Saw this brought up on another board, and I found it really interesting.

We all know who created the Avengers, who further developed them, etc etc.

What we saw in the movie was a bit of mixture, giving us the distilled versions of the characters.

However, it's undeniable that a fair bit of what we saw on screen was probably closer to the Ultimates than to the traditional Avengers. So, if credit HAD to be given as to whose material was more visible in the movie, how would you decide?

What do you think about this, and who do you think deserves the extra bit of credit for the movie, story, plot, characters, etc.

What do you think about this, and who do you think deserves the extra bit of credit for the movie, story, plot, characters, etc.

Who fucking cares? Putting a modified version of a costume the original creator designed on a guy suddenly makes you the creator or co-creator? If I change Harry Potter's glasses from square instead of round and modify the Griffindor shield, this makes me a co-creator or something?

This is an exasperatingly stupid point. Jack Kirby created many of the defining costume elements that are used in both the movie and Ultimates versions of the characters -- making Thor blonde, the round circles on the torso, the blue suit (and the red cape in the film); the Iron Man "shellhead" helmet, the square slits for eyes, the round chest plate opening; Captain America's whole design scheme is basically a slightly modified version of the Kirby original, with a helmet in place of the cowl and a whole mess of seams.

More importantly, the aesthetic design elements aside, Kirby co-created much of the original concepts, supporting casts, villains, and worlds -- and made the books enough of a success so that they could continue being produced, even without him.



No shit? So why does Marvel have a copyright for their version of Thor? Oh yeah, because Marvel's Thor is different from the one the Norse worshipped. I think you'll be hard pressed to find the Norse texts in which Thor was banished to Earth as a mortal, battled the Destroyer, and fell in love woth Jane Foster -- elements Kirby created that were present in the film version, incidentally.



Okay -- Walt doesn't deserve nearly as much credit as Stan and Jack.

And how many people have worked on Star Wars and Star Trek cartoons, comics and novels? How many artists, costume designers, film crews, etc. helped make put those ideas onto film? And yet, we're all comfortably rightly giving credit to those franchises' creators -- George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.

And Jack did more to create his franchises then those men did, contributing design-work.

See, there's a difference between working on something that already exists and creating it yourself. I work for a large media corporation and I don't think the founder could have built it all on his own or keep it running by himself -- but that doesn't make all of us employees co-founders. He's the guy that started it up, he was the one with the initial idea -- he's the founder. He's the creator.

The same applies here. Simonson, Whedon, Millar, Hitch -- they're all playing with toys built by Stan, Jack and Don. They may have added things, developed new aspects, perhaps even improved them -- but they didn't create them. You can build the most advanced car engine on Earth tomorrow -- it doesn't make you inventor of the car engine. You're working off the labor of others.



Wow, you're right! Two of those drawings are of white dudes, but that last one -- gasp! --is a BLACK dude. And he looks like Sam Jackson! TOTALLY DIFFERENT CHARACTER.

The whole "director of SHIELD, a secret international spy organization, who lost an eye in war"? Superficial claptrap. I mean, one guy is black and the other is white.

This guy is just obsessed with superficial aspects of these characters -- Bryan Hitch's drawing of Captain America looks closer to the movie version than Kirby's, so he must have created Captain America!




I don't think anyone with half a brain is saying that Jack is responsible for every frame of film you see on the screen -- but he is responsible for some of it. And he's responsible for all the elements he created -- had Jack not co-created them, what exactly would Joss Whedon be filming?

Sheldon Mayer, Gardner Fox, Julius Schwartz and Mike Sekowsky.

The movie had a Nick Fury played by Samuel Jackson. That's about where the similarities to 'What If... The Avengers Were Assholes?' ie The Ultimates pretty much ends.

Frankly, Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb deserve more credit for the Nolan movies than Miller and Hitch for Avengers, and I don't remember that question being asked.

wut

And the villains and Cap's return and the makeup of the team itself. They kept the framework of Ultimates and jetisoned the assholiness. The movie is Ultimates toned down with the Stan and Jack character personalities.

He's right. Nolan and Goyer have been very open about much influence they took from The Long Halloween and Dark Victory for their Batman movies...the first two, at least. Nolan even wrote the introduction for the Absolute edition of Long Halloween.

wut

wut

Visually the movie owes a lot to the Ultimates.