its zenith with the New Teen Titans/X-Men crossover where he well and truly brought her back to life (with Darkseid as the ex machina... in and of itself kinda disingenuous. DARKSEID as naught more than a story element? Seems to degrade the character, to me.) And then Claremont's half of the Inferno crossover between X-Men and X-Factor - well, my dislike of that has been noted elsewhere.
ITEM: Bucky. I seem to recall a rule at Marvel that Uncle Ben and Bucky had to be dead and stay dead. But obviously, someone found a way to bring him back - rather ironic in that I'm complained about a NON-death. But it's the resurrection that was unnecessary, not that he died - or that he didn't.
ITEM: Adam S. - Gwen Stacy was the wrong character and the wrong storyline. Peter Parker couldn't become satisfied and have a happy ending and remain the same Spider-Man he'd been all along. She didn't have to die, though... "Gwen met the exact right man in France. They're so happy together... how could I interfere? Oh, Gwen... I'll never forget you. Has the old Parker luck ever landed harder on my shoulders?"
ITEM: Eric J., I pretty much intended death in general - again, except for origins. As to super heroes killing... I have long felt that heroes do not kill. In a fictional genre such as comics, killing is too easy, and even the consequences lead only to a dead end (pun? ME?)
ITEM: Peter M., we must agree to disagree. I'm not sure that young children actually DO understand the concept of death in reality. To use a metaphor, they might be able to conceive that pieces have been taken off the chess board... but it is unimaginable that those pieces won't be put back. You noted that death is a part of life... but comics don't necessarily have to be entirely authentic to real life. That lesson can come from elsewhere. As to FF #285, it was a classic. I could not improve upon it, but I could see it having gone a different, but still poignant direction. And Galactus is a force of nature, as well as an actual living entity. His destiny is to be destroyed, so that the race which accomplishes it shows that they are ready to achieve maturity. On that day will Galactus perish. On that day, let the universe mourn.
Again, notwithstanding origins, war comics, and the rare exception (Captain Stacy, Alfred Pennyworth), I think that any comic death could be replaced by injury. Let's think about replacing "The Joker killed those people" with "The Joker kidnapped those people and trapped them in a gigantic mirror room! He nearly drove them crazy... but they should all be okay." Shucks, you might even get a new super character (hero OR villain) out of the idea.
And I only intended this to apply to comic books, and not movies or TV. (Interestingly though, both Mufasa and Bambi's mother are part of origin stories... :)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 8:18am | IP Logged | 6
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Bucky. What can I say about Bucky?There’s probably not been a single writer since AVENGERS 4 who hasn’t given thought to bringing Bucky back. Roger Stern and I tinkered with the notion, and decided it was a BAD IDEA. So did most other writers. The ongoing impact on Cap would be too deep. (Curiously enough, Stan and Jack might have been able to pull it off, since they were working before the obsession with “continuity” became so overwhelming.* They could have spent a few issues on it, then moved on.) ————— * The manner in which Lee and Kirby brought Cap back trashed all kinds of “continuity”. Unfortunately, later writers felt the need to “fix” it.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 11:41am | IP Logged | 7
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"Death is all around the lovable cartoon classics in Disney every bit as much as it is the childhood fables of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Death is a part of life."
Bambi, Finding Nemo, even Lilo & Stitch, and you could add Snow White as apparently dying as a central drama to the story. I suppose maybe Donald Duck and family have been spared though, like Archie, at least I can't think of any dead ducks, just some absent parents highlighted by lots of uncles and a grandma. Not gonna worry about that.
Rick Jones becoming the new Bucky seemed pretty grim, up there with Kitty impersonating Phoenix on one cover and telling that cutesy story pretty soon after Phoenix's death (that badtime story before Illyana became typically older, dark and sexy). The Rick Jones situation was like, Bucky is dead, sob, but here, maybe his old clothes will fit you? :^D At least Hellcat was just putting on Tigra's hand-me-downs and she was still around somewhere. Hmmm, why did Captain A. even have Bucky's old costume in a closet for what, decades, for Rick Jones to find? That seems kind of weird.
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 22 June 2019 at 11:43am
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Mike Norris
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | 8
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I wonder if Rick being the new Bucky was Steranko's idea. It pretty much disappeared once Stereanko left. Stan as I recall wasn't a fan of kid/teen sidekicks. It wasn't too long afterwards that Stan introduced the Falcon.
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Adam Schulman
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | 9
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It's not like Rick could've possibly had serious martial arts skills anyway. That came out of nowhere. So, not that I like "dissing" Stan Lee stories, but the "Rick Jones as the new Bucky" story was not a good idea.
(The intro involving the Hulk was classic, though. And it was the first Hydra story, I think.)
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Rebecca Jansen
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | 10
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The issue before that was an origin recap and probably led to the idea of a new Bucky. The Falcon totally outclasses Rick Jones when he shows up a half dozen issues later. I think you could have a son take up his Dad's old identity, but outside of family it seems somehow gross to me, except okay, Iron Man or the Green Lantern Corp. When they had the separate Jean Grey start wearing the classic Phoenix costume in the X-Men comics for no apparent good reason (when she was never Phoenix after all), that seems equally weird and wrong somehow. I'd have even preferred the Bald Phoenix that showed up briefly in the two issue Star-Jammers comics circa 1990, which is saying something, or at least have the entity possess someone else, and then they would get the costume. It seems to have gotten so messed up I can't follow half of what they did do.
Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 22 June 2019 at 1:55pm
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Colin Ian Campbell
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Location: England
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | 11
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I wonder if Rick being the new Bucky was Steranko's idea.
***
GCD says: Steranko plot per letter from the artist in Fantastic Fanzine # 12, 1970. Steranko explained: "My Captain America tales were..written by Stan Lee over my plots (the idea of reinstating Rick Jones as another Bucky was Stan's directive"
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Peter Martin
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| Posted: 22 June 2019 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | 12
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I'm not sure that young children actually DO understand the concept of death in reality. To use a metaphor, they might be able to conceive that pieces have been taken off the chess board... but it is unimaginable that those pieces won't be put back.------------------------ Look, there are adults who believe in reincarnation -- which would fit into your metaphor of pieces going from the board but later reappearing -- but they still understand death.
In terms of kids, my Gran died when I was 8 years old. I never expected her to come back. And I never watched Miss Marple expecting the murdered victim to crop up ever again.
Happy to agree to disagree, but I really disagree! :)
The reason I brought up Disney was that they are clearly all ages, clearly have young kids as a portion of their audience. That they have death as an integral part of so many of their tales shows that there's no reason for comics to wrap kids in cotton wool so badly as to eliminate death.
Edited by Peter Martin on 22 June 2019 at 8:16pm
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