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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 16115
Posted: 21 April 2025 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
A lot of superhero characters are potentially lame and it's a testament to good storytelling (and respect for the characters and medium) that most are pretty cool.

For the record, Puck was a good character. What is lame in that list is the contempt shown by the storytellers in the panels with Spider-Man and Paste-Pot-Pete.

There's nothing cool about a writer or artist looking down their nose at the characters they are working with.
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134205
Posted: 21 April 2025 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply
Sadly, as the market has shrunk, the ennui-engorged fanboys have increased their numbers, proportionally, and as some of them have even crossed over to the professional side, their influence has increased accordingly. Look at the kinds of stories that have pushed their way to the fore, where honor and nobility are to be scoffed at, and authority figures are deliberately diminished.
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Brennan Voboril
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 15 January 2011
Posts: 1812
Posted: 21 April 2025 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply
Could not agree more. As a child comics taught me so much about doing the right thing, honor, bravery, etc. Today’s books? 
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8071
Posted: 22 April 2025 at 5:35am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
Three things, to my mind, cemented lame characters and ‘there are no true
heroes.
Scourge, THE DARK KNIGHT and WATCHMEN.

After those three, characters were never the same.
There were occasions beforehand, but post those, there was a train that
just about everyone wanted to be on.
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Kevin Brown
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 9119
Posted: 22 April 2025 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply
No Squirrel Girl?  I'm seriously shocked.
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Paul Kimball
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2228
Posted: 25 April 2025 at 4:44am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
puck is an interesting character and as far as I know, unique.
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Rodrigo castellanos
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 03 July 2012
Location: Uruguay
Posts: 1553
Posted: 27 April 2025 at 6:20am | IP Logged | 7 post reply
Look at the kinds of stories that have pushed their way to the fore, where honor and nobility are to be scoffed at, and authority figures are deliberately diminished.

Similar thing happened with American cinema in the '70s.

And it was an incredibly creative era that gave us a lot of classic films.

But then Spielberg and Co. went the other way in the '80s and heroes came back with a bang.

It's all about cycles. If comics couldn't appropriately respond to the "grim n' gritty" stuff (debatable) with a superior vision I'm afraid it's comics' fault.

Interestingly, film world has been dominated by the very same superheroes for the better part of the past two decades while comics haven't been up to the task.
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Brian Floyd
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 07 July 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 8802
Posted: 28 April 2025 at 3:56am | IP Logged | 8 post reply
I think sometimes you need lame or whacky characters, to make the weird/mediocre ones look more interesting:

Hero #1: "Oh, crap! Its Pinetaurus, the Baseball Minotaur!"

Hero #2 (less than thrilled): "This goon is going to be a problem. Why couldn't it be someone like Hindsight?"

Hero #1: "Really? I'd rather not have to capture a freak whose eyes are on his butt cheeks again!"
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