Comments on: Cronin Theory of Comics – At Least Explain Characterization Changes

By: entzauberung

entzauberung — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:33:36 +0000

Well, in that case, such occurences are extremely rare. If Brian means that, I don’t know why he wrote the column.

By: wwk5d

wwk5d — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:48:20 +0000

With regards to Magneto, what T said. If he was an example of Brian was describing, he’d have probably walked up to Scott, apologized for his past behavior, decided his was wrong and the Xavier’s way was the correct was and always has been, and suddenly offered to join the X-men on their terms.

By: T.

T. — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:50:34 +0000

So I’m guessing Brian’s not going to share with us the examples that inspired this post, huh?

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:47:45 +0000

Morrison’s Batman changes WERE explained. In Infinite Crisis, he reached a point where he nearly came close to shooting Alex Luthor. He then chose to take a year off to retrace his original heroic path, only this time he didn’t go alone. 52 gave us insight into some of that trip, including a point where he metaphorically killed Batman.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:32:47 +0000

Ugh. Ok its (blockquote) and (/blockquote) but with greater than and less than signs, not brackets.

Yep, Ted.

By: T.

T. — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:11:40 +0000

He does express regret at the death of Jean Grey, but if I remember correctly Scott Summers doesn’t believe his sincerity because of his past behavior of never showing such an emotional side before. So basically, the hints of the change that show up in the first few pages of the book are explicitly called out by Scott Summers as not being typical of Magneto’s past behavior. It was openly acknowledged as Magneto starting to act differently, a foreshadowing of his big change by the end of the issue when he almost kills Kitty Pryde.

To me when reading it at the time, the impression I got was that he was getting weary of the futility of it all and the way he was going about things, and was becoming increasingly haunted by his past, both of which were making him act increasingly different. This culminated in the Kitty Pryde moment at the end of the book.

The phenomenon Brian describes is a character acting TOTALLY different from his last appearance and no one seeming to notice and the change being unexplained. This is not what happened with Magneto in #150. He only starts off slightly different in #150, that difference is noticed by other characters and commented on, he makes his total change by the end of the book due to a specific occurrence and his revelation of his backstory explains the rest.

By: entzauberung

entzauberung — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:23:57 +0000

In one of the first pages of Uncanny #150 Magneto describes his goals to a captive Cyclops as bringing peace and utopia to Earth by conquering it. Remarkably different from earlier Magneto appearances, where he only wanted to enslave humanity and rule by tyranny and fear. He expresses regret at the death of Jean Grey when he previously had been totally giddy at the thought of slaughtering X-Men.

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:07:41 +0000

Ugh. Ok its (blockquote) and (/blockquote) but with greater than and less than signs, not brackets.

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:04:23 +0000

Well that didn't work at all. I'll try again. The tags for quotes are

and

Maybe that will work

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:01:00 +0000

OtH, FYI, the tags for quotes are

, just without the spaces. Its for italics, I don’t know any others off the top of my head. And that’s my contribution to the discussion.

By: wwk5d

wwk5d — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:35:02 +0000

Exactly, T. He starts out as the same Magneto we’ve seen before, but as the issue progresses, we see him undergoing a shift. And he wasn’t an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CHARACTER – nothing Claremont offered or did in that issue really contradicted what we had seen before.

By: "O" the Humanatee!

"O" the Humanatee! — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:21:52 +0000

[Apologizing in advance for not knowing how to use the right HTML tags here]

Me: And who’s to say that a writer’s “dramatically different” version won’t sell better?

FGJ: When was the last time that flied?

1986?

Me again: Don’t know. Brian never gave any actual examples, so it’s hard to know just what kind of characterization changes we’re talking about, and therefore hard to say when they’ve hurt or improved sales.

Me: I think Civil War sold pretty well, despite the aggravating character changes.

FGJ: Sad, isn’t it?

Me again: Sure, but that’s entirely consistent with my point. Such changes may be aesthetically bad, but they can still rake in royalties for the writer.

By: T.

T. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:46:33 +0000

I admit, my memory of X-Men #150 is not that strong as it’s been decades since I’ve read it, but if I remember correctly isn’t the story typical Magneto at first with one of his outrageous plots to wreak havoc using some kind of Maguffin of the month, and the personality change comes about later in the issue when he accidentally almost kills Kitty Pryde in the issue? I remember the seeming death of Kitty Pryde at his hands that shocked him into an introspection never before seen in the character and forced him to reevaluate what he had become.

By: entzauberung

entzauberung — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:47:59 +0000

Reiteration: Magneto in Uncanny X-Man #150 is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CHARACTER than he was before that issue. I thought that was what we were talking about?

By: wwk5d

wwk5d — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:24:06 +0000

But that shows how to change a character the right way. He didn’t just have Magneto show up in # 150 and suddenly have him become a good guy, trying to fight for Charle’s dream. Giving him the backstory, if anything, made the transition during that character arc all the more interesting, believable, and poignant. Had it been done today, they would’ve just had Magneto just show up, having reformed between issues, and everyone would have just gone with the flow.

By: entzauberung

entzauberung — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:22:41 +0000

wwk5d: “There wasn’t any complaints also because it didn’t happen over-night, it was a lengthy character arc that went on for 50 issues.”

Not quite. Magneto’s redemption arc was a quite lengthy one, as you say, but the character that COULD be redeemed was made up by Claremont on the spot. The Magneto of Uncanny #150 (when this conversion began) – an idealistic terrorist with a Holocaust background who tried to avoid collateral damage and mourned his enemies – bore virtually no resemblance whatsoever to the hysterical sadist that had previously been called Magneto.

By: Edward Love

Edward Love — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:09:16 +0000

There have been quite a few writers and comics I have bailed on because they chose to tell a “continuity” or history based story while at the same time destroying whole chunks of the continuity and characterization in the process. If something of the character’s past irks you, just don’t tell a story that invokes it instead of a story that shows that a whole run by this writer was a lie or just wrong, this character who has been dead for decades was not the person you thought, etc.

By: Nick Evans

Nick Evans — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:51:51 +0000

@snakeman99: bear in mind that Hawkeye/Ronin has “died” in the intervening period, which seems a fair excuse for a personality shift, and also the surrounding characters are reacting to his recent outbursts.

And the Hulk has regularly shifted personalities as he shifted physical form. That can be seen as an element of the character.

By: wwk5d

wwk5d — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:00:18 +0000

“For over twenty years, Magneto was just a generic Marvel villain, who created death-traps and “bwa-ha-ha”, Chris Claremont completely re-wrote his character, but there wasn’t a murmur of complaint because it resulted in some great stories.”

There wasn’t any complaints also because it didn’t happen over-night, it was a lengthy character arc that went on for 50 issues.

By: stephen cade

stephen cade — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:38:53 +0000

The Question doesn’t really count–as Ditko’s Questionn, and O’Neil’s was DC–and he did the symbolic thing–that’s reason enough.