Onion skinning
I think it’s a common assumption that kids read comics and most of them grow out of it. For me it has been the other way round.
Sure, I’d read a few copies of the Beano and the Dandy, but I wasn’t really into the superhero comics at all. I liked the idea of superheroes, but didn’t care much for their pulpy exploits. As a teenager I enjoyed Tim Burton’s Batman films, but only in the same way I enjoyed Trainspotting and Pulp Fiction – they didn’t encourage me to go out and buy comics any more than the other two made me want to shoot people and overdose on drugs.
But as I’ve grown up I have grown more inclined to read about these characters in funny costumes. I don’t know whether that’s because I can now intellectualise them and therefore read the guilt free, or because having lost any sense of religion I crave some sort of mythology.
The truth is though, whenever I get introduced to people for the first time, I’m often introduced as ‘Adam… he does a comic’. People assume that I know stuff about superheroes and I always find it difficult to do the whole, ‘not those sort of comics… well, more like observations with pictures… I suppose a bit like Gary Larson…’ conversation.
So, I’ve been slowly catching up. Some of my local comic-book friends have really helped. The stuff they know is unbelievable… a level of geekery that forces me to stand in awe. Not only do they know the characters, the issue numbers, the plots and the continuity quirks (all real geekdom is about continuity quirks), but they know all about the technical aspects too… the writers, inkers, pencillers, publishers… the history, the full story.
They taught me about such terms as ‘trauma genesis’ – the horrible event that creates the hero and defines his purpose… for Spiderman it’s being bitten by a Radio-active (or in the films, genetically modified) spider and the death of a loved one… for Superman, it’s coming to Earth and losing his family and planet…
I realise I’ve been a bit misleading, talking about superheroes since really they’re not what interest me. It’s the villains that I like. The heroes are just vigilantes getting kicks on revenge, and by and large they tend to spend at least some of their time living ‘normal’ lives. Now, the villains on the other hand are usually following a greater calling, a passion, from which they must not deviate. They live and breathe their work… and they find it near impossible to live normal lives because they have become physically mutated reflections of their work and their personalities.
Far more interesting… and always so doomed to failure.
You think that one day they’d be self-aware enough to realise that they’re not going to get away with it (this time) and that they won’t end up conquering X (this time) and that the one person that is going to defeat them is the same person that pretty much always defeats them (every time). You think that they’d spot the pattern.
But what sort of a super-villain would that be? I think they probably realised that a long time ago, but what else can they do? Dr Doom as a taxi driver… Magneto serving at McDonald’s… The Joker doing kid’s parties…
It’s one of the reasons that I’m tempted to go and see the new Iron Man film (should I?) – I know that he’s a borderline character. far closer to the rest of us in many ways. Sure, he starts out bad, and then he gets good… but I know that it gets murkier than that a bit further down the line.
I’m pretty sure we’ve covered ‘what are your superhero powers/names’, so this time, it’s super-villains – I want names, evil plans and nemisees… nemisi… nemisises…
justine on
Try to get your hands on the Astro City collection “Tarnished Angel”, if you can. Its main focus is on the “villain” characters, and it deals with many of the issues you raise above such as why they keep doing the same old things knowing that they’re going to be stopped.
As for my villain nature… I’d definitely be the evil mastermind type. My brilliant plans would always be defeated by the fact that I’d sink all of my free resources into building giant robots, no matter how inappropriate they are to my scheme.
I should have known, the robots, the robots.
I’ll try and check that out… I nearly mentioned The Watchmen in the post, for similar reasons (and the fact that it’s currently in film-type production).
It’s really quite good, Iron Man. Better than the Spider-Man films and not quite as good as Batman Begins (well in some ways it’s better than Batman Begins.)
And that spider will ALWAYS be radioactive to me.
Honestly, I thought Iron Man was better than Batman Begins because it was FUN. Sometimes, superhero movies take themselves too seriously in order to be “more than just for comic book nerds”.
I like superheroes. Always have. They’re the primary form of on-the-page comic I read because, when written well, they can be amazing. Superheroes are, at their core, characters stripped down to their archetypes and then built up again through a collective writing process. There’s something appealing about that. Probably the same reason why my own comic is heavily tarot influenced.
I feel your pain Joe.
I was fairly upset when they brought genetics into it… it’s just as implausible as radiocativity, so I didn’t see why they had to change it.
I’ll be honest here, those Spiderman films did very little for me. They were not terrible, but they were very formulaic and altering stuff that is fundamental to the story line just annoys me.
I am The Spellchecker and I laugh maniacally at your second paragraph: “…more than the other too”.
Yet, I know my laughter and attempts to write the world order are indeed futile in the face of Reduced Educational Funding Man.
With your trusty sidekick, Correcticon…
Thanks, I’ve changed it, mostly because it’ll bug the hell out of me if I didn’t.
You think I’d read things before I post them… but there you go.
I can’t decide if to “write the world” is a bad pun, or a really awkwardly placed typo…
I have decided that it is a MAGNIFICENT pun.
That pun hurts.
To be honest, as long as I got a fabulously ostentatious and dark costume to wear (possibly involving an ultra-high collar and some sort of cane…probably a black and white ensemble, I’m thinking) I don’t think I’d really mind what nefarious deeds I didn’t manage to complete.
If the costume got taken away…well. I think that’s when the hero would be in trouble. Not only would I be hellbent on getting it back, but they’d be unable to see me coming, only having ever seen me in aforementioned costume.
(My plans would probably involve magnets, though. Magnets are awesome.)
its true. they are.
A cane? That’s a stroke of evil genius right there, especially if you don’t actually need it.
And I’m with Justine on this, they are very cool, magnets.
I’ll take that as a compliment! Canes are fantastic.
My friends and I intend on dressing up as the gentry at somepoint.
There will be canes involved.
Iron Man is pretty damn good. I enjoyed Batman on a strange, almost inexplicable level, as the Batman character was a serious part of my formational comics experiences, and I had almost no familiarity with Iron Man, and I enjoyed the heck out of it anyway.
As a supervillain, I’d like to be the kind of fanatic who spends all his time and energy trying to make the governments of the world do good things by using the most horrible methods: “Increase third-world food aid or I’ll poison Washington!” “Abide by your Kyoto commitments or I’ll flatten Moose Jaw (yes, a Canadian political reference)!” That way, even when I was defeated, I would know that the issue I had appeared in would raise the consciousness of the hero and the reader, at least until the next issue when all was forgotten. To really sell the “social justice terrorist” angle I’d need weather control powers, or something like that. Summon up natural disasters. I would be incredibly plagued by guilt the whole time, what with the mass murder and all… although if I called myself The Malthusian, then I could even say that I was reducing the world population to alleviate the ensuing food crisis.
Oddly, I once very nearly ended up living in Moose Jaw… and then ‘nearby’ Medicine Hat.
I like the idea of the means-to-an-end villian, that is someone that wants to do something good, but is prepared to do awful things to get there. again, The Watchmen has a similar theme.
The Malthusian, top name…
Yeah, we Canadians have an odd sense of “nearby”. We once drove six hundred kilometres for the weekend for a party, and thought nothing of it.
If I judged people by whether
they were borderline characters or not,
I wouldn’t have any friends left.
In fact, a person’s flaws argueably
give them charm and individuality.
Judging one by their goodness is
my preferred way of choosing friends.
It’s all over when someone performs
evil on me though. I avoid evil people.
My door is closed to “nemesis” types.
My door is closed to “nemesis” types.
– your nemesis is the one that goes around opening them again.
Aren’t magnets bi-polar?
That is quite possibly the best pun I’ve ever heard.
That is great.
heh. hehe.
Hmmm, not yet viewed Iron Man.
Um, super evil villan?
Erm, um, (been umming for about 10mins over this)
(procrastinating for 15mins now)
How about:
Lord Procrastinator
“meh, I’ll do it later”
I once invented a superhero called The Procrastinator. When when everyone else was fighting the bad guy he would be over at a nearby vending machine digging through his pockets to see if he had enough for a bag of Doritos.
so i pretty much cant think of anything particularly villainous that i do/am. ask someone who knows me and they would probably tell you otherwise, though!
i guess i really am a good person, for real…or IS IT?
dun dun dunnn
Oh, you are an insidous(sic) lier.
Possibly.
No, wait, that’d be me.
You are shallow tho, that we have established.
You have a fetish for evil maths and e, when you can just do it the easy way, plus you have a grudge against diagonal fractions.
oh, and you giggle like a girl.
hehe
I see thru your good person facade. >:[
oh thanks ben, thats it! if i were a supervillain i would be a teacher! my powers would be asking kids to do a maths question, and when theyve learnt to do it the long and complicated way, and continued doing that for a couple of weeks, i will give them the calculator program that does it for you. its a crushing feeling, you know.
oh by the way guys, the rest of it is all lies. conjecture. oh, apart from the maths fetish. and the giggling, and ESPECIALLY the diagonal fractions.
So basically, it is all true except the shallow bit?
I want evil beard powers! Beard like kudzu, choking whole cities into submission!
Brilliant! ‘Kudzu’ is a decent villain name, too.
Kudzu is easily defeated.
Kudzu’s weakness is crumbs.
Nobody takes a crumby beard seriously.
Ack! She hath discoverethed mien weakness! Alack! I am now knowing mien nemesesse: Her name ist Sera!
That’s the great thing about beards… genius, super villain, poet… all personality types can be expressed through beard.
I’d go with a Dick Dastardly, if I were you. They’re designed especially for naer-do-wells.
Well, its no secret that I want to have an Ion Cannon orbiting the Earth and be able to take over the planet with threats of Ion-y destruction from above. I also want Ninja henchmen (for everything, even cooks) and an orbital lair. Its pretty hard to sneak up on a space station. Ill be able to detect your ship pretty much from launch. Then, I can shoot it down whenever I think it will make the biggest fireworks (without harming me.)
Ninja henchmen, huh? Have you been reading SamAndFuzzy.com?
Henchmen… that’s a whole other topic, and possibly a comic too.
I like the idea of having lethal domestic staff. A ninja operating a vacuum cleaner is still a ninja.
Ninjas are really good at getting to hard to reach places, so they can clean better, too. A normal maid cant reach the ceiling in the main cavern meeting hall, but a ninja can do the moonwalk upside down.
No I havent, but I think I should…
Definitely the mentor turned nemesis type. Raising up the next crop of idealistic busy-bodies so I know all their weaknesses, and training them to beat out other super-heroes I don’t know in-and-out. Letting them get at the plots I let them in on while secretly running things from behind the Illuminati.
Oh yah, I wouldn’t really have powers except great wealth, massive charisma, and the ability to read anyone…. oh, I’m just missing the wealth part… and I’m working on that. ::EVIL LAUGH:: (you should hear mine, it’s really good… resounding, booming, reverberant…)
I know what Adam’s evil power/thing will be.
The power of pidgeons.
They are in many of his comics.
Look and you will see.
I’m going to have a lay down now.