Gargoyles Doesnât Need Marvel.
âWouldnât it be great to see Xanatos battle Tony Stark?â âHow about Dr. Strange versus Oberon!â âI want to see Brooklyn join the Avengers!â âMagneto and Demona would make an awesome alliance!â âThereâs no reason not to merge Gargoyles into the Marvel Universe!â
Thereâs a reason not to. Thereâs a lot of reasons.
First of all, the two universes are pretty incompatible. Time travel works differently in both universe for one. In âGargoylesâ you cannot alter history, and that series is so much better for it. If it were a part of Marvel, it would be too easy for Goliath to, letâs say, go back in time and prevent the massacre of his clan back in 994 Scotland.
I suppose you could retcon away those Marvel time travel stories like âAge of Apocalypseâ and âDays of Future Past.â While I would not mind that, it wouldnât be fair to the fans and creators of those stories.
Second, while I have no doubt the existence of gargoyles would be shocking to the people of the Marvel Universe, it wouldnât have the same impact it should. Not in a world where mutants, super-beings, Atlanteans, Inhumans, Eternals, Norse gods, and Fin Fang Foom are already known to exist with Galactus stopping by every other Tuesday.
Third, okay, Marvelâs Odin is now a Child of Oberon, as are the Asgardians. Okay⊠how well do you think thatâs going to go over with the fans of Jack Kirbyâs Thor who have been reading it for nearly fifty years now? Hell, there are still some people who are uneasy about Odin being subject to Oberon in âGargoyles.â Iâm not one of those people, but I understand where theyâre coming from.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the Marvel Universe is not really going anywhere. It is very cyclical. Things come, things go, status quos change and are restored. Spider-Man is married for twenty years, then he is single again. Magneto reforms, then is a villain again, then reforms, etc, etc.
For example, I respect a lot of what Joe Quesada has done for Marvel. However, the notion of him and his successors (I know heâs gone now) having any kind of creative influence over âGargoylesâ scares me. âGoliath and Elisa were more interesting before they finally declared their love and got together. The core of it was always impossible love, so now we have to split them up.â You know it would happen.
âThe Gargoyles Universeâ is going somewhere, as weâre still seeing in the Dynamite comic, it was always evolving. Never going backwards, but moving forwards. It was an evolving tapestry, and change was constant. Marvel, on the other hand, lives and breathes on the illusion of change, while actual change is non-existent. Death is meaningless. Characters donât age, and the status quo may shake up on occasion, but it is always eventually restored.
The Marvel Universe was built by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko, and maintained by many very talented and creative people acting as custodians of that work. But, for better or worse, it is a soup with hundreds of cooks. Many great chefs, and more than a few fast food fry cooks.
âGargoylesâ was co-created by Greg Weisman, and while he had a lot of help, he was the only co-creator, and the one who never stopped working on it. He was the first author of âGargoylesâ and more than likely he will be the last author of âGargoyles.â For the better. We saw âGargoylesâ without Greg Weisman, and it was nothing good.
Both universes have their place, but you couldnât merge them without one of them being significantly altered in the process. Now, I will admit my bias again and say that I wish the âMarvel Universeâ was more like the âGargoyles Universeâ but, thereâs no real point. Itâs been around for nearly six decades (over eight if you want to talk about Timely Comics), and itâs not going to change. As Iâve made clear, I think thatâs kind of the problem, but an understandable one given the nature of Marvel Comics. DC too, for that matter.
Now, I realize a lot of the above makes it look like Iâm saying âGargoylesâ is great and Marvel is awful, but I donât feel that way at all. I just donât think such a thing would work without one of the universes suffering for it.
