Pop Culture Pilgrimage: Marvel Comics

This is the first in what will be a series of articles revolving around the concept of Pop Culture Pilgrimage.  The idea is to highlight pilgrimages based on visiting locations that have been the basis for locations appearing in Pop Culture, or Pop Counter-Culture. 

MARVEL COMICS

Superman lives and operates in Metropolis.  Batman is the protector of Gotham City.  But the Marvel super-heroes, by and large, lived and and jumped around in a real city, Manhattan, New York.  Sure, Gotham City has been described by Dennis O'Neil in these terms, "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November."  This is the mood Gotham is intended to establish, and the term "Gotham" itself was a well-known nickname for New York city, even before Batman was published.  

A map of Gotham City, which can be found here... 

But it remains a fictional city.  Manhattan, however, is very real, and the various locations depicted in Marvel Comics can be visited.  

Some of the locations, and street names, have been fictionalised.  The infamous Yancy Street, home of the Yancy Street Gang and former stomping ground of The Thing, doesn't exist.  But there is a Delancey Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, which probably served as the inspiration for Yancy Street, and Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby was born in the Delancey Street neighbourhood.  Similarly, the Daily Bugle (where Peter Parker used to work as a photographer) has a real address (East 39th Street and Second Avenue) but in the real Manhattan there is an apartment block at that address.  The movie placed the Daily Bugle in the Flatiron Building on 23rd Street, which in the comics served as the site of the offices of Damage Control Inc.  Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus have also battled on this building (Deadline #2, July 2002).  The Baxter Building (the headquarters of the Fantastic Four), Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorium and the Avengers mansion also have real addresses, but don't actually exist.

For a look at these real life locations, click here

But there are plenty of Manhattan buildings and landmarks that have been woven into Marvel history and fame.  The Green Goblin threw Gwen Stacy to her death from the Brooklyn Bridge (Amazing Spider-Man #121, 1973).  Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson were married on the steps of City Hall (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, 1987).  Many Marvel stories have taken place around the World Trade Center, and the destruction of the World Trade Center in real life was also depicted in Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2, #36 2001.  Daredevil's stomping ground (and Nick Fury's birthplace) of Hell's Kitchen is a real location, currently referred to as "Clinton" by its residents.  The Egyptian god Seth attempted to destroy the United Nations (Moon Knight vol. 4, #4, 1998), which was only one of numerous adventures set at the United Nations.  Daredevil was lured to Madison Square Garden by Bullseye and their battle was broadcast on live television (Daredevil vol 1, #131, 1976).  Howard the Duck crash-landed in Central Park (Howard the Duck vol. 1, #18, 1977).  Central Park also hosted the Beyonder's alien construct (in Sheep Meadow, to be precise) which he used to teleport heroes and villains to Battleworld for the original Secret Wars.  The Absorbing Man and Titania tried to steal a life-size golden bull from the Guggenheim Museum (Thor #447-48, 1992).  Sam Wilson (The Falcon) and Joe "Robbie" Robertson were born and raised in Harlem.  And so on and so on and so on.  

Lest we forget, the location of Marvel Comics itself, currently 417 Fifth Avenue, is also worth a visit.  They used to do tours of the 'Bullpen', and when I did it in 1996, they had the poor jerk conducting the guide dressed up as Spider-Man.  A quick google-fu informs me that they no longer do tours, but it would be still worth a visit just to say that you had been there.  I've heard stalking gets results...

And the Bullpen has appeared in Marvel Comics stories itself, most notably Fantastic Four #10 1963, featuring Doctor Doom, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  

More info from the Marvel Wiki here 

But all of this has been covered in a guide book.  "The Marvel Comics Guide to New York City" by Peter Sanderson is the definitive guide to stomping around New York City and visiting real and nearly real locations depicted in Marvel comics.  

Have a look here for some reviews

But for the less enthusiastic, who may wish to add, you know, 'other things' into their New York visit, there is this map here, originally published in Wizard Magazine, issue #199, which gives you the basics.

A larger version can be found here

And if you're going , you may as well do it in costume.  Don't be shy, now...

All images used without permission but with love and respect.  Please don't sue me.  Copyright by original copyright holders.  One would assume.

Super Heroes with vices Part 3 Drinkers

Everybody enjoys a good drink.  Or 2.  Or 14 or so.  Or...what was your name again?  I've only known ya 5 minutes...but yer za best friend I've eva had!

Now there's nothing wrong with drinking in moderation.  But when you're in control of a car, or a bus full of school kids, or a u.f.o., it's against the law, and also downright idiotic, to be drinking.  We expect professional behaviour from people in authority, and would rightly expect, say, our police officers, to be sober while on duty.  How much more so would we expect super powered folk, who can fire atom bombs from their hands, or irradiate people, or melt you with their eyes, or skewer you with their claws, or any myriad ways that super powered folk can otherwise wreck your life, to be responsible with their alcohol intake?  Especially the ones we like to call 'heroes'?  Moderation or not, if I saw someone who could bench-press 85 tons with a beer in their hand, I would run.  Fast.  Away from them.  Even if they're a friendly drunk, I would hate to be smeared across the chest of some Norse God and member of a super-hero group, just because he thought "Verily, thou looketh ill at ease.  Come hither and embrace me, knave", and...oops, he didn't realize his own strength there, oh well...

All that aside, superheroes are people too (well, except for the trolls, Norse gods, aliens, robots, synthetic humans, demons, angels, resurrected gaseous entities, etc), and it is only natural to unwind, and while most superheroes are still a stuffy lot, there are a few that like to raise the glass.

Probably the highest profile (ex) drinking superhero would be Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man.  Being a flamboyant ladies man and rich playboy outside of his high tech Iron Man suit, he certainly liked to entertain, and liked a drink or 5.  Which came at quite the cost for him, as he suffered 2 major bouts of alcoholism in his career, the second one the most dangerous (in the '80's), which cost him his company at the time, his ability to be Iron Man, and very nearly his life, as a broken homeless guy.  He had fallen about as far as you could go, while being able to crawl back.  Early on, Iron Man's Achilles heel was his dicky heart, but more pronounced over time, was his self-induced alcoholism.  He was, several times, his own worst enemy, and ultimately, he had beaten himself more thoroughy than any other super villain or corporate competitor.

  But he recovered and has helped one other notable superhero with a drinking problem, whom we shall read about shortly.  Tony Stark's case was extreme, and went beyond a mere vice, to becoming a life-threatening situation for him.  Incredibly, in a storyline that is still unfolding at the time I am writing this, Tony Stark got knees-up drunk again, but for a deliberate, specific reason.  And the ramifications of this are still playing out.

Another super-hero, who was having problems with her alcoholism, was Carol Danvers a.k.a. Ms. Marvel.  She straightened herself out, with the help of Tony Stark.

These two superheroes were extreme examples.  Most other superheroes that like a drink seem to have it under control.  Like Adam Warlock (and Pip the Troll) here, in a bar in outer space...

Even stuffy old Daredevil has been caught out (and please, no blind jokes)

Wonder Man and the Beast are good mates, and like to share a drink and a song and a stumble

Wolverine likes a drink.  Mind you, it takes rather alot to get him drunk, what with his healing factor and all, but, evidently, it's not impossible...

Of course, Logan is a class act...

She-Hulk is a friendly drunk.  Which is rather fortunate, really, as you wouldn't like to see her angry...and drunk...

And no doubt we have all had one of those moments we would like to forget, and use the convenient amnesiac effects of alcohol to hide behind...

Choose your drinking buddies carefully, as Hellboy found out the hard way.

But for Legendary Drinking, nobody beats the Gods themselves, and Other Legendary Folk.  Wonder Woman can chug away with the best of them...

Ares, the God of War, sometimes good guy, sometimes bad guy, won't let a little thing like social responsibility hold him back.

Hercules is renowned for his drinking abilities!

His drinking buddy, Deadpool, needs no further encouragement...

But the drinking contests between Hercules and Thor, are the stuff of legend, and the Halls of Asgard ring with the sounds of merriment as their epic clash continues (much to the merriment of tavern-keepers in Asgard, I bet).

Is there that much alcohol in the Nine Realms?

Thankfully, yes.  And in Asgard, it seems that even Captain America will have a drink, with Storm, and Iron Man (is he off the wagon this week?)

Asgard looks like one big drunken orgy to me, which is pretty much what you would expect of the heaven for Vikings and Swedish Death Metal fans.  Hail Asgard!!!

So just remember to drink in moderation (unless you are in Asgard), especially if you are a super-hero, because no-one would want someone with the strength of a god, and the intellect of a child to be drunk and in control of the strongest mortal muscles in the world, now would we...

RUN!!!

(pictures used without permission, but with lots of love and respect.  Please don't sue me...)

Next: Gamblers

Bonus Drinkers: Hercules vs Galactus!

  Let's face it.  Hercules is not the brightest chap at the best of times.  But he does like a good time, and he knows how to live it up.  Herc was on a bender while in exile from Olympus and was given a vial of "the most potent liquor in the known universe" by a snail-like alien who described  its thus: "One drop of this stuff can turn a black hole inside out".  The mind boggles at the epic mischief that an immortal could get up to with a vial of this stuff.  So what does Herc do?  He spikes Galactus's drink.  With the whole lot.  Of course.

And how does Galactus react?  Ppft.  Galactus is the only surviving drinker from the previous universe prior to the last Big Bang.  He loved it.