Avengers #12 (spoilers)

[Prof. Warren]

It means that if writers write a plot for say, outer space, they ought to use either 1)characters that work in outer space or 2) characters with whom out space will act as a foil.

Who are you to dictate how anything should be written?

I'll go with the instincts of someone who is actually a professional writer and has an accomplished career to their credit and who is working under editors who have years of experience to their name.

A lot of fans believe that they can write better than the pros. But the reality is, they can't. If they could, they'd be the ones writing the books in the first place.

Not say, use Ka-zar, reasoning that as he's a survival expert, he can survive anywhere

Well, who's to say he can't survive anywhere?

Also, Aaron has the advantage of knowing exactly what part Ka-Zar will be playing going forward.

He picked him for a reason, a reason that we can only guess at currently. Saying Aaron shouldn't use him while being ignorant of what function he'll have on the team is being willfully short-sighted and presumptuous.

Writers should at least challenge themselves, if nothing else. Not resort to old faves simply to write them.

Aaron is showing his plans for The Avengers to be very far-reaching and ambitious.

I think instead more readers should challenge themselves not to be so narrow in their thinking.

[kilderkin]

Thought it was interesting enough considering it's almost devoid of the team itself doing anything.

AOW group doesn't interest me at all, but it was nice to see Janet

Great seeing blade

Seems like the namor plot has been moved to a tangent very quickly, surprised there as it feels like filler to me now, maybe it will pay off to something more than just a group for them to fight for an issue, maybe it's happening in another book?

Ok issue, but far too little team interaction for me

Another filler issue with a BC character next issue imo

[Reviresco]

Let's take stock for a moment. This was a throw away scene that was supposed to hark back to the golden age and pulp roots of the character. We all know Ka-Zar is a Tarzan analogy and it would be totally in keeping with the pulp tradition for there to be a story of how a character like that visited and infiltrated an underwater kingdom. To call it stupid is to call the entire history of this medium stupid.

Great. That makes me feel better. That the characters and setting I care for were thrown under the bus for a "throw away scene." Oh wait. That's been my complaint.

Calling the Ka-Zar scene in this ONE issue stupid does not in any way translate to me calling ENTIRE medium of anything stupid. Namor is Marvel's original Golden Age character, and I've read and enjoyed many of his stories IN THAT SETTING, accepting the parameters of the genre and the time period. This isn't a Golden Age book. This is a modern comic book. Ka-Zar scene isn't about being pulpy. It's more in the vein of 90s, "I'm a badass."


And I was reading John Carter and Carson of Venus and Pellucidar and most of the Burroughs books before I was a teenager. They were great adventure books, and yet in no way did they totally discard believability, once you suspended your disbelief for the set up. The characters are larger than life, but human. They don't suddenly transform a jungle lord into a merman with zero explanation.

If Aaron is trying to hark back to the Golden Age, he fails utterly, again.

[Reviresco]

Aaron clearly has a grand theme. He is exploring these characters by reference to their roots and archetypal place in the history of comics. That in itself is a literary approach. It is indeed inevitable that doing this will rub some fans up the wrong way. Over the decades many of these characters have changed and drifted far from their arcetypes. But that is exactly the point of this story.

In Avengers Aaron is showing this very thing in the story. We are shown Namor reverting to a xenophobic stereotype, we are shown Ka-Zar acting like an old time pulp hero, we are shown Jen drifting towards a more Jekyll and Hyde position. These are all parts of the larger whole that is this story. A story about what exactly makes The Avengers a recurring idea.

You may be correct, but I contend he's not doing it very well.

For one thing, Namor is not a xenophobic stereotype. That was never his place in either the Golden Age or the Silver Age or even as an archetype.

From the Golden Age, his place was as the Outsider -- both among his people and the airbreathers. He was the Vengeful Protector of the Earth and indigenous people -- his name is Avenging Son. His archetype is Poseidon Earthshaker, Water, the Underworld, Supernatural, the Unconscious and Emotions.

Hence, the Defenders of the Deep. Again, Aaron may be touching on this, but his execution (that business with Stingray and Tigershark - the murderer of his father) isn't impressing me.

I was recently re-reading the early Avengers issues and it's interesting how Aaron has brought back the antagonistic relationship between the Avengers and Namor that they had in the team's earliest days, just as he made Loki central again to the forming of the group.

He's obviously given these characters and their history a great deal of thought and is openly embracing their roots.

There's nothing haphazard about what Aaron's doing. He's clearly got a big road map in place and where it's leading I think is going to prove to be hugely ambitious.

Aaron didn't do that. Hickman did it with the Phoenix 5. Bendis, even with the Illuminati. Or even further back, Mark Millar with Civil War.

I'm not seeing Aaron paying that much attention to the history of the characters or embracing them and their roots. Maybe cherry picking. Hence my complaints about the jobbing and some of the choices he is making.

[Reviresco]

It means that if writers write a plot for say, outer space, they ought to use either 1)characters that work in outer space or 2) characters with whom out space will act as a foil.

Not say, use Ka-zar, reasoning that as he's a survival expert, he can survive anywhere

They're the Avengers support staff. The only qualification they have to have is "superhero stuff." Gorilla Man, who was the right hand of an international empire, Fat Cobra, one of the MU's finest martial artists, and Ka-Zar, a capable survival expert who's spent years leading an entire society in hostile terrain, are not diminished as valid candidates for what's essentially a more ethical, neo-SHIELD because the writer likes them. When the canvas is so broad and the roles aren't even central to the book, there's no problem with Jason picking favorites when he still put together an interesting, diverse team. And it rewards fans who've been following his career to see more of his past work get thrown a bone.

Again. WHERE does it state or is demonstrated, other than in this book, that Ka-Zar is a survival expert? He's a Jungle Lord, who has survived, WITH HELP, Zabu, in one environment - the jungle, where plenty of other humans have also survived.

What are all these other hostile environments that he's survived?

[JKtheMac]

Of course Namor was a xenophobic stereotype. Just take five minutes to understand the context of what is supposedly your favourite character! He is an eastern looking foreigner in an era when that was synonymous with the yellow peril. He developed but that was what he started out as. This was the US in a xenophobic era.

An era when some people in the US were seriously considering National Socialists as OK guys that had a point.

[JKtheMac]

Again. WHERE does it state or is demonstrated, other than in this book, that Ka-Zar is a survival expert? He's a Jungle Lord, who has survived, WITH HELP, Zabu, in one environment - the jungle, where plenty of other humans have also survived.

What are all these other hostile environments that he's survived?

Like I said. Pulp Hero. Pulp heroes basically travelled to exotic places and proved how superior they were. That’s just what they do. Over and over again. We still put up with this nonsense, see the huge success of Avatar. It makes zero sense but that’s the basic story. Colonialism is great! An entitled but abandoned in the jungle guy can do anything.

[Reviresco]

Of course Namor was a xenophobic stereotype. Just take five minutes to understand the context of what is supposedly your favourite character! He is an eastern looking foreigner in an era when that was synonymous with the yellow peril. He developed but that was what he started out as. This was the US in a xenophobic era.

An era when some people in the US were seriously considering National Socialists as OK guys that had a point.

I suggest you do some research or actually read Namor's first stories. Namor started out in the Golden Age with RED hair. His father's name was McKenzie. He had a long narrow Celtic face.

[kilderkin]

Great. That makes me feel better. That the characters and setting I care for were thrown under the bus for a "throw away scene." Oh wait. That's been my complaint.

Calling the Ka-Zar scene in this ONE issue stupid does not in any way translate to me calling ENTIRE medium of anything stupid. Namor is Marvel's original Golden Age character, and I've read and enjoyed many of his stories IN THAT SETTING, accepting the parameters of the genre and the time period. This isn't a Golden Age book. This is a modern comic book. Ka-Zar scene isn't about being pulpy. It's more in the vein of 90s, "I'm a badass."


And I was reading John Carter and Carson of Venus and Pellucidar and most of the Burroughs books before I was a teenager. They were great adventure books, and yet in no way did they totally discard believability, once you suspended your disbelief for the set up. The characters are larger than life, but human. They don't suddenly transform a jungle lord into a merman with zero explanation.

If Aaron is trying to hark back to the Golden Age, he fails utterly, again.

I find most of what Aaron does to be throw away, it's nothing new, you can see it any week

I feel

[Reviresco]

Like I said. Pulp Hero. Pulp heroes basically travelled to exotic places and proved how superior they were. That’s just what they do. Over and over again. We still put up with this nonsense, see the huge success of Avatar. It makes zero sense but that’s the basic story. Colonialism is great! An entitled but abandoned in the jungle guy can do anything.

Ka-Zar isn't just a pulp hero -- he's a specific kind. He's a Jungle Lord. He doesn't travel much, AFAIK, but I could be wrong -- maybe to NYC / civilization. You should also consider, this Ka-Zar isn't an original Golden Age pulp hero. He's a 1960s revision of a pulp hero, of Tarzan specifically, in an era when colonialism wasn't seen as a good thing.

But again, if he's the avatar of pulp heroes, a survivial specialist ANYWHERE, I'm waiting for anyone to show me all these exotic, hostile environments that he's survived, other than the Savage Land.


Though ... does it really make sense that T'challa is going to recruit an archetype of "Colonialism is GREAT" for the Agents of Wakanda?

[ImperiusWrecked]

Of course Namor was a xenophobic stereotype. Just take five minutes to understand the context of what is supposedly your favourite character! He is an eastern looking foreigner in an era when that was synonymous with the yellow peril. He developed but that was what he started out as. This was the US in a xenophobic era.

An era when some people in the US were seriously considering National Socialists as OK guys that had a point.

I suggest you do some research or actually read Namor's first stories. Namor started out in the Golden Age with RED hair. His father's name was McKenzie. He had a long narrow Celtic face.

I have been lurking here a bit and just wanted to put my thoughts in here. I actually wrote about this before where I discuss that Namor is Marvel's and perhaps Comic's very first biracial and east Asian coded character. His journey through comics does not start with the anti-japanese comics of the WWll era. His people are an indigenous coded people and Namor while he may be of Scottish descent on his father's side who is most likely scottish-american, Namor is not white. This isn't just a throwaway thing that happens, it starts in Namor's first comic (and in the extended edition when marvel mystery comics started). Namor frequently says things or mentions his tribe regarding the Atlanteans, and Everett wrote how Namor was warring against the 'white race' Namor was a character whose people have been harmed by the white explorers who came onto their territory and their actions killed atlanteans.

Later Namor is recruited into the war (this reflects how japanese-american soldiers volunteered or were drafted) this era of comics is extremely hard to read due to the nature of the writers pushing the anti-japanese sentiment. Namor's character was transformed from a man seeking justice for how his people were treated to a character whose own looks were remarked upon in racism and used to spread racism. Then later Namor's character is changed again, back to the prince whose people were always under attack and whose homeland was destroyed by pollution, and war. He was still coded as an east-asian character in the later comics.

A few comics to look for in example of are: Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #1-4 . Sub-Mariner Comics #5. Avengers (1963) #7, The Defenders (1972) #1, Tales to Astonish #95.

I wrote out my thoughts much better here. It includes panels from the above mentioned comics.

However if you want to call a character xenophobic I would suggest you look beyond one era of comics that were extremely prejudiced towards japanese people before deciding that the character is in fact xenophobic and not actually used to spread war propaganda especially since Namor's character did not in fact ever start out that way. You can take any character and find something that someone has written at some point that is wrong, and this is especially true of Namor since he has been around since the start of comics.

[Reviresco]

I have been lurking here a bit and just wanted to put my thoughts in here. I actually wrote about this before where I discuss that Namor is Marvel's and perhaps Comic's very first biracial and east Asian coded character. His journey through comics does not start with the anti-japanese comics of the WWll era. His people are an indigenous coded people and Namor while he may be of Scottish descent on his father's side who is most likely scottish-american, Namor is not white. This isn't just a throwaway thing that happens, it starts in Namor's first comic (and in the extended edition when marvel mystery comics started). Namor frequently says things or mentions his tribe regarding the Atlanteans, and Everett wrote how Namor was warring against the 'white race' Namor was a character whose people have been harmed by the white explorers who came onto their territory and their actions killed atlanteans.

Later Namor is recruited into the war (this reflects how japanese-american soldiers volunteered or were drafted) this era of comics is extremely hard to read due to the nature of the writers pushing the anti-japanese sentiment. Namor's character was transformed from a man seeking justice for how his people were treated to a character whose own looks were remarked upon in racism and used to spread racism. Then later Namor's character is changed again, back to the prince whose people were always under attack and whose homeland was destroyed by pollution, and war. He was still coded as an east-asian character in the later comics.

A few comics to look for in example of are: Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #1-4 . Sub-Mariner Comics #5. Avengers (1963) #7, The Defenders (1972) #1, Tales to Astonish #95.

I wrote out my thoughts much better here. It includes panels from the above mentioned comics.

However if you want to call a character xenophobic I would suggest you look beyond one era of comics that were extremely prejudiced towards japanese people before deciding that the character is in fact xenophobic and not actually used to spread war propaganda especially since Namor's character did not in fact ever start out that way. You can take any character and find something that someone has written at some point that is wrong, and this is especially true of Namor since he has been around since the start of comics.

I agree, despite his skin color, Namor wasn't regarded as white. I think Namor is the first biracial character in comics, definitely at Marvel. But he wasn't coded as East Asian or part of the Yellow Peril when he debuted -- or mostly through the Golden Age. He was a WWII hero in comics, unlike the Japanese Americans soldiers. And as I said, he had RED hair and a long face ... he kind of looked young Bill Everett. But he definitely coded as OTHER. Arguably, being Irish / Catholic was Other back then. Being mixed race was Other. Being indigenous was Other. I'm not sure, but I believe his hair color changed when Everett left comics to go to war. And then the replacement artists turned Namor into a freaking space alien! -- definitely Other.

I'm not sure when Namor started looking more Asian, unless you count the space alien Namor. Definitely Colan drew him that way.

The other unique, archetype for Namor was that he was the first anti-hero. He's called both a hero and a villain in the first books. He was created in the mold of the Romantic Byronic hero, which makes sense given his connections to William Blake and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

[ImperiusWrecked]

I agree, despite his skin color, Namor wasn't regarded as white. I think Namor is the first biracial character in comics, definitely at Marvel. But he wasn't coded as East Asian or part of the Yellow Peril when he debuted -- or mostly through the Golden Age. He was a WWII hero in comics, unlike the Japanese Americans soldiers. And as I said, he had RED hair and a long face ... he kind of looked young Bill Everett. But he definitely coded as OTHER. Arguably, being Irish / Catholic was Other back then. Being mixed race was Other. Being indigenous was Other. I'm not sure, but I believe his hair color changed when Everett left comics to go to war. And then the replacement artists turned Namor into a freaking space alien! -- definitely Other.

I'm not sure when Namor started looking more Asian, unless you count the space alien Namor. Definitely Colan drew him that way.

The other unique, archetype for Namor was that he was the first anti-hero. He's called both a hero and a villain in the first books. He was created in the mold of the Romantic Byronic hero, which makes sense given his connections to William Blake and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

I definitely knew about how he was the first the anti-hero and the connection of Everett and Blake and Coleridge but I had thought his red hair was something of a coloring issue, or something that artists thought looked good and I couldn't find out why they changed it to black, so this Celtic angle is something I hadn't considered. lol, if i never see triangle head Namor again I can rest easy, that was just horrible. Namor being comics original 'angry young man' was I believe another archetype he had and it was certainly written about how he was that.

However I am in agreement that Aaron is writing Namor wrong, and whatever his endgame is for the character it doesn't mean that Atlantis can be considered a threat if even Ka-Zar can swim in without being noticed. It is just one of the things that I am not happy about with Namor's inclusion in the Avengers.

[Reviresco]

I definitely knew about how he was the first the anti-hero and the connection of Everett and Blake and Coleridge but I had thought his red hair was something of a coloring issue, or something that artists thought looked good and I couldn't find out why they changed it to black, so this Celtic angle is something I hadn't considered. lol, if i never see triangle head Namor again I can rest easy, that was just horrible. Namor being comics original 'angry young man' was I believe another archetype he had and it was certainly written about how he was that.

However I am in agreement that Aaron is writing Namor wrong, and whatever his endgame is for the character it doesn't mean that Atlantis can be considered a threat if even Ka-Zar can swim in without being noticed. It is just one of the things that I am not happy about with Namor's inclusion in the Avengers.

Obviously, I agree on the Ka-Zar thing. I do think Aaron is getting things wrong about Namor -- the Stingray thing for sure. But I still think he intends something possession like going on with the character. Namor's never had black eyes. Again, I think this falls into poor execution, however, because the Avengers should have noticed and said something.

Well, there were coloring issues, in part because Bill Everett was an innovator. The first issue of Marvel Comics, which was actually mostly a reprint of Namor's story from Motion Picture Funnies Weekly, he was experimenting with the coloring technique because he wanted to portray that the characters were actually underwater. It turned out a bit muddy and Martin Goodman had a fit. Needless to say, Everett stopped doing that. If you look at scans of the Motion Picture Weekly Funnies, which is black and white, you can see just how amazing the original pages were. Anyway, the skin color of the Atlanteans wasn't exactly consistent, I'm guessing, because of this, as well as the usual, Golden Age lack of concern for consistency. Sometimes Fen was white, sometimes blue, sometimes green. The male Atlanteans, always seemed to be green or blue, IIRC.

Sean Howe, who wrote the History of Marvel Comics, has an excellent article on the coloring of the Atlanteans on his blog here:

http://atomsmashers.blogspot.com/201...tis-blues.html


Namor's hair also was subject to some of those coloring problems, but the intention was always red or auburn, and when Bill was on the book, I think it was like that, cause he did almost everything -- script, pencils, inks, lettering, and coloring. If you look at Roy Thomas's backstory page for Saga of the Sub-Mariner #1, he states that Namor's face was partly based off Bill's angular features and Bill's red hair. Of course, the problem for us modern readers who don't have the copies of Golden Age comics and are relying on reprints -- some colorists 'fixed' the colors and revised them, to match what the Silver Age set up. Hence, you'll see panels from Marvel Comics #1 that have Namor's hair as black, when in the original it is red.

But yes, Namor's features and hair did change over the Golden Age, and even the Silver, and now the modern. I mean, look at the shave Schiti gave him in New Avengers -- or the Wolverine points that Deodato still draws him with.

[JKtheMac]

I suggest you do some research or actually read Namor's first stories. Namor started out in the Golden Age with RED hair. His father's name was McKenzie. He had a long narrow Celtic face.

Oh I have. You are probably just looking at things from a more modern perspective and not fully grasping what the various signifiers are in those representations of race, exotic locations, and pulp sensibilities. Just because he is used as a protagonist does not indicate that the roots of his representation are not problematic.