Character Rehab
 

They tried to make Wolverine go, but he said "SNIKT BUB SNIKT BEST THERE IS AT WHAT I SNIKT CANUCKLEHEAD SNIKT"...

Anyway. Simple question, inspired by the discussion about Wonder Woman's shortcomings as a character in the "Dear DC" thread: if you were approached by a comic publisher and invited to give any character of your choosing a total raze-it-to-the-ground-and-start-over makeover -- costume, concept, setting, the whole megillah -- who would you choose, and what would you do to bring him or her closer to fulfilling their conceptual potential?

I've already talked about what I'd do if handed the reins of a Wonder Woman title -- so you tell me: who would you fix and how?

Edit: I want to hear this sort of thing too! You don't have to go whole hog unless you feel the character's situation calls for that kind of radical surgery.

I've never had much 'let's totally rework Character in entirely different ways' fantasies other than the minor story/character tweaks that'd make someone suck less. Totally starting from scratch is kind of scary since it's tough to imagine what the original character concept would be without the actual original character's development and origins. And it'd be tough to even come close to what you did. Man.

I'll kick around a few ideas while I'm at work.

Fixed!

I order to beat the moral that heroes cant die and never change, i would try to innovate by looking deeper into relationships and allowing the characters to reborn from what they once were.

Like, i would let Batman and Wonder woman get together in the main unniverse, and allow Bruce, while on the prime of his life as Batman to slowly recreates his life. He dosent have to die a loner to be "cool" and "dark" and "edgy" and "Batman". Hell, if only, this could just add a whole new set of layers that the character could explore. And as he got old, there would be at least a feeling that Bruce got something out of life besides being the Dark Knight 24/7


Same with superman. If he actually got married and had a son (not a plot device) interesting things could happen. Even if he son didnt have any super powers, or if Clark actually wanted for his son to have a normal life, while he himself cant be much around because of his work as an Reporter AND superman.

i dont know... i just feel that if they could make the characters advance in life and maybe, sometimes is not a bad deal for the hero to actually win a little in life... things would actually open up a bit more.

Oh, okay!

Goddamn Power Girl. Jesus Christ I'm not sure what they've got her doing by herself these days but I would buy the shit out of one huge TPB of Power Girl being normal person Karen Starr and just trying to fit in. I can think of nothing more hilarious than Power Girl sitting at a keyboard encoding data-entry software while watching funny YouTube videos on a second browser window, then going home bored and alone then the next day introducing her to someone else in her department who's her new chick-friend for the next umpteen years and trying to get along as a normal human despite oh yeah, she's fucking Power Girl.

If you really must you can toss in a few sad, lonely programmers whom ask her out while staring at her rack, but come on, we've gotten that for the past few years, I think it's high time for a moratorium.

On her character; She is a loner from an alternate dimension's Earth-like planet. Please, for the love of god, show how lonely she must be. I swear the Justice League is not the Justice Friends anymore, they're her co-Saving the World workers and she really only has to be around those people 'at the office.'

Basically I'm sick of Kryptonians spending all their free time running around saving the world over and over again, and Power Girl has had nothing but guest appearances anyway where she joins Superman and Supergirl in punching people to death or to provide eye candy. I think it's high time for some Karen Starr characterization so we're not stuck with Totally Hot Krypton Chick on the sidelines forever.

Apparently she's got a new series coming up soon that promises to go back to her alternate-personae so hopefully they'll take my suggestions.

There's about a hojillion things I'd do to Spiderman but I'd start by unmaking Straczynski and firing his ass for even suggesting that we retcon the universe through Mephisto.

EDIT: I'd also like to take the time to make Stephen Strange a less utterly annoying character but there's so much I want to do I don't know where to begin.

I'd make the Beast not a lion again. I seriously saw no point in that, and if you look at what they're doing with offshoot media, you'll notice that they're quietly trying to ignore it whenever possible. I think it was a mistake, and while they don't want to admit it, I'm pretty sure Marvel does, too.

Past that, I'd re-power Jubilee, because she's been described as having had incredible potential with her powers, and then had them taken away before it could be realized. Plus, she's a fun character, and Wondra introduces a more cynical side and plays off all her experience, except oh yeah she's no older than before and spent most of her time with the New Mutants and not the actual X-Men.

Chamber/Decibel is a toss-up. On one hand, Jono was all emo because his power blew off his face and ended a promising singing career, but on the other, I think that giving him sonic powers was an interesting and even appropriate twist, considering his musical past. In one way, I have trouble seeing him so drastically different from how he started, but in another, I'd only want to give him his old face back and allow him to revel in not only regaining his voice, but having it new and improved, possibly letting him choose whether to live out his dream as a rock star and not have to fight crime and look like a freak anymore.

I'd also bring back Synch, because he has by far one of the most interesting abilities Marvel ever came up with and was killed by a fricking bomb set by Emma's jealous sister!? What a serious waste.

Boy howdy have I got a YouTube video for you.

The change I would make? Superman's story would have ended here:

http://io9.com/assets/resources/2007...20Superman.jpg

I'll admit I was never a Superman fan. The guy always seemed just too good too often. But really, in this case I respected him. He died like a true hero in a way that was both touching and meaningful. Also his death could have been the push some of the lesser iconic super heroes needed to become full fledged characters in their own right. Supergirl could have stepped up to become the new face of American truth and justice for a new generation. We could have seen the growth of a new female icon that was more than just eye-candy. She could have struggled with the void of power she had to step up to fill, the villains not taking her seriously at first, the scrutiny that people would place on her as she tried to forge her own path out from under Kal-El's shadow.

And really, deep down I feel Superman earned his death. His fight was epic, his legacy was amazing, and he left more than enough capable people behind in his wake to keep the world safe. So yeah, in my makeover, Superman and his death would get the respect it deserved and Supergirl would have taken on the mantel of responsibility. And older character would have a fitting end, and a newer character would have a glorious beginning.

Quesada, JMS was contracted to write it and had no choice.

Now, I've issue with two characters. Deadpool and Spider-Man.

Deadpool is a highly trained badass who can kick the crap out of pretty much any normal human, humans with powers but normal human durability, minor invulnerable people, etc. His combat training puts him equal or greater to Wolverine, who's officially the badass guy and Lady Shiva of Marvel. That being said?

Unless it's Captain America or someone B+ class have Deadpool win. A flaw I've noticed is how Deadpool can kick Rhino and a bunch of other supervillains around while shrunk to about 2 inches but can't fight some lame Captain America ripoff or Iron Fist without basically getting beat up? Come on. Let the man win in his own comic, in fact nearly permanently killing Wolverine was the most kickass thing he's ever done recently and it wasn't in his book.

Now, Spider-Man. OMD aside, he's got A-list powers. I don't need him kicking everyone's ass. In Civil War he was portrayed very faithfully in the last battle. But, let's put it this way. Unless you have lots of guys attacking him, he's going to be dodging pretty much everything and kicking you in the head while doing it.

On a side note, give JJJ back his fucking paper. That was stupid.

Cassandra Cain's switch to a generic villain was actually an optical illusion caused by the way the human brain perceives light passing through a special filter. Admitably, I don't really keep up on DC comics, so it's entirely possible that this has already happened.

Superman: I would make him a socialist ass-kicker who solves the little guy's problems with violence. Throw out the space gods and cackling maniacs and nigh-endless origin rewrites and obsessing over this or that power level and just have a bunch of crooked-ass politicians and robber barons and bankers and media magnates and general Mister Potter motherfuckers dicking over average shnooks and then Supes shows up and punches them in the face.

In keeping with this I'd cut him out of this Superman - Wonder Woman - Batman - Aquaman All Super All The Time fuckfest they've been running for the, like, last twenty fucking years where the only people you see in a given comic are lightning-powered ultra-beings who rewrite spacetime for lulz and put him back in a universe where a guy being able to jump really high and run really fast and punch things super-hard actually seems like sort of a unique and incredible thing.

Fantastic Four: I would let them do some adventuring again. When was the last time you saw the Fantastic Four do some adventuring? Every Fantastic Four comic I can remember reading in the last ten years features some given combination of 1. Doctor Doom 2. Namor 3. Galactus 4. the fucking Mole Man 5. the oh what are they called, Black Bolt and Crystal and those fuckers 6. Reed being a dick to his kids. Which is balls-ass retarded because if the Fantastic Four is one thing it is a license to come up with whatever ridiculous bullshit you like and then put that into a comic. Send Reed and Valeria to the seventh dimension, have Sue and Johnny go somewhere in the 99.99999% of the ocean that isn't Atlantis, have Ben Grimm visit San Francisco and get thrown into the Kurt Russel role inMarvel Comics' remake of Big Trouble in Little China, have the whole family hop into the Fantasticar and go visit the universe next door to ours. Whatever, go nuts.

The Flash: I would find a way to turn him into a parable for modernism. Though I've never really worked out the particulars of what the preceding sentence means.

I'm not a great big comic reader, so I can only speak about the only character I actually know from my brief foray. However, I really can't see what's wrong with bringing back Speed Ball. From what I understand DC is in dire need of fun characters, so if they just quietly pretended like they never discontinued the guy, have him still looking for that bouncing cat and fighting evil glue guys and trying to figure out if the benefits of bounding around wildly at the slightest touch are worth, ya know, bounding around wildly if you caress him too hard.

Of course, I think it'd be cool if he got handed over Gaiman or somebody who can totally retool the concept into something epic, like he finally catches the cat and you discover that the preceding was just his subconscious, then the comic whiplashes into some god v. god warzone where Speed Ball represents Hope (cuz he always bounces back?) and the glue guy is like Despair(?) and see what you can do from there.

Really, I just think more superheroes motivations should be as simple as "Catch that damn cat so I can be normal."

Oh fuck, someone's going to have to tell him.

123notit!

I firmly believe this is why I love Superman/Batman so much, and hell yes I agree so hard.
Well the point is I'd make someone pay for what they did.
And, that, in fact, is why I like YouTube. They even got a great (ahem) 'actress' for her, all hair dyeing aside. Now tell me you wouldn't buy that comic. Just try.

Anyway getting back on subject Stephen Strange irks the crap out of me, especially lately. He steps aside for the SHRA and lets them sort out their differences, then he comes back and helps out by giving the underground a place in his fortress, then later burns up so much magic energy he's like "Oh noes! I'm turning evil and have to leave!" then totally screwing over the underground movement.

It's like, christ, he's a cool character. Give him some firm parameters on what his magic can do and then just in case he needs a Deus Ex Machinae hey, you know, I heard there's this relic of power in a (blank) hidden deep in (blank), and boom, you've got a new sub-quest.

I live on broken dreams.

Behold the example of Speedball Penance!

Yes, that is a thing that happened.

It reminds me - I read a little She-Hulk and it was all super lawyerly antics and somehow being a space lawyer involves boxing for rulership of a planet and it was good. Then suddenly they had some time skip and bad things had happened and she'd killed some guy while brainwashed or something and I was all "When the hell did all this happen? Get back to convincing the Scorpion not to attack JJJ's trial because otherwise he'll claim a mistrial!"

I guess it was one of the big crossover events at work.

That's more plot rehab I guess. Its annoying to have that sort of character development happen 'offscreen' though. I don't want to have to read eleventy one books to know what's going on.

Also Speed Ball's Marvel.

Ok then, fuck comics.

I knooowww! Why they had to take a solid gold concept like Single (Green) Female Lawyer and crap it up with tired melodrama is beyond me, but I blame the same forces that tried to get Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane canceled alla time.

This is my favorite response so far. They would never ever actually do it, of course -- dead characters can't flog merchandise -- but allowing a major character to seriously no-foolin' permanently die would be a great thing for any of the big-name publishers (and for comics nerds in general, but that's another subject altogether). How is anyone supposed to take a "major event" like, say, the death of Captain America seriously when A. they already brought Bucky back after about a million years of saying they wouldn't and B. we know they'll just pop him out of the hole as soon as his movie comes out and they need to sell lunchboxes?

Anyway, I'm really loving all the different proposals y'all have come up with. Keep 'em coming!

Being totally fair, Captain America's recent death was pretty incredible, as they ended up killing my favorite character in his own series and yet everything they've done since then has still kept it as my favorite comic book. I hope they keep Rogers dead but it says something about comic books that I totally expect them not to.

There's lots of things I would suggest doing to Marvel but they gave me Wiccan, whom is easily my favorite character so I really can't complain. We have a splintered fragment of Scarlet Witch's dream-world children whom possesses powers unique and powerful but a fraction of the reality-warping stuff she could do, plus he's gay with the Hulkling and part of the Young Avengers. Ask for an original character and you sure as hell get one.

!!!???

Wait, they're trying to get it canceled?

The Joker: In the hands of most writers it seems that the only thing he's good for these days is serving as this stand-in for the "bad-ass, no foolin' psycho killer" spot and making everybody else in Gotham City look bad by failing to be mysteriously killed every time he fails to get away (which must be nearly every time he appears.)

Something's got to give: either the logical conclusion of Joker's career happens (he gets killed), Gotham's institutions get more competent (or the Joker does*) or the Joker begins to follow a policy of "less killing, more joking" to get him out of being a something-path with no taste and no reason not to be in a prison instead of Arkham.

The Joker should be perfectly capable of killing without blinking, but it should only be one of the possible punchlines of his outings, so it would look again like a form of comedy or art is his goal rather than just depopulation. He's been that way before.

Somehow, the animated Joker didn't have this problem.

Superman: That's another character I don't especially like, so my suggestion is sort of parallel. I agree that the best thing to do would have been to let him stay dead, but it wouldn't have hurt either if the attempts at revamping him had stuck and/or had been well executed.

Actually going onward with Supermen as sort of legacy characters after the death of Superman might have allowed for clashing elements in the character concept to be separated and sort of refined into new, more balanced characters. Then, even if the Clark Kent character had still come back he wouldn't have been the same mess.

The "energy" Red/Blue Supermen is also something I think contained a solution; simply rationalizing Superman powers more deeply, altough I don't vouch for the execution. There's just so many avenues of revamping.

I'm not sure why only characters I have no great love for come to mind.

*The Joker actually having an edge is often something that seems like an informed attribute: when he goes up against villains, it's often implied that the only reason he gets the drop on them is because they don't "see it coming", which is kind of ludicrous with a Joker that's only renowned for being an unpredictable killer.

S/B these days is closer to what I have in mind but it's still such a superguy humpfest all about Superman getting rid of a thing that kills Superman because that's bad for Superman but then the government's scared of Superman so Superman fights Supermonsters built to kill Superman by Superman's ex-girlfriend who's scared of Superman Superman Superman Superman Superman. Batman.

Pretty much my approach here is, first, throw all that shit right out, in fact throw out Superman altogether, and start with something basically more or less our world that we live in today, and say okay, what need in all of this is filled by a super-strong guy calling himself a hero? Now lots of people have done this; the problem is that their answer 100 times out of 100 has been "He fights muggers and space gods" which means they're doing it wrong. People don't need a super-strong invulnerable dude to stop bank robberies, we have cops for that. On the off-chance a planet-eating space god turns up and tries to eat our planet, we have the US Military and all those nuclear weapons they've been building for 60 years. Lady reporter hanging off the edge of a building? Call the fire department, and once they get her down have them give her a stern talking-to about hanging out too close to the edges of buildings.

Problems that individuals cause for individuals are something people have had answered practically since there have been people; we build institutions and societies to control and stamp out and ameliorate those problems. What people don't have an answer for is what happens when it's our institutions and our societies conspiring against individuals, because people with power and priviledge within those institutions have decided to fuck over average shnooks for their own gain. That's where you bring in Superman, as the guy who can stand up to the great engine of our society. To my looking at it in any given Superman comic possibly the least central character should be Superman. You start with the guy getting fucked over by The Man, and all the ways The Man is fucking him over, and then when it looks like things couldn't get any shittier for our helpless protagonist, Superman comes in, beats the tar out of whichever greedy SOB and makes him say he's sorry, and makes things right for the honest jerks of the world.

Really this is less about reinventing Superman in particular than the entire notion of the superhero, in the direction of making it less the escapist fantasia that pretty much every incarnation thereof has become, and more about something that addresses the actual problems people deal with here in our world of ordinary humanity. And then punches those problems in the face.

...Which I'd be remiss if I didn't somewhere point out is basically what the concept originally was. First two Superman stories ever told: 1. Superman breaks into the Governor's house, beats up his bodyguard, kicks in his door and says hey jerkwad, that man being executed is innocent, and you're gonna effin' let him go. 2. Crooked-ass mine owner treats his employees like crap, Superman sneaks in, beats the tar out of the mine owner and his scumbag lackey, and then as Clark Kent writes the story for the Daily Planet Star exposing the guy for the scummy jerk that he is. Siegel and Schuster got it right straight out of the gate; it's been the hard work of ninety years screwing it up.

...Oh! Also I have a really great idea for a Martian Manhunter reboot. Or at least a J'onn J'onnz reboot. I'd rename him "The Alien" and play him as an immigrant story, where he enters America in human guise as a political refugee from a war-torn country - when in reality, he's a political refugee from a war-torn planet. He puts in for asylum and takes up life in an immigrant slum, where he seeks to avert scrutiny and avoid revealing himself but is compelled by his sense of justice to use his Martian powers to right wrongs among the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

You misspelled "Brian Bendis."

He meant Doctor Strange, because he sucks.

Also I'd like to see a superhero who refuses to stop bank robberies and such because actual people aren't losing money. Banks are losing money, and fuck them. An anti-establishment hero, I guess. Because I've seen racist heroes and gay heroes and poor heroes and rich heroes, but I've never seen a hero expressly dedicated to stopping old fat rich white men from fucking us all over.

I'm really not up-do-date on my comics (read: 20 years behind), so they may have done this, but I want Wolverine to return to the conflicted, fallen samurai thing Claremont was doing before Larry Hama fucked it up (no disrespect to Hama, he's a good writer and did great things with Wolvie post-Fatal Attractions, but it wasn't the same, ya know?)

My problem with this is that it would get super political/philosophical super fast. The idea itself is loaded with it.
It would quickly descend into what right this person has to decide everything just because he's super strong and how what seems like individual acts of justice can cause wider spread ramifications. Then to escape that they'd throw in some monsters who Superman can beat up without anyone claiming he's doing the wrong thing.
That's always why I saw Superheros as fighting supervillains. Because supervillains are evil as all fuck. In most cases its hard to say smashing DarkSeid in the face is not a heroic act to do.
But fighting corporations and things will bring a whole lot of social, judicial and philosophic theory as to whether that is correct that it would just weigh down the light-hearted comic.
You could avoid that and always portray Superman as doing the right thing but people who disagreed would be turned off.

Another thing is that people balk less at a super-strong guy bashing another super-strong guy in the face for being 3333V111111LLLLLL!!!!1one!2 than a super-strong guy feeding a normal, fat American his own face for charging a 10% interest rate.


Edit: This was meant as a response to Barrel.

I was going to ask where it says that comic books aren't supposed to express a political viewpoint, except it occured to me that the question I should ask is where you get the idea that Superman doesn't, now, express a political viewpoint?

The only difference I see is that the viewpoint he currently expresses is one which suitably flatters the comfortable classes, whereas the viewpoint I would have him express does not.

?

The premise of this thread is what I personally would do to reshape a character. I'm not seeing what part of that includes handing the character back to the people who currently write him, to do the exact same two things that they currently do with the character, which are the things I expressly want to throw out, and stop doing with the character.

Again, among the many assumptions you're making here is that Superman as currently written does not express a viewpoint which is a turnoff for many people.

There is a key difference between your idea and the way that Superman is at the moment (I haven't read a superman in a while so if I'm wrong on this feel free to correct me).
Superman at the moment is directly opposed to crazy supervillains. Yes there is politics present in superman but they are not portrayed in direct opposition to Superman. His efforts are fighting ridiculous, totally fantastic bad guys not real world things. This means the politics are less direct whereas in your plan they would be completely central. Making Superman's heroic actions be that he defeats evil politics make his conception as a superhero tied directly into his political view whereas currentely he is a superhero because he defeats world destroying villains.

As for the reason why I don't want politics in it. Because I can read politics in a lot of other places where it will be dealt with in a more sophisticated manner. Comics could easily become mired in political debate like so many other things but be less adept at presenting these issues than say literary debate. This would prevent comics from having any unique points of difference. I don't see why people would read comics when there would be a better form of political debate they could read. Currentely comics are escapist fantasies but by miring them in the real worldyou take away that aspect so all you are left with is a simplification of politics.
This idea would contribute to dumbing down of political debates. The media already does this and I wouldn't want another literary form doing this as well. And Superman beating up corrupt factory owners certainly dumbs down and trivialises complex political issues.

I mean yes Superman is political but currentely you can ignore it to a large extent as Superman's direct villains are supervillains and not opposing political ideas.

I'm probably missing something here but I just don't see the point. There is plenty of anti-establishment literature and films and newspapers already out there and they present themselves in a more sophisiticated way than comics ever could.

Interestingly, taking the extremely long view, we'll be skirting this sort of thing with Robo eventually.

You are aware that comics is a medium and not a genre, and that there are many serious, thoughtful, sophisticated comics out there that have nothing to do with dudes in spandex footie jammies kicking the crap out of each other? And I'm not just talking about freakin' Maus, either. It's like saying that film can't address weighty issues in an intellectually rich fashion because all movies are Wayans Brothers shit-and-tits "comedies". If your argument instead is that the medium itself can't sustain that kind of commentary, well, okay, that's kind of super mega ultra wrong, but that's outside the scope of this thread and you're welcome to start a new thread about it.

Anyway, so what would you do with Superman, Barrelpants?

Fifth, I'm sure you hate manga, but you should read Akumetsu. Japan's economy sucks so some powered guy decides to start killing all the corrupt businessmen.


Not specific to a single character, but overall I'd want power reworking. For instance, Superman. He's strong enough where there's only about 10 people, several of which are probably himself, that would actually be a problem for him based on his powers. However, most comics don't end within 1 page, despite that being how long most challenges he faces would take to fix. I mostly want to see power consistency. I'm fine with god-like characters, as long as they only have problems from other god-like characters. This also applies in the opposite sense. Batman shouldn't be fighting Darksied and last longer than half a second before he is fleshy paste.

This doesn't apply to comics being run by Rule of Cool/Fun.

Yes. I was talking specifically about superhero comics.
But I can address the other issue. Indeed their are political comics and they mostly share the same problem in that it is awfully difficult for them to maintain academic neutrality and to address problems of doubt, uncertainity and opposing views in a way that pure text can and indeed I would argue that the very existence of such comics is damaging to political consciousness as much as the comics with superheros fighting the Nazis were.

There is some degree of scope for political discussion in comics, yes, but that is extra weakened by the inherent fantastic nature of the presence of super beings which further dull the issue. And as these comics do already exist, I'm curious as to the need to transform the superhero genre into a political genre. It's not filling a gap and instead is removing something else.
If you want I can start another thread about this.

As for what I would do with Superman, I'm not entirely sure. The character doesn't really interest me that much. Actually there you go. I would give him a proper characterisation.
Because right now he is just sort of a force, an object that exists out there, an idea in the general. I would actually make him someone. Not sure who but I would do that. But I'm more of a modernist than a classicist so I wouldn't be suited to the topic of characterisation.

Your objection seems premised on the idea that society is neatly divided into two halves with one labeled POLITICS and one labeled NOT POLITICS and everything that agrees with accepted orthodoxy gets to call itself NOT POLITICS and be lulzy fun and everything that might disagree with such orthodoxy is POLITICS and oh so dull and dreary. While simultaneously dumbing down the INSTITUTION OF POLITICS which is apparently supposed to be dull and dreary so I shouldn't go trying to make it lulzy fun, lest I destroy the infinitely complex and fragile snowflakes of pure intellect with the hot seamy breath of the common man's stupidity.

It's a point of view I've never really understood or accepted because as far as I can see "politics" is sort of, well, inherently a part of every single human interaction and act of expression and storytelling. I would love for you to show me where our discourse isn't "dumbed down" by restricting whole media of storytelling to overmuscled UBERGUD versus UBEREIBAL caricatures that bear no relation to those concepts as actually experienced by human beings in the world, as opposed to trying to use that media to convey some kind of actual idea about things that are real.

Anyway I'm pretty sure at this point that Mashirosen's going to knife my eyes out for turning her fun pleasant Comics thread into another goddamn Discussion thread so I should probably cut myself off before I convince her to use something rusty. It's probably for the best that I didn't get around to my Wonder Woman reimagining. I'll close by saying that I actually get that as ideas go this one isn't for everybody as it's pretty far removed from what people tend to think of as superhero comics storytelling, I just figure if we're going to have a thread about reinventing comics characters then I might as well get into the hard bedrock of what we do with comics characters. Of course it's all just jerking off because the economic and social realities which I would have Superman contest are the same economic and social realities that make sure nobody is ever going to use Superman to contest them, so, well, there you go.

Still though, J'onn Jonnz as The Alien, that's solid gold, right?

EDIT: wow, ninja'd by a shitton

EDIT EDIT:

I've read like a hundred chapters' worth of Bleach.

I'm not saying I don't want to talk shit just that at this point I'm sure the God of Hypocrisy would manifest himself bodily and kick me in the junk.

Yeah, I will throw in that part of my general Superman thing is that he's powered to the point where he can scarcely interact with the world, because he's so nigh-omnipotent that letting him actually do anything would lead inevitably to him doing pretty much everything, so all he can do is preside over humanity like a dispassionate god on Olympus, waiting for another diety to happen along and pick a fight.

It's not like half of Robo's adventures don't already happen because someone in the US Government dicks Robo into doing their dirty work.

If you don't want to post it here -- although y'oughta -- please PM me about it!

I'm not going after anyone with anything rusty for bringing a thoughtful digression into a fun pleasant Comics thread when, as you say, politics isn't only something you talk about but part of nearly everything we do. "What is conversation but a progressive set of improvisations on a theme?" is what I would say if I were a Jane Austen character or something, though preferably not in one of those empire-waisted dresses because they make people ask me when the baby's due.

Dang, there was something I was going to say about what I'd like to see someone try with Wolverine but I can't remember the gist of it right now.

Mostly it's similar to the Superman thing except she fights for women's rights. Stopping abortion-clinic bombings, breaking up abusive relationships, beating up pharmacists who refuse to fill women's birth-control prescriptions, fighting the social forces that encourage dudes to treat women as outlets for their hostility towards society and their place in it, that kind of a thing. I actually don't like the concept that terribly much as it feels too much like "Superman.... but for women!!!1", but that's at least an improvement over the current "Superman.... but she's a woman!!!11 and she's hot and you could fuck her maybe."

I do tweak the backstory a bit in that Steve Trevor crashes on Themyscaria and Diana meets him and wants to know about this world where men and women live together and Steve's like actually for a lot of women it kind of sucks and so Diana goes to her mom and is like hey this guy just told me about how women get kicked around out in the world and we should do something about that! And Hippolyta's like yeah we all knew that already which is why we stay here and don't have anything to do with that because the Man's World sucks and is dumb. And Diana's like well it's sucky and dumb to just go letting things suck and be dumb so she ditches Themyscaria to go back with Steve Trevor and make the world a better place. I figure the rebellion angle gives her an excuse to spend less time farting around Themyscaria which as I said in the last thread I totally hate.

Generally it's not critical in that like I said I'd more like to see a focus on the purpose a superhero serves and de-emphasize the origin and personal issues and crap of the particular hero but in Wonder Woman's case I feel it's important as so much of her origin story has been so fucking stupid that someone needs to set one down for her that's servicably non-awful. It's either the stupid bondage-takes-her-powers thing or she's made out of clay I mean can we at least find a less obvious way to objectify a character than having her literally be an object?

Throw him into an atom smasher?

Shit, I totally did.

Eh okay yeah, fair point.

It just seems like the foundation of your rewrite of Supes is taking him out of the 'fighting things a hojillion times more powerful than he is therefore making him seem puny despite the fact that he can level Metropolis if he felt like it' and that's the main thing I like about Supes/Bats.

But yeah if we're going for the "KEHEHEHEH I'M FEELING VERY EVIL AND GREEDY TODAY" "STOP RIGHT THERE!" "OH CRAP IT'S SUPERMAN!" *SMACK SMACK SMACK* then yeah, Superman/Batman really isn't the same at all.

Would Social Justice Superman encounter any significant problems? I mean, him beating the shit out of some healthcare CEO would certainly be entertaining, but I can see it getting old.

I mean, it's Superman. Some Wall Mart manager exploiting illegal immigrants wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight.

Better than the similar thematic that's sometimes read into Superman, in any case.

I'm pretty sure that's the entire idea. I could theorize but Fifth'll come along and explain his point just fine so I'll step aside.

So do you also plan to write in someone who opposes the 'heroes' not out of malevolence, but because they impose their views on others with force? I would truly fear for my safety if there was a super powered person that might decide to cripple me cause I have pale skin and an extra appendage that supposedly makes my wages 17 cents* higher per hour.

*feel free to insert more recent/accurate statistic

edit: I apparently didn't scoll quite all the way down past fifth's last post

Spider-man: Sure, he has that famous "Parker" luck but honestly, give the guy a break. Also, while one of the more iconic things about Spider-man is that Peter Parker's sad existence makes him more of an everyman, it gets a little depressing when you think about the fact that every good thing that has ever happened to him has been taken away (Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Ben Reilly, the baby, Mary Jane.). Thats not drama, that depressing.

Spider-man is honestly at his best when he is Spider-man. Why is that? Cause when hes out cracking wise as he beats up Mysterio or Doc Ock that we forget about Peter Parkers Pathetic life.

IN SHORT: Make Peter Parker less pathetic. Seriously, there is a line between drawing a parallel between a normal person's life and just being depressing to watch.

Super-Man: I probably would have had him stay dead for all the reasons stated. At least in the main universe, it would be interesting to see who would have stepped up.

Also, I think a less powerful Superman would be awesome. I mean come on, he is the deus ex machina king of super heroes, he always is strong enough. Thats just me though, some people like him that way.

Batman: I actually really like Batman the way he is, however I would like to see a little more character growth. Yeah, he has sort of created a make-shift foster family for himself over the years, with the Robins, Bat-Girl, Alfred but I kinda want him to really fall in love and let someone in close. It seems like his character growth has kinda stalled since he adopted Dick Grayson.

Batman/Superman: Why do these guys get along? I mean I can see some professional courtesy between the two, but they should never be friends. They represent two entirely different sides of the superhero coin. Powers versus Training, Public eye versus Criminal superstition. While both could be called vigilantes, Superman has the trust, and probably backing of most of the world, while Batman is supposed to be largely considered an urban legend or dangerous vigilante. FACT: Batman is too god-damned paranoid to ever trust an indestructible, super fast, super smart, alien. FACT: Every time the two have fought, Batman has won.(Not really relevant, just thought I should point it out :D)

IN SHORT: Superman and Batman's relationship should extend to no more than professional courtesy. MAYBE THAT.

I have a question. In both the DC and Marvel universes, you've got hundreds and hundreds of people with huge special powers. In real life, a SINGLE one of these heroes would probably end crime single-handedly, or go mad with power and take over the world.

So... why does everybody go about their normal life despite there being so many fucking superheroes and supervillains?

I mean, seriously, if the good guys decided to get together and rid the world of evil, then they could probably do it with no trouble. Dr. Doom doesn't stand a chance if the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, the X-Men, and everybody ELSE all decide they want a piece of him.

And while we're at it, a good half of the superheroes are geniuses and/or technologically gifted. In such an age of great people, why isn't there more technological development? The comic book universe pretty much constantly stays at the same point technologically, except for like, Stark Tower and.... fuck, wherever the hell the Fantastic Four stay.

Yeah, so I don't read a whole lot of comic books, but it really doesn't make sense to me that you have all these special people and no special changes to how the world works. If it were up to me, you would have a comic WITHOUT normal people, because all they ever do in comics is whine about how the heroes are actually criminals and then almost get killed by stuff and change their minds.

It would kind of mess up the whole "heroes save people" concept with no powerless people, but it's the only way I can see there being an equilibrium that makes sense.

These are good questions, Kerensky, but they don't really pertain to the topic in the same way the political digressions do. Would you like me to separate your post into a new thread where you can get some answers?

Sure he could. Have him have ties to some kind of racist militia and oh crap, suddenly Superman doesn't have to deal with just one exploitative fucker but a bunch of his heavily-armed psychotic buddies all at once (this works best with a Superman who's less ridiculously overpowered than he usually is, obviously, but I think that's probably a feature of Fifth's concept as well). Which could also provide a way to comment on the hypocrisy of the sort of consumer who's happy to get their bigotry on against illegals while simultaneously benefiting from their status as criminally underpaid labor. And of course, at the end the workers remind Superman that he's only dealt with one asshole manager who'll only be replaced by another just like him or worse, and that other workers are suffering under the same company and others just like it all across the country. Nothing will get better for any of them unless the companies' policies change, or the government's. Perhaps it's time he aimed his fists of righteousness a little higher...? THE END -- OR IS IT.

I hadn't thought about that version of her origin that way but that's such a good point. I just thought it was a neat little reference to the Galatea myth without even considering the weird object-y implications of that. There really is just a hell of a lot of creepy baggage weighing the character down and has been from day one -- ever read that Michael Chabon essay "A Woman of Valor"? It's mostly about how Big Barda gives him a Mega-Rod, but in service of comparison he also goes into the many, many ways in which Wonder Woman the actual character has historically failed to deliver on the promise of Wonder Woman the concept. It's so frustrating because it'd be so easy to fix -- something like your idea would work just fine and it doesn't even require a whole lot of shuffling around of existing stuff -- but they never bother because hey, she sells t-shirts just fine as she is.

Speaking of that kind of character:
Just like Wondy, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Wolverine as a character that radical chainsaw surgery of his backstory couldn't fix. I mean obviously refraining from shoehorning him into just about every title ever except maybe Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane would be a good place to start, but don't let's ask for the stars here.

The amnesia thing isn't a bad character element itself, or at least it wouldn't be if it hadn't been done to death, but it's been used pretty poorly in his case. The thing about inscrutable badass characters is that they have to remain inscrutable -- the more you let the audience know, the sooner they get bored. It's the striptease principle -- whatever the audience imagines is probably a million times better than anything they could actually be shown, and they have to be left wanting more without ever being fully satisfied. Amnesia's a good enough way to get away with this, but then they blew it by making him all gung-ho about recovering his memory, which to me is emotionally unrealistic.

I mean, a guy wakes up one day with seemingly inexplicable rages, a vague sense of having been seriously physically violated in some way, and no idea how any of this happened or even who he is -- maybe this is just Sunday morning as usual for some people, but I don't think it's necessarily a given that the guy's response would be an obsessive desire to know exactly what the hell happened, especially for a member of the Greatest Generation (I refuse to acknowledge Origins on the grounds that it's fucking retarded). I think a whole Egyptian delta's worth of denial is more likely, and could potentially be a more interesting character arc. I have a whole long-ass post detailing what I'd do to make this work, which I might post later although I'm kind of embarrassed about having devoted that much thought to fixing Merchandise McActionfigure. I just like that kind of character when they're done well okay :(

Well, take that idea a little further, and you get Black Summer.

I have separated out as much of the political stuff as looked sufficiently distinct from the comics stuff because it was killing me to read and I actually like that sort of thing so I can't imagine anybody else wants to wade through that when they're just looking for posts on how awesome it would be if Wolverine had, like, four claws dude!

I think it fits if you change it from the question of "why don't they just have everybody have superpowers and gets to live the neat futurized lifestyle that Reed Richards enjoys" to "What I would do is a comic where pretty much everybody has superpowers and gets to live the neat futurized lifestyle that Reed Richards enjoys." I mean it's not actually that bad as a concept - other writers have sort of played around in that space, the best example I can think of being Kirby's Fourth World.

POS actually had a great idea for a Morph revamp based on his view that in the Marvel universe basically every third person almost does have superpowers of one stripe or another, I should go holler at him to post something about that in here.

Actually Kerensky re: the comics technology gap, Superman comics from somewhere roundabout 2000 to maybe 2004 actually did this thing where they turned the whole city of Metropolis into a high-technology futuristic sci-fi supercity and actually spent a fair amount of time playing with that idea and its consequences so you might enjoy checking out the books from around that time period.


I have to be honest I think at this point I just fundamentally hate Wolverine as a character.

It might be less anything inherently wrong with the character than just wretched overexposure and poor writing for the last 20 years but that doesn't make me hate him any less. I don't really even think that's so much the case as just that the inherent qualities of the character lend themselves so readily to poor writing and overexposure. In whichever case ever since the Wolverine Is Five Inches Taller than Cyclops movies I just haven't been able to stand him and I sincerely think the best thing Marvel could do with him is throw him into an atom smasher and keep him dead for the next say, ten or fifteen years.

By way of an actual notion of how to change the character without outright killing him I would throw out the claws altogether*, scale his healing factor back down to something that resembles "healing factor" and not "instantaneous regeneration", and bring back the element of his past where he doesn't know what his past was because an actually spooky and mysterious government agency brainwashed him and did crazy experiments and implanted him with a bunch of false memories along with who knows what-all hidden programming.

...In fairness, I will grant that one important difference here between him and Wonder Woman is that there's nothing wrong with Wolverine that doesn't keep lots and lots of people from wanting to read or watch anything involving Wolverine, however much I personally disagree.

Whereas the thing with Wonder Woman is that she's been mucked around with as a character in ways that make pretty much nobody want to actually read any comic starring her. Which fascinates me because it's such a fantastically simple concept that you would only even need to be sort-of halfway competent in order to wring money out of until you were swimming Scrooge MacDuck-style through a sea of hundred-dollar bills** and it actually takes long years of hard, dedicated incompetence to screw it up.


*Yes, I would get rid of the claws. I hate the stupid claws.

He can keep the metal skeleton.

**As demonstrated - as I probably mentioned in the other thread - by Xena: Warrior Princess, which I maintain was Sam Raimi's actually sort-of halfway competent attempt at taking the bare-bones "Wonder Woman" archetype, fixing the couple of glaringly obvious flaws in her usual execution, and then letting heaps of money fall into his lap.

Could you be convinced into accepting bone claws ala Marrow? Maybe even ones that he has to shed after each use due to the healing factor of his DNA? I only ask because a wolverine without sharp scratchy things is just a fluffy kitty that had it's fur rubbed the wrong way.

I AM ESPECIALLY GETTING RID OF BONE CLAWS.

I'm not a fan of the "Socialist Shit-Kicking Superman... but for Women!" angle either, but it points in the vague direction of what I do like, which is Internationalist Shit-Kicking Wonder Woman. You keep Themyscira and the whole mission to end war and fucking commit to it. When she first shows up she says "oh don't worry guys, I'll just enforce existing laws" but then it turns out she's talking about those international laws, the ones nobody actually enforces. Y'know, the ones that say aggressive wars are illegal. Once you run out of viable "Powerful nation state tries to/wants to bully/manipulate shitty third world nation but WW fucks their shit up" stories, you can switch to "Powerful nation state(s) come up with crazy scheme to get rid of WW so they can get back to fucking with foreigners."

It's kind of funny that my WW concept is so much like your Superman concept, because my Superman concept is nothing like that. It's like this. You just drop any semblance of continuity and have Superman vs. Lex Luthor antics, Road-Runner/Wile E. Coyote style. You could (and should) take this approach with any Super Hero every once in a while, but I think Superman lends himself to doing it all the time.

Plus I think that Wolverine-as-Everyone-in-Marvel picture that got posted a while back kind of was like a wax-seal on the Wolverine coffin.

But, I digress. I haven't read an X-Men comic in years and I only got back into comics in general last year, so I'm not too up-to-date on anyone from that pool lately.
I'm in agreement here in every category but one, which leaves me curious - what's so annoying about claws (and bone claws for that matter)?

The introduction of bone claws sort of just hammered out an intricacy in Wolverine's power and theme for no gain at all. I mean with the metal claws you had a bestial man with kind of bestial powers being transformed into something even more thematically beast-like with something totally added. With the bone claws it just became: well, Wolverine was always exactly the same only not as awesome!

Just see how the second X-Men movie got a great line out of just ignoring the bone claws altogether.

Yes but a Wolverine without claws is really just Sabertooth for all intents and purposes. We all know just how popular that background villain is. >_>

I guess it would make the Wolverine vs Sabertooth fights more interesting in a more physical version of Spy vs Spy kinda way, but you'd have to really hit home their mental differences and such to distinguish them from on another.

Wolverine without his claws is just Wolverine. Instead of claws he'd use knives, and there would be no difference except less of the painfully forced badassness.

Like you can do that now? I mean the only thing that separates Sabertooth from Wolvie is that he's a bad guy, and not even for a reason, just sos there's a bad guy to beat up. Cable/Deadpool right before it ended was a great example; "Hey, let's get everyone off the island." "Wait, Cable, Creed's here." "Oh, okay, we did need some violence in this issue. I'mma go beat him up. Back in 10."

The claws really are one of the defining traits Wolvie has. The only other weapon that I can see him using is a Katana after all that samurai crap they wrote in. And Psylocke already has one. But then I see no reason she needed that in place of her psychic knife, so assuming that never happened, it would be less of an issue and more one of whether they really wanted to portray people getting sliced in half and stuff. Frankly, I see less of a problem with the claws and more of a problem with how he's essentially the star of Wolvie-Men, Uncanny Wolvie-Men, Xtreme Wolvie-Men, Ultimate Wolvie-Men, Wolverine, and Amazing Wolvie-Men, plus 80% of the rest of the Marvel universe. There are a LOT of other fun characters who just don't get the screen time, and a lot of other "star" characters who are overshadowed by Wolvie in terms of characterization. I mean, seriously, does anyone really know what makes Storm tick? She's, last I checked, leader of the Gold Team (though it has been quite a while), and an incredibly powerful mutant whose very emotions control the weather. She could probably fry Wolvie with so much electricity that he'd explode, but you never see people make such a huge fuss over her.

It's part of the character that most screams X-TREEM. Plus I figure if you take away the claws then he just like, punches you in the face with his metal-encased knuckles, which is pretty bitchin'.

But then, what makes him The Wolverine instead of The Terminator?

Seriously, I'd get rid of the metal skeleton before the metal claws.

A Wolverine that is not X-TREEM is not, in fact, Wolverine. The best solution to this is to ensure that he is always the straight man in a comedy duo - for example.

There is a Marvel What If? comic I want to direct you to.

Basically it is What if Wolverine wasn't Weapon X? In it he has a subdued healing factor (He is bandaged and has a broken arm at the end.) and no bone claws.

He basically fights Weapon X with a MP5 and a Katar.

It was to this day the best Wolverine comic I ever read.

Most "What If?"s are usually better than their source material simply on the grounds of not being completely raped, pillaged, looted, and repeated over the last fifty years or so.

Read: Red Son and Nail.

Returning to this --

-- I think the best I can explain it is to say that (per the given example) the Wal-Mart manager is able to put up a totally great fight, against the illegal immigrants he is exploiting, which is the part of the story that actually matters and in which Superman is ultimately a secondary actor. The goal isn't to tell stories about how Superman fights enemies of Superman who want to fight Superman because Superman fights Superman Superman Superman Superman Superman Batman. The goal is to tell stories about people, and the struggles and enemies and villains that actual human beings fight and get beaten by every day, and then introduce Superman as the element that changes that situation.

On a related note --

-- to my mind asking for a particular power level for Superman is even almost beside the point. I mean by my looking at it Superman ultimately is going to basically be "strong enough", the question is strong enough to do what?

I actually rather enjoy Fifthfiend's Superman idea -- that statement would probably surprise him -- but my biggest concern would be that the "villains" in his storyline would be treated in a rather haphazard, dehumanizing way. I mean I know it's fun to believe in a world in which every businessman, CEO, and politican with any semblence of power is evil just for the sake of greed, but I really don't get the impression that any human being -- even those oil tycoons we're trained as a society to despise -- is really that sinister. These guys do their part to instigate and propagate the system, perhaps even for their own personal gain, but they also have families and hopes and dreams and desires and are essentially just like the people they unwittingly abuse, only on the other side of the equation.

I guess I'm just sick and tired of the notion that "every" person in a position of power in a capitalistic society has somehow sold his soul to get there, and thus deserves to have Superman beat the crap of him (or her.) In the real world, I've met the Presidents and CEOs of organizations I've worked for, predominantly aerospace industries and the Peace Corps, and they're not bad people. They're richer than I am and I'm not sure they can really relate to the entry-level working struggles I'm going through anymore, but they're not smiling their asses off like sinister villains, getting off on the pain they're causing.

So if there was some way in which Fifthfiend's vision of Superman could be orchestrated without Superman turning into every bit as stereotypical a communist fable about eeevil people in power, I'd probably enjoy it. For one, if Superman spends more time fighting and exposing the inherent pitfalls of our capitalistic system without necessarily demonizing everyone participating in and benefitting from the system itself into sociopaths worthy of getting their heads crushed in, I'd enjoy it. But then in that incarnation of Superman I'd have to wonder; where would the action potentially come in? You'd either have to demonize those 'in power' to such an extent as that they actually deserved the full consequences of Superman's wrath every time, or you'd have a comic with very little action and much more philosophical debates and dialogues. Maybe a mix of both approaches would work best. After all, I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be any corrupt CEOs or politicans deserving of a head-bashing. I'd just prefer there at they weren't all stereotyped into that one narrow classification of assholery, as most CEOs and politicans aren't really like that. Hell, even the HMO executive I met who supports a healthcare system I consider total bullshit was a pretty nice guy in person, who had a nice wife and two decent kids.

Also, I was going to write an in-depth response to Fifthfiend's Wonder Woman idea here as well, but I fear it's a topic more suited for discussion. Besides, it's a tight rope for a man to walk because I can't really personally comment much on "what it's like to be a woman" in modern society, eh? Discussions on feminism always lead me to wonder just how much a role in those discussions men can actually play -- it's similar to wondering just how possible it'd be for a white man to attempt to objectively dissect the "black power" arguments articulated by Malcolm X.

Oh hey, one big thing I'd change about Batman is how the detective work is portrayed, because the way it's typically done in Batman is goddamn bullshit. There are two forms: The Sherlock Holmes bullshit, where Batman puts together a bunch of obscure facts and comes to a conclusion and he knows for sure he is right with no further investigation necessary, and the Jack Bauer bullshit, where he beats people up and dangles them off a rooftop until they Tell Him What He Needs To Know. They're both essentially forms of Deus Ex Machina and are crap.

The way it should be is the way L did it in Death Note, where your genius detective character jumps to the right conclusion and isn't sure, so he devises a way to test his conclusion and hey even once in a while it turns out he's wrong and has to devise a new theory.

I think I'd prefer the Jonathan Creek way, where Batman is an anorak-clad social reject who lives in a windmill and delivers the denouement by gathering everyone in a room and saying "It's quite simple, really" in that special smug nerd tone of voice. Or the Nero Wolfe way, where he's too fat to leave the house and shouts "PFUI" or "FLUMMERY" at people until they crack, at which point Babs grabs them by the ankles and drags them out into the impeccably appointed foyer to make with the chin music until the cops arrive.

I see your point, but I don't think that's fair to Sherlock Holmes himself. From what I remember of the pre-Final Problem Holmes stories, there was some amount of legwork implied to occur after Holmes guesses at the solution. Which is why Mycroft Holmes isn't a detective.

Original Holmes didn't do that, but his successor legacy of knockoffs and copies have done it almost habitually.

But yeah, I prefer it when Batman just has some internal monologue where he thinks "Okay...this and this...hmm, I think I need to check something." And he's not a detective because he knows everything from crazy-small tidbits, but just because he notices things that could slip by a lesser cop.

The more writers get ahold of Batman and Superman the more they just throw their real selves out the window in favor of showing you just how powerful and talented and blah blah blah they are.

And Holmes himself, no doubt. I mean, as a public domain character, as a shadow of how he was originally portrayed. In fact, he could probably be thought to need character rehab of a sort.

Wasn't there some sort of crazy futuristic Sherlock Holmes cartoon they had for a while, where he basically spent like half an hour looking at clues that made no sense and then by the end he's like "Oh, its a basilisk human hybrid with a lightsaber hired as a hitman from cyborgs living in the sewers. I knew that half the episode ago."

And he even had some sort of robo-thug Watson or something.

I mean it'd have been totally great if the sci-fi setting hadn't totally raped any chance that the viewer could use the conclusions himself.

I'm going to bet he still had that stupid deerstalker cap thing going on.

That's what I'd suggest to any future use of the character, futuristic or otherwise: no deerstalker cap. Even if it's in the middle of Victorian era rural England.

No. Deerstalker.

The magnifying glass thing isn't helping either. Is this off-topic?

Some of the original stories tended to that without any help, though.

Yeah but it's one thing to have a couple of conclusions that make sense according to your world based on evidence that a reasonable person could actually think up.

But there's no way you can tell me that the viewer could get in on the Scooby Do-isms when your antagonist that is unseen through 90% of the show was some sort of werewolf ninja using a lightsaber hired by lizardmen to kill hookers by condensing himself to fit into plumbing system of a brothel for robots or something.

I'm not saying it happened but you understand why it doesn't make for good Holmesisms.

Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century.

If I recall correctly, it aired around the same time as Spiderman Unlimited, which was Spiderman in the future. Only instead of the future it was the Earth from another dimension where animals ruled and were led by a group of jackass paladins. The less said about it, the better.

Only in the sense that you're objectively wrong, but I'll let it slide if you'll agree that he can keep the coke habit later treated by Freud.

Lies! The deerstalker is the greatest of the Holmesian fetishes, as laid out by the dreck Young Sherlock Holmes. The others are the pipe, the conspicuous magnifying glass and an enemy with the name of Moriarty. Only the deerstalker has no possible redeeming qualities and just no reason to exist at all! The magnifying glass makes practical sense and the pipe is a period thing that's actually major.

I wouldn't have it any other way. It also has the advantage of ruling out Holmes as being a goddamn literal robot.

I've noticed that other than Wolverine*, we've spent this entire thread talking about DC characters.

Regulus Tera mentioned wanting to change Stephen Strange which made me think of this post by Mightygodking, which took me like 10 minutes to dig out of his archives.

*(Another Wolvie idea: use him as Marvel's Lobo aka 90's parody guy.)

That was me, but that's actually a great article.

I suppose my problem is how he's been written the last few months, what with his involvement-not-involvement in the Civil War and the Mighty Avengers. I need to go find a Dr. Strange solo book to see some good writin'.

See, I think it's sometimes the things that get attached to a character for no good reason that have a lot of potential to become really nice little bits when handled the right way -- like Bruce's affection for the dog that's totally supposed to be Ace the Bathound in Batman Beyond, or the invisible plane becoming the invisible pony in that Wondy-as-kid-cowgirl sketch I linked to a while ago. I don't exactly know how the deerstalker could be made to fit better into the Holmes universe, because sadly my acquaintanceship with the character is limited to having read Caleb Carr's professional fanfic the Italian Secretary, Data and Geordie's incredibly fruity Holmes and Watson LARP on Star Trek, and maybe like an episode of Wishbone or something as a kid, but still, I bet someone could make it work. There's nothing good or bad but crappy writing makes it so, I sez.

I think that's probably because DC's big names tend to have been created much earlier than Marvel's, and so have had more time to accumulate even more of the same kind of seemingly irrelevant baggage to carry around. Plus it sort of feels like DC itself treats them like these untouchable sacred idols who mustn't be screwed around with or allowed to really evolve much, so that baggage never gets turned into anything interesting except maybe in an Elseworlds title it can safely ignore. As dumb and ridiculous and poorly-conceived as its decisions can be, at least Marvel is sometimes happy to break its toys to see what happens.

Also the best version of Doctor Strange is Doctor Orpheus from Venture Brothers, end of discussion.