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Robbie Parry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 12186
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 4:10am | IP Logged | 1
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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. |
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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.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132320
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 4:40am | IP Logged | 2
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Credibility vanishes with the use of the word “unitard”.
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Bill Collins Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005 Location: England Posts: 11250
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 7:02am | IP Logged | 3
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I disagree, also the FF is not a body horror, as that lame recent movie tried to foist upon us!
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Brian Hague Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 November 2006 Posts: 8515
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 7:03am | IP Logged | 4
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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.)
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Joe Zhang Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 12857
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 8:00am | IP Logged | 5
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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.
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Paul Gibney Byrne Robotics Member.
Joined: 17 April 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 1076
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 8:28am | IP Logged | 6
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WEBSLINGER wrote:
Spider-Man was something the comic-reading public had never seen before - the archetypal horror character, presented as an archetypal superhero character |
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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.
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Robbie Parry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 12186
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 8:30am | IP Logged | 7
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Paul, it's not my quote. ;-)
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Eric Jansen Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013 Location: United States Posts: 2292
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 9:15am | IP Logged | 8
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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.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132320
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 9:42am | IP Logged | 9
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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.
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Rick Whiting Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004 Posts: 2188
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Posted: 22 September 2018 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | 10
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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.
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Robbie Parry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 12186
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Posted: 24 September 2018 at 11:28am | IP Logged | 11
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John Byrne wrote:
Faux sophistication is the enemy of fantasy. |
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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. ;-)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 132320
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Posted: 24 September 2018 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | 12
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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.
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