Why let the Marvel Heroes suffer from their "actions ?"

[Cmbmool]

Truthfully heroes have it better than the bad guys they face MOST of the time. 99% of the stories out there end with the heroes winning and the villains losing. There are a FEW exceptions, like say Fall of the Hulks, but even that is usually just a chapter in a larger story where the heroes end up wining. Heroes win more than they realistically should because obviously that's what is required for stories.

Then shouldn't Norman Osborn take over after Secret Invasion count as a Villain winning ?

[XPac]

Then shouldn't Norman Osborn take over after Secret Invasion count as a Villain winning ?

Sort of.

In that instance most of the villains of the MU were working with the heroes against the skrulls, so the heroes still won there. The PRIMARY antagonist was actually the Skrulls... Norman legitimately was trying to save the earth.

But Norman, a villain, benefitted the MOST. And Dark Reign was an era where the heroes were put in a sort of underdog position. So that whole era to some degree flipped things, even though the heroes still usually came on top in the stories.

[XPac]

And sadly that gets old. I think villains ought to win sometimes because it shows them as a threat, and keeps the heroes on their toes. Unlike say, Pokemon where Team Rocket is a huge joke, and the heroes are arrogant and complacent because they always win. I stopped watching Pokemon VERY early on as a kid because that formula got boring, and I disliked the heroes because of it. lol

I do agree villains should win more. It's tough to feel any sort of dramatic tenion in a story when a hero is facing someone he's defeated 5 million times before. When you break it down, villains are losers. A few villains like Doom and Thanos have enough wins to retain their credibility, but they are more the exception than the rule. Still, ultimately the heroes HAVE to win. THere's no getting around that. But in the least villains can and should get a lot more sucess than they do.

But the flip side of that is that some readers feel the heroes aren't getting enough good days despite still winning 99% of the time. Can't make everyone happy I guess.

[jackolover]

Reed was written HORRIBLY during this era, and no amount of math on the wall fixes that.

Nova tells Reed an intergalactic war is going on threatening the universe, and Reed sort of shrugs, ignores it, and doesn't bother mentioning it to anyone.

Reed is told the 52 Prison (his idea) is overrun by Blastaar in the Negative Zone, and Reed just sort of locks the door and forgets about it, leaving all the prisoners that he helped put there to their fate. It's freaking Norman Osborn that ends up trying to save them.

In hindsight I wonder if Reed shouldn't have been the freaking skrull instead of Pym.

Myself, I’m happy how Reed was written.

Reed had just returned from being stuck in the Microverse, and when he returned he was deeply depressed with his face disfigured. Then he went to hell with Dr Doom, and in a continued despresssed state tried to rectify the situation by taking over Latveria, for which he was vilified by the UN, and, America confiscated his wealth and property. After which he was in no condition to be heroic anymore. From then on, he was too scared to say boo. His mental state in CW was a direct extrapolation of his conservative state so he could regain his wealth. A very critical estimation of Reed Richards but I think it fits his state of mind at the time of CW.

I think the rest of the FF give Reed a break because they know what Reed went through mentally. It’s what family do.

I think whether or not they should have long lasting consequences sort of depends on whether or not what they did was actually their fault.

In a lot of instances, Secret Empire for example, there's some sort of outside influence at work which causes the hero to act a certain way. Steve was just as much a victim there as anyone else. That's different from say Stark and Reed in Civil War, who did questionable things completely of their own free will. So they don't necessarily deserve the same free pass.

But if you're possessed by the Phoenix or altered by a cosmic cube or had your Axis flipped or whatever, then I think a story is more justified in giving the hero a free pass sooner rather than later.

One of the biggest shocks to the Classic Heroes in CW was the millennials forcing themselves on the super heroes to become responsible for actions. That shocked Stark and Richards as much as it did Steve Rogers. That’s where I see Stark and Richards not behaving in character, because they were panicked by the confrontation of something they hadn’t been required to do, (responsible for actions) their whole life and now suddenly millennials were in their face.

Not that millennials aren’t right to do what they did, because that’s the way society is going now. But Classic super heroes weren’t ready for that kind of change so suddenly.

[jackolover]

People say they want the "Younger Generation" to rise up but the truth is they don't really get anywhere near the support to be able to.

Marvel really should just start writing their Heroes as heroes and then there would be less of a problem. The originals/old generation is still currently the best.

I hear you.

The Younger generation heroes have come into the Marvel Universe loaded with classical heroes in full authority positions because they have proved themselves. The young heroes can’t prove themselves in this climate because they keep tripping over adult heroes confronting the big bad villains all the time. The only way younger readers will see their fav young heroes become real heroes is if the classic heroes suddenly all disappear, and the young heroes have to face all the big bad villains themselves with no safety net of Classic heroes.

[jackolover]

So it's better for Younger heroes to have tragedy and Angst instead of being well rounded and happy ?

I say this as I am a fan fo Ms. Marvel and her stories and it does have it share of ups and downs. It's great to see a fresh take on the hero dynamic that doesn't revolve around tragedy and angst.

I'm kind of surprised that they don't do the tragedy and Angst stuff for Carol Danvers/ Captain Marvel. Especially given her history, that Marvel tends to overlook/takes bits and pieces of and throws out the rest.

I was a big critic of Miles Morales because he was boring in a nice comfortable family setting. And then we learn his uncle probably caused Miles to be bitten by the experimental spider, and, the Miles of the 616 is this super villain friend of the Kingpin? Suddenly Miles doesn’t have this plush existence anymore. Now Miles has tragedy written all over him.

Maybe things will change for Kamala Khan and we get a more tragic background to her story too. Like, why did her family have to become refugees? I haven’t followed her story after the first 20 issues, so maybe this was already covered? I would wonder why Kamala’s elder brother wasn’t the focus of stories instead of her? What is up with him? Kamala just seems like the kid sister, social worker with benefits. Maybe we’re not seeing the bigger picture with the Khans just yet?

[jackolover]

There's a fairly large difference between "never faces any fallout or backlash" and "suffers from his actions and is truly shunned by his peers". There's nothing wrong with heroes making mistakes... until you get story after story of them screwing up monumentally, to the point that they never do the right thing at all.

I mean, are we really so creatively bankrupt that the only story we can think about to tell with a hero is how he messes up royally and needs to be punished?

It used to be only Luke Cage, Sam Wilson or Rhodey always got locked up for no reason. But now everyone is getting hounded, white and other races, as millennial issues target anybody and everybody. It becomes quite confusing and disrupting to always have heroes questioned in the modern comics nowadays. There was a time when awkward issues were just overlooked in the stories, but today, if you don’t apologise a lot, a super hero is going to find protesters outside his door. People used to joke a lot in comics. Now, characters have to choose their words carefully before they say something. It’s that reticence on behaviour that changed the way super hero interaction has become tentative. Not that this is a bad thing, just that it has changed the tension in the interactions.

[jackolover]

And sadly that gets old. I think villains ought to win sometimes because it shows them as a threat, and keeps the heroes on their toes. Unlike say, Pokemon where Team Rocket is a huge joke, and the heroes are arrogant and complacent because they always win. I stopped watching Pokemon VERY early on as a kid because that formula got boring, and I disliked the heroes because of it. lol

Would you condone the period Avengers Disassembled to Dark Reign, because the villains had more prominence while the heroes slipped in prominence?

I think the villains did need a big win in Dark Reign sometimes, just to make them relevant.

[your_name_here]

From Disassembled to Siege, the heroes were always fighting an uphill battle. First the Skrulls and then Norman. So the bad guys were keeping the heroes on their toes for quite some time.
The fact that hero HAS to inevitably beat the villain gives the illusion that heroes win all the time because, well, they have to.

[Snoop Dogg]

We recently had an event where the villain played everyone and won, it was Civil War II. CWII to SE was really a secret Dark Reign, and that's what they were going for.

[jackolover]

We recently had an event where the villain played everyone and won, it was Civil War II. CWII to SE was really a secret Dark Reign, and that's what they were going for.

Can you identify the villain in CWII? Secret Empire I can understand because that was Hydra Cap. And good call on that period being a secret Dark Reign. It definitely had a Norman Osbornesque feel to it.

[JKtheMac]

Can you identify the villain in CWII? Secret Empire I can understand because that was Hydra Cap. And good call on that period being a secret Dark Reign. It definitely had a Norman Osbornesque feel to it.

You know, I am pretty sure you yourself drew this parallel while Secret empire was still in the early stages.

[Michael Watkins]

Can you identify the villain in CWII? Secret Empire I can understand because that was Hydra Cap. And good call on that period being a secret Dark Reign. It definitely had a Norman Osbornesque feel to it.

was it really a secret? i've said it a dozen times that Spencer didn't exploit it the way that writers did during Dark Reign (giving the Dark Avengers their own solo mini series). it was Osborn's reign on steroids. he manipulated the media. Hydra-Cap had the media get their talking points from Doctor Faustus and had the water supply drugged.

[theoneandonly]

perhaps people desirous of kamala going through tragic travails would like this scenario to be her 'heroic origin'

[Snoop Dogg]

Can you identify the villain in CWII? Secret Empire I can understand because that was Hydra Cap. And good call on that period being a secret Dark Reign. It definitely had a Norman Osbornesque feel to it.

CWII doesn't even escalate into a full conflict if Hydra Cap doesn't nix his plans to directly take out the heroes and kill Ulysses and instead sends the gamma research to Bruce, engineering his death which starts the war, and then goes to DC at the end to force Carol and Tony to fight so that either way, one loses and the heroes are divided.