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Assistance in developing content relating to individual characters across multiple articles

Some of you are probably aware of the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joker (character) which was basically so far as I can tell a bit of an argument about how to structure content about comics characters across multiple articles. The close of the AfD suggested that maybe some sort of discussion among the members of this group might be useful. I tend to think input from Wikipedia:WikiProject Media franchises, which also deals with a number of similar topics, might be useful here as well, and am notifying them of this discussion here. Anyone have any ideas? John Carter (talk) 17:55, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I posted this elsewhere, but perhaps there should be some better-centralized WP:AT/WP:MOS-space pages dealing broadly with fiction and fictional works that works to consolidate current guideline coverage of e.g. (video) games, film, TV, comics, books, anime, and manga, rather than to further advocate specific "MOS:COMICS"-specific changes. This would help to get everyone on the same page rather than in little (and what are basically) hidey-holes. For example, there's presently a MOS for video games, a naming conventions (NC) page for video games, and a notability (N) page for video games; MOS and NC for films (containing also NFILM), a MOS for animanga (containing also NCAnimanga), MOS and NC pages for comics, NC and N for books, MOS for TV, and then NPRODUCT and N on top of those. I bet we'd find a lot of similar guidance between the lot of those. Of course, these pages would take their cues from higher-level WP:N, WP:MOS, and WP:AT, where applicable. --Izno (talk) 18:54, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Throw "memorabilia" - toys, action figures, costumes, what have you - in the list of things you mentioned, and I would definitely support that. John Carter (talk) 18:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: since you have some slightest-of-slight interest. --Izno (talk) 18:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
I think the number of characters that need multiple articles is fairly small, and the subset with enough sources to support such articles is smaller still (only 4 come to mind). That said, I would support moving away from the standard, generic (comics) dab in favor of more specific ones like (comics character), (comic book), or (cartoonist)/(comic writer)/(comic artist). Argento Surfer (talk) 21:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
I would suggest we need to approach this from a broad "how to handle fictional characters [places, etc.] that are cross-medium or multi-continuity" perspective. Just because a character appears in comics doesn't make it more a comics character than a movie or video game or novel or whatever character (though its individual history might). Even when a character originated as a comics character that doesn't mean that that's the most notable or WP:PRIMARY version of that character. We need a consistent approach to making such determinations, and a decrease in territorial genre-based bickering. (I'm not singling the comics project out, this is just where the discussion has started).

Proposal: I would suggest that people from all the fiction-related wikiprojects figure out what their naming and style pages have in common (or should have in common) and merge that information out of topical/genre pages into a) a new WP:Naming conventions (fiction) and b) the existing WP:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction. Then pare the topical/genre pages down to not repeat but only summarize those key points in common, and refer to those main pages. Then try to get what remains in the topcial/genre pages to focus on explaining how existing guidelines and naming policy are best applied to the topic/genre in question (and avoid/remove pointless exceptions/variances). If a variance is thought important, see about getting it mentioned in the main guideline to which it is some kind of exception (otherwise it will continue to be a source of conflict). A process like this would eliminate a lot of conflict between wikiprojects, and between any given wikiproject and the rest of Wikipedia.

In the interim: We need some tacit agreement to avoid WP:OWN-like behavior when it comes to characters (etc.) that span multiple media. The most obvious way to do this is for "Foo (character)" titles (or just "Foo" ones, when no disambiguation is needed) to be the norm, and to be written more "medium agnostic", with sections on the character's differences in different media, then splitting articles off per WP:SUMMARY into more specific ones when the need arises because an article has gotten overlong. It's reader unhelpful and a source of editorial strife to keep them at names like "Foo (comics)" when disambiguation is required and the character is notable in the context of more than just comics. It's a source of further strife to dwell and dwell on the character in one medium and mostly ignore it in another when both are of encyclopedic interest. The "(comics)" is a confusing disambiguator to begin with (it fails at disambiguating, by replacing one ambiguity with another) when used for characters, since it implies comics with that "Foo" as their title, not a character named "Foo" that appears in comics.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:44, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Another problem, which I mention here only to help it be dealt with, is characters like Más y Menos and Harley Quinn who did not start with comics, but other comics media (in these cases, TV), but who may be best known for their comics appearances. John Carter (talk) 21:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Harley Quinn is probably someone for whom their main page being a detailed portal would make sense, focusing on her television creation with sub sections linking off to Harley Quinn in comics for her extensive comic history that came thereafter. It's totally not appropriate, for example, to open the article referring to her as a comic book character that appears in comic books. Referring back to Joker (comics), ignoring the naming question, I think it's formatting is exemplary if I do say so myself. It focuses on the development of the character in the comics and bringins in other media where applicable to discuss what influenced which. It has only as brief a possible retelling of comic narratives where these impact the character or were otherwise notable on the development of OTHER characters, and has a media section that gives an overview but links to an article that can better extrapolate on them. It would be impossible to do a characterisation section for example that gives credence to all other media, it would require an article all of it's own, it's necessary to focus on the original character and allow other articles to expand on adaptations. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:18, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
For anyone wondering what such a "detailed portal" is, see WP:DABCONCEPT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Although, perhaps, the failure to mention any of the number of reliable sources about Joker toys, so far as I can tell, anywhere easily accessible here, might not unreasonably be seen as problematic. John Carter (talk) 00:14, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
There was toy info in the article, when it was made to split to try and pass FA that information was moved to the character article. There is a brief overview in the end of the CUltural Impact section prior to the film section. I think at one point I tried to develop the "In Other Media" article to represent toys but found it difficult to cover his entire history and so it suffered from recentism. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:04, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Darkwarriorblake—you never made to split it. You were given the choice of refocussing or splitting, and you chose to split. Having said that, I agree that the opening line to the current Joker (comics) article could probably serve as a model for fictional character articles. I've made a change to the Goodman Beaver article to reflect that—even though this character has appeared exclusively in comics, it shouldn't be referred to as a "comics character". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Ehhh, the choice was completely change all of the content in the article or split it. Wasn't really a choice. But I'm not wanting to argue about it. I'm happy I could contribute something you could use though. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:46, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Another thing to keep in mind is that "this passed GA or FA" doesn't really mean anything with regard to future development. All it means is that some editors looked at it and thought at the time that it was good enough for the criteria they had in front of them. It is not some kind of "get out of further improvement or compliance forever" pass.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

To me, it seems that the issues relating to this topic, and a lot of other media franchise topics, are pretty much as follows:

  • 1) What is the title of the main article? This can be a problem, particularly when as in this case the word which is the main component of the title is also used in other contexts, like as is clearly visible at Joker. Flash comes to mind as another example of that type. It also directly relates to:
  • 2) What should be the content of the main topical article? This can be seriously problematic as well, particularly with, I supposes, Hello Kitty, which apparently started as, of all things, a form of product brand. This point might be the biggest concern in this topic as well.
  • 3) What spinout articles, if any, should exist, and, I suppose, what should be the priority of creating them or specific reasons sufficient enough to create them as individually separate articles? I'm guessing the standard first-generation spinout articles might be Foo in other story-telling media (perhaps one or more articles), Foo in merchandise, In-universe history or biography of Foo, (later addition) and Foo in popular culture. The latter would presumably I guess relate to matters like parade balloons, catchlines generalized into public use, presumably items like Batman in philosophy where appropriate, etc. (If there are obvious options I missed, please indicate below.) Is there any one topic which might be a broad umbrella in the first case for the others, and if so which, or would they all be separate items from the beginning?

Maybe, once those concerns are resolved for this matter and I'm guessing others, then the rest might become a bit easier to address. Pinging @SMcCandlish:, who had been called in here on this matter. John Carter (talk) 14:24, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Whether there are spinoff articles at all depends entirely on whether there's enough content to justify it. Character articles should not be split by default into in comics and in other media to isolate a favoured incarnation, which is what the superhero editors seem to demand. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
I should have made it a bit clearer that, obviously, WP:NOTABILITY and WP:PAGEDECIDE are relevant as well as WP:CFORK. In some very few cases, maybe, like for instance a name/character appears in more than one media and the different versions have little in common but the name itself, I might disagree, and I'm guessing there might be a few such, although none immediately come to mind. Maybe, and this is just a maybe, some of the recently revitalized franchise comic characters like Phantom (comics), or maybe some of the individual Fables (comics) characters if they had a longer history, there might be sufficient grounds for different articles about the various incarnations, but I would tend to think that there probably should be one hell of a lot of material that differs between the various incarnations to make sure that there is sufficient content for separate articles on the various incarnations. John Carter (talk) 21:46, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
I have added to the third grouping ""In-universe history or biography of Foo," which as indicated above by Curly Turkey seems to be the primary point of disagreement here. This would reasonably be I think a major point for a lot of works which have a significant shared history. So, for instance, I would tend to think, if it is in fact notable, History of New York City (Marvel universe) might be one of the longest groups of articles we might have, and the internal History of the universe (DC) might be a mind-bending nightmare, given all the bloody reboots and rewrites. Possibly the internal linkage of a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs's creations might be considered in this light as well, and possibly more than a few other similar shared universes. John Carter (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Sure; a comprehensive accounting of Michael Moorcock's multiverse and all the incarnations of his Eternal Champion (some of which are closely clustered and cross over each other's continuities, etc.) could be a wiki unto itself. And I think that brings us to an important point: Most of these things do have their own wikis which go into a great deal more in-universe detail. This is so primarily because WP has, per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE, WP:N, etc., driven much of that content off WP as too narrow and trivial for the WP project. That broad community consensus needs to be respected as we work through this stuff. The purpose of an article on the Joker (or whatever) is to help encyclopedia readers get a handle on the character/property as it relates to and matters in the real world, and I think a lot of fiction-focused editors forget this (even I have myself, e.g. when I was working on, and producing overly long, plot summaries at Colony (TV series)). This is one of the facets of "working" here that is helped by wikiprojects talking to each other and to maintainers of guideline and policy pages.

Anyway, to get back to the main issue, I would think that for any character, fictional place, etc., that transverses multiple media/continuities (Marvel comics, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel TV shows, etc., none of which are consistent with each other), the default thing to do, when disambiguation is needed, would be something like "Foo (character)" or (if necessary) "Foo (Marvel character)", and "Quux (fiction)" or if necessary "Quux (Marvel)" for something other than a character. Or something like this; don't fixate on the details yet. Whether a particular article focuses primarily on the comics version (or a particular comics version!) is entirely a matter of the article-specific context. Harley Quinn surely should not, but an argument can be made for and against with regard to, say, Batman or Conan the Barbarian, while a comics focus is obvious for Doctor Strange despite there finally being a movie.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Correction: my concerns have had nothing to do with in- vs out-of-universe. Mainly, I've had two concerns:
  1. WP:COMICS taking OWNnership of fictional character articles by DABbing them with (comics)
  2. WP:COMICS making the comics incarnations of fictional characters the base article, and shoving everything else (regardless of how substantial) into little "other media" subsections or other articles entirely
The above applies almost exclusively to superhero articles; you won't often find this sort of thing in non-superhero fictional character articles, and when you do, you don't run into a ridiculous wall of resistance when you try to fix it. Just look at Wolverine (character)—it's been moved at least four times as WP:COMICS members have tried to exert OWNership over the article by giving it a nonsensical DAB.
SMcCandlish's "a comics focus is obvious for Doctor Strange despite there finally being a movie" reiterates what I've already said—if the subject has appeared almost exclusively in comics, per WP:WEIGHT the bulk of the article will end up covering those comics appearances (à la Goodman Beaver). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:55, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

It would have been appreciated if someone would have notified me of this discussion, since I am the one who nominated the deletion to begin with (unless a few editors would consider notifying an editor who is already involved as canvassing as well). What I will say is that Joker (character) can not continue to exist in its current form. Whether it's deleted or merged with Joker (comics), coming to a permenant centralised agreement would be very helpful. The problem here is that we seem to have two different waves of editors that have separate ideas of how these articles should be handled, so we need to fix that by coming together and fixing the contradictory guidelines. DarkKnight2149 00:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

There could reasonably be a very good question as to whether or not there should be a separate "character" page, given all the discussion and, I suppose, the ambiguity of the word "character" itself and what such a standalone article would contain.
FWIW, as a bit of an outsider, as seems to have been indicated below, I would think that content on topics like this and those regarding, for instance, the Book of Mormon and other religious tracts which have little impact outside of their own base group (which are a bit more in my average wheelhouse) have a lot in common, as well as multiple groups of articles on franchises like Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Tarzan, Dracula, and the like. There exists a great deal of what could be called "in-universe" material, including a lot of biographical material, which is significant and of importance to the central fan base, but much of that material is of little importance or significance outside of that central fan base, which in many cases may be more interested in things like, for instance, Batman Halloween costumes than, for instance, the details of the Crime Alley incident. How to balance "in-universe" characterization and other factors, like, for instance, merchandise, other story-telling media, etc., particularly in the main article, seems to me to be maybe the best first step to take. John Carter (talk) 15:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
It's always great to get opinions from other editors, but for a massive undertaking like this may become, I think the opinions of editors who will actually be doing the work should count for more. If the MOS is updated to include more DAB options instead of the too-generic (comics), the implementation won't be something a bot can do because it will require content review. With that in mind, I have to ask who among those involved in this discussion plans to contribute after an agreement is reached? I may fix the prominent ones on my watchlist, but I don't have the inclination to move the other 20,000+ articles that will be affected. I'm still trying to complete a similar change from 2013. Argento Surfer (talk) 15:50, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
I've been busy with things outside of Wikipedia, other articles, and a massive fiasco, but I may be able to contribute wherever I can. DarkKnight2149 17:50, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
If you're asking me, Argento, I have started development of article and source lists similar to those at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Prospectus and Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Library based on the existing Batman encyclopedias. John Carter (talk) 16:02, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I've held for some time now the belief that the best way for us to determine how to structure any article is to see what recent, well-regarded reference works discuss the topic and basically try to, more or less, duplicate that. Yesterday I looked at the DK/Dorling Kindersley "DC Comics Encyclopedia" and the recent "Essential Batman Encyclopedia" by Robert Greenberger for their articles on the topic. The first of the two gives the Joker a full two pages, which more or less makes it one of their longest articles - I don't remember seeing any longer than two pages, anyway. It doesn't have that much text, but none of it mentions anything beyond the "mainsteam" Joker. It did however have a very short section listing three of the most important or essential stories, and a lot of the other longer articles did as well. So, maybe, having something similar in the Joker article might not be unreasonable. The second work has a much longer article, and in fact includes four very brief paragraphs at the end on alternative versions of the Joker. Although, by my own error, I didn't check the length of the full article, I got the impression that the alternate versions took probably less than 5-10% of the total length. The Greenberger also mentions in some of its articles, including Aquaman that I specifically remember, how the character's portrayal has changed over time, with all the changes to reality with Crisis on Infinite Earths and later such reworkings of the universe. That might be relevant here as well, as I personally don't think the "Killing Joke" Joker and the more recent Scott Snyder Joker can easily be said to be really in continuity or consistent. Maybe.
The downside with both works, unfortunately, is that they didn't cover at all anything beyond the comics themselves. For many if not most comic characters, that wouldn't matter. Ragman, Squirrel Girl, and many if not most other comics characters have little if any existence outside of comics. Unfortunately, there are (I'm guessing) maybe 3 dozen or so superheroes who have received a lot of attention in other media, and, maybe (again guessing) somewhere less than a dozen supervillains who have as well. Batman, with all the cartoons, movies, TV shows of all sorts, books, video games, audiobooks, radio (maybe?), merchandise of all sorts, etc., is one of them, and, I tend to think, so is the Joker, who tends to be one of the one or two most frequent opponents of Batman in those media. But none of those are covered in the encyclopedias I mentioned above, although they probably are in similar works more directly related to their own media. This is maybe exacerbated by the recent "cinematic universes" of both Marvel and DC. I, unfortunately, don't know what if any such encyclopedias exist off the top of my head.
Personally, with the Joker being basically a "household name" like some other major fictional franchises, there is also, at least to my eyes, a really good question as to whether their "home" media is the one most people most quickly recognize or know him from. It may well be that for most of the broader public not comics fans, they might be coming to the pages knowing Joker is in comics, but coming for information on, maybe, the Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, or Heath Ledger versions of the Joker. This is more or less the same sort of problem which the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia had to deal with - determining what it is the readers are actually coming here looking for. In that instance, grok.se and a lot of other technical stuff I don' unnerstand got mentioned and used, and maybe, if we wanted to be as thorough here as they were there, maybe doing some of the same things here might be useful as well.
Again, just speaking personally, with the recent "cinematic universes" of both Marvel and DC spotlighting a lot more characters than had gotten similar attention before, I as an individual personally doubt in most of the major cases (maybe Doctor Strange and the Suicide Squad and other flops notwithstanding) that the majority of the people coming to the related articles on those characters are coming for the comics versions of the characters. If that is the case, maybe working with some of the WikiProjects in other media to develop MOS for these multimedia entities might be the best way to go.
Anyway, I shut up now. John Carter (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree that characters like Joker are the exception - I can only think of four other characters who could sustain articles on the general character in addition to articles about the character in specific media: Spider-Man, Superman, Wolverine and Batman. The X-Men could probably sustain a similar article structure as a group. While characters like Iron Man have gotten more attention thanks to the relatively recent films, I would argue that the film version is adequately covered in the film articles. I would even say that the MCU characters are better covered in the film articles than the character articles, since there is more in-depth coverage of the films than of the comics. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Agreed with most of the points above. I might add some of the characters who are in a lot of toys or action figures or video games and maybe Catwoman. The question then becomes, like in the Macedonia case I mentioned, which article in each such case should be, in effect, the one that the reader first comes to. John Carter (talk) 21:27, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I think Magneto could probably sustain a comic article as such a long term villain of the X-Men, he has been involved in tonnes of major plotlines relating to the development of many characters, and maybe Batgirl and Wonder Woman too. To the other point, and anecdotal, if I wanted to know about the Dark Knight Joker, I'd go to the Dark Knight film page. I've never gone to the Joker article in all my years here expecting anything more than the comic character. While the Nicholson and TDK versions are big pop culture versions of the character, they are ultimately single instances that are better served in the respective film articles, same with the Animated series. The source character has like 75 years of story and influence and the major stories or influences that people talk about, the ones then used as inspiration for the films (particularly in TDK and the Arkham video games) are comic stories involving the Joker. As for TKJ, I think it is loosely canon, it is brought up a lot in stuff now, especially the more detailed part about the Red Hood. But it is only one possibly canon story since he doesn't remember. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:48, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't disagree that you would (or that I would) do as you indicated, but we know a lot more about the topic than some of our readers coming to these pages do. That was, more or less, the case with the Macedonia issue I mentioned too. Right now the Joker page does list the character first, so for this article there might not necessarily be a lot of changes, except, perhaps, to have some material moved to that other article on the character if the character is, in fact, the topic most people first look for or at. I'm thinking particularly more of the "cultural impact" section might be moved there, because determining exactly which version of the character ultimately had which particular impact is likely harder to determine than some of the sources focused on only one version of the character would cover. Regarding the Killing Joke version, it was said in at least one other, later, story that Riddler could vouch for part of it, but that was before the more recent Snyder version. The "Aquaman" article (hey, it starts with an "A" and I think alphabetically, 'kay?) includes a couple of subdivisions of the modern age. Based on what little there has been on this character since Snyder started, there might not be that much cause for further breakdown of that section, but, not being an expert, I dunno. Some of these same issues probably apply to some of the other major multimedia characters though, and that's one of the reasons I'm thinking, maybe, that getting some broader guidelines that might have more input from people who might have worked successfully with some of those matters elsewhere.
There might also, maybe, although I ain't real fond of it myself, be grounds for an additional "intermediate" article, Joker (DC) depending on the level of sourcing and amount of material on the various aspects of the character specifically under the control of DC management (comics, movies, tv, direct-to-video, and the like). But stuff like that, like I indicated, might best be addressed with assistance from other groups or editors used to working with these broad multimedia topics. John Carter (talk) 23:04, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
If a user wanted to learn more about, say, Catwoman as played by Anne Hathaway, and they happened to visit Catwoman first, I don't think they'd be lost or confused when they saw comic information first. I also think it's important to remember that if a comic character has appeared in a film or tv show, the actor and title are both linked in the lead. It's not like the information they want is buried.
From where I'm sitting, I don't think the issue is content or structure for the overwhelming majority of articles - it's the (comics) dab that is usually too generic and can imply a focus that isn't needed. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:29, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't have a problem with moving Joker (comics) to The Joker, but that'd still probably raise resistance with users like CurleyTurkey in defining it as the primary subject. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:29, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

If we're deleting or merging Joker (character) (which is what needs to happen), then I don't see why not. And this "creating separate articles for the general character and the comics character" should NOT become a trend. We aren't about to start splitting articles and wasting useless space simply because a group of stubborn users want to use slippery slop WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments that aren't even true ("all other character articles do this"... no they don't). I don't see why the character's source material can't be covered in the base article. And Joker (comics) is the base article. As previously stated, other media versions are covered in that article (with Joker in other media only being split due to the sheer amount of content). If you don't think that Joker (comics) covers the other media interpretations enough, then try ADDING TO IT. Going out and creating a duplicate base article because you think that it focusses too much on the comics or because you think the project is being WP:OWNy borderlines on disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Also keep in mind that you can't title an article (Character) in comics unless it is specifically about the comic book appearances themselves. Joker (comics) can't be renamed Joker in comics because it's about the character, not the various appearances that the character has made. DarkKnight2149 21:03, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Also, members of WP:COMICS better watch your backs. Curly Turkey is coming to clean you up. DarkKnight2149 21:07, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Oh, look! Darkknight2149's shown up to stir the shitter! Who'd've thunk that? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:14, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
After all the dramah you've kicked up and continue to kick up, Darkknight2149, I don't expect you to understand this, but—most of us are here at Wikipedia to find the best ways we can to present information to Wikipedia's target audience, which is a very general audience. There are many, many other wikis (and other sites) on the Web that cater to more specialized readerships. Have you taken a look at them? Many of them are much more suited to a fan's POV, if you reject the spirit in which the rest of us are expected to contribute to Wikpedia. Of course, we'd be thrilled if you could make the effort to understand the problem and why it has to be dealt with and then learn to contribute in a constructive manner, rather than painting us as supervillains stomping all over your "turf". Regardless, the problem is real, it must be dealt with, and when it's finally presented to the greater community it will be dealt with—in a manner many WP:COMICS contributors will dislike. Wikipedia would appreciate it if you'd let us deal with the problem with a minimum of dramah. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:53, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Given that I made my opinions clear before there was even a pot "to stir", you've got no argument there (as from my humourous response to you wanting to "clean up" a WikiProject for disagreeing with you; you always were one to assume bad faith). But our differences aside and back to the serious topic at hand, I don't see how needlessly creating multiple, even duplicate, articles for every single character benefits the "general readership". Since you believe so heavily in your position, I would've imagined that you would have actually been determined to make the percieved proper edits to Joker (comics) to more represent the other media, instead of treading the line of WP:POINT by creating a useless duplicate article to provide a statement on your opinions regarding the WikiProject and the article itself. DarkKnight2149 03:51, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
More of this soul-draining WP:IDHT. Nobody has demanded multiple articles. Nobody. After the number of times we've been through this, there's no more excuse for you keeping us on this strawman's treadwheel. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:59, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
"As previously stated, other media versions are covered in that article" This is a true but inaccurate statement. The other versions are discussed in real-world terms only. If you read through the biography material, non-comic media is mentioned twice. Both amount to "[concept from the comics] came from/was also seen in [other media]."
Also, your whole paragraph about why it can't be renamed Joker in comics is a Straw man. A simple Ctrl+F shows that no one has suggested that title. I believe you're thinking of Joker (comic character). Argento Surfer (talk) 13:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Actually yes, Curly Turkey suggested Joker in comics more than once already at the deletion discussion and someone brought up Harley Quinn in comics (if only to reiterate reasons why that's not okay). There's no strawman fallacy here.
While I don't expect Argento Surfer to know everything that has transpired (we're only human), it doesn't seem apparent that Turkey isn't ready to stop inventing accusations so that we can have a clean discussion. Apparently I'm "WP:NOTHERE" again (see his Talk Page).
And whether this applies to "all character articles, some character articles", the point remains the same, especially given the title of this discussion. DarkKnight2149 16:14, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
You're right, sorry. That was discussed on the deletion page. I even commented on it there. For what it's worth, you do seem to have convinced Curly on this point, because he agreed that (comics character) would be ok. Ctrl+F that discussion for "going to suggest" for the exact spot. Argento Surfer (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't expect DK to have actually read anyone's actual arguments. He keeps saying I've never actually presented an argument, after all, and keeps insisting that somewhere I've demanded hese articles be split. Context: I suggested "something like Joker in comics" as a possibility if Darkwarriorblake chose to split rather than refocus (nobody demanded a split). This has been explained and re-explained and re-explained to DK. His claims otherwise are a disruption. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Argento Surfer: Be very careful with "Joker (comics) can't be renamed Joker in comics because it's about the character, not the various appearances that the character has made." DK has made his position explicitly clear—that the version of the character in comics is the character, which is why DK finds "Joker in [non-comics medium]" acceptable but "Joker in comics" not. This is the nonsense we're trying to fix. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
As I understand him, he's saying a Joker in comics article should mirror the Joker in other media article's structure and content. That is, be a list of the Joker's appearances. Since Joker (comics) is not that, it shouldn't be named that. I see his point. While I'm not sure I agree with him, I don't think it's worth arguing about since Joker (comics character) works just as well. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
There's nothing about an "in [media]" title that would suggest or require such a structure, and DK's made it clear he thinks base articles about characters who originate in comics should focus on the comics versions of those characters. Because of that, you shouldn't get your hopes up that he'll accept (comics character), which is a poor compromise, anyways. Has anyone but DK raised issues with "[character] in comics"? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:33, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Joker in comics would be more than a little problematic because it seems to basically assume, per the phrasing, that there is only one Joker in comics. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. In at least one version of the Royal Flush Gang, there was another "joker", apparently Amos Fortune. And there would also be questions as to how to deal with other versions of Joker (playing card) in comics, which some might think reasonably appropriate to an article by that title as well. So for instance, that might be seen by some (maybe, if he ever uses specific cards for specific purposes) as sufficient cause for inclusion of some content relating to Gambit (comics) in the article as well, which would result in a rather strange looking article. John Carter (talk) 16:14, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes. I did on the Joker (character) deletion page. The character has existed for 75 years in the comics and will most likely continue on that way. These adaptations in other media are ephemeral by comparison. This current adaptation craze with movies and tv shows will die down and despite it everyone still thinks of Batman, The Joker and almost every other comic character as just that, a comic character, and probably always will.★Trekker (talk) 22:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Then you share DK's insupportable POV the the comics version of the character is the character. Whatever—the community will overturn it, though I'm sure you'll all be maximally disruptive along the way. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:23, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
No. I won't I. If the project decides that it is for the best I will accept it and work with it. I am not a vandal. I have so far simply presented my opinion. I do wish you would improve your immature and impolite attitude. If I wasn't so tired right now I would demand an apology for the accusation, but I'm not expecting one so I won't bother. I will from now on do the same as I did with the deletion discussion when it got unbearable; ignore it.★Trekker (talk) 04:35, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
If WP:COMICS would recognize there's a whole wide world that Wikipedia aims to serve outside of WP:COMICS there wouldn't even be a dispute. These longstanding WP:OWNership issues will be dealt with. DK could choose to help us solve the problem, or drain all our energy filibustering and stirring the pot. We know which it'll be. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:52, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't think it is an OWN issue and I do struggle to see your POV. I wouldn't go to the Darth Vader article expecting it to focus on anything but his major motion picture appearances. He is a more unique character in that his canon story has been expanded upon in video games/comics/television so these things would come up more, but he is primarily a villain in a trilogy of major films. I would expect him to show up on lists of the greatest movie characters, I would be more surprised to see him show up on the list of greatest video game characters. One is clearly the primary topic. The Joker is a comic creation, he existed in comics for something like 26 years before ever appearing in another form of media and then it was a decade or so before he was in something else and a decade before something else and a decade before something else. It's mostly only the last two decades he's been prominently featured in so many different things and it would be somewhat WP:RECENT to grant a huge focus to things because we've had two big films featuring the Joker, which are probably the biggest source of comic-external references. The existing article focuses on the comic character because that is, by and large, where all the defining traits/designs/elements/stories come from for everything else and it breaks off to the "In Other Media" article to expand on those other topics. Anything that attempted to incorporate all of these external character adaptations into a single article would be the "In Other Media" article, but with a section on comics. Looking at the discussions between you and DK, your philosophy appears to be that every incarnation ever is the character, which is an impossible concept to not only satisfy but sustain, just trying to logically structure a development section that jumps from Suicide Squad version to Lego Batman version to Arkham Knight version back to Comic version. One clearly is the primary characterDarkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:09, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree with DWB that this isn't an OWNership issue. That page doesn't even discuss the possibility of a project taking ownership - it's about individuals. The comicsproj is more of a WP:STEWARDSHIP role in my opinion, and the real issue is the MOS standard for dabing everything under the project as (comics). If we can all agree on what the actual issue(s) here are, we could open up an RFC and get the broader opinion CT keeps bringing up. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Again, I think that assistance in this matter from, for instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Media franchises, Wikipedia:WikiProject James Bond, and, maybe, pretty much everything at WP:PROJDIR/LIT#Media franchises, might be very useful here. The issue of the MOS favoring "comics" as a dab term also seems to me, reasonably, to be an issue, and it might not be bad to have some sort of broader MOS for media franchise characters. Regarding eliminating the "character" article, I would myself probably object to that, particularly for topics such as this one which as I indicated earlier are such that, while some characters like this one are probably known first and foremost as comics characters, the majority of the general public who are aware of the character probably know it best from some medium other than comics. Certainly the Batman in film#Reception section gives evidence to support that contention.
Also, FWIW, I did to a line count of the Greenberger Batman encyclopedia article on the Joker. In that article, which is a bit old and predates the Injustice: Gods Among Us release, both the game and comic version. And the comic version was, if I remember, frequently DC's best seller for the month. Anyway, it gave about 7% of the text by line count to Batman in alternative futures (primarily Kingdom Come) and 5% to variant forms of Joker in alternative universes. And, I guess, if there were to be a "Character" page or similar, maybe a better title would be something like "DC character" or "DC comics character". I would prefer the first of those two myself. Both Marvel and DC, I think, are known fairly widely as entities to the general public, and adding some additional dab text indicating a bit more precisely which "character" is being discussed might well be of benefit to the reader. John Carter (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
The real benchmark would probably be Superman. That's a case where everyone in the universe knows he is a comic character, but he's been adapted thousands of times and some of these incarnations are arguably much more famous than the comic version which is all over the place. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:06, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
We want to keep in mind that not "everyone in the universe" lives in the US. People are familiar with Superman around the world, but in many (most?) parts of the world the comics are virtually unknown. Wikipedia serves a general, worldwide readership, not a specialized & US-centric one.
What it comes down to is that no character is a "comics character", a "film character", or a "pulp fiction character"—they are characters that have appeared in comics, film, or pulp fiction. How much of the base article is taken up with the character's appearances in a particular medium depends on the WP:WEIGHT of sources—in the case of Goodman Beaver, that means the comics appearances make up 100% of the article content.
Whether and how articles are split is not part of the issue to be solved—except that splitting should never be done with the aim of keeping the base article specific to a favoured medium. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:18, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Pinging @SMcCandlish: regarding whether he thinks there might be any basis for a media franchises MOS, and, if he might, whether he might know of any other editors who might be useful in drafting such. John Carter (talk) 16:14, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
@John Carter: See my previous post elsewhere on this page (near the top of this); that's a condensed passage of advice (or a proposal or whatever you want to call it) based on a longer version I wrote before that, but have misplaced. The gist: We need an MoS on fiction generally (franchises would be a segment of it) that goes into more detail than Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction, though the most obvious approach is to expand that page, not create another. Needs the invited participation of all the fiction-related wikiprojects, the MoS regulars, and the wikiprojects that are more general and overlap fiction (literature, television, film, etc.). It has to be written, like all the good topical MoS pages, as a guide to how to apply non-topical, site-wide MoS rules to fiction, not an excuse to try to shoehorn in a bunch of "my topic is magically special" variances from it. Where a variance is seen as important and is demonstrably conventional, it can probably be worked in (e.g. the use of "#" rather than "No." is typical when referring to comics; I got that into MoS somewhere several years ago, but I forget where, maybe in MOS:ABBR?).

The goal should be to pool all common material about fiction and normalize it to put an end to confusion and disputes. Then the way more topical ones like MOS:COMICS can be trimmed to just the parts that are unique to that segment of fiction, and some concise summary of what the expanded MOS:FICTION says about things that appy to comics, but lots of cross-references to the "master" guideline material on it at whatever the right section in MOS:FICTION is. I'm skeptical that is practical to totally merge all the comics, anime, TV show, etc. MoS pages and MoS-wannabe wikiproject advice essays on style, into one giant MOS:FICTION; rather, just merge all the basic stuff so it doesn't have to be regurgitated at all of them and (most importantly) the PoV-forking of them from each other ends. Anyway, I wouldn't suggest specific editors to be involved, just invite all the stakeholders en masse via wikiproject talk page posts. One there's a rough draft, I would also invite commentary via WP:VPPOL (since it's a fairly major guideline consolidation) and perhaps via WP:CENT, since it really would be a centralized discussion of non-trivial import.

PS: MOS:COMICS and WP:NCCOMICS are still conflicting and redundant after a decision two+ years ago to split/merge as needed to get the style material out of the NC page and the NC material out of the style page. <sigh>  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:43, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

This looks eminently reasonable to me, actually, and I would very much welcome a lot of input from the directly involved editors and projects in the fiction MOS. John Carter (talk) 15:07, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Extended content
Creating duplicate articles like Joker (character) (that does nothing but rehash Joker (comics)) does not benefit our readers in any way, shape, or form. And as I said earlier, this cannot become a trend (at least one user has already suggested splitting Wolverine (character), ETC, so I suggest you stop playing this game of "Nobody said that"). Renaming Joker (comics) as Joker (comics character) does not fix the issue of Joker (character)'s existence and, Curly Turkey, this has nothing to do with anyone's "favoured" anything. These attitude problems and massive assumptions of bad faith against people who disagree with you are going to get you in trouble if you're not careful (saying something you disagree with =/= disruptive editing). And about this "all other non-comic articles do this" nonsense, I'd suggest you try to create a separate article for Darth Vader (film character) and see how long that lasts. Of course these character articles are going to talk about the character's source material/primary medium more than the others. If you want to add more information regarding the other media in sections of Joker (comics) (such as the "Characterisation"), that's fine, but going and duplicating (not "splitting") the article to make a point isn't going to cut it. DarkKnight2149 22:10, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
What does Joker (character) do, aside from rehash Joker (comics) with a slightly different focus and link to other articles? It's useless. I bet all of our non-comics readers will be lost without this... These are not reasons to "improve the article" because the article shouldn't exist to begin with. In short, I will be persuing further action to have it deleted. And in case you haven't noticed, Curly, the deletion discussion didn't end because the consensus is on your side. It crashed after you brought all of this "you did this, I did that" rubbish into the mix. DarkKnight2149 22:16, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
We've been through this over and over and over and over and over and over and over, and you still act as if someone demanded multiple articles. You're ignoring everything else I've said, too, such as the comments I made immediately before yours, which themselves I have posed over and over and over and over and over, and which deal with every one of your concerns. You will ignore them again.
(at least one user has already suggested splitting Wolverine (character), ETC, so I suggest you stop playing this game of "Nobody said that")—we've been through this over and over and over and over and over as well—a suggestion is not a demand. If it's a good idea, go with it; if not, reject it. But we've been through this over and over and over and over and over, as well. And we will be through it again.
"these character articles are going to talk about the character's source material/primary medium more than the others"—yes, that's exactly what I said, isn't it? Solid proof that you're ignoring what people are saying to you. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
"I'd suggest you try to create a separate article for Darth Vader (film character) and see how long that lasts"—then you'll be starting an AfD for James Bond (literary character), I guess. But the argument's a straw man—nobody demanded multiple articles. But it appears to be key to your strategy to keep pretending someone did.
"What does Joker (character) do, aside from rehash Joker (comics) with a slightly different focus and link to other articles?"—how many times does this have to be answered? Nobody demanded it. Not one person. It was offered as a solution to Darkwarriorblake, because he wanted an article that focused on the comics. He made the choice. Nobody demanded it. Stop suggesting anyone did. This is pure disruption. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:29, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
So we're really go to stick with this "Nobody said that" game, aren't we? You have rejected the notion of Joker (character) being deleted repetitively and, given that people are still even suggesting things like splitting Wolverine (character) (which isn't even the only one), my points remain the same. DarkKnight2149 23:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
The game's all yours. As you're well aware, I rejected the AfD because it was done in bad faith, and have never demanded there be multiple articles. You will never concede this point, of course—your whole argument falls apart without the "Curly Turkey says there must be multiple articles" straw man". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
And regards to the previously mentioned Joker in comics thing, you did try to argue that Joker (comics) is about the comics appearances instead of te character itself, and you did advocate such a move ([1], [2]). You realise all of these past discussion are publically available for everyone to see, right? DarkKnight2149 23:50, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
And again, and again, and again, and again, and again—Darkwarriorblake wanted an article in the character's comics appearances. Joker in comics and Joker (comics character) were two possibilities to deal with this. Nobody demanded or "advocated" it. In fact, this is very clearly explained to you in your own "evidence" (the first link you give). You realize all of these past discussions are publically available for everyone to see, right? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, yeah, of course you didn't... "Darkwarriorblake wanted an article in the character's comics appearances." - So you decided to label the base article (Joker (comics)) as that article? Also, everyone should keep this comment from DWB in mind or simply ask him before taking anyone's word for what Blake did or didn't say. DarkKnight2149 01:11, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
"So you decided to label the base article (Joker (comics)) as that article? "—this is gibberish. I didn't name the article, and I've been pushing for years to have (comics) removed as a DAB from character articles. Which you know already. And again, your link doesn't contradict anything I've said. Not that I expect you to address that—you haven't addressed the last link I called you out on. Why not? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Good, because nobody said that you named Joker (comics). What I said was "So you decided to label the base article as that article?" in response to "Darkwarriorblake wanted an article in the character's comics appearances." Again and again and again and again and again and again and again 02:30, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
You're still talking gibberish. I didn't label any article the base article. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:45, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
No... >_< You labeled it an article about the character's appearances and not the character itself. DarkKnight2149 02:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
And on that note, your position on which article is the base article has also been made clear. But I'm sure you didn't say that either. DarkKnight2149 03:06, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
"No... >_< You labeled it an article about the character's appearances and not the character itself."—how dishonest can you get? You know the context—my comment was not about the title but the article content as it was. Yes, you know this. This behaviour is disgusting.
Your second link makes it clear you've made no effort to understand what I've written. What's there has been explained to you over and over and over and over and over. And over and over and over and over and over. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:29, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions to get around this?

Of course we know where this will go—DK will ignore direct questions and refuse to acknowledge any and all issues that have been brought up, while putting words in my mouth. He's been nothing but disruption since the get-go with this issue, and the rest of us can't discuss solutions because every time we try DK drowns the discussion in the same bull manure. Any suggestions from other editors on how to get around the DK roadblock? Quickly, please, before he drowns this discussion, too. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:30, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

There's no disruption happening and nobody is putting words in your mouth. And yes, we are all well aware by now that everyone who disagrees with you, including the entire WikiProject, is disruptive. That's sarcasm, by the way. And now, just with the WP:ANI thread, you are diverging from the serious topic at hand to undermine my side of the argument. For someone who hates "dramah" and "stirring the pot", you have a knack for doing it. DarkKnight2149 02:37, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
You've been doing this since our discussion started at Talk:Joker (comics). Really, it's impossible to have a serious discussion when your every other word is an accusation or an assumption of bad faith. First, I was a basement dwelling fanboy. Then I was WP:NOTHERE, then I apparently canvassed the people who agreed with me at the deletion discussion, then when I first responded here I was starting "dramah" again, then I was WP:NOTHERE again (which my history on Wikipedia proves otherwise), and now I'm putting words in your mouth. This is ridiculous... DarkKnight2149 02:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I have a suggestion - stop replying to one another. It's not a "DK roadblock", it's a "DK-CT roadblock." There's been lots of I-don't-hear-that thrown around, but neither of you have said anything new for quite some time. Your feud spans multiple pages and makes it impossible for anyone but the most dedicated to wade through it and see which one of you may have had a point to begin with. In the past 24 hours, the two of you have added 13,948 bytes to the page size without adding anything to the actual conversation. All you've succeeded in doing is making it too mind-numbing for any new comers to bother with and contribute anything new. So far, your arguing has wrecked an FAC, an AFD, and now this previously-productive discussion. If you can't stop arguing, please contain it to one of your talk pages. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Captain America discussion

Hi there is an ongoing discussion of the Captain America talk-page about the characters impact which I feel needs input from other people. I would appreciate it greatly if some people could chime in.★Trekker (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Advice on page title?

Hi, I've been working on a page about depictions of Mormons in comic art over on one of my sandboxes. There's a bunch of anti-Mormon political cartoons from the 19th and 20th centuries, a brief section on Mormon characters in comics since the 1950s, and also a section on versions of the Book of Mormon in comics. I think "Portrayal of the LDS Church in comic art" covers most of the page, but it doesn't include Mormon characters. "Mormons in comics" seems a bit broad. I think the section on comic Book of Mormons might become its own page ("Versions of the Book of Mormon in comics"), but it seems a bit short. Thoughts? thanks in advance. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Anti-Mormon cartoons or Mormon cartoons (depending on how you wish to structure the page) seems to me to be the least ambiguous and clearest title. John Carter (talk) 21:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Hmm, I just noticed that Jewish culture has a subsection on Jewish cartoons; maybe versions of the Book of Mormon in comics would make more sense as a subsection on Culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Comics and film and various other things could reasonably be added to that, and then spun-out if required. There seem to be at least a few comics characters who have been identified as Mormon as per this page. Whether there are any comics specifically relating to the Book of Mormon directly I don't know. I suspect, honestly, that there probably aren't many, because it isn't a topic most readers would be likely to know much about or possibly have much particular interest in, although I could obviously be wrong. John Carter (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I would go with Portrayal of Mormons in comics. It's vague, but your (well-written) article covers a broad swath. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice! I went with Portrayal of Mormons in comics. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Changing the standard DAB

Quoting from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics):

Following extensive discussion of naming conventions for comic book characters at Talk:List of Marvel Comics characters and Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Comics, the agreed general disambiguation phrase used for articles related to comics, including creators, publications, and content, is "(comics)".

It goes on to say

There are many ways in which comics-related content is presented (also known as media). And in addition, there are many words and phrases which describe those various types of media.

For example, while comic, comic book, comic book series, comics magazine, comic strip, graphic novel, et al., may all be types of "comics", using all of those as disamibiguation phrases would lead to a lack of consistency, and subjective selection, due to the overlapping inclusive criteria of each term. Note: while "comic book" is an American term and may not be appropriate for certain comics titles published in other countries (per WP:ENGVAR), "comic" is ambiguous, and should never be used.

Therefore, when needing to further disambiguate a comics-related article related to media (when "comics" is applicable to more than one article of the same name), use only one of the following, as appropriate:

  • (comic book)
  • (comic strip)

First, the problems:

  1. Using such a generic DAB often means an incomplete DAB. There are many characters who have self-titled comic books.
  2. Some editors believe the label (comics) on a character page implies it should only cover comic material
  3. When character articles grow too long, it is common to split off the "In Other Media" section. Some editors believe the existence of (comics) and (in other media) implies an ownership or superiority of the comic version.
  4. Cases like Eric Stephenson (comics), which is about the publisher at Image Comics, not a comic character or a comic book title. The Comic naming convention page currently omits any mention of creators.

Second, my suggestions:

  1. Grandfather old articles currently using (comics) as a DAB until an issue arises. Since a more specific DAB requires content analysis, I do not believe this can be automated. Any grandfathering would be null and void if a bold editor wished to update an article or if it's brought up in discussion.
  2. Add a section redirecting comic creators/personnel to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)
  3. Replace the (comics) standard with the following primary options:
    1. (comics character) (character) - self-explanatory
      • For characters sharing the same name, preceed name with company ie (Marvel character)
    2. (comic book) - for content most notably published in comic book format
      • When multiple titles exist, use (YEAR comic book)
      • When appropriate, (graphic novel) or (limited series) may also be used
    3. (comic strip) - for content most notably published in comic strip format
    4. (comics publisher) (publisher) - self-explanatory
  4. For subjects that have articles fitting 3 or more of the above, the Foo (comics) page will either be a DAB page or redirect to the appropriate section of Foo (disambiguation)

I'm discussing this here since the MOS page does not seem to be heavily watched. Pinging editors involved in the discussion above - @John Carter: @Izno: @SMcCandlish: @Darkwarriorblake: @Curly Turkey: @Darkknight2149: @*Treker: and editors who I believe have an interest - @BOZ: @TriiipleThreat: @Favre1fan93: @Tenebrae: @Fortdj33: @Rtkat3: @Fluffyroll11: @Stoshmaster: @Adamstom.97: @Spidey104: @Emperor: @Killer Moff: @NukeofEarl: @David A: @Nightscream: Argento Surfer (talk) 19:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

comments

I have a question and a suggestion.
1. Can you provide examples of the four problems you listed above?
2. Can we use comics instead of comic? It's been my observation that many among the uninitiated, upon seeing the word comic, think it pertains to comedy, as in, a standup comic. Comics is less ambiguous, and is historian/analyst Scott McCloud's preferred term for the medium we're talking about. Nightscream (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The first one occurs a lot, but Wolverine and Joker are prime examples. If you want to wade through it, examples of the second and third are here. I don't think either problem is particularly serious, but I understand the arguement. Aside from Eric Stephenson, the fourth one pops up at Adam Warren (comics), Brian Wood (comics), David Sutherland (comics)... It's not common, but it's out there.
I'm completely ok with the s. I've added it above. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:13, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I think that these suggestions seem fine. David A (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
By and large, after a quick review, I more or less agree with Curly Turkey and SMcCandlish's comments below. I myself might have some reservations about using the "(character)" dab as indicated above. Acknowledging that they may be the only such example of this, Captain Marvel is at least one example where the same name is used by multiple comics characters, and it uses an extended dab in Captain Marvel (DC Comics) and Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics). Speaking strictly for myself, particularly given the fact that I think some of the characters in, for instance, Suicide Squad (film) might not necessarily be known or thought to be necessarily "comics" characters, but probably are or will be recognized as "DC characters" based on being involved in the DC Extended Universe. That being the case, maybe for greatest ease and clarity, I might prefer something like Joker (DC comics character) or Joker (DC character) as another option, as it might be a bit more encompassing than the others. John Carter (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Izno's comments

My opinion regarding the suggestions (as I agree that such problems do exist), including more than just the above discussion.
  1. I don't see a reason to "grandfather" but I would tend to agree that we don't need to automate this solution. Users who are concerned about the title of an article should be able to employ WP:BOLD or WP:Move requests as appropriate.
  2. We should defer naming of people to WP:NCPEOPLE, agreed.
  3. "Replace the standard":
    1. In the spirit of WP:AT, we should shoot for concise statements (where parenthetical disambiguation is necessary) about the topic of the article--which means we should avoid specifying the medium. "(character)" should be sufficient in the vast majority of cases. For those characters where it is not sufficient, "(<company> character)" or "(<franchise> character)" should be. Examples:
    2. Seems reasonable on its face, but perhaps that should live at WP:NCBOOKS--which helps avoid the "territorial" (I'm using that phrase loosely) implications of having it at NCCOMICS.
    3. Per above
    4. Per above
    5. We should defer to WP:NCCORP and the spirit of WP:AT. "(publisher)" should be sufficient, if even necessary, since natural disambiguation will probably be the quickest way to locate an article title.
  4. What subjects come to mind here?
I have a few observations of my own which may be unrelated to naming:
  1. Right now, comics character articles often mix the character and the series or franchise in which the character appears. For a notable example, one might review Batman. I would maybe suggest that we should employ a strategy of separate franchise and character articles, similar to the organization many video gaming articles take. I think this would help focus the character articles to the parts important to those specific characters. (Maybe I'm talking to the choir on this point--perhaps my example of Batman is bad and newer articles are organized like such.)
  2. Maybe it would make some sense to change how people are WP:SPLITting and organizing large character articles--rather than focusing on media type, start using articles (potentially titled) like History of the Batman series to get into the nitty gritty of format changes. My first observation might help with that as well.
--Izno (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind, but I subheaded your comment. The indents are already getting a bet tough for me to follow.
I included the grandfather clause because I wanted to avoid resistance based on inertia. I have no issue with someone going around moving them boldly, but I didn't want the lack of volunteer to deter anyone.
I know we should use concise headings, but there is a significant number of characters who have been in comics, animation, and film. In most cases, these characters are not identical. The comics portion identifies the true subject of the article.
WP:NCBOOKS has a subsection on comics. In its entirety, it directs users to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics). I'm not sure what you mean by "live at".
I'm ok with using (publisher) instead of (comics publisher).
I see your point on Batman, but I would point out that Batman is one of the very few characters who could sustain a break between franchise and character. Your suggestion on changing how articles are split isn't bad, but it's beyond the scope of the change I'm currently proposing. I wouldn't oppose discussing it separately. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I think there is a bit of a divide here between a long-standing practice and common sense. A person should be disambiguated like every other person, not with (comics), just as characters should have the normal (character) disambiguation. The catch all disambiguation (comics) really shouldn't be used, I don't think. The only issue with that I can think of is all the comic book information often included at character articles. In those instances, the article is still generally a character article that happens to include some book information, so in that case I think (character) would still be appropriate. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I would be ok with using (character) over (comics character). Argento Surfer (talk) 21:16, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
But as we would usually disambiguate, if there was a comic character with the same name as a movie character, for example, then we would obviously go beyond just (character). - adamstom97 (talk) 21:36, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Right, but we should not divide that by going the direction of the media type if we can avoid it, since that (apparently) encourages some amount of territorialism. Example: Lightning (Final Fantasy) (and I deliberately chose an FA) is disambiguated by its series name, as I propose above (though lacking the phrase "character", which I honestly don't agree with but which I have also done jack!@#$ about :D). --Izno (talk) 22:06, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

No worries on moving my comments about.

I don't see that The comics portion identifies the true subject of the article. is a true statement, and is probably the root problem that CT and DS are smacking heads up above about (and from which I've avoided participating). I don't need to say anything about the fact it's a comic character in the disambiguation, because WP:WEIGHT tells me how I should write my article—and the important part about WP:WEIGHT is that the weight of a topic is identified not by the depth of primary coverage (e.g. the number of years the comic has been published vice how long we've had the film series, or by the number of dollars consumers have spent on one format vice the other) but by the depth of the secondary coverage. To take the example case of Joker (comics) vice Joker (character), one problem I can identify in the former (it's an excellent article otherwise) is that it barely even acknowledges all those other real-world facets of the other ways the Joker has been portrayed--most of which I would guess have had quite a chunk of coverage themselves in how the character therein has been portrayed. Specifically, one of the subproblems is that the "biography" seems only to take some comic-canon-specific view of the world--when that view is probably not the view about which most reliable sources have written, nor with which most readers of the encyclopedia are familiar--since I would guess at least the various TV series have introduced a good bit of "biography" to the Joker. (I would guess that view is reflective of the editors whom have chosen to write about the Joker...).

NCBOOKS vs NCCOMICS: My point is that any naming guidance of comics should probably live at WP:NCBOOKS rather than at WP:NCCOMICS and get pointed to from NCCOMICS--rather than the other way around.

On Batman series vs. character, yes, I introduced it as a bit of a tangent, but it helps lead into the second observation, which is that "splitting a character down the media type" probably doesn't make a lot of sense, not least because of the fiction-resistance that Wikipedia has enjoyed since the mid-2000s. --Izno (talk) 21:47, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I see your point. I'd be willing to go with (character). I'd also be ok with this all being at NCBooks. The final location doesn't matter to me as much as the overall outcome. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
If we're talking (character) artcles, then neither WP:COMICS nor WP:BOOKS is the place to work it out. Characters are not subsets of the media they appear in. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Izno, the Joker article mentions other media where it has influenced the comics and vice versa, but the majority has been the vice versa. The tv show adapted the comics already goofy version and the shows success just made them keep the goofy version going. If you look at these other forms of media they will talk about the Batman/Joker stories that influenced their script, their character design, their whatever. The reverse tends to be fleeting artistic changes that vary from comic to comic based on the inker/penciller that might include a glasgow smile grin for the Joker, or of course the Joker (graphic novel) that is heavily influenced by The Dark knight but is not itself canon to the Joker mythos. The biggest media influence is Harley Quinn, and it mentions specifically where she came from in the article.
  • If you look for the TDK Joker, you'll find lots of references for accolades and cosplay, but none of his traits have become facets of the comic.
  • The Joker comics article mentions every single other form of media the Joker has ever been in. Every single one bar a few NES and SNES games. They are linked when mentioned and there is a direct link to an entire separate article that details those appearances in full.
  • As I said to Curly Turkey, it is impossible to focus on every version because you're talking about the one who influences all the others, and then like 50 others, largely all recent. Most follow a similar personality so you're repeating, if you're not repeating, do readers think you're omitting, if you're not repeating or omitting, what of note are you adding? Because the TDK Joker is the only relatively distinct one in that he drops the narcissism.
  • So the Joker article as it is, follows the primary topic (and I am not a US editor), it's a comic character, and it covers this medium as loosely as I possibly could. The biography is limited to the most major changes to the character and have influenced other characters, which are major elements then adapted into other stories both comic and film and television, like killing Robin, like maiming Barbara, like the return of Jason Todd, like the Laughing Fish, or the introduction of Harley Quinn in comics.
  • If the article were not allowed to follow the original product, it would just become as Joker (character) is now, a list of other Joker related articles. As it stands, I think it perfectly blends the comics and other media where applicable, but focuses on the genesis of almost all other media influences. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 10:58, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
    • "If the article were not allowed to follow the original product, it would just become as Joker (character) is now, a list of other Joker related articles"—two non sequiturs: nobody's "disallowing" the article to "follow the original product" (whatever you mean by that), and there's no reason a comprehensive article would become a list. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:31, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Curly Turkey's comments

Keeping in mind that, with DABs, we begin with the most general and get more specific only when necessary:

  • (comics character) should never take precedence over (character).
  • (comic strip), (comic book) should be used only when (comics) is not sufficient
  • (comics publisher) should be used only when (publisher) is not sufficient disambiguation
  • "graphic novel" has not meant "content originally published in a square-bound, single-installment format" since the 20th century, as any trip to a book shop's or library's "graphic novel" section should make clear. (graphic novel) should be considered a last resort.

Further, regarding (comics character), per WP:NCDAB: "Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation". This means perhaps that something like Character X in comics should be a first consideration. For example, if someone were to write an article on Tarzan's characteization in comics, it's unlikely they would write an article called Tarzan (comics character), but rather something like Tarzan in comics. (comics character) implies a strong bond to the comics medium. Whether any of us believes in such a strong bond is irrelevant—that is a bias, a POV, and must be avoided in a neutral, general-audience encyclopaedia. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:40, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Would you prefer (original graphic novel)? I'm surprised you don't like (comic book). I thought you liked the IS-A method. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
A comic book IS-A comics (logically, if not grammatically). Like I said, (graphic novel) should be considered a last resort, and as (original graphic novel) is more specific than (graphic novel), it should be employed only when (graphic novel) is not sufficient (though (YEAR graphic novel) is another option, perhaps better). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:56, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I should mention, the only one that stands out to me is Joker (graphic novel). For some other title that doesn't have another conflict... I'd be ok with GN being a secondary option. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Joker (graphic novel) is legit because of The Joker (comic book). If one or the other didn't exist, then (comics) would take precedence over either. I believe that's how it already works. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:29, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Curly, in your personal opinion, what is a graphic novel? I think we should come up with a consistent definition so that we can all be on the same page. To tell you the truth, the definition you said it isn't is what I was under the impression it was, but I'm not necessarily a defender of that P.O.V. DarkKnight2149 02:04, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
My personal opinion is irrelevant. It originally was proposed in the 1960s to refer to comics aiming at higher artistic standards; by the 1980s it referred to particular publishing practices. It has since come to mean any comics publication with a spine—and, increasingly (especially amongst librarians, but the usage is spreading) "graphic novel" is being used synonymously with "comics", regardless of publication format—ironically, even for floppy comic books. The Book Industry Study Group adopted the term "graphic novels" as a standardized term for comics about fifteen or so years ago, and libraries picked it up. It is now a well-established standard, regardless of what any of us may think of that. Over the last decade and a half, comic shop sales have plummeted while bookshop sales of comics have continued to climb (up 12% last year), so bookstores will ultimately have the last say. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:22, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
I see. I was personally unaware of such a definition before now. Speaking to all the editors here as a whole, how should we classify comics with a spine, as opposed to the floppy ones? DarkKnight2149 02:29, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
That'll depend on the case, but in most that require disambiguation at all (comics) will be sufficient, with (graphic novel) as a fallback if deemed appropriate. The terms are moving targets, so there's no point getting too precious about it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:46, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Alright, I see your point. If some issue just so happens to arise, I guess we can address it then (though I doubt it will in the immediate future). DarkKnight2149 02:50, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
I doubt it, if it hasn't already. None of this is new. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:54, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey: Is going with (comic book) a deal breaker for you? I know it's not what you want, but is it something you could abide? I don't see where anyone else has mentioned it as an issue (I could have overlooked something). I know Saga (comic book) was renamed from (comics) during its GA review, although it wasn't actually discussed much and no reference was made to any MOS. Argento Surfer (talk) 18:23, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Why was it moved? It's the exact same situtation: (comics book) (a format) is a subset of (comics) (a medium). It's like preferring (rock song) to (song)—Wikipedia doesn't do that. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:20, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Argento Surfer: keep in mind that what I'm saying is how we already do things, and would require no moves. What problem are you trying to solve? The problem we had here was with character articles, not comic book/graphic novel/etc articles. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:25, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
As to why Saga was moved, you'd have to ask @Nightscream:. Like I said, it happened during the first GAR, but there wasn't any overt discussion. I was not involved.
As to what problem I'm trying to solve... (comics) alone seems rather vague to me. Aside from the rare potential confusion with comedians, It's inline with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Standard disambiguation to describe type. From there: To disambiguate, add the type of literary work in parentheses, such as "(novel)", "(novella)", "(short story)", "(short story collection)"...and so on. (comic book) describes the type much better than (comics), which could apply to single panel gags, editorial cartoons, comic strips, book, OGNs, and webcomics equally. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:40, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
According to WP:NCDAB, we start with a generic class and only get more specific if that's not necessary. (comics) is a generic class and (comic book) is a subset of that. "which could apply to single panel gags, editorial cartoons, comic strips, book, OGNs, and webcomics equally" is part of the point, not an argument against. We use Mercury (element) rather than Mercury (chemical element) because there are no other Mercury (element)s to DAB from. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:07, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Hopefully others will weigh in so a consensus can be reached. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:18, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Argento Surfer: Well, you'll have to explain what you think we're disagreeing on. Are comic books and graphic novels not comics? Do the DAB guidelines not start with the most general DAB? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
I did not move the Saga article, so you'd have to go into the edit history to see the rationale offered by the editor who did so. Nightscream (talk) 22:14, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Actually, it was you, Nightscream. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:03, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Shit. That was me? That's odd. I could've sworn that it was someone else who argued to me that it had to be that way, and that I favored keeping "comics". Damn memory. I'm completely stumped. Sorry. Nightscream (talk) 01:33, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I vaguely recall there was a discussion before the move, but I couldn't find it on the talk page or GAR. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey: We're disagreeing on whether (comics) or (comic book) is the better DAB. I understand your point about comic books falling under the more generic comics header, but that rule is not staunch, hence the variety in the Book names I listed above, along with other like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) instead of Buffy (television) and Pyramid (game show) instead of Pyramid (show). Argento Surfer (talk) 13:36, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Also, I think your Mercury (element) vs Mercury (chemical element) example works against you because "chemical" is describing the element type the same way "comic" describes the book type. Argento Surfer (talk) 17:49, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
A comic book series could never be DABbed as (book). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:42, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Another thing to keep in mind: Louis Riel (comics) started as a comic-book series, but well over 95% of readers have experienced it only as a graphic novel. If it were originally DABbed (comic book), it would have had to be moved later. If it were DABbed (comics), it would never require a move. One reason for Wikipedia in general to prefer general DABs (another is to avoid the endless WP:GENREWARRIOR battles—is it a graphic novel, or a comic album, or a comics collected edition with bonus material, or a hardcover trade paperback ... ?) Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree with that last point - it's why I revised the proposal to specify (graphic novel) is a secondary option when appropriate. If I understood correctly, you were making the point earlier that "graphic novel" = "comic book". I'm not sure why you're bringing up genre warriors. Again, I understand your point of view - I just disagree with it. It's why we need another editor to weigh in and break this one-to-one tie. Speaking of editors weighing in, Archie vs. Predator is in the middle of an FAC that's about to stall. Additional input is appreciated. (/plug) Argento Surfer (talk) 21:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't know where you got the idea that I was saying "graphic novel" = "comic book". Re: FAC. That happens a lot these days. Not nearly enough reviewers. I used to do 3 or 4 reviews a month, but my articles still got archived due to lack of interest, and as often as not, so did the articles I reviewed (felt like my reviews were wasted). Just keep re-submitting, and remember to ping past supporters when you do. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:43, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Your fourth bullet point, first post. Argento Surfer (talk) 21:49, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Definitely doesn't say anything like that. The point was "graphic novel" does not mean "content originally published in a square-bound, single-installment format". Church and State is two volumes of reprinted material; so was Maus. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:59, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Darkknight2149's comments

It is certainly wise to deferientiate between the disambiguations for comics themselves and comic book characters. There are articles where the "graphic novel" disambiguation might be appropriate, such as with Joker (graphic novel). The same might also be said for other media disambiguations aside from "comic strip" and "comic book", but we might not know until those situations arise. In terms of character article titles, I'm fine with using "(character)" over "(comics)" more widely, but I don't think we should start splitting comic articles or mass re-writing them as a result (NOTE: I'm not accusing anyone specific of saying that; I'm just making a general statement). I agree with most of this, though I don't know if this addresses arguments regarding if Batman (for instance) should be given a disambiguation given the vast number of self-titled media. In such situations, WP:WEIGHT should be taken into account.

Onto the articles themselves, I still think that Joker (character) undoubtedly needs to be merged with Joker (comics) or deleted (but I guess we can have that discussion somewhere else, if need be). After that, I think we can rename Joker (comics) as "Joker (character)". Personally, in general, I'm not a big fan of splitting the source material from the main articles (the same was suggested for Wolverine (character) at one point). I personally think that the source material should generally be covered in the base page for a character (unless the base page is a disambiguation page)—movies in Darth Vader, the novel in Count Dracula, ETC— unless there is so much information that it has to be split into a separate article (similar to Joker in other media diverging from Joker (comics)). Of course, there are always exceptions. However, other media should also get a focus in such articles. I'm willing to hear other editor's opinions on this, though. DarkKnight2149 02:29, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Whether Joker (character) and Joker (comics) should be merged is a content decision that should be sussed out on the articles' talk pages. Whatever happens, the base article (whatever it's called) cannot focus more on comics than WP:WEIGHT allows. WP:WEIGHT is WP:POLICY, and is non-negotiable. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
It focuses on the comic character reasonably, you completely ignored what I said above that your request is impossible to achieve. You cannot focus on the development an dpersonality of every single incarnation of the character, especially when there are OTHER articles already doing that.The Jokers in other media are represented in that medias respective article, the only outlier at the moment being the TDK Joker, no other Joker is distinct or notable enough to require its own article, and even the TDK Joker is derived from the original source material which is explicitly stated by the writers. The development of the character in comics, the comic stories are the influence of almost all other stories, sometimes directly adapted and other times just mostly duplicated so his comic development is covered. Some of the major stories are mentioned BRIEFLY because they are huge influences on the character, other characters, or other media. The characterisation is mentioned because this is by and large completely replicated in other media and defines the character. And it mentions the other media in full and links to the articles where those versions are covered in detail. You never acknowledge this, you never acknowledge that there are other articles already doing what you are asking this article to do, you just keep repeating the same thing over and over, that you expect Joker (comics) to be some magic catch all for all Jokers everywhere ever, and despite there being only one, maybe two notable non-comic Jokers, the comic version needs to bow down to their potential google search result count in violation of WP:RECENT. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 11:05, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Even this film site overview of the Joker dedicates 85% of its content to his comic history with only one subsection on outside media, and that was just the fourth result after googling "Joker comic character". Your entire argument seems predicated on your POV, not mine or Darkknights. And reading Dracula per DarkKnight's link, that seems perfectly reasonable to.Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 11:09, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
And I need you to understand that these comments come from someone who is not a US resident, who grew up in the 80s and first exposure to the Joker was the 1989 film, so I thought Batman murdering dudes was OK, someone who then grew up on the 1992 animated series and grew up at a time when the 1966 series was still being played on tv, someone who loved TDK and quoted it's Joker for ages. I'm not a comic fanboy, and I think some of the Joker comic stories have been atrocious and others great. I can't even remember what the first Joker story I read was in comics, I am not influenced in any way to furnish the comic version more than any other, my only motivation is pure, unadulterated logic. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 11:24, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
You'll have to explain what's "impossible to achieve" about my "request". Comprehensiveness is not exhaustiveness. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:28, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey: @Darkwarriorblake: Perhaps we should move this Joker discussion to Talk:Joker (character), agreed? Talk:Joker (comics) is a bit clogged from the dispute that occured. DarkKnight2149 03:56, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
The article IS comprehensive. And because there are limits on page size, other things are discussed in a separate article where they can be dealt with more comprehensively. You want this article to cover everything, I'm saying it does, but it cannot cover them all in detail because of logic. So it breaks them off where necessary. Your reply literally ignored the one thing I asked you to acknowledge, that there is a separate article covering non-comic appearances. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:39, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
"You want this article to cover everything"—I've made no such demand. I've said it already: "comprehensive" is not "exhaustive". I've also said the article's much better—but the discussion is about larger issues than the Joker-specific ones.
"Your reply literally ignored the one thing I asked you to acknowledge, that there is a separate article covering non-comic appearances"—you've literally ignored my objection to the "comics vs everything else" POV. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:35, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
I have never ignored it, I disagree with your POV and I've set out that this is not because I am a comic fan boy or that the comic version is the version to which I was first exposed. I believe it is the primary topic and the article focuses on it since it defines all other versions, then it breaks off to other articles where relevant to cover those other versions in MORE detail, they are still covered in the article as and when appropriate. It's a comic character. Conversely, Harley Quinn is an original TV character and the defining traits of the character were realised in the animated show such as design, her relationship with multiple characters, her personality, and that should be the focus of the article until it is appropiate to move into comic information because television development ended like 15 years or more ago. The Suicide Squad version of the character is largely the same as the comic and tv counterpart, I can't think of any distinctive traits, so you would discuss the film briefly, but there isn't much to add to the article beyond the character's reception in the film, much like how in Joker it is mentioned that Joker-featuring films do better typically than non-Joker films. And starting with 1989 Batman, this can't be attributed to the 1966 series because they're completely different, whereas the comics were exceptionally moved towards dark and mature at the time and the film followed suit. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:25, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
The above in this particular case seems to me to make sense - the character of the Joker pretty much is defined by his comics appearances. Having said that, I wonder whether approaching this topic of comics-and-other-media characters on a case by case basis is the best way to go, or, maybe, whether having some sort of MOS on how to deal with broader matters in place first, perhaps acknowledging exceptions in particular cases, might not be the better way to go. Personally, as I think I have bored a lot of people saying already, I tend to favor the latter, as it would be more useful in determining how to deal with any "hot characters" who might arise from the various movie or TV versions of characters, and also, maybe, for any other licensed characters who remain under review of the original license owners. I don't know how many Dynamite Entertainment characters are still under some form of licensing or other outside control, but the matter is significant enough to be addressed soon to avoid any future long, complicated discussions of this broad type. John Carter (talk) 22:33, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Darkwarriorblake: what "POV" are you accusing me of? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:57, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
To be clear here I am not using POV in the negative sense, i.e. invoking WP:NPOV, I am talking about your personal perspective versus mine or others. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:01, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Another small note about graphic novels: I should probably mention that, while there is ambiguity about the meaning of "graphic novel", the terms "collected edition" and "original graphic novel" have specific meanings. I doubt that anyone will disagree with that. DarkKnight2149 00:16, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

  • I doubt many would argue they're good DABs (why would we prefer (original graphic novel) to (graphic novel)?). They would also introduce more problems—is the Watchmen book a "graphic novel" or a "collected edition"? If Watchmen is a collected edition, then is From Hell? Maus? Will iron knuckles be required to resolve that debate? Just call them (comics), and fall back on (graphic novel) when more specific DABbing is required. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:30, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
    • (collected edition) should never come up, anyways—it's unlikely there will be enough material on any title that it will require separate articles for its serialization and its collected edition. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:33, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
      • Not necessarily as DABs, but in terms of the definition used in the article itself. To answer your question, a collected edition is a graphic novel that collects a number of floppy comics or even smaller graphic novels. For instance, Watchmen collects the twelve issue maxi-series. An example of an original graphic novel is Joker (graphic novel), which started out as a binded comic. DarkKnight2149 02:10, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
        • The topic is DABs. What terminology to use within articles is a different issue—one that the Watchmen article certainly hasn't sorted out (taking one POV in the lead and others in the body). I hope you don't think you have this "what's a graphic novel?" thing "solved", because nobody else has (speaking as someone who's watched these arguments go in circles for thirty years). The assertion that "a collected edition is a graphic novel" is something many will hotly dispute (not me). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:39, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish's comments

Generally concur with CurlyTurkey. Would add that "for content originally published ... in ... format" is the wrong metric. It's most notably published in that format. Quite a large number of comic books began as a short side-feature strips in other comics, but only big-time fans/collectors know about those early appearances. (This is analogous to various TV shows, especially animated ones like The Simpsons, starting off as short skits inside other shows; we don't care what they were "originally" produced as, for WP article title purposes.) My one point of departure from CT is that I do think we can use "(graphic novel)" for long works published as such without any problem. Even though bookstores lump bound anthologies of comics into that category, no one familiar with the topic is unaware that some things are published as actual graphic novels and that some "graphic novels" are just bound anthologies of comics and what the distinction is. Similarly, some people would call a TV movie or TV miniseries a "TV show" informally, even though that phrase is usually applied to full-fledged series of a season or more in length [or started with the intention of being one but cancelled early]; they know the difference. More later if I get through all this. Quite a lot of material to cover. I strongly agree with the general drift of this: follow WP:DAB and use the shortest meaningful disambiguation possible that is not genre- or medium-specific, e.g. "(character)", "(publisher)", etc. I don't care for the "grandfather a bunch of stuff" idea, because it's contrary to WP:CONSISTENCY policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:06, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

"(graphic novel)" for long works published as such—you mean, in preference to (comics)? You're wrong about usage of the term (and I have sources to back that up), but I'm not going to argue it here. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:05, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
The most notable format is a much better metric. I'll amend the proposal. I would be happy to remove the grandfather portion - I only added it because I'm not personally interested in reviewing the 20,000+ comic articles that may be affected. If a bold editor started making the changes, I would lavish him or her with barnstars. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:43, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
(comics) is not a format, it's a medium, and (graphic novel) is a subset of (comics). All graphic novels are comics. What you're suggesting would require moves—what I'm suggesting would require few (possibly none). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:30, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Masem's comments

Aware this has been an issue for a while, here is my suggestion for characters like Joker, Batman, Superman, etc.- where the character originated and has a long history in comic books to clearly be first and foremost a comics character regardless of other media, but has been adopted many times over to other media as essentially the same character; (here I use the Joker as the example)

Joker (comics) should be moved to Joker (character). This article should otherwise be untouched, so note that it has a heavy focus on comic coverage, and outside of where other depictions of the Joker come into play (such as the introduction of Harley Quinn via the BTAS animated show), should only talk about the comic. The move, however, recognizes that this is a fictional character which is disambiguated without a nod to the original media source unless further disambiguation is needed, which how it is done site wide at the level of fiction (eg Sonic the Hedgehog (character), Harry Potter (character) ). I don't think that (comic) or (graphic novel) is ever the right way to disambiguate a character from the comics, unless further disambiguation is needed (eg the two Daredevil comic characters have something approaching the right usage).
Joker (character) should be moved to Depictions of the Joker. This separates the aspect that we're not talking about a new character but the same character in- and outside of the original media. This can then get into some of the idiosyncrasies of the character changes, various reception aspects, etc. This also helps that one should not try to include the general broad aspects of the character in this article. This separates the large concern about content duplication that I know have existed in this area before. --MASEM (t) 14:57, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Although I don't see the need for the current Joker (character) (primarily because it doesn't really add anything new at the moment), I would agree to this overall proposal. But, because there are opposing editors, I would be willing to discuss making some changes to Joker (comics) (within reason) to find some middle ground. DarkKnight2149 00:23, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
The current Joker is far too long per WP:SIZE. The logical split is on details that don't directly relate to the character's original media (the comics), making the depiction article everything else. --MASEM (t) 01:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Could you please explain that logic? I'd imagine the reverse—the base article should be primarily general information about the character, with medium-specific details split off into other articles if there's too much of it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
I mean, the main article should be about the concept and creation of the character, the general characterization of the character, and because the character principally is a comic book character, it would thus make sense to talk about the depiction of the character in the comics and any major changes, and the general reception of the character from the standpoint of a comic character. If the article was short enough , then all the film/tv/video game adaptions of the character would be then included, but its too long, so all those other appearances can go to the Depiction page, where we do not have to reintroduce the concept/creation/characterization and only focus on the variances from the comics in these other fields. --MASEM (t) 01:54, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree with that line of logic, though I can't speak for anyone else. DarkKnight2149 02:12, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Articles are supposed to start with generalities—a bird's-eye view of the topic—and then uild on that. Focusing on detailed information in one medium and shoving the others into subarticles is the opposite of that. If excess medium-specific detail is squeezing out everything else, then that's a sign that the medium-specific detail is excessive—it should either be cut or spun off. "Comprehensive" is 1(b) of WP:Featured article criteria. You're "logic" calls for ditching the "comprehensive" aspect of the article. That will mean the article will auto-fail if Darkwarriorblake chooses to re-nom. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:47, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
At least as I see it, the Joker is a character first and foremost that came from the comics; through various adaptions of Batman and other DC comics to television, films, and video games, there have been various depictions of that comic character but all based (more or less) on the comic character. As such, anything outside the area of comics that did not re-iterate back into the comic character is outside that initial scope. That is, the Joker is not a cross-media character, but a comic character that has appeared in many media sources; in contrast, Transformers or GI Joe represent true cross-media characters that were developed in two or more media formats simultaneously. The logic for the Joker would be the same for Harry Potter (a character from novels first and foremost, but with cross-media depictions), or Sonic the Hedgehog (a video game character first and foremost). Hence, if we have to split the article on the Joker, it should be about the cross-media depictions that do not form the basis of the original media for that character. --MASEM (t) 02:56, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Well, we'll have to take this to the wider community to see if a MEDIA-X character that has appeared in many media sources is a reasonable approach to take with characters at all. Major problems that arise from this proposition:
  1. logically, characters and media are orthogonal to each other—the one cannot be a subset of the other.
  2. Privileging any medium for a character, regardless of the character's origins, is a POV, and Wikipedia articles must strive to be WP:NPOV (which is WP:POLICY, and thus non-negotiable).
  3. The above-mentioned comprehensiveness issue.
Keep in mind that I'm not proposing that any character be presented as a cross-media character, but as a character. The level of detail appropriate for MEDIA-X incarnations of the character will depend on many things, such as coverage in secondary sources and WP:WEIGHT. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:57, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
The situation that we're in is only because we have a very few select handful of comic characters that have decades of comics about them and are popular characters for films as to create an article that needs to be split on size. If there was no size issue, separating out details makes no sense. But we're here with the Joker, Batman, Superman, and probably a few others. Something has to be split off, and the issue becomes what are the least essential details to understanding the character, and that easily should be any depictions of the character outside the original medium of publication. You do not need to read about Caser Romero's, Mark Hamill's or Heath Ledger's portrayal of the character to understand the character and their origins. And I strongly disagree that this approach is "privileging" any medium. I would actually consider WP:WEIGHT here as the proper argument to use: how much stuff is there is about the Joker in comics compared to any other medium? To say that the preferred medium to discuss the Joker is in the field of comics is a perfectly reasonable stance to take as editors on WP, since that's where the bulk of the sourcing will be from. --MASEM (t) 05:23, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
"how much stuff is there is about the Joker in comics compared to any other medium?"—and how many people have watched Caser Romero's, Jack Nicholson's, Mark Hamill's, or Heath Ledger's Joker compared to the number who have read the comics? It's not even close, but nobody's suggesting focusing the article on film & TV. You can't privilege one metric over the other. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:31, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
We go by sources, not viewership or popularity. Regardless of how legendary that Ledger's performance of the Joker was, the Joker is not a film character, he is a decades-old comics character that was depicted in that film by Ledger, who put his own spin on the character. --MASEM (t) 05:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
You're not suggesting a lack of sources for the film & TV versions of these characters? Ledger's version alone has an entire article devoted to it (19kb of readable prose worth). The Joker is not a "film character", nor a "comics character", a "video-game character", or an "underwear motif". The Joker is a character. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:50, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
My point is still that all of the iterations of the Joker start from the comics version, and deviate from that. Characterization and any canonicity elements predominately come from what the comics say. While the Joker is a character and should be written like a character article, the focus is going to be on the origin material, that being the comics, with other depictions being derivative from it, and of lesser importance when trying to decide what has to be split off. Do note that if Depictions are split off, there should still be a paragraph or two on the character to summarize that article here as to highlight some of the more notable depictions like Romero's, Ledger's and others, which makes it clear there's much more to discuss on the separate article. --MASEM (t) 06:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
A paragraph or two in a long article to summarize what's inconvenient to the editors to cover comprehensively couldn't possibly be acceptable. Imagine applying this logic to Popeye or TMNT and trying to get it through FAC. Joker will inevitably have far more comics coverage than that, but if there's no room for the other stuff, then the comics stuff needs to be summarized more appropriately. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:21, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Noting here again that the Greenberger Essential Batman Encyclopedia article on the article contains about 7% material relating to "future versions" of Joker (primarily from Kingdom Come (comics), and about 5% on "alternative" Jokers of other continuities, so it would seem to me to make sense that WEIGHT would indicate at least some brief mention of those two in whatever the main article on the topic here is as well. John Carter (talk) 22:55, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Let me come back at this another way. Say we have a character that has a very long development history and reception, like the Joker (so that there's a SIZE issue), but that history of where canonicity elements to the character are introduced through many different media sources; say it started out as a comic book, which was discontinued, then moved to TV where the character was further explored, leading to a new comic book series where even more expansion happened, along with numerous tie-in movie and other appearances. The (character) article should cover all of this when it focuses on the narrative history elements about the character. So the approach that I discuss here, where all the specific depictions of the character, should still go off to a separate article, but that would include the first comic, the TV show, the second comic, and all other appearances. The main article will thus include the elements of the two comics and the TV show, but focusing on the character's narrative concept and background, and will have little to do with the movie appearances since those don't feed back into this narrative development.
This is the same principle I'm suggesting for Joker, noting that only here in this case, the Joker's narrative backstory is principally limited to things that have appeared in the comics, with only one major non-comic influence (Harley Quinn's introduction from BTAS) on that. So the character article is going to heavily be about the comic version. In the Depictions article, then, one can still summarize the comic book appearances before going into the appearances in other media. It's separating the essence of the character that serves as background for all instances of the Joker in various media, from how the character was actually presented in a specific instance. Same can be done with Popeye or TMNT if their narrative concepts are very long and a separate article is needed for their appearance instances. Basically, think of it as something akin to how actors have filmographies and musicians have discographies, which are often the first things separated from the biography if the bio is long.
(On a completely separate note, with this logic, I think The Joker (The Dark Knight) is very misleading. A separate article for Ledger's version is fine, but it should not pretend this is a different character; I don't know what a concise title would be off hand to correct that but that's really the principle issue is acting as if it is a different character). --MASEM (t) 14:45, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
I believe we can all agree that the number of characters worthy of multiple articles is rather short - single digits for sure. I suggest discussions about how to split them occur on their talk pages. That way they can be tailored to the specific needs per their content at that time. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Not myself necessarily so sure about the "single digits" aspect, although I do agree that the number is small. So, for instance, Doc Savage has had significant character development in the comics (including having a son) in the later years. Dejah Thoris has more or less finally developed a full-fledged character in the recent comics as well, and I think so did Korak (character), although I am less sure of that. Particularly when characters become public domain, or get official licensing, it can be sometimes really hard to separate the character as he or she appeared in the early media and as they appear in comics. I tend to think the recent Star Wars comics by Marvel are another example where pre-existing characters are developed, apparently in a "canonical" way, in the comics as well. In terms of "regular", comic-origin characters though, I tend to agree that, maybe, Spider-Man, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel (Batson), Joker, Catwoman, Luthor, Brainiac, and Doctor Doom are maybe the majority of the topics which might merit multiple articles at this time. With all the TV shows and movies related to characters in recent production, though, I expect that number to grow, maybe by a lot. John Carter (talk) 16:13, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Well, even if not single digits, the number of characters that need multiple articles is still (at the very least) relatively small given the vast number of characters there are. While I agree with a majority of what Masem is saying, I wanted to quickly mention that I (personally) don't really think that The Joker (The Dark Knight) portrays him as a separate character. As long as it makes it clear that the TDK version is an adaptation of Joker (comics), I don't think our readers will get confused. In regards to the "Joker is primarily a comics character", we should also make a note that virtually all film, video game, and television versions say some variation on "Based on the characters appearing in DC Comics" in the billing. DarkKnight2149 18:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
The number of character articles that should be split is a minority, however many the digits. How to focus character articles should be one discussion, and principles on how to split should be part of that discussion to avoid POV splits. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:42, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Let me resummarize my comments here trying to address additional points above: Regardless of the medium or origin, a notable fictional character should strive for sections that cover the Concept/Creation of the character, a brief synopsis of the character's backstory and ongoing characterization, appearances of that character in various works, and Reception/Legacy. The Concept/Creation and Reception/Legacy sections are by far the most important as they, by their nature, have to include secondary sources, so that the article shows notability and meets NOR/NPOV. The synopsis is the next most important as these are usually needed to provide context for the Concept/Creation and Reception/Legacy section. The appearances is the least important, and again, equivalent to a filmography or discography. So if something has to be split, it should be the least important section, that being appearances section, summarized sufficiently in the main character article. This does not mean no appearance cannot be mentioned in the main article: for example, I would think it impossible to describe the Joker's character without mentioning the background that principally appears only in The Killing Joke. This approach is a template that works regardless of the character's medium of origin, and hence why one should consider these as "character" articles rather that "comic character" articles when it comes to titling and disambiguation.
There are definitely case-by-case aspects to be worked out. The Joker seems to be a character who's history is only influenced by what has been put into DC comics and not any other form of medium, though of course the summary of his appearances should definitely allude to Romero's, Nickleson's, Ledger's and Hamill's variations on the character, with more detail on those in the Depictions/Appearances article. Someone like Superman I feel would have a broader range from both comic, TV, and film. The template I speak is not meant to omit appearances that are central to a character or to force one only to look at a specific media, but to just recognize how broadly the character has been defined over time and reference those defining works when describing the characterization, while highlighting for brief summary purposes the more popular/recognized depictions of the character while linking to the separate article on Depictions, if that is needed. --MASEM (t) 22:54, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
I would definitely agree that Superman is probably a unique case across all articles in that he began in comics but he has become an icon and synonymous with the superhero, the good guy, the indestructible, insurmountable, invincible, enduring, etc. And to a lesser extent nowadays, the all american, though I think time has made him more of a global icon. The Joker can be used as an image of chaos particulary in politics, but so can the V for Vendetta guy. And while I may be wrong, I think Superman has been heavily influenced by his media incarnations and vice versa, including parts of his origin. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:59, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Which is interesting commentary, but shouldn't influence how the character is presented.
Donald Duck takes an approach compatible with what I've proposed: a "Characteristics" section (should be renamed "Characterization" or something?), and the major media appearances are in separate sections, without privileging animation (where he first appeared and from which he is best known). "Animation" gets a section", "Comics" gets another, etc ... but the focus of the article as a whole is on the character, and not particular manifestations of the character. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:14, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
A great example, particularly as that article shows a lot of developments, including the creation/introduction of Duckburg, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone, and the Beagle Boys, in the comics medium, which is presumably that character's secondary medium. I am actually a little embarassed that I hadn't thought of any of the older humor comics, and was only thinking of the spandex comics. Dumb me. John Carter (talk) 00:19, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
A Characterization section (aka fictional biography) is a reasonable approach. But the problem with Donald Duck is that that is entirely unsourced (for the most part). At some point you are going to need to source it, and while we'd prefer if you can get secondary sources, you'll probably need primary sources as well (which is fine) where his character is defined, at which point you will now need to skew his characterization based on which medium(s) defined it the most. This is already what has occurred with the Joker article, and in that case, it nearly all skews to his comic appearances since that is where the majority of the character of the Joker is defined. That is, when we are talking a good quality fictional character article (meaning things are sourced appropriately), the characterization section by necessity will likely skew to the medium(s) the character first appeared and defined the most. --MASEM (t) 14:53, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Why on earth would a character's charaterization require primary sources? I would never resort to that in an article I were writing—though I've noticed that happens an waful lot in superhero articles. Such sources should be ditched.
That the Donald Duck article is unsourced misses the point. Sourcing it wouldn't (in and of itself) change the organization and presentation of the article, which is what we're talking about. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:28, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Often, even for notable characters, secondary sources "assume" you know the character and characterization so only go into the reception and the like. Other times might be patchy what parts of a character they might cover. To give a reasonably complete description of a character for an encyclopedia and often to support the concept and reception sections, its very much likely that primary sources without any interpretation would need to be used. For example, while it is not necessary since "The Killing Joke" is a critical work on its own and its impact on Joker's BG a subject of discussion in secondary sources, we could use the Killing Joke to describe that origin aspect of the character. As long as primary sources are used as auxiliary to principally secondary sources, that's not an issue.
Even then, considering Donald Duck's article, is that if we are documenting characterization, we are likely going to have to state specific stories, works, or the like to identify where this aspect of the character comes from, if it is not laid out directly by the creator of the character in some manner. Again, to not mention "The Killing Joke" in relationship to the background of the Joker would be lacking. And these types of reference points will incorporate the major media works that the character's characterization was developed the most. For Donald, that's like a combination of animated shorts and comics; for the Joker, that's principally comic books. There's no significant characterization of the Joker that has stuck because of, say, Tim Burton's Batman film. The characterization section of any character article is going to reflect the medium where the character was most developed. --MASEM (t) 21:03, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Donald Duck is a cartoon character, the opening of the article identifies him as such. Because he has appeared extensively in both mediums there's two equally sized sections, but this is not a comparable character at all to the Joker. He isn't deep, he doesn't undergo major character developments or take part in year long story arcs or influence other mediums, so why would the Donald Duck article need to focus on other things than what is already present? It's not oversized with the content it has so it can talk more about animation and comics in a single space, and just like the Joker article, it links off to other articles where they can be discussed more extensively. A fair chunk of the content at Donald Duck is also bordering on just being a list, it mentions something, throws in some plot then paragraph spaces and mentions something else, so it could be trimmed massively. As John Carter mentioned, apparently the Donald Duck comics had major character development influences and vice versa. The scale of content, the influence and the type of character is not comparable to that of the Joker just because it meets the formatting style you would prefer. The "character" focus you mention at Donald Duck appears to be listing development such as introduction of characters, which is covered in the Joker development section, and the Joker also has a characterization section. All of the things you are suggesting are in the Joker article, plus all media appearances, which links off to a larger article. Your complaint about the Joker article still makes no sense.Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:58, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
You know that "cartoon" doesn't mean "animated cartoon", right? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:28, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Dude! Acknowledge the rest of the comment. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:27, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
I've amply acknowledged it. WP:WEIGHT and secondary sources will determine how much focus goes where (I keep bringing up Goodman Beaver), and will obviously get its due in the "Character development" portions. But we don't get to reduce or chop out inconvenient non-comics bits just because there's "not enough space left" for it. Rather, we summarize this material better and possibly spin it off. Can we stop going around in circles?
The quality of the Donald Duck article is utterly irrelevant to my point. We're talking about how an article is organized and presented, and Donald Duck gives us an instructive example. You don't get to ignore it just because it's missing cites, or we'd have to reject virtually every other example that's been offered. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:17, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
FFS Curly Turkey. I'm fairly sure you haven't actually read the Joker at all. The Joker summarizes the material and spins it off, this is what is has always been doing. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:48, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Except that you know that I have. I've said it's much better, much more balanced, but we're also dealing with larger issues than this one article. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:01, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

John Carter's comments

The one thing I really think might be most useful and one of the best determinants of what readers are seeking has yet to be discussed. As happened in one of the earlier cases regarding Macedonia naming, it is apparently possible to use grok.se and other tools to determine what pages readers come to, and what pages they then proceed to. If we had a record of the view history of readers on the articles on the Joker and similar topics, I think we would have a much clearer idea as to what the readers are seeking, and would be able to adjust the content in whatever way appropriate to those results. I also believe that it is almost certainly the case that developing good, clear MOS guidelines for fiction in general, which might supercede the comics MOS, is something almost necessary and probably well past due. Particular points to be addressed would be those works in all fields, including even sequels, which are in some way "authorized" or "canonical" and which provide information not available in the earlier works. John Carter (talk) 21:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I doubt grok.se records when someone opens different links as they move through a page or how long they spend on the page before proceeding elsewhere. Without these it is impossible to tell. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:25, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Regardless, grok.se wouldn't be a WP:RS. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:28, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
Actually, in response to Darkwarriorblade, I think something like what he is saying was what was actually done in the Macedonia matter I mentioned. Also, in response to Curly Turkey, there is nothing in policy or guidelines I am aware of which would indicate that tools used to determine the viewing habits of editors would have to meet RS. Such reviews would be for the purpose of internally knowing what material is being sought after, and could be seen, perhaps, as a form of automated enhancement to the MOS regarding what might be the primary article or page sought after by readers for a given topic. John Carter (talk) 21:32, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
It could be used to determine which of two "Joe Smiths" (if either) was WP:PRIMARY, which is a separate issue. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:31, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Twitbookspacetube's comments

It's honestly surprising how complicated this whole issue is. In my view, we don't need to differentiate between comic book character and visual novel character. They're both comics. TV shows, movies, radio plays and novels are different mediums with different writing styles. However, a visual novel is just the posh form of a comic book.

It's fine to have an overall character article with a sub article for each medium they appear in as each one portrays the character differently to fit it's writing style. However, there is no need for an article for every genre of that medium. Comics cover comic books and visual novels perfectly. There is no need to split for each genre. Twitbookspacetube 00:29, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

That's not the debate—it's about whether a particular article on (say) a graphic novel that requires a DAB should be DABbed (comics) or (graphic novel). We're not talking about splitting articles. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:39, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
As I said above, comics covers graphic novels anyway. DAB should logically go to comics Twitbookspacetube 02:06, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
(Graphic novel) is listed as a secondary option when there are multiple works with the same title. The issue here is that the MOS currently says to use (comics) for any comic-related article, regardless of whether it be a publication or character. There is some cross-discussion about how to split articles because The Joker is a hot topic at the moment, but isn't part of the proposal. It's a separate issue that deserves a separate discussion.
As far as I can tell, no one seems to oppose DABing articles about characters with (character), directing articles about creators to BLP, or the (comic strip) option. The only one that seems contentious is whether (comics) or (comic book) should be used to DAB an article about a specific publication. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:54, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Comic books, graphic novels, comic strips, etc are all subsets of comics, which is why (comics) takes precedence. Characters and humans are not subsets of comics, which is why (comics) is usually inappropriate. Frank Miller (comics) is a rare awkward exception because ... well, look at Frank Miller and see if you can come up with something more appropriate. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 20:49, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I'm with Curly Turkey on this one: all these forms are subsets of "comics" -- stoshmaster (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Hijiri88's comments

Sorry to be late.

My comments are kinda peripheral, and I don't really mind them being ignored, but I notice the below 3/8/17 deadline (assuming American date-formatting) has passed without any change made to either WP:NCCom or MOS:COMICS, so I might as well chime in. I am in favour of breaking down "comics" into different disambiguators like "character", "comic" (for articles on books), "writer" (or maybe "comics writer") and so on. Part of the reason for this, which I didn't see anyone else specifically raising is not so much the label (comics) on a character page impl[ying] it should only cover comic material or the existence of (comics) and (in other media) impl[ying] an ownership or superiority of the comic version [in cases where the articles are split] but simply that it seems like with a number of articles we should be specifically giving priority to the "in other media" over the "comics".

It doesn't directly concern naming conventions, but both Jeryn Hogarth and Aldrich Killian are currently structured and written as though they were about obscure comic book characters few people have ever heard of and who almost certainly don't meet GNG. I can't help but imagine there are articles similar to these but that have the grossly inappropriate disambiguator "(comics)" in their titles and so would need an RM to fix the problem. (Jeryn Hogarth should be moved anyway, per the overwhelming consensus at the AFD I posted last year, but at the time I was burned out on American pop culture and didn't follow up on it, and that's really beside the point.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Last Call

Discussion has died down. Aside from using (comic book), these changes seem to be favored. Re-pinging interested editors. @*Treker: @BOZ: @TriiipleThreat: @Favre1fan93: @Tenebrae: @Fortdj33: @Rtkat3: @Fluffyroll11: @Stoshmaster: @Spidey104: @Emperor: @Killer Moff: @NukeofEarl: I'll update the MOS on 3/8/17 unless objections are raised. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:42, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

How can we help in the discussions? --Rtkat3 (talk) 16:51, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
You can voice support for the proposals, question them, or explain why you think something should be left alone/done differently. So far, the primary objection is to using (comic book) instead of (comics) when an article is about a specific title. I prefer (comic book), and Curly Turkey prefers (comics). It's discussed toward the bottom of his comment section above. Argento Surfer (talk) 17:47, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Leave as is. Breaking things down into separate articles for "(character)" and "(comic-book series}" just invites content redundancy and makes things more confusing for general readers / non-comics-fans. I think "comics" is a good overall term that encompasses comic books, comic strips, graphic novels, digital comics, etc. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Do you think users are confused by Wolverine (character) and Wolverine (comic book) now? Argento Surfer (talk) 19:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
If I didn't know anything about Wolverine other than that he's a comic-book character, yes, I think I wouldn't know where to look first. And even as someone who does know the character, I think there is a lot of redundant information. I'm not sure why so much of the same information needs to be in two places. But as Curly Turkey says below, I've misconstrued part of the discussion, which has gone on for a while and which I skimmed. In any case, I do believe "comics" is a more useful term than "comic book" as a DAB term, for the reason I noted above.
That said, both Argento and Curly are excellent, thoughtful, and careful editors who have been involved in this discussion long before I entered, after having been invited to. I hadn't commented before since the distinction being debated is one of degree and not of accuracy, and ultimately either will work. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Tenebrae: The proposal is not about breaking things into separate articles. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Argento Surfer: I hope you don't mind but I wrote a comment in the section above, since it doesn't seem like you or anyone else made any amendment to the page on the above-listed deadline. I didn't read much of other users' comments, so it's possible I was being inappropriately redundant. I was mainly just responding the questions posed by your (thoughtful and neutral) opening summary of the problem. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:56, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the input Hijiri. I plan to update the MOS soon, but I didn't have time on the 8th. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:59, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I have updated Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics) to include the revised guidelines. I also took the opportunity to rearrange some of the material in an easier-to-understand fashion. Please review the changes and undo/discuss anything that seems inappropriate. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
So what is the situation here for Joker because I'm fed up of this not being a featured article because of one person. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
By these guidelines, the content at Joker (comics) should be moved to Joker (character). Joker (comics) should probably point to Joker (disambiguation). Argento Surfer (talk) 17:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Darkwarriorblake: I'm obviously the "one person" you're talking about, as if I were the only opposer---and as if one person could have gotten an FAC archived. Twice. If this is your attitude, expect it to happen again. As far as I can tell, no FAC has ever been promoted due to the nominator whimpering loudly enough. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:54, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
You were the only opposed who refused to acknowledge any view but your own and wanted changes that basically required a different article to be nominated immediately preventing any chance at gaining unanimous support. So yes it is your fault. Both times. Especially the second time when your first words were an outright lie about the changes that HAD been made based on the first fac which you said hasn't been made. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 12:18, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Move request

A request to change the title and content of a comics article has begun at Talk:X-Men (film series)#Requested move 7 April 2017. Any interested WikiProject:Comics editor may comment there within one week. --Tenebrae (talk) 23:31, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Wonder Woman

There are two potential infobox images for Wonder Woman, both being Alex Ross images from Justice #5. However, the two different versions of the same image have different color corrections. Would editors please take a moment to express opinions at the talk page on which of these two images is truer in color to the character's costume and better suited for the infobox. The .png version is File:Wonder_Woman.png while the .jpg version is File:Wonder_Woman.jpg. Your opinions are greatly appreciated. DrRC (talk) 22:56, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Controvery section on Colossus aricle

There is a controversy section on the Colossus (comics) article, which seems like it would be worth a mention somewhere, although to have such a detailed section on the character when it really has very little to do with the character himself, seems misplaced. 2602:304:CE74:9630:543:BC49:23B8:9A3 (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

The controversy is not really about the character but about what the artist did. It should be at his article or the X-Men Gold article if there is one.★Trekker (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
There is not an X-Men Gold article currently, so I agree that it belongs at Ardian Syaf where it is currently well-covered. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 04:27, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Two articles on Timing

Could I have some people looking at the edit histories of Timing (manhwa)‎ and Timing (film), and get some input on whether or not the two articles should remain split? ~Mable (chat) 20:44, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

In their current condition, the film article should be redirected to the manhwa article. It doesn't appear to have any information not already located in the Adaptation section, but it does have other issues (The plot summary ends with "watch it yourself."). Argento Surfer (talk) 15:24, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
This is what I've been telling other editors in edit summaries and Talk:Timing (manhwa). ~Mable (chat) 16:02, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

move discussion relisted

Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:X2 (film)#Requested move 10 April 2017, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, Yashovardhan (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

RfC on the WP:ANDOR guideline

Hi, all. Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Should the WP:ANDOR guideline be softened to begin with "Avoid unless" wording or similar?. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Problematic category

Not sure what the impetus was behind Category:American superheroes. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 03:03, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm also dubious on Category:Animated series villains. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 03:20, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
These categories seem pretty straightforward and well-defined to me. What exactly is the issue? ~Mable (chat) 09:45, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, the "animated series villains" is pretty broad, especially considering that there are only 56 entries at the moment. And I have no idea how "American superheroes is defined... created by Americans? Appearing in American media? Identifies as a fictional American citizen within the media? If that last group, then a bunch of the entries in the category do not fit. If that is a legitimate category, it should have hundreds of entries, if not thousands, but we are looking at only 41. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 11:17, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Ah, well, as for the superheroes category: it is a subcategory of Category:Superheroes by ethnicity or nationality, so I assume it is about the fictional nationality of the superheroes themselves. I'll be sure to add this line to the category for clarity. I don't think we have thousands of articles on (American) superheroes, though, so you're vastly overestimating the situation. Same with animated series villains. It's not particularly common for characters in animated series to get their own article, so I expect this category is unlikely to ever get over 300 or so entries. ~Mable (chat) 11:22, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
I wonder if comics characters, such as Penguin (comics) and The Joker (comics), should be listed in the animated villains category at all. I don't know how these kinds of situations are handled, though. ~Mable (chat) 11:25, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Exactly the problem, neither of these categories are clearly defined - or if they are, then the definitions are not being followed. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 05:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
It's actually fairly common for characters that originate from one medium to be listed in lists related to another medium they are used in. I'm glad you bring this up, though, because then it can be discussed and a simple explanation added to the category's page. Perhaps it depends on whether the animated series these villains starred in is notable on its own? I honestly don't really care all that much, but maybe someone else in the project can give input on it? ~Mable (chat) 18:22, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
I've never noticed much interest in the categories on this particular talk page, with the exception of the variations on MCU characters. I suggest being bold in fixing any issues. If anyone does have strong feelings, on the subject, I'm sure they'll let you know. Argento Surfer (talk) 18:47, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
In this case, if you are worried about the categories getting overwhelmed by entries at some point, I'd suggest diffusing them, though I wouldn't know what sub-categories to use (nor do I believe this will be an issue). If you are worried about the categories not being properly defined, feel free to define them further yourself by describing a kind of inclusion criteria and adding/removing entries based on those. ~Mable (chat) 20:14, 20 April 2017 (UTC)


I am not familiar with all the characters currently listed in Category:American superheroes, but I see some problems with characters I am familiar with:

  • Conan the Barbarian. The character lives in a prehistoric era, called the Hyborian Age. Most estimates place his activities c. 10,000 BC. He is from a country called Cimmeria, spends most of his life traveling across other countries and continents, and eventually rises to the throne of a country called Aquilonia. While various writers have depicted him following various occupations (at various points of his life), he is rarely portrayed as heroic. He is typically depicted as a mercenary, trained thief/burglar, pirate, bandit/raider, tribal chieftain, general, and eventually king of his own country. A few comic book stories have depicted him time traveling to other eras, including 20th-century New York City, but he is not an American citizen at all.
  • Hawkgirl. Several characters have used that codename. At least two of them are aliens from a planet called Thanagar. Not American citizens.
  • Hawkman. Several characters have used that codename. Four of them are aliens from a planet called Thanagar. Only one of the aliens, "Charley Parker"/Ch'al Andar, was actually raised on Earth.
  • He-Man. While various versions of the character have been used, his better known origin is that of an alien hero. He is Prince Adam of Eternia, heir to the throne of a planet and kingdom called Eternia. His father is King Randor, his mother is Queen Marlena, and his main enemy is Skeletor/Keldor (who according to some versions is his paternal uncle). He is usually just trying to defend his home planet from threats and rarely travels to other planets. His sole connection to Earth is that an episode of the 1980s animated series revealed that Queen Marlena was an astronaut from Earth who got stranded in Eternia decades ago. Her real name was supposedly Marlena Glenn, a former officer of NASA.
  • Hercules. The article points to the Roman demigod Hercules, a version of the Greek demigod Heracles. In Greco-Roman legend, Hercules/Heracles is an illegitimate son of the god Zeus, son of mortal woman Alcmene (a princess from the royal house of Perseides), and a stepson to Amphitryon (an exiled prince from the kingdom of Tiryns, who spend most of his life as a general of the kingdom of Thebes). His adventures are typically placed in Mycenaean Greece (1600-1100 BC) and he reportedly died by committing suicide by fire. I do not see a connection with the United States.
  • Joseph (comics). A clone of the villain/hero Magneto. His genetic template Magneto is (according to his current origin) a German Jew born in the 1920s, who migrated to Poland with his family in the 1930s, and lost his family in the Holocaust of the 1940s. Magneto may have claims to German and Polish citizenship, but holds neither. His post-war life as depicted in comics has him spending a few years in the Soviet Union and Israel, but otherwise renouncing his affiliation to any country and spending his life trying to create a country of his own. Joseph himself is a citizen of no country and spend some time in a South American orphanage.
  • Karma (comics). Her name is Xi'an Coy Manh, a Vietnamese mutant born in South Vietnam, and growing up during the Vietnam War. She lost her father in the Fall of Saigon (1975), her mother was raped and killed by pirates, and Xi'an herself fled as a refugee to the United States. While she spend much of her career in comics with American-based teams, it is unclear whether she ever gained an American citizenship.
  • Quicksilver (comics). His name is Pietro Maximoff. He is a European, from the fictional country of Transia, supposedly located in the Balkan Mountains. While Marvel has retconned his origin story multiple times, he is mostly depicted as having mixed Gypsy/Romani and Jewish ancestry. He was raised as a Gypsy. While he has spend time in the United States, he is not an American citizen. He was previously depicted as having further adventures in Transia, getting citizenship in the fictional kingdom of Attilan (by marrying a member of local royalty), and serving for a while as a government member in the fictional island country of Genosha.
  • She-Ra. Her real name is Princess Adora. Her origin is a bit of mess, but she is depicted as an alien heroine with connections to multiple planets and forces. Born as a Princess of the planet Eternia, she is the twin sister of He-Man/Prince Adam. She was abducted shortly after birth by an enemy galactic empire, called the Horde Empire, and mostly raised by a high-ranking officer called Hordak. The Horde invaded a planet called Etheria, Hordak was appointed the governor of the local occupation forces, and Adora grew up to become a captain in the local guard of the Horde. Her task was to eliminate the resistance forces of the local population. She eventually defected to the resistance and rose to become its main leader. She leads a war, trying to drive away the occupation forces and defeat Hordak and his superiors. Nothing to do with Earth.
  • Silver Surfer. His name is Norrin Radd. He is an alien hero from the planet Zenn-La. When his planet was about to be destroyed by Galactus, Norrin tried to bargain for the safety of his people. He promised to serve Galactus if Zenn-La is spared. Galactus agreed, transformed Norrin into a cosmic being with god-like powers, and had him serve as his herald. His mission was to find planet for his master to devour. He eventually rebelled and was punished. He has mostly served as a freelance hero and adventurer since, with most of his adventures taking place far away from Earth. He has never held American citizenship, and usually feels trapped when on Earth.
  • Sorceress of Castle Grayskull. An alien sorceress/goddess from the planet Eternia, she is the one who grants superhuman powers to He-Man and She-Ra. Originally a powerless villager from a war-ravaged village, she agreed to replace an aging sorceress as the guardian of the mystical Castle Grayskull. She gained god-like powers and a long life, but not true immortality. Her plans in the original 1980s cartoon was to eventually pass the mantle of the sorceress/goddess to her secret daughter, Teela. As far as I know, she is not human and has nothing to do with Earth.
  • Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew). While her origin story has been retconned a few times, I am not certain if she is American. In the original version of her origin story, she was the daughter of British scientist Jonathan Drew and his wife Merriam Drew. Jessica was born in London, but grew up in the fictional country of Transia, in the Balkans. Her father was the best friend and business partner of another British scientist, Herbert Wyndham, the High Evolutionary. During her childhood, Jessica almost died due to radiation poisoning, from exposure to an uranium mine owned by her father and Wyndham. Her mother was killed in an accident (or, in another version, killed by a werewolf), her father abandoned her, and Wyndham was left with custody of Jessica and trying to find a way to save Jessica's life. He placed her is some kind of suspended animation, experimented on her, and eventually cured her. She emerged from suspended animation decades later, chronologically in her 30s or early 40s, but with the body of a teenager, and the memories of a child. Her original series started taking place in the United Kingdom, but she eventually migrated to the United States in search of a new start. I am not certain if she did gain American citizenship.
  • Rachel Summers. Something of an odd case, due to dimension traveling. Born to American parents in Earth-811. She grew up in a dystopian version of North America, where the United States are long gone, and the continent is ruled by the Sentinels. She grew to become "Hound, an enslaved and mind-controlled mutant trained to hunt and capture other mutants. She eventually rebelled, traveled to Earth-616, and tried to settle with versions of her family from this dimension. She failed to make it in the United States, and migrated to the United Kingdom. Most of her 1980s and 1990s adventures take place in Great Britain. Uncertain if she holds citizenship in any state.
  • Vixen (comics). Her name is Mari Jiwe McCabe. She is an African, from the fictional country of Zambesi. She was orphaned at a young age, adopted by a local priest, then witnessed her adoptive father killed by one of his own brothers. She eventually migrated to the United States to work as a model, earned a fortune, then used the money to become a globe-trotting superheroine. Unclear if she holds American citizenship.
  • Wolverine (character). His name is James Howlett. He is a practically immortal Canadian citizen from Alberta, born in the 1880s. He served in the Canadian armed forces in both World War I and World War II. He later served as an agent of Department H, a division of the Department of National Defence (Canada) which deals with superhuman operatives and controls Alpha Flight. He defected from Department H to the X-Men in 1975, when the X-Men became a foreign-legion like organization where practically every member came from a different country. He has changed residences several times along with the X-Men, but never did become an American citizen.
  • Wonder Twins. Their names are Zan and Jayna. They are alien heroes (and shape-shifters) from the planet Exxor. They look human except for their pointed ears, with their design partly based on Spock and the Vulcans from Star Trek. They are not Americans at all, though a 1970s storyline had them attend an American high-school and posing as exchange students from Sweden.
  • Wonder Woman. Her name is Princess Diana of Themyscira. She is royalty and a diplomat from the fictional island country of Themyscira. While her origins have been retconned several times, she is usually only in the United States in order to explore the world outside her island, diplomatically represent her country, and/or face major threats to world safety. She does not hold American citizenship. Dimadick (talk) 17:33, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
...So, did you remove all of those? ~Mable (chat) 18:13, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Sonic the Hedgehog comics' insanely huge Characters section

Please see here: Talk:Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(comics)#The_insanely-enormous_Characters_section... --FrostedPenguin87 (talk) 03:10, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Infobox abilities

Consensus was reached that superfluous powers not be added to the "Abilities" section of a character's infobox. Although many characters' infoboxes are still being edited with an excessive amount of abilities, for the most part there has been significant improvement and more consistency in terminology. However, the abilities listed are often unnecessarily superlative. In particular, the word "master" is being added as an adjective to modify fighting abilities, often by editors who are also adding an excessive number of other abilities to the infobox, completely ignorant to WikiProject Comics guidelines. I have been seeing phrases like "master swordsman" and "expert marksman". The issue here is the degree of experience implied with these adjectives, and also, it just reads incredibly poorly. I believe we should instead use "skilled" when mentioning fighting abilities. For example, Superhero X is a "skilled hand-to-hand combatant". I believe "expert" can be still be used for a particular skill set if the character is known to be an expert, just as "trained" is used for a character who is trained in a specific field of study (i.e., Pamela Isely is a trained botanist). When using "expert" before fighting ability, it unduly implies a level of expertise that is often unsourced. I believe "skilled" is more appropriate for fighting abilities and still implies that the character may be extremely versed in that fighting ability. What are other editors' opinions regarding this? DrRC (talk)

Isn't there a way to make the abilities parameter only accept certain terms? So for consistency you could make it so only expert or trained martial artist were acceptable and "master" would be ignored. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:51, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I love that idea, but that would be a long list, and one that would need to be updated when new comics characters get an article. ~Mable (chat) 21:04, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I like that idea, also, but I don't know enough about the abilities parameters to achieve that. DrRC (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I think Wrath X is good at this at the Video Game infobox? Perhaps he knows how or someone who does. I'm sure it's something that can be done though. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:50, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
We may just end up with a bunch of broken infoboxes, because I don't think this fix will stop editors from adding items. I think adding hidden notes may be more effective. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:47, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
The problem with hidden notes is that firstly, you're going to have to add them to a LOT of infoboxes, and secondly, the editors adding all these superfluous abilities really do not give a shit about hidden notes if we're being honest. The only way I can personally see to fix the problem is to remove there being a way to create a problem in the first place. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:20, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Maybe set it up like the genre section on the comic title infobox, where instead of a user inputing "crime", they have to input "|crime = y"? That could work, but it might be a headache determining which powers get infobox status. Some of them are pretty unique/hard to boil down. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
There's a lot of weird ones too when you move into X-Men territory. 19:55, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

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Guardians of the Galaxy characters

Category:Guardians of the Galaxy characters was recently created by User:Vsuarezp. I'm not sure what the consensus has been in the past on creating categories based on team characters, but I seem to remember we have deleted categories based on Avengers and X-Men characters. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 17:04, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I believe the Avengers category was removed because it was so large as to be almost useless. I'm inclined to suggest deleting the GotG category because there are two distinct teams using the name the category does not distinguish the two. It also seems very loosely defined. It includes random allies and villains of the two teams, but not all the members... Argento Surfer (talk) 12:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

ONLYONE violation at Captain Marvel -- IAR?

Captain Marvel is a disambig page that lists a bunch of different characters, mostly from Marvel Comics publications. The disambig entry for the current captain, Carol Danvers, links to the article on her, and also to the article on her previous identity, Ms. Marvel.

This is technically a violation of WP:ONLYONE, but I'm wondering if this is a case of WP:IAR, since she was Ms. Marvel for a very long time and mentioning that fact is natural, but mentioning it without linking the article would not make much sense to those who are unaware of the prominence of the Ms. Marvel identity in the character's history.

What do other folks think? (I do think that if the name is unlinked, Ms. Marvel should probably be added as a "See also".)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:17, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the need to IAR here; if someone is on that page, they're looking for Captain Marvel, that's the name they're trying to find. We can certainly mention the Ms. Marvel monicker there without the link... and if they go to the Carol Danvers page, they will find that link anyway. The Carol Danvers page also has more of her history as Ms. Marvel than the Ms. Marvel page does. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:53, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Comics based on unproduced film scripts?

Is there a list of comics based on unproduced film scripts? I mean like Doorways#Book or The Power of the Dark Crystal, and some other Jim Henson graphic novels by BOOM studios. I'm sure there are others. I would be happy to start List of comics based on unproduced film scripts if there seems to be enough things to be on the list. Staecker (talk) 00:28, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I know Aether & Empire was a screenplay first. Dark Matter (comics) was originally conceived as a tv show, but I don't know if a screenplay was actually written. Populating a list might be difficult. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:37, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
And then you have things like The Star Wars, based on an unproduced early version of something that was eventually revised and produced, which might qualify for the list depending on how its defined. (Kevin Smith's The Bionic Man should definitely qualify.) But there's the question of notability of the topic - are there significant articles written about "comics that are based on unproduced screenplays"? --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:21, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
It seems to me (pure OR) that filmmakers and such are lately realizing that graphic novels have become a respectable way to salvage failed screen projects. Maybe List of comics based on unproduced film projects is a better name and scope, since there's no reason to require actual scripts. I was surprised actually that I couldn't find any articles written about the subject. But even absent such articles, the topic seems notable enough to me for a list on Wikipedia. IMHO not notable enough for a general article about the phenomenon. Staecker (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't oppose a list, but I think "based on unproduced film projects" leaves a lot of gray areas. Would there be some lower limit of what "unproduced" means? Would a screenplay need to have been written? Rights sold but not used? Argento Surfer (talk) 14:29, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure that there are lower notability standards for lists than for articles. Your also going to have a lot of things where the comic is not an abandoned screenplay, but rather a method of pitching the screenplay. Out here in greater Hollywoodland, you have services that will convert your screenplay into a comic for a fee; folks giving comic shops free piles of their books in hopes that the right money-man will discover them; and shops with a special wall for things-that-have-not-yet-been-optioned. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:37, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
"shops with a special wall for things-that-have-not-yet-been-optioned." No joke? Can you share the name of some? I'd like to research this - not because I have a screenplay, just personal interest. Argento Surfer (talk) 14:54, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm kinda surprised we don't appear to have an article on The Star Wars.[3] Combined with the two mentioned by Staecker, this does seem to be a thing, with both comics being made out of films that couldn't get produced, and comics being made out of early drafts of scripts that were produced after being radically altered as interesting historical artifacts. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:33, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
OK I created it here: List of comics based on unproduced film projects. Any help is appreciated- I didn't have time to add in any categories. I'm not sure whether or not to include, maybe in a separate section, something like The Incal, which was produced in order to make use of all the art and design done for an abandoned Dune film. (See Jodorowsky's Dune). Incal isn't at all an adaptation of the Dune screenplay, but it certainly rose from the ashes of that film project. Staecker (talk) 21:35, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Joker's notable powers in infobox

Xtremeroller is edit warring with the Joker infobox and he/she is the type of user who doesn't care about what you say, they're having it their way. So can someone confirm what the guideline is here because I'm sure htere was a discussion but I can't find it, but my memory on the consensus was that the infobox should contain only the most notable abilities that the character is defined by, and for the Joker this is not being a fighter and not being immune to poisons. Thanks. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:32, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, as the cock myself I have been edit warring. In the skills and equipment section of the page, in the last paragraph it talks about Joker being a skilled melee fighter. In an article by Screen Rant, it lists the many powers of the Joker. In it says that he's immune to poison/toxins. A quote of one the comics writers explaining his power, "In the story arc The Clown at Midnight (Batman #663), writer Grant Morrison briefly explains why the Joker is immune not only to his toxins but to poison in general: “An avid consumer of his own chemical experiments, the Joker’s immunity to poison concoctions that might kill another man in an instant has been developed over years of dedicated abuse.” In other words, the Joker underwent a drastic, bizarre form of immunotherapy. There you have it, he explained why the Joker is immune to toxins/poison and proves he does have it. This is his power, no different than Harley Quinn.Xtremeroller (talk) 17:48, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

http://screenrant.com/joker-superpowers-abilities-dc-comics-batman-villain/

The point stated to you, that you ignored, is that it isn't a notable power. Per the infobox guideline "Powers include significant current and previous powers, and other notable abilities. This should be a short list, without description. Keep longer prose for the article text." The Joker is not known for being a fighter or a skilled combatant, he doesn't engage in martial arts he typically uses weaponised props and misdirection, and he isn't known for being immune to poisons, these are not identifying powers of the Joker in cross mediums, therefore they are not significant powers. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Just because he isn't an expert on martial-arts doesn't mean he's an expert. He is a skilled combatant, he has gone head-to-head with Batman and won (sometimes). He is immune to toxins/poisons as as stated before you and gave you a link that explains his powers that are canon in the main story arcs. They are notable.Xtremeroller (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Important comic books topic in need of attention

Good evening. I created Comparison of Marvel and DC as there has been massive coverage on this topic. I was inspired to write this after restructure Comparison of Star Trek and Star Wars. It seems the massive amounts of coverage got me lost on this article and I think it's important that WikiProject Comics members be notified on this topic. Regards.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 01:50, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

User:HÊÚL. edit-warring over character infoboxes

User:HÊÚL. appears to be edit-warring over several items in the infobox for character articles, namely including names from the Ghost Rider film but not in the comics on Mephisto (comics)[4] and Blackout (Lilin)[5], and also adding the "real names" from the Ultimate universe which have not been used in mainstream Marvel Universe on Forge (comics)[6] and Longshot[7]. I figure this could use some more eyes. 2602:304:CE74:9630:C153:3FD8:367B:856F (talk) 05:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Cartoon pornography to Erotic animation

The article Cartoon pornography, which is tagged as part of this project, has been proposed for merger with Erotic animation. See Talk:Erotic animation#Merger for discussion. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Infobox abilities

Consensus was reached that superfluous powers not be added to the "Abilities" section of a character's infobox. Although many characters' infoboxes are still being edited with an excessive amount of abilities, for the most part there has been significant improvement and more consistency in terminology. However, the abilities listed are often unnecessarily superlative. In particular, the word "master" is being added as an adjective to modify fighting abilities, often by editors who are also adding an excessive number of other abilities to the infobox, completely ignorant to WikiProject Comics guidelines. I have been seeing phrases like "master swordsman" and "expert marksman". The issue here is the degree of experience implied with these adjectives, and also, it just reads incredibly poorly. I believe we should instead use "skilled" when mentioning fighting abilities. For example, Superhero X is a "skilled hand-to-hand combatant". I believe "expert" can be still be used for a particular skill set if the character is known to be an expert, just as "trained" is used for a character who is trained in a specific field of study (i.e., Pamela Isely is a trained botanist). When using "expert" before fighting ability, it unduly implies a level of expertise that is often unsourced. I believe "skilled" is more appropriate for fighting abilities and still implies that the character may be extremely versed in that fighting ability. What are other editors' opinions regarding this? DrRC (talk)

Isn't there a way to make the abilities parameter only accept certain terms? So for consistency you could make it so only expert or trained martial artist were acceptable and "master" would be ignored. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:51, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I love that idea, but that would be a long list, and one that would need to be updated when new comics characters get an article. ~Mable (chat) 21:04, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I like that idea, also, but I don't know enough about the abilities parameters to achieve that. DrRC (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I think Wrath X is good at this at the Video Game infobox? Perhaps he knows how or someone who does. I'm sure it's something that can be done though. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:50, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
We may just end up with a bunch of broken infoboxes, because I don't think this fix will stop editors from adding items. I think adding hidden notes may be more effective. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:47, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
The problem with hidden notes is that firstly, you're going to have to add them to a LOT of infoboxes, and secondly, the editors adding all these superfluous abilities really do not give a shit about hidden notes if we're being honest. The only way I can personally see to fix the problem is to remove there being a way to create a problem in the first place. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:20, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Maybe set it up like the genre section on the comic title infobox, where instead of a user inputing "crime", they have to input "|crime = y"? That could work, but it might be a headache determining which powers get infobox status. Some of them are pretty unique/hard to boil down. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
There's a lot of weird ones too when you move into X-Men territory. 19:55, 15 May 2017 (UTC)


Is there a comics guideline or a general guideline on the use of navboxes? Xtremeroller just added a bunch to the Joker article whose only relevance is that the Joker is mentioned in them, his presence justified by him being a "sometimes" enemy of Robin, the Justice League and ...Catwoman? I don't think they belong but user has a history of edit warring so it's easier if I get information here first. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:51, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:BIDIRECTIONAL suggests that if an article includes a navbox, that article should be linked from the navbox. Based on the name, I think it's assumed it will work the other way as well? I'll keep looking. Argento Surfer (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's the functional impact of WP:BIDIRECTIONAL. Now, it might be the case that the article in question shouldn't have all those navboxes because it shouldn't be included in those navboxes, but that's a navbox-specific discussion. --Izno (talk) 19:42, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I managed to find this Wikipedia:Avoid template creep which talks about the specific problem. Izno, you're right in that it's a specific discussion since while the Joker is an enemy of those people, he isn't their villain, he's just someone who has interacted with or otherwise harmed them. I went over to the Batman article to see how that works and there's like 18 navboxes there. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I think Template Creep is about the number of templates that exist and their size, not the number in a specific article.
Specific to this situation, the Catwoman template should be removed (and Joker removed from it) because the Joker article does not mention her at all. The Batgirl and Robin templates seem redundant to Batman characters, but it's hard to dispute that Joker shouldn't be included on them. Overall, I don't think five (collapsed) templates is too many for one article. Perhaps the new ones could be combined in a related topic shell like on Captain America? Argento Surfer (talk) 20:20, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Featured Article nom - opinions appreciated

I've nominated Lazarus (comics) as a featured article. Comments are appreciated from anyone willing to take a look. Information about reviewing can be found here and here. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:47, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh, my God!

I have noticed that we have the page Gods (Marvel Comics), and List of cosmic entities in Marvel Comics. The first one is just a lot of unreferenced an in-universe stuff. Should we move it to something like "List of deities in Marvel Comics"? Should we list the "gods" in the second list? Is there some actual difference between a "god" and a "cosmic entity"? Should we list all deities that were used in Marvel at some point, or just those that have an article?

Or should we simply create a new article, "Mythology in Marvel Comics", and merge in it all the gods based on real deities, gods completely original by Marvel, angels, demons, cosmic entities, cosmic objects, celestials, and whatever?

I'm asking here and not the article talk page because it is hardly ever edited, and I suspect that the question would go unnoticed there. Cambalachero (talk) 17:43, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd oppose a merge - there's a huge difference between Hercules and Eternity. I would support renaming it as a list. Argento Surfer (talk) 14:10, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
I'd support moving Gods (Marvel Comics) to List of deities in Marvel Comics but as Argento Surfer pointed out I'd keep gods and cosmic entities separated.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 15:36, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
I wonder what the definitions of "god" and "deity" are. Are characters based on real-world figures of worship (real-world gods) what is being referred to, regardless of whether anyone in the comics treats them as literal gods? Or characters who are figures of worship for some fictional culture within Marvel Comics? In the movies at least, the Asgardians are frequently referred to as "gods" because they are the people ancient Norsemen worshipped within the universe, despite them not apparently being figures of worship in the "present", while Ego is referred to as a god simply because he has tremendous power and is immortal despite not apparently having ever been a figure of worship. (I'm making the perhaps-flawed assumption that the comics are similarly messy here -- never read all that many Marvel comics myself.) I'd be in favour of whichever option uses the least poorly-defined in-universe terminology that resembles real-world terminology but apparently carries different a meaning (read: titles that refer to "gods" and "deities" are all problematic.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:28, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
A deity is a divine figure from a polytheistic pantheon, and a god is the single one from a monotheistic religion. All those ancient figures of worship used as templates by Marvel to create their "god" characters (Thor, Hercules, etc.) are deities. Original characters with godlike powers are the cosmic entities of my original question, which will be kept in a different list as suggested. Cambalachero (talk) 13:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, that's interesting, but do you have a source? The distinction you make between "deity" and "god" definitely isn't true for the real-world, so if Wikipedia is going to use it in discussion of Marvel Comics characters, it needs to be cited to a source specifically giving that definition in relation to the comics. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:24, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
That simply isn't right. If you're talking "God", capital G, no article, then yes, you're talking monotheism or what passes for it. But if you're trying to use that for any usage of the term "god", no. You'd have to tell that to Shakespeare, who wrote "The gods themselves throw incense". Or to the Oxford English Dictionary, who define the term deity by saying it's a god. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:48, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that is just not right. Doczilla @SUPERHEROLOGIST 07:46, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

"In the movies at least, the Asgardians are frequently referred to as "gods" because they are the people ancient Norsemen worshipped within the universe, despite them not apparently being figures of worship in the "present", while Ego is referred to as a god simply because he has tremendous power and is immortal despite not apparently having ever been a figure of worship. (I'm making the perhaps-flawed assumption that the comics are similarly messy here -- never read all that many Marvel comics myself.)"

I have seen very few of the Marvel-related films, but I have been a Marvel Comics reader on-and-off for more than two decades. (I don't care much for DC Comics characters, though I love the Green Lanterns and associated characters). The depiction of Marvel gods and their status as having worshipers is often inconsistent. An old story established that various pantheons of gods used to interact regularly with humanity, but a conflict c. 1000 AD forced them to withdraw to extradimensional realms and stop seeking worshipers. Humans just forgot about them.

  • A few stories have depicted Thor and other Asgardians attracting modern-day worshipers, some of which hoped to gain favors from the gods. One storyline had super-villain Absorbing Man (who gained his powers due to Loki) starting worshiping the Asgardians in the apparent hope that they will heal his terminally ill wife Titania. (Absorbing Man and Titania are typically depicted as one of the most loving couples in this universe, and her seemingly approaching death drove him to religion).
  • Few Olympian gods have worshipers but Poseidon/Neptune is depicted as still actively worshiped by Namor and various other characters from Atlantis. In addition Magma was raised in a society worshiping the Olympians, and was depicted as in awe when actually meeting some of them in person.
  • The Summerian and Babylonian gods rarely appear, but some of them seem to have degenerated into demons. Marduk has turned up as a fallen deity committing demonic acts in order to regain power. A separate major demon in the Marvel Universe is called Marduk Kurios, though whether he is related to the god is unclear. Inanna turned up as a demon in a 1990s storyline and was killed. Two separate goddesses claiming the name Ereshkigal have appeared, and both of them are demonic. (Since the two goddesses happen to be look-alikes and using the same name, I often wonder what was the point of having two of them.)
  • The Egyptian gods have appeared on-and-off for several decades. Several cultists worshiping them have been depicted, but most of them are minor characters. The most frequently appearing of them is probably Khonsu, the patron deity of Moon Knight. Khonsu keeps resurrecting his Knight, after every violent death, to keep him in service. In addition he once resurrected a deceased Hawkeye (then leader of the Avengers), because he wanted the Avengers to serve him for a while. (Interestingly, Moon Knight is of Jewish descent, but seems to worship Khonsu instead of Jahwe. Too bad the main stories do not use it as a source of conflict.) In addition the "Panther God" worshiped by Black Panther and other characters from Wakanda turned out to be Bastet in disguise, and his/her rival the "Lion God" turned out to be Sekhmet. (Both characters originally appeared as males but were retconned to be goddessees in disguise).
  • Native American gods are depicted on occasion, along with various worshipers. An entire line of heroes called Red Wolf are depicted as instruments of the will of a god called Owayodata.
  • The Inuit gods rarely appear, but play a large role behind the scenes. Snowbird is an Inuit demigodess and involved Alpha Flight in battles against immortal enemies of her devine ancestors. A few early storylines had her forced to obey her mother (a goddess) and grandfather (a god), even when she disagreed with their decisions. One story had her tortured by them because she refused to kill one of her closest friends. Sedna has tuned up as a Thor enemy in a couple of storylines.
  • Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Mayan, Aztek, African, Celtic, and Slavik pantheons have all turned up in various stories, though they are mostly minor players. Marvel actually once got in trouble with real-life Hinduists who thought the depiction of their deities was sacrilegious.
  • Various stories have depicted alien gods who are worshiped by alien civilizations, such as the Shi'ar and the Skrull.
  • A monotheistic god based on Yahweh and ruling a Heaven of his own has turned up in a few stories, though he is mostly a minor character who faces a lot of opposition by demons and rebellious angels. A storyline about a decade ago retconned that this god is the actual patron deity of various incarnations of the Ghost Rider. (The same storyline retconned that there were not just a hand full of Ghost Riders as previously depicted, but hundreds of them).
  • In addition to various pantheons, a group called the Elder Gods are patron deities to various heroes and villains, direct ancestors to most of the gods and demons, and dwarf almost all of them in age and power. The Elder Gods themselves are the children of a senior deity called the Demiurge, but he is decisively inactive throughout the course of Earth's history.

Most of the gods are limited to the confines of a single planet, while Marvel's cosmic characters typically have power and influence over the wider universe or multiverse. Most of them do not have or need worshipers. There are also various immortal characters, with or without other divine powers. Characters like Merlin and Morgan Le Fay are depicted as thousands-of-years old and able to return after every violent death, but they are usually depicted as sorcerers and not as deities. (Despite often displaying powers that excede what the gods can do). Selene is much older than most of the gods, displays vast powers, and is even worshiped by some characters, but she is usually assumed to be a mutant and not a goddess. And so on and so on. Dimadick (talk) 00:48, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

From the WikiProject desk at The Signpost

  1.  – Argento Surfer (talk) 12:15, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  2.  – Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:49, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  3.  – Mable (chat) Withdrawl
  4.  –

Going forward, each participant receives the interview questions about the project's work, problems and achievements.

I'd be interested in answering questions related to the basically dead field of webcomics. This is only tangentially related to WikiProject Comics, so I just bring it up as a kind of 'FYI'. ~Mable (chat) 10:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Ok, I added you to the list @Maplestrip:, see the note on your talk page :D!

Sexiest Women In Comics

Does every female character in comics need to have their rank in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list so prominently featured in their article's first paragraph? It's something I see so often and displayed in such an up-front manner, and it makes me question its usefulness every time. If that information is so important that it needs to be on the article, could it at least be moved to a Reception section further down the page, instead of being one of the first things you see about the character?

You can find this on most articles for female comics characters- for fun, search Wikipedia for "Sexiest Women in Comics" and find just how many articles show up- but my favorite example is on Mantis' article, where her status as the 99th Sexiest Woman in Comics is displayed before the fact that she was in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

It's an accurate representation of how a lot of the media treats these characters, I'm sure, but to me it reeks of unprofessionalism, and I don't know if it belongs on Wikipedia. Is anyone else with me on this? Ummagine (talk) 21:11, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Some male characters have it too. I think it's trashy as hell and says nothing about the actual reception of the character.★Trekker (talk) 21:15, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
This has been discussed before. The general consensus is that while discussion of sex appeal may make some uncomfortable, it does speak to how the character design has been received. However per the same consensus, the content should be placed with other information about the character's reception.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 21:31, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
It doesn't really make me uncomfortable but it seems completely pointless and arbitary, characters are drawn completely differently by different artists besides basic color schemes and lines to denote their costumes.★Trekker (talk) 21:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I was speaking in general, not you specifically. Most characters have a particular design that doesn't change much from artist to artist. But you bring up a good point, I haven't read the actual list, does it include information about the author's reasoning or reference a particular run or artist? Perhaps some context would be more useful than a bare listing.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 22:12, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I've never seen any reasoning or artists mentioned. Any time I've seen a Sexiest Character list be referenced in an article, it mentions the character's ranking and that's it. It's context-free. Ummagine (talk) 22:31, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with making people "uncomfortable"; that argument wasn't even raised in the discussion. The problem is that it's silly. The source for this "information" is not an authority on "sexiness". And this is isn't like movie reviews, where there's a whole population of dozens of critics who form a consensus about whether a movie is good or bad that we can refer to. The source here is just some fan/collector giving his non-expert subjective opinion, which makes it fancruft of no general encyclopedic value. It doesn't belong in Wikipedia at all. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 22:38, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
"Silly" is an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. While I'm not familiar with this particular list, I am familiar with Comics Buyer's Guide and at one point it was considered the authority on comic books, and as such the opinions there in do carry weight. Like it or not, it does reflect a particular aspect of the character's reception. It isn't much different from similar lists in WP:BLP articles like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, and Angelina Jolie.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 23:59, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I disagree that saying something "Silly" is inherently WP:IDONTLIKEIT, silly can be fun and enjoyable. Either way unless there is some motivation for the inclusion it's just a bulletpoint and doens't really belong in the lead section of so many articles but would fit more in a reception section. As a matter of fact way too many character articles lack reception sections.★Trekker (talk) 00:08, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the content should be moved to more appropriate locations and too many character articles lack reception sections.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 00:18, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Does anyone have the issue in question, and if so, does it provide a methodology of how the rankings were obtained? If it were a survey across fans and/or creators, I think it'd carry more weight than arbitrary ranking. Either way, yes, take it out the lead. --Killer Moff (talk) 11:01, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
As it happens, I was browsing an old CBG recently and saw an ad for this. It was published as a standalone book, not as a special issue or single article. It previewed a few pages, and there were at least 3 paragraphs per character in the samples. I do not think this content belongs in the lead, but material from the description would be useful in adding real-world material to reception sections. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:09, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
I would question whether a specific mention of what-is-essentially-a listicle should ever be present in the lead of an article, which looks to summarize an article. (WP:WEIGHT might be good reading too.) --Izno (talk) 12:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

"Most characters have a particular design that doesn't change much from artist to artist."

In some cases the design can differ a lot, for various reasons. The character could undergo a radical transformation, such as Green Hulk becoming the weaker but more intelligent, Grey Hulk, or the Beast gaining fur. The character could have aged within the context of the stories, such as Julie Power of Power Pack. In this case, a kid character may be redesigned to a teenager or adult. In some cases, the artist either consciously chose to redesign a character to a completely different form, or did not bother to research previous depictions of a character.

There are cases such as the super-villain Locus. In her original depiction, the character had light skin and blond hair. A later depiction featured her with dark skin, and the change became permanent. She was redesigned as an African American, with black hair. It is possible that the artist who made the change confused Locus with her teammate Tempo, who was depicted as an African-American woman since her first appearance.

At least this is better than Puff Adder of the Serpent Society. He is a lesser known member of a fairly prominent group of super-villains, where he is usually the strongman of the group. Nobody seems to be to be consistent with what is his appearance when not in uniform. He has variously been depicted as a White American with blond or light brown hair, and as an African American with black or dark brown hair. He has been depicted in both ways since his first appearance in the 1980s. Dimadick (talk) 16:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Categories on Norman Osborn

Is this overkill?[8] 2600:1700:E820:1BA0:2C88:414F:CD93:3C56 (talk) 04:03, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Category:Marvel Comics characters who can move at superhuman speeds seems like a joke, and has to be removed. Category:Ultimate Marvel characters is a higher problem, as it should have only characters created for that universe, not any marvel character used in it. I have noticed that Osbourne is in Category:Fictional characters with multiple personalities, Category:Fictional characters with bipolar disorder and Category:Fictional characters with psychiatric disorders. Are all those for the Norman Osbourne/Green Goblin thing, or is there something else about him that I'm missing? --Cambalachero (talk) 03:08, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
You will have to ask User:Xtremeroller about that, Cambalachero. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 04:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC regarding the WP:Lead guideline -- the first sentence

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion at Judge Dredd

There is a move discussion at Judge Dredd that is of interest to this WikiProject. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 11:07, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Noone have time to look at this? It's potentially a major project for people to get in on at the ground floor for a long standing character with a solid action film and potentially decent tv series coming up. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 15:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Lists of Comics Characters

I'm growing concerned about the tendency to have characters listed in Lists of characters where there is no notability. I fail to see where the notability is established by putting the character in a list when the references are still to primary sources. Should these pages be removed and we become more stringent about which characters appear on WP, (those which actually pass WP:GNG)) or is there a better way to do these lists that shows some notability to the characters? --Killer Moff (talk) 12:50, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

This is acceptable per [[Per WP:NOTESAL. Because the set - Marvel characters, I assume - is notable, the individual entries do not need to be. It also allows multiple articles to link to information on a character instead of WP:CONTENTFORKING and covering the same character in more than one place. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:58, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Surely there has to be some limit to this, or are we going to allow every character who ever appeared in a Marvel or DC book to be listed on these pages? --Killer Moff (talk) 13:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
No, not every character who has ever appeared needs to be listed. If you find specific entries that are questionable, they can be discussed here or on the talk page. It may be an uphill battle for most of them, though. The current format was a compromise between editors who wanted to get rid of the unsourced stubs and editors who think being important in a storyline of a C-Level Marvel book warrants an article. We may be able to establish some standard for inclusion - like, 4 articles have to link to the redirect for a character before s/he can be listed. It'll miscount links directly to the list though... Argento Surfer (talk) 13:36, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I wasn't aware of WP:NOTESAL, and am just growing frustrated with the desire to see everything kept, and the lack of awareness of WP:GNG. How many times have we all seen the argument "of course he's notable. He's in the cartoon!", or similar. I do like the idea of a minimum standard for inclusion. --Killer Moff (talk) 14:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Pinging @Rtkat3: and @Voicebox64: - they contribute a lot to these. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:38, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Killer Moff - I feel exactly the same way. I've long been the opinion that NOTESAL needs to be modified to prevent editors from using list articles as a dumping ground for articles which fail to be meet notability requirements; it's essentially become a legal loophole allowing editors to circumvent WP: NOTABILITY. Admittedly, I haven't done anything about this, since my Wikipedia to-do list is so long that I have no appetite for such a massive undertaking. As far as a minimum standard in this particular case, I think we could at least trim out one-off characters, i.e. characters who only played a significant role in one story arc, unless they have some special notability covered in multiple reliable sources.--NukeofEarl (talk) 00:10, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Red links in infoboxes. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:37, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Absorbing Man and Zzzax

Are these[9] and these[10] reliable sources? 2600:1700:E820:1BA0:2596:4098:FF59:7950 (talk) 15:02, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

The whole thing seems to be original research. Fortdj33 (talk) 17:46, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
Stupids both. Are the same sources of Hulk (2003).
IGN is a reliable source, assuming the claims they're used to source are actually in the article (I can't view them due to an internet filter). Argento Surfer (talk) 12:30, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
After reading the IGN article I can confirm that those claims are not in it. Indeed, the article doesn't mention Absorbing Man or Zzzax at all.--NukeofEarl (talk) 13:13, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Then the claims shouldn't be restored. Thanks for looking into it. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Joker's notable powers in infobox

Xtremeroller is edit warring with the Joker infobox and he/she is the type of user who doesn't care about what you say, they're having it their way. So can someone confirm what the guideline is here because I'm sure htere was a discussion but I can't find it, but my memory on the consensus was that the infobox should contain only the most notable abilities that the character is defined by, and for the Joker this is not being a fighter and not being immune to poisons. Thanks. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:32, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, as the cock myself I have been edit warring. In the skills and equipment section of the page, in the last paragraph it talks about Joker being a skilled melee fighter. In an article by Screen Rant, it lists the many powers of the Joker. In it says that he's immune to poison/toxins. A quote of one the comics writers explaining his power, "In the story arc The Clown at Midnight (Batman #663), writer Grant Morrison briefly explains why the Joker is immune not only to his toxins but to poison in general: “An avid consumer of his own chemical experiments, the Joker’s immunity to poison concoctions that might kill another man in an instant has been developed over years of dedicated abuse.” In other words, the Joker underwent a drastic, bizarre form of immunotherapy. There you have it, he explained why the Joker is immune to toxins/poison and proves he does have it. This is his power, no different than Harley Quinn.Xtremeroller (talk) 17:48, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

http://screenrant.com/joker-superpowers-abilities-dc-comics-batman-villain/

The point stated to you, that you ignored, is that it isn't a notable power. Per the infobox guideline "Powers include significant current and previous powers, and other notable abilities. This should be a short list, without description. Keep longer prose for the article text." The Joker is not known for being a fighter or a skilled combatant, he doesn't engage in martial arts he typically uses weaponised props and misdirection, and he isn't known for being immune to poisons, these are not identifying powers of the Joker in cross mediums, therefore they are not significant powers. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Just because he isn't an expert on martial-arts doesn't mean he's an expert. He is a skilled combatant, he has gone head-to-head with Batman and won (sometimes). He is immune to toxins/poisons as as stated before you and gave you a link that explains his powers that are canon in the main story arcs. They are notable.Xtremeroller (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

To make my argument again. I believe skilled hand-to-hand combatant and immune to toxins should be added to Joker's abilities in the infobox. He has gone head-to-head with Batman in combat and won (sometimes). He is immune to toxins/poisons it is something that happened to him after he fell into the chemicals, Harley Quinn has the same ability yet her pudding doesn't have it. Xtremeroller (talk) 18:04, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

From the infobox template descriptions: "Powers include significant current and previous powers, and other notable abilities." While being a "skilled hand-to-hand combatant" may technically be an "ability" the same way I have the ability to walk, it's not notable in the context of superhero comics. The context of the parameter also makes it clear that it is a list of superpowers like flight or invisibility, not a list of skills a character has demonstrated. Honestly, I think this parameter should be left blank on Joker. Argento Surfer (talk) 15:34, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Darkwarriorblake, indeed this has come up before, and those discussions regarding abilities are buried somewhere in the archives. Listing "skilled hand-to-hand combatant" in the Joker's "Abilities" section of the infobox is inappropriate for reasons Argento Surfer has mentioned. The extent to what constitutes a notable ability should be limited to that which the character is known for. Because the Joker has encountered other characters in melee combat, does not make his fighting abilities notable. The vast majority of characters in comic books have been portrayed in hand-to-hand combat. Furthermore, listing this for every character who demonstrates any fighting ability detracts from those characters who are in fact known for having those powers, such as Iron Fist. An editor recently listed Spider-Man as being a "skilled hand-to-hand combatant and martial artist", but this edit was reverted - a separate article dedicated solely to his powers and equipment details the character's improvisational style of fighting, rather than the character having concentrated training in just that sphere. The same goes with Superman; he is not known for his hand-to-hand fighting prowess yet he is often depicted in melee combat. The approach of "less is more" seems fitting to hone in on the abilities that are notable, and I encourage editors to look out for trivial lists. On a side note, as we have discussed before, "expert" and "master" are still being used superfluously to modify the ability of hand-to-hand combat. I want to reiterate that "skilled" should be used rather than these terms when describing hand-to-hand combat as it still implies proficiency without unduly assuming a certain degree of aptitude, and it also retains consistency of terminology. DrRC (talk) 17:53, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
We did start a discussion (I can't find it here or on the infobox talk page unfortunately) where I suggested limiting what can actually be entered into abilities so that it HAS to be consistent or won't appear. Dunno if anyone else remembers it or where we had it. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:31, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
here. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Sorry I haven't responded, I've been busy. By reading your guys' discussion it appears there will be no consensus on that issue. But the one that I still want to talk about is Joker being immune to toxins. It's an ability he acquired. I don't know, I probably already know what the answers going to be but just want to hear a discussion about the issue. Xtremeroller (talk) 20:15, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
The ScreenRant article is titled "15 Superpowers You Didn't Know The Joker Had", which implicitly means they're not well-known. I would say that automatically disqualifies all of the items on that list from being significant enough for the infobox. They can still be mentioned in the prose. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:46, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

The ScreenRant article also lists powers that are already mentioned in the infobox like his expertise in chemistry and criminal mastermind intellect. But with all that out of the way, can we all just compromise on adding immune to toxins. Its a prominent power of Joker that is well-known to the public (i.e. in Suicide Squad), everyone in the comic book community can agree on this issue. Harley Quinn has it listed and just odd that MR. J doesn't have it. Xtremeroller (talk) 20:26, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

In-universe renown doesn't mean it's notable or well-known. Immunity to toxins probably shouldn't be listed at Harley Quinn either, and that article's "powers and abilities" list is in general a classic case of editors treating "powers and abilities" as if it were an all-purpose resume; they even have "trained psychologist" on the list! I'm going to go trim half the entries. I'll leave "skilled gymnast", but I wouldn't object to anyone removing that one as well.--NukeofEarl (talk) 18:50, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Millarworld is now a standalone article

I've split the contents of Millarworld from the Mark Miller article. Because of this, we can add more information on Wikipedia about Millarworld that isn't exclusive to Mark Millar's involvement. Ideally, I'd like to see a comprehensive list of all the comics owned and published by Millarworld. I'd be thankful if as many people from WikiProject Comics community as possible can contribute to the development and standardisation of the article. Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 18:20, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Dracula image

Rather than uploading a new image for Dracula (Marvel Comics), NeoBatfreak uploaded a new image over the classic Tomb of Horrors cover. Is there a way to split these into two separate files? 2600:1700:E820:1BA0:F547:54CF:BB57:887D (talk) 12:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

I reverted the upload with a note indicating the new image should be added as a new file. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:44, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
I have tagged it with {{Orphaned non-free revisions}}, because the older versions of a non-free image should be deleted (the current and used one would stay) Cambalachero (talk) 13:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Images from collector cards?

NeoBatfreak has been going around replacing images from the actual comics with images from collector's cards. Is there any sort of policy regarding this? 2600:1700:E820:1BA0:3DC5:3862:514A:B5AD (talk) 11:36, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not aware of one. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
i was only trying to improve the artivle qith the best images I can find.--NeoBatfreak (talk) 12
17, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
From the comics page manual of style:

Images which cannot be "fair use"

Due to the non-free content policy of Wikipedia, which states: The material should not be used in a manner that would likely replace the original market role of the original copyrighted media; our use of copyrighted material should not make it so that one no longer needs to purchase the actual product.

it has been decided that images derived from the following sources: Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Who's Who in the DC Universe editions the various trading card series released by the many comic book publishing companies

are not allowable on Wikipedia, as their use here would indeed directly compete with the commercial value of the original fan reference work containing that image.

So looks like we can't use them. Sorry. --Killer Moff (talk) 13:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Even if they are recently reprinted as comic book covers?--NeoBatfreak (talk) 15:55, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
If that is the case, you can probably use the comic cover (with art work, comic title, indicia, credits, etc), but not a picture of the card or just the artwork from the card. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 02:30, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
So Killer Moff, is it OK to undo the image additions? 73.168.15.161 (talk) 02:30, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Okay, I will.--NeoBatfreak (talk) 07:37, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Copyright law is strange voodoo, so I'd be reluctant to say for certain, but I think the cover could be regarded as a promotional image, so if we were to use the cover as indicated, (not the clean artwork), we'd probably get a fair use rationale. Which specific pages and images are we talking about? --Killer Moff (talk) 09:38, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
To keep it simple Killer Moff, let's go by the diffs of Forge[11], Sabretooth[12], Professor X[13] (although that image was suspect in the first place), Angel[14], and Magneto[15]. Note that on the Forge and Professor X files, a different image was simply uploaded over the previous image, instead of a new image file being uploaded like on the Sabretooth and Magneto ones. Rather than taking your advice, the captions on Sabretooth[16] and Magneto[17] were merely amended, so I would say those still need to be reverted to the previous image. Forge probably needs the old image reuploaded (see the above section on Dracula). The one for Professor X probably just needs to be removed entirely and replace with a picture from a comic. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 11:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
That all sounds fine to me. On the whole, I think we need to err on the side of caution here. --Killer Moff (talk) 08:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
OK, thanks Killer Moff. I reverted the images on Sabretooth, Angel, and Magneto to the previous images. I am unable to fix the issue with the image on Forge, but maybe it can be repaired the way Argento Surfer did with the Dracula image above? I will leave it to others on what to do with the Professor X image. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 11:47, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
I have reverted the Forge image. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:43, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
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