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The impetus from this thread came from Vicky Vale's ass, it did. We now know it's straight from the script, but what about, oh, Lois Lane's shower in ASS... why is the Human Torch done up not at all as the hot and sexy blond prettyboy with a penchance for getting put on, but like a chicken-necked geek (That's not Johnny Storm - It's the love-child of Speedball and the Man Called Nova!) in his recent Kesel-writ series? Was Foxx supposed to be attractive to any reader of 'X-Men'? Is Iceman's body transubstantiated out of Havok's pee and just how old is Jubilee these days? What would 'Arkham Asylum' have looked like with hyperphotorealist art and the secret map in place and proper?
(I think about comics too much.)
Most comics involve more than one person on the creative end, and I am magnanimously opening that up to the editorial angle, as well, and sometimes, everybody's just synched and firing on all cylinders in one beautiful and pure vison - or, at least, the end result makes it look that way. Other times, however, somebody nails out one thing and somebody else goes and changes it because, obviously, their idea is better. Phoenix decimates Planet BroccoliPeople, then she has to die, die, die. And she does. At least three times, now. Not Claremont's plan, at all. Not all of the artist's plan, either.
Warren Ellis has complained of artists drawing not-what-was-scripted, and of having the rewrite fairy crap all over his nice new scripts, anyway. Jim Lee drew on his later X-Men issues what he wanted to see, rather than what Claremont wanted. 'Elektra: Assassin' had it's pages re-ordered after the art came in. Claremont likes to write dialogue and little panels that explain what we can pretty much see happening in the art, anyway. Panel of Forge getting shot, and Forge's dialogue consists of: "A body has to wonder if - Ow! I've been shot! Thankfully, as a Native American I have magickal spirit powers and can heal myself and build a new kidney to replace the one with the big hole in it." Stan Lee used to script some books so quickly he'd add dialogue or explanatory text explaining things that clearly were not what was going on in the art. Without the dialogue being the way it was, there's certain parts of some books (like, oh, 'The Invisibles') that would never have made any sense to me if I were going strictly by what was drawn. Kirby and Lee often seemed to not agree at all as to the positioning, capacity, or personalities of their female characters.
There's also the subtle, slip-it-past-editorial game, which sometimes works and sometimes backfires horribly. Misty Knight slipping in that her and Wing might've had a more-than-simply-business-and-late-night-drinking relationship to jab at Iron Fist. Powergirl's chest. The Thing's thing. Elf with a gun. Destiny and Mystique. Nightcrawler's dad in the Age of Apocalypse being Sabretooth. More elf with a gun. Bucky in Peter David's 'Incredible Hulk' run.
Sometimes it works out for the better, sometimes it's just a weird blip that quickly gets ignored; it can make on-going storylines or emergency reveals fall flat on their face and die shamefully.
Anybody got any good (or horrible) examples? Does anyone know what caused Mark Waid to ask his name be taken off an issue of 'Captain America'? Or quite what the Jonathon Harkness deal over with 'Fantastic Four' was? |
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