Comments on: Once More the Engine of Her Thoughts Began...

Once More the Engine of Her Thoughts Began...

robocop is bleeding — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:50:58 -0800

For over the past year, John Seavey has been reading through Marvel's Essentials and DC's Showcase Presents reprints in order to examine the title comic's storytelling engine. From classic characters to barely-footnotes, much of the bedrock of Silver Age heroes are represented in the column's archives.

A storytelling engine is here described as the status-quo (characters, both good and bad; setting; mood and tone; etc) that helps to provide comic writers with story ideas. This was much more important in the Silver Age from where the Essentials and Showcase reprints get the bulk of their material. Back then comics were more episodic, self-contained, and often had two or three stories in a single issue, so writers really needed all the help they could get to churn the tales out! Of course, prevailing wisdom at the time suggested that the entire readership turned over every two years, so there was little need for things like continuity or logic, but there was a big need for a stable engine that could help produce new (or gently used) stories week after week. And because I find blogspots tagging hard to search through, I provide links to individual comic titles for you, dear reader! Adam Strange Ant-Man Aquaman Batman Brave and the Bold Captain America Challengers of the Unknown Classic X-Men Conan Daredevil Dazzler Doctor Strange Flash Ghost Rider Godzilla Green Arrow Green Lantern Hawkman House of Mystery Howard the Duck Hulk Iron Man Jonah Hex Killraven Man-Thing Martian Manhunter Marvel Horror Marvel Saga Marvel Super Villain Team-Up Marvel Team-Up Marvel Two In One Ms. Marvel Nova Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Phantom Stranger Power Man and Iron Fist Punisher Savage Dragon She-Hulk Silver Surfer Spider-Man (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) Spider-Woman Supergirl Superman Family Superman Teen Titans The Atom The Avengers The Defenders The Elongated Man The Fantastic Four The Haunted Tank Thor Tomb of Dracula Uncanny X-Men (Part One) (Part Two) Werewolf By Night Wolverine Wonder Woman World's Finest X-Factor

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:29:06 -0800

There goes my has-to-be-productive week. I will blame St. Patrick.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:29:23 -0800

I was going to say, "Good post," RIB, but *WOW* when I peaked inside the thread and saw all the links....great job! The writing is above par and pretty entertaining for fans. If it were a book? I'd buy it. In fact, I just spent my morning reading up on several of my favorites. Best of web fanboyfilter

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:41:13 -0800

This is great, if it wasn't for this whole job thing, I could kill a few hours with this. Thanks for the post!

By: humannaire

humannaire — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:45:10 -0800

{coffee, croissants, comic books, and crap music....it's going to be a great day}

By: gerryblog

gerryblog — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:48:11 -0800

Fantastic.

By: Grod

Grod — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:33:25 -0800

What's this "crisis" the commenters keep talking about?

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:43:10 -0800

Crisis on Infinite Earths

By: factory123

factory123 — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:44:39 -0800

I've clicked through a few of these, and the author frequently doesn't discuss the plot formulas of these books. His Green Lantern entry, eg, only mentions that the ring could do anything in those days, and that it had a vulnerability to yellow which the writers sometimes flubbed. All this is true, but doesn't really discuss what GL actually did with the ring from story to story. If comics history is your thing, I'd suggest checking out Scott Tipton's Comics 101. He goes through a character's history in pretty good detail, giving a sense of the different eras of a book, and adaptations into other media.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:44:53 -0800

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a giant DC cross-over designed to reboot and restart a lot of the DC continuity. So a slew of DC characters had their storytelling engines revamped and re-revamped and unvamped only to be later revamped. What I am trying to say is that there was a lot of vamping. Since then, any big DC cross-over event that tries to alter continuity is a Crisis event. Witness the recent Infinite Crisis where Superboy Prime punches reality so hard that Robin came back to life. And they said Silver Age comics were insane!

By: BeReasonable

BeReasonable — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:10:29 -0800

In DC 1,000,000 the 853rd Century Superman punched his way through 833 centuries worth of time. I believe Robin stayed dead.

By: banannafish

banannafish — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:32:55 -0800

Holy moly, what a great list of links! I was going to mention Scott Tipton, but see that I've already been beaten to that link. Great post!

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:10:21 -0800

Nifty, thanks.

By: Faze

Faze — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:28:31 -0800

The DC Showcase series is a great gift to humanity. If only they'd done it 25 years ago, instead of pretending that the Silver Age didn't exist, and pushing their crap Crisis on Infinite Earths. John Seavey's comments are all pretty interesting. The DC Silver Age had its problems (as Seavey points out, Green Lantern's infinitely labile powers), but it was charming children's literature. Too bad Marvel had to come along and ruin everything.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:35:55 -0800

In his How to Save Marvel posts, Seavey pretty much points to a return to the Silver Age, content-wise, for the comicbook companies. That is, write comics for kids again. What do kids today care about the Civil War "power and responsibility makes for troubling choices" stories? They want to see Captain America punch the Rhino through a wall. Heck, I want to see Captain America punch the Rhino through a wall. If its the wall of a helicarrier and Rhino then freefalls into a passing tugboat and sinks it, all the better. I'm about halfway through a remaindered copy of Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost. While that book focuses on the completely insane fiscal state of Marvel in the 90s, it would be interesting to see the business timeline juxtaposed with the major storylines of the period. Speaking of which does the LIFE OF REILLY saga exist anywhere in the intarwebs anymore? The link from Mefi is dead.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:43:11 -0800

Ah, okay. Here it is. Looks like one of the authors got a book deal and is in the process of fleshing out the story.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:14:44 -0800

LoR's in a .zip here. Includes images.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:15:29 -0800

I don't much miss reading comics, but gosh do I seem to spend a lot of time reading about them.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:24:11 -0800

oh oh oh and [this is very very good and will probably change the way I write... FOREVER!]