Why do we only have one Silver Surfer series?

Recently I got access to Disney+, and when opening the streaming service found a pleasant surprise. The Silver Surfer animated series, the short-lived gem that did everything right and I wish more than any other series got its second season. Many clamour for a 2nd season of Firefly still in hopes that it will happen and Disney announced that the X-men animated series that ran from 1992-1998 will get a continuation on Disney+ despite it getting an actual finale which the Silver Surfer did not. But who is the Silver Surfer and why has he only ever got the one show?

The Silver Surfer’s history isn’t as long as The Fantastic Four or Spider-man or The Hulk. In fact it’s relatively short with few publications for a character who has been around since the 1960’s. But the Silver Surfer is a well known character, you hear him referenced in things like the Big Bang Theory. He is popular, so his reason for a lack of publications is not a lack of popularity like Jack of Hearts. The reason for his lack of publications was Stan Lee. The Silver Surfer first appeared in Fantastic Four 48 and he’s even introduced as “a character that Jack calls the Silver Surfer” (Jack Kirby being the artist and principal writer of the F4. At this phase Stan only did the final script). Despite this somewhat dismissive introduction by Stan, he grew to love the character, so much so that nobody else was allowed to write him. The other theory is that he felt guilty because this was around the end of his working relationship with Kirby that he wanted to do right by his former friend. While Galactus and the Silver Surfer where among the last characters Lee and Kirby co-created he’s not the last. Black Panther was introduced 2 issues after the conclusion of the Galactus trilogy. 

The Silver Surfer made very few appearances after a stint as a supporting character in the Fantastic Four. The most notable part he played was having his powers stolen by Doctor Doom. Without Jack Kirby Stan Lee wrote a one shot with European comics legend Moebius, a one off Graphic novel and an ongoing series with John Buscema. Despite handpicking Buscema to be Kirby’s replacement, Stan hated the end results of the ongoing series. Stan later mellowed on the series with Buscema telling the artist that he really liked the Thor and Loki crossover issue. Buscema then pointed out “that’s not what you said when the book was first released”.

The Surfer also joined the Defenders (briefly) but was removed on the insistence of Stan Lee. Even though the series was written by Stan’s protege Roy Thomas. Silver Surfer got an ongoing series after Stan Lee retired from Marvel comics in the 90’s (Stan would still work as a producer on non-comics projects).

The Silver Surfer is an unusual character in the genre of Superhero comics. Similar to Superman he is extremely powerful but doesn’t use his powers for gain. But Superman is a more active character, Superman will actively seek to stop evil, while the Surfer is a true pacifist. Also while Superman is a Man (when written well) the Silver Surfer is a demigod. Superman is super-strong, fast, able to fly and shoots lasers from his eyes. The Silver Surfer has the power cosmic “a power too vast, too universal, if misused it could destroy a galaxy” or “the power of creation itself”. 

The ideas and philosophies of the character are too difficult for your conventional boys adventure story. The Silver Surfer is more like a space Ghandi than a warrior. The Silver Surfer avoids conflict at all costs and even lets himself being enslaved. A notable example would be Planet Hulk where Silver Surfer takes a beating from The Hulk rather than fight back, because he could take the abuse. But is it truly enslavement if you can escape at any time like the Surfer does and transmutes the other slaves’ chains to dust allowing them all to revolt against their captors.

The Silver Surfer is more like Stan Lee’s self-published character. It’s normal in mainstream comics for a character to be created and then completely destroyed by subsequent writers. But Stan tried to keep the character consistent and was very protective of this intellectual property. Which makes the decision to let the character leap to TV worse. While the Silver Surfer cartoon is amazing and 100% looks like a Jack Kirby comic now animated. The next featuring role of the Silver Surfer pains me. 

The decision to add the character to The Marvel Superhero Squad, a pre-school show featuring the Marvel heroes, is baffling. Well until you realise the Mayor of the town is played by Stan Lee. Did the Surfer retain his personality? nope. In fact the only one who did was Captain America. The Hulk became the Cookie Monster, Wolverine became an easy-going happy go-lucky character and the Silver Surfer became Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

So what does the future hold for Norrin Radd? well Terry Crewes is campaigning to play the character. I’ll be very impressed if he can play the role, as it seems so out of his comfort zone. But what I really want is either a continuation of the series from the 90’s or the next film to be animated. So they can fully explore the parts of cosmic Marvel that were too out there for the movie where a tree and a raccoon with a machine gun save the universe. Terry could even do the voice as long as it’s a more subdued performance than his Old Spice commercials.

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Comics from the 1960’s weren’t enlightened on their portrayal of women. It’s just a fact, no two ways about it. Sure it was a genre aimed at young boys written and drawn almost exclusively by men, but under a modern lens the early Marvel comics don’t hold up very well in this regard. To quote Professor Marsden when asked to weaken Wonder Woman (his creation) “How are young boys to grow up to respect women if we don’t show them examples of strong women”. Now the Stan Lee girl is a variant on how women (who weren’t Wonder Woman) where written in this era. The Stan Lee girl is young glamorous and has all the personality of day old dish water but is also very important to the male protagonist(s) of the Superhero book. Not all characters that fit this mould are Stan Lee creations, like Saturn Girl from the Legion of Superheroes or Elasti-Girl from the Doom Patrol, but Stan and his tendency to put his name on every book produced by Marvel (even if he had nothing to do with it) makes him synonymous with the trope.

Now that’s explained why not continue reading this as I explain how 4 of Stan’s creations became well actual characters not just “oh gosh isn’t she pretty”. I will not explore every female character that has a Stan Lee creator credit or I’d be writing a 200 part piece on the subject and Black Widow has been omitted because she wasn’t actually created by Stan and in no way fits the profile being first introduced as Iron Man’s Archenemy and not his love interest.

Sue Storm

The first woman of Marvel Comics (assuming the Fantastic Four haven’t lost their status as the First Family) and master of running away. Sue in the early comics is really good at getting kidnapped, especially by Doctor Doom or Namor. She brings antagonists to the Fantastic Four, while Doctor Doom uses her as bait for the other 3 members of the team out of convenience, Namor is to be the other rival to her husband Reed Richards. Prince Namor tries to lure her to be his queen, always unsuccessfully, because for her to be actually tempted to turn evil would imply some form of personality. Susan is actually so notoriously useless that in a weird Meta issue (Fantastic Four 11) the F4 read letters sent to them by “Fans” and Sue bursts into tears because all the letters get call her useless. This of course outrages Mr Fantastic who invokes the name of Abraham Lincoln to defend his future wife. 

Fantastic Four 22 is when the attempts to make Sue better started, before this issue Sue could only turn invisible and hide, this issue gave her the comics code classic Telekinesis. Telekinesis is one of the girliest superpowers in comics (not that it’s effeminate but it’s mostly held by female characters) because it can easily adhere to Comics Code Authority guidelines about violence between men and women. The female hero using Telekinesis can fight back without actually hitting the super villain or henchman and with this at least Sue could fight back and didn’t need her sign saying “kidnap me” as much anymore, although Dr Doom might still do that because “expediency often outweighs originality”. 

Sue’s next biggest developments were marriage and motherhood. Side note it’s officially canon that their son Franklin was conceived after the first time the F4 saved the earth from Galactus which makes me ask the question after the earth was safe did Mr Fantastic give The Thing and The Human Torch some of their pocket money to go the cinema. But the change from teams eye-candy and damsel in distress to motherhood really suited Sue as she pretty much filled that role in the team anyway. The Fantastic Four are a squabbling family who often fall out and Sue is the under appreciated peace-keeper and emotional support for the boys. With Franklin added well she just has another child to look after but this one shouldn’t know better than to be an immature show-boater, I’m looking at you Johnny Storm. 

Sue’s last real moment of characters development comes from Fantastic Four 280, where the villainous Psycho-man (kind of an obvious villain name), turns Sue into Malice; Mistress of Hate. Now with a name like that she’s obviously an enemy to the rest of the Fantastic Four who she proceeds to beat the snot out of (once and for all proving she is actually the strongest member) which to many fanboys is the most important thing. But this has to end abruptly by Mr Fantastic realising its Sue and declaring “Susan stop acting hystericaly” which somehow (plot contrivance) snaps her back into her old self.

The Wasp (Janet Van Dine)

Unlike most female characters from silver-age Marvel, Jan started with some semblance of a personality. She was the plucky rich girl who was Hank Pym’s fan-girl and really wanted to join him on his scientific adventures. Jan seemingly relegated to the sidekick role by the virtue of being a female character even if Ant-man was dependent on her because she paid for all of his scientific equipment. But I’m ignoring the elephant in the room, their relationship is just the fucking worst. Panel to panel all these 2 do as a couple is squabble, Stan Lee once while tried to decipher why Ant-man was never a colossal hit like The Hulk or Spider-man. Now I’m going to go out on a limb and say young boys reading their superhero comics for a little escapism from their parents arguing don’t want to read about the male hero in the comic declare “Get in the kitchen” and his girlfriend/sidekick say “no I bought the kitchen you go in it”.

The lack of popularity lead to the cancellation of all Ant-man books and the duo became stalwarts of The Avengers where they kept trying to rebrand Ant-man because “he has a silly name” so he took on names like Black Goliath (despite being neither African American or wearing Black) Giant-man and finally after a mental breakdown Yellowjacket. Dr Pym became the joke of the team and his team mates often made fun of his mental instability and the fact that Jan was better at superheroing than him. In a last ditch effort to stay on the worst Superhero team of all time (1970’s Avengers are just terrible) Dr Pym created a fake Ultron attack that would prove his worth. This is when the infamous slap panel comes from (the slap is actually an artistic flub and was intended that he pushed her out of the way). After this incident Hank and Jan divorced (despite the fact they never should’ve gotten married in the first place), and also Jan became the leader of the Avengers and while she occasionally stumbled with her confidence she lead the team admirably even if she did keep changing costume every other issue because she was a “fashionista”.  

Scarlet Witch

First appearing in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Wanda was manipulated by Magneto’s magnetic personality (not a joke actual reason), into joining his terrorist organisation. This is a strange trend that still exists with female villains, Marvel did it with Medusa when she had amnesia and joined the Frightful Four and DC currently have the Cheetah (Wonder Woman’s Archenemy) being manipulated into crimes by Lex Luthor. Comic writers have this strange idea that women can’t be mastermind villains, they have to be arm candy to the big bad, female villains are still rare even when they’re not arm candy, Batman’s Poison Ivy is often portrayed as more of an Anti-hero than a true terrorist or Catwoman as a criminal with a heart of gold. 

Scarlet Witch and her brother Pietro (aka Quicksilver) where rescued from their life of crime by Captain America who had them enter his new team (the second ever line up of Avengers) nicknamed Cap’s Crazy Quartet with the fourth member being former Iron Man villain Hawkeye. As time went on Wanda stopped spending so much time telling her brother “the whole world doesn’t hate you” despite the fact he is a complete and total jerk. Avengers and the few X-men comics she appeared in focused more on her bizarre back story and this is truly a sign of gender equality because most of the male Superhero characters don’t have much in the way of personality traits but they have extensive adventures.

Wanda’s history includes being raised by a mutated Cow named Bova (with her brother), previously mentioned manipulations by Magneto, training under Agatha Harkness in witchcraft, marrying a robot, being unable to have children with a robot, magicking up her own babies (that turned out to be demons), blowing up Avenger’s mansion, rewriting all of reality, travelling back in time and being persecuted for witchcraft, getting engaged to Doctor Doom and a search to find out who her father is. With all that, it’s not surprising that she hasn’t developed a personality, with that much back story you try having some hobbies.

Gwen Stacy

How did modern Marvel fix Gwen Stacy? They created a whole new character of course. Gwen’s initial storyline was a love triangle with Peter Parker (secretly Spider-man) and Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the more fun of the two girls, she was a party girl, she was the hip cool one who talked in Jazz lingo while being completely oblivious to the fact her name was a slang term for Cannabis (but what do you expect this was a funhouse mirror look at youth culture written by a middle-aged man to an audience of 13 year olds). Gwen was a more quiet studious girl whose ideal evening was curled up on the sofa with a good book and drinking hot coco. Marvel’s writers wanted to end the love triangle but they couldn’t have the notoriously indecisive Peter pick between one of them, so the next logical choice was made to have her be dropped off a bridge by the Green Goblin.

Gwen was now treated as a what if to Marvel writers, whenever Peter was too down on his luck or fighting with Mary Jane something might happen to bring Gwen back. Most notably her Biology teacher cloning her in an attempt to get revenge on Spider-man (yes it is as confusing as it sounds).

In the 21st Gwen was made cool, the drummer in an all girl punk rock band, with a cool new costume. The Spider-Gwen comics actually make you realise something about Spider-man comics which is we only care about Peter Parker because he is Spider-man.

Those Un-Fantastic Movies

The Fantastic Four haven’t had the most well-regarded of film adaptations, have they? 3 different directors have had a go at making a film version of Marvel’s First Family (Roger Corman, Tim Story and Josh Trank respectively). So this obviously means the adventures of Mr Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing are ‘uncinematic’ or ‘unadaptable’, right? Well, if you keep making the same obvious mistakes over and over again, then yes. I mean sure, the individual films have their own unique problems, like Roger Corman’s incredible shrinking budget and Josh Trank’s refusal to show up to work. But the same 4 (an oddly appropriate number) problems keep on happening.

The FF are Explorers, not Crimefighters

This one’s a real problem. What’s even more strange is that they acknowledge this in their origin “Exploring Space”. But then it’s dropped once they get superpowers. It’s almost as if they went just to pick them up, like a suit from the dry cleaners before a job interview. Most F4 comic book story lines revolve around them exploring somewhere new and making enemies with a tyrant or befriending a friendly king. The number of places in the Marvel Universe that was first explored or discovered by this family from New York include Attilan, Atlantis, the Blue Area of the Moon, Wakanda, Latveria, the Negative Zone, the Skrull Home World. And those are just the greatest hits. 

Removing them as space adventurers robs them of what makes them so special. If theres a mugger in New York, there are at least half a dozen heroes all tripping over each over to stop them (Spider-man, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Cat, Venom, Jessica Jones, The Prowler and Kirby knows how many more). But the Marvel Universe has only one team of super-powered explorers. 

I think this change is made because movies don’t like what is known as a Flat-Arc (wherein the hero isn’t changed by the story). But this is ridiculous because they can still evolve on an alien planet. 

The Character’s are Wrong

It’s fair to say that the Fantastic Four are a product of their time. While Sue is best defined as the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” even before having kids (I’m sorry but it’s kinda true), the other three have different personalities to their movie counterparts (even with that said Sue isn’t very Sue). 

Reed Richards is the embodiment of 1950’s Rugged Manhood. He’s not just the smartest man in the world but square-jawed and emotionally distant as well. Reed in the movies is a wimpy nerd who has to bring extra lunch money so he can still get a cookie after the less nerdy nerds beat it out him. These two things are not the same at all and it’s really stereotypical. 

Johnny Storm is, frankly, an immature kid in high school who likes to show off. Sue has spent half her life looking after him after their parents were killed in a car crash when Johnny was 7, partially why Sue is the “World’s Greatest Super-Mom” before she even had her own kids. Johnny in the movies has his “Rebel Without a Cause” side cranked up to 11. But all this does this is create a really shallow version of Johnny Storm, especially as all of the Fantastic Four have above average intelligence (the other three are just dwarfed by Reed Richards). Johnny is more Marty McFly (complete with short temper) than a 2nd rate James Dean. 

The worst offender for the movies getting wrong is most probably Ben Grimm, the heart and soul of Marvel Comics. In the movie adaptations, he spends his time moping about lamenting that he used to be a handsome man but now he’s a giant toenail (fun fact: Ben Grimm’s rock skin is actually more similar to toenails than rock. Here’s hoping he doesn’t get athlete’s foot). While this is true of the comic counterpart to a degree, he actually gets over it pretty quickly. He’s a changed man as soon as he meet Alicia Masters. Ben Grimm is a fun-loving party animal. He loves to drink, gamble and fight. He always has a joke ready for when he punches a bad guy and he’s the Idol of Millions. He’s basically like the Marvel Universe’s Mr. T.

You’re Wrong about Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom first appeared in Fantastic Four number 5 and he was a fully formed character. He had an army of robots, a suit that made him look like the grim reaper’s stunt double, a magic castle, his own made-up kingdom of Latveria and a time machine. He forced three of the members of the F4 to get him some magic pirate treasure. And thats a million times better than what we got in any of the movies. Sure, Doom has a personal vendetta against Reed Richards but it predates him becoming Mr Fantastic. It’s not that Doom is an entitled shmuck who wanted to marry Sue. No. Doom’s hatred of Richards is much more intense and much more personal, Richards destroyed his experiment, his one chance to talk to his deceased mother, and it scarred his beautiful perfect face. 

Doom is no tag-along, Doom’s power is all self made. He didn’t hitch a ride with the other four, he studied the Occult and raised his own army. And all to fulfil his destiny to complete his goals of getting revenge on Reed Richards for disfiguring him, redemption for his mothers soul (she sold it to Mephisto to protect their village from the Nazi’s) and total conquest of the world. Not to destroy it though, rather so he can rid the world of disease and poverty as everybody will be too busy worshipping his magnificence. 

Doctor Doom is almost always the aggressor in his stories with the Fantastic Four, as their insistence on still existing always circumvents his plans to bring much needed order to a world gone mad. But due to his popularity (he was even Stan Lee’s favourite villain), he’s appeared as an adversary for almost every Marvel hero. He’s gone to war with Wakanda and even tried to seduce Spider-man to the ways of villainy. Doom is a complex character as well as being an over-the-top characteur of a fascist. 

There are More Villains than Doctor Doom

Doctor Doom is possibly the greatest villain in all of Superhero comics. However, his back stories and motivations are more complicated than the average disposable movie villain. The method of adding him into the origin of the F4 just plain doesn’t work. It belittles him. Fortunately, the Fantastic Four have many villains. Assuming this is to fit into the MCU, Ronan the Accuser and the Skrull Empire have already been used, but they still have many more that haven’t yet been used. They include evil magician’s like Diablo and Nicolas Scratch, the communist villain the Red Ghost (who gained super powers for him and his apes by copying the F4) and Dragon-Man (often partnered with Diablo) who’s whole shtick is a bizarre lie as he is an Android and neither a Dragon or a Man. The Puppet Master, Alicia Masters step-Father, controls people with puppets he makes. The Moleman is the ruler of an underground world with loyal subjects called the Moloids. The Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, The Frightful Four (a rival group of Scientists who make themselves an evil copy of the heroes). Annihulus and Blastaar (rival rulers of the Negative Zone who the F4 keep getting in the way of). Heck, even their original villain Namor the Submariner. With him, you can keep the whole “I love Sue, you don’t deserve her” shpeil as that’s actually his motivations.

So is it that the Fantastic Four are uncinematic? god no. The Movie versions have been plagued with problems, Roger Corman was hired to make the first one because of his extremely fast turnover in productions and Constantine films didn’t want to lose the rights to the series so they made a movie of them. Tim Story’s Fantastic Four was made for similar reasons, coupled with the popularity of the Spider-man and X-men movies they thought it could make a profit and it did and it spawned a sequel that some how managed to be worse. Tim Story also only had 1 previous directing credit for a box office flop starring Queen Latifah. Josh Trank’s Fant4stic was also made under the pressure of not wanting to lose the rights to the series. While his vision of a darker version of the F4 seemed strange it had some merits to it, like how Stan Lee’s original pitch for the series had protagonists all slowly dying from their super powers.

The most compelling argument for the Fantastic Four not fitting into a film structure is that the comics often revolve around on going plots from issue to issue. However that idea is flawed by the fact that all Marvel comics have that and well Spider-man has done pretty well on the big screen.

The Superheroes Journey

Banner by James Dawson

In 1949 Joseph Campbell created the theory of the monomyth, the theory is based on a study of various cultures stories of Heroism. He found recurring trends in every cultures’ great mythical stories, realising that all heroes are the same he wrote the book “the Hero with a thousand faces”. But cultures moved, so has the Monmouth, how do 20th and 21st century heroes fit the mould, and where better to look for modern heroes than Superhero comics, I mean theres a clue in the name. So I’ve decided to take 7 seemingly random (chosen for diversity) and test them against David Adams Leeming definition of the Monomyth (as Campbells originally had 17 criteria) and check how well they keep to the 8.

The 8 being:

1. Hero must have special circumstances around their birth

2. A Call to Adventure (something happens as a catalyst for change)

3. Hero must leave their normal world for a new one

4. Hero must go through some trial to prove they are worthy

5. The Hero or someone they know must die (usually mentor figure)

6. Hero goes into an evil place

7. The Hero is reborn with a new identity

8. The Hero atones for their past 

This Formulae has been found in a lot of fiction since it’s creation, George Lucas even modelled Luke Skywalker’s story in Star Wars on this after reading The Hero with a Thousand faces.

Wonder Woman

First Appearance of Origin Story All Star Comics 8 (William Moulton Marsden and Harry G Peter).

Created by Hera the Amazons where made to to be champions for women who where maligned by patriarchy. After realising the Amazons where a threat to his order, the Tyrant Zeus ordered his son Heracles to enslave them using the metal from his shield. The Amazons were saved from their enslavement by their queen Hypolita’s cunning plan to choke out their enslave with her own chains. On the run from man’s world, Hera guided the Amazons to their new home, Themyscira where they lived in peace for centuries entirely separate from men and man’s cruelty.

Hypolita’s life started to feel empty, filled with a cosmic longing to be a mother (Marsden had strange theories just go with it), she crafted a doll out of clay. Hera decided to breathe life into the doll and the doll was named Diana and became princess of the Amazons.

The peaceful man free life could not last forever, and washed up on the shores of Themyscira was an American spy called Steve Trevor. Diana filled with compassion decided to heal this stranger back to health, but being a man he was not allowed to stay. Hypolita declared that a champion from the Amazons must accompany him, and this would be decided with a contest for the strongest Amazon to take up the mantle of “WONDER WOMAN”. Diana entered the contest in disguise so that her mother would not know it was her and won the contest. Now with all the tools of the Amazons Diana became Wonder Woman and started punching Nazi’s. 

So How does this fair against the Monomyth, well being made of clay and brought to life by the goddess of women and motherhood qualifies as a special birth. Steve Trevor’s injured body is a call to adventure, the order becomes skewed by her trial coming before she leaves home so does her new identity. in some retellings she is betrayed by Hypolita who casts her out for lying to her. No form of atonement is made but that is the end of the story and this origin is the beginning of the story so its nearly a perfect Monomyth. 6/8

Robin the Boy Wonder

First Appearance of Origin Story Detective Comics 38 (Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson)

The youngest of a group of Circus acrobats called “the Flying Graysons”, Dick was skilled acrobat. But the Circus they worked for wasn’t doing so well and it’s owner Mr Haly was heavily in debt to a mobster called Tony Zucco. When Haly refuses to pay Zucco he sabotages his star attraction the Flying Grayson, with his parents dying Dick Grayson is left orphaned. Bruce Wayne happened to be watching the Circus that night and changed into Batman to hunt down the criminals who escaped. Bruce Wayne adopted Dick and trained him to be his sidekick, they then team up for the first time to hunt down the extortioners and well superhero comics the good guys win the bad guys lose.

This isn’t really a heroes story, Robin was introduced a sidekick but it was worth a look. This one doesn’t score as well as Wonder Woman’s, Dick doesn’t have a special birth, theres no real call to Adventure, although other tellings of Robin’s origins he choses to be Batman’s sidekick this one seems more like he’s just told to be his sidekick. Theres no atonement as in the early part of the story Dick doesn’t do anything, theres no trial he’s just given his position. 4/8

Green Lantern

First Appearance of Origin Story Showcase 22 (John Broome and Gil Kane)

An Alien crashes his spaceship on earth, dying he needs somebody to carry on his legacy as the Green Lantern of 2814. The Ring chooses Test Pilot Hal Jordan to become the Green Lantern. Abin Sur (aforementioned alien) instructs Hal on how to use his ring.

This one is complicated as the actual origin strip is very short and barely a story, later retellings of this (like Secret origin by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis) expand it with things like a trial and full lantern training from the Guardians of Oa and Kilowog and a mentor relationship with Sinestro, as well as a subplot around his father and redemption for his teenage rebellion.

So actual strip 3/8 and Secret Origin 6/8

Fantastic Four

First Appearance of Origin Story Fantastic Four 1 (Jack Kirby and Stan Lee)

At the height of the Space Race a private company set up their own shuttle to go into space. But this being a space race, the Russians had made further advancements, and not wanting to be left behind 4 intrepid adventures took the shuttle out before it had been tested. Without proper safety tests, the shuttle was vulnerable to Cosmic rays, this altered the giving them superpowers. Reed Richard the lead scientist was given the ability to stretch, his lab assistant Susan gained the ability to turn invisible, Ben the test pilot (who had the biggest doubts about taking the shuttle out) was transformed into an orange rock monster and Johnny who is there for some reason was able to burst into flames and fly.

After crashing to earth the four declared they would use their new powers for the betterment of all mankind and dubbed themselves the FANTASTIC FOUR.

So how does this fit in well, Call to Adventure, leaving home for a new world, there is a trial in plotting the shuttle, and a rebirth. 4/8

Daredevil

First Appearance of Origin Story Daredevil 1 (Stan Lee and Bill Everrett) 

One day crossing the street Matt Murdoch was almost hit by a truck which spilled chemicals into his eyes, this blinded him but also gave him amazing other powers. His father who was the boxer Battling Jack Murdoch was having trouble making ends meet and agreed to take a fall in a Boxing match to pay his sons medical bills. However Jack refused to take the fall deciding he’d be a better father to Matt if he was a good example. But the Fixer and his goons did not like his change of heart and killed him.

Matt Grew up to become a criminal defence lawyer, but he also secretly fought crime. One day finding the Fixer and tries to catch up to put him on trial, but the Fixer being an older man now when being chased suffers a heart attack.

You wouldn’t think it but… 6/8 

Dr Strange

First Appearance of Origin Strange Tales 115 (Steve Ditko)

Important note unlike all the other character Dr Strange first appeared full formed in Strange Tales 110. This origin was some what of a revision and Dr Strange was made to be less asian. He was also only Master of the Mystic Arts and still under the tutelage of the Ancient One until Marvel Premiere 5.

The Brilliant and selfish surgeon Stephen Strange gets into a car crash. This causes his hands to no longer work properly, and he cannot continue as a surgeon. Seeking a cure for his hands he travels to india (later retelling make it tibet) where he meets the Sorcerer Supreme The Ancient One who refuses to heal him for his selfish actions. Instead Stephen trains in the mystic arts, but the other student Mordo has made a deal with Dormammu to try and kill the Ancient One. Stephen tries to warn him, but has a spell cast on him by Mordo to prevent him from doing so, Strange learns more Mystic Arts to defend his teacher, thus proving himself to the Ancient One. The Ancient One also tells Stephen he was destined to be a Sorcerer.

7/8

HellBoy

First Appearance of Origin HellBoy 1-4/Seed of Destruction (Mike Mignola and John Byrne)

in 1944 The Nazi’s where losing the war and they called upon the help of Rasputin the former advisor to the Czar. Rasputin’s actually had an ulterior motive, that was not to let the Germans win World War 2 but to summon a Demon who would be the destroyer of the earth. The Allies intercepted the Demon who was far less impressive than you’d expect (in fact he was just a baby Demon). The Allies raised him in the BPRD (the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence), he grew especially close to Dr Trevor Bruttenholm who he’d even refer to as Father.

Then in 1991 Bruttenholm is killed by a frog monster, Hellboy finds his dead father and declares revenge and confronts Rasputin in the catacombs of Cavendish Hall. The 2 Battle and Hellboy is the victor, Rasputin tells Hellboy he can’t escape his destiny of being the destroyer of earth. HellBoy refuse to accept this.

Now I really oversimplified the story but with this one being about 20 times longer than the rest of them (most of them didn’t fill a full comic book and this is 4 issues). But this is just for analysis of a specific thing so you’re just here for the number.  4.5/8 he only gets half for leaving his home-world as he summoned as a demon.

Conclusion

The Monomyth formulae clearly exists to some degree as non of them got 0/8 but due to the nature of these just being origin stories certain elements end up getting used in later stories. Also the longer a version of the origin the more elements from the Monomyth get incorporated, Green Lantern is a good example of this, his original version of his origin is really short and later version like First Flight and Secret Origin (First Flight not mentioned earlier because it’s an animated movie and not a comic but it would score 7/8) which are both longer get more Monomyth elements. That said many writers are aware of the Monomyth and will be using it as template for their Heroic stories.