Season One: Marvel hits refresh

[sherkahn]

It had to happen. The Ultimates universe was not enough. Yahoo has the article about Marvel.



Albeit it, it is not a complete reboot to the characters and the history, just contemporary additions added on to their origins.

From the article:

Marvel Comics is updating the origin of the Fantastic Four this week in a sleeker tale dubbed "Season One" with a more contemporary vibe, while sticking to the roots of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, brother Johnny, and Ben Grimm, otherwise known for the past 51 years as Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing.

Think tablet PCs instead of room-sized computing machines.

The revision is part of Marvel's push to add modern touches to its characters. Marvel also is bringing a modern spin to the origins of its other classic characters this year in similar "Season One" editions, including Daredevil, Spider-Man and the X-Men.


I'll say it once, I'll say it again. I get that you need to add contemporary, relevant material so that new and younger readers can latch on to the characters and the qualities that we love in these heroes (and villains), but it's feels like taking all that rich history (good and bad) and seeing them flush it down the commode.

We'll see how this "refresh" is handled when the books come out, as some reviews are already being posted.

For legality...

Comments

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

The problem is that you can't have both continuity and a sliding timescale. The most you can do is to look at the older stories and say "ok, something similar to that happened to the current characters." The Fantastic Four might have gone into space, but they didn't do it to be the Russians to the moon. (though if they're updating the origin, I would like to see Reed building a rocket in his backyard and telling the others that in the mid 90s, and the others humoring him because they think he's insane.) Reed and Ben didn't fight in World War 2. Peter Parker didn't go to his college classes wearing a jacket and tie, not to mention a canary yellow vest, and how did Flash Thompson meet Sha Shan? He got lost from his unit in Iraq and wandered into Vietnam? The best thing to have done if they were going to take continuity seriously would have been to age the characters in real time, but while that might have made for good comics, it would have been lousy branding.

[jlbarnett]

and who says it would have made good comics.

As for Sha Shan, who I've never heard of, Flash joined the military, was stationed with the US troops in the Korean DMZ and happened to meet a Vietnamese woman

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

"and who says it would have made good comics."

I don't know who said it would, but I know who said it might. I did. I can easily see how a comic in real time would have worked well.

Your suggestion is perfectly plausible, but it's a new story about how Flash and Sha Shan met. The story Marvel published in the early 70s was tied to a specific time and place, so it's not possible to have a strong adherence to continuity and to move the timeline up every few years.

[korvar]

One of the problems with "comics in real time" is that twelve issues doesn't feel like a year's worth of events.

[deleonjh]

Why was this Vietnamese woman in South Korea? It's not like they're an immigrant country like the US.

[jlbarnett]

at least according to wiki in South Korea Vietnamese are the second largest group of foreigners after Chinese migrants. So that's the explanation for her being there.