Discussion Main / FranchiseOriginalSin

Go right ahead. I tried to trim it earlier, so I'd be happy to give my two cents.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is an audience reaction to a work, not an actual part of the work. And being "dark" is too generic to be actually meaningful. And not a good example. let's go by the trope rules, amd ask: can we imagine the Ultimate universe not being "dark"? Of course we can: Spider-man and Fantastic Four are not dark. Even the ultimates, in that story with the return of Thor after Ultimatum, were not dark, that was a standard superhero story.

You're right, Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is an audience reaction to a work—and so is Franchise Original Sin. In case you forgot, this is a YMMV trope, so every observation on this page is an audience reaction by default.

Perhaps instead of just "dark", I should have said something like "oppressively cynical about human nature, making it difficult to get emotionally invested in the characters and their struggles".

And yes, I'm perfectly aware that not every series in the Ultimate Universe is "dark"...and I never said anything of that sort. I just observed that even the earliest series could sometimes be oppressively grim, cynical and violent to the point of being difficult to enjoy, and that Ultimatum was just the point at which the grimness, cynicism and violence reached their absurd pinnacle.

As for whether I can imagine any of those series not being dark and cynical: the entire Ultimate Universe might not have been that way since the beginning, but The Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men definitely were, and being more realistic and Darker and Edgier alternatives to the original Marvel Universe was part of those series' whole premise; the excessively dark elements just later bled into the whole continuity with Ultimatum, where characters die horribly by the boatload, and almost none of the heroes' efforts matter in the end. So, yes, that observation does fit the trope definition.

Problem is, the text fails to demonstrate an actual relation between the early Ultimate comics and the plot of Ultimatum. That, and many descriptions of the changes are misleading to try to advance a point (for example, Pym was also a wife beater in the mainstream universe, and the previous jobs of Collosus and Storm had never been plot-relevant, even in the introductory stories when they were mentioned for the single time; there are several more). Other parts are openly trope misuse, such as Designated Hero. And in other parts the wording makes it clear that it was written by someone who does not like the whole thing to begin with, such as "thinly plotted and relentlessly grim" or "borderline-sociopathic Designated Heroes" (a sociopath is "a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience", not just a jerk, and the word should not be used lightly).

But don't forget also the main problem: darkness, in and of itself, is hardly specific. It's like taking an action film franchise and point that in the decayed films people fight a lot, and that they already fighted a lot in the early years.

I think I was perfectly clear about how one led to the other, but if you'd prefer I revise my wording to be more specific, I'm perfectly willing to do that. If you'd rather I soften some of my word choice to be less critical, I can also do that. As for the point about the X-Men's occupations being irrelevant, I think you're missing my point; I was pointing out that the Ultimate version portrayed the characters as more morally ambiguous than they originally were, making it harder for some readers to sympathize with them (going from a simple farmboy to a cutthroat arms dealer is a pretty stark change, for example). And as an X-Men fan, I have to disagree with your point about their occupations being irrelevant; Colossus' past as a simple farmboy was pretty integral to his Gentle Giant personality, and Storm's past as a tribal priestess was a huge part of the spirituality and love of nature that figured into the core of her character.

For what it's worth: the thing about Hank Pym being a "wife-beater" in the original continuity is based on a single Never Live It Down moment when he struck his wife during a period of mental instability (once) over a decade after he was introduced; and even then, he and Janet got a divorce pretty soon after that, and later reconciled to the point that they briefly considered remarrying. By contrast: the Ultimate version of Hank has a long history of physically assaulting his wife before he even becomes a superhero, and the first volume ends with him explicitly trying to kill her and leaving her in a coma. Obviously I would never defend a character assaulting their spouse, but let's be honest: those two characters are not written the same, and it's equally misleading to claim that they're guilty of the same levels of abuse.

The universally panned Ultimatum is usually cited as the point where the Ultimate line definitively Jumped the Shark, largely because the writers went overboard with gruesomely killing off beloved characters and making their efforts meaningless; even looking past the deaths of many popular characters, the levels of violence (which included mass murder and cannibalism) and the unrelenting cynical tone just struck most people as unpleasant. But years before that, Mark Millar's The Ultimates also divided many readers with a few questionable plot and characterization choices that put a noticeably cynical spin on The Avengers. In particular: several Avengers had their character flaws dialed up to such extreme levels that they were hard for some readers to sympathize with, and they spent so much time fighting each other that they seemed to openly hate each other at times. Even if you liked Millar's writing, it was hard to get emotionally invested in the characters when the Hulk was a mass-murdering cannibal, Hank Pym was a serial abuser who nearly killed his wife at least once, Black Widow was a turncoat who betrayed her teammates and committed high treason, Thor was implied to be a delusional cult leader, and even Captain America was something of a Politically Incorrect Hero. Not to mention that the first two installments featured the team turning on Thor and the Hulk and beating them to a pulp with surprisingly little hesitation.

But even that can be traced back to Millar's much less divisive run on Ultimate X Men, which also portrayed many of the X-Men as decidedly less sympathetic than their original incarnations; Colossus went from a mild-mannered farmboy to an arms dealer for the Russian Mob, Storm went from a respected tribal priestess to a delinquent street thief, Wolverine went from a gruff Jerk with a Heart of Gold Shell-Shocked Veteran to a professional assassin who joined the team to kill Professor Xavier, and Magneto notably lost his sympathetic backstory as a Holocaust survivor. The difference was that Ultimate X-Men at least remembered to give the characters a decent number of Pet the Dog moments to make them easier to root for, and they had enough triumphs that the story never felt excessively grim. Case in point: the first volume of Ultimate X-Men ends with the X-Men being hailed as heroes after saving Washington, D.C. from a Sentinel attack, while the first volume of The Ultimates ends with Hank Pym putting his wife in a coma after the Hulk murders over 800 people.

The main problem still stands, the others were just making things worse. And that problem is that the alleged original sin is simply too vague. How do you define dark, exactly?

For example: yes, Collosus was changed from a farm boy into a guy forced to work for the mafia. For just a pair of scenes, and the mafia is quickly routed so that he can be hired by the X-Men. Is that supposed to be "dark"? If so, then the original camp comics by Lee and Kirby were also dark? (Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were also forced to work unwillingly for Magneto, and readers saw that in greater detail and for a longer time)

Did you even read the revised version that I posted? I used the word "dark" exactly once.

If you're not satisfied with that, I changed it again. I think I was pretty clear that by "dark", I meant "excessively grim and cynical, to the point of being an unpleasant reading experience". And I think I’m also pretty clear about how that thread runs through both The Ultimates and Ultimatum. A story that revolves around the heroes being powerless to stop a supervillain from murdering millions of innocent people is pretty darn cynical. A story where the heroes are a mass-murdering cannibal, a serial abuser, a (suspected) delusional cult leader, a pair of incestuous twins, and a treasonous turncoat spy (and the villains are even worse) is also pretty darn cynical. Ditto if that same series features no less than three of the heroes being turned on and beaten to a pulp by their friends. Even if you've never read the series before, it's easy to see how it might be an unpleasant reading experience for some people.

And I know it's a small quibble, but still: in the original X-Men, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were part of the Beotherhood for less than seven issues, and none of their crimes were particularly violent; in Ultimate X-Men, Peter spends years as an arms dealer before the story even starts, and his introductory scene involves him nearly selling a nuclear bomb to one of Magneto's henchman, then trying to shoot him to death when the deal goes awry. There's a pretty big difference between serving as a member of a costumed supervillain team for five or six issues and making a living selling WMDs to terrorists for years.

The universally panned Ultimatum is usually cited as the point where the Ultimate line definitively Jumped the Shark, largely because the writers went overboard with gruesomely killing off beloved characters and making their efforts meaningless; even looking past the deaths of many popular characters, the levels of violence (which included mass murder and cannibalism) and the unrelenting cynical tone just struck most people as unpleasant. But years before that, Mark Millar's The Ultimates also divided many readers with a few questionable plot and characterization choices that put a noticeably cynical spin on The Avengers. In particular: several Avengers had their character flaws dialed up to such extreme levels that they were hard for some readers to sympathize with, and they spent so much time fighting each other that they seemed to openly hate each other at times. Even if you liked Millar's writing, it was hard to get emotionally invested in the characters when the Hulk was a mass-murdering cannibal, Hank Pym was a serial abuser who nearly killed his wife at least once, Black Widow was a turncoat who betrayed her teammates and committed high treason, Thor was implied to be a delusional cult leader, and even Captain America was something of a Politically Incorrect Hero. Not to mention that the first two installments featured the team turning on Thor and the Hulk and beating them to a pulp with surprisingly little hesitation.

But even that can be traced back to Millar's much less divisive run on Ultimate X Men, which also portrayed many of the X-Men as decidedly less sympathetic than their original incarnations; Colossus went from a mild-mannered farmboy to an arms dealer for the Russian Mob, Storm went from a respected tribal priestess to a delinquent street thief, Wolverine went from a gruff Jerk with a Heart of Gold Shell-Shocked Veteran to a professional assassin who joined the team to kill Professor Xavier, and Magneto notably lost his sympathetic backstory as a Holocaust survivor. The difference was that Ultimate X-Men at least remembered to give the characters a decent number of Pet the Dog moments to make them easier to root for, and they had enough triumphs that the story never felt excessively grim. Case in point: the first volume of Ultimate X-Men ends with the X-Men being hailed as heroes after saving Washington, D.C. from a Sentinel attack, while the first volume of The Ultimates ends with Hank Pym putting his wife in a coma after the Hulk murders over 800 people.

The reasoning is flawed. For all its flaws, Ultimatum is not cynical (you may need to look up the word at a dictionary). Unlike other Ultimate comics, it does not explore the morality of the characters. It is, in fact, a completely black & white morality conflict: a completely evil villain unleashes a disaster that kills millions of people, and his minions wreak even more havok among the survivors. The heroes take the fight to the villain, and defeat him. All the deaths are caused by villains, except for the death of the main villain (who had clearly crossed the Moral Event Horizon and deserved it) and the man behind the villain (idem).

I'm perfectly aware of the definition of "cynical", thank you very much.

You've kind of made my point for me. The very idea that a human can be "completely evil" is itself an incredibly cynical idea, as is the idea that a single human could be capable of planning to destroy the world without the slightest hint of remorse—for no other reason than assuaging their anger and grief.

Your description of Magneto as "completely evil" also kind of makes my point for me: in the original Marvel Universe, Magneto was certainly capable of committing evil acts, but he still had a sympathetic background as a Holocaust survivor, and he was generally written as a misguided Well-Intentioned Extremist who had a perfectly understandable reason for being angry at humanity, and even redeemed himself to the point that he temporarily became the leader of the X-Men. The very fact that Ultimate!Magneto was written as "completely evil" was a pretty big change from the original Marvel Universe that marked it as taking a more cynical approach to the characters; Ultimatum was just the point at which that change reached its absurd climax, with Magneto slaughtering millions of innocent people in his quest to outright destroy the world.

If you're really so annoyed by my word choice, then perhaps it might be more accurate to say that those series were "misanthropic" rather than cynical.

(Also: I find it a bit odd that you never cited any of this as a reason when you initially deleted my example. If you're going to delete other people's entries on a whim, could you at least be consistent about why you're doing it?)

That's a bit over the top. Yes, no human is completely evil, but Magneto (Ultimate or otherwise) is not human. He's a fictional character, and fictional characters can be completely evil if needed so. That's not cynicism, that's just a trope, and it's Older Than Dirt.

Um... What? He's not human because he's a fictional character? And there's nothing cynical about depicting him as a genocidal monster with zero redeeming qualities, just because he's fictional?

You seem to be grasping at straws here.

Why, yes, the same description may fit Gargamel.

Let's make a recap of this discussion, shall we? The main idea of this trope is that some minor issue in the first episodes, which got out of control in later ones. You have kept the examples and reformulated the alleged issue several times, but none is a good one.

• "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy": Audience reaction, not part of the work itself.
• "It is dark". Too generic and chairy. Per your examples, almost everything dramatic is dark, even stuff that was already there during Marvel's campiest times.
• "The characters were changed": That's the premise itself, and not a problem of Ultimatum: by the time of that story, all the important characters and their motivations had already been introduced some time ago.
• "It is harder to relate to the characters": Audience reaction, and YMMV even more than in the darkness one. In fact, I can relate with the grounded Ultimate characters much more than with mainstream marvel, which is so lost in the Fantasy Kitchen Sink and the Space Whale Aesop.
• "excessively grim and cynical, to the point of being an unpleasant reading experience". Even more of a YMMV thing, better suited for a personal review.

Check the article. Another user already added this example back in, noting that they also disagreed with your reasons for removing it.

You're overruled by 1.

There was a discussion here about the DIAA. It was clarified that this is an audience reaction, not something contained within the work itself, as the entry proposes. Also, we can't talk about audience apathy when the work is successful and there is no such apathy. Despite the things said, the first times of the Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men were huge successes, and there is no room to talk about DIAA in them.

• Franchise Original Sin: A Franchise Original Sin is a flaw which in earlier, good installments was kept under control to the point of not really being a flaw, but which goes completely out of control in later, bad installments and brings the franchise down
• Plot Tumor: A single plot element that was once a minor part of The 'Verse swells in importance as the series progresses, growing more in focus and elaboration to the point that it becomes the focus of major arcs and plot development.

A Plot Tumor doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it does have to take the story over.

Seconding Loser, with this testimony: The moment in The Bible, from which the Trope gets its name happened in Genesis Chapter 3. Basically, if The Bible was a TV series, the event would be in the second episode at the latest!

Yeah, we need to Take It To The Forums

Also, some would say that Resident Evil, despite betraying its Survival Horror roots, was more fun to play in later titles. 4 is a very well renowned game.

agreed.

Jump the Shark is the point at which the show turns sour. This is the "original sin", the thing visible in good entries that was very problematic in the Bad Times.

For example, look at Goldfinger, and then compare it to the worst pre-Daniel Craig James Bond film of your choice (a matter of some argument). Almost everything that was terrible in the bad one can be seen, in much more moderation, in Goldfinger.

You just described it better in two sentences than the whole body of text of the article. It definitely needs a better description.