Should heroes age?

[Johnrevenge]

Should they age? Yeah, I think they should.
Should they retire? Nope, the JSA proved that veteran heroes can still stay active.

[Derek Metaltron]

Yes. Peter Parker being elternally trapped in the twenty something age bracket at least should be undone. Let the guy hit 30 already.

[Hypestyle]

sure why not-- but the sliding timeline allows thing to not progress too much. This is especially problematic with child and juvenile characters. 5 years old for several years then all of a sudden some writer puts them squarely at 12 or something.

Legacy characters are good if handled intelligently.

some characters should be allowed to have a family.

[JudicatorPrime]

The problem is that you'll have the kids in one book get older, while kids who are supposedly the same age in another book never do. I don't read all of the titles well enough to know, but are the Power Pack kids teenagers now? And is Franklin Richards a teen now? Or does he still look like he belongs in elementary school? Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin are others that come to mind. They seemed to age out of sync with others, although I suppose in Illyana's case it's probably easier to attribute that to the time that she spent in Limbo.

As for adult characters, sure, I'd love to see them age. I'd really like to see Dr. Doctor Doom begin to suffer the onset of Alzheimer's and dementia. And when he pulls off his mask, he isn't avoiding the mirror because of scars or anything like that. He avoids it because his visage is that of a worn, broken man of eighty or ninety years of age, his face ravaged by dark magic and the aftereffects of surreptitiously wielding the Power Cosmic -- well, at least until he does the Dorian Gray thing and recovers a magic painting that reflects his scars and dark deeds in his stead.

[XPac]

If you developed the successor then it doesn't matter and Wally West and Kyle Rayner replaced the original just fine.And at some point in time Miles could replace Peter as the main Spiderman.

People often ignore that it is possible to improve on the original I mean you can make legit arguments that Barry Allen and Hal Jordan are better characters and use of the concept than Alan Scott and Jay Garrick.As crazy as it sounds you can make better characters than Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker.

Sure you can possibly make better character. I say possible because Bruce and Peter are two of the most iconic characters in comics. BUt the thing is, they can create new characters while still keeping Bruce and Peter. You can have Miles and Peter at the same time.

Again, marvel and DC have proven commodities in Bruce and Peter. There's no way they would ever permanently get rid of them. It just wouldn't make sense.

[XPac]

Yes. Peter Parker being elternally trapped in the twenty something age bracket at least should be undone. Let the guy hit 30 already.

The thing is, you can't just age some characters but not others. If you want the bulk of the MU characters to be in their mid-30s, then guys like Peter need to stay in their mid twenties.

[Digifiend]

sure why not-- but the sliding timeline allows thing to not progress too much. This is especially problematic with child and juvenile characters. 5 years old for several years then all of a sudden some writer puts them squarely at 12 or something.

Legacy characters are good if handled intelligently.

some characters should be allowed to have a family.

Yeah, that happened with Cassie Lang. Perpetually about 7 or 8 from her 1979 debut until Avengers vol 3 (so more than two decades). Then Young Avengers launched, and she became the 14 year old hero Stature. Nowadays she's 16 and Stinger.

The problem is that you'll have the kids in one book get older, while kids who are supposedly the same age in another book never do. I don't read all of the titles well enough to know, but are the Power Pack kids teenagers now? And is Franklin Richards a teen now? Or does he still look like he belongs in elementary school? Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin are others that come to mind. They seemed to age out of sync with others, although I suppose in Illyana's case it's probably easier to attribute that to the time that she spent in Limbo.

Yes, Power Pack are all teens, the youngest Katie is 13. Which is fine, except their former teammate Franklin Richards was still only 8 last time we saw him and he's meant to be a similar age to Katie and Jack!

[The Negative Zone]

Yes, characters should change and grow over time.

[CentralPower]

No. You don't want iconic characters like Bruce Wayner or Peter Parker retiring out of old age. These are proven cash cows, and it would be stupid to do that.

In business term, I agree. And, this is why the characters will never age past a certain point.



But, as a reader, I would prefer to see old characters age, or just be rotated, out in favor of something new.

[DurararaFTW]

Dunno why Bruce Wayne is even dragged into this but he has a 13+ year old son by now, one he conceived of a supervillainess after Batman got started, and unlike Franklin, DC have an interest in Damian as a developing hero. Ergo Bruce needs to age along with his son. How is this avoidable while keeping Bruce a normal human?

[PaxHouse]

The problem is that you'll have the kids in one book get older, while kids who are supposedly the same age in another book never do. I don't read all of the titles well enough to know, but are the Power Pack kids teenagers now? And is Franklin Richards a teen now? Or does he still look like he belongs in elementary school? Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin are others that come to mind. They seemed to age out of sync with others, although I suppose in Illyana's case it's probably easier to attribute that to the time that she spent in Limbo.

.......The answer to the Power Pack one is yes for most of them {as Alex is still with the Future Foundation} and the readers will learn soon enough about Franklin Richards when the FANTASTIC FOUR #1 debuts Next Month.........

[responsarbre]

I think the most convincing reason for the sliding timeline is that, very often, you'll have stories in comics that take place over the course of one day or one week that ads published over the course of half a year or more. So I wouldn't necessarily want heroes aging the same way they do in Astro City, in real time. But heroes should age in general. It's a good idea.

[Magneto]

Yes, because it would bring new ideas. When you write the same character at the same age for 50 years, stories are dropping in quality. It's exactly what's going on right now.

[Frontier]

I think there are some characters you can get away with having age more then others, particularly if they're younger.

But as a general rule I don't think most people who are a fans of certain characters would enjoy seeing their heroes age into old age and then replaced.

If you developed the successor then it doesn't matter and Wally West and Kyle Rayner replaced the original just fine.And at some point in time Miles could replace Peter as the main Spiderman.

People often ignore that it is possible to improve on the original I mean you can make legit arguments that Barry Allen and Hal Jordan are better characters and use of the concept than Alan Scott and Jay Garrick.As crazy as it sounds you can make better characters than Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker.

There's a difference between Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker and the Flashes and GL's.

The former are way more defined and ingrained into that identity then the latter are, have published consistently for 75+ years, have starred in numerous cartoons, movies, etc.

Yes. Peter Parker being elternally trapped in the twenty something age bracket at least should be undone. Let the guy hit 30 already.

I think the argument for Peter Parker isn't making him older but having writers actually write him as his age.

[JudicatorPrime]

Yes, Power Pack are all teens, the youngest Katie is 13. Which is fine, except their former teammate Franklin Richards was still only 8 last time we saw him and he's meant to be a similar age to Katie and Jack!

Thanks. I usually gauge Franklin's age by the Powers kids (who should be around the same age, give or take a year or three) and by Luna Maximoff (who should be younger than him).

I never quite understood why they kept Franklin at toddler age. It seems to me, if you're worried about his vast mutant potential acting as a Deus Ex, the simple thing to do is to innovate a plot point that removes his powers from the equation. Something unique, like puberty having the reverse effect on Franklin than it does for other mutants. All of the hormonal and developmental changes causes him to lose his powers for a time, as where puberty for other mutants is typically when they begin to express their powers. He's still very much a mutant, but he's a baseline mutant. Add a stay at the Braddock Academy, a healthy dose of mutant teenage bullies, and stir. Given that his father is so brilliant, he's really only a few gadgets and doohickeys away from being a more writeable teen superhero anyway. Turn him into the Ted Kord version of the Blue Beetle for a few years until he reaches his late teens/early twenties. Or if not Blue Beetle, maybe Mister Miracle.