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Any point in secret identities?

The Fantastic Four don't have friends?

Are they complete assholes?

Reed and Sue retired, to live in the suburbs near issue 300.

The Ms Marvel/She-Thing years, where Ben Grimm was the boss.

Sue had to wear a brown wig to go to PTA meetings.

Reed just didn't have to do that because he was not an international sex symbol, or he was the type of international sex symbol where no one looks at your face.
 
Uh, Johnny Storm had a lot of girlfriends. And Alicia Masters is a civilian (well, she is the daughter of a supervillain, but it's not her fault).
 
Didn't Alicia's relationship with Ben put her in danger a few times? At times from the machinations of her stepfather, who wasn't an FF fan. (to say the least ;) )
 
Didn't Alicia's relationship with Ben put her in danger a few times? At times from the machinations of her stepfather, who wasn't an FF fan. (to say the least ;) )

From 1984, to 1991, the length of "her" marriage to Johnny Storm, Alicia had been replaced with a Skrull spy.
 
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Wyatt Wingfoot regularly spends time going on the Fantastic Four's adventures with them, so he isn't just a civilian acquaintance.

By that reasoning, Jimmy Olsen isn't a civilian.

As for the Fantastic Four, they don't have civilian friends. All of their friends are members of other hero groups, and can take care of themselves. Same for the Avengers that let out their IDs.

I don't buy it. These characters clearly had lives before they became superheroes. Those ties don't just suddenly disappear the moment they don a costume. Not to mention families.

Ben Grimm has his Aunt Jacob and Aunt Petunia. She-Hulk has her dad and her law firm buddies. Luke Cage had an entire supporting cast. Hercules has no qualms dating regular civilian human women. Captain Marvel has her brothers and, up until very recently, her mom. Et cetera.
 
Something that wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t know the FF.

Oh, I was meaning that there was six years of stuff that happened to Alicia, like when the Puppet Master kidnapped her on her wedding day, that did not happen to the real Alicia.
 
By that reasoning, Jimmy Olsen isn't a civilian.

Superman had as much trouble keeping Jimmy Olsen the Amazing Frog Boy out of trouble as unpowered Jimmy, because Jimmy is the definition of a civilian. He's not qualified to participate in Superman's adventures. Wyatt Wingfoot has both the education, and the physical prowess to go anywhere and do anything with the Fantastic Four. Both characters had as part of their origins exactly that mix. Thus, Wyatt is not a civilian, while Jimmy Olsen can't be anything else.

I don't buy it. These characters clearly had lives before they became superheroes. Those ties don't just suddenly disappear the moment they don a costume. Not to mention families.

Ben Grimm has his Aunt Jacob and Aunt Petunia. She-Hulk has her dad and her law firm buddies. Luke Cage had an entire supporting cast. Hercules has no qualms dating regular civilian human women. Captain Marvel has her brothers and, up until very recently, her mom. Et cetera.

You'd be surprised how quickly those ties disappear whenever any major change occurs. It happens in real life, and that's why it happens in fiction.

Uncle Jacob and Aunt Petunia live in Arizona, and most of the world thinks Ben Grimm made them up. She-Hulk's dad is a cop, and her law firm buddies don't socialize with her (or they didn't. She had to date Wyatt Wingfoot because no one else would come near her). Luke Cage never amounted to enough to get Doctor Octopus's attention until bad writers contracted small world syndrome. "Captain" Marvel (I hate that name for her) and her family know the score from her secret agent and test pilot days.

Bad writers having the same problem as aging fans, wanting the heroes to age with them and face real world problems, are the reason we're having this discussion. If there were better writers, writing better all-ages (not kiddy comics, actual all-ages) stories, the aging fans would have stopped reading and allowed the characters and industry to continue to cater to younger fans who can be replaced when they age out of fandom. This isn't rocket science. The decline in sales over the last 30 plus years is directly attributable to fans and writers who don't know when to let go.

The reason the industry is so vulnerable to the lockdown right now is because there are no new, young fans reading comic books, and that's because aging fans have demanded a niche, boutique product that caters exclusively to them. I'm all for certain publishers and titles catering to a more mature audience. But when that's all you have, when that audience goes away, either by losing interest, or attrition, the end product is unsustainable. We're seeing a resurgence in demand for all-ages material by smarter fans, who want to share their interest with their own children. But that may soon no longer be possible.
 
Superman had as much trouble keeping Jimmy Olsen the Amazing Frog Boy out of trouble as unpowered Jimmy, because Jimmy is the definition of a civilian. He's not qualified to participate in Superman's adventures. Wyatt Wingfoot has both the education, and the physical prowess to go anywhere and do anything with the Fantastic Four. Both characters had as part of their origins exactly that mix. Thus, Wyatt is not a civilian, while Jimmy Olsen can't be anything else.

I disagree. "Civilian," in the informal sense, means someone who isn't a professional in a given field. The Jimmy Olsen of the Silver and Bronze Ages, as homaged in Morrison's All-Star Superman and the recent revival of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, was an investigative reporter whose trademark was his proclivity for bizarre adventures. It was his profession, literally, that got him into those adventures in the first place. By contrast, Wyatt Wingfoot only gets involved in the FF's adventures as a friend, rather than in any professional role. So you have it backward. Of the two, Wingfoot was the non-professional, and therefore the civilian.

And really, how many superheroes can really be said to engage in the work as a profession, either as an actual job or in some official government or law-enforcement capacity? Most of them would be more along the lines of volunteer firefighters, people who offer their services as a sideline to their actual professions. I suppose the FF would count as professional adventurers and explorers because they're basically their own independent think tank that does that sort of thing full-time, funded by Reed's inventions (I assume), but Wingfoot is just a friend who volunteers to help them out.
 
Superman had as much trouble keeping Jimmy Olsen the Amazing Frog Boy out of trouble as unpowered Jimmy, because Jimmy is the definition of a civilian. He's not qualified to participate in Superman's adventures. Wyatt Wingfoot has both the education, and the physical prowess to go anywhere and do anything with the Fantastic Four. Both characters had as part of their origins exactly that mix. Thus, Wyatt is not a civilian, while Jimmy Olsen can't be anything else.

Wyatt Wingfoot is just some dude. He gets into adventures because he happens to be hanging out with Johnny when weird stuff pops up, not because anyone ever thinks it's a good idea to bring him along to fight Dr. Doom. If we're using the fact that Superman has to save Jimmy as the measure, look to how many F4 stories would wind up with him dead if Johnny wasn't around.

You'd be surprised how quickly those ties disappear whenever any major change occurs. It happens in real life, and that's why it happens in fiction.

Why in the world would they abandon their friends just because they now have what is essentially, from their perspective, a new job? Does that really match the personalities of most superhero characters?

Even if they did, why would that even matter to supervillains? Are they going to think, "Oh, sure, this guy was my enemy's close friend since childhood, but since they don't hang out much anymore, I guess they're completely useless to me as a hostage. Welp, on to the next plan?"

Uncle Jacob and Aunt Petunia live in Arizona, and most of the world thinks Ben Grimm made them up.

He's a public figure. Anyone can check up on whether his relatives exist. I don't see what Arizona has to do with anything. Most of the F4's enemies can pretty easily get there.

She-Hulk's dad is a cop, and her law firm buddies don't socialize with her (or they didn't. She had to date Wyatt Wingfoot because no one else would come near her).

And a cop can handle the kinds of supervillains she faces? In her more recent runs, she's had co-worker friends.

Luke Cage never amounted to enough to get Doctor Octopus's attention until bad writers contracted small world syndrome.

So? Small time supervillains can harm loved ones, too. If anything, super-mobsters seem more likely to target your friends than your Skrull Empires and Galactuses are.

(That reminds me of an amusing issue of Astro City, about a comic publisher who publishes "based on a true story" stories about the heroes. He specifically only does stories about huge, cosmic threat-type villains because they're not going to care, or even be aware of, what some funnybook publisher is writing about them. Twist: Turns out one of them does care.)

"Captain" Marvel (I hate that name for her) and her family know the score from her secret agent and test pilot days.

Ah, so it's all about knowing the score. In that case, that's a reason for heroes to let their loved ones in on their secrets, not to hide it from them. They should make sure their friends and family know the score.

In any case, those specific characters were just examples off the top of my head. There's plenty more. All I'll say is that the Marvel universe you're describing where superheroes with public IDs don't make friends with ordinary people is not the one I recognize.

I'll skip the whole bit about aging fans. I don't see how what that has to do with anything. Superheroes without secret identities have been around for decades, including back when superhero comics were entirely all-ages.
 
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The lesson I am getting is every superhero is a dick.:)


Jason

It's that all the stuff acceptable as Silver Age wackiness is viewed through modern eyes and the characters are coming off not the same the past writers intended.

It's the same reason Hank Pym is treated the way he is. He had a history of unstable decisions and mental breakdowns in the 60s and 70s written as nothing but usual Silver Age silliness...modern writers look at his history and realized "Whoa, this dude is NUTS!" and his modern characterization is now that he's always been a barely restrained nutter.
 
Wyatt Wingfoot is just some dude. He gets into adventures because he happens to be hanging out with Johnny when weird stuff pops up, not because anyone ever thinks it's a good idea to bring him along to fight Dr. Doom. If we're using the fact that Superman has to save Jimmy as the measure, look to how many F4 stories would wind up with him dead if Johnny wasn't around.



Why in the world would they abandon their friends just because they now have what is essentially, from their perspective, a new job? Does that really match the personalities of most superhero characters?

Even if they did, why would that even matter to supervillains? Are they going to think, "Oh, sure, this guy was my enemy's close friend since childhood, but since they don't hang out much anymore, I guess they're completely useless to me as a hostage. Welp, on to the next plan?"



He's a public figure. Anyone can check up on whether his relatives exist. I don't see what Arizona has to do with anything. Most of the F4's enemies can pretty easily get there.



And a cop can handle the kinds of supervillains she faces? In her more recent runs, she's had co-worker friends.



So? Small time supervillains can harm loved ones, too. If anything, super-mobsters seem more likely to target your friends than your Skrull Empires and Galactuses are.

(That reminds me of an amusing issue of Astro City, about a comic publisher who publishes "based on a true story" stories about the heroes. He specifically only does stories about huge, cosmic threat-type villains because they're not going to care, or even be aware of, what some funnybook publisher is writing about them. Twist: Turns out one of them does care.)



Ah, so it's all about knowing the score. In that case, that's a reason for heroes to let their loved ones in on their secrets, not to hide it from them. They should make sure their friends and family know the score.

In any case, those specific characters were just examples off the top of my head. There's plenty more. All I'll say is that the Marvel universe you're describing where superheroes with public IDs don't make friends with ordinary people is not the one I recognize.

I'll skip the whole bit about aging fans. I don't see how what that has to do with anything. Superheroes without secret identities have been around for decades, including back when superhero comics were entirely all-ages.

This is you going quite a ways out of your way to not get it. The problem with the way modern writers write Marvel Comics is that they don't get it either. Astro City was an exercise in writing Marvel type stories with the twist that aging readers' wants are met at every turn. Then a new generation of writers began writing Marvel itself that way, which is why they're now losing readership. The aging fanbase has realized that making the characters age to match them ruins them for future use, and they're jumping ship because the writers haven't realized it, and don't seem to want to.

The Marvel Universe I'm describing is the one I read as I grew up in the '60s and '70s. Every change I don't like is from well after that era.

And the superheroes that didn't have secret identities from the "all-ages era" (it's a mindset, not a time period) were uniformly heroes that had abandoned their civilian identities. The exceptions were notable because they were so few.

It's the same reason Hank Pym is treated the way he is. He had a history of unstable decisions and mental breakdowns in the 60s and 70s written as nothing but usual Silver Age silliness...modern writers look at his history and realized "Whoa, this dude is NUTS!" and his modern characterization is now that he's always been a barely restrained nutter.

Hank Pym didn't have a history of instability or breakdowns until later writers decided to leap on the out-of-character moment of his hitting Jan during an argument. The writer quickly realized his mistake, and basically said "Let's pretend that never happened, okay?" Later writers decided that was Hank's defining moment, even though he'd never done anything like that ever before, and that's why his characterization has gone down the tubes. He isn't, and wasn't ever supposed to be, nuts.
 
Honestly secret identities have never been very plausible (.e.g Superman and glasses), unless the face was covered and voice modified somehow. It’s part of suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy the stories.
 
Honestly secret identities have never been very plausible (.e.g Superman and glasses), unless the face was covered and voice modified somehow. It’s part of suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy the stories.

It's more plausible than you'd think. There are actors and actresses who can go unrecognized in public just by not being perfectly coiffed and made up, and by being out of the context people expect to see them in. I think I read that Marilyn Monroe was able to do that, because her screen persona was so completely artificial that she was practically unrecognizable when she was being herself.

We often find that certain people resemble other people we've known, because sometimes they do. Generally, our first impulse is not to think they actually are the same person in disguise, but just to figure it's a coincidental resemblance. I think it was John Byrne who pointed out that Superman has the advantage of not wearing a mask, so people don't expect him to be hiding his identity, and so they aren't predisposed to wonder who he "really" is as they would be with Batman or the Flash, say. (Ditto for Wonder Woman, who certainly doesn't appear to have anything to hide.) So they're more likely to figure that Clark Kent is just one of those people who happen to bear a coincidental resemblance to a celebrity.

Indeed, that's the brilliance of the simple disguise. If people imagined Superman disguising his identity, they'd think like you did and assume he'd go to great lengths to change his appearance as completely as possible. They'd never believe he'd just put on a pair of glasses and affect a slouch and expect it to work. And that's why it does work. It's too bad a disguise for anyone to believe it's actually a disguise.
 
Honestly secret identities have never been very plausible (.e.g Superman and glasses), unless the face was covered and voice modified somehow. It’s part of suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy the stories.
Works for Zooey Deschanel
ORc88d0.jpg
 
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