Research: Comics, Heroes and Villains

[katiemac]

I posted a question awhile ago, either here or in the story research forum, about tracking some of the major events of superhero mythology in comics.

I'm not still really sure what I need, but I'm expanding the research arena. Both for personal interest and writing-related. Basically, the history of comics, still more on the mythology, themes, and how superheroes and villains evolve/devolve.

I have these books on a list. I'm curious if any of you are familiar with or have read them, or if you have other recommendations. Please don't hesitate to also recommend graphic novels or comics where these themes play. Can't promise I'll be able to read through an entire collection, though.

Thanks in advance.

Comic Book Nation by Bradford Wright--I'm probably picking this one up, since it comes highly reviewed and recommended by others. It seems to fit the bill of what I'm looking for on the historical side of comics themselves.

Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology by Richard Reynolds

Psychology of Superheroes by Robin Rosenberg

Heroes and Villians by Mike Alsford

Additionally, I'll be looking at similiar books aimed at folklore, mythology and hero/villan archetypes not necessarily related to comics.

[sunandshadow]

Have you read the TV Trope Wiki pages on heroes and villains?

Also when you say 'comics' do you mean just western ones or are you including manga/anime? Because I'd be happy to talk about some specific heroes and villains but I mainly know about anime.

[ChimeraCreative]

I've seen a couple flicks about comic books, documentary style. Some good, some not so good. Lemme see if I can track some of them down. I'm bloody horrible with remembering what they're called. >.<

Comic Book Confidential http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Confidential

Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_B...eroes_Unmasked

Stan Lee's Mutants, Monsters & Marvels (hosted by Kevin Smith) http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/2624...rvels/overview

I've caught all of these in IFC at one time or another. I'm not going to be much of a help in any other way, sorry. I typically don't read the kinda things you're looking for. At best, I just have a couple books on how comic scripts are written by professionals. However, I'll keep an ear to the ground for you, okay? ^_^

-An

[Wolvel]

If you want a good example of the evolution/devolution/revolution of a villian. Read the greatest Joker stories ever told.

In it is the first cold blooded killer of the 40's, the devolved campy robber of the 50's and 60's, then the revolved maniacal killer 0f the 70's to present.

[Wolvel]

Now a good example of the evolution of a hero and his villians would be Spider-Man and his rogues gallery.

From the expiroment gone bad lizard, tp the hate of venom, or the utter loathing of the green goblin. All three villians have a solid backstory or evolution if you will.

[Tom Johnson]

Hi Kat, many comic book super heroes evolved from the pulps. At least the pulp heroes were a big influence on many of them. Superman was a product of The Shadow (Kent Allard) and Doc Savage (Clark Savage, Jr.), i.e., Clark Kent. The creators were huge fans of Doc Savage and The Shadow. Bat Man evolved from The Shadow, and The Joker from a character that first appeared in The Shadow. Spiderman, of course was from The Spider, a character Stan Lee liked in the pulps. In Nostalgia Ventures' current reprints of Doc Savage and The Shadow, they are publishing articles on many of these aspects that you might find interesting.

"The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit!"

[Axler]

Tom ought to know...he is widely--and rightfully--considered to be one of the premier pop culture historians.

[Tom Johnson]

Hello, Mark,
I want you to know, I've been curious about Death Hawk, and was wondering who is writing something so cool as that? For some reason I never connected the Axler name to you. I should be ahamed of myself! Over 42 novels now, huh? Dang, that's some record. I need to pick up that sci-fi story. It sounds like fun.

"The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit!"

[katiemac]

Originally Posted by sunandshadow

Have you read the TV Trope Wiki pages on heroes and villains?

Also when you say 'comics' do you mean just western ones or are you including manga/anime? Because I'd be happy to talk about some specific heroes and villains but I mainly know about anime.

Have not! This will be a good (and cheap!) way to start.
I'm not against manga and anime discussions, especially since I used to read them a lot, but the project I'm working on will mostly likely be relying on more Western themes. Many of them, I'm sure, overlap.

I've seen a couple flicks about comic books, documentary style. Some good, some not so good. Lemme see if I can track some of them down. I'm bloody horrible with remembering what they're called. >.<

Great! I've seen a couple of documentaries (perhaps the Unmaked one you listed above) on the History channel. I always get sucked in--good to know there are more.

If you want a good example of the evolution/devolution/revolution of a villian. Read the greatest Joker stories ever told.

Is this the title? Greatest Joker Stories? I have the new Entertainment Weekly (with Batman/Joker on the cover) and they mention a few of the Joker's greatest runs. This one wasn't listed ... is it a compilation?

In Nostalgia Ventures' current reprints of Doc Savage and The Shadow, they are publishing articles on many of these aspects that you might find interesting.

I didn't know this about the pulps, so this is a fantastic bit of information. I'll definiately be looking into this--the pulp angle will be awesome.

I knew you guys would be helpful! Thanks so much for what's listed so far. I'll have a bit of digging to do.

[FinbarReilly]

I'd also suggest looking for the Demon Hunter X book for the old World of Darkness; there is an essay in there about how the manga sentai concept works; it may not sound like it applies, but it's an interesting read, especially in regards to most teams. In essence, it looks at the team as composed of a leader, the rebel, the geek, the muscle, and the girl. and breaks it down as far as what they bring to the team....

FR

[Axler]

Originally Posted by Tom Johnson

Hello, Mark,
I want you to know, I've been curious about Death Hawk, and was wondering who is writing something so cool as that? For some reason I never connected the Axler name to you. I should be ahamed of myself! Over 42 novels now, huh? Dang, that's some record. I need to pick up that sci-fi story. It sounds like fun.

Hi, Tom...actually it's 45 novels now.

Having recently made an agreement/arrangement with Transfuzion Publishing, there'll be quite a few more upcoming graphic novels other than Death Hawk.

You can read all about it here:

http://www.transfuzion.biz/NewsMilllenium.htm

And look at some pichurs here:

http://www.comicspace.com/markaxlerellis

I remembered the other day how I tried, back in the early 90s, to come up with a comics version of Secret Agent X, inspired mainly by your and Will's book about the character.

[Wolvel]

If you want a good example of the evolution/devolution/revolution of a villian. Read the greatest Joker stories ever told.

Is this the title? Greatest Joker Stories? I have the new Entertainment Weekly (with Batman/Joker on the cover) and they mention a few of the Joker's greatest runs. This one wasn't listed ... is it a compilation?

Yes it is called Batman the greatest joker stories ever told, it is a tpb with stories from the 40's 50's 60's 70's 80's and up.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw...told&x=14&y=22

This link to amazon.com will take you straight to it.

[Tom Johnson]

Hey, Mark, the new version of the Secret Agent X book was released by Altus Press last year and has information on the Secret Agent X comic book appearance back in early 1940s. It wasn't very good back then, and mostly was comic book telling of the pulp story. I bet you could really do a bang up comic book today featuring "X"! BTW, I've had several artists interested in doing a comic book version of my Black Ghost, but none of them have been able to interest a comic book company. Sigh. And I'm not a comic book writer. Wish I could write them. Man, I appreciate comic book writers! I just don't have the nack. As several publishers have told me, I'm too wordy (g).

"The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit!"

[Axler]

Hi, Tom

Yeah, scripting comics and writing prose are two completely different disciplines.

I much prefer writing comics myself, despite all of my novels. It's faster for one thing.

And more funner as a general rule.

[sunandshadow]

Glad you liked the tropes wiki idea - I think that's an awesome website. You might have trouble finding all the pages about heroes or villains, make sure you check out 5 man band, 5 bad band, xanatos gambit, anti villain, anti hero, alas poor villain, kick the dog, ineffectual sympathetic villain, axe crazy... actually, there are too many to list. o.O; well, probably putting hero and villain in the search box will catch most of them and you can follow the links to the other ones.


Anyway I find the types and evolution of villains a really interesting topic, so I'll riff on that a bit. A villain is defined by, well, being villainous in some way or other. Some villains think they are in the right and the hero is in the wrong, some villains enjoy being bad, and some are amoral. Many of them are insane, but some are quite sane.

I think there are two basic archetypes of villains, the Dishonorable Rival (basically a version of the hero who goes astray from the path of heroism) and the Sadistic Corrupter (a mythic rather than realistic type of character who has some connection to a cosmic essence of evil, gets off on doing evil for its own sake, and thus may do anything and everything the storyteller wants to portray as bad.

Then there are several newer and more complex types of villains:

Comic villains probably developed from the structural fact that in all non-tragic stories the villain can never succeed at really harming the hero or doing anything irreversible, and their failure is usually seen as being a result of their character flaws. Comic Villains tend to be either ridiculously pompous, zealous but clueless about practicalities, so unstable that they are easily distracted and may undo their own work, or mopey and fearful of their boss and/or the hero.

Then there are Charming Villains (often associated with the phrase jovial evil). These may be seductive con-men for whom charm is an act, a means to an end, or they may be some variety of aristocrat with their own nonstandard code of good behavior which includes being mannerly but somehow excludes not killing people or stealing stuff. There are even villains who genuinely love people and socializing, even with the heroes. Anti-villains are often of this type, or of the enthusiastic but clueless comic villain type.

Sympathetic villains, the kind who might be heroes if the story was told from a different perspective, are often visionaries, or may be motivated by unrequited love or grief, or may have a backstory of being abused, treated with prejudice, or suffering from poverty or injustice, in the face of which becoming villains was more a survival tactic than anything else.

Many villains have something of a split personality, one side of them being more sympathetic and the other more monomaniacal. (Eh, have to run, I'll come back and write more later. Let me know if you are in any particular types or evolutions of villains).

[Wolvel]

Also you have to look at the evolution of the villian from their point of view.

Take Magneto for example. He does what he does not to be evil but to better his mutant race.

Dr. Doom is another example of a villian who does not look at the good vs evil, but what he thinks is right.

[katiemac]

Also you have to look at the evolution of the villian from their point of view.

Take Magneto for example. He does what he does not to be evil but to better his mutant race.

Dr. Doom is another example of a villian who does not look at the good vs evil, but what he thinks is right.

This is a big part of what I need, actually. Evolution from their perspective as what is right. I'll take a closer look at those villains--I know more about Magneto than Dr. Doom.

[Axler]

Two of the most complex villains and thus the most interesting are Dr. Miguelito Loveless from the classic The Wild Wild West:



And of course, Lex Luthor.



Both characters have heroic impulses but are always pulled down by their inability to control the darker aspects of their personalities.

[sunandshadow]

I think there are three main ways a villain can evolve: they can turn into a good guy (heel face turn, redemption), they can become more bad and at the same time more competent and dangerous to the hero, or they can become more crazy until they self-destruct. There are also two things villains can do that aren't really evolution: One, they can become a recurring part of the cast if, due to incompetence or ridiculous bad luck, the audience and hero feel secure that the villain will never manage to do any real harm. Or two, the author can create a mistaken impression of the villain at first, then reveal more information until the audience, and optionally the hero, change their opinion of the villain even though the villain actually hasn't changed. (Hmm I guess I've left out the most common one, the hero can kill the villain or de-evil them with a carebear stare or purifying arrow or something. I'm not a fan of that, it's boring - the brute force Gordian knot solution.)

So what makes villains evolve? Well, usually they start out with a single fairly small-scale goal, and a single motivation. They may have a larger plan but the hero won't find out about it and neither should the audience because it will be totally irrelevant to the action at that point. Then, the hero interferes, which forces the villain to rethink their plan and generally adds a second motivation: recover lost dignity if they feel they have been made a fool of, recover their status as number one or as someone who is good at their job, or make the hero suffer or be embarrassed to get revenge, or simply get the hero out of the way because he is inconvenient or annoying, or capture and/or study the hero because he is surprising and interesting.

The hero may try to scold or reason with the villain, giving the villain an opportunity to talk about what they are doing, why, and what their opinion of the hero is. Or some villains will just speech about this because they like to hear themselves talk, or they may explain it to a different character such as an underling, business partner, higher-up villain, or their love interest.

Often at some point the villain will get in trouble and the hero will bail them out. Or in the rare case that the villain isn't trying to kill the hero the situation may happen in reverse. This is usually a turning point in the relationship between the two - they might become reluctant allies against a larger problem, or their interaction might be becoming a normal and non-threatening part of the status quo, or the one's dignity might be offended and the other insulted by not getting any gratitude and their enmity gets more serious, or this might be part of some romantic development either between the two or with a third person they are rivals for the affections of.

[katiemac]

Seriously awesome all around, guys. This is the stuff I'm looking for--everything I know and familiar with, really, but having it all laid out like this sets my brain spinning in the right direction.

I was afraid my project is bigger than me, but all of this information is slowly putting pieces together that makes me think I might be able to pull it off after all.

Thanks!

[Wolvel]

The remark about Lex Luthor is on the money. He originally started out as a scientist and one time friend to Superboy. While trying to find away to cure Superboy from ever being harmed by Kryptonite his lab caught on fire. Superboy showed up and blew out the flames, but the chemical fumes caused Lex's hair to fall out making him bald. That caused him to become a mortal enemy of Superman.

[dreamsofnever]

Hi Katie, this sounds like an awesome research project! I love comic book history. It's fascinating to me. There are some interesting themes throughout comics to explore, and some unfortunately not so great tropes that they fall back on.

One truly disturbing cliche is the "Women in Refrigerators" plot device. Wikipedia defines it pretty well here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_i...s_%28comics%29, but much of that article is taken from Gail Simone's list here: http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/

Though that's a bit of a controversial topic, so you might or might not want to go there. I'm still personally deciding how I feel about it myself, but it's something that is definitely interesting to me.

If you're looking into the evolution of superheroes, it might be interesting to check out the compilations of the old Superman comics (both the newspaper and comic book). I got one of those books (titled Superman: The Dailies) and have been reading through it and boy has Superman changed. In fact, the original Superman was kind of full of himself. And he had an edge. In fact, there was at least one storyline I read where a bad guy got killed and he was kinda like *shrug* Oh well.

Now, going back to counter the whole Women in Refrigerators thing, it's interesting to look into the other side of that-how female heroes became prevalent. Wonder Woman's history is interesting, as she was one of the first characters to have a male love interest who she was always rescuing and who admired the fact that she was stronger than him, which was something a bit unusual for the time period when Wonder Woman debuted.

Or there's the Silver Age Huntress (Helena Wayne), who was a lawyer in a time when women were just getting the legal right to seek higher education. There's a pretty interesting quote about that in an Ivory Madison interview here: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=149603

It's also a very unique medium. With books, it's written and that's the canon. With TV, it's written and an ongoing story that's moderately to highly influenced by popular culture/fan reactions, but it's still a linear story with a starting point and an ending point and a 'canon'. But then you have comic books, which have been telling stories about some of the same characters for DECADES. And these books reflect popular culture, and then they inspire movies and tv series, but then the movies and tv turn around and inspire THEM. Like how certain aspects of the movies and tv get written into the comics.

One example that comes to mind is the fact that the Superman comic book writers decided not to have Lois and Clark get married until they could write it to coincide with the couple getting married on Lois and Clark the TV show. So instead, they decided to kill Superman. That blew my mind, because it's like-umm, you're the source material. Why does a tv show have to dictate what you write? But it did. (just an fyi, this is from an interview with the writers of Superman's death arc included with the special features on the animated film Superman: Doomsday)

Oh, and then there's the fact that Stan Lee said on another interview (I think from the Justice League: New Frontier special features) that he used to go golfing or something with the writers of the Justice League and when he found out they were doing a superhero team-up a la the JLA, he went back to his editors and said they needed to do a superhero team too and boom, X-Men.

I realize I've stepped far beyond the bounds of your original questions, though you did say you were still narrowing down your research on the history of comics. So, sorry for the long rambling post. Anyways, feel free to PM me if you want me to expand on anything

[Axler]

Actually, it was Stan's boss (and cousin), Martin Goodman who went golfing with then-DC publisher, Jack Lebowitiz. He mentioned to Goodman how well the JLA was selling and Goodman came back to the offices, saying, "Maybe we should do a team book."

But it was Boom--The Fantastic Four, not the X-Men.

[dreamsofnever]

Originally Posted by Axler

Actually, it was Stan's boss (and cousin), Martin Goodman who went golfing with then-DC publisher, Jack Lebowitiz. He mentioned to Goodman how well the JLA was selling and Goodman came back to the offices, saying, "Maybe we should do a team book."

But it was Boom--The Fantastic Four, not the X-Men.

Oh whoops. Thank you for that! I knew I was fuzzy on the details and I couldn't remember where I saw it to go back and check. Marvel history is definitely not my area of expertise.

It's interesting to think of storylines being influenced that way, isn't it?

[Axler]

Well, back in those days nobody thought comics were anything but cheap, disposable forms of entertainment for children. Characters and concepts were created and greenlighted for publication over lunches.

That was back in the day when the average readership for most comics hovered around half a million and Betty and Veronica regularly sold over a million copies a month.

The days of terrified, middle-aged fanboy editors sweating around tables in boardrooms, their jobs on the lines, trying to concoct stupid crossover "events" to keep the ever-shrinking audience of middle-aged fanboy consumer/collectors interested were years in the future.