Perhaps we can answer best with this example. Marvel took one of the greatest villains created in the 1980s:
Flag-Smasher, the anti-nationalist terrorist...
And in the 1990s they turned him into...
...a drug-addicted, mind-addled slave of the Roxxon Corporation.Oh, yeah, and the gave him super-powers and a crazy jet-pack to go with the crappy new "costume."
Man, the 90s sucked.
Yeah, would have preferred the 80s version (although this is the first time I saw this character). The first costume reminds me of Space Ghost.:-)
ReplyDeleteAw c'mon, the 1980s were not so bad that I'd seriously consider Flag-Smasher "one of the greatest villains" of the decade that gave us, e.g. just on Marvel's side, Dark Phoenix, Taskmaster, Vermin, Selene, the Hobgoblin, Lady Deathstrike, Sin-Eater, Mojo and Spiral, the Marauders and Mr. Sinister, Venom, and Apocalypse. Although the 1980s version seems to be better than the 1990s one (man, am I glad I never read that!), Flag-Smasher was a weak character by 1980s standards and to me did not even really stand out among the bundle of new villains that filled the pages of Mark Gruenwald's Captain America. His motivation always struck me as strained and ultimately untrue (strawman anarchism), and the name is just a joke. You can't smash a flag (unless perhaps you flash-freeze it first), but I suppose Flag-Ripper wasn't scary enough and Flag-Burner would have been too controversial...
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. Flag-Smasher was an awesome counterpoint to Captain America, veering in the exact opposite direction of Red Skull's nationalism (and later, amoral capitalism.) He also had a very strong visual, inspired by but not a rip-off of Toth's Space Ghost. Sadly, even Gruenwald seemed not to see what he had, but tying Ultimatum into the Red Skull's overarching scheme, and consigning F-S to the slag heap for a decade. What a waste, and what a moronic, clueless revision.
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