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!
