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

[hybrid2]

the origin as been updated before already...lots of time.

[korvar]

I think the "Think tablet PCs instead of room-sized computing machines." line is key. Even if they're not updating the events per se, just updating the visuals so they match today's tech (or "a few years ago" tech for the origin story) is something that will be done from time to time.

[glprime]

But see, I like the FF, Spidey and the X-Men "Age of Superheroes" having started 15-20 years ago. I really do. Because it makes a sense of continuity fun, and having an older generation be experienced and capable, not always "I'm so unsure of myself! Will I be able to save the day? Waaaaa! I'm so young!!!"

[korvar]

Actually, I'd agree with that - but you have to remember that even 15-20 year old tech is significantly more advanced than what they're shown with in their original origin!

Plus Reed should always be shown using tech more advanced than the current mainstream, so it should balance out :)

[halloweenjack]

The problem is, not only is that dating the comic, but it also depends on the artist getting it right. I still remember when Warren Ellis had Ultimate Doctor Doom networking a swarm of thousands of robotic insects together with Bluetooth, which (at least at the time) allowed a maximum of eight devices networked together at once. (He also had Ultimate Reed using an iPod, when it would have been much more plausible for a geek like Reed to put together his own MP3 player (well, Ogg Vorbis, more likely) out of scratch, with a hundred features that iPods have never had and an interface that only he was smart enough to use.) It's not really the FF if they're using the same stuff that you can play with at Best Buy.

[filthysize]

They've always done this, really, just not in a "branded" way. Extremis was basically this for Iron Man, and Cap gets it every few years just because you have to keep moving the year he's thawed out.

I think a silent retcon in their own titles is the better way to go about it, since they're going to have to do it again in 10 years or so anyway, when these "Season One" books will more or less be outmoded.

[mrstatham]

The thing is, they're launching the Season One stuff around the time the Avengers movie will be out, so it's not necessarily a bad idea to have these out these as stuff the legendary and rare 'new reader' can latch onto. It works better than trying to get new readers - if there actually are any - invested in the Ultimate books and definitely the 616 books.

[katya]

I'd be into it. I grew up with various DC stuff so I was able to leap into it, but my exposure to Marvel stuff has been limited to some movies and a couple seasons of X-Men: Evolution. There are characters I'm interested in, but I get totally lost even thinking about picking up a book.

[spacebetween]

Hopefully during this someone will remember the World War 2 Howling Commandos that still active in modern times without noticeable aging. Fury has the Infinity Formula, but I don't recall Dum-Dum or some of the others having anything like this in their history.

[starwolf_oakley]

They recently added something about Dum-Dum Dugan and Gabriel Jones getting the Infinity Formula.

[spacebetween]

Glad that someone has touched on that and fixed that

[valtyr]

Eh. Isn't this basically what Man Out Of Time was for Cap?

[mrstatham]

No. This is Marvel's blatant attempt to cash in on the success of DC's Earth One stuff, although hilariously, Marvel have somehow done a better job before DC managed to even get their shit off the ground properly.

[valtyr]

Your comment above to filthysize seems to support it's like Man Out Of Time - a modernised origin for the 616 character released to coincide with a big movie, easily accessible to the 'new reader'.

And I don't even think it's a bad idea. Has the FF's origin been updated from 'beat the Commies into space'? It probably has, but doing it again won't hurt, and they'll do it again in fifteen years, by which point Tony will have gotten his heart damage in the Iraq war - or maybe the Iran one...

[mrstatham]

Well, it does seem like they are timing the release of Season One books to tie with the Avengers and Spider-Man releases, which is pretty savvy and makes good business sense - but at the same time, nearly none of the characters have films released this summer to properly tie-in with, except for Spidey.

So I'd say it's a mix of both. People will go to the Avengers, see it's a Marvel movie, go buy a Marvel book, which handily tells them a new, simple origin for the characters.

As for Tony, didn't Ellis update the character so he got his heart damage from the first Gulf War?

[valtyr]

There isn't much likelihood of a new Daredevil or FF movie soon, so yeah, they're probably hoping that a new reader might just pick up a vaguely familiar character with START HERE on it. There were recent origin retellings for Jan and Hank and Wanda and Pietro, too, none of whom are imminent on the big screen.

Could well be, it's generic in my memory - but origins are always going to trail the characters like comet tails. (With the odd exception like Magneto and Cap.)

[filthysize]

Yeah, in Extremis, but I think valtyr means that in 15 years, if you want to keep the same origin, Tony will have to be a POW in the 2003 war.

Man, come to think of it, in just a few years, we'll have a Captain America who never got to see the World Trade Center.

[korvar]

It was fascinating when it was realised that he'd missed the entire Cold War. It completely changes the feel of his history if he never fights "the commies".

[halloweenjack]

Has the FF's origin been updated from 'beat the Commies into space'?

Byrne updated it to having Reed Richards testing out a faster-than-light starship (and, in a What If? in which he put off the flight until the shielding was upgraded (and therefore the FF became non-powered adventurers, a la the Challengers of the Unknown) and there are space colonies all over). Have no idea if that's still canon in any way.

[kusonaga]

But honestly, if I'm going to start reading comics, I'm not doing so because I want to find out how the Fantastic Four got started. I want to read stories about the Fantastic Four doing their thing.

[nyadnar17]

Same. Maybe it is just my bias as a huge manga fan as well as being a comic fan, but the origins of hero's are usually the most boring stories in the collection. I mean did anyone here get pulled into reading a series because of the origin story or not start reading a series because you had no clue how the heroes in it got their start?

[dancesontrains]

...but superhero comics have always had a flexible 'canon'? It strikes me like complaining about the lack of 'continuity' in Doctor Who or Star Trek- best to assume there is none, or very little, and roll with it. Or ignore it and stay with the canon from (certain time period), if you prefer it! That's half the fun, imo.

[fifthie]

Shit like this always reminds me of how when I was six I'd go over to my friend Adil's house and we'd come up with these hugely awesome elaborate games we were gonna play that required like all of our action figures and half of the couch cushions and three cardboard boxes and fourteen shoeboxes and the Ghostbusters proton pack and Adil's glasses and then three hours later his mom would be like TIME TO GO HOME and we'd never actually play the actual fucking game.

[stubbleupdate]

Blah blah blah...

Roberto Aguirre Sacasa writing Fantastic Four again.

I will buy it and read it and almost certainly enjoy it.

[ian_karkull]

Exactly.

[sleepymax]

I'm happy to see that there still wearing superhero costumes, though.

[ian_karkull]

Don't care, Roberto writes the absolute best Fantastic Four this side of Waid and Hickman, he can reboot the franchise three times a year if he likes to.
I swear, some people wouldn't recognize good comics if they bludgeoned them to death with a bag full of Eisners.

[ian_karkull]

Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh, but this is actually really great news. Sometimes one has to look past the packaging to recognize the quality of the content.

..... UGH!!!

[silverzeo]

I don't know whats more sillier, that they're actually trying to pitch premise with something like "Think tablet PCs instead of room-sized computing machine", like just re-telling the whole story we all know, only with iPhones added or replacing guns with Walkie Talkies, is going to make things better, (but if "52" taught us, promotional ads lie) or the fact they're actually calling a comic book arc a "season". A comic BOOK series called a SEASON... that's the best they came up with?

[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.

[jlbarnett]

All the FF needs to be updated is: remove all mentions of commies, make it clear they're trying to get people BACK to the moon. That's all.

I just hope they don't tie the FF's origin to anyone or anything else.

[jlroberson]

I see well that's nice good time to jump off then.

I'm just so sick of the regurgithon that is now the big two.

[stubbleupdate]

Jump off? FF and Fantastic Four are still being published.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I'm eager to see how they update X-Men, and if it involves states attempting to pass laws against mutant-mutant marriages, which others find unconstitutional.

[sir_mikael]

I like the idea of progression (in some direction) in the anti-mutants sentiments though. The comics have those kinds of laws now, like that Prop X thing* wanting to regulate mutant reproduction (something that's def present in future timelines like Days of Future Past).
In the beginning of the X-Men, very few people knew about mutants and if I recall correctly it was Magneto's terrorism in that first issue that made the world on a larger scale aware of them. And I might be wrong but I thought the X-Men Season One will redo that first Magneto attack on Cape Canaveral.
Early X-Men could be about the awe and shock and even disgust of finding out these different people exist.

*Congrats California on Prop 8 btw.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

It would be interesting, for sure. But for some reason, I'm apprehensive about finding out whether or not Marvel could do it right/well/tastefully.

[tzipwich]

I don't get why they're including Daredevil in this project. His backstory is as follows: pushed old guy out of the way of a truck, got radioactive stuff dumped on him, went blind & developed powers, went to law school, dad was killed by mobsters. Does any of this really need to be "updated?"

[sir_mikael]

Add teenage mutant ninja turtles perhaps? :P

[lbd_nytetrayn]

If only Disney had bought them instead of Nick...

[shobogan]

Isn't this basically like DC's Year Ones?

My attitude towards those is generally - if I like it, it's canon, if I don't, I'm sticking with the original stories.

[deleonjh]

But tablets are still basically toys when it comes to computing, any serious scientist would be using at least a desktop or if it's anything heavy-duty then they'd be begging for funding to get time on a supercomputer. Checking email? Updating your status on Facebook? Playing Angry Birds? Then you do it on a tablet. It's essentially a smartphone with a very large screen.