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Brian Hague
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Joined: 14 November 2006
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| Posted: 16 February 2018 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | 1
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Eric, death was a very real topic of conversation and a thing of actual consequence in DC titles, even during the early 60's. While it was not gorily lingered over, the deaths of, say, Krypton's population and that of Argo City were real elements of the stories and not shied away from. Not only did Triplicate Girl suffer an untimely and cruel death, Lightning Lad was cast into a death-like coma that the other members of the team were willing to give up their lives to end. Saturn Girl loved him so much, she rigged the supposedly random event so that she would be the one to give her life for his. It was only the intervention of Chameleon Boy's shape-shifting pet Proty that saved her life while costing Proty his. Legion villain Beast Boy was killed. Star Boy killed a man in combat and was dismissed from the Legion for doing so. The feature would go on to kill off Ferro Lad, Invisible Kid, and Chemical King in the years to come.
Don't forget that EC Comics had been out there in the public eye as had Mars Attacks trading cards. The 50's and 60's were not especially shy about death and did not soft-peddle the topic to kids.
As for how the death of Triplicate Girl would have been handled in the 80's, we don't need to speculate. Paul Levitz killed off Luornu Durgo-Taine's second self in a storyline that saw her suffer terrible grief and psychological damage as she dealt with the loss of 2/3rd's of her self and the fact that two people she considered closer than sisters had been ruthlessly murdered. Brainiac Five wound up giving her his force-field belt so that she could continue on at the Legion Academy and feel somewhat safer. It wasn't until years later that Mark Waid restored her powers at a greatly magnified level that the character returned to the fore with the ability to duplicate herself endlessly like Madrox, the Multiple Man.
I do not understand the Marvelite tendency to dismiss and minimize if not outrightly mock DC stories in comparison to the supposedly very very real stuff put out by Marvel. The deaths of Triplicate Girl and the other members mattered to the fans of the Legion reading the book at that time and had lasting impact on the title going forward.
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Brian Floyd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 8358
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| Posted: 17 February 2018 at 2:07am | IP Logged | 2
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Rebecca, Green Lantern(and his wife. the Harlequin)had a daughter (Jade) and son (Obsidian) who were on the team, while Wonder Woman married Steve Trevor(surprise!), and they had a daughter named Fury.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Unless it has been retconned, Jade and Obsidian's mother isn't the original Harlequin, but the original Thorn. Harlequin is their stepmother.
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 17 February 2018 at 9:05am | IP Logged | 3
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Ms. Jansen - sorry about the confusion with Wonder Woman and the Cheetah. I thought you were citing an actual story. Old age confusion on my part again... :)
Brian H. - I know that death was a real thing at DC during the 60s, but I cannot remember too many actual deaths* in DC comics. Let's say I set a time mark of September/October 1968, the cover date of Doom Patrol #121. What significant characters died between 1955 and that time? I'm going to leave out origin based characters, so that avoids the Silver Age Thomas and Martha Wayne, planet Krypton, Abin Sur, Saul Erdel, etc.
I put my mind to it, and came up with a few. Very obviously, the Doom Patrol - killed because their series ended, and not for any other special reason. That was rare, but I guess it was effective... although I wonder that the Challengers, the Flash, or others didn't try to avenge them.
Ferro Lad. That was a big one, introduced by a teenaged writer with a keen perception of comics.
I'm blanking on any others, and I'll admit I may have missed one or two. But the upshot is that, for DC's style of stories, death was an ever-present threat - but not used as a story element so much.
*You can count Lightning Lad if you prefer - or even Proty - but personally, while they did indeed deal with death, one didn't last, and the other was HARDLY a significant character.
As for the Legion - I stopped collecting it at the very end of the Superboy-adapted title, and I don't remember a lot of those latter issues about how Luornu dealt with being a solo. And as for Duplicate Damsel... that was in an era when the clear divisions between pre-Crisis and post-Crisis were blurring, and Superman's full history with the Legion was reintroduced... sometimes, depending on the book. It appealed to ME - but those who started reading after COIE were probably confused as hell.
In Marvel books, it seemed that characters actually died. Not an awful lot, because y'know, you start running out of cast. :) But as one example, Aunt May was always at death's door, in a way that I never felt that Alfred or Iris Allen or Niles Caulder were. That doesn't make the stories any less legit, nor the insulting treatment of some of the super heroines... but the impetus was a bit different.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4531
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| Posted: 17 February 2018 at 2:55pm | IP Logged | 4
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Oh, I remember they did kill Alfred too, but because the tv series makers wanted him in their 1960s show he had to come back.
Maybe really it just became a fad to have a dead superheroine on the cover or final page for a little while. They used it a couple of times too often for my taste is all. They played Captain America's dead sidekick Bucky to the hilt well before that, and I also remember the statues of the dead Legionnaires in their comic.
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Brian Hague
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Joined: 14 November 2006
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 1:09am | IP Logged | 5
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Sure, kick a guy's dead super-pet when he's down, Eric... But really, you may feel Proty wasn't very important, but that death remained a part of the overall lore of that title for decades. The event was not inconsequential and sadly became the cornerstone of a fanthink "revelation" deep into the Legion's "Five Years Later" era that frankly beggars the imagination even today.*
I did state that death was a story element in early DC titles, but not one they fetishized or in which they over-indulged. You allow for Ferro-Lad and the Doom Patrol, closing the door in late 1968, which does not let in some of the Legion's better known deaths of the 70's. You do not mention Triplicate Girl whom we discussed earlier. Jungle King was a rejected Legion applicant who was killed in battle with the team. A relative of his sicced another group of teen heroes on the Legion, the Heroes of Lallor. One of their number, Beast Boy, later went rogue and died saving a little girl from an attack he himself had initiated. Star Boy straight up killed romantic rival Kenz Nuhor in self-defense and was exiled from the Legion for a time as a result, all before late 1968. Fortunately, Boston Brand was killed in early 1967, so he gets in under the wire as well, as does Challenger of the Unknown Red Ryan (brought back soon after, but y'know, pffft... comics...) I have this nagging feeling I'm overlooking a few***, but it's late, and these six will have to do for now as examples of death in DC comics that precede modern readers' expectations of such events.
Marvel's approach was somewhat different. They would often introduce and kill a character in the same issue. Franklin Storm, Barney Barton, and Simon Williams were all set up and knocked down like bowling pins almost as soon as they appeared. For all that he was mentioned in the next hundred issues or so following his introduction and death, Simon Williams was a far less significant character than Proty. Bucky himself barely appears in Avengers #4 and exclusively Silver Age readers simply had to take Captain America's word on it that he was his loyal partner and buddy, dying in the final days of World War II... And they shouldn't have taken Cap's word on that since Bucky was actually around for some time after the war ended and came back again to fight the Commies in the 1950's; all of which gave Roy Thomas considerable floor space for tiling and re-grouting in his role as Marvel's resident continuity fix-it-man. At least Pamela Hawley and Junior Juniper stuck around for a little while before getting the axe.
* It was revealed that Lightning Lad had been reanimated from his death-like state not just by Proty's life-force, but by Proty himself. Lightning Lad was in fact still dead and had been all along. Proty's intelligence and memories were put into Lightning Lad's body during the transference and Proty thereafter simply pretended he was Lightning Lad brought back to life. The man that Saturn Girl** married and had two children by was really Chameleon Boy's protoplasmic super-pet wearing a dead human suit. This had been a funny-funny fan theory in Legion circles for years and it would mean that the similarly reanimated Mon-El was in fact his cousin Eltro, who had given his life to bring back the hero. Say what you will about idiot reboots (and I've said a lot about them myself) at least this bilge water isn't still considered canonical.
** Saturn Girl is supposedly the most sensitive and intuitive telepath of her time... And she had no idea she was married to and having children with a protean super-pet for years. Mind you, she knew Proty well prior to his "sacrifice." The two were telepathic friends. And yet somehow, she never catches on to the switch. All in service of some sort of "love is blind" homily, apparently... And no one ever said a thing about it to her. We knew, Proty's protean buddies knew, and Lightning Lad's twin sister figured it out. Other than that, it was kept on the down-low. Lord knows I wish I didn't know...
*** Sgt. Rock's Easy Company was a shooting gallery of temporary characters and arrogant, know-nothing lieutenants. Sometimes they lost members of longer standing as well.
Edited by Brian Hague on 19 February 2018 at 1:16am
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Brian Hague
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 1:26am | IP Logged | 6
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I've long equated Alfred's temporary demise with that of Professor X. Older, behind-the-scenes-style characters of long duration and little hair get temporarily ushered off-stage in extended storylines that retroactively involve a shape-changing villain... Hmmm...
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 8:17am | IP Logged | 7
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In Marvel books, it seemed that characters actually died. Not an awful lot, because y'know, you start running out of cast. :) But as one example, Aunt May was always at death's door, in a way that I never felt that Alfred or Iris Allen or Niles Caulder were. That doesn't make the stories any less legit, nor the insulting treatment of some of the super heroines... but the impetus was a bit different.•• Let's talk turkey for a moment here. Stand by for things you might not want to hear! Comics, by their nature, are (or were) intended to be a very transitory form of entertaining. One read them for a few years -- the general consensus was five -- and then moved on. (As Roger Stern used to say, anyone who stuck around longer usually ended up as a Pro.) So, basically, if a reader started to notice recurrent tropes -- such as Peter Parker fretting as Aunt May hovered at death's door yet again -- it was a sign that said read should move on. That it was time to find another form of entertainment that was tailored to that reader's changing needs. But, as more and more fans turned pro, we saw that more and more of the stories, the basic structure of the concepts, was being changed to match the sensibilities of those pros, and their contemporary older fans. And once this started happening "change and growth" become something of a mantra. By the time I entered the field professionally, many of the characters had "aged" for instance. Peter Parker and Johnny Storm were no longer teenagers. They were in their twenties, in college. But they still acted like teenagers. A classic case of writers wanting to have their cake, and eat it too. And then, once this pattern was set, it was expected to continue. All kinds of bizarre formulas were concocted to "explain" how these fictional characters aged (or didn't, because, after all, we didn't want them getting TOO old!) They became less and less the characters as they had been created. Some of the aging fan base was able to accept the basic tropes -- they didn't mind that the characters did not age, get married, get mortgages. They still wanted to read the characters as they had met them, not as exaggerated avatars of themselves. But others, who were "louder," really did want the characters to reflect the changes in their own lives. They'd begun reading as kids, when the characters were magical, now they were "adults" and they wanted the characters to be mundane. And how about those increasingly elusive new readers? How about new kids coming to the party? They were ignored to the extent that one of the Powers That Were even denied they existed. "Eight year olds don't read comics, and never did!" Partly true, of course, since eight year olds were increasingly NOT reading comics, because comics no longer offered them that sense of wonder that capture me, when I was 8. They were no longer being told tales about amazing characters into whose lives they could escape. They were being told tales about characters who were their parent's ages. And every kid wants to read that, right?
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 8:45am | IP Logged | 8
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Discussion!
Brian H. - I would not kick dead Proty when he's down, because I'd get it all over my shoe... eww. :)
TANGENT: Lightning Lad and Proty, and Lar and Eltro Gand - I hope you didn't like these stories, because to be honest, I felt they were complete crap. Keith Giffen actually managed to get me off of Legion, and THAT was almost impossible... but he did it.
Keith Giffen seems to have a tendency to mock and deconstruct his characters; to reach for the dirtiest, ugliest, and most ridiculous aspects, and emphasize those. I didn't like it in Justice League; I didn't like it in Legion of Super Heroes; and I thought Ambush Bug was a case of Giffen having the photographic negatives to SOMEONE'S nasty secret...
DEATH AND THE MAIDENS: I think that you and I are splitting hairs a bit. I used late 1968 as the death of the original Doom Patrol. That was about the time the Bronze Age was taking shape, and things changed a little.
You mention Triplicate Girl, Red Ryan, and Boston Brand. For the nature of that discussion, we can throw in Lightning Lad... because those deaths were kind of insignificant. Yes, they were major characters; but Triplicate Girl simply became Duo Damsel (literally minutes later), and it was a minimal change to her character. Red Ryan and Lightning Lad* died, absolutely, and it even lasted for a few issues... but they came back. And Boston Brand had to die to become a super hero, as did Jim Corrigan before him.
Jungle King, Beast Boy, Kenz Nuhor did die, but these were such insignificant occurrences that, save for youi, me, a few others here, and Mark Waid :), no one knew them - even back then. I could sit down and recall other villains who died**, but I don't think those much mattered. Other heroes... yup, some of Easy Company did die. But in a war comic, I expect characters to die. Enemy Ace's "arch" foe the Hangman died... but again, a war comic and a villain didn't have much shelf life, in my opinion.
Other examples... as I'm rereading my World's Finest right now, I recall that Superman's Pet and the Caveman from Krypton both died. Superman's robot Ajax gained sentience, and then perished. The Flash fought an alien creature that was asorbing his friction proof aura and it was destroyed. But who remembers these? Death, yes... but I'm not sure it was a consideration to the nature of the books.
*Edmond Hamilton referenced Lightning Lad's death so often, you'd have thought he was Chris Claremont writing about Jean Grey... :)
**More than a couple of villains who learned secret identities died. To the heroes' credits, it wasn't what they wanted... but it was convenient for them anyhow.
As for Marvel deaths... exactly as you noted, they were introduced, got a little air time, and then died. But Silver Age Marvel and Silver Age DC are pretty different with regards to their plots and stories, and I'm not sure they can be compared. The closest DC got to the bickering and fights in the Avengers or Fantastic Four was a little good natured ribbing in Teen Titans.
I think we can agree to disagree that death, while a significant element, was a little dfiferent between Silver Age DC, Bronze Age DC, and Marvel at pretty much any era, yes?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 9:00am | IP Logged | 9
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*Edmond Hamilton referenced Lightning Lad's death so often, you'd have thought he was Chris Claremont writing about Jean Grey... :)•• More likely to be editorial insertions, altho Hamilton and other writers were certainly "trained" to write in the redundant style of the time.
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Brian O'Neill
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | 10
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Speaking of that 'redundant style', it reminds me of a Silver Age story in which Superman shows Batman and Robin a simulation of what Superman's life would have been like 'If Krypton Never Exploded'. Not only is that phrase the title of the story, but it seems as if Batman and Robin are only in it so that each of them can repeat the phrase every couple of pages. It's as if Weisinger must have felt the readers REALLY needed to be hammered with 'What an INCREDIBLE thing would have happened if you had grown up on Krypton, Superman!'...in case they skipped the first page or something?
Edited by Brian O'Neill on 19 February 2018 at 12:57pm
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Rebecca Jansen
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Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | 11
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Hmm, I guess they kept me for about six and half year. When it stopped being fun I moved on (with various looks back now and then).
I think there are definitely people of limited exposure to other things who really did or do think comics can be serious adult literature. On one had you had the big words and James Joyce referencing using Gray Groth/Fanatagraphics types, some of whom scorned the lowly super melodramas as 'not adult' and/or cheap and quick (while still loving Carl Barks and George Herrriman mind you), and some that didn't, maybe as much because they made a dime off it like everyone else. Then you had the Denny, Neal and Frank rule, superheroes can be this serious adult literature, comic 'heads' let's say. They really drank the electric kool-aid of Stan's Soapboxes (or Jim's or Dick's)... they believed the hype. But those guys couldn't even sit through The Last Picture Show probably let alone ade through War And Peace. There was a subset that read The Lord Of The Rings multiple times (or Stranger In A Strange Land)... but let's not muddy the waters too much.
I think the real problem is those people, who perhaps feeling a bit bullied by the first kind of intellectual comic fan (ye olde Comics Journal brigade), earnestly wanted serious adult literature but rather than recognize maybe they should crack open some heavy reading if they knew it existed, never mind imagining attempting the writing of such, they willfully stayed impoverished and decided folks in colourful stretch pants with fabulous abilities could address important serious mature existential reality. Or something like that. What you got is what some older underground cartoonists found to be a bizarre narrow in-crowd mess, tromping on things the unofficially made fun of only now these creeps were making it 'official'.
And of course the feedback of the much more reactive direct-sales distribution had a big effect. It would have people stocking away first issues and historic event happening comics for future wealth (forgetting what if there are no actual readers in that future and nobody is around to want to pay for these important 'treasures').
I dunno, I might be pontificated out. John Byrne seems to be on the same page. Not everyone is an 'enemy' though, Denny O'Neil and Dick Giordano both said things about people should avail themselves of those more adult forms. That they wanted to see people who had as writers wider experience, but not so the super people could grow up so much as they would understand that if you actually have a significant War And Peace in you then you are not going to need Yellowjacket or The Huntress to be involved, and you will actually be more likely to get that adult reader you seem to crave without them. And if you don't have War And Peace in you ( how many do?) there is nothing wrong with that... you can write some great comics, see your name on that beloved super-friend of youth, and that will spark people's imaginations, creativity or sense of wonder (though they may be 11.8 years old)... you can at least do There Is No Hope In Crime Alley, and that is humanizing and sensitive and doesn't destroy anything, and keeps it there for the next bunch.
I read a ton of Edmond Hamilton's sf and fantasy, one of my favorites. I had totally forgotten he'd had anything to do with or say about Legions Of Super-Heroes. It was that 'planetary chance machine' knocking the memory out of me no doubt about it... ow.
I have some later Killjoy comic(s) to find... but thank you for the great discussions. I'll be back (just like 'Killer Ded' who was so unfairly taken alive).
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Dave Phelps
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| Posted: 19 February 2018 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 12
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Eric Sofer wrote:
| TANGENT: Lightning Lad and Proty, and Lar and Eltro Gand - I hope you didn't like these stories, because to be honest, I felt they were complete crap. Keith Giffen actually managed to get me off of Legion, and THAT was almost impossible... but he did it. |
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Wasn't that one more the Bierbaums? And yeah, that Legion run is one of the main reasons why I will forevermore be wary of a "huge fan" taking over a series...
QUOTE:
| Jungle King, Beast Boy, Kenz Nuhor did die, but these were such insignificant occurrences that, save for youi, me, a few others here, and Mark Waid :), no one knew them - even back then. I could sit down and recall other villains who died**, but I don't think those much mattered. Other heroes... yup, some of Easy Company did die. But in a war comic, I expect characters to die. Enemy Ace's "arch" foe the Hangman died... but again, a war comic and a villain didn't have much shelf life, in my opinion. |
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Silver Age DC tended to do their "major events" pretty quickly: Rita Farr went from not being interested in giving Steve Dayton the time of day to marrying him in a single issue. Marvel was a bit more leisurely. There were exceptions to every rule of course.
QUOTE:
| *Edmond Hamilton referenced Lightning Lad's death so often, you'd have thought he was Chris Claremont writing about Jean Grey... :) |
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Well, in that case, it was because the death of Lightning Lad was more of a storyline than an actual "no, we're really done with him" event. Even in the story where he died, it was "is Lightning Lad REALLY gone for good? Stay tuned for a sequel!" Something like that, anyway. And eight issues later, there he was! (I first read those stories in Adventure Comics #500, which covered the entire run of stories in a single shot (other than the one he actually died in) so it didn't seem to take that long to me. :-) )
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