Doug: Our readers are fantastic! You really embraced this topic -- one we weren't quite sure would stand up. Any time we venture into uncharted waters, there is always a bit of apprehension as to how we'll be received. Well, we have your answer and so we return a hearty "Thanks!" to you. With the group hug out of the way, let's move forward to the next round.
Doug: As we all watched over the past few days, we had one race that came right down to the end, with Superman: The Movie barely nudging aside the Treasury-style big books that Marvel and DC published. I thought one of the comments that asked what the legacy of Superman: The Movie was -- making Christopher Reeve a star? was a good one. But then, what was the legacy of the Treasuries? While they were great fun, 99% of the time they were just another format for reprints. Many of you commented that it's difficult to separate the significance of the event to history from the significance of the event to our history. Also a valid point. The Indie comics Elfquest and Cerebus the Aardvark got their fair share of love, but in the end the mainstream stuff won out. For me personally, I was never a fan of the independent comics. However, that was due mainly to not having a comic shop close by where I could see the books and/or get recommendations from store owners and other consumers -- I know many of those books were meritorious.
Doug: As I mentioned in a comment, the second round contains 16 "games". It will be best if we separate that into two groups of 8; hence, we'll spend the lion's share of this week in Round Two. That will be good, however, because it will keep our comments and questions a bit more focused, rather than having us trying to generate conversation on 16 (or even 32) different issues. So today we'll begin to accept comments on the top half of the bracket, and those match-ups have already been installed as polls on the sidebar to your left. The revised/updated bracket is pictured below, and is again in sections -- you'll have to make multiple clicks to see it all. We will get to the bottom half of it mid-week.
Doug: So thanks again -- really -- for your participation. You make this fun for us, and we enjoy this forum each and every day.
20 comments:
This is a terrific & fun exercise! Shamelessly arbitrary and subjective, of course-- but there's absolutely no reason for it not to be, y'know?
I'm going to go out on an enormous oracular limb, here, and suggest that the Final Matchup will, ironically enough, be between Giant-Size X-Men #1 and Byrne/Claremont's X-Men. GSX-Men #1, though, has a much tougher road to get all the way there, I'm thinkin'. That whole branch is kind of heavy with ringers-- we'd have to leave behind both the Death of Gwen and Wolvie's intro in Incredible Hulk.
Heh-- yep, I can see where a collective of us impassioned middle-aged fanboys (which would be called a. . . what? A Minutia of Fanboys? A Triviality? A Dough? Ha! I know-- A Longbox of Fanboys! Ohhhh, that's a keeper. . . !) could practically come to tears and blows over some of the match-ups found here.
HB (just a-visitin'-- but likely to pop up again-!)
I think the legacy of Superman The Movie was that it partially erased the memory of the Batman series. Yes I know some people love it and we all loved it as kids but it did do it's damage.
Superman also showed that these movies could be done without all the campy humor granted the first and second half of the movie have somewhat different tones. I see Superman The Movie as superheroes done right. A grade A big budget blockbuster in much the same way that Jaws birthed the summer blockbuster and Star Wars re-birthed sci fi for the modern audiences. ( Can't ignore all those sci fi classics that preceded it. ) It did take awhile for others movies like Batman to follow suit and Marvel wouldn't get into the act until they sorted out their financial woes.
What damage did the Batman TV series do? Expose a large audience to the character? Save the comic book from cancellation? Inspire dozens of new comics books, and convince publishers to get into the superhero marketplace? Give us all a lot of fun, except those of us who don't understand that comic book superheroes are inherently goofy no matter how badly you want to take them seriously?
Yes I did leave out the positive impact it had by exposing a larger audience to comics in general. But I still believe it gave a simplistic view of comic books. Could any of the story lines we talk about here have been adapted in the shadow of the Batman TV series ? Producers were still giving us more of the same like the Wonder Woman series. Yes as a young boy I did watch Wonder Woman for Lynda Carter but I hardly thought it was a good comic book series. I will admit Batman did have a positive impact on keeping the industry alive but it did have a negative impact as well as publishers did try to give us more content inspired by the series. Yes I know superheroes are inherently goofy but that doesn't stop me from wishing for more movies like Batman Begins and Captain America.
Most were straightforward this time for me, but I really wanted to vote for Wonder Woman! Had to go with birth of graphic novel.
Well, this was fun! I am surprised at the votes that went to GSXM 1 and Wolverine's debut. I would argue that neither comic had any real effect on the Bronze Age. I was smitten by X-Men 97 but it was a cult bi-monthly for a couple of years. In any case, I couldn't even buy it in the Scottish Central Belt between issues 101 and 109!
I don't think X-Men was nearly as significant as we think (despite its overt influence on New Teen Titans and to a leser extent, the LSH) until the Comics Journal started to pillory Claremont circa 1981.
Voted with the majorities again, it seems! I'm with Garett; the introduction of the graphic novel overtakes our favorite Amazon. Especially now, when so many stories are released in this form the publishers organize stories into arcs just to fit into a paperback collection.
Oh, and Humanbelly, I like your term, " A Longbox of Fanboys"! Perhaps a carload of us on the way to a convention would be a shortbox...
I can't believe Wolverine's first appearance is beating GL/GA from O'neil an Adams... There has to be a huge mistake!!! he he..
In my humble opinion GL/GA is in he top 3 events of the Bronze Age!
That must be Humanbelly from the Avengers Assemble message board. Welcome!
Anyway, I've voted for two losers here - O'Neil & Adams on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and Linda Carter Wonder Woman. I'll admit that they were both tough calls, but I think that O'Neil & Adams on Green Lantern/Green Arrow is absolutely one of the defining moments of the Bronze Age, and one of the things that people point to when trying to figure out why & how the Bronze Age began. I voted for Linda Carter because I feel that it had a huge cultural impact that goes beyond comics.
@dbutler16- Yep, it's me. Have stomach, will travel (mind you, the stomach arrives on an earlier stagecoach. . . ). Thanks for the kind welcome-!
I must confess that my voting tended toward items that, to my mind, would be perceived as having a lasting impact, and that could be referred to today and make contextual sense (which is still just guesswork. . . I've just phrased it all high-falutin'). My personal favorite would be the Death of Gwen Stacy-- but I'm not sure how much weight it still carries. If any at all. And, horrifying as it is to consider, I imagine those fantastic O'Neil/Adams issues of GL/GA aren't even a blip on the radar of the majority of the. . . heh. . . under-35 "longbox" of readers. But, geeze, you're all absolutely right about its significance at the time. I wonder how much differently the results might turn out with a major bracket re-shuffling? I wonder if Gwen really could get that top spot?
HB
Hey, here's a couple of thoughts:
Do you think Treasury editions would do any better against G-S X-Men #1 than Superman: The Movie is currently polling? Interesting to see had it gone the other way on the first poll.
Too, I wonder if on the Back Issue Top 40 list the event had been Kirby coming back to Marvel, how that would fare against Howard the Duck?
Doug
Yes, it's too bad there couldn't be a seeding process, so that two heavyweights don't have to meet in the first round, but I really don't know how you'd seed something like this. It would just be up to the personal opinion of the poll creator.
HB, as far as Gwen Stay and GL/GA, I still think those stories helped move comics into a more mature storytelling phase, and helped ushered in the Bronze Age. Even if people under 35 are unaware of these facts, I don't think that minimizes their impact on comics history, so I'll continue to vote for them...till they get eliminated by Wolverine's first appearance - sknit!
I am genuinely surprised that the Punisher's debut isn't rated higher as a Bronze Age event.
I am not a particularly big fan of the character but his popularity in the 80s and influence in shifting comics towards the ultraviolent "grim n' gritty" style is pretty immense. I think it was a negative influence, but still ...
Inkstained Wretch, you've got a point there, but I think that it had some tough competition in going up against Gwen Stacy, especially since most of the people voting are most likely in their 40's and that had a big impact on them. That seems to be one of the defining Marvel Bronze Age moments for many.
Yep, I've seen it cited more than once as being the event that could be considered the true end of the Silver Age. Generally, it seems like it's chronologically the last item in a discussed list. Y'know, like, "If it wasn't when Jack Kirby left the Fantastic Four, then it was CERTAINLY when Gwen Stacy fell to her death-".
HB
Fair points, dbutler16 and Humanbelly, but I still stand by my point on the Punisher. Gwen Stacy's death is a landmark story, true, but I don't see it as having the same kind of repercussions as the creation of the Punisher did.
Not many storylines spun off of Stacy's death and if you got into comics later in the decade -- Like I did -- you could pick up Amazing Spider-Man regularly and never know that she existed. Certainly her death didn't linger in the way that Phoenix's or Electra's did.
The Punisher on the other hand was a key ingredient in a fundamental shift in how comics dealt with and presented violence -- one that pretty much took over the industry.
Other characters were involved of course, but the Punisher led the pack. Also, by beginning as supporting character in Spiderman stories, he also brought that violent aesthetic into mainstream superhero comics.
Oh, I dunno, ISW (may I call you ISW?), (and here's where we get into that water-cooler type conversation that Doug was hopin' for) I daresay that the repurcussions of Gwen's death were felt throughout the MU for many, many years- possibly we still are. People who may not have been aware of her existence at all have surely felt its impact. Gwen was the first big DEATH that stuck (we lost Professor X for awhile a few years earlier). It could really happen to a major, major supporting character-- the prime, long-standing love-interest, in fact. If the precedent hadn't been set with Gwen, would we indeed have lost Electra, or Jean Grey/Phoenix, or Karen Page? Or Jarella? Or heck, Captain Marvel? The unfortunate result all these decades down the road, of course, is that now there's the rumored editorial policy of "a major death every three months! Ka-ching!"
I do agree that the Punisher carries more weight than the voting seems to show, but I daresay that he'll never quite step out of Wolverine's shadow along the same lines of darkness and potential violence. Logan's still goin' gangbuster-strong, mind you, while. . . I'm not at all sure what's become of Frank Castle. I mean, if their two items went head-to-head, there's little doubt, I believe, that Wolvie would come out on top.
HB
That was my thinking too, HB. Gwen Stacy's death may have opened the door for other deaths that followed. So, it is a more subtle effect on future stories than the introduction of the Punisher.
I'll concede your points Humanbelly and dbutler16: Gwen Stacy was the first major ongoing character to be killed off (and stay dead).
Nevertheless, I remember the early 80s when the Punisher was a character who occassionaly turned up in Spider-Man and Daredevil comics and his cult-figure growth over the decade. He eventually becoming one of Marvel's leading brands with, like, three ongoing series and ubiquitous crossovers. And suddenly every other character on the racks looked like him too.
Having said that, Wolverine was every bit as instrumental in this, was even more ubiquitous and is still going strong, so maybe laying the entire change on Frank Castle's shoulders is wrong.
I think both characters played a role in comicdom's (unfortunate) turn towards dark-n-gritty, and I'd throw in some of Frank Miller's work, especially The Dark Knight Returns, (maybe even Watchmen) into the mix, but I'd rate the Punisher's influence somewhat behind Wolverine and TDKR in this regard.
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