Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Originality? What's that?

In the "Last 2 Letters--Fictional Character" thread, I posted "Onslaught", which reminded me of something which had occurred to me several years ago.

How Onslaught was born: A beloved Silver Age hero who was one of the most significant characters in his comic book universe--Professor Xavier--lost his sanity, gained near-invincible power, and became his CBU's most dangerous villain.

Something else else DC had done a few years earlier when Hal Jordan lost his marbles and became Parallax.

Marvel--The House Of STOLEN Ideas?

To be fair, DC did it, too.

The Eradicator began as an "evil duplicate" enemy of DC's iconic flagship character--Superman--but was later turned into a "dark and gritty hero" version of Supes.

Marvel had done that a few years earlier with Venom and MARVEL's iconic flagship character, Spider-Man.

Originality? What the sprock is that?

Your thoughts? :rolleyes:

Oh there's tons.

There are the obvious homages, like the Imperial Guard or the Squadron Supreme, or the in-house copycats, like the Russian version of the Avengers (Perun = Thor, Crimson Dynamo = Iron Man, Red Guardian = Captain America, Sputnik = Vision and Fantasia = Scarlet Witch), or various characters that aren't terribly similar, but tend to get thought of as copycats (Green Arrow and Hawkeye, for instance).

And the famous 'team of outcasts and freaks led by the old dude in the wheelchair,' whether that be the Doom Patrol or the X-Men.

Black Cat, to me, felt very much like a wanna-be Catwoman, when she was first introduced, although both she and Catwoman have changed enough since that time that they no longer feel anything alike.

Taskmaster and Deathstroke also feel like copies of each other, although the visual might have more to do with that than their actual characterizations. (As in, Slade has a characterization, while TM, not so much...)

Prometheus, if anything, felt like a third-generation copy of the Taskmaster copying Deathstroke, making him pretty thin around the edges, IMO.

Other ideas that have come into and out of vogue;

Villains working as 'heroes' (or at least protagonists) = Thunderbolts, Suicide Squad

Heroes in it for the money = Heroes for Hire, the Power Company

Satellite teams of the main franchise = JLI, JLE, West Coast Avengers

Teen sidekicks represent! = Teen Titans & New Mutants, Young Justice & Young Avengers

Kids of villains turned heroes = Runaways, Son-of-Boomerang, son-of-Amazo, Joe and Rose Wilson, etc.

Established heroes having teenaged kids appearing suddenly and functioning as heroes = Wildcat 2, Tommy and Billy (Young Avengers), etc.

Every original idea has its antecedents. If anyone came up with a truly original (never-heard-of-before) idea, it would probably be dismissed as insanity.

Marvel and DC have always fed off each other--and off of successful movies (Starfinger = Goldfinger), current events (Englehart's Secret Empire story = Watergate), and popular crazes (the Silver Surfer = surfing), so it's no surprise that ideas constantly get recycled.

What disturbs me more is how easy it is to turn heroes into villains and vice versa. I haven't read the Onslaught story line, but I have difficulty believing that anything would drive Prof. X to "lose his sanity" and become "his CBU's most dangerous villain," no matter how much power he gained. Same problem with Hal Jordan, though DC did a better job of establishing character flaws such as drunk driving that MIGHT lead him down the path of moral decay.

We live in a world where people endure horrible personal tragedies (the deaths of loved ones, incapacitation, illness, war, injustice) yet don't "go insane" and become homicidal maniacs. The people who do such things tend to have a long pattern of anti-social behavior, violence, or other problems that lead them down a path of narcissistic overindulgence. They don't just go insane because someone ran over their puppy.

How much more unbelievable, then, is it for someone who has devoted his or her life to saving others, to serving those in need, and to self-sacrifice (e.g., personal injury and a "normal" life) to become a villain? Such a person would have to abandon the morals and ideals that led him to become a hero in the first place -- morals and ideals that are deeply ingrained into the human psyche.

I'm sure someone can find real-life examples of people who have done or appear to have done exactly that. But it doesn't happen as often as Marvel and DC would have us believe.

I don't know what originality is. Is it some kind of fishdog?

Professor X had been 'darkening up' for quite some time (becoming a little bit similar to the Chief, over in Doom Patrol, amusingly), and had the more-flexible-ethics of Magneto roiling around in his noggin. It wasn't great storytelling, but it wasn't a total butt-pull either.

Hal Jordan, OTOH, a man chosen from every other sentient on Earth for his indomitable willpower and utter lack of fear is the one superhero in the DCU who goes bugnuts insane and murders a bunch of people? Not, say, *Batman,* who's been portrayed as one tiny crack away from a full-on psychotic break for a decade or so?

And, what bugs me even more than a hero going bad, is how easily they can get out of it. The Death of Jean Grey was editorially mandated because it was seen as having taken Jean 'too far' and made her unable to be redeemed. The ruling came down from on high that she could not continue on as a superhero, and she couldn't even continue on, as planned, as 'Scott's non-super-powered wife, about as important a character as the left rear tire of the Blackbird.' And they retconned that it wasn't Jean, as an excuse to bring her back (for a storyline that, frankly, didn't warrant her return, that X-Factor mutant-hunters stunt). They retconned that Hal Jordan, the Willpoweriest Willpower that ever Willed, was mindjobbed by some chocolate-covered yellow peril or something. There was a game effort to retcon Sabertooth into a good guy. There have been effort to paint Deathstroke as sympathetic. ('Cause nothing says 'hero potential' like a man who became a professional assassin because *he was rich and bored with hunting animals.*)

I'm actually okay with *some* 'heroes' not being able to hack it. Booster Gold is a poster-child for someone who got into superheroing for all the wrong reasons (and committed various crimes in the process), and while he's developed nobler intentions, he still isn't exactly Captain America. There are quite a few supervillains who 'got into it' with nobler intentions than old Booster... Tony Stark, etc. also has his demons.

But when a character, like Superboy Prime or Black Adam, goes on a legendary killing spree, and there's serious chatter from the writers and editors about making a hero (or anti-hero, or whatever) out of them, I want to turn evil myself.

And, back to the originality concept, Black Adam and Superboy Prime are kinda the same thing. 'Wouldn't it be scary if someone had the powers of Superman and went all killapalooza.' Neither is really an original character. One is 'Superman gone bad' the other is 'Captain Marvel gone bad,' and both of them got 'established' as badasses in the same formulaic way, by punching-to-death a couple thousand civilians, and a few B, C and D-tier heroes that nobody was using, for the most part (like Pantha and Terra v 3.0).

Green Lantern vs. Sinestro, Flash vs. Professor Zoom, Superman vs. Bizarro, Iron Man vs. Obadiah Stane / Iron-Monger, Hulk vs, the Abomination, Sentry vs. The Void, Spider-man vs. Venom, etc. How many powerful heroes have as one of their biggest threats a version of themselves in different colors?

My thread shows promise.

Actually, I'm pretty sure we've discussed this topic before.

All seriousness aside, when DC was still National Comics, Mort Weisinger copied Green Arrow from Golden Arrow, Aquaman from Sub-Mariner, and Johnny Quick from (All-American's) the Flash, so it really goes back to the very beginning.

Siegel and Shuster have mentioned that Superman borrows elements from Samson and Hercules, so the borrowing of elements goes way, way back, 'tis true, and while they didn't mention him specifically, their admiration of pulp characters like Hugo Danning of the novel Gladiator might have snuck in some elements as well.

Heroes who borrow from mythic or classical inspirations seem to do well. Superman comes from a long line of that sort of figure. Thor is a literal myth-made-hero. Iron Man could be seen as a modern day knight in shining armor. The Hulk hearkens back to both Frankenstein's monster and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Batman has elements of The Shadow, etc.

What's most original about Superman is probably the alien survivor from a destroyed planet aspect of him.

Nass! I guess I'm not original, either.

Holy irony, Batman!

You could say this thread has legs, but that's not exactly an original idiom is it?

Quite a few characters bring an entire world of baggage with them, such as Atlantis (Namor, Aquaman), Paradise Island (Wonder Woman), Asgard (Thor), New Genesis (Lightray), Attilan (Medusa, Crystal), Hawkman (Thanagar), etc. but Superman is one of a smaller subset that have that in their backstory, but never can have 'adventures' in that land or frequently interact with other visitors, etc.

Thor benefits from his ties to Asgard. Aquaman, really, kinda suffers from his ties to Atlantis.

Superman has cut that out entirely, and, in a way, becomes more 'accessible' because anything otherworldly about him remains usable as a source of story-fodder (through kryptonite, the Phantom Zone, etc.), without ever actually removing him from the recognizable world, the way an Aquaman story set in Atlantis would.

Honestly, I can't think of any "comes from a destroyed paradise" origins prior to Superman. It's funny that that particular part of his background didn't really start being emphasized until about ten years into the character's existence.

Well, there is Adam and Eve.