That’s the entire gripe: They were created, not earned.

Take Cable & Deadpool for example. When they were introduced, they were written as having a long and established history of covert & military opps. So, why were they never seen in the 40 year history of the books? Don’t give me any real-world answers like “because they were just made up last week”, this is the comics world we’re talking about. If they had been doing it for so long at such a high level, Why haven’t they been commandeered by SHIELD? Fury never took “no” for an answer. If they were the best, as they are written to be, he’d have forced them onto his team or out of the business. If the latter happened, they’d NEVER have been allowed to operate as they have in the books.

Let’s say they were able to remain hidden in their covet opps roles. For 40 years. While being the absolute best at it. They somehow managed to keep their identity a secret from every government on the planet. That, in turn, helped keep them hidden from SHIELD. The character just became the single most effective spy in history. All this was done while working with vast ammounts of people, all of whom were able to keep his secret. (Of course, if NO ONE knew about them, how would they get work?) Having worked so diligently to to stay hidden, there is absolutely NO reason for them to come out of hiding and join a relatively public team.

No, not every character needs to appear as a rookie. to have them apear as grizzled veterans, with all the skill, history, and connections that go along with it, is ludricous. With the way everything in comics is connected, it’s just not believable.

I could go on and write a novella on the myriad of reasons this is bad writing. It all comes down to one thing: the writer fell in love with his own creation and shoved it down our throats.

P Y G M A L I O N

Man, that was a nerdy post.

You say you want to ignore the real world reasons for characters already being good, then fine.
Just don’t join in on a discussion about it, because you’re arguing from an impossible perspective.

The current Batman is arguably a Frank Miller creation, much as the Deadpool we have now isn’t Rob Liefeld’s and John Henry Irons isn’t Louise Simonson’s.

Except perhaps for Batman, those characters were essentially defined by others who just happened not to be their original creators.

I must also note that for all his defeats (and, frankly, Wolverine is NOT a character that one should expect to perform particularly well in combat to begin with) Wolverine practically _created_ the expression “the best there is”.

It just happens that part of his trademark maneuver is to be punched a lot and recover out of utter narcisism/reader escapism…

Let’s leave it at this: We don’t agree with the other’s defination of how characters we like are being used.

Sure it’s been done in The Avengers. It’s been done everywhere. It’s almost never done well, and that’s the point here. Without the publisher’s & fan magazine’s (Wizard) help pushing the characters, they quickly face into the background as soon as the writer leaves the book. Without someone telling them what to think, the fanboys will cimpletely ignore the character.

Take Rage for example. Larry Hama was not the “favored son” of the hypers, so Rage didn’t get the hype. BUT… rage isnt a PYG character, he was a pet. Big difference. The hype principle still applies, though. With the propaganda machine behind him, Rage could have ended up more powerful than The Thing. Thank goodness this didn’t happen.

SCAVENGER: You’re either missing or ignoring a major point. Their backstories don’t hold water.

To use you Clooney example, he wasn’t an overnight success. Like anyone else, nobody cared about him until he had his big hit (E.R.). Once he finally hit the spotlight, his story can be traced. We’ve all seen the clips of his role in “Facts Of Life”. While his fame is great, it was earned over time, by paying his dues. He is big now, but he wasn’t always big.

Cable/Deadpool/whoever started out big, with no history we can trace. It’d be as if Clooney never acted in anything before E.R., but still had the fans & success. Lightning may strike, but not very often. Success CAN come from out of nowhere, but not very often. Publishers would have you believe otherwise.

Again, the character isn’t necessarily a rookie when they first appear, but they are TO THE READER. The reader has never seen them before. To suddenly appear and be better than established characters just doesn’t fly. Period.

As for Cage, I don’t thing anyone is disputing that Bendis is taking a character that’s been around for a while, that the writer likes, and building him up into a place of prominence. So what? He’s not a pet creation. He’s being well written. Why is that bad?

Bendis took a campy character, updated him in a believable way, and put him put there. When he first came on to the team, he was really in the background. He gradually came to the front. He developed as a character, and now has a more prominent place in the book. This is just good writing. If, on the other hand, he was in the place of prominence when the book was relaunched, we might have something to discuss. As it stands, however, you’re basically saying that he hasn’t been slowly written into a good character, which is total nonsence.

There are complaints about Claremont having characters he creates show up be super great…over other characters he created?

“Cable/Deadpool/whoever show up and they have this long back story we’ve never heard of, so that’s wrong!”

Why? People come from nowhere to be at the top of their field out of nowhere. Look at “overnight successes” in Hollywood, for example. George Clooney didn’t just start at “ER”…he’d already been around for quite some time, with connections all over the place to other actors and celebs, but most folks had never heard of him. (and seriously, saying Nick Fury would have forced them to work in SHIELD…Deadpool? Cable? Really?)

Luke Cage isn’t one of these types because he “paid his dues?” By being a joke for a whole bunch of years ..showing up whenever Marvel wanted to look street?
He’s all over the place because Bendis loved the tiara wearing silk shirt draped sweet christmas saying hero from the 70′s. Not because he heard his way up there.

Theo ignores actual story content to prove his Spider-man vs Wolverine theory. (I haven’t read the 3rd fight he talks about). Secret Wars, he beats the X-Men because he has room to manuever and they’re falling on top each other. Spider-Man vs Wolverine, he’s pounding Wolverine’s head through a tombstone into submission.

Englehart – Mantis
Stern – Captain Marvel/Photon
Hama – Rage
Harras – Sersi
Busiek – Triathlon, Scarlet Witch
Austen – Captain Britain II
Bendis – Cage, Spider-Woman

and others I’m probably forgetting.

“And here’s why that complaint is silly: they weren’t around because they were just invented. Is every character just supposed to be introduced as a rookie?”

That’s the entire gripe: They were created, not earned.

Take Cable & Deadpool for example. When they were introduced, they were written as having a long and established history of covert & military opps. So, why were they never seen in the 40 year history of the books? Don’t give me any real-world answers like “because they were just made up last week”, this is the comics world we’re talking about. If they had been doing it for so long at such a high level, Why haven’t they been commandeered by SHIELD? Fury never took “no” for an answer. If they were the best, as they are written to be, he’d have forced them onto his team or out of the business. If the latter happened, they’d NEVER have been allowed to operate as they have in the books.

Let’s say they were able to remain hidden in their covet opps roles. For 40 years. While being the absolute best at it. They somehow managed to keep their identity a secret from every government on the planet. That, in turn, helped keep them hidden from SHIELD. The character just became the single most effective spy in history. All this was done while working with vast ammounts of people, all of whom were able to keep his secret. (Of course, if NO ONE knew about them, how would they get work?) Having worked so diligently to to stay hidden, there is absolutely NO reason for them to come out of hiding and join a relatively public team.

No, not every character needs to appear as a rookie. to have them apear as grizzled veterans, with all the skill, history, and connections that go along with it, is ludricous. With the way everything in comics is connected, it’s just not believable.

I could go on and write a novella on the myriad of reasons this is bad writing. It all comes down to one thing: the writer fell in love with his own creation and shoved it down our throats.

P Y G M A L I O N

Ah, Bully, what a well-read little stuffed bull you are!
http://www.svamcentral.org/svam/ms-mar.html

Marrissa is also a good example of why a Mary Sue is not NECESSARILY a “self-insertion” character.

1. His “creator” didn’t really establish him. The Wolverine we have in the X-Men only really resembles the Wolverine that debuted in the Hulk by name and country of origin (and I think that has changed since then as well.) And (I and others would argue that) a Mary Sue has to be created to be a Mary Sue.

2. His re-imagining in X-men was (according to interviews and panel discussions) intended to make him an unlikable character. He was the built in conflict in the team. Nobody, character or reader, was supposed to like him. And, Mary Sues are built to be liked by characters and readers.

3. When first designed he had weaknesses. Over the years those weaknesses have either been removed, ret-coned, or turned into advantages. This is really the disadvantage of different writers using the character. Spider-Man was clearly stronger and faster when Jim Shooter wrote a battle between the two in Secret Wars; but when they fought in the one-shot Spider-Man vs. Wolverine the battle was a draw; and when they fought in Wolverine’s own title Spider-Man was clearly outmatched.

Mainly, I think that it is arguable that a character cannot evolve into being a Mary Sue. Yes, both Wolverine and Batman are over-the-top best at everything characters. But, they’ve become that way by different writers over the years introducing yet another thing that they are good at, and continuity building on those additions and changes.

Theno

Super-competent heroes and anti-heroes, on the other hand, do suck. I heartily endorse using this word to describe THEM.

I’m serious; the Mary Sue definition actually seems to have been built to fit Wolverine. Is there _any_ way in that he does not fulfill the criteria perfectly?

Well, he sort of became popular in spite of his depiction rather than because he was crammed down the fans throats. In fact, they seemed to be trying to portray him unfavorably at first, but his popularity with fans just kept growing and growing until they had to start catering to his fanbase. So you can say he “earned” his status. Also, I wouldn’t call him a Mary Sue simply because even at his most popular, he used to get his ass kicked a LOT. He would get his ass kicked so often that even his fanbase would complain.

About Gamora – if memory serves she wasn’t in the Milky Way when she introduced herself to Pip as the Galaxy’s most dangerous woman, so technically she was not disputing with any known characters.

The thing is: How can I reliably tell the difference? I usually know very little about the personal life and distinguishing characteristics of an author, beyond whatever I can glean from the name in the credits — and that could be a pseudonym! (If the name is given as Guillermo Alejandro Martinez, does that really “prove” the author or his parents came from a Spanish-speaking culture? And if so, which one?)

So if it looks to me like an author is working long and hard to persuade me that the newly introduced Character X is a better martial artist than Shang-Chi, a better problem-solver than Batman, a stronger arm-wrestler than Thor, a more gifted telepath than Professor X, or whatever . . . as well as having other interesting characteristics . . . I usually DON’T know or care whether many of Character X’s characteristics are closely modeled on those of the author (which would make the guy a Mary Sue by your definition) or not!

I suppose I tend to think of any such over-powered, highly-successful “invader” entering somebody else’s old, established continuity — whether in fanfic or “professionally published” work — as a “Mary Sue” or a “wish-fulfillment character” by default, without having any real way to know to what extent the character in question strongly resembles the person who created him.

Lorendiac

how about Gammora…she shows up one day and is automatically “the deadliest woman in the galaxy”! I hate that kinda crap….

What kinda crap, catch phrases? Did you also hate “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine” and “Hulk is the strongest there is”?

2) They come out of the woodwork and are as good as, and often better, than long-established characters. If these yahoos were so dang good at whatever they do for such a long time, where have they been for the last 40+ years?

And here’s why that complaint is silly: they weren’t around because they were just invented. Is every character just supposed to be introduced as a rookie?

So, is Wolverine the ultimate Mary Sue?

If you kinda ignore parts of the definition of a Mary Sue, then sure.

Marrissa Amber Flores Picard, now there’s a Mary Sue.

Nope. ”

If they were not “not awesome”, would that then make them “awesome”?

Was Tao from WildC.A.T.s not awesome?

Nope.