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Popular Culture Review
and Mary Kent? Eben and Sarah? Jonathan and Martha?) And the
characters, if not the Sophoclean creations [Stan] Lee suggested they
were, were not interchangeable hero-drone units inhabiting the DC
universe, either (59).
11 Given the soap-opera nature o f comics, i.e., without conflict there can be no story; the
idea o f living “happily-ever-after” is a misnomer, hi subsequent issues o f The Avengers,
The V ision’s “control crystal" malfunctions and he “became bent on creating a new
golden age o f peace on Earth by seizing control o f the world’s computers and defense
systems. Ultimately, the Vision reverted to form by severing his comiection to the
planet’s databanks and extracting the control crystal from his mechanized mind. In the
wake o f the android Avengers’ meltdown, the nations o f Earth came to regard him as a
high-level security threat. Government operatives abducted and dismantled the Vision,
erasing his memory. The Scarlet Witch and the Avengers recovered their teammates’
components, and Pym rebuilt and reprogrammed the Vision. The scientist downloaded
the sum total o f the Avengers’ computer files into the synthezoid's neural processors, but
Wonder Man refused to allow a new record o f his brain patterns to be synthesized.
Apparently, he had grown resentful o f his digital doppelganger and was attracted to the
Scarlet Witch himself. Hence, the Vision returned to existence sans human emotion,
unable even to recall his love for his wife" (Marveldirectory.com).
Origins o f Marvel Comics was published in 1974 and Son o f Origins o f Marvel
Comics the following year in 1975. Both o f these volumes served to “reproduce and
burnish the creation myths o f the great sixties characters’* (Lethem, “The Return o f the
King").
In the “Neighborhood Profile” section o f New York Magazine on the Internet, Cobble
Hill is described in this way: “The Basics: Slightly cheaper than Brooklyn Heights,
Cobble Hill is home to quiet streets lined with quaint brownstones as well as Court
Street’s happening restaurants and bars. Boundaries: Stretches from Atlantic Avenue to
Douglass Street and from Columbia to Smith Streets. Borders: Brooklyn Heights and
Carroll
Gardens"
(http://www.newyorkmetro.com/realestate/articles/neighborhoods/
cobblehill.htm).
14 Perhaps this is a nod to Lee and Kirby’s The Fantastic Four. When asked why he
doesn’t have a secret identity. Super Goat Man answers, “I wasn’t that kind o f superhero”
(125). Perhaps as a parody o f the Superman story, when asked if his parents were “sad
when you gave up your secret identity,” Super Goat Man smiles and answers, “They
weren’t my real parents. I was adopted" (125).
Before the Fantastic Four, all superheroes had “secret identities.” The assumption
behind this trope was that the hero needed to shield the identity o f his (and later her)
“other” self in order to protect the lives o f loved ones. That is, if Superman, for example,
let it be known that his “other s e lf’ was Clark Kent, he would put his parents and friends
and associates in harm’s way since they could be targeted to get to him. But though the
members o f the Fantastic Four— Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben
Grim— take on the superhero “name-tag” (Reed is “Mr. Fantastic;” Sue, “The Invisible
Girl;” her brother, Johnny, is “The Human Torch;” and Ben is simply, “The Thing”) they
do so not conceal their identities; rather, these names offer the reader (and the writer) a
kind o f short hand. Interestingly, the characters use their birth names and heroic names
interchangeably. For example, in any stoiy line, one might “hear*’ Reed yell out: “Johnny,