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.
- 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.
- Stop sniping at the fans in the PAGES of the comic book. It's the height of elitism.
- If you want Thor to be made unworthy then we need something sufficiently big to justify it.
- 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. - 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.
- 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:
- 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.)
- Stop telling us how awesome she is. Show us that she's awesome.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment