I was thinking about Reed Richards recently. When Fantastic Four began, Reed was a gutsy, he-man type who also happened to be extremely smart. These days he's a guy who's really smart, but it seems all the rest has been left by the wayside. If you were to put together a list of Marvel's toughest characters, Reed's not considered to be anywhere near the top--in fact, closer to the bottom these days. So what happened? How did his character change so much?
Now of course there have been a lot of characters over the years that have made face/heel turns, but in terms of characters that have never shifted sides for an extended period, can anyone think of other characters whose baseline character has changed so much?
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Sue comes to mind. Jan, too.
Well, yeah, that makes sense. The times changed, and pose and point superheroines went out of style. You could add Wanda to that list as well.
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
In many ways Reed retreated while Sue moved forward. I'm not sure what it's like currently. Reed was also pushed into the background in the mu because of the drifting fortunes of the FF compared to the X-men and now the Avengers. Originally the FF had to have the smartest guy in charge because they faced the biggest threats, so Reed was smarter than Pym or Stark combined, he had to be to face up to Doom. But gradually they pulled everyone up to Reed's level and the writer's made them far more pro-active in many ways. Sure Reed was smart, but he didn't create Ultron or run a major corporation. He was in the lab tinkering on basic science while everyone else was doing practical stuff. And more and more smart guys popped up over time. Now brilliant geniuses are a dime a dozen in the mu.
Hank McCoy has gone through some heavy right angled changes, from the guy with the vocabulary to the jokester on the Avengers to his latest dumb turn risking all of time and space bringing the old X-men forward to prove a point to Cyclops.
In a way it's harder with DC because they keep rebooting their universe so every character sort of starts with a clean slate.
I think it was John Byrne who redefined Reed, but I missed most of the Doug Moench era, which preceded his run.
Some of the Legionnaires were given personalities they hadn't had before during the second Paul Levitz era. That's when Star Boy became negative.
Lois Lane has gone through significant changes. Early on she was gutsy and got into trouble a lot. Later she tried to prove Clark was Superman all the time. In the Silver Age she was rash. In second half of the 70s, in her own feature, she was serious and a fighter.
The Silver Age Jimmy was often a bit of a screw-up. In the 70s he became Mr Action.
When adult Lana was reintroduced into Superman's feature in the late 70s she was conniving. Then she reverted to being a nice character.
Flash Thompson went from being Peter Parker's enemy to his friend.
Ambush Bug started as a nutty killer, became a goofy troublemaker, and ended up an everyman.
Early on Wolverine was a violent guy without much of a moral compass.
What about the Chief from Doom Patrol. In the last series they pushed him pretty far into the villain category.
Once Morrison got done with him, the Chief may have thought he'd have been better off if he'd better off with the heroic death Arnold Drake gave him, if he was capable of any second thoughts! But then I seem to recall that John Byrne did a reboot that ignored Morrison's run altogether, not that I ever picked up any of Byrne's run.
In the last run he went pretty bad.
Fred W. Hill said:
I think I may be the one person on Earth who really loved John Byrne's run on Doom Patrol.
Fred W. Hill said:
No, I liked it too. I wouldn't call it perfect, but they were reasonably enjoyable super hero stories.
Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man said: