“The Rock is attached to play the villain, a likable enough actor who was seems genetically designed specifically to be in comic book movies. It’s not a bad role, either. If you take away almost everything ridiculous that doesn’t work about Captain Marvel, you have his antithesis and mortal enemy, Black Adam. Not to worry, though, sensitive readers, Black Adam is not a racist caricature of a black man that embodies everything evil. The “Black” only refers to his dark soul and corrupted nature. He’s actually an Arab.”
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Not to mention the Green Lantern:
“Hal was a test pilot given a magical ring by a dying alien that gave him super-powers. Specifically, the ring gave Hal the ability to create physical objects out of green energy. The scope and magnitude of his powers were limited “only by his imagination.” With this boundless power quite literally in his hands, and with the implicit intention of challenging Namor for the title of “Least Effective in a Fight,” Hal proceeded to make mostly umbrellas, round plate-like surfaces, and fists that were a bit larger than usual.
In order to curb these massive powers, Green Lantern had to have a weakness, some small flaw, miniscule, hidden and not often encountered, like Superman’s famous kryptonite. That weakness, the writers decided, was to be “the entire color yellow.” Not just yellow rays, or yellow swords, or yellow slightly-larger-than-usual fists, but the whole of the spectrum in general.”
Sometimes, I wonder how “heroes” like these have managed to survive for 40, 50 years. To the extent that they have, of course.
24. April 2008 @ 23:45 ( Permalink )
Because they’re bigger than life, and they are cumulative creations, meaning that as new writers (and I suppose, artists) get assigned to them, their mythology, personalities and identities grow. The ones, for insance, that are originally concieved as too ridiculously powerful becomes iconic, a wonderful foil for other characters or simply interesting sources for stories of how it is for a god to devote his life to protect those who would by all means seem to be less than he (Superman). The very things that make them inherently ridiculous is what makes them iconic, and they’ve had decades of cumulative story-telling creating an often very rich and interesting tapestry of backstory and depth explaining why this seemingly ridiculous trait actually makes sense with the character and the world.
The reason why a story about a guy who wields absolute power through a ring limited only by his fantasy and things of the colour yellow becomes iconic and popular is the exact same reason why people told stories about the bull that mounted Europa or Herakles killing the Hydra for centuries. The advantage of the superhero comic books that the faerytales, legends and myths of old never quite could match, though, is the depth of the cumulative qualities. Stories of Herakles would probably get bigger and more impressive, boring bits being cut away and good bits being added, as the centuries went past, true, but nothing in human history can compete with the modern age’s archives of past stories, allowing stories to be built on stories that’s built on other stories. Like the stories of Herakles and Perseus, the stories of the Green Lantern were constructed over a long period of time by many, many story-tellers - but unlike the stories of Herakles and Perseus, the storytellers of DC and Marvel Comics have had a certain (and increasing) amount of joint direction, co-operation and planning that was never available or even doable with similar characters of old.
Why these heroes survive for half a century? You might as well ask why people tell stories.
25. April 2008 @ 02:03 ( Permalink )
(I also posted this comment in my weblog (http://my.opera.com/Loki%20Aesir/blog/a-reply-superheroes), as it felt more like a post than a comment once I finished. To your actual post-topic I can only say that I never saw the attraction of the Captain Marvel-character (he’s basically like a weird-ass Superman-ripoff in the same universe), though admittedly I’ve never read a story purely about him. But I should mention that his foil, the Black Adam-character, is certainly among the most interesting villains of the DC universe)
25. April 2008 @ 02:08 ( Permalink )
Nice comment, Loki.
Just for the record, though, I have no problems understanding how the phenomenon of the comic book superhero has grown to such proportions — I do after all enjoy reading the occasional such publication myself, too.
I am also of course aware of how ridiculous it would be of me to allow myself to be prejudiced against a character like Green Lantern (my knowledge of whom, by the way, is pretty much limited to what was said in that thing I copy/pasted above) on the basis of a presentation intentionally manipulated for humorous effects. I do, however, stand by my increduilty that this character has survived for so long, no matter how modified that increduilty is by awareness of my lack of knowledge, and how open I am for new information which might cause me to reconsider.
But the Captain Marvel dude? I think I’m gonna stick with my initial reaction on that guy.
27. April 2008 @ 19:29 ( Permalink )
Captain Marvel is basically Superman whose powers are explained by being an ancient being of magic invested by old gods instead of being an alien drawing power from the sun, but with a normal little child as an alter ego instead of Clark Kent. I’ve never read a story about him (though obviously he does appear in several bigger DC-universe-spanning-stories), but with the exception of the adult-child-contrast I don’t think I’ve heard anything interesting about the character.
I don’t share your incredulity on the Green Lantern at all, though. I find the concept to be rather interesting - a corps of different beings dedicated one each to a protecting a particular corner of intelligent life in the galaxy through their immensely powerful rings. It’s like the superhero-version of Jedi Knights, only with one single one to protect every planet on his own. With that, I’d imagine, comes all the diplomatic issues of planets and countries who do not recognize the Lantern’s right to police them, different Lantern’s viewing their duties in differing ways, etc, etc. While the original execution of the concept was probably pretty stupid and ludicrous, so was the original execution of just about any superhero when seen with modern eyes. The concept, however, is relatively nuanced and interesting as such concepts go, if you ask me.
27. April 2008 @ 20:04 ( Permalink )
Hey, what do you know, that actually did sound rather interesting. Of course, the whole “colour yellow” issue still remains unresolved, but if that’s the concept — that he’s set t guard the Earth and such things — then I do see how that might be construed as potentially interesting.
Not to mention that he might be one of the few comic book characters able to defeat or at least contain Unicron. Of course, Unicron is pert yellow, but I can’t imagine that weakness would be too hard to get around — after all, colours are merely reflected light, and to get some goggles with coloured glass, which eliminate yellow from the electromagnetic spectre altogether, oughtn’t be an impossible feat.
(Apologies for that digression, but I’ve been listening to Kalle’s recounting of polls from some comics forum, where a lot of people seem to be under the impression that, say, Batman could be able to defeat the chaos god from Transformers who caused the Big Bang in his fight against his more orderly counterpoint…
)
7. May 2008 @ 23:34 ( Permalink )
Batman would be able to defeat ANYTHING. That’s why he’s Batman.
8. May 2008 @ 00:26 ( Permalink )
I’ve heard things to that effect, yeah, of both DC and Marvel. Apparently, they’ve made official statements that Batman and Spiderman, respectively, can beat anything, because they think, or something like that.
Which strikes me as kinda odd, at least for Marvel (which is the universe I know the most about), as one would imagine that, say, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Professor X and others of that calibre also would think.
8. May 2008 @ 00:57 ( Permalink )
Spider-man? Can defeat anything? That’s LUDICROUS. As you say, Richards and Stark could (and have, at least in the latter case) play him like a violin if they wanted to. Professor X, too, probably, but I’m more unsure about his actual level of intellect. He’s obviously very smart, but I’m not sure if he’d be quite the genious-level he appears to be if not for the telepathic advantages. And Parker IS very gifted. However, he’s no Reed Richards, Tony Stark, or, say, Lex Luthor.
And he’s CERTAINLY no Batman. That’s just Marvel flying him high because he’s their main guy, wanting him to measure up. The entire concept of Batman is that he is able to do anything through his massive intellect and even more massive willpower. If Batman has a superpower, it’s sheer force of will. The character’s essence is that once he decides to do something, he’ll never, ever falter at it, and due to being insanely smart, he’ll usually succeed if given enough time to work at it.
Contrast that with a gifted and quick-thinking guy who stumbles into having superpowers, and the comparison is quite obviously phony. Doing the same comparison with Iron Man, however, would be interesting. Or Lex Luthor, or possibly Victor Von Doom. Those are characters at the genious-level of intellect that have also demonstrated enormous determination time and time again. Sure, Spidey is probably comparable to Batman in the ability to think on their feet. But Batman awesomely often would have ninety-four different training scenarios closely matching the situation worked out five years beforehand. Which is, you know, why he’s Batman.
8. May 2008 @ 01:59 ( Permalink )
You know, I’m so incredibly happy to be the kind of person to enjoy such posts as that one, Loki.
12. May 2008 @ 10:19 ( Permalink )