The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Ares
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Scots Dragon wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:16 am I can say however that I agree with your stance on Captain Marvel vs the New 52 'Shazam'. It's not even the name change that bugs me as such - though why they couldn't have changed it to Captain Thunder or something as per the original early concepts is beyond me - but just how out-of-character Billy is for most of the story. We do see glimmers of the real Billy Batson towards the end of it, but it felt unnecessary to make him that much of a little twerp. I do have to say that I liked the whole team of other supporting characters who were empowered by the different elements of the lightning bolt, which was a nice nod to the original concept, because expanding the Marvel family is something they should definitely do.
Believe it or not, I actually like the idea of a multi-ethnic Marvel Family. I just hate the Nu-Shazam Family version we got in Curse of Shazam for several reasons. Primarily because they exist to teach this self-centered, angry douche bag calling himself Billy Batson the meaning of family, when that's not something Billy ever had a problem with. Billy Batson is, at his core, someone with Steve Rogers morality and belief in the innate decency of people combined with Peter Parker's sense of determination, inquisitiveness and sense of humor, with a sense of optimism that is wholely his own. Geoff Johns basically made him into a jerk because the idea of a little kid with that kind of morality would be "the best little kid he's ever heard of". Which was always the point: Billy was never meant to be an ordinary kid, otherwise the Wizard wouldn't have selected him after 5,000 years of waiting for someone incorruptible. Don't get me started on what Johns did to the actual Wizard.

Beyond that, the Nu-Shazam Family was just too . . . well, easy. Billy just happens to go to a foster home that just happens to have both Mary and Freddy and three other diverse people with little to no characterization but who are all good enough that empowering them isn't a bad idea. The three new additions to the Nu-Shazam Family weren't really characters, they were a race and a gender put there to fill a quota and a costume. Making Freddy a blonde thief also didn't help anything.

Honestly, the only one in that bunch that came away with any dignity was Mary. If Johns wanted to do a solo book about THAT Mary Marvel, but in the classic costume, I'd actually be all for it.

My personal take would be an event that sees the classic Billy, Mary and Freddy return, with various shenanigans explaining why the Marvel Family has been in flux for a while. I plan to go into more details with the idea in another thread on this forum. But essentially, their return resulted in a mutliverse's worth of Power of Shazam flooding the world and changing things.

Basically, Billy is the primary holder of the Power of Shazam. He was chosen by the Wizard for a reason, he's the primary champion, he's the one with access to the full power. However, said shenanigans I mentioned causes that excess Shazam power to flow to 6 other people in the world who have similar qualities to Billy, including Mary and Freddy. Each of these six people have access to the Power of Shazam, but do so through the focus of a single aspect of that power, which shapes their other abilities. Mary has access to the Power of Zeus, which amplifies her other abilities, giving her the same powers as Billy at the same level he has them. Freddy has the Stamina of Atlas, resulting in him basically having Billy and Mary's powers, but at reduced levels (though his Stamina would make him the hardest Marvel to permanently injure or kill). The other members would from around the world and their abilities would not be the classic flying brick powerset, but rather a different powerset with a medium degree of super strength, durability and speed tacked on. There'd be a boy from Africa with the Speed of Mercury, whose powers are actually connected to the mists around the Rock of Eternity, giving him the ability to teleport, open portals, banish or bind beings, etc. A brother and sister pair from Japan would have Courage and Wisdom respectively, the former being based on the Kamen Rider franchise (functioning as a multi-form fighter), the latter being based on various Magic Girl archetypes (being essentially a blaster and spellcaster). The last would be a girl from India, who gets the Strength aspect, and grow to colossal sizes.

This way you have a group of characters who are actually from around the world to give a global perspective, they're all unique individuals with actual personalities, and they have unique powersets that aren't just Capt. Marvel's powerset copied 6 times. I'd also have a compound somewhere that they all hang out at together, with each member of the Marvel Family having a door in their home linked via the Rock of Eternity to a door at the compound.
* I would make the original Alan Scott gay or at least bisexual. And ignore basically any criticism to 'changing someone's sexuality'. I think it'd be really interesting to explore the inner mindset of a man from that generation having closeted himself so far that even he doesn't fully realise his own sexuality. Hell, when I was originally posting as Narsil I didn't even actually fully realise what my own fucking gender was, so I can say from experience that it's pretty realistic. In the process I'd introduce a New Earth / Earth-0 / Prime-Earth / Whatever The Fuck They're Calling It Now version of Sam Zhao who rather pointedly does not die and can serve as a love interest.
Which reminds me: I'd make it clear that scene where Past-Jean Grey seemed to be imprinting on Past-Iceman that he was gay was in fact Past-Jean Grey mentally projecting her yaoi-fangirl ideals onto Bobby and making him gay, which retroactively made modern Bobby gay. When this is revealed, the change is undone and Bobby goes back to being straight.

That might sound like I'm intentionally being a jerk, but it boils down to this: if a person's sexuality is considered an important part of their identity, then it needs to apply to everyone equally. Bobby's history as a straight male is no less important than Northstar's history as a gay male. It's one reason I was annoyed with the America Chavez book, because it took one of Marvel's only openly bi-sexual characters and made her gay because the writer wanted to push her own agenda. A lot of current Marvel creators basically want to use these characters as mouthpieces for and vehicles for their own ideologies, regardless of whatever history these characters have. But these are characters with personalities, histories, established identities, and while those things can be tweaked this way and that, you bend them that far and you break them.

That said, the idea of a closeted homosexual coming out as gay is something worth exploring, but that should be the intent of the character from their creation, not a change made to an existing character.

To quote Stan Lee:
“I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way,” Lee told the comic industry Web site Newsarama. “But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that.”

“I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly,” he said. “But again, I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established. I have no problem with creating new, homosexual superheroes.”

“It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that,” Lee said. “Latino characters should stay Latino. The Black Panther should certainly not be Swiss. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”
And as someone who created some of the first black superheroes at a time when that was actually kind of risky, I believe him and stand by him.

In that spirit, I think making the Earth-1/Prime Alan Scott gay would be a mistake, because it goes against decades of established continuity where he has had two wives and two children, one of whom is gay. Now if Earth 2.2 (or whatever they're calling that new Earth with the Golden Age heroes being young guys in the modern era) Alan Scott is gay, I've got no problem with that, since he's an alternate universe version. Ditto with the version of the Ray who is likewise gay.

Likewise, the idea of a gay Golden Age character is something worth exploring, I would just go with someone form whom doing so wouldn't contradict their characterization. Al Pratt, the original Atom, for instance, never really had a strong love interest, never married anyone, and was content to help Firebrand raise a child without becoming romantic with her. The original Dr. Mid-Nite would also be a good candidate, as would Johnny Thunder, the original Mr. Terrific, the original Star-Spangled Kid, etc. Stories set in the past about those men dealing with being gay in a time when it wasn't safe to do so would be something worth exploring. Heck, you could pair some of them together and retroactively make them a gay super-couple. A Dr. Mid-Nite and Mr. Terrific pairing or a Atom/Johnny Thunder pairing could certainly be a thing and not really contradict anything.

It's basically the same argument I made over in Jab's thread regarding Elsa: she never demonstrated any romantic attraction to anyone in the film, so her sexuality is a complete blank slate. Making her straight, gay or bi-sexual wouldn't contradict anything, so all are equally valid.
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Ares
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Jabroniville wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:59 am* Bring The Sentry back to life, then kill him. Repeatedly. Like, multiple times. Because every time you kill and resurrect a character, you ruin just a little bit of their credibility and mess up a little more of their history... it's really the most effective thing you can do to destroy a character in a PERMANENT manner.
Heh, the Sentry is really one of those characters who has become sort of universally reviled to the point I almost feel bad for him. Almost, but not quite. They honestly just need to retcon at this point that his real backstory is that he's someone who sold his soul to Mephisto in exchange for the power to be a hero, but he's legitimately bad at it. I'd even have it to where the Void isn't something Mephisto slipped in to screw with him, Bob's ego wanting him to be the greatest hero simply influenced the wish so that he'd also have the greatest villain, which would also be him.

In essence, he's basically Bat-Mite: a superpowered fanboy who just makes everything worse when he shows up. He'd actually make a better Superboy Prime than Superboy Prime.

Which reminds me, need to fix that whole mess with the original Crisis survivors.
* Have many of Jeph Loeb & Chuck Austen's characters, in particular Romulus & Maximus Lobo, turn out to be the minions of some guy out to mess with Logan, thus disregarding all of their stupid history.
Man those two really screwed with X-History. The idea of mutants having literal sub-species that far back (angle mutants, demon mutants, wolf mutants) was just so stupid. They really just need to be disregarded as Mesmero or Mastermind/Jason Wyngarde screwing with the X-Men.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by Scots Dragon »

Ares wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 4:21 pm He'd actually make a better Superboy Prime than Superboy Prime.

Which reminds me, need to fix that whole mess with the original Crisis survivors.
Fixing Superboy Prime is actually really easy, because a pre-existing comic has already laid down the groundwork for that, and it gives us an easy enough solution.

The character indulging in pointless violence, destructiveness, and incoherent madness? He's not Superboy Prime. He's a Bizarro, replacing the original during his attempt to travel into the paradise dimension with Lois, Kal-L, and Alexander Luthor Jr.

The real Superboy Prime wound up in a different Earth-Prime and merged into that universe, much as the original Earth-One Superman wound up more or less merging into the newly created world to become the Post-Crisis Superman after the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Like with the Post-Crisis Superman, the origin was tweaked slightly and his power levels brought down to a more grounded point.

Image

So it's just a case of getting rid of Bizarro-Prime and reintegrating this one. Do something similar with Alexander Luthor Jr. as well.

Kal-L was mostly just driven by desperation and realised he was wrong and tried to make amends pretty quickly, and the only fix he needs is a well-positioned resurrection spell. Ditto the Earth-Two version of Lois Lane.


You can of course substitute a Superman Blue / Superman Red thing, where 'Bizarro-Prime' is the red and the one who wound up starring in Secret Identity is the blue.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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I'd treat Batman in other superheroes' comics the same way they get treated in Batman comics. Gorilla Grodd needs to distract the Flash for a while so here comes a mind-controlled Batman in a big goofy anti-Justice League robot suit, Flash dismantles it in half an issue and gets back to the A-plot. Superman is trying to stop Brainiac so Brainiac throws a mind-controlled Batman with kryptonite ring at him, Superman stops him and moves on.

I'd give the Fantastic Four a clean win over the Hulk, too. Not a "Reed Richards makes a magic machine that saves the day" win, an actual combat win where all four members play an important part.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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RainOnTheSun wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:32 pm I'd give the Fantastic Four a clean win over the Hulk, too. Not a "Reed Richards makes a magic machine that saves the day" win, an actual combat win where all four members play an important part.
In that vein, I'd probably give the Thing an actual solo win over the Hulk, making it clear that the apparent strength gap between the two that's happened in recent years has mostly been psychological on Ben's part. The Hulk was one of the first guys after Ben gained super-strength that managed to defeat him, even though the fight itself was an epic-book long battle that Ben only barely lost. The next fight was very similar, but then they had a fight where Ben was only able to win with Sue's help. After that point, Ben basically resigned himself to the fact that the Hulk would win in a straight fight, and since then their battles have primarily been Ben trying to stall the Hulk until help arrives rather than trying to actually beat him.

Here, I'd make it clear to Ben that no help is coming, and that the Hulk has to be stopped, so that for the first time in forever, he fights the Hulk with literally everything he has, doing everything he can to put him down. And he realizes that while the Hulk is stronger, the gap between the two is not as big as he'd thought. Sure, the Hulk has gotten stronger over the years, but so has Ben, such that punches from Ben are still damaging and painful to the Hulk. And Ben is still by far the better fighter of the two, landing two or three hits on the Hulk for every one hit the Hulk lands on him, when the Hulk can even land them. And after a long, drawn out battle, Ben actually manages to pull out a win.

He acknowledges that it's not something he'd be able to do every fight, but he does, in fact, have a chance of defeating the Hulk.

Basically just to remind everyone that there's only a handful of heroes on Marvel Earth who are actually stronger than Ben, and these guys are all heavy hitters like Thor, Hercules, the Hulk, Wonder Man, Blue Marvel, She-Hulk and maybe a couple others. Outside of them, Ben is about as strong as a human can get, and whatever strength he lacks he makes up for by being the best fighter in the brick set, with the only guy on his level being Hercules. I'd actually have Herc be the person Ben hates to fight even more than the Hulk, because Herc not only knows how to fight, he's stronger than Ben. The Hulk likewise hates fighting Herc, but for flipped reasons.
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- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Civil War - The Revenge

Its been 12 years, but its finally time to get some justice for this book. Buckle up guys, this ones a doozy.

It'd basically open up with a massive energy discharge in Stamford, Connecticut, and when it fades, the New Warriors appear, alive and well, in addition to a few new heroes, nearly all of the people who originally died in the original Stamford explosion, and a few hundred other people. They're all apparently grateful to be home, and wondering why there's a monument where they had been fighting. One of the first people to arrive on scene is Miriam Sharpe, who sees her son David is in the crowd and gets a tearful reunion.

The Warriors are taken in by the Avengers, who do tests to confirm that they are who they say they are. The Warriors reveal that when Nitro went nuclear, Speedball used his own powers to try and absorb the explosion, but Nitro was more powerful than he was suppose to be, and the explosion would have been nuclear in scope if not for Speedball's actions. Instead, the blast had sent the New Warriors and most of the people who had apparently been vaporized in Stamford into the kinetic dimension Speedball draws his powers from. They initially felt that people would realize what happened and track them down, but eventually realized that help wasn't coming.

They eventually figure out that this dimension is actually multiversal in nature, and everyone with Speedball-like powers in the multiverse draws their powers from that dimension. Robbie is able to eventually able to sense points in the dimension where other people are drawing on it for power, and use that to travel to an alternate Marvel Universe, which is unfortunately the Marvel Zombies universe. The heroes are able to fight off the zombie heroes and villains and link up with other survivors until Speedball can use his powers to send them back to his kinetic dimension and try another universe. At first, these dimension jumps take a lot of energy out of Robbie, to the point he can only do them about once a month. Eventually after a few months of winding up on less than pleasant alternate Earths, they wind up on a Marvel Earth that is a decent enough place, being protected by the Great Society. They helped the Society while searching for a way home, even helping the Society deal with several Incursions. With the knowledge of what could happen if the Society failed to stop an Incursion, they asked that Speedball and the Warriors save as many people from their world as possible.

When the Illuminati tries to destroy the Great Society's world, Speedball is at the center of a device the Society had built, which basically allows him to absorb the force of the explosion and pull the entire planet into that kinetic dimension. Unfortunately, the world is effectively stuck there for months with the other Incursion events and the Secret War that reshapes existence. Once reality has stablized, Robbie has built up enough energy to move the planet back into its universe, which Reed Richard had restored after getting the Molecule Man/Doom's power. Thanks to all this time and experience, Robbie is able to follow a "trail" left by Reed and Sue back to Earth, and eventually bring the Warriors, the Stamford survivors, and whatever refugees want to come back with them, finally returning home.

They then get told what happened, how they were used as scapegoats for the Superhuman Registration Act, which then begs the question of who the "Robbie Baldwin" that's been on Earth this whole time is. Tracking this Robbie down, its revealed that this Robbie is a Skrull, and that his Penance armor was designed to prevent people from realizing he was a Skrull during Secret Invasion. While the Skrulls were setting up their Secret Invasion, they realized how useful it would be for this war to go badly. They'd also realized what Speedball had done, and realized that the lack of survivors would make the heroes curious about what had occurred, and that a dimensional scan of the site would have revealed the Warriors and civilians were still alive. So they arranged this fake Speedball to be the center of attention, make everyone believe it was all his fault, and drive the public outrage, especially with the Hank Pym Skrull working behind the scenes.

Skrull-Ball is brought in, admits to everything, and actually apologizes to Robbie for what was done in his name. Though angry, Robbie does eventually forgive him. The Warriors are honestly more upset at the other heroes present for what they did, what they allowed the Warriors name to become, and how no one really followed up on anything because they were too busy having a big pissing match about who was right. And when they were making progress on getting home, several of the heroes present tried to blow up a world to save their own, and the only thing that stopped them from being mass murderers was the Warriors actions. Basically, it was the constant screw ups of the heroes that kept the Warriors away from home for so long.

The Warriors eventually are allowed to leave and try to reconnect with the world. On the way out, Night Thrasher talks with Maria Hill, mentioning how he saw the footage of her attempt to capture Capt. America at the start of Civil War, and asks her how she could have done something so stupid, noting that it was that incident that started the entire war to begin with. Hill embarrassingly admits that she had received orders from higher up to do just that, and it was later revealed the orders had come from another Skrull infiltrator in SHIELD specifically to start the war. SHIELD covered it up after finding it out due to the bad PR they were already receiving during Secret Invasion, and Hill never commented on it because her own anti-superhero biases let her do something she knew was morally wrong. She's wanted to apologize to Capt. America for that for the last couple of years, but is too ashamed to do so. Thankfully, Thrasher had asked Steve to be nearby, and he heard everything, so Hill and Steve can reconcile and move past this.

The Warriors decide to tie up a few loose ends. They go check in on how Miriam Sharpe is doing, only to find out that her and David have been fighting. It has been a couple of years since the event, and the now 12 year old David has learned what his mother did in his absence. They'd show the scenes from Civil War and how Miriam Sharpe basically was there to keep pushing people towards war, crying for the cameras and twisting the emotional knife into Tony Stark. They find out that she was being paid to do so, and that she was so angry at the loss of her son that she figured she might as well take some money to get back at the people she blamed. She then let the fame and wealth go to her head as a way to cope with her grief, and went on the TV circuit, wrote several books, and unwittingly basically profiting off of using her son's image. David is angry to find out what she's been doing, and Miriam herself is having an emotional breakdown. The Warriors talk to both of them, and help them reconcile.

Using the info gained from Miriam, the Warriors begin looking into who had paid her to keep pushing things towards Civil War, and through some digging and fight scenes find out it's the same person who had supplied Nitro with the Mutant Growth Hormone that had made him so powerful to begin with. They also reunite with other Warriors like Justice, Firestar, Nova, Rage and the like at a local pizza place, happy to be together again. There, Firestar recognizes their waitress as Sally Floyd, who had interviewed Firestar during the early days of Civil War. Sally reveals that she's lost her job and has been pretty much blacklisted from journalism, and that this pizza job is the only thing she could find.

See, when Captain America went all Hydra recently, Sally put her interview of Cap from Civil War where she asked him about NASCAR and MySpace, essentially to cash in on what a fascist Cap was and edited emphasize how how out of touch he supposedly was. Unfortunately,the prison where they had conducted the interview had recorded the interview, as well as Cap speaking with a couple of guards after Sally had left. The entire interview not only shows how stupid Sally's argument was, but the guard's ask Cap why he put with her inane badgering. Cap humbly says that the entire Civil War was badly handled from the start, and that the heroes allowed it to create an atmosphere of fear in everyone, Sally included. And when people are afraid, they often say or do foolish things without really thinking them through. He doesn't blame her for being unable to realize what she's doing, and he was silent because he didn't want to do her any further harm.

In effect, Sally comes off as looking like she's trying to cash in on the national tragedy that was Secret Empire, she's revealed to have edited her video to make herself look better, her actual words paint her like an idiot and the person she was attacking humbly forgave her and chose not to judge her for her stupidity. She's basically crucified over all media platforms and loses her job. And in Stark Tower, Tony smiles because he was the guy who released the footage, because he was tired of Sally badmouthing his friend. I'd also include him saying, "I've been waiting years to do that."

Eventually, the Warriors find out that former Damage Control CEO Walter Declun had been enhancing criminals in the hopes of earning Damage Control better contracts. Damage Control is paid to clean up after superhuman battles, and something like the damage Nitro causes or the money they'd make from a superhero Civil War would earn the company billions. When the owners of Damage Control found out what Walter had done, they kept it quiet and paid Walter a large severance package to get him to leave. In the time since then, Walter has set up his own company.

The Warriors track Walter down, who has a small army of supervillains he's enhanced over the years, possibly even working with the Skrulls, as well as some other nefarious plot that's been going in in the background. The Warriors defeat him and publicly expose what he's done, vindicating themselves and the hero community as a whole for several stupid crossover events. The higher ups at Damage Control are removed from their position and arrested for their actions, with Night Thrasher/Dwayne Taylor purchasing the company and using it to do what it was suppose to do originally. Miriam Sharpe is given a job at the company and becomes an advocate for superheroes.

Some of the Warriors choose to retire or go back to doing their own thing, but many decide to stay on as the New Warriors. They decide that in addition to superheroing, they'll also work as a kind of school for future superhumans. If someone wants to be a superhero, they can go to the New Warriors for training, to avoid the mistakes the Warriors made early on.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Reverse or ignore almost every Marvel character/continuity change since Avengers Disassembled :)
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Ares wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 4:58 pm Civil War - The Revenge
I would buy this.
And I haven't bought a marvel comic in ages.

Though I think you might need to add a chapter or two, last I checked they locked Richard Rider in the cancerverse when the writer of Nova started rebuilding the Nova Corps and creating the New Warrior In Spaaaaaace.
That being said, it's been a very long time since I last checked.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

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Inspired by Ken, one petty thing I definitely would NOT do as a writer would be to have Captain Marvel suddenly go on a Jeph Loeb-style rampage through the DCU, beating up the Justice Society, the Justice League, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. Probably the worst thing I'd do would be to have Cap fight a mind controlled Superman that is explicitly trying to kill him, not holding back and not fighting poorly, and have Cap fight this version of Superman to a standstill before doing something clever to end the threat.

Because I don't WANT Captain Marvel to be the undisputed most powerful hero in DC. I don't WANT there to BE a single most powerful hero at DC. I want Superman, Supergirl, Power Girl, Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Orion and the like to all be similar in the physical power department. I want Diana to be a little less physically powerful but a much better fighter. I want Captain Atom to be similarly less powerful physically but be much more powerful energy abilities. I want Martian Manhunter to be the ultimate utility hero. I want the Flashes to be the fastest. I want the Green Lanterns to be able to hold their own in this bunch. I want a dynamic universe with a lot of powerful and competent heroes who can all contribute and not rely solely on either Superman or Batman saving the day.

If anything, one thing I'd do is have Cap fight the villains of other heroes, with varying degrees of success. And likewise revitalize his rouge's and try to get them to appear in other books.
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Ken
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by Ken »

Ares wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:35 am Inspired by Ken, one petty thing I definitely would NOT do as a writer would be to have Captain Marvel suddenly go on a Jeph Loeb-style rampage through the DCU, beating up the Justice Society, the Justice League, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. Probably the worst thing I'd do would be to have Cap fight a mind controlled Superman that is explicitly trying to kill him, not holding back and not fighting poorly, and have Cap fight this version of Superman to a standstill before doing something clever to end the threat.

Because I don't WANT Captain Marvel to be the undisputed most powerful hero in DC. I don't WANT there to BE a single most powerful hero at DC. I want Superman, Supergirl, Power Girl, Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Orion and the like to all be similar in the physical power department. I want Diana to be a little less physically powerful but a much better fighter. I want Captain Atom to be similarly less powerful physically but be much more powerful energy abilities. I want Martian Manhunter to be the ultimate utility hero. I want the Flashes to be the fastest. I want the Green Lanterns to be able to hold their own in this bunch. I want a dynamic universe with a lot of powerful and competent heroes who can all contribute and not rely solely on either Superman or Batman saving the day.

If anything, one thing I'd do is have Cap fight the villains of other heroes, with varying degrees of success. And likewise revitalize his rouge's and try to get them to appear in other books.
Which is how it should be. Despite my smarting off elsewhere.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by RUSCHE »

This will sound horrible, I would make ALL the Jane Foster Thor run be a hallucination on her part due to her treatment for cancer. With Thor and Odin there for her to enter HER afterlife for what she did for Thor and humanity in her medical practice o she er the years.
Next would be the Captain America/Hydra mess, I would make all that !@#$ be in the Red Skulls head, he is being held for trial and set for execution. He is lost in his hatred and fear of Steve Roger's due to him never really beating him physically or his spirit completely. Je is rambling on and dreaming all of it. I would end it with the guards coming and taking him to his possible final fate, he is heard rambling I almost had him..almost..the guards laugh sure pal. No Xavier powers, just him unable to accept his failure finally and his fate is sealed by the hand of normal people..
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by Hawk »

Arkrite wrote: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:59 am
Ares wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 4:58 pm Civil War - The Revenge
I would buy this.
And I haven't bought a marvel comic in ages.
I would as well.
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Ares
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by Ares »

RUSCHE wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 4:26 pm This will sound horrible, I would make ALL the Jane Foster Thor run be a hallucination on her part due to her treatment for cancer. With Thor and Odin there for her to enter HER afterlife for what she did for Thor and humanity in her medical practice o she er the years.
I'll be the first to admit that Jane-Thor was pretty badly handled from the word go. Which is a shame because the concept actually works. Jane Foster wielding the hammer is fine, the look she had wasn't bad at all, and the idea of someone using powers that made they cancer worse was something worth exploring. They also did manage to have some high epic fights worthy of a Thor comic.

The problem was that the writer had a very specific agenda for Jane-Thor, and they bent the Thor-mythos into a pretzel trying to accommodate said agenda. Many people would point out that Eric Masterson replaced Thor for a time with little complaint, but Eric had been built up as a regular part of the Thor mythos for years, while Jane hadn't been seen in years. Likewise, Thor was outright gone, missing in action, and Eric was almost always trying to find out where Thor had gone. Eric constantly had to prove himself to the people around him, constantly had to deal with the badgering of everyone saying he didn't live up to the Thor name, had to work to improve himself and come up with his own way to be Thor, he screwed up, etc. And everyone else around him continued to act in character.

To make Jane the new Thor, they had to unconvincingly make Thor unworthy of his hammer, and then come up with this weird notion that Thor is a title, rather than just being the guy's name. She would actually get very offended if anyone called her Lady Thor or something similar, acting like she had a right to the name while the real Thor was still out there. Pretty much everyone was written out of character to either give Jane a lot of emotional validation (the people we were suppose to like and agree with) or to behave like misogynist jerks (Odin, Absorbing Man). The hammer's origin was completely re-done, with the hammer suddenly being sentient and actively liking Jane more, leading to comments about her wielding the hammer even better than Thor.

In essence, Jane became the center of the Thor mythos and had them bent and warped around her to make her the hero, instead of simply being brought into the Thor mythos as a hero the way Eric or Beta Ray Bill were.

This was actually one of the few instances where Avengers Assembled actually handled something better, where Thor gave Jane his hammer to save her life, and it turned out that she was worthy. Then they got separated and Jane continued to use the hammer until they were re-united and the current threat had passed. When it was over, Odin was so impressed with Jane and what she'd done that he gave her a weapon of her own, Thunderstrike (since there was no Eric Masterson in this show), and she was allowed to continue being a hero.

So I while I'd definitely want to retcon aspects of Jane Thor, the idea of Jane having an Asgardian weapon and being her own hero with her own name isn't a bad one. It just needs some polishing so that she doesn't break the Thor mythos by empowering her thusly.

Now America Chavez's solo series, that entire thing is getting retconned as a hallucination due to being poisoned by one of the Serpent Society.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by RUSCHE »

Ares wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:31 pm
RUSCHE wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 4:26 pm This will sound horrible, I would make ALL the Jane Foster Thor run be a hallucination on her part due to her treatment for cancer. With Thor and Odin there for her to enter HER afterlife for what she did for Thor and humanity in her medical practice o she er the years.
I'll be the first to admit that Jane-Thor was pretty badly handled from the word go. Which is a shame because the concept actually works. Jane Foster wielding the hammer is fine, the look she had wasn't bad at all, and the idea of someone using powers that made they cancer worse was something worth exploring. They also did manage to have some high epic fights worthy of a Thor comic.

The problem was that the writer had a very specific agenda for Jane-Thor, and they bent the Thor-mythos into a pretzel trying to accommodate said agenda. Many people would point out that Eric Masterson replaced Thor for a time with little complaint, but Eric had been built up as a regular part of the Thor mythos for years, while Jane hadn't been seen in years. Likewise, Thor was outright gone, missing in action, and Eric was almost always trying to find out where Thor had gone. Eric constantly had to prove himself to the people around him, constantly had to deal with the badgering of everyone saying he didn't live up to the Thor name, had to work to improve himself and come up with his own way to be Thor, he screwed up, etc. And everyone else around him continued to act in character.

To make Jane the new Thor, they had to unconvincingly make Thor unworthy of his hammer, and then come up with this weird notion that Thor is a title, rather than just being the guy's name. She would actually get very offended if anyone called her Lady Thor or something similar, acting like she had a right to the name while the real Thor was still out there. Pretty much everyone was written out of character to either give Jane a lot of emotional validation (the people we were suppose to like and agree with) or to behave like misogynist jerks (Odin, Absorbing Man). The hammer's origin was completely re-done, with the hammer suddenly being sentient and actively liking Jane more, leading to comments about her wielding the hammer even better than Thor.

In essence, Jane became the center of the Thor mythos and had them bent and warped around her to make her the hero, instead of simply being brought into the Thor mythos as a hero the way Eric or Beta Ray Bill were.

This was actually one of the few instances where Avengers Assembled actually handled something better, where Thor gave Jane his hammer to save her life, and it turned out that she was worthy. Then they got separated and Jane continued to use the hammer until they were re-united and the current threat had passed. When it was over, Odin was so impressed with Jane and what she'd done that he gave her a weapon of her own, Thunderstrike (since there was no Eric Masterson in this show), and she was allowed to continue being a hero.

So I while I'd definitely want to retcon aspects of Jane Thor, the idea of Jane having an Asgardian weapon and being her own hero with her own name isn't a bad one. It just needs some polishing so that she doesn't break the Thor mythos by empowering her thusly.

Now America Chavez's solo series, that entire thing is getting retconned as a hallucination due to being poisoned by one of the Serpent Society.
They could have written Jane in for , say a year and slowly so her fight with cancer. Then refusing mystic help, she would try to go on her own self discovery and finding a weapon or artifact would have been to me a better approach.
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Re: The most petty thing you'd do as a comics creator

Post by Woodclaw »

Ares wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:31 pm I'll be the first to admit that Jane-Thor was pretty badly handled from the word go. Which is a shame because the concept actually works. Jane Foster wielding the hammer is fine, the look she had wasn't bad at all, and the idea of someone using powers that made they cancer worse was something worth exploring. They also did manage to have some high epic fights worthy of a Thor comic.

The problem was that the writer had a very specific agenda for Jane-Thor, and they bent the Thor-mythos into a pretzel trying to accommodate said agenda. Many people would point out that Eric Masterson replaced Thor for a time with little complaint, but Eric had been built up as a regular part of the Thor mythos for years, while Jane hadn't been seen in years. Likewise, Thor was outright gone, missing in action, and Eric was almost always trying to find out where Thor had gone. Eric constantly had to prove himself to the people around him, constantly had to deal with the badgering of everyone saying he didn't live up to the Thor name, had to work to improve himself and come up with his own way to be Thor, he screwed up, etc. And everyone else around him continued to act in character.

To make Jane the new Thor, they had to unconvincingly make Thor unworthy of his hammer, and then come up with this weird notion that Thor is a title, rather than just being the guy's name. She would actually get very offended if anyone called her Lady Thor or something similar, acting like she had a right to the name while the real Thor was still out there. Pretty much everyone was written out of character to either give Jane a lot of emotional validation (the people we were suppose to like and agree with) or to behave like misogynist jerks (Odin, Absorbing Man). The hammer's origin was completely re-done, with the hammer suddenly being sentient and actively liking Jane more, leading to comments about her wielding the hammer even better than Thor.

In essence, Jane became the center of the Thor mythos and had them bent and warped around her to make her the hero, instead of simply being brought into the Thor mythos as a hero the way Eric or Beta Ray Bill were.

This was actually one of the few instances where Avengers Assembled actually handled something better, where Thor gave Jane his hammer to save her life, and it turned out that she was worthy. Then they got separated and Jane continued to use the hammer until they were re-united and the current threat had passed. When it was over, Odin was so impressed with Jane and what she'd done that he gave her a weapon of her own, Thunderstrike (since there was no Eric Masterson in this show), and she was allowed to continue being a hero.

So I while I'd definitely want to retcon aspects of Jane Thor, the idea of Jane having an Asgardian weapon and being her own hero with her own name isn't a bad one. It just needs some polishing so that she doesn't break the Thor mythos by empowering her thusly.

Now America Chavez's solo series, that entire thing is getting retconned as a hallucination due to being poisoned by one of the Serpent Society.
In general the problem is that Jason Aaron decided to work the angle of Mjolnir being a fully sentient entity, rather than possessing a measure of instinct as many previous writers implied. As far as I can understand the idea was that Mjolnir was in fact a prison for a primordial Phoenix-level entity that was conned by Odin. I can see where this came from, since neither Stormbreaker nor the Thunderstrike ever showed any hint of sentience and they were the poor's man copy of the original. Still this premise pretty much piss all over the entire mythos of Thor and force us to ask: why in hell Mjolnir took a liking of Thor in the first place?
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