Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics

Elementals (Comico)

Hi. I'm a huge fan of Bill Willingham's Elemental's series of comics and wanted to participate in this project and add a substantial amount of information on the comic book and the various characters involved. The project home page suggests suggestions to participate should be made here? [It also says to add your name as a participant 'below' yet when you look there is nowhere to add it - help with that would be good too.] I am relatively new to this but I would like to have a good go and would welcome the go ahead and perhaps some pointers. I've read the suggested pages on style etc. Much obliged. Mutant Raccoon (talk) 0:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Minor neutral clean-up help needed

For the page One-Above-All. I think that it turned quite biased, which caused a bit of an almost-edit-war situation; and User:BOZ suggested that I should go here and ask if anybody here would be interested in making an evaluation if I had the right impression, or if it was simply my own bias making me overreact?

Regardless, I simply want somebody with a neutral objective analytical mind (and greater efficiency and energy than myself) to put a conclusive end to this, without any necessary further involvement on my part (or the other user for that matter). Thanks in advance for any help. Dave (talk) 04:54, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at the page and frankly, for all the people editing on it in some kind of editing war, I'm amazed that the page itself exists. It looks like a patchwork of references to a generic higher power from a smattering of largely unrelated story events in the Marvel Universe that only exists as a character page through serious, serious OR. In this case, the OR is joining these references together to project the concept that a character has been created and used throughout the MU. The page reads like "something was referenced here, then something that sounds like it could be the same guy is referenced here, then a God figure appears in an afterlife, so it's probably that same thing." I'd rather nominate it for a deletion. Unless there's some statement that these are indeed all supposed to be appearances of this all-powerful god character, there's no reason to believe that the concept mentioned by Uatu in Fantastic Four is an actual being or comic book character, not to mention one that was later carried over by other writers.Luminum (talk) 05:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

That has largely been my impression from the start as well (it is an implied patchwork "ascended meme" character, that was recently included in the supposed handbook due to the fan-nickname apparently turning prominent enough), although I've tried to keep it as neutral as I can manage, but it recently seemed to morph into farfetched speculation, and occasionally possible organised religion propaganda. Basically, I'm even more out of touch with the regulations than I used to be, so if you have the know-how, feel very free to see if it is salvageable/clean away any irrelevance, and othervise to permanently delete it. Dave (talk) 05:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

That is the most egregious example of cherry-picking quotes to support a pet theory I've ever seen. 80 I'd say delete it, but it occurs to me it might serve as examples of Deities in fiction or something: it's not the individual instances that are wrong, it's the cumulative effect. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 10:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

It may be better to add a new section (with an out-of-universe perspective, of course) at Portrayals of God in popular media, and mention the way Marvel (and DC as well) handled the way of incorporating "God" into their fictional universes, or God-related topics (such as omnipotence, the origin of the universe, the afterlife, etc). By not pretending those God references to be about a same "character", most original research would be fixed MBelgrano (talk) 13:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Good idea IMO. I've always gotten the feeling Marvel didn't want to take a position on God, & I suspect it's partly because so many of the creators are Jewish & most of the readers aren't... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

A fun remark: if Jack Kirby is supposed to be the "One above all", then he is completely almighty within that universe, nobody can disobey him or defy his will, not even Eternity, the Living Tribunal, the highest Celestials, Thanos with the Infinity Gaunlet, the Red Skull with the Cosmic Cube... but there's someone who can: Nick Fury ousted him from the wedding of Reed and Sue anyway. MBelgrano (talk) 00:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of heresy, is that evidence of the dual nature of God? ;p TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:10, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

It's worse than that. For the in-universe philosophy of the Marvel Universe, there's a complicated question: how can there be two different almighty Gods?

Well, back to business. The thing now is what should we exactly say at the article of portraits of God. We can start pointing that Marvel and DC have some "godlike" characters (Eternity, the Living Tribunal, the Spectre) but avoid being explicit in making a God character. And even when they reference God, they do so using cryptic terms such as the ones pointed at the article cited. Having settled that, we can point some cases where the superheroe fiction deals with God-related topics without having a defined God character. The norse gods in Thor's comic, or the greek ones in Wonder Woman's comic, use recurring topics such as gods (or deities, to be more precise, even when they like calling themselves "gods") interfering with human development or ignoring it from their "high above" realities, or the faith people has on religion. Other stories involve characters that, even if not defined as Gods, develop omnipotence (such as Michael Korvac, the Beyonder or the wielders of the Infinity Gaunlet or the Cosmic Cube), and then explore the nature of omnipotence. And the afterlife, well, there's plenty material to choose from. MBelgrano (talk) 02:46, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Building tangentially upon the above, it seems like the involved other party User:Aidoflight may have a similar tendency to turn certain articles that he is involved in into (inherent strong pro-torture implications, which is the part that I'm extremely uncomfortable with) religious propaganda. At the very least I noticed the same type of sentiments that characterise his style in Chaos War (comics); and his "mission statement" and recent talk page history, makes him sound a bit suspicious (After skimming the profile of another "Chaos War" editor, (User:Spidey104#What_Wikipedia_is_for) in conjunction, I came to think of those Conservapedia people, but it was most likely just an unfortunate happenstance combination). Regardless, has anybody else had any experiences with him? Dave (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

From what MBelgrano says, I'd consider there's plenty to rescue the "God ("Divinity"? "Omnipotence"?) in comics" without straying into religious issues (or not too much, because context is worthwhile), & readily avoiding any propaganda (overt or otherwise). TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 21:22, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree about that. As long as it is kept matter-of-fact it is fine. I simply don't like when another user inserts a personal sentiment hellfire&brimstone angle. It might be a good idea for somebody more neutral to check up his edits, talk, and user page history, if it is considered worth the effort. Dave (talk)

Without looking at every page (mostly pretty crufty D&D stubs AFAI can tell), it looks to me like BOZ just stumbled with this one. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Requesting comments on proposed Spider-Man merge

There has been a recently proposed merging of Spider-Man's costumes into the main Spider-Man article. Since Spider-Man is such a well known (and presumably frequently visited article) I thought many editors here would want to post their opinion. Place comments in the discussion here. Spidey104 02:45, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen timeline

Here's something unique: not only does The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen timeline primarily consist of in-universe info drawn from the comics, but it synthesizes the original primary sources Alan Moore drew inspiration from into the timeline. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't see how this page is salvageable, so deletion sees like the best course of action. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:52, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Sentinel (comics)

Howdy. I've proposed removing a fair amount of content from that article at its talk page, and I figured someone might want to weigh in. I'm going to wait a few days for responses before I act on it, so if anybody's interested in sourcing and helping to improve that material, please speak up. --Moralis (talk) 09:26, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Clean-up help for Chaos War

As above, I much prefer to defuse these things before they have a chance to start, and would appreciate if any levelheaded reliable editors would like to put a final say on the issue of weeding the page. My intermediate starting attempt definitely has its problems, but I think that it is still considerably more concise and to the point than before. Nevertheless, I'm intensely tired of borderline edit wars, or pointless bickering, and there are plenty of people that seem better suited for (best available approximation) neutral evaluation than myself around here. Dave (talk)

Given you're dealing with an effectively novella-length story (above 100pp with crossovers), the length isn't unreasonably long. It could do with a bit of trimming of the tangential, perhaps, but (knowing nothing about it) I wouldn't guess it's possible to take out a lot without gutting it. Also, bear in mind the length of movie "plot summaries" which cover every single event. (Not a "summary" or "plot" IMO, but that's another Wikiproject. ;P) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 04:24, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't a chaotic Chaos War article simply be interpretted as artistic interpretation? -Sharp962 (talk) 14:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC).

Hugo Strange

The body of the article says that he was introduced in February 1940 in Detective Comics #36, the infobox says the same but that the issue was in Winter 1940. Can someone reconcile the differences? A comic published monthly starting in in March 1937 would suggest a date of March 1940 or thereabouts for its 36th issue, but I cannot be sure. hbdragon88 (talk) 06:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Cover dated Feb 1940 - [1]. Which would have been the last month of the book's 3rd year - March through February being 12 issues. I've got no idea where "Winter" came from in this case since the title ran monthly through early 1973. - J Greb (talk) 06:21, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Use a reliable secondary source to settle it. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:38, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so apparently over on GameFAQs they say February is part of the winter; no I don't live in the southern hemisphere, but when I think "winter" I think December and not January or February. hbdragon88 (talk) 06:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Winter runs December 21st or 22nd to March 22nd or 23rd. Spidey104 16:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

"Fictional history" vs. "Fictional character biography" vs. other options

Now that the Fictional history of Spider-Man article has been deleted I think it is a good time to bring back up this old debate, and hopefully settle the debate once and for all. In comic book articles the section that talks about the biography/history of the character has been "Fictional history" and "Fictional character biography" and other options. Currently most articles use "Fictional character biography", but some editors feel that should be changed. Can we finally settle this debate? Spidey104 16:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (comics)#"Fictional character biography" subhead-change proposal for the discusion... - J Greb (talk) 17:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC on the allowance of cover images per NFC

I've opened an RFC to determine what the current consensus is on the use of non-free cover images on articles of copyrighted works per current treated of the non-free content criteria policy. The RFC can be found at WT:NFC#Appropriateness of cover images per NFCC#8. --MASEM (t) 16:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Mark Nelson

Mark Nelson has recently been expanded; anyone have anything else to add? 108.69.80.49 (talk) 03:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You may want to cross post this to the Biography project to add the right templates and stubs.Luminum (talk) 05:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Jean Grey FCH

I spent a lot of time streamlining the citations for the Jean Grey FCH and cleaning that mess of a section up. It's written in-u, since the Publication History is all Out-of-U. This is an issue I've brought up before with this page: I feel the PH section doubles as a comprehensive and generally concise FCH. However, given the character's massive history with retcons, I figured that if the FCH is to exist, it should be the canonical history, which is separate from the reality of the original PH and retcons. Unfortunately, despite my attempts, the section is still far lengthier than I would like. If another editor can take a look at it, comparing the PH with the FCH and either edit or give me some advice, I'd appreciate it. I'll be revisiting the section periodically to try to cut it down. This is especially of interest to me because of our recent FCH discussion. The article is high importance, and I'd like to get it into some semblance of shape...at least GA. Thanks!Luminum (talk) 09:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Films based on comics task force

Hello, all! At the talk page for WikiProject Film, I have proposed a films based on comics task force, which would be a collaboration between WikiProject Film and WikiProject Comics. I invite you to join the discussion. The discussion can be found here. Erik (talk | contribs) 15:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The Dark Knight

Usage of "The Dark Knight" is under discussion, see Talk:The_Dark_Knight_(film)#Requested_move. 65.93.13.210 (talk) 06:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)