Pop Culture 1

[bryant]

What I'm thinking is this: in the DC Universe, shapeshifting is a trait associated with good guys. Often tricksters, but good guys. Plastic Man, Elongated Man, Metamorpho, Beast Boy, so forth and so on. Meanwhile, over in the Marvel Universe, shapeshifting is sinister and dangerous. Mystique, Loki, Warlock (good guy but horrendously dangerous), and of course the Skrull.

Reed Richards kind of undermines this but I think there may be a general trend here.

Comments

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

This is probably reaching. But synthesizing the difference with the period -- DC's genesis was a friendly alien, while Marvel's signature team was given grotesque powers by exposure to Rays Beyond. If shapeshifting is more commonly associated with aliens, then perhaps the fact that there's a stronger current of xenophilia in DC might partly account for it?

though, oddly, DC and not Marvel was around during our whole Death From The Skies! era in the 50s, so perhaps this doesn't mean anything.

[head58.livejournal.com]

Martian Manhunter first appeared in 1955, Plastic man in '41 (although he wasn't a DC property at the time). The others on both sides of the aisle are products of the 60s.

[bryant]

There's a seed of something in here about DC's attitude towards science vs. Marvel's attitude towards science.