Eldritch Stuff.

I love comics. My comic-fan alignment is Marvel, all the way, no exceptions. (…Yes, I know ‘Watchmen’ was put out by DC. I’ll just pull the denial card on this one.) I love the X-Men, I love the Avengers, I love the Fantastic Four.

But I’ve noticed that when I read comics, I automatically reach for the newer ones. The ones with the sophisticated art. Why? Because it’s sophisticated art. I like looking at the drawings as much as I like reading the story.

Today I decided to do something different. I reached for an Avengers collection from the sixties, compiled last year.

It’s a very exciting collection; Thor’s much more prevalent here than he is in later titles, which pleases Me greatly. And I find it very amusing that no one in the Avengers team is aware that Iron Man is actually Tony Stark and vice versa.

But then I started thinking about the differences between older comics and newer comics, differences that go beyond the primary color scheme.

Here’s My top five “faults” of old comix over new comix.

i. Subjective Commentary.

“The handsome Hank”. “The lovely Jan”. “Her breath-taking beauty.”
In My opinion, this could be a breach of the fourth wall, because it seems to bring the author’s opinion on the characters into play. I’m aware that Stan Lee himself isn’t calling Hank Pym ‘handsome’, but at the same time, you have to wonder whose opinion he’s voicing.

ii. Exclamation Marks!!!

I know they’re heroes and superheroes. I know there’s a lot going on, and everyone’s all jazzed up on adrenaline and testosterone and double shots of espresso. But honestly — must every statement be succeeded by an exclamation mark? There are very few lines of dialogue in this collection so far that don’t end with: an exclamation mark for statements and declarations, a question mark for questions, or a question mark followed by an exclamation mark for questions asked in an incredulous voice.

Makes you want to start handing out Xanax.

iii. What’s Next, ‘Pookie-Bear’?

Hank Pym and Jan Van Dyne Pym are the Avengers pairing. I can’t recall a time when they haven’t been married (but then again, I don’t read Avengers comics often enough). Of course, I’m more familiar with their tumultuous times — Hank beating on Jan and the what-forth — but even then they were together in some capacity. It’s like Reed & Susan Richards — you tend to even say their names together unless you’re calling them by their costumed-crusader titles.

But here… here, their spousal banter is a hair away from being cheesier than Dangerously Cheesy Cheetos. There are also times when I believe Hank is being a bit patronizing towards Jan, but that’ll be expanded upon in My next point. It’s nice to see the Pyms happy together for a change, but come on. “Next time, warn me, handsome! After all, you’re the only little ant-man I’ve got!”

Yeesh.

iv. Girls.

Jan, mainly, since this is the Avengers and there’s no other ‘girls’ on the team. (Token?)
Notice I said girls. Not once was Jan referred to as a woman, or even just a person. She was ‘the/a girl’, or ‘the/a female’. Not that this age’s Jan was blameless — she was predisposed to ditching Hank for her hairdresser and putting on lipstick at every free moment. The villains bristle at the thought of ‘getting beat by a girl’. The other Avengers make sure to praise her for a job well done, as if she wasn’t automatically expected to be badass just for being on the team with the rest of them. Think about it: would you say ‘Good job today!’ to Thor? I mean, you pretty much expect that male to level the playing field. Does no one expect that from Jan?

Then again, unless her lipstick doubled as a hand grenade… I don’t know if I’d expect much from her either.

The point is, Jan isn’t taken seriously. And we all know why.

v. Telling vs. Showing.

The dominant trend in graphic novels and comic books today is to let the action speak for itself, with little input from an omniscient narrator, or even the character’s mind (in the form of thought bubbles). ‘Back in the day’, that wasn’t the case. Spider-Man told you what he was going to do before he did it — or even as he was doing it, in case you couldn’t tell. Every thought that went through a hero’s head was stuffed into a thought bubble, and between the narrator’s input, the thought bubbles, and the copious dialogue, panels could get a bit crowded. Which, of course, leaves less room for graphical description.

I’ve always liked comics for their balance between showing and telling. It’s a nice diversion from working the imagination so hard, without having to put it completely to rest (you can still visualize the facial expressions that went without being drawn, or let the action play out in your head instead of taking it at its static, printed value). But telling Me what’s going on as it’s going on takes all the fun out of it.

What about you? Do you still read old comics? Do you compare them to new ones? What faults have you noticed — or are there any faults in new comics that you’d like to add to the mix?