Why do Marvel stories take place exclusively in NYC?

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Gotham Central, Mar 22, 2013.

  1. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Can someone tell me why just about all of the action in the Marvel Universe takes place almost exclusively in New York?

    I've primarily been a DC guy most of my life. However with the new Marvel Now, I've been giving that universe a try. The one thing that I have found a bit jarring is that the world feels small compared to DC. In the DCU just about every member of the Justice League or the Titans spends their time in different cities. In Marvel, regardless of the team, they all seem to hang out in and around NYC.

    Is there a reason for this?
     
  2. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were both from New York and were based there (along with Steve Ditko, and Marvel in general) when they worked together.
     
  3. Pondwater

    Pondwater Vice Admiral Admiral

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    A population of 8 Million People, lots of streets = infinite possibilities. And Stan Lee is from there.
     
  4. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Because every time a character moves to another town, they eventually move back to NYC. Remember when DD and the Black Widow lived in San Francisco! ( Hell, remember when DD and the Black Widow were a team/dating!!!)
     
  5. Gaith

    Gaith Vice Admiral Admiral

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    In Boston, the skyscrapers are so small that superheroes would look ridiculous zipping about them. Except maybe if they were college student superheroes. That'd be appropriate, too, what with all the colleges in the area.

    Washington, DC isn't a real city, so it doesn't get any.

    No supervillains have any interest in Detroit, so it doesn't need any.

    Chicago has Gary Hobson.

    At least movie Tony Stark mostly lives in LA.
     
  6. Gotham Central

    Gotham Central Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The question is why?

    Doesn't that feel limiting? Again, as a DC fan, it seems crazy that so much mayhem is confined to one city.
     
  7. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The Marvel Universe is a lot more bigger and expansive than just New York City.

    As Mr. Adventure stated above...it was where Stan, Jack, and Steve were based when they came up with most of the early Marvel U...and no it doesn't feel limiting at all.
     
  8. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Well, Metropolis and Gotham and so on all started out as thinly-disguised versions of Manhattan anyway.

    And it's not just Stan and Jack. Historically, the heart of the US comic book industry has alway been in NYC, so that's what most of the early writers and artists saw when they looked out the window . . . .
     
  9. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    If the heroes moved to other cities... Would the villains follow?
     
  10. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    "The Big Apricot".
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    It doesn't. It takes place all over the world, and in fictional places like Madripoor and the Savage Land, and in realms like the Blue Area of the Moon, Asgard, the Shi'ar Empire, the Negative Zone, etc. The West Coast Avengers were based on... well, you can guess. The X-Men have been centered around the San Francisco Bay area in recent years. Their spinoff team Excalibur was based in Great Britain. Alpha Flight is in Canada. And so on.

    Of the six Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date, New York City was the primary location only in The Avengers, though it was one of several featured locations in The Incredible Hulk and Captain America, while much of Iron Man 2 took place in nearby Flushing Meadows. The IM films are based mainly in Malibu, California, while Thor took place in Nevada and Asgard.


    The reason is because DC's titles started out as self-contained comics and only gradually began to establish interconnections, while the Marvel Universe that Stan Lee and his collaborators created in the '60s onward was treated almost from the start as a shared, interconnected world where characters from different books could cross over with one another, deal with common threats, be affected by developments in other books, etc. It was all part of making the MU feel like a larger, realer universe. Having many of the characters live in the same city facilitated such interaction, and New York is the largest, most cosmopolitan city in the US and one of the largest in the world. There's also the fact that Lee et al. wanted the MU to feel like it was happening in our world, with references to real places and events, rather than in fictional locales like Metropolis, Gotham, Central City, Star City, etc. NYC was the city they lived in and knew the best, so it was the one they could most convincingly portray.

    (It also facilitated the frequent metatextual gag of having Marvel's authors, artists, and editors show up in the pages of their own books as spectators and chroniclers of the comics' events -- like when Lee & Kirby got bounced from Reed Richards and Sue Storm's wedding.)


    Indeed, there's a very early Batman story that opens "In the calm of a New York night," and I think an early Superman issue also claimed to be in New York. It took a while to settle on Gotham and Metropolis as the respective settings.
     
  12. M'rk son of Mogh

    M'rk son of Mogh Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    As of right now:

    The Hulk (well, Banner and his new team) is in the New Mexico.
    Scarlet Spider is in Houston.
    Guardians of the Galaxy are not on earth.
    Nova as well.
    Gambit has been all over the globe in his series.
    Cyclops' team is in Canada.
    Savage Wolverine takes place in the Savage Land.
    Captain America takes place in another dimension!

    What books are you reading? To me, the majority are NOT in New York at the moment.
    Sure, that's where the Avengers meet. But that's where their HQ is. Their first arc took place on Mars!
     
  13. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Setting aside the MCU, The Fantastic Four movies, the Spider-Man movies and the X-Men movies all largely took place in NYC. Granted that X-Men 2 took the action somewhere in Remote Up North and X-Men 3 took the action to San Francisco. But I guess to "more" answer the question, I believe NYC is primarily where most of Marvel's heroes live so it follows that some action would take place there. Especially if we expand this to the comics where NYC has the X-Men, Spider-man, Iron Man and pretty much the entire Marvel Universe living and operating there. Honestly, that's got to make for a pretty tough situation for super heroin'.
     
  14. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    OTOH

    The FF and the Fantastic Four are based in NYC.
    Daredevil is based in NYC.
    Spider-Man is based in NYC
    Captain America is based in NYC.
    The X-Men are based near NYC.

    Now they may venture out of NYC from time to time but they are based there and have adventures there.
     
  15. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    And, of course, Dr. Strange was based out of the West Village for years.

    I have to admit that, when I first moved to NYC, I was thrilled to discover that Bleecker Street was a real place. :)

    Alas, Yancy Street proved fictional . . . .
     
  16. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That's not true of the X-Men movies. Their home base was the Xavier Institute, which is located in Salem Center, Westchester County, about 50 miles north of Manhattan.

    Let's see, the first film took place in: WWII Poland; Mississippi; Washington, DC; Canada; Salem Center; an island somewhere in the Atlantic; and NYC only for the climax (specifically Ellis and Liberty Islands). The second took place in: DC; Alkali Lake in Canada; Salem Center; Boston; and somewhere in the woods -- no NYC at all. The third took place in: Jean Grey's hometown (upstate New York in the comics); Salem Center; San Francisco; DC; Alkali Lake; a highway somewhere; the woods somewhere (looking like the Pacific Northwest, but apparently just a quick hop from both New York State and San Francisco!), and wherever the cure center is that Rogue goes to -- the geography in The Last Stand is kind of a mess. Wolverine takes place in many locations around the US and beyond, and I don't think NYC is one of them. First Class is set in Poland, Westchester County, Las Vegas, DC, Switzerland, South America, the ocean somewhere, the Arctic, the USSR, and the vicinity of Cuba, along with various briefly glimpsed locations.

    So really, the only X-Men film that's had anything definitely set in New York City was the first one.
     
  17. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    I'd say it's because Manhattan is the most vertical and dense city in the real world USA, while the DCU is full of fictional cities that can be as impressive as they want.
     
  18. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    There has to be a lot of cities NOW which are as vertically dense as NYC 1962 when all this started.
     
  19. Mr Light

    Mr Light Admiral Admiral

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    Manhattan is so iconic though! It has cachet. cache? I can't do the accent thingee. Who wants to read a comic set in Kansas City?
     
  20. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Logically, in the tv show universe at least, if Metropolis was in Kansas, which is just being a 2 hours drive from the Kent farm in Smallville Kansas, it's most probably a rebranded real life city in Kansas... How odd that Topeka is the capital of Kansas and not Kansas City?