Talk:Mac Gargan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Comics
comics
Portal
This article is in the scope of WikiProject Comics, a collaborative effort to build an encyclopedic guide to comics on Wikipedia. Get involved! Help with current tasks, visit the notice board, edit the attached article or discuss it at the project talk page.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. Please explain the rating here.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] Main Pic

i knwo scorpion has the vemon symbiote right now but when i clicked onto the page i was confusd for a while, Did i click on the Venom page by mistake? This whole symbiote thing will be short lived anyway so i say we put a more classic example of his costume on there--Sublime2681 23:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree he has been Venom for to years and Scorpion for fourty.

[edit] Scorpion Costume

Okay, the Scorpion has been around for along time and he has always been a second tier villain. Basically, he is a moron and that is why Spider Man beats him. So far, the true Venom symbiote (not the clone introduced in the limited series) has only had a couple of hosts: Peter Parker, Eddie Brock, Brock's ex-wife (very brief), The gangster's son, and now the Scorpion. It abandoned the gangster's kid because it discerned that he was an inept weakling. So the suite obviously looks for quality in its hosts. From that you can kind of figure that it won't be holding on to Gargon long, because he is a dumb a**. That is why he got caught immediately after he got the venom symbiote. He's just not terribly bright or effective. Right now he's locked up (as far as I know) so we know the symbiote can't get someone else and it probably will look for another superhuman before anything else.

So its sort of a given that this is a temporary thing to freshen things up a bit. A device used by writers to give characters lasting endurance. Example: Sales down? Make the Hulk gray for a few years. Remove Wolverine's adamantium. Replace Thor with an alien Horse-guy who steals his girlfriend. Give Spidey a Black costume for a few years. Take away Spidey's powers, introduce a clone, kill the clone give him back his powers. Temporary pattern. Of course Scorpion is a more minor character than all of these examples, but the Venom symbiote isn't. So what they want to do is put the symbiote on a bunch of complete losers for a little while and make the readers who really want to see that Old Venom who could kick the hell out of Spidey back, pine for thier favorite villain; build that anticipation. Then in the climax to some story, Brock (who isn't an imbecile like Gargon) or possibly even Cletus Cassidy (yah I know he's supposed to be dead) gets the symbiote. Heck, Venom was originally supposed to be a female character. Why not give it to the second Spider-Woman who lost all her powers?

Point is that the Venom symbiote on Gargon is a temporary plot device. And the main panel shouldn't reflect a temporary plot device. When you look back at the hundred or some odd comic books Scorpion has appeared in he didn't have an alien symbiote. So its good to mention the symbiote, and show a picture but its a little presumptuous to put it on the main character panel as though its gonna stay that way.

Now if this were the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update 2005, then naturally we would have a pic of the Venom Scorpion. But its an Encyclopedia meant to depict what the character represents in terms of the culture and history of comic books, which entails the original costume.

That is my 2 cents. Enough people don't think so. I won't try to fight it.

Oh yah, another point. For those of us who have followed the spidey books for all of these years, we know that the Scorpion is already physically more than a match for Spidey. He's as strong as Spider-Man and then add another half to that. And he is more durable. So its obvious that all of the physical powers he has aren't helping him beat Spider-man. He's stronger, more durable, has a better arsenal, he is just as fast and agile, and yet he always gets his a$* handed to him. So making him stronger and adding a few more powers is not going to help the guy; the alien symbiote costume is redundant. Analogy: if your car has problems with its transmission, and you improve the suspension and make the engine more powerful and then take it on a cross country trip, your transmission is still gonna fail. He needs a brain transplant. Mediocre intelligence; albiet with some investigative skills, has allways been a part of the Scorpion character. That's another reason I just don't see the plot device lasting. ScifiterX 10:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

ScifiterX 08:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems like Gargan will remain Venom for the time being. He's appeared in Beyond!, he's going to appear in Civil War, and he's going to be a member of the new Thunderbolts. --DrBat 17:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hawthorne reference

The female Scorpion's birth name is explicitly, rather than "doubtless" a reference to Hawthorne ([1], [2]), but it comes from her first appearance, not the HoM Hulk issues. I don't have time to rewrite that section just now, but if someone would fix it... - SoM 15:30, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New pages

Hey, I moved the page "Mac Gargan" to "Venom (Mac Gargan)". I would like to explain why. My goal is to get rid of the page "Mac Gargan" by transferring all the Scorpion-related material to Scorpion (comics) and leave all the info on Venom on this page. Since there are pages Venom (Eddie Brock) and Venom (Angelo Fortunato), I thought I could do the same for this one to be consistent. I don't want to mess anything up, so if anyone could please sort out the information into their appropriate pages, I would appreciate that. Thanks. (Comp25 20:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC))

The consensus seems to be that if a character has more than one alias, that we use the real name (when known). Thus Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) became Julia Carpenter because she also uses the name Arachne. Eddie Brock is Venom (Eddie Brock) because he doesn't use a second alias. BOZ 16:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Spidermanep2.jpg

Image:Spidermanep2.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Venomtbolts.png

Image:Venomtbolts.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 02:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Spectacular215.jpg

Image:Spectacular215.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scorpion or Venom?

I think we should leave the Scorpion identity in the main picture. It's pretty much what he's known as. When (yes when) they adapt Gargan to the Spectacular Spiderman TV series, they're going to make him the Scorpion, not Venom, and it'll likely be the case if he's adapted for a Spiderman movie. Bobisbob (talk) 00:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Points to keep in mind:
  1. It was moved here from Scorpion (comics) due to the same issues still plaguing the infobox image — Scorpion or Venom image — as well the growing non Scorpion information being added.
  2. The current title was put in place at that time as being in line with the Comics Project naming guidelines. Specifically that Gargan has had more than one prominent costumed identity. Neither Scorpion (Mac Gargan)) nor Venom (Mac Gargan)) were appropriate.
  3. Splitting the page by codename — creating both Scorpion (Mac Gargan)) and Venom (Mac Gargan)) — really isn't an option since the primary reason for the article here is about the character "Mac Gargan", that covers everything and it really doesn't produce an article large enough to need splitting.
  4. Arguing with "When they introduce the character in..." is crystal balling. The article should not be predicting how the character is going to be used by the publisher.
  5. Both the version of the character as shown in the comics are already illustrated in the article. Adding one or the other to the infobox is going to be redundant.
  6. There has been some discussion at the project talk page regarding the naming convention with iconic characters. The focus has been on pages like Hawkeye (comics) so far, but this character may fit the pattern, But there needs to be both a resolution on the project talk page and a discussion to reach a consensus with this article.
- J Greb (talk) 21:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

In case of the tv show Greg Weisman has said in an interview that he plans to use Scorpion in season 3 of Spectacular Spiderman, so I wasn't cystral balling there. All I am saying is that Mac Gargan has been the Scorpion for over 40 years and has been Venom for only 4 years. I think his Scorpion identity is more worthy of being in the main textbox and I don't think we should leave it blank. Bobisbob (talk) 01:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

With the TV show... that may be a good thing to add to the "In other media" section as what Weisman intends, but not as a fact of what will happen. Things change and the Gargan story may change, get moved up, pushed back, or eliminated all together.
As for the image, as I said, there seems to be a change in consensus on how to handle iconic character, and Scorpion may fit into that. Right now though it's been a back and forth between Scorpion and Venom in the 'box. The most neutral way for it to sit until there is a consensus for one or the other is no image. And please note, there is still a Scorpion and a Venom image in the article. - J Greb (talk) 02:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

No one seems to want to vote on a consenus though. Bobisbob (talk) 01:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

My solution:

  • Keep this as Mac Gargan.
  • Create Scorpion (Marvel Comics) to give an overview of the Marvel characters who have used that name (as is done on countless articles). Use {{Main}} to link the relevant person in from the relevant section on that page. Exactly how it is already done at Venom (comics)#Mac Gargan.
  • Make the main picture one from his pre-supervillain days, i.e. Amazing Spider-Man #19. This isn't quite in line with the infobox guidelines but seems the common-sense solution (and guidelines are flexible enough to allow for such things).

This seems the best solution - people looking for the Scorpion character find the main disambiguation page (technically it is a set index so can have slightly different formatting from the usual disambiguation pages) and can then click through to Scorpion (Marvel Comics) which then explains who has worked under that name and make an informed decision on which to click on to for the full bio of the individual. Everyone is happy. (Emperor (talk) 02:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC))

Oh and a couple of other points:
  • Yes that Scorpion image would be ideal for the main infobox on Scorpion (Marvel Comics).
  • There is nothing to say we can't have an infobox in the Scorpion and Venom sections here - it is usually done when you have totally different characters under the same name but it could work here - have a Mac Gargan one up top and one each for Scorpion and Venom. I see that being more helpful than a rather dense infobox trying to juggle three characters. This point is possibly the most contentious of my suggestions.
Anyway chew that over. (Emperor (talk) 03:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC))

[edit] decision on Scorpion pic.

If we can only have one Scorpion picture then can we at least have one were he's more Scorpion-like (i.e with a stinger at the end of his tail). I feel a pic of the mordern version would be best. Bobisbob (talk) 17:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Observations:
  • Since the image for the Scorpion section is going to be contentious, get the discussion rolling before changing the image.
  • It is preferable to have a non-free image in place that has a full fair use rational. This includes:
    • A description of where the image was originally published.
    • Where the file was found on the web or a declarative statement from the uploader that they scanned or screencaptured it from the original source.
    • The article to use the image.
    • The reason it's to be used.
    • It it's replaceable.
The template, {{Non-free media rationale}}, is helpful in that regard.
As it stands, the cover for The Amazing Spider-Man has a full FUR, the cut out doesn't.
There is also an additional point — the cover also has, as the caption points out, historical significance. The "And we just changed the costume" or "by this bigger name/more recent artist" images don't have that. - J Greb (talk) 17:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)