The golden age setting, the interview technique, the gallery of unknown heroes and villians mentioned in passing and of course the mask discrimination act all smack of the watchmen. Plus the villian's masterplan has a certain similarity to the watchmen.
Did they have to pay Marvel some royalties for an obvious clone of the invisible girl? (it's funny that I consider the rest standard superheroes, but the combination of force shield and invisibility smack of copyright enfringement)
I hope they didn't have to pay any royalties, but I do think the family was an intentional send-up of the Fantastic Four. They swapped the Flash for the Human Torch, but they had the strong one, the stretchy one, and the invisible-forcefield one (yeah, I think it's a unique combination). The baby isn't exactly Franklin Richards, but he has some similar elements. The business with their costumes was also very FFish, I think.
(Hmm... no wonder she happily had three kids. I mean, labor as Elastic Girl must be pretty painless...)
(Hmm... no wonder she happily had three kids. I mean, labor as Elastic Girl must be pretty painless...)
I had the same thought... But cutting the umbillical cord would have been challenging. And I don't want to think of the problems involved with a super-speedy baby or one that can turn invisible at will. I don't know which would be worse.
Hurm. I remember hearing some random buzz that Marvel could partner up with Pixar now that they've shed Disney. Unfortunately, my source at Pixar was let go in their recent reorganization, so I don't know if that was real or not. :(
Marvel is busy suing the makers of the City of Heroes MMPORG, though. Probably because they're finally coming out with one of their own.
Many teams map to the FF. Some in direct homage, some due to a similarity of one or more of the high concepts. The two that are applicable in this case are "family-based super-team" and "4-person team, where each member maps to one of the four classical elements".
Hmm, well, it's true that the resemblance is more general than specific, but I'm not sure about the element mapping. I see the elements in a lot of things, but FF only has two strong mappings (Fire and Earth) and two weak ones. The Incredibles are a step further, since flame changes to speed, and the strong character is not explicitly rock-oriented. I'm not saying there isn't some similarity there, but I don't think that's what gives it the FF feel to me.
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learnedax
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Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 02:29 pm (UTC)Did they have to pay Marvel some royalties for an obvious clone of the invisible girl? (it's funny that I consider the rest standard superheroes, but the combination of force shield and invisibility smack of copyright enfringement)
Re: Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 02:39 pm (UTC)(Hmm... no wonder she happily had three kids. I mean, labor as Elastic Girl must be pretty painless...)
Re: Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 03:25 pm (UTC)I had the same thought... But cutting the umbillical cord would have been challenging. And I don't want to think of the problems involved with a super-speedy baby or one that can turn invisible at will. I don't know which would be worse.
Re: Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 04:00 pm (UTC)Re: Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 06:34 pm (UTC)Marvel is busy suing the makers of the City of Heroes MMPORG, though. Probably because they're finally coming out with one of their own.
Re: Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 08:25 pm (UTC)Re: Yeah
Date: 2004-11-12 10:08 pm (UTC)