Deadcool

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Comicbooks influenced by media and viceversa.

One of the things that I have always find annoying in comicbooks is how is this influenced by media instead of being its own thing.

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A good example about this phenomenon is Superman, when he was created he had a good powerset, limited, with basic stuff, open to a lot of possibilities, he wasn't invincible, his powers basically consisted in Superstength (More powerful than a locomotive), Superspeed (Faster than a speeding bullet), Super Leapt (able to leap tall buildings in a single bound) and a certain level of Invulnerability, so, what happened? Superman became popular enough that the character had his own Radio show, there elements like the Super sight, Super breath among other Superpowers made their own appearence, also the Kryptonite, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen made their first appearence in the radio. Also, some consider "flight" as one of Superman's most known powers (he even says Up, Up and Away), but, Do you know where does he got that power? it was from other media, being more specific, Superman's TV Show, it was too difficult for the animators to make him leap, to they add the flight in Superman's powers.

And that is how Silver Age Superman was created.
And that is how Silver Age Superman was created.

However, I don't perceive all these influences as something negative, they try to make this character easy to digest for the people. One of the influences that I have loved the most was in Mr. Freeze character from "Batman: The Animated Series" as kid, I loved the character (I even own a Action figure of the character and even now I still loving his episodes) that was perfect, but in a long time they were unable to use the character in the right way.

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And we can make a list with all the recent elements that came from other media to comicbooks...

  1. Chloe Sullivan (from Smallville to Action Comics).
  2. Organic Web (from San Raimi's Spider-man to Amazing Spider-man).
  3. Phil Coulson (from Marvel Movies to Marvel Comics).
  4. Samuel L. Fury (From the Universe 1610 to the Marvel Movieverse to the Universe 616).
  5. Avengers Assemble (From Avengers Movie to the Universe 616).

(That is all that came to my mind).

Do they really needed to make an afroamerican Nick Fury in the Universe 616.
Do they really needed to make an afroamerican Nick Fury in the Universe 616.

... But regardless of whether that influence is positive or negative the comics would never grow and became recognized by being influenced by the other media.

They would always be on the shadow of the other that made them popular, I hate that, even now that Disney has the rights over Marvel Comics, they don't even try to make these comics popular, surely, they make cartoons, movies and other crap about the characters, but they don't make popular the comicbooks as comicbooks, I am happy with Warner because they surely have done stuff to make their comics popular by being comics.

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5 Comments

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feebadger

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Edited By feebadger

Interesting stuff, Deadcool.

I think with Supermans' powers though, these were in a constant state of flux and not just because of other media. Superman, the character was in a constant state of flux through the first few decades of his existence. It was originally stated that ALL Kryptonians had super powers that eventuated once they 'came of age' (Action Comics # 1). This changed a number of times until DC settled on the 'red sun/yellow sun' theory of Supermans' powers. Though Supermans' flight was most certainly introduced by the Fleischers in their animated series, i don't think there was much doubt that the concept would have eventually been introduced into the comics. After flight was introduced into the comic proper, over the next couple of years, up until around 1947, Supermans speed and ability to fly increased in leaps and bounds anyway, evolving from being able to leap 1 8th of a mile to building an entire underground city in only a matter of seconds (Superman # 48). With this level of forced advancement, primarily to keep up with the ever adventurous adventures being written for the Man Of Steel, i think that flight would have occurred no matter what the outside influence.

Just for the record, the Superman radio show was responsible for a lot of contributions, but Lois Lane (appearing in Action Comics 1) was not one of them and, if you believe the hardcore historians, Jimmy Olsen actually made his unnamed first appearance two years before the radio show in Action Comics 6 (radio most certainly named him though).

I think all media, all genres are influenced by the world around them and by other media, even i that media is just the news. Movies influence comics as comic books currently have a huge influence on the movie industry. I think that is primarily a good thing as it brings people who might not otherwise enjoy certain media to it and vice versa. The Iron Man movies are a great example of this. Even to me, who has read comics his whole life, i had a whole new appreciation for Iron Man after that movie came out and it drove me back into reading Iron Mans' previous and current adventures. Just like with the Superman animated series and the radio show, i feel that the movie improved on the Iron Man mythology and perfected the character of Tony Stark in a way a lot of comic writers had struggled to do. Now, comic books are influencing the way that movies are made and as we have seen with the Avengers movie, the success of this is pretty astounding. That can only be good for the comic industry in my opinion. The comic books are still the comic books, nothing will change that and you either love them or you don't. I don't think it is the outside medias purpose to promote or reinforce the comic industry, i think it just helps at times to bring an influx of new readers in and to give a new spin on established ideas. Sure, the fads will come and go, but the true and the faithful will still be reading and will weather the low points until the next high comes and usually, that high will come from an outside source injecting new life into an old medium.

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Deadcool

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Edited By Deadcool

@feebadger said:

Interesting stuff, Deadcool.

Thank you, and thanks for the comment.

I think with Supermans' powers though, these were in a constant state of flux and not just because of other media. Superman, the character was in a constant state of flux through the first few decades of his existence. It was originally stated that ALL Kryptonians had super powers that eventuated once they 'came of age' (Action Comics # 1). This changed a number of times until DC settled on the 'red sun/yellow sun' theory of Supermans' powers. Though Supermans' flight was most certainly introduced by the Fleischers in their animated series, i don't think there was much doubt that the concept would have eventually been introduced into the comics. After flight was introduced into the comic proper, over the next couple of years, up until around 1947, Supermans speed and ability to fly increased in leaps and bounds anyway, evolving from being able to leap 1 8th of a mile to building an entire underground city in only a matter of seconds (Superman # 48). With this level of forced advancement, primarily to keep up with the ever adventurous adventures being written for the Man Of Steel, i think that flight would have occurred no matter what the outside influence.

Oh well, maybe...

Just for the record, the Superman radio show was responsible for a lot of contributions, but Lois Lane (appearing in Action Comics 1) was not one of them and, if you believe the hardcore historians, Jimmy Olsen actually made his unnamed first appearance two years before the radio show in Action Comics 6 (radio most certainly named him though).

I was unsure if Lois Laine appeared in the radio or the comicbook, I remembered from my source that some characters from the Daily Planet had appeared before in the radio than in comics, but I was too lazy to find and re-read my original source again and not checking Comic Vine before posting, I will edit that mistake from my blog.

I think all media, all genres are influenced by the world around them and by other media, even i that media is just the news. Movies influence comics as comic books currently have a huge influence on the movie industry. I think that is primarily a good thing as it brings people who might not otherwise enjoy certain media to it and vice versa. The Iron Man movies are a great example of this. Even to me, who has read comics his whole life, i had a whole new appreciation for Iron Man after that movie came out and it drove me back into reading Iron Mans' previous and current adventures. Just like with the Superman animated series and the radio show, i feel that the movie improved on the Iron Man mythology and perfected the character of Tony Stark in a way a lot of comic writers had struggled to do. Now, comic books are influencing the way that movies are made and as we have seen with the Avengers movie, the success of this is pretty astounding. That can only be good for the comic industry in my opinion. The comic books are still the comic books, nothing will change that and you either love them or you don't. I don't think it is the outside medias purpose to promote or reinforce the comic industry, i think it just helps at times to bring an influx of new readers in and to give a new spin on established ideas. Sure, the fads will come and go, but the true and the faithful will still be reading and will weather the low points until the next high comes and usually, that high will come from an outside source injecting new life into an old medium.

Well, media is just what society wants, inside one society we would have different kind of media, so, if the society controls all media, then the media interact with each other, books became movies, comicbooks became cartoons, etc.

So yeah, I am agree with you. And yeah, I loved what they did with Iron Man because the movie, but, in my opinion, comicbooks are efficient and currently powerful enough to became popular and good without needing the other media in certain things, for example we didn't need a Afroamerica Nick Fury in Marvel Universe 616, we have an Afroamerican Nick Fury in the Ultimate Universe 1610, they made that change just because the movie, not to make another character more interesting, not to make an awesome storyline, they did it to bring the Movie into comics, so people would buy it just because that.

We have Disney, one of the most powerful companies in the world, they can make something to promote the comics, like selling them in Disneyland, making trailers on TV about those comics like Warner does.

Warner is currently doing his best to make his comic readable for new people, and they don't change their comics just because the movie, for example, Batman does not have Morgan Freeman working for him in comics, but I saw something cool in Batman issue number 10, and it was Batman gliding with his cape just like he does in Nolan's Batman movies, that was a cool change (because the cape just like that is dumb, but now is something useful), that was a necessary change inspired by the movies, that is what I wanted to say with this blog.

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KainScion

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i liked the mini series, until the last page. WTF!! was my reaction. thats when it hit me: they want to kill nick fury and replace him with the black knock-off. its bad enough they only show ult nick fury in the movies, tv shows now they replace him with this knock-off. the character is cool on so many levels. hes like batman with an eye patch. from what ive seen in secret warriors hes got mad prep skills. if they kill him off dum dum better represent instead of this green behind the gills noob.

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akawiccan

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Edited By akawiccan

It was cool that Chloe Sullivan was introduced into the comic books. To bad she was (maybe) erased from history by the New 52. But great blog anyway! :)

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Deadcool

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Edited By Deadcool

@JimmyOlsen1: Thanks :D