Martinex1: Hope everybody is having a wonderful May so far! The Summer months and vacation season are upon us. But what do we have in store for today? Who knows? It is up to the leader every Tuesday when a faithful commentator gets a chance to set up a topic! Take it away...
15 comments:
Marvel based their comic universe around New York City, DC gave each of their heroes their own. Central City, Star City, National City, Gotham City and Metropolis... City. What were the pros and cons? Did it work for you? What drew you in? What pushed you away?
And now that Comic Universe is becoming Movie Universe, has your opinion changed?
The Prowler At Work...
Great question!
As a Brit growing up in the 70s New York City WAS as exotic as Metropolis...
I think the key was the revelation that Marvel characters pretty much lived in one city and interacted on a daily (or monthly) basis. If - way back in the day - DC had placed all their characters in Gotham we would have seen a very different story landscape develop across both companies.
A strength of the different DC cities is that they almost became characters in their own right, albeit reflecting their respective heroes.
Pro for Marvel: recognizable, relatable NYC grounds the characters in a version of reality, which fits with Marvel's "feet of clay" heroes.
Con: what happens when all your heroes are in New York but Galactus lands in Des Moines?
Pro for DC: the heroes are more spread out, the fictional cities don't have to conform to real cities' designs, and the cities can almost become characters in their own rights (e.g. Gotham has a markedly different feel than Metropolis, to the point that Batman is very out of place in the latter).
Cons: DC's Universe feels less relatable, a problem that has hampered the public's response to other fictional universes like LotR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Hunger Games...
Seriously, though, I like when super-hero comics embrace their goofy tropes. The tropes aren't inherently dumb, mostly, just how they're handled.
- Mike Loughlin
I much prefer that Marvel uses an actual place like New York but I do wonder why they didn't spread the superheroes around a bit. New York had 99% of the world's superheroes, every alien invasion landed in New York, the Sub-Mariner always attacked New York when he was invading the surface-world...
That's because New York City is the center of the world ;)
Even Gotham and Metropolis are just two different perspectives on New York City.
As a young boy growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast (WOOHOO!!! Third Coast, Best Coast!!!), New York City, Gotham City, they were all the same to me...
It didn't bother me that all the super heroes were in the same city. Really, when were the Fantastic Four ever home? Negative Zone, time portals, outer space, under water, they mainly just hung their hats at the Baxter Building...
It was always pretty clear that Daredevil had Hell's Kitchen, Luke Cage had Times Square, Spider-Man had the streets, there was some organization there.
What I couldn't understand, is how DC decided to place Gotham City and Metropolis close to each other. In the comics, it was across Delaware Bay. In the movies, it was New York and New Jersey. I was like "What!?!" You mean Superman couldn't put out a blaze in Metropolis, zip over, foil a Gotham City bank robbery then be back to file the stories!?! He's SuperFREAKINGman. He can cover two cities... probably in a single bound!!!
Remember when we had to do the standing broad jump? Forget Algebra, when did we ever do a standing broad jump? Running start anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
(There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more).
Prowl - I couldn’t agree more. Metropolis and Gotham in such close proximity makes no sense at all. Growing up I figured it was at least like NY and Chicago but instead they are like sister cities. And then you throw in Bludhaven which has to be close by too.
Not only could Superman cover it all - it seems like there would be a mass exodus from Gotham to Metropolis if crime and danger was so rampant. Even the weather seems better - bright and shiny - in Metropolis.
I also did not like when Green Lantern’s Coast City was destroyed. I may be wrong as I don’t read every DC book but it seemed like there was little impact to the rest of the country. That would have been life changing in so many ways.
I do like in Marvel how sometimes the characters go to other places like DD in San Francisco or Spidey in London. But it would be nice to see some permanently stationed elsewhere.
Growing up in Milwaukee, I always hated the Chicago sports teams, but would have cheered any superheroes were they to have been based there. I think Thor actually did in the early '80s, but the Great Lakes Avengers were a huge disappointment as was that other Avengers team on the west coast (just my opinion).
Like Marti, I did like seeing DD in San Francisco. It worked with Spider-Woman as well, what with her being unable to fly, the strong winds from the bay worked in her favor when gliding. And I remember Spider-Man grumbling about how the buildings in LA were too short to properly swing from.
New York made sense at the time (although, 'What the hell is Hell's Kitchen?' my younger self wondered), but now I'm wondering how long it will be before Beijing becomes more prominent. Sort of like how Moscow was the capital of the Badoon-conquered Earth in the old GotG stories.
As for DC, sometimes the cities have flavor, sometimes not. Like Mike, I did feel an effort was made to give the cities a character, Gotham and Metropolis surely, but also Keystone, St. Roche and Opal. I never did get the feel for Coast City, though. And I kind of liked that in one of the animated series, Captain Marvel (whoops! Shazam) referenced that he wanted to get back to his home in Fawcett City.
Personally, I always preferred Marvel being grounded in more in the "real" world, with most of the action centered in New York - which, echoing Colin's point, was quite exotic to me as a kid growing up in a pretty rural area in Oregon.
And Osvaldo makes a good point about Metropolis and Gotham City simply being analogs for New York; I would add that the same could be said of most of DC's other fictional cities, i.e., Central City, Midway City, Keystone City, etc. They all seemed like versions of New York, or maybe Chicago, with huge downtown areas filled with skyscrapers. Even Green Lantern's Coast City, which was actually identified as being in California, usually looked more like an east coast big city rather than, say, Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Yeah, I tended to prefer real-world cities to fictional ones, but there is something to be said for the creative freedom you get from a made-up city. The problem with DC's fictional cities is that they weren't used consistently; in some stories, Metropolis seems to be inland, in others it's on the coast. And Gotham had so many elements of NYC (Central Park, the Gotham State Building, etc.) that they may as well have just used New York as a setting.
When I was a kid I definitely preferred Marvel heroes living in an actual city like New York. It made them seem more real, and it gave me hope that I could one day go there and see the likes of Spider-Man swinging by overhead.
However these days, it seems that the New York City in Marvel Comics is not as "real" as it used to be back in the Silver and Bronze-Age of comics. In fact the whole Marvel Universe seems more fictionalized than it once did. For example, when I was younger I remember reading Marvel Team-Up #85 in which Madam Hydra (aka Viper) was going to crash the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier into the White House, and the President in the comic was Jimmy Carter. I thought that was pretty cool. And also back then Ed Koch was the mayor of NYC in real life and in Marvel Comics. And the Avengers went on David Letterman, and Spider-Man was on "Saturday Night Live" (with host Stan Lee). Little touches like that really helped establish Marvel's heroes as the "real deal".
However, nowadays in the comics I believe that J. Jonah Jameson is the mayor of NYC. Which is stupid, because old flattop is not the mayor in real life. So immediately that tells the reader that this is not the "real" NYC. That this is a totally made up place that does not exist outside of a comic. So, as far as I'm concerned Spider-Man might as well be living in Gotham City at this point.
I was cool with DC and Marvels approach. That D.C. Used fake cities made it seem even more mysterious to a young boy in the late 60s/ early 70s.
At some point I did get NYC "fatigue " with Marvel. I recall thinking Luke Cage Hero for Hire would hand been cool in Chicago because he didn't need to fight the major super villains and would have been fine with ethnically diverse villains on the order of goosed-up street gangs.
Also as a young kid, I did assume that DC used fake cities because they were older than Marvel and I literally figured there must have been a law against using real names, way back in the day, lol.
Mike Loughlin - great to hear from you. Cheers!
Thanks, Martinex1! You guys are doing a bang-up job on this blog!
- Mike Loughlin
Thanks Mike. Glad you like it. If you are out on twitter, check us out @backinthebronze
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