Martinex1: Has there ever been a portrayal of your favorite heroes that did not live up to your standards of "seriousness"? As you know I loved comic books and I still do, but when younger I always felt that there had to be an earnestness to the heroes. And I was always a little underwhelmed when they were treated with less gravity than I expected. I am not saying I was right - certainly I was probably too dedicated to their standard portrayal in my youth. For me, characters had to be on model in both depiction and characterization. That is partially why I admire Jim Shooter; he generally seemed to keep the artists on point and on model when handling the Marvel cast of characters (although below I do include some examples from his era of leadership that may seem counter to that thought). When the character's portrayal was simplified or humorous it turned me off. For me that is true for the protagonists, villains, and even various supporting casts. Camp had to be handled very carefully in my eyes.
So even though Spidey Super Stories was designed for children and for easy reading, I couldn't stomach the silliness. How about you?
And even though I can laugh at Silver Age antics and appreciate it within the context of the time, when I first ran across issues like these I had a hard time. How about you?
I enjoyed whenever my favorite heroes made it to the television screen, but even at a young age I wanted the characters to be respected, so goofy portrayals left a bad taste in my mouth (even if I would never miss an episode no matter what). How about you?
I had nearly complete runs of The Avengers and Marvel Team-Up, but these examples left me cold and I left them on the spinner rack for a long time. This would have seemed appropriate to me in Mad Magazine (and I would have been perfectly fine with that), but to have such silly portrayals and antics in the main books never sat well with me. It is odd I know, but did anybody else feel the same way?
Did anybody see this TV version of the JLA? What did you think? Did it make you cringe?
Or how about Garrett Morris as Ant-Man and John Belushi as the Hulk? This I liked - it was funny but it was in the right context. And it was strangely spot-on. Why do I consider this differently?
And how about Spider-Man on The Electric Company? Good or bad for you? I am not certain how I feel.
On the other hand, I know exactly what I feel about The Thing from Hanna-Barbera! "Ring thing, do your thing!" This did no-Thing for me!
I loved the Super Friends every Saturday morning, and yet I had mixed feelings about them on occasion. Were they too dumbed down? What do you think?
Whatever you feel and whatever you think, please let us know. Chew the Fat today about the level of gravitas acceptable for your favorite heroes! Share your own examples! Where do you draw the line or do you have no line at all to draw? Let's get the BitBA conversation going! Cheers!
15 comments:
Interesting topic Martinex.
The first thing I think of when the word "camp" is connected to super heroes or comics is the Batman '66 tv series. The first half season or so was played fairly straight then got campier as it went along. As a preteen though I'm pretty sure I didn't notice or care.
I did grab some Spidey and Super Friends comics. To me they were stories that didn't count (out of continuity ,as we would say today), just my collecting impulse that picked them up.
As for The Electric Company, Spider-Man was what I looked forward to most, well him and Letterman (not David).
Really live action Super heroes in the '70's was like striking gold so even that horrible JLA tv show was a must watch.
To answer your question, ultimately for the most part I prefer no camp.
I do have a question, what of the Byrne She-Hulk run? Is breaking the fourth wall a form of camp? I did like that run.
So much to consider here. When I was just starting out in comics, at about the age of 6, I really couldn't distinguish camp from the serious stuff, so I didn't see anything particularly "off" about Spidey Super Stories, and I thought of the 1960s Batman TV show or the Saturday morning fare like Super Friends were as earnest superheroics. Of course, my views on that quickly changed, and I soon stopped reading Spidey Super Stories, but I kept right on watching Super Friends and other Saturday morning cartoons, like Fantastic Four, the Filmation Batman, Plastic Man or Spiderwoman until my early teens - although the "Thing-ring" bit was a bridge too far. And I never lost my fondness for the '60s Batman show, even as I demanded more, hm, gravitas from my comics.
I consumed a ton of DC's Silver Age material thanks to the digests, and while I found it rather quaint and not as "sophisticated" as the then current (i.e., late '70s/early '80s) comics, I didn't dislike it - and I quite often went back and re-read those stories.
As for the other TV stuff you noted, I only watched Legends of the Superheroes and the roast special as an adult; yes, they are campy as hell, but I put them in the "so bad they're good" category.
The 1990s live action JLA show, however, was pretty cringe-worthy (it is, or was, posted online somewhere, which is how I first saw it about 4-5 years ago).
The SNL super-hero skit is a classic. I love it.
The Spider-man shorts in Electric Company were pretty hokey, but I have such fond memories of the Electric Company in general that I can't say anything bad about any of it.
Also, since you pictured the Super Friends comic, I should note that I read that series pretty regularly when it was coming out and I generally liked it. However, a few years ago I bought a tpb collecting some Super Friends stories and found that they really don't hold up well for me. The best part about them is Ramona Fradon's art.
Boy, that guy in the Hawkman costume, though. . .
He coulda been painted into that photo by Alex Ross----- !
I must confess that even as a little tyke I could be pretty darned judgmental about what I saw as "correct" usage of these characters I was so attached to. While I could gleefully surrender to the parodies and satire of Not Brand Echh! and MAD magazine, it REALLY bugged me to see a character portrayed off-model anywhere else. As a huge Trimpe-era Hulk fan, I may have been more sensitive to this than most, since that was just about the time that Stan perfected the peculiar pseudo-childlike, third-person, no-pronoun mode of speech associated with the character. Sooooo when yer average goofy Hostess ad (a few years later) would completely goof that up, it made me want to NOT buy the darned product.
Even with the beloved old Batman TV series, I lost interest in it before it ran out of steam 'cause that was just about the time I picked up a few of the comics from that era--- and preferred them to the show (even in that pre-Adams goofy era).
With the SNL and Letterman appearances-- I have them, and I kind of hate them both, I'm afraid. They both leave the writers kind of nakedly trying to "be" funny. "This is a funny issue--- let's write funny stuff! Woo-hoo!" And thus they both fall terribly flat, IMO. They try way, way too hard-- and neither writers nor artists seem to have a natural flare for comic timing on the comics page. I do wonder how those issues would have fared in the hands of Marie Severin or Jack Kirby or Mort Drucker or even Gene Colan.
Spidey Super Stories; Electric Company Spidey; Super-Friends-- while I appreciated these efforts for being solidly pro-active and kid-friendly, they were never something I bought into at all. From an admittedly snobbish, self-proclaimed "true fan" perspective, they were little more than common wisps of cotton candy. Satisfying for less than the time it takes to consume them. (*editorial note*-- Do I sometimes write like a super-villain sounds. . . ? Hmmm---)
That JLA live-action series? Never heard of it (!), but man those costumes are not working at ALL, are they? I think one of the biggest breakthroughs in the explosion of page-to-film/TV superheroes was when some wise art director FINALLY realized that the wonderfully gaudy,garish, colorful uniform designs that we loved in a 4-color, two-dimensional format simply don't translate appealingly to a live-action medium. They just look. . . goofy. (Early success, though, IMO-- Flash's uniform from that first one-season series--)
And heya-- where do you folks think the 80's/90's Justice League comic(s) fit into this conversation? I mean, I LOVED JL and JLE and JLI, etc, for quite a long time-- but it was so NOT serious at all for so long, that the book lost its credibility when it did try to foray into the more serious elements of the DC Universe at the time, y'know? I'd posit that it's success stemmed from the fact that, although it was a dedicated camp-fest, the characterizations all stayed faithful to established models-- so it wasn't jarring to see folks we know being used in this less-serious venue.
HB
I tend to lean toward the "no camp" side; I like humour in comics, but when it's too over the top (or campy) it takes me out of the story too much. I did read Spidey Super Stories as a kid, more for the puzzles/games than the stories. I don't remember most of the shows you mentioned (not even Superfriends), but they look pretty goofy.
Wasn't the 1984 Supergirl movie considered kind of campy? (Faye Dunaway's performance certainly was) I kind of liked that movie, though it's been years since I saw it. Nice to see Helen Slater as Alex and Kara's mom on the new Supergirl show.
SNL did a few superhero parodies over the years; I remember one in the late 80s/early 90s where the superheroes were all at a big party and Black Lightning showed up (played by Tim Meadows) and none of the other heroes recognized him. Of course, being a huge comics geek, I knew him right away and was pretty glad to see him on screen, since I always liked the character. Robot Chicken has done some cool superhero parodies too, but I'm not sure if that falls under "camp" or just plain satire.
I was just having a conversation with someone who agreed with me that when it comes to superheroes (which are an inherently silly concept) there needs to be some kind of nod to that silliness. That doesn't mean the character or situations have to be super silly or silly all the time, but there is nothing worse than a superhero comic that takes itself too seriously. Even the super-serious comics like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns (esp. the former) know this and have some element of humor in them (even if just dark humor).
As some others have described, as a very little kid I didn't know the difference, but as I reached my teens suddenly it was very important to me to be "serious" and everything to be "on brand," but I thankfully grew out of that. While certain kinds of humor tend to not appeal to me (I say no thanks to Deadpool or Lobo), I prefer it to none at all.
Now that doesn't mean that silliness automatically makes it good. . .It still has to work in context. That Justice League TV stuff was awful!
But give me Unbeatable Squirrel Girl over current Avengers any day. . .
BTW, Mike, I think it was Sinbad who played Black Lightning in that skit.
Say, how does a franchise like THE TICK fit into this discussion?
I haven't seen the latest revival-- but I have LOVED the big blue arachnid in every single one of his incarnations, from his indie-comic series published by New England Comics (who came and went all-too-soon), to his Saturday morning animated series, to the WONDERFUL, so-good-it-was-doomed brief first live-action series w/ Patrick Warburton. Do you suppose that's more in the realm of parody than camp? Or is it a whole 'nother type of humorous superhero entertainment?
(Okay-- the SNES Game was pretty darned sucky. . . I can't deny that. . . )
HB
And Mike-!
I JUST binge-watched the first 12 or so episodes of Supergirl yesterday-- nursing a sprained ankle. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS SHOW-! I'm already getting sad about the fact that there are only three seasons to look forward to at this point---
HB (too much HB)
Great topic Marti. And I pretty much come down the same way as you do regarding "seriousness", "good camp" and "bad camp".
My first exposure to superheroes was '66 Batman. That show was in first run when I was 4-6 years old. I had a Batman cape (but preferred to be Robin), ran up and down the sidewalk with my friend just to make the cape flap in the breeze thinking it was the greatest thing in the world and couldn't even spell "camp".
Then I discovered the campiness in syndicated reruns years later - and still loved it! Just on another level, natch.
But, when I became a Marvelite in the Bronze Age - oh yeah, the "seriousness" set in.
Tom
IMHO, Spidey Super Stories, Super Friends, and The Thing ("Thing ring, do your thing") were not so much camp as they were simplified versions of the characters for a younger audience.
The camp fad was really A Thing in the mid-1960s. The 1966 Batman TV show is the obvious example, although I am not certain if it started the trend or if it was part of a trend that had already begun. The James Bond movies mixed action-adventure with tongue-in-cheek comedy relief, and the various Bond imitators (Dean Martin as Matt Helm, James Coburn as Flint) made Bond look like Shakespearean tragedy. There were also the 1967 version of Casino Royale, and movies based on British and European comic strips (Diabolik, Modesty Blaise, Barbarella).
On TV, several sci-fi and spy-fi shows (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost In Space, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, and The [British] Avengers) started out fairly straight, but became increasingly silly and campy. It reached its saturation point in 1966-67, then most of them tried to tone it down in '67-68, when the fad was passing.
The comics themselves, especially at DC, were influenced, although the Batman and Justice League comic books never got *quite* as self-consciously ridiculous as the Batman TV show.
I must confess, though, that I really did not notice the difference when I was eight. My classmates and I watched Batman on TV, and it seemed just as dramatic as Gunsmoke and Dragnet. Years later, watching old reruns, I caught the gags that had gone over my head the first time around.
DC did out-and-out comedy and parody with Plastic Man and Inferior Five in 1966-68, then tried again with Shazam and another Plastic Man run in the mid-1970s. I liked the tongue-in-cheek approach, but most comic book fans were kids who wanted their superheroes played straight. And adults in the 1960s and '70s would watch campy super heroics in movies and TV (Bond, U.N.C.L.E., Batman, Wonder Woman), but they did not read comics.
HB, there can never be too much HB.
Great discussion, crew!
You all know of my fondness for humor, so it's probably no surprise that I liked the 'camp' aspects in general. Loved Not Brand Ecch, and actually liked that Marvel Team-up with Saturday Night Live. Never really cared for Super Friends , due to the simplicity rather than the humor.
TC mentioned Plastic Man, HB mentioned the Tick- loved both. Oh, and HB- glad that you're enjoying Supergirl. My wife and I never miss it. Wait till you catch the fabulous crossover "Crisis on Earth X"...
Going to echo Dr. O here, I frown on anything that takes itself TOO SERIOUSLY. I love good drama as much as anyone, but especially when leavened with a bit of subtle humor.Oh, and Osvaldo- Doreen Green rocks!
Hoo-boy--- glad to hear you say that, edo, as I just popped back in with another camp/no-camp illustration to offer-!
I've mentioned a couple of times at least about having, like, ALL my childhood diseases in 2nd and early 3rd grade (except measles, somehow--), each one knocking me out of school for at least a week. And for one of the early ones my pal Bryan brought me about 30 pounds of his brothers' comic books (maybe three grocery bags?) to read while I recovered.
And that's when I first gleaned that there were TWO main comic book "worlds"-- DC & Marvel-- which were, for the most part, extremely different in how they made me feel when I read their stories. One book that caught my eye right off the bat was a Jimmy Olsen Special-- really, a re-print book of Jimmy's most freakish "transformations"-- there was Turtle-Jimmy and Giant Jimmy and Fat Jimmy and Tree Jimmy. . . doofy, silly, gimmick stories that were entertaining to a young little kid (albeit a high-reading one), and I thought they were great. This giant issue was DC Camp at its height, yeah?
Then I read a cover-less X-Men #46- which was actually my own, but never read because it looked so. . .hard- which has this team that I'd NEVER heard of in the throes of grief after the death of their mentor- a guy called Professor X. And then they broke up at the end! And then I read the flippin' DISTRAUGHT letters page-!! (Which were reactions to the Prof's death 3 issues prior--) And it was completely overwhelming for my young self-- but in such a great and moving way. These were DEEP things to experience as a little-kid reader. But man, I had NEVER been sucked into a comic story like that before---
And then I started reading that run of Incredible Hulk from #110 through about 121-ish(?). And in issue #114, there's a sequence where Sandman & Mandarin are commenting on the Hulk's painful efforts to break out of unbreakable restraints, and come to the too-late realization that he's going to endure that agony and succeed, for no other reason than to save the imperiled Betty Ross, ". . . because he loves her!!!" SKRAKKT!! (Secret Revealed!). And it made me cry. Right there. Little kid--- little BOY kid. Crying 'cause a monster was human enough to love this girl. Good grief.
Camp. . . just didn't have much of a chance with me after an emotional roller coaster like that. . .
HB (Sensitive from the Get-Go)
Wow! Edo was right.
Tom
HB: Yeah, Supergirl is a great show ... probably my favourite of the DC/WB shows (though Flash is right up there too). Subsequent seasons are even better than the first, at least to me.
Dr. O: It's been a long time since I saw that SNL sketch, so maybe I'm wrong. Either way, it was pretty funny (and cool that they acknowledged a lesser-known comic book hero).
I was going to say "Cap Wolf". Or when Matt invented his "twin brother" Mike.
Or when Sue came up with her "mini-skirt" uniform. Things like that.
On another note, I started with the JL during that late 80s run. I was buying both books during that whole Justice League America, Justice League Europe time. Some of the stories were a bit out there but it was during that same time that Marvel was giving us the "X-Babies" so there wasn't a lot to keep me at Marvel during that time...
I came late to Green Arrow and a bit late to Flash but I really enjoy that whole franchise they've built. Green Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Legends Of Tomorrow and Black Lightning. Though they've yet to pull Black Lightning into the rest of the other shows.
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But no money makes that kind of hard to do
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Playing Croquet okay, maybe, that’s not true
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Drink margaritas and take in the sunset
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Sit in the sun and sip tequila all day
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Go on a little holiday...).
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