"What WAS Speedball’s storytelling engine, Bill? For me he was all about the silly/midly funny visuals, and not much else. What was so unique about the character, apart from the “he bounces!” thing? Because being bouncy isn’t much of a storytelling engine."

Exactly. Speedball really had nothing to him. He was one of the crappier characters ever IMO. Exactly because he didn't have any storytelling engine (plus the fact that he's an annoying kid in a horrible costume and he's named after a drug coctail.....). Penance (whether you like him or not,and I know you don't) has a storytelling engine. I don't like emo, and I don't like Penance but I can see him for what he is - a better character than Speedball ever was.

Without Miller and "the Brits", the grim and gritty era would have never started and the boom would have been totally different. Also, the creators that are now in comics, who were heavily inspired by those books... who knows where they would be. Probably somewhere else.

And the Brits! Always blame the Brits!

Others have already covered this, but I'm an opinionated and overly talkative geek, so here we go:

The story-telling angines are not broken. Some people made stiories with them that you didn't like. The engine is still there. The basic skeleton of Speedball's engine? Teenager who's life is already complicated gets superpowers, is thrust into a life of heroism, and just to ice the cake, the locals think he's a monster (*COUGHspidermanCOUGH*)... that engine still exists, works well and is in regular use. Ironically, I'd suggest Blue Beetle.

Also, what Ian said about whether Ditko could give a monkey's about what people do with Speedball? I'd like to second that.

And I notice you're still not prepared to address the issue of whether the reworkings you happen to like were wrong too. Which is the crux of this issue, really: the whole point of these shared-universe-ongoing-serial stories is that people invent toys that other people get to play with. Which is how we end up with brilliant comics like Watchmen, Swamp Thing, DKR, Animal Man, etc, etc... all of which are radical departures from the originals.

Only one mainstream Ditko creation has survived character assassination

I think, Dr. Strange also has not been character assassinated.

Yet.

But then, seeing that he stars in New Avengers now, we probably find out pretty soon that he is a Skrull, then the real Dr. Strange reappears, turns all grim and gritty about being locked into a closet for the last thirty years and finally joins the Skrull Kill Krew. But not before taking his sweet revenge with the whole MU because nobody came looking for him. My money is on this being a major crossover running for about a year.

"Over the years I’ve grown to appreciate such geniuses such as Ditko. It’s a shame that Stan Lee gets all the glory. "
One thing you have to remember though is that Stan wanted and had the oppurtunity to get the glory. If Jack stayed with Marvel he might have been the art director until the day he died. If Ditko wanted to he could be out there talking about Spider-Man until he was blue in the face.

Which brings me back to Ditko and the same thing I have said pretty much every day this past week. Ditko (Probably) doesn't care what happened to Speedball. Speedball is a character he created and worked on for a few issues. He then went on to the next thing. Its not HIS characters, its the publishers. Ditko (I think) would be the first to admit that). I think its a testament to and reverence for his skill that his characters are still used at all.

I guess I just have to disagree with you there. I think it would make less sense for the people to go "oh, you're a super-hero, it wasn't your fault", and let him go. Of course people are going to blame him, if he didn't rush in...

Which brings me to the point that someone else made about him not being responsible. Of course you and I know that, but he feels responsible. It doesn't matter what happened, it matters what the character thinks happened. Granted we're not used to such skewed perspectives for our heroes, but thats how he feels.

[quote] Not only would the entire socio-political and scientific spectrum be changed, but the value system would be different because of the honest goodness of all these heroes. So why can’t some of that be reflected in the stories for once? It’s possible to hold up a mirror to our society and still tell a story set in a world that’s not the same as our own. [quote]
While I would love to see that in action more than anyone that is something that the Marvel universe is not and never has been. Its a world full of people that are afraid and who are happy to have the government send giant robots after people that are different. Like I said, its basically the real world. And its already a mirror into a world that isn't our own... I mean what was Stamford and SRA if not commentary on 9/11 and our eroding civil liberties.

Speedball was a great character and had his time in the spotlight but im sorry if i want to see Robbie Baldwin sell a few comics which is more than he was doing as Speedball. Warren Ellis is doing an amazing job with him and i don’t really understand how you can say that there are no good stories for Penance when they have yet to finish the first story arc. And also i thought this was “365 reasons to love comics” not “365 reasons to love comics in the 90’s”

I'd rather Robbie sell no comics and have good stories written about him than sell a ton of comics and be sucky. Quality has nothing to do with sales.

Ellis' Thunderbolts is a pretty good comics-- it's the only ongoing I'm buying regularly from Marvel, if that means anything-- and he's clearly doing what he can with Penance, but it's just a bad concept.

Also, I don't know where this "in the 90's" thing is coming from. Care to explain?

And I *do* like Marvel Adventures. Especially the ones written by Jeff Parker. They're good.

Indeed.

I love the 60's Batman TV show and I love Batman Begins.
I enjoy some of the silly Batman stories of old, and I loved The Killing Joke.

Well put!
I hear ya and am with you on this!
One could argue that Vertigo's Shade has very lttle to do with Ditko's Shade the Changing Man. So it was a transgression on another of his character in a way.

I too liked Speedball and I too am tired of seeing every fun or silly super-heroes turned dark or murderous or even murdered (!). Are Dan Slott and Jeff Parker the only comic book writers who don't need to make everything dark and violent to tell a good story?

I am probably just an old fart but I wish Super-heroes could be fun once in a while, and not just in the kid-friendly oriented comic book version of animated series (althought Puckett's version of animated Batman was the best Batman comic book for the longuest time!). Do you really need to wack a guy (in the most violent way possible of course) or make him gay (not that there's anything wrong with that!) to sell comic books?

I have nothing against dark comic books. I liked Millar's WANTED, Moore's WATCHMEN, and other dark, serious, mature stories. But I also like variety, in genres and styles.

Can't DC make a little room a non-homicidal Max Lord, A fun cute couple like Ralph and Sue, a sweet whitebread Mary Marvel, a slightly overweight bwahahaha-sprouting Blue Beetle, a Bart Simpson-inspired Bart Allen/Impulse, etc. among a sea of serious dark and violent characters???

One of Stan Lee's greatest contribution to the genre was not co-creating most of the Marvel universe. It was the auto-derision of himself and his characters, the sense of humor, the fun and occasional ineptitude of the Marvel Super-heroes (back when every super-heroes at DC were played straight if not stiff). That's what made Marvel cooler that DC back then, it was that nothing was taken seriously (except continuity!).

Why can't we have both?

David Wynne:

…really? You REALLY don’t get how a fun, nay silly, character patently aimed at a younger audience, would be unpopular in the era that gave us Punisher’s Armoury, and made megastars of the Image founders?

Of course I do. I was being a touch sarcastic there, though my point stands. The really silly creations back then were the grim-and-gritty 'roided-up Image-y beasts that became massively popular. Unfortunately, they were the bad kind of silly.

I’ve really enjoyed Ditko week because it’s covered some of my all time favourite comics, but the constant bellyaching about how the characters have been “mistreated” has frankly got right on my wick. These are FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. A good comic is a good comic, and no matter what anybody else does later on with characters or ideas from that comic, it’s still a good comic. It doesn’t change. The only thing that can be effected is your perception of it, and that only happens if you let it.

Yeah, I know. For years, I fought against the fanboys who bought comics because of the characters, not because of the creators or the story, and who acted like they were real people. And I get that I'm slipped a bit into that mentality with some of these Reason posts, but I kinda have to, because of the format. But the "mistreated the characters" bit is really shorthand for "undermined the core concept and destroyed valuable potential." There was a storytelling engine, and they broke it in favor of a worse one.

I see potential in so many comics and characters, and it isn't being realized. Instead, they're being killed off or suffering from the same story retreaded over and over. That's not the proper way to handle a comics character that can still give you good stories if done well. The story execution isn't living up to the inherent potential.

Ian:

Emo is for suburban kids whose parents fight a lot, calling a character that killed thousands ‘emo’ ignores and belittles the real drama that could be there.

You are confusing the fantastic with the dramatic. To abandon the real world entirely leads to thin, two-dimensional stories. Basically DC in the silver-age.

Except, of course, he didn't kill thousands. Nitro did. He was fighting bad guys, like all heroes, and things went really badly.

You actually explained the concept of Penance in a way that made me see some story potential, but I still like Speedball better. Ha.

And I see "realism" in superhero comics defined as "like the real world in which the readers live," but that's not true. Realism would be actually figuring out how the world in which the superheroes works, and treating it as if it were real. Honestly, crazy stuff like superheroes and super-villains and constant alien invasions and nigh-apocalypses and all the mad stuff and weird science that goes on in the Marvel Universe would make it completely unrecognizable to our world. Not only would the entire socio-political and scientific spectrum be changed, but the value system would be different because of the honest goodness of all these heroes. So why can't some of that be reflected in the stories for once? It's possible to hold up a mirror to our society and still tell a story set in a world that's not the same as our own.

No, I'm advocating mixing them properly. As opposed to gutting the fantastic and replacing it with the melodramatic.

"You can be both “better than real life” and take inspiration from the real world."

Would that Marvel realized that.

Who gives two fucks about real life. This is the Marvel Universe. They have unstable molecules, Asgardian gods, and Captain fucking America. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that it be better than real life once in a while"

You are confusing the fantastic with the dramatic. To abandon the real world entirely leads to thin, two-dimensional stories. Basically DC in the silver-age.

You can be both "better than real life" and take inspiration from the real world.