DAVID YURKOVICH: WHY DON'T HEROES AGE?

[MattBrady]

Top Shelf has recently released Less Than Heroes by David Yurkovich, collecting his unique super hero work from Threshold and other sources.

Yurkovich’s heroes are all too human, each with hang-ups, issues, and complexities that make Peter Parker’s trouble paying the rent look like…well, a kids’ comic book.

The following essay comes from Less Than Heroes.

Why Don't Heroes Age?

“Things do not get better by being left alone.”

Winston Churchill

As a long-time fan of comics in general, and specifically of the Silver- and Bronze-age of comics, I’m often floored when, while reading a circa 1970s issue of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man or Marvel Two-in-One, I stumble across a deliberate pop culture reference. You know, Spidey socks a villain in the nose and says, for example, “Now you know how Gabe Kaplan felt when Welcome Back Kotter was cancelled,” or when Iron Man cries out, “I’m as tanked as Billy Carter,” (or words to that effect). What floors me about such dialogue is not so much who is saying it but what is being said. Pop culture references place characters in a given time period, causing anal-retentive readers like yours truly to question their so-called agelessness.

By ageless, I am referring to the fact that comic book heroes, villains, and supporting cast members seldom age, or, if they do, they age contrary to “real” time. For example, DC’s Batman was introduced to the comics-reading public in 1939 by Bob Kane. Were Batman to have aged “normally,” assuming he was 20 years of age upon first donning the black and gray bat suit, he’d be a youthful 85 years old today. Another example is, of course, Spider-Man. When the series debuted in 1962, Peter Parker was a timid high school student who, approximately 16 years later graduated college. In real time, Peter would be approaching 60 years of age, as would Flash, Mary Jane, and his other chums. One final example is the Fantastic Four. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby established that two members of the famed quartet (Reed Richards and Ben Grimm) had served in the armed forces during World War II. Assuming both were 18 years old and enlisted in 1942, they would each be pushing 80 today...

Click here for the full essay.

Look for more with Yurkovich later this week.

[pmpknface]

OOooooooooo MAN! I'm not even gonna touch this one. If I go off on my opinions on this topic I'll be here typing all night.

Here's just a few points:

I think that generally in the Marvel Universe 5 of our "real" years = 1 Marvel year.

Also don't forget THE SAVAGE DARAGON which, if I'm not mistaken, moves in real time.

[algertman]

in truth, i've always hated the "let them age" argument. How about not let them age, let them hit thier mid-thirties and just stay there, forever in Hyper-Time. Do you honestly think anyone else would be a better BatMan than Bruce Wayne? Should we let SuperMan just grow old and die? Absolutly not. Alternate reality tales are just fine by me. Spider-girl, Kingdom Come, and others are fine example of Alternate realities in comics. But there are charectors who can get around aging, Captain America, DC Speedsters, AlanScott. Then those who don't, mainly being Punisher. But hey James Bond technically never ages. So why should i care if som someone flying in Spandex never does.

[AlexLothos]

This is a tough subject... I doubt I'd really like the adventures of the 80 year old Batman, but I'd like characters to age a bit more realistically too. This argument won't mean too much for the big two, but a good thing for us in the small press to consider.

[mdhprime]

Originally posted by pmpknface


Here's just a few points:

I think that generally in the Marvel Universe 5 of our "real" years = 1 Marvel year.

Along the lines of what you are saying, I always thought that the various comics universes were time compressed, meaning exactly what you stated; many "real" years equals one "Marvel/DC/etc." year. I also don't mind the referrences to pop culture just because they mark a certain period in "real-time". It doesn't mean that the same referrence has to mark the same period in a comics universe.

Oh well.....probably said too much on this subject already.

[Ace]

If a comic comes out everyday, or maybe ever week, then characters can age fairly regularly. If you can have a six issue story, that last six months, and only covers the span of two days, well, how are you supposed to make your characters age six months. It's an absurd concept. Age them when it makes sense to age them in the story. Don't force it.

[Mario Gully]

I'm not tring to sell myself here but I always hated the way that most comicbook charaters don't age. I understand that if you have a frew charaters that are ageless or rather age very slowly but not all charaters have to. Most don't age. Crazy to me. In my humble opinion some of Marvel's charaters should age and some of them shouldn't. I don't really care who. And no crossovers in between to save us all from a comicbook paradox. That's one reason why I started my man comicbook charater at the age of eight years old. I know there can't be eight year old Peter Parkers and Clark Kents running around but it would be nice to see a thirty year old turn forty and stay that way everynow and then.


My 2 cents.

[video or dvd]

I'm not sure why everyone treats this as a comic book-specific phenomenon. Any fictional character in any medium isn’t going to be subject to aging at a real world rate.

Why restrict yourself to aging characters at a certain pace? That seems unnecessarily constrictive to me. Move time along or keep it still, whichever you need to do to tell a good story.

[algertman]

like i said, Hyper-Time

i win

[Randy A]

I think the guy who wrote this article needs to stop reading new books, and keep reading the old ones. It's odvious thats what he's saying here.

here is an easy way to sum up the whole article: "OLD STUFF GOOD, NEW STUFF BAD"

[Chris1]

Agree with this guy on the Spider-Man 9/11 story. While I'm sure it was well-intentioned, its hard to take a story seriously when you see people like Doctor Octupus (or whatever villian it was) crying over the tragedy. Still, if it wasn't the fact that they showed the villians feeling sad, I'd be ok with the book.

As for the whole thing with heroes not aging, so what? Last I checked, if somebody wants to write a story about an old Batman or Spider-Man, they're free to do so. Sure, it might fall under Elseworlds or "The End" but so what? Who cares if the monthly books show them not aging? Remember: They're comics!

[PrimeOp]

The non-aging thing has never bothered me. Quite a few older comics refer to the events in the last issue as happening a few weeks ago, a few days ago or even yesterday. Most continuing storylines only take place in the span of a few days. The comics that take place after them usually take place a short time after after these events. If comics happened in real time, then every comic book would have to happen one month apart or only 12 of the stories could happen in the same year in some odd configuration. If comics happened like that, we'd probably be asking, "Hey, don't they fight crime the rest of the year? What happened to those stories? That's just weird!"

I guess all comics should be like the Highlander. It was a documentary and happens in real time. Everybody knows this.

[Cray_ws]

I don't think its a matter of editoral reasoning for Marvel ore DC when it comes to aging. I think its purely a marketing decision. Keeping the characters age in status quo helps maintain liscense oppurtunities. Superman is clearly not marketable to kids at 80 yearrs old man with powers.

As much as we wish it was a editoral decision to keep Superman's age at 30something. It was never a debate and likely never will be. It was all about money and still is.


With that being said I always felt that Superman could age or his surroundings could age and still be marketable. I also think Superman can have heir or could've if the original creators agreed to such a thing.

I do like idea of Flash and Green Lantern passing their respective mantles on to new people. This would help legitimize the stories and give comics that follow a continuity a shot in the arm in terms of respect.

I could do with characters not aging such as immortality, but I think it would go a long way in seeing if a writer can show some growth by aging the surroundings and supporting characters.

It can be done, but the question is would the publishers be willing to take a risk in their lisense oppurtunituies for sake of editoral value?

Clearly after 40 years of publishing Marvel and DC has shown their answer......money.

[Jeff-2]

The most distressing thing I find about the whole heroes not ageing senario is that when I started reading comics I was way younger than the X-Men and Teen Titans - now I am at least ten years older than they are. This is not good!

[KyleV]

Nothing bothers me more than when someone writes an essay about something that isn't really an issue.

Are there people out there petitioning Marvel and DC to have their characters live in real time?

Why don't superheroes age? Because they don't. There you go.

[Charlesknight]

The article is flawed in a number of ways but I will just pick one - he talks about the use of crisis and Zero hour - both of which were not aimed at addressing any aging problem within the DCU - yes it did address SOME age issues but they were not the primary purpose of those comics.

In addition - I agree with the previous post - who is this an issue for ?

[jasinmartin]

The new millennium ought to usher in new ideas, new characters, and a sense of realism with regard to time and age.

Bingo. I agree, and here’s why…

I think, it’s not really about aging so much as character growth. By restricting characters ability to age, (as you mentioned) it restricts the ability for stories to grow. There’s a real wealth of story potential that is lost in constantly retrofitting, or undoing events. I understand the reason this happens is corporate, but it’s still not necessary. All one needs to do is create a character, a universe, and tell it’s story through time, and it doesn’t have to be real time, but it should have progress. Then once the story is told, you are free to start it over again, in a new contemporary fashion, or continue it in whatever manner suits it the best. Similar to the Ultimate line at it’s conception. I remember being initially excited at the possibility that with the Ultimate line finding success, Marvel could now allow creators to move the original universe forward to it’s natural end (over time), and we'd be left with the Ultimate universe to eventually do the same. Just think of the great stories that could be told?! But the Ultimate doesn’t currently show much adherence to it’s initial vision (no doubt, at least in part, to it’s commercial success).

I’d argue, though, that commercial success is exactly the reason why you WANT to set stories in time. Again, look at the Ultimate line and how successful it was. Sure a lot of that has to do with the excitement of restarting epic characters and stories, but I’m sure that a big part of their appeal is their contemporary status. I'm not discounting the great writing the books have as a huge part of their appeal, but arguing the writing is so popular because of it's more real world approach. Another great example is the classic Byrne/Claremont run on X-Men. When they took that book in their direction, it brought in comic readership that has yet to be rivaled. For a while those books truly felt like they were moving an epic story along, forward through time. Then, well, X-Men became a franchise and license giant, and you lost all of your forward movement and got people back from the dead and endless resets. One could argue that the X-Men are still very popular today despite this, but they aren't quite the juggernaut they once were. I bet if you look at classic runs, and stories, most deal with character and story growth.

Of course that's just the opinion of some dude writing a book called "Super Real", so I might be biased when it comes to realism and comics

[Tinnitus Tim]

On this subject, I'm kinda torn.
On one hand I like the agelessness of the stories and characters.
But on the other hand, making the characters grow older can give good story possibiliities. For example, I kinda dig Batman Beyond just for the novelty of it and.
Why not create a line like Ultimate where the characters and universes evolve and age. It could give us some fine books!

[algertman]

I personally think this some wierd "Wizard" conspiracy thoery so Wolverine can be the only superhero in exsistence

or you know, writers couild give a shit and turn out decent stories

[arcee]

While I agree with many points raised by the author, I also disagree with his opinion on certain things.

For example: the appearance of superheroes and the 9/11 tragedy. If I'm to follow this author's logic then the appearance of Golden Age Heroes in WW II (Cap hitting Hitler, etc,) afterwards solving street crimes was wrong.

I personally liked Dennis O'Neil's take (from the Question run) that creators that drew heroes fighting Nazi helped win the war. Anybody who read that comic (I'm referring to) knows what I mean.

Immortal heroes: If I remember Miller's introduction in the TPB of Batman: Dark Knight Returns, part of the inspiration for writing the story came from his lack of desire to acknowledge that HE was aging or equal to the age of Batman. Which sparked the 'What if' that led to the story.

My point: We all have (or will) experience the same thing as time goes by and it is we who should let go. We are the problem, not the characters and it stems from selfishness. The fact that WE are being pushed out of the 'sandbox' so to speak because we've outgrown it (we refuse to acknowledge the fact) and that we've overstayed our welcome.

That's not easy ... admiting you're too old for something you've loved doing (i.e reading) most of your life.

But frankly, be it because of marketing reasons or whatever, our childhood heroes should always be flexible and adjust to the times (current and future) and do whatever they can to exist for the next generation. Regardless of how we feel or opine they should be.

[jerkyboy]

About the 9/11 issue of ASM#36:

As a NYer, and one who avoided being there around that moment due to waking up late, I initially thought doing the issue was a good idea. But once I bought it I realized it was a big mistake. There comes a point where fantasy and reality just should not mix. Having Doctor Doom weeping is woefully out of character for him. What is 3000 deaths for someone who has tried numerous times to enslave the entire planet? Ditto for Magneto. Kingpin, I could actually accept. But the stupidest thing JMS did was put Juggernaut there. He and Black Tom Cassidy set off a bomb at the WTC in the Spider-Man/X-Force crossover by McFarlane and Liefeld. And if I remember correctly, they toppled one of the towers as a result. I dont recall any anguish over that action either. So what was Juggernaut thinking there - "Damn, looks like Al Queda did a better job than I did"??


Some of you will retort "That was fiction, 9/11 was reality". But that's the point. Super-hero comic books are works of fiction, and they should remain that way. The laws of our world do not necessarily need to correlate with their imaginary world. And mixing that element of harsh reality with fiction caused more problems than it solved. I still haven't seen an explanation for why the FF or the Avengers did not either prevernt the attack, or save everyone they could at least. I don't really expect one either, since the event should not have occurred in continuity to begin with.

[mst3kfan]

Aging Redux

The idea of heroes who age is one that I’ve thought of often, which is largely why I wrote the essay Why Don’t Heroes Age? It’s an op/ed piece—an opinion/editorial. It was not written to sway readers, fans, or the Marve/DC powers that be. It makes no difference to me whether anyone agrees, disagrees, or is indifferent to these opinions. They are merely my thoughts on the subject, nothing more, nothing less. Matt Brady, the administrator of this forum and all-around nice guy, approached Top Shelf and me about running the essay on newsarama because he felt it was “wildly provocative” and would “serve as a great introduction to my thought and approach” toward comics and the super-hero archetype, and we were quite happy with the idea. The essay is not intended to be a dictum on the genre; mine is not a "my way or the highway" philosophy. This is merely a collection of my thoughts about comics, including the avenues that exist regarding superheroes and aging (and certainly the short list of possibilities I drafted is by no means exhaustive—it is merely the tip of an iceberg of possibilities).

KyleV stated, “Nothing bothers me more than when someone writes an essay about something that isn't really an issue.” Is it "an issue" only if an arbitrary number of persons (eg, 50, 500, 5000) voice similar thoughts? The answer is "no." An “issue” is defined as a point or matter of discussion. If one has a thought or thoughts regarding a subject, by definition it is "an issue.”

Again, it matters not to me if you agree, disagree, are indifferent, or are bothered by these thoughts. "It's just, like, my opinion, man," to paraphrase Jeff Bridges from The Big Lebowski. And no, I don’t imagine there are people “petitioning Marvel and DC to have their characters live in real time.” The point is, we’re all going to be dead one day, and probably long before we die we'll stop reading comic books. One day the super-hero genre (assuming it survives) will have an entirely new crop of young readers. If, in 2024, a 10-year-old child is opening his or her first comic and being exposed to the Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, or other “universe” contained within those pages—if this small person is tabula rasa vis-à-vis comic books, is it going to matter one scintilla if it’s Ben Grimm or if it's one of Grimm’s (ala Earth X) offspring who’s calling himself “The Thing.” I sorta-kinda doubt it.

The fact is I love this genre. Yes, I’m admittedly slanted toward the Marvel comics of yesterday, but I still enjoy reading contemporary tales of masked heroes (The Avengers, Bruce Jones’ Hulk, Sean McKeever's Inhumans, and Jim Starlin’s [brief] run on Thanos being but a few recent examples).

I’m pleased that my little “aging” essay has struck a chord. Lord knows there are far more important concerns in the world we live in, but it's obvious that many readers’ (like myself) have strong feelings regarding this subject, and what a perfect forum in which to present them.

David Yurkovich
Los Angeles, California
www.sleepinggiantcomics.com

[jerkyboy]

Originally posted by arcee
While I agree with many points raised by the author, I also disagree with his opinion on certain things.

For example: the appearance of superheroes and the 9/11 tragedy. If I'm to follow this author's logic then the appearance of Golden Age Heroes in WW II (Cap hitting Hitler, etc,) afterwards solving street crimes was wrong.

That's an interesting point. But for one I don't think we'll ever see a "Cap punching Osama" cover since the comic buying public is not what it once was. Kids of the 40's ate that stuff up, and with good reason - WWII was a "glorious" war. And those comics were inspirational. But nowadays, kids don't really read comics anymore, thanks to poor distribution and selfish fanboy mentalities (which the author here addresses), not to mention the fact that we have not fought a "glorious" war since WWII.

[OcCaM]

As someone else said in a 12 month span a comic book can have like 2 6 issue story arcs. So, he/she could age maybe a few weeks a year our time.

This really is a case of someone else having too much time on their hands.

I have a harder time suspending my disbelief on characters with power levels of the Hulk or Superman.

Seriously, these are superheroes, why is this even an issue?

Get over it.

Go think about world peace or something worth the effort.

Sheesh!

[mst3kfan]

Originally posted by OcCaM
Seriously, these are superheroes, why is this even an issue?
Go think about world peace or something worth the effort.

oCcAM:

As formerly explained, it's an op/ed piece. Like your own thoughts, it's an opinion, nothing more and nothing less.

I do think about world peace, but only on weekends.

David Yurkovich
Venice, California
http://www.sleepinggiantcomics.com