Is there TOO MUCH humor in Marvel Comics these days?

[Tiamatty]

I mean

There's

Karnak
Carnage
Punisher
Moon Knight
Night Hawk
Vision
Scarlet Witch
Ultimates
Squadron Supreme
Black Widow
Old Man Logan

There's no shortage of books that don't even slightly attempt to be humorous. And that's just books where Humor is a total nonexistence. There are others where joking is minimal compared to the seriousness.

It's almost like, when you actually look at the titles Marvel's putting out, there's actually a wide variety of styles and tones.

[sustainentropy]

And a wide variety of styles should be encouraged. That's not the issue here. The issue here is that in my opinion it spills over into a book about a serious topic, like Cap being turned into a Nazi Hydra agent, and completely shits all over the dramatic tension.

Fair enough if Mockingbird is less than serious. My bad.

[Tiamatty]

And a wide variety of styles should be encouraged. That's not the issue here. The issue here is that in my opinion it spills over into a book about a serious topic, like Cap being turned into a Nazi Hydra agent, and completely shits all over the dramatic tension.

Fair enough if Mockingbird is less than serious. My bad.

Except humour, done well, can actually heighten dramatic tension. And I think that's what Spencer was going for here. Red Skull killing people over bland soup was meant to show how horrible he was. Red Skull being paternal to a little girl was supposed to be amusing in an unsettling way. The image of him reading a little girl a bedtime story is just so weird, so contrary to his normal behaviour, that it's both funny and creepy. And it's justified in-story why he's doing it.

Look, this is a book that's going to have quite a bit of humour both offsetting and heightening the drama. It's a standard way of telling a story.

[sustainentropy]

Except humour, done well, can actually heighten dramatic tension. And I think that's what Spencer was going for here. Red Skull killing people over bland soup was meant to show how horrible he was. Red Skull being paternal to a little girl was supposed to be amusing in an unsettling way. The image of him reading a little girl a bedtime story is just so weird, so contrary to his normal behaviour, that it's both funny and creepy. And it's justified in-story why he's doing it.

Look, this is a book that's going to have quite a bit of humour both offsetting and heightening the drama. It's a standard way of telling a story.

Agreed, it can heighten dramatic tension. Levity is important. Red Skull killing people over bland soup is fine, but the comment about celery being a poor base or something like that.......it just doesn't read like the Red Skull to me.

There are other ways of telling a story that don't involve downright silly humour. Look at the past volumes umpteen volumes of Cap for instance.

It comes down to taste at the end of the day, and I'm saying it's not to my taste. If you like it then great, I hope you enjoy the book. I don't mean that in a passive aggressive way either.

[MyriVerse]

Now I'm not for one second suggesting that it's not funny, but it's too silly for me to invest fully.

Those two panels speak to how horribly serious the story was.

Humour can go overboard. It's been my opinion for a long time that Byrne's She-Hulk ruined the character, and she really hasn't been taken seriously since. And I think it's horrible what GotG has become under Bendis and Hollywood.

[VJ.]

Fair enough if Mockingbird is less than serious. My bad.

Mockingbird is a non-linear puzzle-box, so we don't know how "serious" the story is yet, but the tone has been deliberately very comedic and light-hearted from #1. But even if the resolution is of huge consequence, that tone has added to the series, not taken away from it IMO.
Moving away from comics Stargate SG1 was a comedy in disguise at times, it didn't stop the program from telling many, many serious stories; so the two aren't incompatible in the slightest. You don't have to be grimdark to be serious.

[CliffHanger2]

I'd agree with you that humor is an integral part to some books, but this is the first time I've encountered sillyness like this in a Cap book. It's a huge change from other volumes of Captain America.

Guess you missed the Cap Wolf arc.

[Tiamatty]

Guess you missed the Cap Wolf arc.

Though the weirdest part of that arc was just how straight Gruenwald played it. It was an inherently ridiculous and goofy premise, and yet Gruenwald treated it with the same seriousness as every other arc in his run. It would've been the perfect time for him to relax and embrace the silliness for an arc, but no, he played it serious.

[CliffHanger2]

Though the weirdest part of that arc was just how straight Gruenwald played it. It was an inherently ridiculous and goofy premise, and yet Gruenwald treated it with the same seriousness as every other arc in his run. It would've been the perfect time for him to relax and embrace the silliness for an arc, but no, he played it serious.

Yeah the humor was kinda sublime in those issues but it was still there because of the content. I think Spencer played it a little more for jokes with Sam Wilson but it still wasn't straight up comedy.

[cosmicjoke21]

The Marvel films certainly have too much humor. They've become essentially comedies with some action, instead of what they started out as, which was action films with some comedy.

Humor of course is very important. Good humor is humor which highlights the absurdity of human behavior. But these are super hero comics, not great literature. You aren't going to usually find anything so sophisticated in them. I agree it can be obnoxious when you care about a character and want them to be treated with respect, and instead you get scenes of slap stick, low brow, or ridiculous comic relief sullying dramatic moments. You unfortunately can't expect much more from super hero comics though. Humor is important. But ill-placed humor can ruin a lot.

[Tiamatty]

The Marvel films certainly have too much humor. They've become essentially comedies with some action, instead of what they started out as, which was action films with some comedy.

Yeah, Civil War was a laugh-a-minute romp. Different films have different tones. The Iron Man movies have usually been pretty serious. The Captain America movies have been serious. The Thor movies are fairly serious. The Avengers movies are actually pretty serious. Really, GotG and Ant-Man were the only ones that were comedies.

Humor of course is very important. Good humor is humor which highlights the absurdity of human behavior. But these are super hero comics, not great literature. You aren't going to usually find anything so sophisticated in them. I agree it can be obnoxious when you care about a character and want them to be treated with respect, and instead you get scenes of slap stick, low brow, or ridiculous comic relief sullying dramatic moments. You unfortunately can't expect much more from super hero comics though. Humor is important. But ill-placed humor can ruin a lot.

Yeah, it's terrible how the humour keeps ruining Vision. The incessant jokes make Ultimates unreadable. Why can't Black Panther ease up on the comedy?

Again, the humour isn't nearly as pervasive as you're trying to claim.

[cosmicjoke21]

Whatever you say man.

[Wiccan]

A murderous nazi that reads to children?

A murderous nazi that only reads to children because he knows she's actually a powerful weapon that can turn his big enemy into a probable murderous nazi. That's actually fucking creepy.

[tsaimelemoni]

A murderous nazi that only reads to children because he knows she's actually a powerful weapon that can turn his big enemy into a probable murderous nazi. That's actually fucking creepy.

Exactly. It's almost as if there is key context here, or something.

[Hulkout42]

Personally i really don't see much humor these days unless it's in the humorous comics, i mean you see it in the movies but the comics that are lately coming out? Nope!