Should heroes age?

[Raye]

Yes, I think they should age. Not at real time, but I think they should age, have character development over time, etc. And I think it should be possible for them to step aside to allow a successor to take their place in cases where it would make sense, but I wouldn't do that too frequently, and it should ideally come with some leadin time to allow the new character to catch on. But I realize i am kind of in the minority there.

[Michael Watkins]

if Iron Heart is the future then these characters should definitely not age.

[9th.]

Yes they should

[SuperiorIronman]

Characters indeed age, it's just that they don't age in real time. This is how you get the weirdness that is the MU timeline because modern writer start accounting for things like modern conveniences like cell-phones, and when used earlier than they appeared in the real world they move things forward compensate.

[Dr. Skeleton]

In case people still read Image Comics from the superhero side, their characters have been aging normally like Savage Dragon who recently passed away due to natural causes in old age and his son all grown up has taken over. That's how depressing it would get knowing you'll never see the original again.

[HaveAtThee]

Yes absolutely. Otherwise we're always going to get the same stories. Peter Parker will always be a geeky science kid with teen angst, Tony Stark dealing with addiction and being an egomaniac, Steve Rogers forever a man out of time and at war, Thor having to become worthy of Mjolnir and his father, etc. etc.

This topic could just as much be a battle between narrative merits and business/financial interests. Getting rid of continuity and telling stories (relatively) in real time halts and/or slows a character's evolution to a crawl. Part of the thrill of an epic narrative is a beginning, middle and eventually an end. What if Cap begins to find some measure of peace that is at odds with his soldier mentality? What if Thor actually forsakes Midgard and refuses to allow himself to love a mortal?

Obviously Marvel and DC do not want to age their characters because they've grown so far beyond their original purpose to become massive IP's all across various mediums and products. So yes, I know that aging the characters and replacing them with different ones or passing down their legacy "endangers" their IP value, though even now I question that notion since the comic book market is minuscule in comparison to toys, games and movies among other properties.

I think it'd be fascinating to see a parallel "elseworlds" type of What If? universe where you go back in time, say, to the death of Jean Grey in the 80s and continue the narrative from there, before so many new characters were introduced and tell some stories in relative real-time.

[Earth Prime Archivist]

No. They should just do what DC did back in the 60's and update them and put them on a new Earth.

[Raye]

Obviously Marvel and DC do not want to age their characters because they've grown so far beyond their original purpose to become massive IP's all across various mediums and products. So yes, I know that aging the characters and replacing them with different ones or passing down their legacy "endangers" their IP value, though even now I question that notion since the comic book market is minuscule in comparison to toys, games and movies among other properties.

This is the part I don't get about the companies wanting to keep the characters always the same. Would the monetary merchandising value of the characters be reduced if they were allowed to get older and change? (well, more than happens already) I don't think so. The people who buy the merchandise, if they are not reading comics already anyway, they are unlikely to start because they bought some merch, so it makes no difference to them if the character is currently different in the comics. Those that do go on to read a book because they bought a T-shirt, is it really such a hard concept to grasp that character development happens, and that the merchandise they bought had an earlier version of the character? I think people would understand that. Such character development happens all the time in long running TV shows, and they still sell merchandise of the characters. It's fine. Yeah, I guess changing the characters would possibly make it harder to make merchandise of the current version of the character, because there are fewer people reading the comics, but if i had to choose between merchandise that reflected the current status quo and the stories, I'd pick the stories. I can live with 'classic' depictions in the merchandise.

[brettc1]

Was watching this video by Comicstorian that was talking about whether characters should age and pass on the mantles to others.




They make a good case. Passing on mantles like Iron Man to Riri may have gone down better if Tony was aging out of being a superhero and trained Riri to take his place. I like the idea that eventually these heroes will retire for good or maybe die heroically (permanently) and let a new generation take over. I wouldn't them to age in real time, but definitely age instead of this suspended animation they're in now. It would be cool to see the Marvel landscape look completely different with new and different heroes 20 years from now.

What do you guys think?

No.

Bad enough I have to age without my heroes going downhill as well.

[brettc1]

Yes, I think they should age. Not at real time, but I think they should age, have character development over time, etc. And I think it should be possible for them to step aside to allow a successor to take their place in cases where it would make sense, but I wouldn't do that too frequently, and it should ideally come with some leadin time to allow the new character to catch on. But I realize i am kind of in the minority there.

Character development is not always the same as aging.

[OOTCS]

Yes. They're always introducing new teen heroes, giving fans a chance to get to know and love them, and then shoving them back into the background again so that they can revert the older characters to the old status quo. Let the old characters have their happily ever afters, their families and children, their retirement parties, even the occasional permanent death. It's not as if there aren't hundreds of teen and young adult heroes available to take over!

[Killerbee911]

Honestly in thinking about it more, I don't understand why this topic we had a great solution in Ultimate Universe and I think people would be accepting if we had the normal universe which is stuck in its slower than normal timeline and Ultimate Universe where you have free reign to play around with concepts and go full reboot when it is necessary. Why do we have to pick when they can do both?

[Tony Stark]

Honestly in thinking about it more, I don't understand why this topic we had a great solution in Ultimate Universe and I think people would be accepting if we had the normal universe which is stuck in its slower than normal timeline and Ultimate Universe where you have free reign to play around with concepts and go full reboot when it is necessary. Why do we have to pick when they can do both?

Very good point. I really do miss the Ultimate Universe.

[Arsenal]

Sure, why not? You can still milk a character for decades while allowing them to age. It's not like you have to pick one or the other.

[XPac]

Very good point. I really do miss the Ultimate Universe.

I thought the Ultimate Universe was a lot of fun too.

But I think the appeal sort of started to fade once the regular 616 started almost feeling like the Ultimate Universe with the Civil War and Dark Reign stuff. Not that it was exactly the same, because I think they started feeling similar enough in tone to where it hurt the Ultimate Universe a bit.

But maybe they can try again down the line.