Why aren't there more Lovecraftian villains in cape comics?
Why aren't there more Lovecraftian villains in cape comics?
Well DC has a few, but the writers don't know what to do aside from punching and energy blasts
ENTER
There are a lot already though.
Because human drama is more interesting than another "unfathomable alien god that's actually pretty fathomable after all because we can see it right on the fucking page"
The Mask got really weird towards the end, huh?
Because if you wanna be true to his work, theres really nothing you can do to beat them.
Oversaturation risks diminishing the risks such creatures should realistically pose.
It's very tricky to portray monsters as a legitimate madness-inducing threat when squirrel girl punches one out in one hit or some other comedy comic has one show up in a top hat as a one-off gag. They should either be all-hands-on-deck planetary (at least) threat, or so insidious and under-the-surface that even recognizing they're doing anything takes a lot of effort.
See this is the sort of mindset that hurts Galactus. Actually, Galactus is a pretty good example. Galactus is literally a planet-eater. It supposedly appears differently to different cultures. It's not ACTUALLY just some big dude in a purple helmet. Except it's also Reed Richard's son somehow or something? And sometimes people just dick around with him? Whatever. On an infinite timescale you can only tell so many stories about something before it gets really silly.
This. Cape and true eldritch is almost exactly on the opposite side of the spectrum to each other.
I don't know, Shadow Over Innsmouth was pretty hopeful. You could absolutely kill off all the fishmen if you had a solid army.
You can deal with individual cases, but you can't really stop the things that causes those cases to pop up in the first place.
The fishmen is not the cause, but merely a symptom of something far larger.
At best you can have a story where a hero averts a crisis, but doesn't actually deal with whatever caused it.
But true cape where the hero inevitably triumphs over the big bad, is incompatible with true eldritch horror, and vice versa.
Yeah, until Dagon shows up.
I'd argue they try a lot. You've got Shuma-Gorath, I think a case could be made that Starro counts too. It really depends on how they're being handled. You can't show them too much, or you have to show them just the right way. I think Hellboy has always been one of the gold standards for that kind of thing. You CAN do unspeakable horrors in visual mediums but you have to do it right.
I think you'd be better off with the Dunwich Horror since they achieve a decisive victory against the monster there. I mean, sure, it confirms unspeakable ungodly horrors exist, but there ARE countermeasures, to a point.
Difficult to write the heroes winning.
Because it's DC, not EC.
King Of Tears
Shuma Gorath
The Red
Empty Hand and The Gentry (pretty much)
Lovecraft gods
Doom Patrol villains
There's actually a lot though
Nah
There's also the problem that generally speaking, HP chews up his protags up and spits them out. Motherfuckers are either dead, insane or worse by the end and while that works for a horror anthology it's not ideal for a weekly superhero story with continuity.
That too.
Unless you hit them in the head with a ship or something
That was the equivalent of Cthulu waking up in the middle of the night and stubbing his toe, at best.
Lovecraftian horror is antithetical to capeshit in so many core conventions of the respective sub-genres.
One relies heavily on vagueness while the other basically demands crafted and exact visual designs
Abalone.
A. Not all of Lovecraft's horrors are vague whosits. Those who focus on them solely have read very little of him.
B. Vagueness is not only not incompatible with capeshit but has been used effectively in the past. The Great Darkness is a good example despite the eventual reveal.
Too much work.
Most superhero comics aren't interesting and they do the human drama thing. Why not take a chance?
People forget that lovecraft was such a hardcore fan of conan the barbarian he let the guy body dagon just cause
Was he? I know he was friends with Howard, but he was anti-barbarism, wasn't he?
Mister Mind needs to be evil as fuck but also looks like a children's cartoon character. Like if Dr Mengele was a muppet or something. No edgy shit.
Looks like a Mi-Go.
Overused in media in general.
no dorky glasses and laugh
Not my mind
You also have The King Of Tears in DC
Everyone always forgets about M'nagalah, and sleeps on Dark Destroyer.
Not cape as such but marvel's Conan himself has fought a number of low-level lovecraftian horrors.
Capes actually fight them a lot though it's usually in the form of a portal to a nameless dimension of incomprehensible horrors with tentacles coming out and the defeat consists of forcing them back and sealing off the portal...for now.
Syzygy Darklock from Dreadstar has even used this as an attack.
I never got the point, if the world doesn't end by the time the story is over.
I'm pretty sure the intent is supposed to be
The universe is cold and uncaring and humanity can only hold on to its insignificant existence in the face of unimaginable horrors by making temporary measures to stave off the inevitable end.
But most the endings to these stories just have me read it as:
Fuck the odds, humanity will remain defiant in the face of oblivion and hang on with tooth and nail if that's what is nessisary. The closer the end gets, the harder life perseveres.
Lovecraft wasn't happy enough to ever consider the second one.
How is exactly is having like 16 eyes gonna help you against Superman?
Shumma Gorath is a literal Lovecraftian deity for one.