ageing superheroes?

So what's the problem??

Ageuing superheroes would never look or act old. And if you still want young heroes, fine! Buy the "Ultimates" line!

So there is no "ageing heroes" problem, there never was and there never will be.

Are you afraid your heroes will change?

What if heroes grow and develop in real time? Their characters would evolve and change! Well I got new for you, you, the reader will grow old and change as well! With real time, heroes evolve at exactly the same rate as their readers!

If your heroes do not grow up, but you do, then you grow out of comics. Most people do. They grow older, the comics don't, and they stop buying. How does that help anybody?

But what about new readers? I haven't noticed that the ageless heroes have been attracting many new readers, have you? Is there a queue of new young readers at your local comic shop? I didn't think so. Spider-man and the rest of them were created in the 1960s, they fit best in the 1960s. The space race and fears of radioactivity and working for the Daily Bugle - that is so 1960s! Modern kids have their own ideas. They want their own heroes, and the greatest heroes are created in real time comics.

But let's say they still want Spider-man, because they've seen the movies or the cartoons? That's what Ultimate Spiderman is for! A new, young Spiderman re-imagined for the 1990s.

Are you afraid your favorite heroes might die?

So why are people afraid of heroes ageing? Maybe they're afraid that the characters will die. Like Phoenix died, or like Gwen Stacey died. Those were two of the greatest comics ever written! Sure, not every death story is a classic, but that's what editors are for, to make sure you don't waste a death in a lame story. Catch the duds before they're printed. But a real death story is ALWAYS more interesting than a survival story, and it makes the survival stories more interesting as well, because the danger is real.

Bringing dead characters (or their clones) back from the dead is always a bad idea. Clone Gwen Stacey and Resurrected Phoenix are never as good as the originals: they cheapen and weaken the original story, and they make other deaths and dangers less interesting. Sure, some people can't cope with the possibility of real drama in a comic. Don't listen to those people.

Great literature contains the possibility of death, real meaningful death. Deal with it. If you want safe, unchallenging "everything always world out fine in the end" stories, then read the Marvel Adventures versions. I hear they are really quite good.

Death is nothing to be afraid of

In real life, our friends do not die very often (I sincerely hope). Sure, superheroes live more dangerous lives, but they are also a lot tougher than normal people. And they live in a universe with more high technology medicine. So real comic death does not mean that everyone dies every week. It just means that when people do die, they stay dead.

How often will a genuinely big name hero genuinely die? Maybe once every ten years. But that is what spices up the other stories. And allows for a new line of "untold stories" or "parallel universe" stories. Really, comic death is nothing to be afraid of. The fans who fear death are the same fans who hate continuity, so just bring the dead character back in a non-continuity book, and those fan will never notice the difference.

Hey Marvel! Stop stunting their growth! Let 'em grow up - you have nothing to lose.

How many heroes need to live forever?

How many heroes are so important that the readers MUST read about them and only them? Far fewer than you think! Superman, Batman and Spiderman obviously. But apart from that? Marvel owns something like four THOUSAND character brands, and most of them cannot support their own title. Even legendary characters like The Thing and the Silver Surfer have had their books cancelled due to lack of interest! I would estimate that the number of indispensable heroes is probably just one percent of that those four thousand names.

Many (most?) superhero comics are team books: X-Men, Avengers, Justice League, Teen Titans, etc. They rely on a group that changes over time. And guess what? Comic fans sometimes change the comics they buy! A hit character one year is a hasbeen the next year! The big names like Superman and Spiderman are in a tiny minority.

With a very few exceptions (Superman, Spiderman etc.) readers want good stories more than they want particular characters.

And another thing... where are the kids?

A recent blog on CBR asked why we don't see more superheroes with young children. The consensus was (a) it forces the parents to look older, and (b) superheroes would be expected to retire to become parents (more on this later). It was also noticed that we sometimes see babies and teenagers, but seldom in between (except for Power Pack).

"Soap Opera Rapid Ageing Syndrome"

In the same discussion, Mecha-Shiva made some interesting points:

"There’s a television phenomenon known as SORAS (Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome), where a character will have a baby, and they have all kinds of soap opera games around the baby (”the real father of my baby is… Brock!” *dundundun*), but after they’ve done the baby storylines, there’s not all that much interesting you can do with a kid for the purposes of a soap opera until they’re a teenager. So the baby doesn’t appear on screen for a few months, maybe a year, then a teenage actor shows up with the same name as the baby and all the other characters just kind of act like this is normal. This happens on non-Soap Opera shows too" [examples are then given, from Family Ties and Nip/Tuck]

The reason is that the writers don't think that young children appeal to their narrow target audience. This may be true - different audiences want different things. Some people do like young kids. The audience for Three Men and a Baby or any other parent based show for example.

Silver age Marvel was successful partly because it appealed to as wide an audience as possible. Why narrow your audience to just one group?

The real problem is Marvel Time

The real problem is Marvel Time: it keeps the kids young for too long. You soon run out of interesting stories to tell about young kids, but thanks to Marvel Time they stay young kids forever.

With real time you can easily find interesting ways to use the kid for the five or ten years before he has his own adventures. Take Franklin for example: when he's young he has Agatha Harkness as a nanny. He also creates some interesting dilemmas for his parents - do they put their familty or the world first? This led to the near-break up of the Fantastic Four, and almost divorce for Sue and Reed (see FF 120s-140s).

Being a superhero comics, Franklin never got in the way. If the writer wanted him out of a story they could just teleport in Crystal and Lockjaw then take Franklin to Agatha Harkness. By the age of five he was able to star in his own comic books: Power Pack, and then Son of a Genius. No problem! it only becomes a problem when Marvel Time stretches out this period until you run out of ideas.

TV soaps also have it much tougher, because they are on TV nearly every day, and they don't have teleporting magical nannies, so you see the kid in diapers every-single-day. Little kids are a great story engine for comics, where ou have a thousand ways to keep them off screen for a few months. As long as the story develops in real time.

Should superhero parents retire?

If a superhero has children, should they stop being a superhero and put their family first?

Superheroes are supposedly modelled on the Greek gods and heroes, and those people NEVER put their kids first. Zeus and Cronus regularly killed any children who may become a threat. Odysseus spent ten years having adventures while his wife was left to cope at home.

I wonder, would a superhero really let the whole world die in order to save his own one child? Would that be a moral choice?

This dilemma should really appeal to the supposed target audience for comics (15-25 year old males) . Do you stay at home and be a good member of the family, or do you find your place in the wider world? Young kids present readers with just this dilemma. Young kids are thus a good story engine, as long as they continue to develop in real time so the dilemmas never become boring.

"Real time" superheroes would never ACT old

Marvel Time heroes do not need to be fit - if they ever die then they just come back. But in Real Time, death is permanent. Danger is real. Actions have consequences. It's dog eat dog, survival of the fittest. Slow and tired superheroes would not last five minutes.

"Marvel Time" superheroes already act old

Marvel Time heroes are senile: they have lost contact with reality. They don't even know what year it is. They think everything is still like it was in the 1970s. When Phoenix was alice, and Spider-Man was unmarried, and Franklin was a little kid.

Marvel Time are tired and slow. It takes them six months to tell a story that used to take one month.

Marvel TIme heroes are anachronisms. Their best stories were back in the 1960s (or for the X-Men the 1970s) and now they're like the embarassing uncle who tries to look hip and trendy but just doesn't get it. You don't appeal to young folks by reliving your old stories. You appeal to young folks by being real, by reacting to the real world, and letting the chips fall where they may.

Actually, kids DO like older heroes

Who says that kids only want young heroes? This is just as crazy as saying they only want old heroes. Back in 1961, when first suggested Spider-man to his publisher, Martin Goodman, Goodman said no. His reason? "Kid's don't want to see young superheroes." So Stan had to sneak Spider-man into the last issue of a comic that was going to be cancelled anyway. Today's editors are just as crazy. They say "kids don't want to see old superheroes!" Rubbish! Who says they don't?

Wolverine is old, and he's the most popular character in all comics! Sure, he doesn't look old, but none of the heroes will, that's the whole point of the Methuselah treatment!

Nick Fury is old. Professor X is old. Captain America is old. Namor is old. Thor and Hercules are very old. Bruce Banner was a father figure to Rick Jones. Kids don't care is a character is old or young, as long as the story is good.

Back in the 1960s, when the comics were at their best, they were PACKED with old folks, taking today's definition of "old" - over thirty! I'm a fan of the Fantastic Four, so let's take a look at the series that started it all...