Marvel Flipside

Billy the Kitten

from Avengers Academy #7 (2010) Christos Gage & Mike McKone, Dave Meikis/Scott Hanna, Jeromy Cox/Andrew Crossley (whew!)

Tigra!  She's a former policewoman with the power of demonic Cat People! (Hmmm, this seems worthy of a topic all of its own!) But then there was the time that she had a relationship with a super powered colleague Hank Pym except it really wasn't because he was being replaced by a shape-changing alien at the time. It was a whole . . . thing.

This Avengers Academy is the first comic that I have seen William Grant, Tigra's kid, making him Billy the Kitten? Technically, he makes the cut in our 2010 Child Watch my showing up the first time in Avengers: The Initiative #35, its last issue. Here, he's already crawling about, and justifiably so since his hybrid nature allows him to age more rapidly than normal.
 
The comic takes great pains to make sure that we know it's NOT some half-alien, half-cat demon baby. While pretty cool, it would be contrived and basically shoehorn the poor kid into complicated and nigh-incomprehensible continuity right off the bat. Instead, he's only a half-human, half-cat demon baby, giving him only *slightly* complicated and somewhat-comprehensible continuity right off the bat. 

The implications for Tigra herself are a bit more nebulous. With a great visual and fairly extensive history in the Marvel universe, you would think she would be poised to become a unique property. Her "story engine" is a bit more narrowed now. The implications for Hank Pym? Well, for a guy who has somewhat-familial connections with Ultron, Vision, Jocasta,  Alkehma, Victor Mancha, and, by extension, the whole Wanda Maximoff/Magneto connection, etc. etc., it's just business as usual!

Thunderstrike

Guess what I found! There's another superhero progeny on the loose!

Kevin Masterson has taken over for his father, the former Thor stand-in, Thunderstrike!

You see, his dad had a magic mace, given in honor of his heroic-ness as Thor, but he died when he had to fight Bloodaxe, who was a villain with a ... magic axe. Now, originally, the cosmic backlash between the magical weapons seemed to destroy each other as well as their wielders, but apparently it didn't, cause here ya go.

Now, technically, this isn't the kind of progeny-hero that I've been complaining about in the past-- the kind that seem to be created with little regard to an actually origin, providing the writer with a eye-rollable shortcut. Rather, Kevin Masterson has always been a part of the "real" Thunderstrike's story, being his son while he was a single father and architect. He even showed up in an alternate future *as* Thunderstrike in the Avengers Next series of the mid-2000s.

But what's really crazy is the fact that Kevin not only turns into Thuderstrike but LITERALLY turns into Thunderstrike-- the splitting image of this father. So much so that his mom faints at the sight of him. Holy Oedipal Mix-up, Batman!

Thunderstrike #1 (2011) by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Sal Buscema

Power Man

While 2010 seems to be winding down with less and less "progeny" characters on the shelf, there are still several protagonists whose origins / backgrounds are tied to being a child of an already-established Marvel character. One of the few breakout stars that I've failed to mention has been also born out of an event-- Shadowland's Power Man.

From Shadowland - Power Man #1 (2010); cover by Michael Perkins

Actually, this legacy character isn't related to Luke Cage, the former Power Man, himself. Instead, he's a chip off the old block of one of Cage's old enemies… Shades.

Shades was the former criminal partner to Comanche, although the two were little more than common thugs, but they shared a common origin, of sorts, to Luke Cage in Cage's previous life as a man in prison (for a crime he didn't commit, though!) The two were helpful in a story that finally brought Luke Cage's past out into the open, as the three started out on a mission of mutual revenge, but once the truth was out, Shades and Comanche were re-imprisoned while Cage was vindicated.  Still, these guys were pretty close to being archenemies of Luke Cage because of their sort-of kind-of shared background, and they were trotted out a few times accordingly. Once they even got serious power upgrades, with shades given a visor not unlike a certain Cyclopean X-Man.

Which is where the new Power Man's story kicks in. Apparently, Shades had a family and kids all along! He and his son happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they were in a house that got exploded by Daredevil when he went crazy and made a Shadowland appear in New York. This also exploded Shades' glasses, also known as shades, and the fragments embedded into his son, Victor, changing him. Now with the power to absorb the "chi" of area around him, he set himself up as a new hero-for-hire to pick up some of that cash that people keep wanting to throw at heroes for solving their problems for them.

Until Nightshade wanted to reclaim her property, and such property being Shades' original power shades. Ah, Deadly Nightshade! One of my favorite villains! I suppose it will take a new Power Man +  ol' Iron Fist team up to solve the day, hm? 

The Superior

Marvel Child Watch 2010 continues!

I'm so glad people are listening to me in my blog. Apparently, my pleas to stop the madness have been heard and steps are being made to correct the problem. I have cried, nay-- lamented, in the past regarding the unfortunate condition of relying on the cheap origin story gimmick of making a new character a child of a previously-established Marvel hero or villain. "Progeny" is the new "mutant," and we know the latter grew to be such a problem they had to made the Scarlet Witch go crazy and commit near genocide to solve it.

But all is not lost! In Young Allies, author Sean McKeever introduced the Bastards of Evil, featuring progeny of Electro, Radioactive Man, Graviton, Pyro, and the Grey Gargoyle. None of this made sense (except, perhaps, for the mutant Pyro) for the simple fact that in the Marvel-world these villains have only been made into villains within the last 10-15 years.

Would you believe that Mr. McKeever has made this into a plot point, justifying my initial outrage? Or, perhaps, he was just toying with my outrage in the first place? Dang! McKeeeeeever...! 

But wait!

It looks like we do have a progeny, after all! The Big Bad has been revealed, and it's the Leader's son, calling himself The Superior!

Where four fall, one arises.

Young Allies #4 by Sean McKeever, David Baldeon, and N. Bowling and Chris Sotomayor

Phantom Rider & Finesse

Marvel Progeny Propagate!

Yet another post with Marvel progeny? I can't help it! I keep telling you this is a trend and thus it continues.  

Here's a clip from Hawkeye & Mockingbird #2, by Jim McCann and David Lopez. Let's watch:

Her name is Jaime Slade, and here she:s claiming that she is the daughter of Carter Slade, the minor hero known as the Phantom Rider. Of course, Carter is himself the ancestor of the original Phantom Rider of the Old West, Lincoln Slade, who thanks to time travel became the archenemy of Mockingbird. Apparently, old grudges die hard, and perhaps Jaime's interest in archaeology has exposed her to the legacy of Lincoln Slade.

Here is another example, this time from Avengers Academy #2, by Christos Gage and Mike McKone.

Finesse is Jeanne Foucault, with the "power" to pick up any talent after a brief exposure to its performance elsewhere. If that sounds familiar, it's because that is similar to the so-called "photographic reflexes" that the criminal Taskmaster exhibits. And it does sound familiar to Finesse, so much so that she questions her own parentage. Of course, Finesse's powers also make her unable to pick up on social cues and mores, so the comic also entertains that likely that she's completely misreading the situation.

So, what can we learn from these examples?

Granted, the first example kind of works, as the original character this progeny comes from was from the Old West. The comic seems to suggest that the character is as much a resurrection of the spirit as much as she is a progeny. (Her partner Crossfire even throws out the term "resurrection" but it kind of just hangs there.) Still, what does it say about the age of the Marvel world if we have Carter Slade operating as a hero in the Southwest AND having  a daughter old enough to be an established archaeologist in her own right?

The second one kind of works too, but in a different way. Finesse is supposed to be a teenager, so at least she's younger than Jaime Slade, and she doesn't necessarily believe that Taskmaster IS her father, just that she shares a lot in common with him. Perhaps the writer isn't seriously considering this connection but uses it as purpose of comparison with a character that fans are likely to know already.

But put them together and once again we see that, in the Marvel universe, superheroes and villains are nothing new. What was once a world were "marvels" were rare, but now they are at least one generation away from everyone. Marvels are now so common that it's a feature of our lives as second-nature as microwaves and cell phones, making it that much harder to come with "magic" in the world. Say it with me, Scarlet Witch, before this becomes a genie loosed from its bottle: "no more progeny characters."

Xarus

Yet More Marvel Children!

Here is Xarus, son of Dracula, and prime mover of the current Death of Dracula series, brought to you by Victor Gischler and Giuseppe Camuncoli. (Uh, in case you can't tell, he's on the left, below:)

This one was a bit harder to notice at first. He's the brother of Janus, who had actually been introduced as the son of Dracula way back in the Tomb of Dracula series in 1976. (Something about Dracula wanting a son so that he could use the Church of Satan help him rule the world, but ended up bonding with an angelic enemy of Dracula and thus becoming the Golden Angel.) 

But Xarus? He's all new. Still, with an immortal monster like Dracula, there's bound to be some progeny out there already and it would be relatively easy to introduce him with just a walk-on appearance, like he did in Death of Dracula #1. Plus, he's got a cool "X" name that will make it convenient to become an X-Men villain when they have their big vampire crossover this summer.

When you put Xarus together with the string of progeny characters appearing lately, however, it's yet another lamentable sign of an unfortunate trend. So stop having babies, Dracula! Sheesh.   

Psycho-Woman

Marvel Child Explosion 2010 Continues!

Not a month, nay, nary a week goes by without yet another Marvel prodigy appearing the pages of the House of Ideas. If that sounds sarcastic, it:s only because of the frustration I feel for this recurring trend that I, Cassandra-like, cry to unhearing ears about what is a doomed practice. 

This time we have Fantastic Four Annual #32, written by Joe Ahearne and drawn by Bryan Hitch/Andrew Currie. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: PSYCHO-WOMAN!

She's the daughter of long-time FF Foe, the Psycho-Man! We know this because when asked if she uses an emotion-controlling box like the Psycho-Man, with its dials for specific emotions, she says "Hate, Fear, and Doubt are my father's tools. My weapons are far sharper." In order to harvest "tissues ... for an army of cosmic warriors," the Psycho-Woman and, uhm, synthetic (?) warriors of some kind invade the body of Johnny Storm and his girlfriend, drug the two, and some time later his girlfriend is pregnant with his child. The details are a bit murky (which might explain the art. Zing!)  

So, the question remains. What does this add to the Marvel universe? Why did it have to be a progeny character? If it was to add a female villain to the FF's repertoire, then why not make it a female scientist, colleague or rival of Psycho-Man? Why did it have to be a female version at all-- it could have been the Psycho-Man himself, which might have even been creepier given the ... invasive nature of the villainy performed. All it does is simply perpetuate the idea that the Marvel universe is, again, aging, and that robs it of its magical realism a little bit.

le Belle Batroc

It:s a combo-post that follows the two recent themes on this blog-- French Week and Child Watch 2010!

We all know there's the happy-go-lucky, ever-schemin' Batroc The Leaper.

But did you know he also had a daughter who was going to follow in his footsteps? Yes, mon amis, I'm talking about The Lady Batroc!

 

Apparently she was going to follow in her father's leapin' boots and be a mercenary using her "French martial arts of savate." And not only that-- but it would be with ANOTHER progeny character, the daughter of Spider-Man's South American villain, La Tarantula! Well, the two of them were hired to kill Agent X and Taskmaster in issue 6 of Agent X's series, which was kind of what Deadpool's old series turned into (you see kids, at the time Deadpool couldn't hold down ONE title!)

Anyway, Agent X dodged when the girls came at him and they fell off a roof.

(Thanks to Comic Vine and the Marvel Appendix for some information and some pictures. Apparently, Alvin Lee and UDON Studios didn:t have that many pictures of Batroc that made good scans, and her story ended pretty quickly.)

Marvel Child Explosion 2010

In our continuing coverage of Marvel Child Watch 2010, a dutiful Flipside viewer passed along this tidbit of information, with spoilers for the recent Black Widow issue--

 

Could Black Widow be a baby momma? Yes, it's one of those that makes sense if, like Wolverine, the Black Widow is supposed to be a long-lived, age-defying hero, but it continues the trend I:ve been discussing of late.

UPDATE & SPOILERS! As revealed in Black Widow #5, the child mentioned here had died as an infant, and is mentioned as a victim of the Black Widow's fractured past and shattered memories. 

Caterpillar Heroes

As I mentioned in a previous post, there are an amazing number of "progeny" heroes and villains appearing in the Marvel Universe lately. SHIELD agent Nick Fury calls them "caterpillars" in their featured series Secret Warriors, but other caterpillar-progeny show up this month in Dark Wolverine #87 (Daken), Avengers #2 (the evil future kids of Avengers), Young Allies #1 (the Bastards of Evil), Age of Heroes #2 (The Young Masters), and Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son #2.

Bastards of Evil, from Young Allies #1, art by David Baldeón/Chris Sotomayer

We could argue that creating new characters and simply making them progeny of established heroes/villains is a cheap storytelling gimmick, a marketing/brand-driven decision, lazy writing, or other demeaning examples of "hack" writing. Wasn:t a moratorium on mutant characters put in place because it was just too easy to create a character and slap a "mutant" label on him/her? We could argue that the new trend is to simply create new characters and slap "progeny" stickers on them. But I:m not going to argue all that. In fact, some of the ideas above are pretty interesting, and maybe even a logical extension of certain stories/story engines. However, there is an unintended consequence, and that's with an overall feeling and impression regarding the entire universe that Marvel plays with.

Remember, Marvel was once the "young kid" on the block, creating much of its heroes from scratch during the Silver Age (60s/70s), while its counterpart, DC Comics, already had a long tradition of heroes and legacy characters, sidekicks, et cetera. This continued well into the Bronze Age (70s/80s) as Marvel expanded its brand and range of titles with more experimentation than DC ever did. As a result, the overall feeling of Marvel:s universe as that it was always fresh, new, and contemporary. Spider-Man could continue to be the "everyman" character because his universe was continuing to be discovered at the same time that his readers were discovering it. DC, on the other hand, wasn:t as concerned with discovering new corners as it was reinventing/reinterpreting its corners. DC would rather reboot, refresh, or re-mantle its characters.

The more that Marvel create progeny characters, the more it is becoming like DC. There used to be a wonder and mystery about superheroes, precisely because individuals who could descend from the sky and wield fantastic powers was exciting, rare, and, in the true sense of the word, a phenomenon. Citizens of Marvel:s New York would race to windows and watch in amazement at the blazing trails of a flying man , while at the same time citizens of DC:s Central City were so used to such displays they would have museums already established honoring their heroes: legacies. There is no more wonder when heroics are a "given."

As frustrating as it is for Marvel to have a "rolling timeline" that compresses 75 years of publishing history into only 15 years or so of "real time," this rolling timeline helped reinforce the fact that superheroes were still "new" to the world and that such "newness" was always just around the corner to be discovered. By having more and more progeny revealed, the more this timeline doesn:t make sense. The Marvel universe will be forced to more closely match its aging publishing-years. We are entering a new *generation* of heroes, and that, by very definition, ages the universe and robs it of some of its wonder and freshness.

So as good as some of the new books with caterpill-ogeny are, I'd rather we get back to idea that what we're seeing is a relatively young universe. Or am I just afraid that comic universes, like me and everything else, can't help but grow old?