The "No Way" moments

[leokearon]

Peter whacking MJ into a wall and OMD
Wanda with both Disassembled and HOM
Mr. Fantastic shooting his son with a Ray Gun to neutralise his powers

[JackDaw]

Yes, it's key to the Marvel universe that these are flawed people. Not that you'd want them to be crossing too many lines or making too many grievous missteps but being the imperfect people that they are, they're going to trip up on a regular basis, and they're going to make some mistakes they regret.

Agreed, of course.

But I really didn’t mean to suggest at any point that any Marvel hero should never do a “bad” thing, or villains never do a good heroic thing.

What I suggesting that sometimes characters are written in terms that seem jarringly out of character given their established personality....that the heroes faults (as well as strength) should be broadly consistent with what we know about them

To take an obvious example...no one would be too surprised if Johnny Storm maybe ended up dating a couple of women at the same time, or maybe “forgetting” a few details on his tax return, but few would buy notion of him deliberately cheating Ben in a business deal.

[Username taken]

Gwen Stacy somehow saying "yes" to Norman Osborn (as revealed during Sins Past) should never have happened.

Without any birth control? Heellllll nooooooo!

[JKtheMac]

that the heroes faults (as well as strength) should be broadly consistent with what we know about them

And there we have the crux. Who decides that? Especially when these are comic book characters who by their very nature are mutable symbols of contemporary pop culture. The project that is the MU isn't trying to be 'consistent' it is seeking to reflect, there are literally thousands of examples that would disprove the idea that character has ever been 'consistent'.

With that I should probably bow out, because your thread premise isn't really about discussing this, so it is probably off-topic and undermining of the thread. I am interested in which actual moments people don't like even if I don't see it as something we should be concerned with.

[Prof. Warren]

Agreed, of course.

But I really didn’t mean to suggest at any point that any Marvel hero should never do a “bad” thing, or villains never do a good heroic thing.

What I suggesting that sometimes characters are written in terms that seem jarringly out of character given their established personality....that the heroes faults (as well as strength) should be broadly consistent with what we know about them.

As JK has pointed out, deciding what is "broadly consistent" is a matter of interpretation.

Sometimes writers and editors see characters differently than some fans and they have their own ideas about what characters would or wouldn't do.

They also often have different ideas about how much weight certain events from these character's pasts should have on a character's current behavior.

Given the unending narrative that these characters pass through - one that carries them through ever-changing social eras and ever-evolving approaches to storytelling in comics themselves - and how often these characters are handed off to new creative teams, working under different editorial regimes, fans have to understand that there is simply no room for the kind of rigidly consistent portrayals that some readers seem to want or expect.

[JackDaw]

As JK has pointed out, deciding what is "broadly consistent" is a matter of interpretation.

Sometimes writers and editors see characters differently than some fans and they have their own ideas about what characters would or wouldn't do.

They also often have different ideas about how much weight certain events from these character's pasts should have on a character's current behavior.

Given the unending narrative that these characters pass through - one that carries them through ever-changing social eras and ever-evolving approaches to storytelling in comics themselves - and how often these characters are handed off to new creative teams, working under different editorial regimes, fans have to understand that there is simply no room for the kind of rigidly consistent portrayals that some readers seem to want or expect.

I broadly agree with you and JK.

But have you really never held the view..in your own subjective opinion..that a particular act by a particular character is not consistent with his or her current personality?

[kilderkin]

Dr Doom calling Ms Marvel a "fat whore." Not because he wouldn't say something chauvanistic, but because he wouldn't have used that dialogue.

Hawkeye sleeping with Wanda when she didn't know who she was.

Vision starting a fight with Magneto and other X-Men not breaking it up because it was a "family matter."

Other Avengers letting Vision kick Wanda out of the house when she comes back and asks for forgiveness.

Didn't see it but totally agree about doom and Clint, very undoom speak and crappy of Clint I felt

As for vision and Wanda, I actually thought that his response very resonable given the situation - at least from his experience

iirc there were some avengers backing her up and some not

[JKtheMac]

I broadly agree with you and JK.

But have you really never held the view..in your own subjective opinion..that a particular act by a particular character is not consistent with his or her current personality?

I will at least answer that. I have but it hasn't ever bothered me. The first time I noticed this was back in the day when I was reading old back issues and came across a Wolverine cameo. It was at the time that Claremont was pretty much in control of the character and evolving him into the classic version we now mostly think of today. The cameo was a huge step backwards. He was back to his grim origins with none of the "newer developments". I can't even remember which cameo it was.

All I thought was 'hmm that's a missed opportunity BUT I guess that's how most people thought of him back then so it makes sense in a way.' I certainly didn't worry about how poorly he was being written or how it was inconsistent. And bear in mind this was an inconsistency with the character in the same era. Over on X-Men in that same month he was totally different. It just made me reflect that continuity was only an illusion. Back in this supposedly more consistent age they were even less consistent than they are now.

[Ra-El]

As long as they don't turn Frank Castle into a pacifist I'm fine.
But the other way around happens to me, when I think certain iconic part of a character don't fit him for some reason, for example Spider-Man no kill rule makes sense to me, but Matt Murdock still having one is something that don't really fit the character in my opinion, from all the things I didn't liked in Shadowland, Daredevil killing Bullseye only because og the Beast was the worst one.

[Prof. Warren]

I broadly agree with you and JK.

But have you really never held the view..in your own subjective opinion..that a particular act by a particular character is not consistent with his or her current personality?

I would say I've probably noticed things or recognized when a character does something that, maybe in an earlier era, they wouldn't have done but I can't think of anything that's actually irked or bothered me. I find that happens for me more on the DC side, where I feel that those characters are more iconic and have less leeway in how they should be portrayed. DC heroes weren't built to have the same kind of feet of clay that Marvel heroes were so I feel like every time someone tries to make them become more flawed, the more it diminishes their power as symbols rather than making them more interesting as people.

[Prof. Warren]

Gwen Stacy somehow saying "yes" to Norman Osborn (as revealed during Sins Past) should never have happened.

Without any birth control? Heellllll nooooooo!

I actually like Sins Past. I haven't read it since it originally came out so I can't say how I think it holds up but at the time I liked seeing a different side to Gwen.

I'm not of the mindset that seeing her in an affair tarnished her as a character. For me, it actually gave her some dimension. I think it's ok to see her as a real person with needs and complicated feelings who could feel lonely and be driven into a bad relationship, rather than just be a simple "good girl."

I can't imagine SP ever being brought up in continuity again so for those who didn't like it, it's easy enough to ignore but count me in as someone who did not mind that arc.

[JackDaw]

I would say I've probably noticed things or recognized when a character does something that, maybe in an earlier era, they wouldn't have done but I can't think of anything that's actually irked or bothered me. I find that happens for me more on the DC side, where I feel that those characters are more iconic and have less leeway in how they should be portrayed. DC heroes weren't built to have the same kind of feet of clay that Marvel heroes were so I feel like every time someone tries to make them become more flawed, the more it diminishes their power as symbols rather than making them more interesting as people.

That is an interesting line of thought.

It’s one I’ll brood on. But gut feeling is that it definitely strikes a chord in regard to some DC characters, maybe large majority of DC characters. Look at general fan reaction to making Barry Allen more grim and “interesting”, few seemed to like it.

[JackDaw]

I will at least answer that. I have but it hasn't ever bothered me. The first time I noticed this was back in the day when I was reading old back issues and came across a Wolverine cameo. It was at the time that Claremont was pretty much in control of the character and evolving him into the classic version we now mostly think of today. The cameo was a huge step backwards. He was back to his grim origins with none of the "newer developments". I can't even remember which cameo it was.

By and large it’s not often bothered me. That’s most likely side effect of me tending to follow writers nowadays rather than characters...so if I don’t like the writing I just move on to another read.

But I’d always guessed..perhaps wrongly..that some character changes must be really, really vexing for really keen fans of a particular character.

Probably nearest I came to real irritation was the rise of the uber-competent and cheerless Batman. I greatly prefer the friendly, fallible, but resourceful guy of the Haney/ Aparo days. I knew the irritation was a wee bit irrational..but it existed!

[gurkle]

So hang on. You understand that it was an editorial decision and that the ongoing story was just an attempt to make that moment as seamless as possible and yet at the same time you despise their attempts to tidy up the seams? I don’t quite get it. Again for me the sheer iconic nature of that moment in comic book lore trumps everything. “No More Mutants” is just so delightfully cool in all its problematic wonder. It is so evocative. For some it seems to evoke entirely the wrong things in my opinion. Reboots happen in Marvel but some seem to rail against that. They deny them thrice. Why?

This thread is about moments that don't convince us the character would have done such a thing, and that's one of them.

With Wanda and "no more mutants" it's one of those things that, like a lot of modern Marvel comics, makes more sense the less you have read about the character. In the context of the story, Wanda is a broken woman, driven mad by her uncontrollable powers and her inability to have children, abandoned by her terrorist father, who gives him everything he wanted and then wipes out mutantkind to get back at him. Internally, it makes sense. Only...

...to anyone who was familiar with most of the comics featuring the Scarlet Witch, none of this made any sense. Wanda was never unable to bear children; she never showed any signs of feeling abandoned by Magneto; she and her brother had no plausible motivation for making the world over in Magneto's image, and her daddy issues and resentment of being a mutant were made up for the comic. A new reader will assume everything in the comic is based on her past characterization, only almost none of it is.

I actually do understand this approach, but there has to be a point where a reader familiar with the character will say, "_____ would never do that."

The test of a good writer in a shared universe is whether they can find a way to justify what they're making the character do. To take another Bendis example, he constantly wrote Hawkeye as being willing and ready to kill people, even though the character had been fanatically against killing in all his previous appearances. Does that mean Hawkeye should have stayed the way he was forever? No, it means that the story should have had him say, even in one line, that he changed his mind about killing and why. Unfortunately I think it is now seen as old-fashioned to acknowledge the established past characterization.

[JKtheMac]

Maybe you misunderstood question but none of that was in question. I dispute your reading of the situation but this is not the place for that.

What I wanted to know was why that person both understood the editorial reasons and yet still seemed to find it annoying. It’s a question about tolerance of editorial decisions more than a question about character.