Super Hero Boot Camp or Hank Pym's School of Heroism?

What are your thoughts and opinions on these two series?

Wish you could've explained more of the subject, or at least linked to someplace. I reads mah comics from the library, so I'll never be the most relevant fugger.

But from what little I know, Avenger's Academy sounds like X-men with less mutants.

Right sorry about that, guess I should of explained more.

Well Avengers: The Initiative was a series about a Super Hero training program in the aftermath of the Marvel Civil War. Here registered super humans go to a boot camp and are trained how to use their powers. Upon graduations they are placed into teams in each state.

More info here: Link

Avengers Academy came after the Siege of Asgard as part of the new Marvel Heroic Age. Hank Pym (AKA Ant Man, Giant Man, Yellow Jacket, Wasp) and some other veterans take in some super powered teens that were tortured by Norman Osborn during his reign, and try to teach them to be the Avengers of the future.

More Info here: Link

I don't know how many people here read these books, but I guess thats the point of this thread.

More four-color-ethos crap which will be rebooted every seven years so another group of suckers will pony up for it.

Four-color-ethos? Huh?

Eh, it seems a little silly to have another future generations avengers thing, since Young Avengers is still around. Still, I'm kinda hard on Juston Seyfert and a new White Tiger being there. Even if they'll be limited to cameo roles.

Well not exactly like the Young Avengers since thats an active team. The ones at the academy at first are there to try and steer them away from becoming super villains thanks to Osborn ruining their lives. And so far over half of these kids scream villain or jerk.

The Initiative I rather liked since it opened up some new ideas for super heroes and each state gets their own team. Eventually I think the Academy will continue this when they start expanding to have more students.

Actually, superheroes haven't been four-colour-ethos for YEARS now. In fact they've been stuck in various levels of grim and gritty since the 90s, desperately trying to be taken seriously.

What is four-color ethos? I swear I've never heard that term before.

But it comics have tried to lappear serious long before the 90's, albeit less grim and gritty ways. There was the infamous late 60's Spiderman comic where Harry Osborn had a drug addiction, being one of the first comics to deal with a real life issue. Then there was the darker pulp ficitions of the 30's. Some artists considered themselves more serious due to their art style, like the creator of Golden Age Starman, in spite of the plots being stupid as heck.

"Four-Color-Ethos" is defined by how comics were shaped by the Comics Code of the '50s: Good Guys are never permitted to kill; they are never permitted to use any underhanded tactics (beyond the odd bit of breaking-and-entering); they have to be clean, upright, upstanding citizens; etc. Meanwhile Bad Guys are only restricted in action by having to babble for twenty minutes rather than simply putting a bullet in the hero's ass the moment he gets hold of him (see "Things I Will Not Do When I Am Evil Overlord" for details).

In Reality, of course, no Good Guys exist, as the Bad Guys have captured and killed them in the first five minutes; in order for a Good Guy to exist, he has to be *even worse* than the Bad Guys. This is where the "modern" comic aesthetic comes in: Good Guys are allowed to kick seven bales of shit out of Villains -- but then they have to Wangst (TVTropes -- look it up) about it for three issues afterward, which sort-of diminishes the whole notion of "kill the Bad Guy, and don't look back".

A properly realistic hero would paraphrase Calvin from _Calvin and Hobbes_: "I have plenty of morals and empathy -- I just choose to ignore it." <*BLAM*>

Hm, come to think of it, lots of Anime/Manga still follow "four color ethos", but instead, the hero must take a bazillion hits before finally overcoming the villain with sheer willpower/grit. But it still comes down to "only bad guys get to kill", and the good guys generally suffer through more damage, which makes their triumph all the more glorious.

But I can't think of any comics where the good guys get to kick the shit out of bad guys first. From what I've seen its usually the bad guy whooping a good guy, randomly leaving, then the good guy goes on some Wangsting/whatever, gets new insight, then finally beats the villain.

Could you give specific examples of what you described?


Maybe I just don't know what "grim and gritty" really is. I thought Hellboy was like that, yet many of the stories follow four color ethos, Conquerer Worm and Right Hand of Doom being classic examples. Same thing with the Goon, though he does some nastier things, like his tortureof that werewolf guy. Then there's the 90's comic Stormwatch which covered anything subjects from rape to drug use to spirits of murder mind-raping a man, yet still the stories were loosely four color ethos (though maybe a minor good guy would get very violently tortured).

There have been plenty of technical "Heroes" that have killed bad guys and don't groan about it...but that then defeats the purpose of the good guy and thus we enter the realm of Anti Heroes e.g. Punisher, Wolverine (Some versions), Ultimate Marvel Hulk, etc.

Try Garth Ennis "The Boys" I can think of only 1 good guy with any angst in it-the others are
1 Ambivalent
2 Nuttier than squirrel shit
3 A feral psychopath
4 A terrifying blank slate psychopath.

Also try Moore's works-Watchmen and V for Vendetta in particular-hard to figure out a Good guy there.
Warren Ellis Transmetropolitan has a good guy-but he's kind of an arse and won't hesitate to kick the fuck out of you.

It doesn't *quite* "defeat the purpose of the Good Guy"; it simply makes it easier for the Villain to deliver the "Not So Different speech" (see TVTropes), and forces the writers to create an unending parade of Vaguely Different Bad Guys. The Comics Code shot the first option in the ass; simple practicality covered the second.

Thus, in Reality: Superman blows Lex Luthor's head off the first time Lexy so much as looks at him funny; we never see Batman face the same villain twice, as at the end of the story, the Villain is a smoking hole in the pavement; and Wolverine has a body-count which would make Mao Tse-Tung nauseous.

Yeah, I've read Watchmen, V, and Transmetropolitan long ago, but I didn't think any of them quite matched what Csadn described. I know what anti-heroes are, I can name tons of 'em.

And I've...flipped through The Boys. The eye burning excesses of gore and sex rather turned me off. Only so much negativity I can take in one reading :(. Plus the plot premises sounds an awful lot like StormWatch: Post Human Division, since they both pretain to "normal" people fighting superhumans through just skills and tactics.


And in real life, villains wouldn't come back because the death penalty would exist. Or better yet, there'd be kinky supervillain prison rape, and Joker would get dildoed to death during his 15th consecutive incarceration. Either way, it isn't the heroes doing it :P

Wow this thread has gone in a different direction then I intended.

Just pointing that out, carry on, I find this discussion on hero ethics interesting.

Well I was talking more about plots. I can't think of any stories where the hero beats the villain at first encounter than angsts excessivly about it.

The Comics Code is ancient history, though it did set the stage for the way the archetypical superhero acts.

Though a lot of people have gotten disinterested in Avengers around Civil War when the heroes became bigger assholes than the villains,and spent more time fighting each other. And now you've got half the MU on the edge of going bad (over at X-Men, Cyclops is basically on track to becoming the next Magneto) or desperately trying to reign it in after Marvel realised readers got sick of it.

Cdasn, what you're looking for has already been explored by plenty of side comics- The Authority, The Boys (as above), the Punisher (especially MAX) and even stuff like Kick-Ass have been subverting the superhero formula for years. Hell, even Watchmen has superheroes with no compunctions about flat out killing people, and that was the 80s.

Note that a lot of these comics also figure that a superpowered vigilante who decides to just kill people usually ends up indistinguishable from a supervillain. Hell, even in the Justice League cartoon, alternate universe Superman decided to laser eye Lex Luthor, and ended up becoming the dictator of Earth.

That's this place for you-it takes a topic...and goes off on a tangent.

I will say, the main reason for 'no-kill' these days is the other M word-money.

Take Batman f'rinstance. You think Bats you think Joker-hence the pale faced loons constant brushes with death being shrugged off and every other villain playing 2nd fiddle to him.

Now don't get me wrong-I LIKE a lot of Joker stories. But he is far too over exposed-and all because he's a cash cow. There a re many good Joker stories-and lots more of 'ADD JOKER CAUSE EVERYONE LOVES JOKER!!".
Meanwhile poor old Scarecrow is left to moulder, Firefly is ignored and Zsasz..well he did have a fucking awesome storyline recently, but disappeared off the face of the earth afterwards.

Though Batman is favorite of mine, he's not alone- Supes, The Lanterns (ignore that Power Rangers shite from last year) Xmen-they all trade on their villains just as much as their heroes. It prevents them from moving forward as a medium and even within the story. Hell, even lo rent sitcoms/ Soap Operas-when a character dies 99% of the time-they are dead. No come backs-aside from when it was actually their evil twin who died.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although the Comics Code 4-Colour ethos was the original reason for the baddies going to prison/nuthouses, it's now the case that, the villains are as much a brand as the heroes-and sadly we won't get those situations of Batman pulling the trigger or Supes snapping a neck-unless it's a dream sequence or alt reality.

Pretty-much -- and Sabre_Justice is incorrect about more than just the spelling of my handle [ :) ]: The Comics Code only last year finally died out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_A...ity#Abandonment .

It's been ignored for a good long while. I think as early as the 70s the Big Two publishers started making comics that didn't have Comics Code, but it lingered around for a while after.

I personally depsise the ridiculous amouts of Idiot Hero required to set up the existance of The Initative, which is a pity cause it had good moments (KIA was a blast!)

Power Rangers? If thats a crack at the different coloured Lantern Corps, I have to say I actually like that idea, its what got me into Green Lantern to begin with. But thats just my opinion, I understand there are comic fans who dislike it and thats fair enough.

But I do agree that the comic companies would never kill off a popular character (Hero/Villain) unless they plan for them to come back later in some way.

Indeed-for years we knew that there were only 2 dead people in comics-Bucky and Jason Todd. And then Retcon punch....

And yes-I didn't really dig the Blackest Night stuff. In fact the only good things I got out of it were Larfleeze and Dex-Starr.

On topic, I'll be interested who, if anyone the young rookies take down. Then again all Hazmat has to do is lose the suit and-BOOM- Avengers Vs Cancer! The thrilling new story line coming in two-four years!

They have taken on a few known villains, but for the most part either they were staged or revenge fueled. Not off to a great start these "Avengers of Tommorrow".

Hey, the only people who stay dead in comics are parental figures and girlfriends. And even then it's a crapshoot if writers get desperate enough.

There are exceptions to that rule Sabre, like Roger in the BPRD comics. Plus, obscure characters no one cares about tend to stay dead.

Yeah, but BPRD is pretty far removed from the antics of DC and Marvel. For one, the Hellboy mythos is owned by Mike Mignola, and has a beginning and an end, unlike, say, Batman, which just goes around and around in a loop until the extinction of mortal flesh. Whilst there's plenty of space to go back and tell stories of old cases, there is an ending, Which is coming up in the next few years, and probably closer to next year now that Mike is apparently drawing Hellboy again (YAY).