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Was Elektra's death "fridging"?

 
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james castle
Devil in Cell-Block D


Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario

PostPosted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would say Stilt-Man is way more iconic than either the Owl, Mr. Fear or Purple Man. The Owl is such a mishmash. I've been reading DD for three decades and can honestly say I don't know what the Owl's deal is. Does he have an origin? Same with Mr. Fear. There's been a few right? And he...likes....fear? Purple Man is maybe close and his first appearance was scary as hell but I feel like he's a bit of a one trick pony.

Which is a weird thing to say while defending Stilt-Man (the ultimate one trip pony). But Stilt-Man is just such an icon. His costume is nuts. The concept is nuts. He's instantly recognizable. When I think of DD's rogue's gallery he's literally the second guy I think of.
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The Overlord
Paradiso


Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 1095

PostPosted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

james castle wrote:
I would say Stilt-Man is way more iconic than either the Owl, Mr. Fear or Purple Man. The Owl is such a mishmash. I've been reading DD for three decades and can honestly say I don't know what the Owl's deal is. Does he have an origin? Same with Mr. Fear. There's been a few right? And he...likes....fear? Purple Man is maybe close and his first appearance was scary as hell but I feel like he's a bit of a one trick pony.

Which is a weird thing to say while defending Stilt-Man (the ultimate one trip pony). But Stilt-Man is just such an icon. His costume is nuts. The concept is nuts. He's instantly recognizable. When I think of DD's rogue's gallery he's literally the second guy I think of.


Someone could argue Bullseye is a one trick pony, but clearly he has been used to good effect, I would argue the same is true for Purple Man since 2001.

In the end of the day, a villain is only as good as his writer, in DC they take goofy characters like Catman and Captain Cold and manage to make them compelling. Even great villains like Joker, Lex Luthor, Kingpin, Magneto, Dr. Doom, etc can have bad stories under sub par writers.

Still even Miller treated Stilt-Man like a joke, Miller couldn't have been bothered to revamp him into a serious villain. Jenkins tried to make him a serious villain in his Spider-Man/Daredevil mini, but that didn't work.

As for Mr. Fear, clearly the best of the bunch of Larry Cranston and what's wrong with him, he has managed to give DD a run for his money at least twice, he suffers from lack of usage more then anything.

I said my piece about Owl, but I do think making him a crime boss who really isn't as intelligent as Fisk, but is far more reckless and cares less about the consequences of his actions then Fisk does, could make for an interesting contrast. That's not a perfect idea, but I think having another crime boss as a constant rival and contrast to Fisk could work. Right now Owl is generic.
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Mike Murdock
Golden Age


Joined: 08 Sep 2014
Posts: 1750

PostPosted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I figured it wouldn't hurt to tally up every appearance of every villain and list it for people to decide. For purposes of this, I'm not counting villains that appeared only once. I'm not counting Annuals (I don't feel like tracking down when Electro re-appeared). I'm only counting the main book. If a character had more than one name, I listed both. I listed Mr. Fear together but disambiguated which one was which (Starr Saxon is tricky because he wasn't Mr. Fear for all of it, though). I'm also counting Turk as Turk, not as Mauler, Stilt-Man, whatever. There also seems to be like four characters named Smasher who appear only once and have no relationship. I'm sure I missed a few with Turk or Eric Slaughter. Also, I'm counting issues, not stories.

This is everything up through Miller's first run:

Bullseye - 131, 132, 141, 142, 146, 159, 160, 161, 169, 170, 171, 172, 181, 191 (14)
Kingpin - 171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185, 186, 188, 190 (14)
Jester - 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 61, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 154 (13)
Exterminator/Death Stalker - 39, 41, 113, 114, 115, 128, 148, 152, 155, 156, 157, 158 (12)
Gladiator 18, 19, 22, 23, 63, 85, 113, 114, 140, 154, 166 (11)
Turk - 69, 159, 161, 168, 170, 171, 172, 176, 180, 186 (10)
Owl - 3, 20, 21, 80, 81, 116, 117, 144, 145 (9)
Mr. Fear - 6 (Calvin Zabo), 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55 (Starr Saxon), 90, 91 (Lawrence Cranston) (2) - (9 Total)
Purple Man - 4, 88, 89, 147, 149, 150, 151, 154 ( 8 )
Mr. Hyde - 30, 31, 32, 61, 142, 143, 153, 154 ( 8 )
Cobra - 30, 31, 32, 61, 142, 143, 153, 154 ( 8 )
Stilt-Man - 8, 26, 27, 48, 67, 102, 186 (7)
Ani-Men/Unholy Three - 10, 11, 39, 40, 41, 157, 158 (7)
Masked Marauder - 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 27, 29 (7)
Mr. Klein/The Assassin/MK-9 - 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 (7)
Kerwin Broderick/Terrex - 97, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107 (7)
The Hand - 174, 175, 176, 187, 188, 189, 190 (7)
Man-Bull - 78, 79, 95, 96, 129, 144 (6)
Beetle - 33, 34, 108, 109, 140 (5)
Angar the Screamer - 100, 101, 105, 106, 107 (5)
Black Spectre - 108, 109, 110, 111, 112 (5)
Plunderer - 12, 13, 14, 24 (4)
Dark Messiah - 97, 98, 105, 106 (4)
Ramrod - 103, 105, 106, 107 (4)
Nekra - 109, 110, 111, 112 (4)
Hydra - 120, 121, 122, 123 (4)
Electro - 2, 87, 89 (3)
Ox - 6, 15, 86 (3)
Dr. Doom - 36, 37, 38 (3)
Death's Head - 56, 57, 138 (3)
Indestructible Man - 92, 93, 94 (3)
Mandrill - 110, 111, 112 (3)
Eric Slaughter - 159, 161, 185 (3)
Fixer - 1, 164 (2)
Matador - 5, 129 (2)
Namor - 7, 77 (2)
Organizer - 10, 11 (2)
Tri-Man - 22, 23 (2)
Trapster - 35, 36 (2)
Stunt-Master - 58, 64 (2)
Crime-Wave - 59, 60 (2)
Brother Brimstone - 65, 66 (2)
Tribune - 70, 71 (2)
El Condor - 75, 76 (2)
Kraven - 104, 105 (2)
Copperhead - 124, 125 (2)
Torpedo - 126, 127 (2)
Paladin - 150, 152 (2)
Punisher - 183, 184 (2)
The Maggia - 22, 23 (2)

To a degree, you can see eras. The 130s was Jester, the 150s was Death Stalker, the 160s was Bullseye, and the 170s was Kingpin. Characters like Stilt-Man and the Owl were sort of in the middle of the pack, but were spread out over a wide range of issues.
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james castle
Devil in Cell-Block D


Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 1999
Location: Toronto, Ontario

PostPosted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Overlord wrote:

Someone could argue Bullseye is a one trick pony, but clearly he has been used to good effect, I would argue the same is true for Purple Man since 2001.


The difference is that Bullseye and Stilt-Man also have an iconic look. Owl has had a million different looks. And Purple Man is just purple. I have a fuzzy picture in my head of Mr. Fear. Does he have a consistent mask? Colour scheme? I always picture him as a sort of Task Master looking guy. But in purple?
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Why aren't you laughing?
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