Marvel's Bullpen Nightmares

Okay.  Let’s say you have a favorite restaurant.  You eat other places of course but this is your favorite.  You’ve been eating there for years and the place feels like home.  At least once a week you go into this place and get something to eat.  Over the years you’ve tried a lot of stuff on the menu but in the end you get one of a handful of dishes that you just love.  

Now of course over time things change.  The wait staff comes and goes, with some being better than others.  At one point their supplier changed and one of your favorite dishes was taken off the menu as a result, but they explained what had happened and everything was fine, even if it did make you sad.  The chef eventually took on an assistant who was capable enough but you made a point to come in when the original was there because the new guy wasn’t quite ready yet.

Over the years there were a few times where you got something, started eating and could tell it was off.  You couldn’t say what specifically was wrong of course, you aren’t a chef and don’t know everything that went into making the dish.  You could tell it was wrong though.  So you flagged down the server and told them that there was something wrong with the dish and they apologized and offered to take it back and get you a new one but it wasn’t that bad, so you kept it.  A little later the chef came out and had a conversation with you about what was wrong, he tasted it himself and couldn’t seem to find what was off but he listened and said to let him know if anything else was wrong the next time you came in.  It wasn't the experience you were hoping for but the service still left you with an overall good impression of the night.

Then one day you came into the restaurant, ordered one of your usuals and what you got was odd.  The texture was wrong, the flavor was wrong. You weren’t sure what to make of that.  They always had such high standards.  Somewhere else it might be fine but for this place it was really bad.  You talked to people, got something to replace it and everything was fine but the next time it happened again.  The Chef insisted that everything was fine.  Nothing important had changed.  Other people loved the food.  Maybe the problem was you.  You considered that for a while but it didn't make the food taste any better.

The next time you came in the Server left you sitting at your table for an hour before coming to take your order and once again the food was off.  When you complained the Server rolled their eyes and stalked into the back and when they came back out they told you that they were out of what you ordered so you’d have to get something else.  A little part of you got annoyed at that and you considered if you should just stop going there.

The problem is that you love that restaurant.  You don’t want to eat somewhere else.  You want it to thrive and for everyone that works there to be happy but after a few more visits you start to see that the place isn’t being kept up like it was.  The menu changes constantly and several of your favorites are replaced.  You try some of the new ones but they just aren’t as good as what they used to make. They aren't bad exactly, just sort of one note.   When you try your remaining favorites you find that they always taste wrong.  On top of that the prices just keep going up.

You know it could just be you.  Maybe you just need a break, give them the chance to get whatever issue is causing trouble ironed out.  Give your pallet time to reset.  

When next you come in they don’t greet you like usual.  The server glares at you as they set down their phone and sits you in a booth that hasn't been wiped down properly.  When you look around the building you can’t help but notice that the place is all but empty at a time when you used to wait for a table.  When the food arrives the care which always went into the preparation of the dishes just isn’t there.  So after a couple more visits you try and bring it up with the Chef but he fights you on every point you have.  He is rude and dismissive, and has excuses for everything you bring up as a problem

What do you know?  You’re only a customer.  If you knew how to cook then you would be the one making the food.

So.  How long would you keep going to this restaurant?  How long would you keep handing over your money for something which is supposed to be a luxury that brings you joy once it no longer does so?  You’ve been a loyal customer.  You want the restaurant to grow and for others to experience the same joy it always brought you.   You can see there are problems but there is only so much you can do to help, especially if the people in charge are in denial.

Iceman #6 upset me

This comic made me mad.  Like, wake up three hours early after fitful sleep with a stomach ache, mad.  We are presented with the idea that the original Champions are getting back together to have a wake for Black Widow.  This seems like a fine concept for a comic, especially for a writer like Sina Grace who hasn't shown a great deal of interest in telling stories where super-heroes actually do super-hero things.  The tone of his work so far comes off to me as being basically contemptuous of the idea of super-heroes.  He doesn't seem to understand the genre, the characters or the universe in which the stories are set.  (Please, Mr. Grace.  Prove me wrong on this.)

Marvel's Diversity Problem

The video of me reading the following.

Diversity at Marvel Comics is a problem.  Not because diverse characters are a problem but because the defense of those characters is acting as a smoke screen that masks the actual issues.

When someone complains about Jane Foster being Thor, the easy conclusion is that it is because she is a woman.  But I remember when Eric Masterson took over for Thor, a character which was demographically identical to the original Thunder God, and people complained about that too.

When John Walker became Captain America, people complained.  When Bucky Barnes took over, people complained.  When Sam Wilson took over, people complained, but this time, because he's black the fans must be racist.

For that matter, Spiderman was replaced by a clone of himself and people hated it, even if they liked Ben Reilley as the Scarlet Spider.  They hated Azrael taking over as Batman and were just waiting for the real Superman to return after his death. Heck, in that case Steel was one of the replacements that people sort of liked.

The best example of a mantle passing I can think of, the passing of the title of the Flash from Barry Allen to Wally West, still had people upset about Wally taking over as the Flash and decades later when Barry returned and Wally was ousted they complained yet again.

The thing you have to understand is that Peter Parker is Spiderman, Matt Murdok is Daredevil, Steve Rogers is Captain America, Thor is Thor, Clark Kent is Superman and Bruce Wayne is Batman.  These are intrinsic links in the fan base's minds and to try and change those links means forcing the fans to complicate their language when discussing the characters.  Comics are already a pretty complex thing to talk about, adding extra levels to it eventually kills the conversations.  So while of course you can shake things up and switch things around, barring a lightning in a bottle event, a character history which supports it, or meticulous setup which will still probably be rejected, in the end the characters will end up more or less back to where they started, having lost some portion of the readership along the way.

Fans of comic books invest years and significant brain space to these characters.  Over time a para-social relationship forms and a lot of the fans come to think of these characters as friends.  That friendship is the thing that pulls them back week after week, month after month, and keeps them spending their money to find out what their friends are up to now.  They are in a position where they have to trust temporary caretakers to treat their friends with the proper respect.

Would you be upset if you found out the people working in a hospital or nursing home were abusing their power over people that you care about?  What if they wanted to send a stranger home with you while insisting they were your loved one or even worse that you were better off for the exchange?  That is much the place that fans find themselves, when reading comics.  While they will accept bad things happening to the characters and minor changes in personality and circumstance from creative team to creative team, if you change them fundamentally, especially in a way which feels disrespectful, then people get upset.

If you change a bunch of characters in a short period of time then the irritation is going to compound.  I remember when the Heroes Reborn story happened and there was a massive hue and cry because it changed the characters on a fundamental level even if it didn't change who was who.

Another thing that the reactive defense of diversity is potentially obscuring is that most characters can not carry their own ongoing series and even those that can, may not be able to if they don't have the correct alchemy of writing, art and zeitgeist.  If the fans can't say "I don't like Kamala Khan," without it being written off as racism, sexism or Islamophobia then how will you ever determine that the character, like so many dozens before her, just isn't interesting enough to support her own book?  (I'm not necessarily saying that Kamala Khan is not a strong enough character to carry a book, just that jumping to conclusions about the motives of people that complain about her, is detrimental to an accurate assessment.)

With that said, a good enough story can ameliorate much of this negative reaction but if you have creators acting defensively, firing back at the (admittedly often mean and thoughtless) fans and accusing them of being bad people for not liking when someone is screwing with their friends then that is going to galvanize the negative feeling rather than defuse it.

There is no way to control how the fans are going to react when you create something and put it out for them to consume.  There are too many of them to expect that they will all react in a reasoned and professional manner but since they are fans and not professionals this shouldn't be expected regardless.  In the grand scheme of things you can only control yourself and as a professional there is an expectation that you will behave in a manner which reflects well on your employer.

That isn't to say that you have to agree with the fans, that you should give them what they say they want or that you aren't allowed to have an opinion.  All it means is that when the fans go low and attack you or your work you behave in a civil manner.  That might mean engaging them in a polite argument, having a friendly conversation or simply ignoring them and moving on with your life.  If you don't make enemies of them, most of the fans will do the same but it is up to you, as the professional, to behave in a professional manner.

In addition to civil behavior reflecting well on you and your employer it will also serve to clear out  the actual trolls who will largely lose interest if you don't respond to them in the way they want.  Real fans (defined here as people who read comics who are not posting with the express intent of getting a rise out of you) may say things you don't like or in ways which you don't approve but their reactions to the work are still valid and can still be used to help improve future efforts.

So yes, I believe Marvel does have a diversity problem but it is because the knee jerk reaction to criticism of new and diverse characters and creators prevents an accurate assessment of the complaints, rather than a problem with the diversity itself.

How I might have handled things at Marvel differently.

After some thought I've come up with several issues with the way stories have been handled for the last couple years at Marvel (and at DC during the New 52 era for that matter.)  Looking at a broader view I think that some of these are true for fictional entertainment in general at the moment but I'm going to focus on what I've seen in comic books because that's my area of interest.

I also fully recognize this is Monday Morning Quarterbacking of the worst kind.  My intent isn't to say the actual stories are bad but to illustrate other ways of looking at the stories which could end up in the same place without causing quite as much backlash.  (I think... predicting such things is nightmarishly hard but I really believe that these changes plus a less confrontational attitude on the part of the creators would fix a lot of the problems.  Just behaving professionally would help a ton.)

Tearing down the old to lower the bar for the new:  While not universal, there has been a tendency to not just replace characters with other characters (the diversity portion of it is only a problem when it becomes obvious that the quest for diversity is paramount) but to do so in ways that tears down the original rather than building them up.
If you want the fans to accept a mantle change there needs to be a passing of the torch.  That means you need to set up circumstances wherein the current character CHOOSES to pass on the mantle to this new character.  If they are forced by circumstance to pass it on the fans will fight it much more vociferously than if it feels like the character made a human choice to do so.

Thor - Thor is whispered to by Nick Fury and the words "Gore was right." (Which always makes me think that what he whispered was an extremely inconvenient truth for Thor.  ;D) are enough to make him unworthy.  Thor strikes me as more of a "Words are wind" type and the Norse gods, even the version in Marvel, seem much more concerned with actions than words.  I mean the reason Loki is so looked down on is because he uses words as weapons.  Thor is made unworthy and after a little while the Hammer apparently chooses Jane to wield it.  Has there ever been any sign that the Hammer picks it's user beyond the Worthy/Unworthy system, cause I don't remember it.

My take: I have several ways that I think passing the Hammer to Jane could have been better received by the readers.  I'm not saying the story would have actually been any better.  It just wouldn't have felt so much like a middle finger to the fans.

1. Don't push calling her Thor so hard.  It's weird.  She isn't Thor.  She's Jane.  There isn't anything lesser about her being Jane.  I understand that from a marketing standpoint selling "Lady Jane: Goddess of Thunder" might be difficult, but selling "The Mighty Thor: Featuring Lady Jane Goddess of Thunder" might not be so difficult since the fans haven't been yelled at by the author about it.
2. Stop sniping at the fans in the PAGES of the comic book.  It's the height of elitism.
3. If you want Thor to be made unworthy then we need something sufficiently big to justify it. 
1. I would have had Nick Fury tracking down information on something dangerous.  The exact set up for why he is doing that isn't as important though it would need to exist.  He keeps finding strange symbols scrawled in blood on walls after people have gone crazy and because the events are happening all over the world SHIELD is one of the few organizations that is really seeing all of it.  (This is a classic Cthulhu Mythos type horror story.) The more he sees of this stuff the more dangerous he realizes it is and more he keeps it to himself.  Eventually he gets all of the information and realizes too late that what he has been gathering is the Darkhold and before he realized it he had basically become the embodiment of the vile document.  (You could have the words of the Darkhold written on his skin if you think it looks cool.  Maybe have them shift around.)  Thus when he whispers in Thor's ear you can just show an arcane looking symbol and the information, even though Thor himself didn't understand it, is so corrupting that Thor is made Unworthy.  You don't have to explain it and it doesn't call into question how the Hammer determines worth nearly so much.
   To expand a little further, concurrent with what is happening with Nick Fury you have Steve Rogers meet someone, fall in love, get married and maybe even get her pregnant.  During the big blow up of the modified Original Sin story Steve realizes that for the first time he could "hear the footsteps" during a fight.  His well being is tied to his families well being and putting himself at risk in the way he is has suddenly become unacceptable.  After a good deal of soul searching he decides that it is time for him to step down as Captain America, he passes the shield to Sam Wilson, who objects but takes it in the end and then Steve takes over as the head of SHIELD.  (So he's trading one Shield for another.  :D)  Steve takes a back seat in the stories but can be called up whenever you need a stand up and cheer moment in the future.
4.  If it is acceptable to have Thor remain worthy of the Hammer then this would actually be my preferred solution because the problems are born out of character choices rather than circumstance.
1. Jane has cancer but has been keeping this information from Thor.  He's been off doing things and hasn't seen her in a while and when he comes back she is clearly dying.  She doesn't ask him for anything, she just wanted to see him once more before the end.  Thor fights with himself internally for a moment and then sets Grinder down and tells her that if the hammer will accept her then the power is hers.  It does and then you can have them roaming around as a team for a little while.  Jane isn't an Asgardian, she isn't as strong as Thor even with her being the Thunder Goddess but that forces her to learn how to use the other aspects of the Hammer more effectively than Thor who, for the most part, really could just muscle his way through stuff.  Eventually they get in a big fight with something really nasty, (Zzzax with a magical buff of some kind perhaps?) and both Jane and Thor are struck by a massive lightning bolt upon defeating the enemy.  Thor is obliterated in the attack and Jane is pretty much fine.  So now she feels guilty about the fact that she took the Hammer.  Sure, she would have died but if Thor had had the Thunder God mantle then he would have survived the attack.  (Have Thor's death be public enough and if you really want Jane to take his name in honor of him it won't seem quite so strange.)
   Meanwhile, Thor awakes in a dark foreboding land which we think is Hel, only to discover that he is in Svartalfheim, and the Dark Elves are gearing up for war at the head of all the enemies of Asgard.   So then we get Thor fighting his way home to warn his people of what is coming, only he doesn't have the Hammer and that makes everything much more difficult.

Captain America - The super-soldier serum wears off and Steve has to give up being Captain America.  This wasn't too bad but again it is a circumstance causing the change rather than a choice on the characters part.

My take:  See above in the first Thor section.  The take away is that he needs to have a reason and make the choice to pass the mantle to Sam rather than being forced to do so.

Iron Man - Tony gets in a stupid fight with his friends for good reasons and ends up in a coma.

My take:

1. Use Lila Rhodes instead of Riri.  In general use characters that already exist unless there is a good reason to make a new one.  This case is especially bad though since they are almost the same character but Lila had an established connection to Tony Stark already (especially with the death of James Rhodes.)
2. Stop telling us how awesome she is.  Show us that she's awesome.
3. Give Riri ONE thing where she is better than Tony.  She can be worse than he is in most other ways.  This should lessen the cries of Mary Sue.
4. I would personally have had Tony walking around a "Young Engineers Expo" which is basically just a super science fair with a scholarship as a prize.  This is part of a charity that he supports and he was roped in as a Judge.  He isn't sure why he let this happen and is trying to figure out how to skate when he comes across Riri's booth (which isn't nearly as nice as others that we have seen in terms of presentation) and she starts in on her explanation only to have Tony step up and start really looking at it.  It takes him a full thirty seconds to figure out what she has going on.
   That's astounding.
   So he offers her a job.  Or an internship.  And the scholarship of course, which the other judges object to so Tony just gives her one and they can assign the other one to whoever. (With that whoever being a potential rival or villain for Riri later on.)
   She starts working with him but Tony isn't really around all that much and Riri goes off book, creating her own armor in an attempt to get him to pay attention (even though she doesn't acknowledge that as the reason she is doing it.)  At the same time Tony has been having headaches and the suit hasn't been responding the way he likes.  Initially he thinks that the suit not working properly is causing the headaches but as it turns out he has a little brain damage as the result of too many concussions. (This would give you a chance to discuss a serious and timely problem without having the Champions find an evil NFL owner or something equally lame.)  It hasn't impacted him directly yet but the neural interface will have to be re-calibrated and even then it might not work correctly until he learns how to think differently.  Tony's brain being rather important to him, he decides that he is going to have to stop, at least until things heal and he can fix everything.  Riri in the meantime has her suit and is being quiet about using it but Tony figures it out and ends up taking her on as a Trainee.  (Think Batman Beyond)  It's basically like AI Tony but it's the actual Tony Stark and he REALLY wants to be out there but can't.  He is trying to keep her safe until she's ready, she is certain that she's ready and he's a worry wart, he finally tells her it's over, she flies off to prove herself to him and gets in over her head.  Tony goes to save her (still not able to fully control the armor) and they win but Tony ends up in a coma as a result.
   Then we can either have her trying to step up into his shoes and realizing how difficult it really is or you can have her try and hide the fact that Tony is hurt, taking his place (with the fun addition that if she was building the armor to match Tony's size she would actually have more room for stuff in the shell and that might give her the little boost she needs to stay alive.) and trying to keep up appearances.

yeah.  A lot of these have a hefty guilt element built into them.  It's a very effective motivator for characters and helps inspire sympathy from the readers.

Hawkeye - This one doesn't bug me that much.  Except when she's in America's book.  All characters become pretty much insufferable in America.

Hulk - The character is boring.  I have no strong feelings one way or the other.  Killing Banner the way they did wasn't too bad even if I didn't like it.

Black Widow - The funny thing is that NOT swapping her out is actually one of the things that makes the other mantle changes feel more agenda driven.  Of course I guess they did end up killing her to motivate a male character to action.  So that's good.  Right?  :P

Spider-man - Miles is fine, except that he's really bland.  Back in the Ultimate Universe where Peter was dead it made perfect sense that someone else stepped in.  Having both of them in the same universe at the same time, using the same name is a problem though.  (The same can be said of two Captain Americas, Thors or anyone else)  Why is it a problem?  Because names are how we discuss things.  If I say Thor no one is going to think I mean Jane Foster.  I will have to qualify it.  If I say Spider-man, that means Peter Parker (When he was in the Ultimate Universe you could say Ultimate Spider-man and people in the know would know you meant Miles.)  The code names and the characters that hold them are intrinsically connected in peoples minds.  I mean the most successful passing of the torch in comics history was probably Barry Allen to Wally West and even then Barry Allen came back to reclaim the title eventually.  Don't complicate the discussion of something as arcane as super-heroes if you don't have to.


This has gotten REALLY long.  I think I'll make additional points in another post.

Videos Worth Watching 2

If you have time watch the whole thing.  For the most relevant part jump to  36:15

Video's Worth Watching 1

Adversity and Comics

I could probably call this Adversity and Story Telling but I'm coming at it from a comics stand point at the moment.

Anyway.

How about this for a thought experiment?  I call it the Cookie Box Video.

There are two videos with the description "Guy getting a cookie out of a box."

The first video features a man standing in a plain room.  A roughly waist high box with a hole in the side sits on the floor next to him.  A table of random junk sits nearby.  His goal is to get the cookie, which is inside the box, out through the hole, at which point he can eat it.  He is not allowed to damage the box in any way.  From off screen someone says start and he walks over, reaches into the box, pulls out the cookie and eats it.  The whole thing takes maybe thirty seconds.

The second video starts out exactly the same way.  The box looks the same except there are a series of baffles inside the box which prevent him from reaching the cookie with his bare hands.  The cookie is also sitting in a smaller box with a timer set for ten minutes.  If he can't get the cookie out before then he loses.  In addition every minute people off camera will pelt him with icy cold water balloons.  He is of course welcome to quit at any time.  If he comes up with a way to get the cookie quickly but the viewer couldn't come up with the method on their own it will increase their sense of his competence.  If he struggles the whole time and just manages to succeed then he gets credit for perseverance.  If he fails then that will raise our sympathy for him and his reaction to that failure will tell us a lot about who he is as a person.  Does he get mad?  Blame others?  Laugh about it?  Demand another try?  Regardless how it goes down our sense of this person will have increased.

So which one would you want to watch?  Which one would you tell your friends about?


When Bobby Morse is sent to defuse the missile carrying the Goblin Gas (Amazing Spider-man #28) the actual events are:  Bobby decides to defuse the missile, Bobby defuses the missile.  We never see her at risk of failing so this big flashy scene doesn't have any real tension.

In Ironman, there is a point where Riri decides to go fight a villain and ends up facing off against The Armadillo.  Except there is no fight.  She flies down, punches him and the fight is over.  Once again the result is a lack of tension and a failure to develop either the hero or the villain's character in the process.  (And before you say "But it's the Armadillo!  He should lose that fast!" keep in mind that according to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe the Armadillo can "Withstand the impact of a truck loaded with ten tons of cargo traveling at sixty miles per hour."  He isn't a joke and punching him out isn't how you beat him.)

[This is a separate thing:  Riri being beaten by Will-o-the-Wisp is a good start but do we ever come back to why a character that was always a reluctant villain was doing villainy after getting out?  Also I love Stefano Caselli's art. Don't want anyone to think that I just hate everything.]

There are a bunch more I could go into but that gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.  So next time you are setting up a conflict and resolution ask yourself how hard you are making it for the characters to get the cookie out of the box.  The harder it is, the better the cookie tastes when you finally get it.