Why new super villains don't work out

E said:
Elton John?

If you're talking about him singing the Princess Di version Candle in the Wind, I totally agree.



Now you're falling into the same poor argument that they are. I was with you until you posted that.
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Okay poor choice of words. I really don't like her.

My point was popularity does equal quality, just because carnage was popular doesn't mean he was good. I mean its like saying Dukes of hazards was a good film because it was popular.

I think I could change my mind, if someone could come up with some objective reasons why Carnage is a good character.
 
The Overlord said:
I think I could change my mind, if someone could come up with some objective reasons why Carnage is a good character.
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That or REALLY dissect and deconstruct why he is a bad one (which I think he is). I mean it's one thing to say that he is a shallow evil twin of an evil twin, but another thing to really understand on what levels he is shallow.
 
E said:
Vanilla Ice was once a multi-platinum selling "musician".
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Now he's dropped the Vanilla and is a Admin/Mod/Teh Sexy Monkey Queen , On a comic book site. It's a shame to see people fall so far.
 
ourchair said:
That or REALLY dissect and deconstruct why he is a bad one (which I think he is). I mean it's one thing to say that he is a shallow evil twin of an evil twin, but another thing to really understand on what levels he is shallow.
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Well let's see, like I said he is an evil twin of a evil twin, his personality is a rip off of the Joker's, he doesn't fit in Spidey's world, all his stories are the same (he goes to crowded area, kills a bunch of people with his powers, Spidey stops him, lather, rinse, repeat), he was overexposed, he has no real dynamics with Spidey.
Am I missing anything?
 
The Overlord said:
Well let's see, like I said he is an evil twin of a evil twin, his personality is a rip off of the Joker's, he doesn't fit in Spidey's world, all his stories are the same (he goes to crowded area, kills a bunch of people with his powers, Spidey stops him, lather, rinse, repeat), he was overexposed, he has no real dynamics with Spidey.
Am I missing anything?
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That is all true.

But it doesn't 'explain' anything.

Mind you, I'm not demanding. I'm merely trying to point out that while villains like Carnage are shallow, the very quality of 'shallowness' is one difficult to articulate in a fashion that is beyond skin deep.
 
ourchair said:
That is all true.

But it doesn't 'explain' anything.

Mind you, I'm not demanding. I'm merely trying to point out that while villains like Carnage are shallow, the very quality of 'shallowness' is one difficult to articulate in a fashion that is beyond skin deep.
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How does that not explain anything, I said he was crappy character and I just gave reasons to support it. I made an argument then provide facts to back it up. One of those things would have been forgivable, put them all together and its a mess.

If anyone wants to give reasons why he is a good character, they can be my guest.
 
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The Overlord said:
How does that not explain anything, I said he was crappy character and I just gave reasons to support it. I made an argument then provide facts to back it up. One of those things would have been forgivable, put them all together and its a mess.

If anyone wants to give reasons why he is a good character, they can be my guest.
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You didn't make an argument for why he's a bad character. All you did was list facets of the character.

As for listing facets of why he could be a good character...? Sure, I'm game.

He's got a cool looking design. Thematically, he's as polarizing to the concept of Spider-Man as you can possibly be. Whereas Spider-Man represents great power and great responsibility, Carnage represents great power with neither responsibility nor reason. The question then is, what would be the responsible way to deal with Carnage? He seems utterly alien, but there's still something wicked and human on the inside. As you mentioned, whenever he gets free (and he proves that he'll get free again and again), he'll immediately set in to butchering people. And that's not just the suit talking. It's Cletus feeling the same way. So what's the responsible way to deal with that? Is it to keep locking the guy up, knowing he'll always get free, or is it something else? Just because Carnage has been portrayed badly in the past doesn't mean he can't be a good character. Most villains were pretty goofy and one-sided for most of their existence.
 
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Zombipanda said:
You didn't make an argument for why he's a bad character. All you did was list facets of the character.

As for listing facets of why he could be a good character...? Sure, I'm game.

He's got a cool looking design. Thematically, he's as polarizing to the concept of Spider-Man as you can possibly be. Whereas Spider-Man represents great power and great responsibility, Carnage represents great power with neither responsibility nor reason. The question then is, what would be the responsible way to deal with Carnage? He seems utterly alien, but there's still something wicked and human on the inside. As you mentioned, whenever he gets free (and he proves that he'll get free again and again), he'll immediately set in to butchering people. And that's not just the suit talking. It's Cletus feeling the same way. So what's the responsible way to deal with that? Is it to keep locking the guy up, knowing he'll always get free, or is it something else? Just because Carnage has been portrayed badly in the past doesn't mean he can't be a good character. Most villains were pretty goofy and one-sided for most of their existence.
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Those facets are what make the character so uninteresting in the first place.

The fact is Spider-Man should fight serial killers as much as he should go into
space, which is almost never. He doesn't fit into Spidey's world, Spidey titles are not place for serial killers, he should fight Ghost rider, its like having the Justice League fight a rapist.

As for how Spidey should deal with him, shouldn't the government have just killed him long ago? So why don't like the character, in real world he would have executed long ago for his crimes, in MU he just escaped from asylum to go on killing spree every week.

The carnage just seems like an exploitive excuse for gorn.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Gorn

He doesn't even have a sense of style, at least bullseye and Joker are creative and stylish killers, carnage is just a thug with no sense of style, a goon with knife will give the same results as Carnage, nothing is creative about him.
 
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The Overlord said:
Those facets are what make the character so uninteresting in the first place.

The fact is Spider-Man should fight serial killers as much as he should go into
space, which is almost never.
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but spider-man fights criminals all the time. Serial killer fits as well as Kingpin the mob boss.

For the record I don't like carnage. But I think he fits in the Spider-man world
 
This thread is totally off topic.

This thread is about why super-villains don't utilize their Gold's Gym membership. Not why are they so lame, poorly written, etc.




Lock this thread. :p
 
Victor Von Doom said:
This thread is totally off topic.

This thread is about why super-villains don't utilize their Gold's Gym membership.
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Would you want to get on a rowing machine after someone like Clayface or Radioactive Man used it? No thank you.
 
SSJmole said:
but spider-man fights criminals all the time. Serial killer fits as well as Kingpin the mob boss.

For the record I don't like carnage. But I think he fits in the Spider-man world
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Spider-man fights bank robbers and mad scientists, not serial killers. Spider-Man is not supposed to be a dark book, so having serial killers as regular enemies doesn't fit the context.
 
This is all I have to say on the topic...


Sentrycarnage.jpg
 
Okay, I think we are getting a bit off topic, besides the one example provided by Mole, can anyone think new villains introduced in the last 15 years that aren't: dead, turned into jokes or completely forgotten?
 
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