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Weekly Update 10/28/19
🕑 Added 2019-10-28 13:46:27 +0000 UTCThis is something you'll hear us talk about in a few weeks on the show (regarding Spider-Woman), but I want to talk about origins today. I was complaining because her origin feels somewhat thrown together and random to me. My knee jerk reaction was to label it poorly written because, in my mind, a "good origin" means that the character's origin is closely tied in thematically to their powers/motivation/characterization. Spider-Man and Uncle Ben, T'Challa and his place as a king, Magneto and the Holocaust, etc... You can draw a nice neat line between where these characters came from and why they behave how they do. Compare that to Ant-Man, where his origin is... building a helmet. It informs very little about him as a character besides that he's intelligent.
The more I thought about my complaint the more I wasn't sure I believed it. I think the word "origin" has been so weaponized as a marketing tool by the comic companies themselves that I started to believe they're just as important as I've been told they are. In most other fictional mediums, I would probably bristle at having nice, neat, thematically obvious storytelling. A story as simple as "Crime killed my parents.... I hate crime!" would feel trite in any other context besides Batman to me.
I think, like with most storytelling, the proof is in the pudding. An origin that's trying to tie character and beginnings together can feel clean, thematically consistent, and comfortingly familiar or tired, naive, and outdated. An origin trying to break out of that mold can feel poignant in showcasing the messiness of human life or it can feel random and arbitrary. In the end, I think the best metric we can look for is intentionality in an author's storytelling.
This week's episode is Marvel Year Fifteen: 1976 Pt. 2. Please get any 1976 feedback for us to discuss on our next Variant Cover episode by 10/29/19. You can send it to mymarvelousyear@gmail.com
1976 PART 1:
Uncanny X-Men #98 to #103
Captain America #193 to #196
Eternals #1 to #5
Daredevil #131, #132
Fantastic Four #168 to #170
1976 PART 2 :
Howard the Duck #1 to #3
Master of Kung Fu #44 to #47
Warlock #12 to #15
Jungle Action #19 to #24
Tomb of Dracula / Dr. Strange #44 / #14
EXTRA ISSUES 1975 (always changing, check the spreadsheet for current):
Doctor Strange #6 Intro of Mother Earth
Captain America #180-183 Cap becomes Nomad... just for a bit.
Giant Size Man Thing #4 Intro of Howard the Duck
Avengers #137 Beast joins the team!
Thor #239 The Egyptian Pantheon is introduced
Defenders #27 Intro of Starhawk
Fantastic Four #164 & 165 Return of Golden Age hero Marvel Boy!
Iron Fist #1 Claremont & Byrne
Avengers #142 Avengers go to the Wild West
X-Men #96 Intro of Moira MacTaggert
Marvel Preview #2 Origin of the Punisher
UPCOMING PODCAST SCHEDULE:
October 29: Feedback for 1976's Variant Cover Due
November 4: Marvel Year Fifteen: 1976 Variant Cover
November 11: Marvel Year Sixteen: 1977 Pt. 1
November 18: Marvel Year Sixteen: 1977 Pt. 2
November 19: Feedback for 1977's Variant Cover Due
November 25: Marvel Year Sixteen: 1977 Variant Cover
December 2: Marvel Year Seventeen: 1978 Pt. 1
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You can find all the My Marvelous Year reading lists here and check out the rest of what Comic Book Herald has to offer here.
Thanks for joining us on this journey through Marvel comics!
Comments
Oh hey, I thought you were clear and spot on! I just added some pretentious sauce to defend loving to read comics in my 30s. Haha
My Marvelous Year
Haha, oh you're bringing actually literary theory into this? I think I probably didn't state that with great clarity. I meant that seeing that seeing that a story is trying to say something (whether that be conventional storytelling or no) is more important than judging on the metric of "does this tell a traditional origin?" Did the author have some intention behind their writing or was it "fill these pages with action so kids will buy it".
