real time comics: a proposal

What are the cliches that Stan identified? In all his interviews (and in Origins of Marvel Comics) he applies the same test, "if I were a superhero then I would..." In other words, he asks what would happen in the real world? So let's try it. Bring a superhero into the real world, and see what happens.

Comparisons with Mark MIller's 1985

This is basically like Mark Miller's "1985" but set in the current year, making it far more relevant to modern readers. And using photos, making it even more "real world."

Miller's original plan was to use photos, but he found it would take too long to draw all the exotic characters and amazing scenes. This proposal solves that problem by placing the emphasis squarely on realism. If you can't create a special effect using stock photography and Photoshop, then there's something wrong with the story.

This will make giants and aliens and explosions more believable. And so, more exciting.

Commercial benefits of this proposal

The "big news" comics are those that involve major changes. This would be bigger than any change ever - they find that somebody has been messing with the entire Marvel Universe for the past forty years!

The media gets interested when comics do big stuff: the new Spider-Man costume, the death of Superman or Captain America. This idea would grab media attention, especially since the press release would be accompanied by "photos" or the heroes meeting real world figures. Real world news outlets would love it.

The most critically acclaimed comics (Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Sandman, other classics by Alan Moore and Kurt Busiek etc.) have a deconstructionist, post-modern, "what happened next" theme. This comic would go further than any of them, by placing big name heroes into the real world.

How superheroes can exist in the real world

The key to having superheroes in the real world is to give them feet of clay. Stan and Jack showed how to do it in the early 1960s.

The heroes must be at early 1960s numbers and early 1960s strength levels. E.g. 20 heroes max, lifting 10 tons max. Exceptions can be made for heroes with other major weaknesses. E.g. the Hulk has childlike intelligence, and the Watcher has vowed to never interfere.

The important thing is that superheroes must have enough vulnerabilities that they never pose a realistic threat to human governments, and are always in real danger of real death.

Superpowers already exist in the real world

There is no fundamental conflict between limited super powers and the real world:

America has superpowers. It is far more powerful than all its enemies combined (in terms of military might) yet it cannot always win. Keep the superpowers within a believable range and the stories become very realistic indeed.

Any fit, equipped, and highly trained soldier is effectively super powered compared with a regular, unarmed, untrained, unfit citizen.

The real world does not limit cosmic or exotic stories

What about introducing government to the realities of aliens and magic? Wouldn't that change the world? Not necessarily.

The world would not change if people suspected the existence of gods and aliens. Most people already suspect the existence of gods and aliens, and life goes on as normal. The stories must show that superheroes are good at fighting supervillains, aliens, and the supernatural, but very bad at politics. Meanwhile, politicians are good at politics, but bad at fighting supervillains, aliens and the supernatural. So each group sticks to their own thing.

Would real time prevent some big stories from being told? Not, it would just make those stories are more interesting, by adding an extra layer of tension and secrecy. Read the early Marvel comics to see how it's done.

* The Mole Man threatened to lower every major city into the earth, but only one secret nuclear plant was actually sunk.

* Galactus invaded, and most people just saw strange weather events, and a giant on top of the Baxter Building, which the newspapers said was a publicity stunt.

* The Skrulls invaded, and only four aliens reached earth so nobody really noticed. Sure, the government noticed, but they soon learned that their only hope of survival was to rely on the Fantastic Four.

* Dr Strange did cosmic things, saving the whole world, and nobody noticed.

* Spider-Man fought relatively low powered villains, and his comics sold best of all!

* The early Hulk was incredibly powerful, but still not as powerful as the combined might of the army (and he lacked the intelligence to make the best use of his power), so human rule was never threatened.

Real world, real time stories can be just as cosmic as Marvel Time stories, but Real Time stories are more exciting because they are more believable.

Why superheroes should not have too much power.

A real world comic needs superheroes with either limited powers, or weaknesses, so they do not take over the world.

Like all inflation, such as economic inflation, or the need for more potent drugs, "power inflation" is a great temptation. But it does more harm than good. It devalues all other powers, and leads to an arms race that nobody can win. A better solution is to avoid the need for inflation by limiting the supply.

There is no need for power inflation. If you know a man who can lift five tons, that's exciting! But if you know a man who can lift five thousand tons, that doesn't add anything to the excitement. In fact, it makes it harder to write stories where he is in real danger. More power often means worse stories.

In 1962, the Thing was the strongest mortal on earth, yet could only lift five tons (as far as the Skrulls could determine). This was enough for some of the best Thing stories ever.

Characters with greater power could still exist, but had other limitations - they needed easy-to-defeat power beams (the super Skrull), they were sworn to never interfere (the Watcher), they had psychological problems that meant they were only a threat to themselves (the Hulk), etc. The existence of these beings may change the world a little, but not beyond recognition.

Their rarity increases their value.

Alternatives to power inflation

1. Reboots: Ultimate Hulk less powerful, new Superman less powerful, but soon power inflation takes over. Why? First, there is no other way to make interesting stories.

2. Focus on relationships or other aspects. Smart writers grab our interest by returning to the personal level, as Claremont did with the 1970s X-Men.

3. Real Time.

Real Time works against power inflation in several ways:
1. People remember that he couldn't do it last time, and they want a good reason why his powers have increased. Increasing powers now has a cost, and cannot be added as a cheap trick.
2. Conflict with real world events. As noted elsewhere on this page, inflated superpowers cannot work in the world we know. Problems occur at every step, and you must either break away into some alternative reality that is unlike our world, or the hero must revert to the more realistic level.
3. Realistic implications. Like a man pumped with steroids, a hero with power inflation is likely to become ill, to break his bones, to be assassinated by someone who now sees him as a threat, and so on. If the writer ignores the negative implications, then readers can ask "if powers come without a price, why don't more people get them?" And so we soon have a universe full of thousands of inflated power people.

In the 1960s, most stories involved a single hero fighting a single villain. yes, we all remember Galactus, but that stood out because it was so unusual. And even there, the threat ended without any damage. If 9/11 had happened in the 1960s, it could have been featured as a huge shock in the comics without appearing out of place.

A dozen heroes with "five ton" powers (as in early Marvel) would be evenly balanced against conventional armies. Which makes the battles more interesting.

Why power inflation makes worse stories

Stories are only interesting if they relate to us. This applies to all stories, not just superhero stories. The further a story drifts from our experience, the less relevant and interesting it becomes. This is why we don't get many stories about non-humanoid aliens that have no contact with earth. Without some connection with us, nobody cares.

Most good stories become impossible with power inflation. Who will fight the Hulk? Who can defeat Superman? Oh yawn yawn, it's Kryptonite or magic again. Or some impossibly powerful villain we never heard of before.

If writers try to write ordinary stories, stories that you and I can relate to, we no longer believe them. When the hero is trapped by a modest threat, we just ask - "why doesn't he just...?"

The interest in a battle is in the battle itself, not in the power level. Superpowers are good because they allow for a wider range of stories. But they are subject to a law of diminishing returns. A guy who can lift five tons can feature in more interesting stories than a guy who can lift just a normal amount. But a guy who can lift five thousand tons is someone we just cannot relate to.

But that is all. If the Hulk can defeat someone, that is all that matters. It may be fun to defeat them

Power inflation makes the real world impossible

Peter Gillis put it best: "It's a fundamental disconnect to think that a world with teleportation, undersea races, mutant nations, and gangs of superheroes would still have Paris Hilton as a celebrity focus. In fact, people living on a consistent Marvel Earth would have a culture almost unrecognizable to us: Instead of being the Crown of Creation, they'd be living with the knowledge that we're a not-very-evolved backwater planet with a sorry excuse for technology--and that immortal Gods exist and periodically tear things up. The supernatural would be a certainty, as would the afterlife--and America would have no sense of security at all, with giant robots marching through the countryside. If I were to actually craft a background that jibed with the Marvel Universe foreground, America would far more resemble Mughal India than our world of high cholesterol and YouTube."

This is only true if heroes are extremely highly powered and the aliens are dumb. If the heroes had more modest powers then life could go on almost as normal.

If the aliens were very smart they would have no reason to threaten us - they would either wipe us out, observe us with idle curiosity, or ignore us. The disconnect can only happen if writers get lazy, and fill their stories with impossible power inflation and dumb aliens who mysteriously look like us and deeply care about our little blue speck of a planet.

In conclusion, if we want our heroes to have interesting stories, we need to remove the possibility of power inflation. And the easiest way to do that is to place every story in the real world. Any writer who thinks "I'll give him a villain who is twice as strong" is immediately stopped by the problem of "oh dear, that would cause a thousand problems." So they have to find a more intelligent way to craft the story. Which is good news for all of us.