"Not as the Creator Intended"

[samurainoir]

I've been giving this some thought, and putting aside the fact that the official creator on record is more often than not the corporation that owns the copyrights, I'm wondering if this can really work given how many creative hands actually touch any given character.

In practical cases, we'd have a teenage Wolverine who's claws are housed in his gloves and was actually an evolved wolverine (did I get that right?). Would he be the wildly popular franchise spawning money making machine for Marvel he is today? Arguably innumerable hands from Wein/Cockrum/Romita/Byrne/Claremont/Windsor-Smith/Hama/Jim Lee etc etc etc have contributed to this success.

On the other hand, I'm not sure who Green Arrow's creator is, but did they intend for this?

One of the most compelling and character-defining moments in Oliver Queen's fictional life. Come to think of it, if Oliver Queen remained as he was originally created, we'd never have Denny O'Neil's crusading liberal. He's still be a c-list Batman clone lacking any real motivations.

Does keeping a character as the Creator intended keep the character static and stagnant? Would Batman have survived if Bob Kane himself hadn't changed his initial intentions around the character to accomodate a friendlier Batman?

[samurainoir]

And what if you have two creators who wildly disagree with each other? Case in point is Cable as "created" by Louise Simonson and Rob Liefeld. Who gets to control the destiny of a collaborative character? Would we have a lame duck "Commander X" as a result?

[The Toyroom]

Most characters become far-removed from what their creators originally laid down on paper....

[Earth 2 Chris]

Green Arrow was created by Mort Wesinger and George Papp.

I thought about Roy's drug use in relation to his severed arm. Both are extremes to his original creation. But the drug story only took one issue. And in fact, Roy's regular home at the time, Teen Titans, didn't acknowledge it. A few years later, other series began to reference it. But it wasn't the thrust of EVERY Speedy appearance.

A one-armed Roy is another matter. It forever changes the character (until they give him his arm back somehow) and it is impossible to overlook it. It will impact his every appearance.

As I've said in other posts, evolution of a character isn't a bad thing. But wholesale change to fit the whim of a creator is another. Green Arrow didn't really have any character before O'Neil fleshed him out. None of the DC characters really had personalities before the late 60s. They were all fairly interchangeable. Reaction to the Marvel style, and a new breed of fans turned pro changed that. It was then that GA became a liberal, Batman obsessive, GL arrogant, etc. There was a basis for those directions in most cases, therefore, an evolution of the character.

The first time I ran into a radical character change was Mike Baron's handling of Wally West in the early issues of Wally's Flash series. Wally had been fleshed out by Marv Wolfman in New Teen Titans as a conscientious conservative type with a very normal, middle class family. Baron made Wally a womanizing adulterer with a dysfunctional family. It would take years and mostly Mark Waid to undo what Baron did in 14 short issues. They were good reads, but shouldn't someone have called him on that, and not allowed that interpretation to see print? Couldn't Baron have written the Flash within the parameters of the character as established, and fleshed him out more based on what others had established? This is especially alarming since NTT was DC's most popular title of the time.

Chris

[Riffster]

I just thought of the one armed Speedy, it reinded me of one armed Ollie in Dark Knight returns

[samurainoir]

The first time I ran into a radical character change was Mike Baron's handling of Wally West in the early issues of Wally's Flash series. Wally had been fleshed out by Marv Wolfman in New Teen Titans as a conscientious conservative type with a very normal, middle class family. Baron made Wally a womanizing adulterer with a dysfunctional family. It would take years and mostly Mark Waid to undo what Baron did in 14 short issues. They were good reads, but shouldn't someone have called him on that, and not allowed that interpretation to see print? Couldn't Baron have written the Flash within the parameters of the character as established, and fleshed him out more based on what others had established? This is especially alarming since NTT was DC's most popular title of the time.

Here's an interesting quote from George Perez...

Pérez adds, "Basically, they just ran out of what they could think of. After trying to figure out a new Flash, they realized they weren't getting anywhere. One idea was unacceptable, another idea was unacceptable, and the end of the series was starting to come up. We needed something. They couldn't think of a new Flash that would be unique unto him or herself, so unfortunately they decided to go for Wally West as the Flash. Which was a logical thing, but what bothered me is that technically we just killed the costume, because he's the same basic character and anyone who picks up the book without any real knowledge of who Wally West or Barry Allen were is going to immediately think it's the same character. So there was no real reason in my mind to have killed him off, since all you did was technically kill off Barry Allen, who was not the problem - you kept the Flash, who supposedly was the problem. (Laughter.)"

Otherwise, Wally in the Teen Titans was just Mini-Barry wasn't he?

I think Wally's character jump was much less jarring than Ollie's, and could be seen as an evolution of the character. Losing two father figures like Barry and Jay who were moral rudders in his life could likely cause some emotional upheaval. Particularly when that much responsiblity is suddenly piled up on his shoulders and he's forced to grow up so quickly.

Baron's radical departure really did benefit Wally in the long run because it actually gave Messner Loebs, Waid, and Johns somewhere to go with the character. He really experienced an evolution from Brash Young Man with the kind of flaws that many young men could relate to... if you read his womanizing to be an immature inability to relate to adult women. Having to take on the mantle of the Flash at such a young age (19), you can see him trying to shake off that yoke of destiny with his more selfish pursuits. A young guy generally doesn't know what he will want in a relationship and plays the field and discovers what he does want eventually, which is Linda. It's all part of growing up.

The other subtext which I find kind of fascinating is the fact that Baron admits to doing quite a bit of coke during that period while he was writing Wally and the "speed" superpowers kind of takes on a totally different metaphorical angle.

[samurainoir]

I just thought of the one armed Speedy, it reinded me of one armed Ollie in Dark Knight returns

I keep thinking that Vic should just give him one of his spare robot arms. Pimp it out with all kinds of projectile weapons.

[david_b]

Another example of a stupid plot twist to basically ruin a character, now Marvel-style..:

Yellowjacket's turn as violent/unstable husband, jailed, then Hank Pym resurrected in a couple of successively weak styles in West Coast Avengers, around the same time when both companies were struggling to kill off characters/develop weird plot twists.

david_b

[The Toyroom]

^ And now Pym is going by the name The Wasp in honor of his dead ex-wife....They've really f'ed up his character quite a bit.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Otherwise, Wally in the Teen Titans was just Mini-Barry wasn't he?

I wouldn't really say so. Wally was fleshed out by Wolfman as very conservative, and very NORMAL. Cary Bates touched on this in the Flash Spectacular back in the 70s, where Wally told Barry he wasn't sure he would be Kid-Flash much longer, that he was considering retiring after college for a normal life. Wolfman picked up this thread and ran with it (pun intended) in NTT and also picked up on Wally's political leanings from his on early Teen Titans work, and his attitude toward the Russian Starfire, and built upon that.

I don't think poor Jay was mentioned in Wally's solo title until Joan showed up pretty far into Messner-Loebs run, so the loss of Jay shouldn't count as motivation for Wally to do a total 180 in personality.

I'd consider Wally's change more jarring than Ollie's, because as I said before, Ollie had no character at all, other than being a super hero. He fought crime and saved people, and he used to be rich, the end. What O'Neil established didn't negate any of that, he just filled in the parts that had never been explored. Baron essentially erased what was there before and rewrote Wally as he saw fit.

A blank slate is fair game really, but an incoming writer should honor the works of his predecessors on characters that have been explored and fleshed out. And nowadays, just about every established comic character has at this point.

Chris

[ctc]

>Does keeping a character as the Creator intended keep the character static and stagnant?

I think there are a few problems with monkeying with legacy characters; the biggest being practicality. Most of the time you CAN’T make lasting changes for a perpetual character, and the few times you can there aren’t many possible permutations.

>It forever changes the character (until they give him his arm back somehow) and it is impossible to overlook it.

Kinda like that. I think it’s proper to say that it SHOULD forever change his character; but we know it won’t.

Don C.

[Steeler80]

The thing is that any time that you're doing a company owned work (as a majority of the characters mentioned are), once the creator is off the character, then it's going to go in directions other than the original creator intended as new people bring their own histories, their own sensibilities, to the character. It's the nature of the beast.

And it's not necessarily a bad thing as long as the core essence of the character is maintained. Would Batman be as popular a character today if he was not allowed to change with the times? He's had many incarnations over the years but the core essence of the character (avenging his parents death) has remained the same. Have I liked all of the changes made to the character? Not by a long shot. But there are some changes that I really enjoyed that wouldn't have occurred if a new person hadn't been on the book.

Really, the character is out of the original creator's intentions as soon as someone else reads the work. For instance, I had a reader remark on a short story I'd written. She brought in this whole new angle for the character, one I hadn't even considered when I was writing it. So, for that reader, the character was no longer acting according to my intentions.

[samurainoir]

I wouldn't really say so. Wally was fleshed out by Wolfman as very conservative, and very NORMAL. Cary Bates touched on this in the Flash Spectacular back in the 70s, where Wally told Barry he wasn't sure he would be Kid-Flash much longer, that he was considering retiring after college for a normal life. Wolfman picked up this thread and ran with it (pun intended) in NTT and also picked up on Wally's political leanings from his on early Teen Titans work, and his attitude toward the Russian Starfire, and built upon that.

So you said it yourself, here's a guy who was considering getting out of the superhero game. In fact he had retired due to his powers "failing" (I think they retconned this into part of his psycological block). Suddenly Barry dies and he's forced to pick up the mantle he wasn't sure he wanted to begin with. He's determined to do the superhero thing his own way and of course experiences failures in that growth and learns from so over the course of 200 plus issues, does become a hero more in line with Barry.

Otherwise, where can you mine drama and conflict and personality out of such a normal existance? How do you differentiate his life from the other heroes? I thought the parent retcon was brilliant and really expanded his character a great deal. Would it have been interesting to have that scene with his parents telling him how proud they are of him over and over again? Would we otherwise have had those wonderful Waid issues that show how an unhappy childhood allowed him to escape to the world of Kid Flash?

And keep in mind Baron did play off of Wally's disposition towards thing like the Soviet's with Red Trinity, so it's not like he wasn't picking up threads either.

[The Toyroom]

I really don't recall much of the early Wally West Flash issues (Baron or Messner-Loebs)....I know I bought them and remember villains like Kil%ore, Chunk, Speed McGee and Red Trinity but nothing really stands out until Mark Waid came on board. His "Return of Barry Allen" was brilliant.

[thunderbolt]

Unless the original creator has a hand in the character(see Hellboy or Goon), its going to stray away from the original intention. The only one I can think of that has stayed sort of close would be the FF. for the most part still a family of explorers/superheroes.