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8 comments:
Geoff, have you ever seen Queens Logic? It's fairly horrible (Joe Mantegna and Jamie Lee Curtis come off well, though) but it centers around Astoria with lots of location shots.
i have not seen that but it is weird you mention that because a few hours ago I caught part of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which also takes place in Astoria. Maybe this would be a good double feature.
This is being addressed to nobody in particular, but I noticed something today that perhaps bore some thought. I just finished reading Icredible Hercules #131, and Hank Pym makes an off-handed comment about how Olympus had been destroyed at some point in the past. Now, I have no idea when this happened and it could have been in the 80's for all I know, but it made me realize something. It seems that all of the "fantastical" realms of the Marvel Universe are being eliminated. Atlantis was destroyed in the last few years. Asgard, as a fantasy realm, is no more, but is instead a city floating somewhere in Oklahoma. Granted, I don't think that this is any sort of systematic, intentful attack. But at the same time I wonder if this is a reflection of the desire for comics to be more "real" in the recent past. The powers and those elements can and must remain, arguably, but all the stories seem like they MUST be based in a very real, very 200X America (or wherever.) There is still the Savage Land, and I suppose Mount Wundagore is still around technically, but those are...villainous? areas where characters go to get threatened. And really, aside from the dinosaurs, the Savage Land can be viewed just as a simple allegory for, say, the Amazon Jungle when the writers want to do a jungle story. There are no real life stand-ins for the Rainbow Bridge or whatnot.
I wonder if this will seriously date these comics decades in the future and eliminate any sort of "timeless" appeal?
Kevin: I catch your point, and I've also wondered where Marvel is going with this "trend," if it can be called that. However, I think from a storytelling perspective, the "bringing down to earth" of Asgard makes it seem all the more amazing. Sure, a fantastical city in another dimension is, well, fantastic to behold, but bring that city down to earth, have its citizens interact with us mere mortals, and you get a new spin on a once unreachable realm.
Likewise for Atlantis, and their terrorists who have been popping up in the various titles lately. For years we've been reading about the animosity that Atlanteans have for surface dwellers, and even seen it take form as all out invasions. Now with the introduction of Atlantean terrorists, we're seeing an updated spin on that animosity, making it relatable and relevant.
I think it all goes hand in hand with Marvel's generally more realistic (of sorts) take on their universe, just updated for modern sensibilities, with some twists to try to make them fresh, scary and amazing, again. Just my take...
-r-
To address your last point, "I wonder if this will seriously date these comics decades in the future and eliminate any sort of "timeless" appeal?"
I don't know if super hero comics, in general, and Marvel Comics, specifically, were ever timeless. Golden Age comics were dated by the time the Silver Age rolled around, and today, even the Bronze Age and the 90's "Modern Age" stuff has a much different, and dated vibe than what's being published today, which I feel would be the case regardless of whether or not Olympus or Asgard were destroyed.
-r-
Richard -
That is true about the timeless aspect for most marvel/super-hero comics. I suppose I regard the late 70's X-Men and Stern's Spider-man as sort of timeless, but that could just be me being some sort of pseudo-nostalgic since I wasn't even alive much less reading for those eras. Also, just to clarify, I wasn't bemoaning the the death of the fantastical in Marvel or anything; Asgard in Oklahoma was brilliant and it makes Thor interesting and relevant, like you said. I never read a Thor comic until the newest reboot, cuz, you know...Thor. Same deal with Namor - Atlantis' destruction is forcing him to grow as a character and shed his increasingly stilted and unbelievable interaction with the Marvel Universe.
In fact, I'm not really sure what my entire point was behind all of this. Maybe I was musing if they were sacrificing the various sorts of stories they could tell by eliminating locations rather than just relocating characters. But anyhow, thanks for responding! I'm trying to engage in the online comic/culture discussion a bit more, so its great to get any sort of dialogue going to stretch my rapidly stagnating critical writing skills.
Holy god, the kid playing the lead in Where The Wild Things are is called Max Records.
That kid easily has the best name I have ever seen.
(New trailer dropped, btw).
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