Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics

[red_eagle123]

If you don't mind, could you tell me more about when and how he died? My recollection was that he was still alive but amnesiac up until the birth of his daughter. I stopped following the Titans regularly shortly after that, so I'm not really that up on their later history.

(Not that dying ever kept a good comic villain from coming back.)

You know Lord Liaden, you're right. I was going off my own faulty memory but you reminded me of what really happened. So I went and checked up on it at this great Titans news source

So it's entirely possible that the Brother Blood that appeared in Outsiders could potentially have been the original Brother Blood, having regained his memory. Of course that'd have to raise the question of what happened to Azrael, which DC wants to forget about I'm sure (Since they gave some other dude the name and a title for awhile).

[Chuckg]

The day comic books stop growing as a medium is the day I stop buying them. Because I've read all these stories before.

Have you read 'War Games'?

I have. The story was distinctly sub-par, the death in no way was required to tell the story, /and/ the legacy the character has been given post-death... in the character voice of Batman and several others... has basically added up to 'She got killed because she was stupid.'

This was not comics growing as a medium, this was simply the editors taking advantage of the first excuse to kill off a character inherited from the prior editorial staff that they (for reasons which were entirely beyond me) despised(*), and then to indulge themselves in pissing on the grave.

This is not 'growing as a medium'.





(*) The fact that the character was so despised by the editors isn't in much doubt, however -- interviews and such

[Eyendasky80]

Have you read 'War Games'?

I have. The story was distinctly sub-par, the death in no way was required to tell the story, /and/ the legacy the character has been given post-death... in the character voice of Batman and several others... has basically added up to 'She got killed because she was stupid.'

This was not comics growing as a medium, this was simply the editors taking advantage of the first excuse to kill off a character inherited from the prior editorial staff that they (for reasons which were entirely beyond me) despised(*), and then to indulge themselves in pissing on the grave.

This is not 'growing as a medium'.





(*) The fact that the character was so despised by the editors isn't in much doubt, however -- interviews and such

So you are judging the story on its merit as opposed to its including the death of a character. That's good. That's all I'm advocating. I didn't read War Games, I don't read Batman regularly, just the occassional trade.

Now, making a blanket statement that the killing of characters is dumb and shouldn't happen, that's what I won't do. You read the story, you didn't like it, okay.

[Chuckg]

SNow, making a blanket statement that the killing of characters is dumb and shouldn't happen, that's what I won't do. You read the story, you didn't like it, okay.

Nobody made the blanket statement that killing characters is wrong. No one.

What we did say is that killing characters in a stupid manner, for insufficient literary payoff, casually, etc, etc. is wrong.

[Eyendasky80]

Re: Hugh Neilson's post.

Hugh, I think you put your finger on the problem, exactly, but the question shouldn't be "what 2 characters should die?". Rather ir should be, "why do 2 characters have to die to tell this story?" "Isn't there some other we can tell it and be effective?"

Up here in Cowtown, I co-own a pro wrestling promotion and in the business we call stuff like killing charaters "cheap heat" since it has an immediate, visceral impact but has absolutely no substance or impact otherwise. It's the comic book equivalent of wrestlers blading themselves.

So, what I see is a failure of DC's editors to provide direction and to lead effectively. You just know that stuff like this wouldn't have happened when Archie Goodwin was at the bat helm.

Vigil

This was the post I was referring too. It calls the act of killing characters itself cheap, not calling cheap deaths to task.

I'm not advocating wholesale slaughter, I just think each death is unique and should be judged on its particular merits. Sometimes a senseless death is very effective at elevating the threat level of an antagonist.

[Chuckg]

Well, War Games would qualify as "cheap heat' by his definition, so I don't see it.

[Eyendasky80]

He said killing characters is cheap heat.

...we call stuff like killing charaters "cheap heat" since it has an immediate, visceral impact but has absolutely no substance or impact otherwise.

[Vigil]

To expand on my wrestling analogy and maybe make it a bit more clear, let's take the current bent of the WWE for example. Currently, on any given night you can catch 3H (who is a brilliant wrestler, by the way, and quite capable of working way beyond the level he's usually booked at - which is funny cause he books himself, but that's another discusssion) or mayve Michaels or Orton or any of the others engaging in matches which end up with both workers swimming in pools of blood. And what does that accomplish? Not much in the long run. What it does accomplish is ever dwindling ratings as the fans become desensitized to the gore and the mayhem. That's why it's called cheap heat. It works in the short term but does nothing to "build heat" (or "get you over" in the lingo) in the long run.

Contrast this with a great example of how wrestling used to be, about 20 years ago. back then, my good friend and one of the sport's true icons, Bad News Allen was enegaged in a feud with another great worker, Archie "The Stomper" Goldie. They'd built the intensity of the feud for over a year, going through regular matches, then no DQ matches then lumberjack and strap matches etc. culminating ultimately in a cage match in whch both workers drew blood (their own actually, as is ususally the protocol) and in which Archie ultimately got revenge on Allen for crippling Archie's "son" at the beginning of the program.

The thing is, does anyone remember any sort of impact whatsoever from tthe last time 3H juiced? No, proabably not. Does anyone even remmeber why he did it or what the "angle" was about? No, probably not. But the Allen/Gouldie match is rememebred and will live on in legend to anyone who has any sort of knowledge of the history of the business. One of the reasons (and there are many and this isn't exclusively the reason) that it will be remembered is that the blood shed in the cage match was the last step in a year long escalation. If they'd done that right off the bat as they do taody, where do you go? Nowhere...and fast.

By analaogy, if you have books like the Authroity where characters are being slaughtered, left and right, page after page in increasingly absurd numbers, what's th impact? Ultimately nothing except, maybe, to desensitize the reader. When it was done in Marshall Law, it was a critique or satire of the genre and the Iron Age. When it's done in Authority it's done with out any subtlety, any sense of irony or any impact. It's absolutely gratuitous and self indulgent. And it didn't have to be. The writer merely chose it to be so, most proabably because he wasn't good enough or smart enough or creative enough to do anything else.

Contrast that with the Death of Captain Marvel. This is a story which resonates with meaning and will for decades to come. His death was the final, tragic, act of a life that was redolant with impact, heroism and meaning. It showed his true quality as hero and, ultimately, the tragedy that sometimes heroes don't have glamourous, action packed, 4 color fates. Rather, it's how he copes with his end that revealed his inherent heroism.

You ask why it should be that death in comics should be momentous, as I said "by definition"? It's because "by definition" the founders of the superhero genre had a thorough, deep understanding of Greek mythology and of the mythic nature of the characters which they were creating. That understanding allowed them, at their best, to imbue meaning beyond the immediate or gratuitous to the deaths' of these iconic figures. They understood that the death of a mythical character had to be of mythic proportions or meaning to have any true impact. That's what they knew and that's what's reflected in death in comics, at the best of times. To deal with it otherwise is to trivialize and diminsh not only the death but the hero who pays that ultimate price.


Vigil

[Doug McCrae]

Barry Allen died, and damned but his death was momentous, and touching and he's still dead.

Yeah, you're right.

[Doug McCrae]

Vigil, you make good points but superhero comics are unlike the heroic myths of Hercules, Balder, etc in one important respect - they never end. Since the beginning, superheroes have been more like Sexton Blake, Doc Savage or other pulp heroes. For as long as they make money, their stories must go on and on and on with no end in sight. You can't kill off all the X-Men, no matter how grand their deaths are (and I'm not sure they ought to be, given that the X-Men are a little closer to real life than the likes of Superman or Thor) cause the X-Men are big money makers.

I've always felt the best Superman stories are the ones where he dies. This story has actually been told a bunch of times in the Silver Age, as well as the Doomsday thing, but the SA ones were all imaginary stories. Though, to quote Alan Moore, "Aren't they all?"

[Hugh Neilson]

Hey Hugh,

I hadn't noticed that you're up there in Edmo-town. I was assuming that most of thee readership of the forums are American so it's pretty much all up from there, lol.

What can I possibly add?

You mentioned the problem of certain characters being held as sacred cows and, somehow, that that's bad thing. I beg to differ. I think it's a good thing. Characters should be sacred cows. Killing them should be such a rarity as to become almost unthinkable. I think that, as readers, we invest in characters; hopes, dreams, aspirations. They're there as idealization and as heroic touchstones which tie us into the mythical. To allow their wholesale, or even reatil slaughter is incredibly cyncial and, I think, undercuts the entire premise of comics. That's one of the multitidinous flaws of the Authority, a complete failure to understand the fundamental premise of the genre. The death of a hero should be a monumentous, transformative event. It should have impact and consequence. Sadly, over the past 2 decades (especially given the influence of Image) it's become trivial. Now, it seems, if someone doesn't die it's somehow not an event...or even a story. And I think that's what's truly tragic.

It's a balance, to be sure. I don't like the idea of "death of the week" any better than "heroes can never die".

Move too far one way, and some of the suspense is gone. Not all - we still get stressed over whether the hero will succeed - but when it's a beloved character's life on the line if Batman fails, we feel it more than when it's the Joker's next faceless victim.

Move too far the other and, well...don't get attached to the characters because they won't live out the year.

The same issue arises in RPG's. If death becomes an impossibility, some of the thrill is gone because some of the risk is gone. If it becomes commonplace, well, don't invest a lot of time in that character's backstory since chances are he'll be a statistic in a short time and you'll be rolling up another one.

[Vigil]

I know what you mean, RPG-wise, Hugh.

I sued to play CofC all the time and for somenone who likes to get attached to his charcters it was truly a recipe for unhappiness. If our entire party wasn't dead or irrevocably insane at the end of any adventure than our GM somehow felt that he'd failed. Now since those are pretty simple things to accomplish as GM in even the most non-lethal RPGs just think of how unthinkably easy it is in CofC. After a while it became Character or charcaters of the week and we never succeeded in finsihing a game since none of the characters who began irt were alive or sane at the end of it and the others didn't have the full story. Somehow, the GM felt this to be satisfying and "true to the genre". Maybe, but it was a shitty way to spend a Friday night.

I feel the same way about the spate of deaths in comics of the last 20 years or so. Why bother investing in characters as a writer or reader if the next teams gonna come in and wipe it all away. best to do it yourself, first. I think that's exactly the thinking that's operative in Avengers Disassembled (or maybe BNB just thought it was such a clever title he'd come up with that he simply had to kill off the team to justify it...I've heard of more trivial reasons.) Both the Authority and X Factor (the Milligan one) do this all the time. And does anyone care? When they finally killed Supes for real around 10 years ago it actually made the front pages and got real coverage. Has anyone else? That's the difference between death in iconic or trivial characters. Unfortunately, in Superman, it was handled in just about the worst way possible and the return was worse. I guess to me, the death of a major character in comics should be such a pivotal event that it should only be approached when absolutely nothing else will satisfy the story. Unfortuntealy the industry seems to have so little integrity and the fans have become so bloodthirsty and ADHD that nothing else gets a rise. And the rise is less and less each time.

Vigil

[Kristopher]

The Law of Diminishing Returns, Vigil.


As to the death of Spoiler, my objection was that it was a meaningless, gratuitous death, and a complete waste of an interesting character with a lot of potential.

And that was before I learned that she was killed in a fit of self-indulgence by a new creative team. Well, maybe "creative" is giving them too much credit.

Fucking morons. Asshats.


PS: I used to watch pro wrestling, but it seems it's nothing but cheap heat and gratuitous titilation now, expecially with McMahon running the only televised game in town.

[Vigil]

Hey Kristopher,

I agree completely, esp. with your comments on McMahon's dog and pony show. I do a live internet based broadcast www.wrestletalkradio.com every Sunday night from 6 - 8 pm MST. Obviously, pro wrestling is the focus but I have to tell you I find it painful towatch even a few minutes a week of Vince's self indulgent drek, esp. knowing how much better a lot of the stuff on the indy circuit is then the stuff Vinnie is shovelling. That's why we try to focus on up and coming workers and legends since I really don't feel obliged to give Vince any more free PR. Check us out if you get the chance. We're also the only internet based show tto have live caller interactivity where you can call us toll free on the net and chat with us or ask questions of our guests. This week we have taleneted indy worker Synn on and Marty janetty will appear eoither this week or next, depending on his road schedule. We also have Dr. Tom Prtitchard and Kamala coming up soon. So check it out.

Now that I've plugged my show I have to agree with your diminshing return comment also. That's a lot more succinctly put then my ramblings..I guess I did way too many psychedelics in the 80's to remmeber my philosophy degree, lol. It is true, however, that with death being rank in comics these days, it's utterly trivialized it and leeched it of any meaning whatsoever. It seems that it now takes gruesome, disturing and very graphic deaths or death on a vast scale to even get a rise. I think both options suck.

Vigil

[egyptian]

Ghost Rider-I think they kind of got off on the wrong tack with this guy. To me the soul of the character was that he was a guy possessed by a demon. Every night was a fight for control, one that he couldn't afford to lose. The bike, the hellfire, that's all secondary. The real battle is going on inside.

The New Gods-I guess nobody but Jack Kirby could dream big enough to make these characters work. These are characters that should be handled like a Wagnerian opera, not like conventional heroes. The end will come in Armaghetto...

The Marvel Family-You know, it must kind of bug Superman to know that there's someone out there who has all of his powers only better and no weaknesses. And a couple friends who also have all of his powers only better with no weaknesses. And they're all really likable.

Franklin Richards-You know, for 30-some odd years they teased that he was going to grow up and become the most powerful being out there, someone of such incalculable might that even Galactus was concerned about him. So why not show him grow up?

Doctor Fate-His helmet was once a god. Without it he is merely powerful, but with it he is nearly invincible. Perhaps only the Spectre can challenge his magic. But, if he dons the helmet he loses himself within Nabu. What kind of person would risk their soul every day just to help other people?

Too late at night to think of any others