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Rob Van Gessel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 335
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 1:46am | IP Logged | 1
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It can make your head spin and your fists clench, but the rules in a comic book world can be hard to follow. Examples,
Inspired by the Buscema thread, I revisited his titles. There, among other things, we find that the Silver Surfer's "power cosmic" is no match for Thor (without Loki's enhancement); yet, in a later Thor saga, a demon called Durok the Demolisher kills the God of Thunder with an electric jolt - something that could never harm the Surfer, the latter who actually revives Thor with his own power.
In other examples, Namor almost always fought the Hulk to a standoff, yet was never a match for Thor; but the Hulk went mano-o-mano with Thor in invariably close tradeoffs.
Then we have the Hulk scrapping with the Surfer, which is NEVER contest. Once the Hulk belted him with all his strength and the Surfer wasn't even dazed. Contrastly, the Thing punched and knocked out the Surfer when they first met. Maybe EVERYONE simply has an off day!
Speaking of the Thing, sometimes his strength level was played down to the point you'd fear even Aunt May could take him out; but in Kirby's last classic FF story, where Grimm is abducted by the Skrulls and taken to a world they modeled after 1930's ganglands, the Thing demolishes a machine "capable of pushing through a planet"! Once the Thing was thought only capable of lifting a meager 5 tons (in his early days) other times he was at the 85-ton level described in those 'Marvel Universe' books; and other times he did, it seemed, closer to 100 tons.
Another petty nerded-out gripe, at times it was suggested that the Thing could not survive a fall from the height of a skyscraper; yet, he's shown in FF#109 as not only taking such a fall but carrying the pogo plane on top of him to boot, absorbing impact into the street below by pushing his feet out through the fuselage.
One of the worst by far, again in an old Buscema ff book, Galactus faces the threat of being stranded on Earth should Reed destroy his spaceship! Quite pathetically, the world-devourer just didn't know WHAT to do! He was f***ed! Makes me wonder where the hell Stan's memory was with that one, as he was still editor on the books!
Oh, yeah: in the same issue, Johnny creates fiery duplicates of himself, and Galactus goes "WHICH one is the real torch? WHICH one could it BE???" So, he uses all his great power to eliminate each figure one-by-one until he finds the real human torch!
Well...I guess that's why we need alternate universes. Without 'em you're completely lost in a comic book world!
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 5:04am | IP Logged | 2
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It's a great post. I do look at it a different way, though.
Of course, consistency important. Wouldn't want to see Robin getting pounded by Bane in one issue and then kicking the ass of Metallo or Gorilla Grodd in the next issue. The best consistency I found was in the 70s live-action Hulk series. He could throw/lift a lot, but struggled with other things like resisting a car crusher and fighting a bear.
However, suspension of disbelief being important, I see a sports analogy. Sometimes a superior sports team will get it's "ass kicked" by a supposedly inferior team from a lower league. It happens. So I suppose I could see some of the examples you've provided being down to luck, the stronger character having a bad day, etc.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 5:28am | IP Logged | 3
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Sometimes writers forget, sometimes they remember but don't care, sometimes they do it deliberately. Dog help the poor character(s) who writers/readers have decided are "lame". Fastest route I know to bad handling. In the end, tho, the important consideration is just how insistent we are going to be that every scrap of "continuity" be equally "real". If Captain Fonebone is poorly portrayed in thus-and-such an issue, must he be poorly portrayed from then on? (If one writer portrays Hank Pym as a wife beater, must he be forever a wife beater?) As the audience has shrunk, the anal-retentive fringe has moved closer to the center. Sometimes even becoming the center (ie, the pros). Sometimes the writers and editors who have the greatest contempt for the characters have been put in charge. Rehabilitation of a character can be hard. But it can be done. One just has to accept that this is all FICTION", and not even "synoptic" fiction.
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Greg Kirkman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 May 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 11:51am | IP Logged | 4
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(If one writer portrays Hank Pym as a wife beater, must he be forever a
wife beater?)
+++++++++++
Spider-Man was also a wife-beater, and yet he somehow gets a pass.
Double-standard!
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Carmen Bernardo
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Joined: 08 August 2006
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 5
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I've reached the conclusion that consistency in storytelling is something that is almost impossible to achieve in an ongoing comicbook serial, especially when you start having successive creators working on the same character. It's easy to lose track of what a character should be doing when you put that character before many different people.
These days, we get the same characters often being written by different creators in separate comics coming out at the same time.
Inconsistency is something that I've seen set in early in some characters' appearances. Remember when Superman started out? He was pretty much bullet-proof, but he sure wasn't kicking planets around like soccer balls! That started setting in later, as the 1940s turned to the 1950s. By then, he started to actually fly, could survive long treks through interstellar space, and even traveled through time with a trick or two.
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Rob Van Gessel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 335
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | 6
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" By then, he started to actually fly, could survive long treks through interstellar space, and even traveled through time with a trick or two."
That is character development not "inconsistency". The latter refers to a brief but steeply erroneous departure from key elements long set down about a character.
Anyway, hopefully my post isn't being taken seriously. It is a fun observation about the gaffes you'll find in every fictional universe.
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Wallace Sellars
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Joined: 01 May 2004
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | 7
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In other examples, Namor almost always fought the Hulk to a standoff, yet
was never a match for Thor…
—
It seems as though most creators (and readers) sell the Sub-Mariner short!
Namor has actually defeated the Hulk in a one-on-one battle, so I think that
he could defeat the god of thunder as well. And even though Thor would
likely win half the time, it definitely shouldn't be an easy contest.
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Greg McPhee
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Joined: 25 August 2004
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | 8
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Spider-Man was also a wife-beater, and yet he somehow gets a pass.
Double-standard!
===================================================
What???????
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Greg McPhee
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | 9
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Steve Englehart seemed to be one of the few writers that managed to salvage Hank Pym from oblivion in the pages of WCA.
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Robert White
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | 10
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I got the feeling that Kirby's original intent for the Silver Surfer was that he was to be the most powerful "hero." It was retconned later that the Surfer was weakened by Galactus when he was trapped on Earth, I believe.
Before Silver Surfer #4, the Surfer comments that he's not as powerful as he once was. That he would have defeated his enemy with a "shrug" or somesuch. It seems clear to me that Stan felt that the Surfer had to be de-powered.
There is no way anyone would portray Loki as being as powerful as the Surfer, if not more so, nowadays.
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Rob Van Gessel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 335
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | 11
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You know, when it comes to the direction to take a character's development I've always felt more intrigued by Kirby's original concept for the Surfer. For all my devotion to Stan, his re-shaping, I feel, was too - can't find the right word for it at the moment! - "generic": Norrin Radd, a humanoid from a civilization with the same flaws as Earth's human race (been there done that), yet, finds human behavior incomprehensible! The premise is therefore at conflict with itself. Very awkward device for its purpose. Maybe that's why Stan lost focus on the book in terms of where to take it.
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Rob Van Gessel
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: United States
Posts: 335
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| Posted: 15 December 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | 12
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Thor and Namor:
Noooooooo! Much as I like Namor - the first superhero "asshole" in comics history - neither he nor the Hulk can ultimately handle the thunder god. I mean, Thor was able to actually annoy the Celestials! You need a serious right hand for THAT!
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