Y’know the nice thing about editing at Marvel? You can force people that you work with to ask you questions that’ll prompt rants. For instance:
FRED VAN LENTE! The man’s busy. He’s writing MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN, MARVEL ADVENTURES IRON MAN, WOLVERINE FIRST CLASS, POWER PACK DAY ONE, and co-writing INCREDIBLE HERCULES with Greg Pak. Plus, he’s working on a really really good mini that I can’t tell you about (but it’s REALLY good), and he does other stuff outside of Marvel. I also understand he sleeps 14 minutes per day.
Fred’s question (that I forced him to ask):
WHY IS MAGIC IN COMICS SO BAD?
Ah! So glad I made you ask, Fred!
Magic is, in essence, stupid. I think Jerry Seinfeld was the one to say that the basic concept of the magician is, “Here’s a quarter. Now it’s gone. You’re a jerk.”
You’re asking me to invest in what happens to characters. How they get out of jams, how they handle adversity. How’s giving undefined/sometimes omnipotent/sometimes weak powers to someone interesting?
I’m mad now. So mad that I’m gonna write a letter to an imaginary person. ‘scuse me:
Dear Dr. Strange,
Howdy.
I hate you.
It’s not your fault. You’re imaginary. But you kinda personify the suckage of magic. Sometimes, you can traverse the Nether Realms (or Netherlands, I can’t remember) and you do that blue haunty thing that only little kids and EVERY villain can see, and you shoot bolts of…whatever. And sometimes you can heal the sick and sometimes you can go into space and sometimes you teleport and sometimes you…THAT’S IT! PICK POWERS!!!!!!! No more’a this arbitrary sometimes-I-can’t-do-certain-things garbage. Be really magical or don’t.
Garden variety example of you: Inexplicably, you’re fighting someone, even though you could conjure up 800,000 demons to beat the snot out of…Batroc the Leaper (or whoever). Something bad happens (somebody gets hurt, a villain gets away, they run out of ice cream), and another hero jumps in. The following exchange happens:
HERO: Dr. Strange! (Bad Thing) just took place! Use your magic to solve this arbitrary quandary!
DR. STRANGE: You fool! Magic doesn’t work that way!
HERO: It doesn’t?
DR. STRANGE: Of course not. Now, let me teleport us downstairs so that we can get a taxi.
HERO: Wait…if you can teleport us downstairs, why can’t you take us where we need to—
DR. STRANGE: Ssh. Ssh. I’m meditating.
Rashem frashem Dr. Strange-Harry Potter-The Prestige-Golden Compass-Lord of the Rings-blabbity-blah.
Yup This is true. There needs to be at least some rules set down so that magic can't make lazy storytelling.
Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2008-01-23 20:26:28
But didn't anybody tell you? Joe Quesada's motto is "It's magic, we don't have to explain it!"? That is what makes One More Day/Brand New Day such a "wonderful" story! *oozing with sarcasm here*
-LOTRKing
Posted by LOTRKing on 2008-01-24 11:01:46
Don't Hate on the sorcerer supreme!
Posted by Seru1 on 2008-01-24 20:22:54
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About this blog: By day, he’s a mild-mannered comic book editor! By night, he’s an obsessive sports fan!
By early morning, he drinks coffee and then runs! He’s Nathan Cosby, and he has thoughts about things.
This is them.
About the author: When Associate Editor Nathan Cosby is not thinking about football, he edits Marvel’s All-Ages books, including the Marvel Adventures line (Spidey, FF, Avengers, Super Heroes), X-Men and Wolverine First Class, Franklin Richards, Mini Marvels, and Power Pack, works on the Marvel Illustrated and Stephen King books, does the Custom Comics, and runs Super Hero Squad. There’s like 20 other things he does, but he’s bored with typing this.
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