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It's easy to take iconic characters for granted. We just assume that the moment a Batman or a Rambo were dreamed up, the writer knew he had a world-changing icon on his hands.
Not so. It turns out a lot of the most legendary characters in pop culture came damned close to getting axed early in the game. Characters like... #7.
The Joker
Every superhero franchise is kind of in a Catch-22. You need a great, memorable archenemy, or even better, more than one. And you need to be able to bring him back again and again and again. But if a villain like, say, the Joker, has been out killing people for 70 years, doesn't that make Batman look a little incompetent? What kind of superhero lets somebody like the Joker keep slipping away?
How We Almost Lost Him: That was what writer Bill Finger was wondering. Finger, who wrote the first Batman stories, thought that if Batman's foes kept coming back, it would make him a pretty lousy crime fighter. Take a guess what happened to the Joker in his first appearance in Batman #1.
He got stabbed right in the damned heart. Who Saved Him? Whitney Ellsworth. Ellsworth was the editor of National Publications (later DC Comics) in the 1940s, and by all accounts had one of the sissiest names in history. He didn't want Finger to kill off interesting villains (like he had done with Braless Woman and Sluterella in the past), so this time he told Finger to save the Joker. A new panel was quickly added.
If you want to know just how hard it is to think up good comic book villains, remember that scene played out in 1940. Hundreds of issues, a TV show and a bunch of movies later, he's still the best they could come up with. #6.
Jack Shephard from Lost
Jack was the unquestionable leader of the plane crash survivors for the first couple dozen episodes of Lost and without question is the character we would most like to punch in the face.
How we almost lost him: Like the Joker, he was supposed to die in the first episode. Oh, and he was to be played by Michael Keaton.
In typical "everything must have a twist" J.J. Abrams style, the idea was to cast a well-known actor and build him up as the main character... then whiplash the audience by killing him off in the pilot. Not a bad idea, it lets the audience know that pretty much anything can happen, which seems to be 90 percent of the Lost concept.
Who Saved Him? The producers. Because this was still network television and challenging the audience usually means giving them a very quick glimpse of side boob, they figured the whole "killing Michael Keaton" thing (which we hope involved suddenly sucking him into the jet engine) might cross the line into pissing people off.
That's another similarity to the Joker situation. If the audience likes him, they'll hate you for killing him. If the audience hates him (again, we're talking Michael Keaton here) then the whole impact of the stunt is gone. Then again, this is Lost we're talking about here. Does anybody stay dead?
#5.
Rambo
If you're young enough that you just know Rambo as a character played by an aging, mumbling Sylvester Stallone desperately trying to grab some box office before he retires, you missed out. From about a decade after 1985, Rambo had a status shared only by Top Gun as a movie that added a word to the language.
During those years, every time you saw a tough guy you'd say, "Look at Rambo over here" and everybody knew what you were talking about (and any guy who was great at anything was called the "Top Gun" on magazine covers and such). He was a damned icon of badass. How We Almost Lost Him: Did you know the Rambo franchise was based on a novel? It was. Have any of you actually read the novel First Blood, which was the prequel to Rambo? To save you a trip to Wikipedia, here is a massive spoiler: Rambo dies at the end. The movie originally planned to follow suit: When you think about it, that ending is actually way more appropriate, especially considering the entire point of the story is how Vietnam vets were abandoned after the war. In that context, his crazy rampage over the city suddenly makes more sense: He was looking for a way to die like a soldier. Also, he was crazy and he wanted to drop Brian Dennehy through a skylight.
Who Saved Him? Sly apparently felt that this disenfranchised killing machine had the potential to become a massive action hero franchise, so he was opposed to killing him off. This caused a lot of tension on set, especially with Kirk Douglas (the first choice for Colonel Trautman) who demanded the death of Rambo for artistic reasons.
Finally, the producers decided to go with Stallone's idea after test audiences reacted negatively to Rambo's death. They also complained about the lack of rainbows, but hey, you have to draw the line somewhere.
#4.
Spock
How We Almost Lost Him: When Star Trek was first pitched to NBC, the station felt that the character of Spock looked like the devil. Which is ridicul- actually we can kind of see where they're coming from. And now we can't unsee it.
Who Saved Him? Women. Gene Roddenberry, the show's creator, convinced NBC to let him keep Spock on the show as long as he stayed in the background. But Spock's stoic badassery and alien sex appeal unexpectedly attracted lots of female viewers and the show's ratings skyrocketed. When you get down to it, Spock really is the perfect man: tall, mysterious, brilliant, a bit of an outcast... he's like James Dean and an art history professor all rolled into one pointy-eared package.
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What about Howlin' Mad Murdock? Execs severely disliked the character in the pilot, deeming him "too over the top" Test audiences, however, showed just how far the execs had their heads up their own arses and the character was saved and went on to inspire entire generations to be completely and utterly bats**t.
Thanks chalkshark, this is how we learn.
John Byrne did, indeed, save Wolverine from obscurity but the details are a little different. Editors didn't kill Thunderbird, the writer, Chris Claremont, did, & he did so almost immediately after the character had been introduced. This happened about two years before John Byrne would become the series regular artist. Thunderbird got axed on account of Claremont feeling he was too stereotypical of a character, & also that his abilities were mirrored by Wolverine. Of course, as writer, Claremont could have addressed these issues & either retooled Thunderbird a bit, or Wolverine, or both, or just figured out ways to stress their differences. Granted, a quick death was easier to write. Despite the scene stealing Thunderbird's absence, Wolverine continued to languish in the X-Men, basically just overlaying all the a*****e qualities of Thunderbird over the barebones of his own cipher of a character. Apparently, Claremont was content to let the artist dictate who the stand out member of the team would be, so, while Dave Cockrum was drawing the book, Nightcrawler got to do all the really cool things. When John Byrne replaced Cockrum, he switched the focus to Wolverine, out of a sense of National pride, & slowly but surely moved Wolverine from the back of the pack, to the middle, to the lead. Oddly enough, Claremont would recreate Thunderbird, years later, this time in the form his brother, again write only one story featuring the character & then, basically abandon him. At least he left him alive, this time, so that, on the off chance that one of the... oh... dozen or so other writers working for Marvel had an idea... or 10... for Thunderbird, they could still do something with him.
I'm calling B.S. on the Wolverine post. He never "wallowed in obscurity." I am ninety percent sure that he was popular from the start and even if he wasn't, he joined the X-Men within a year of his appearance in Hulk. The "highly evolved wolverine" was just a proposed origin. (albeit a stupid one) And Thunderbird sucked. No one anyone would give him the axe over Wolverine.
Rambo doesn't kill in the first movie...which is kinda hilarious because he killed EEEEVERYone in the book. So his death might've been a little bit of an overreaction.
I think the Gym teacher at my old high school was named Bill Finger....
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I wonder why they never killed off Aquaman?
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The Omar story is a myth perpetuated by a misunderstanding between Michael K. Williams and the producers. They told him he'd be in seven episodes in Season 1. He misunderstood them to mean that he'd be killed off. David Simon discredited it in an interview with Alan Sepinwall; look it up. Also, Whitney was one of the toughest names we had back in the 1940's.
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That's not the only time being Canadian worked to someone's advantage. It's pretty well known that in many countries Canadians are treated with respect and dignity where-as Americans are lucky to get out alive. My advice if you're an American and you go over seas, get some Tim Horton's stickers for your stuff and carry a Tim Horton's coffee mug. You'll have a much happier trip. :)
Is that Brock Samson as the Bat-Man?
I don't want to unsee it!
I probably would've swapped out Jack for Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer... then again, he might only be an icon to Whedon fanatics like me.
Bill Finger was one of the most talented and influential writers in DC's history. He not only co-created Batman, he also co-created Green Lantern, and a couple others. Unfortunately The Kane Estate has a deathgrip on the overall credit for creating Batman. He died broke and without respect. Only now does he get the respect he deserves.
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Dude, Finger had a lot to do with Batman, but to imply that Bob Kane was basically a f**k-nut lackey is a bit of a stretch. If those two men didn't work TOGETHER Batman would never have become what he is today
Dude, Finger had a lot to do with Batman, but to imply that Bob Kane was basically a f**k-nut lackey is a bit of a stretch. If those two men didn't work TOGETHER Batman would never have become what he is today
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