The Headmen is a group of supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics .
39-580: The Headmen first appeared (as a team) in The Defenders #21 (March 1975) and were created by Steve Gerber , Sal Buscema , and Sal Trapani. The Headmen are a group who believe that they should rule the world by virtue of the intellect. Dr. Arthur Nagan wanted society to operate like a precision instrument, Dr. Jerry Morgan wanted a society where his genius was recognized, Chondu the Mystic wanted personal wealth and Ruby Thursday wanted to replace
78-640: A Doombot to team with them to fight Humbug . First appearance In comic books and other stories with a long history, first appearance refers to the first issue to feature a fictional character . These issues are often highly valued by collectors due to their rarity and iconic status. Collectors value first appearances for their rarity and historical value, while many regular readers are interested in viewing how their favorite characters were originally portrayed. Reprints of first appearances are often published, both as single comic books and in trade paperbacks , usually with other early appearances of
117-685: A character on a real person can use a person they know, a historical figure, a current figure whom they have not met, or themselves, with the latter being either an author-surrogate or an example of self-insertion . The use of a famous person easily identifiable with certain character traits as the base for a principal character is a feature of allegorical works, such as Animal Farm by George Orwell, which portrays Soviet revolutionaries as pigs. Other authors, especially for historical fiction , make use of real people and create fictional stories revolving around their lives, as with The Paris Wife which revolves around Ernest Hemingway . An author can create
156-438: A character using the basic character archetypes which are common to many cultural traditions: the father figure , mother figure, hero , and so on. Some writers make use of archetypes as presented by Carl Jung as the basis for character traits. Generally, when an archetype from some system (such as Jung's) is used, elements of the story also follow the system's expectations in terms of storyline . An author can also create
195-460: A distinction between the individuals represented in tragedy and in comedy arose: tragedy, along with epic poetry , is "a representation of serious people" (1449b9—10), while comedy is "a representation of people who are rather inferior" (1449a32—33). In the Tractatus coislinianus (which may or may not be by Aristotle), Ancient Greek comedy is defined as involving three types of characters:
234-429: A fictional character using generic stock characters , which are generally flat. They tend to be used for supporting or minor characters. However, some authors have used stock characters as the starting point for building richly detailed characters, such as William Shakespeare 's use of the boastful soldier character as the basis for John Falstaff . Some authors create charactonyms for their characters. A charactonym
273-431: A newly introduced character mysterious until a "secret origin" issue. Some fans consider this a gimmick and prefer the older method. The artistic merit of many first appearances is debatable. The events portrayed in most famous first appearances are continuously retconed , rebooted and/or expanded upon by subsequent writers. Like many golden and silver age comics, first appearances often become dated and do not fit
312-712: A real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character may be made. Derived from the Ancient Greek word χαρακτήρ , the English word dates from the Restoration , although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones by Henry Fielding in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor " developed. (Before this development, the term dramatis personae , naturalized in English from Latin and meaning "masks of
351-667: A slightly more normal body than he currently sported. She-Hulk was convinced that her head had been detached and placed on a life-support system, and Chondu's head affixed to her body, but this was not true. As she discovered with the aid of Spider-Man , the body that Chondu was using was actually a clone of hers. They also turned up for one issue of the Defenders vol. 2 relaunch, by Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen . Chondu had an arachnid cyborg body for this outing. The Headmen next appear in Heroes for Hire Vol. 2 when they have reprogrammed
390-458: Is a "walk-on", a term used by Seymour Chatman for characters that are not fully delineated and individualized; rather they are part of the background or the setting of the narrative. Dynamic characters are those that change over the course of the story, while static characters remain the same throughout. An example of a popular dynamic character in literature is Ebenezer Scrooge , the protagonist of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. At
429-598: Is a name that implies the psychological makeup of the person, makes an allegorical allusion, or makes reference to their appearance. For example, Shakespeare has an emotional young male character named Mercutio , John Steinbeck has a kind, sweet character named Candy in Of Mice and Men , and Mervyn Peake has a Machiavellian, manipulative, and murderous villain in Gormenghast named Steerpike . The charactonym can also indicate appearance. For example, François Rabelais gave
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#1732783538266468-496: Is possible, therefore, to have stories that do not contain "characters" in Aristotle's sense of the word, since character necessarily involves making the ethical dispositions of those performing the action clear. If, in speeches, the speaker "decides or avoids nothing at all", then those speeches "do not have character" (1450b9—11). Aristotle argues for the primacy of plot ( mythos ) over character ( ethos ). He writes: But
507-402: Is widely considered to have solidified, if not created, the superhero archetype; therefore, his first appearance is not only important to fans of the character but to fans of superheroes and comic books as a whole. Well-preserved copies of Action Comics #1 have been sold at auction for record-breaking prices. A copy graded at 8.0 ("very fine") on the 10-point scale typically used by collectors
546-582: The Certified Collectibles Group (see below): While seemingly a simple concept, determining the first appearance may be complex. The following are instances in which a character's first appearance may be difficult to determine: Character (arts) In fiction , a character or personage , is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel , play , radio or television series , music , film , or video game ). The character may be entirely fictional or based on
585-515: The Golden Age Human Torch but is more noteworthy as the first comic book published by industry giant Marvel Comics . It can take many years for a character to attain sufficient popularity after their first appearance to be considered "iconic." By the point a character reaches that level of popularity, it is common for few copies of their first appearance issues to remain. Furthermore, even fewer of those remaining copies will be in
624-467: The buffoon ( bômolochus ), the ironist ( eirōn ), and the imposter or boaster ( alazṓn ). All three are central to Aristophanes ' Old Comedy . By the time the Roman comic playwright Plautus wrote his plays two centuries later, the use of characters to define dramatic genres was well established. His Amphitryon begins with a prologue in which Mercury claims that since
663-452: The social relations of class and gender , such that the conflicts between the characters reveal ideological conflicts. The study of a character requires an analysis of its relations with all of the other characters in the work. The individual status of a character is defined through the network of oppositions (proairetic, pragmatic , linguistic , proxemic ) that it forms with the other characters. The relation between characters and
702-551: The 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers , has been called characterization . A character who stands as a representative of a particular class or group of people is known as a type. Types include both stock characters and those that are more fully individualized . The characters in Henrik Ibsen 's Hedda Gabler (1891) and August Strindberg 's Miss Julie (1888), for example, are representative of specific positions in
741-593: The Gorilla-Man, from Mystery Tales #21 (art by Bob Powell ); Chondu the Mystic , from Tales of Suspense #9 (art by George Evans ); and Dr. Jerry Morgan, a.k.a. Shrunken Bones , from World of Fantasy #11 (art by Angelo Torres ). The Headmen first appear in The Defenders #21. Nagan and Morgan are based out of a house in Westbury Connecticut. Nagan recruits Chondu the Mystic into
780-686: The Headmen in that issue. The group creates chaos by using Chondu's mental powers enhanced by a drug created by Morgan. The chaos serves as cover for Nagan to carry out a series of burglaries in the New York Diamond District . Nighthawk of the Defenders spots Nagan but Nagan is able to escape. In The Defenders #32 (Feb. 1976), the Headmen were joined by Gerber's newly created Ruby Thursday . The Headmen launched an elaborate scheme to secretly take economic and political control of
819-516: The Unknown . In the same issue, Doctor Strange declared that Chondu's real name was Harvey Schlemerman, and Jack Norris, husband of the woman whose body was being used by Valkyrie , claimed to have seen him perform. The Headmen made an appearance in John Byrne 's She-Hulk comic, during a period when he was reviving Marvel villains. They had kidnapped She-Hulk for the purpose of giving Chondu
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#1732783538266858-452: The action of the story shifts historically, often miming shifts in society and its ideas about human individuality, self-determination , and the social order . In fiction writing , authors create dynamic characters using various methods. Sometimes characters are conjured up from imagination; in other instances, they are created by amplifying the character trait of a real person into a new fictional creation. An author or creator basing
897-402: The character. Marvel Comics ' "Essential" line has become popular by giving readers an affordable glimpse into characters' early history. Historically, first appearances tell the origin story for the character, although some, such as Batman and Green Goblin , remained dubious figures for several issues. Modern writers prefer to tell a character's origin across an entire story arc or keep
936-453: The characters, but they include the characters for the sake of their actions" (1450a15-23). Aristotle suggests that works were distinguished in the first instance according to the nature of the person who created them: "the grander people represented fine actions, i.e. those of fine persons" by producing "hymns and praise-poems", while "ordinary people represented those of inferior ones" by "composing invectives" (1448b20—1449a5). On this basis,
975-467: The drama", encapsulated the notion of characters from the literal aspect of masks .) Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theater or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person". In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase " in character " has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since
1014-586: The earliest surviving work of dramatic theory , Poetics ( c. 335 BCE ), the Classical Greek philosopher Aristotle states that character ( ethos ) is one of six qualitative parts of Athenian tragedy and one of the three objects that it represents (1450a12). He understands character not to denote a fictional person, but the quality of the person acting in the story and reacting to its situations (1450a5). He defines character as "that which reveals decision , of whatever sort" (1450b8). It
1053-404: The head of every human with a plastic head of her own design. They fought the Defenders , She-Hulk , and Spider-Man on different occasions. Defenders writer Steve Gerber formed the Headmen from 1950s anthological horror-story characters appearing in the reprint title Weird Wonder Tales #7 (Dec. 1974). That comic's five reprinted stories included the introduction of Dr. Arthur Nagan ,
1092-517: The modern portrayal of the character. However, some first appearances are considered classics. 1990s-era Spider-Man writer Howard Mackie said that his favorite story featuring the character was his first appearance and origin story in Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962), stating that writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko "gave us everything we needed, I wanted or could ask for in the least possible space. Every single person who retells
1131-406: The most important of these is the structure of the incidents. For (i) tragedy is a representation not of human beings but of action and life. Happiness and unhappiness lie in action, and the end [of life] is a sort of action, not a quality; people are of a certain sort according to their characters, but happy or the opposite according to their actions. So [the actors] do not act in order to represent
1170-642: The name Gargantua to a giant and the huge whale in Pinocchio (1940) is named Monstro . In his book Aspects of the Novel , E. M. Forster defined two basic types of characters, their qualities, functions, and importance for the development of the novel: flat characters and round characters. Flat characters are two-dimensional, in that they are relatively uncomplicated. By contrast, round characters are complex figures with many different characteristics, that undergo development, sometimes sufficiently to surprise
1209-406: The narrative structure, unlike core characters, for which any significant conflict must be traced during a considerable time, which is often seen as an unjustified waste of resources. There may also be a continuing or recurring guest character. Sometimes a guest or minor character may gain unanticipated popularity and turn into a regular or main one; this is known as a breakout character . In
Headmen - Misplaced Pages Continue
1248-408: The origin never improves on the original, they simply expand it." First appearances of popular characters are among the most valuable comic books in existence. Of the "ten most valuable comic books" listed in the spring 2002 issue of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide , seven are first appearances of popular superheroes . Another, Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), is the first appearance of
1287-404: The play contains kings and gods, it cannot be a comedy and must be a tragicomedy . [...] is first used in English to denote 'a personality in a novel or a play' in 1749 ( The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary , s.v.). Its use as 'the sum of the qualities which constitute an individual' is a mC17 development. The modern literary and theatrical sense of 'an individual created in a fictitious work'
1326-797: The pristine condition prized by collectors. What few remain can be worth thousands of dollars to interested collectors. For example, in 2004, a copy of Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), the first appearance of The Flash , was auctioned for $ 42,000 and a copy of Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941), the first appearance of Captain America sold for $ 64,400. In 2010, another copy of Flash Comics #1 sold privately for $ 450,000. The first appearance of Superman , Action Comics #1 (June 1938), has been regarded as " holy grail " of comic books, due to its cultural significance and rarity (fewer than one hundred copies are thought to exist). Superman
1365-481: The reader. In psychological terms, round or complex characters may be considered to have five personality dimensions under the Big Five model of personality. The five factors are: Stock characters are usually one-dimensional and thin. Mary Sues are characters that usually appear in fan fiction which are virtually devoid of flaws, and are therefore considered flat characters. Another type of flat character
1404-400: The series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in more than one episode, sometimes being the main focus. A guest or minor character is one who acts only in a few episodes or scenes. Unlike regular characters, the guest ones do not need to be carefully incorporated into the storyline with all its ramifications: they create a piece of drama and then disappear without consequences to
1443-450: The start of the story, he is a bitter miser, but by the end of the tale, he transforms into a kindhearted, generous man. In television, a regular, main or ongoing character is a character who appears in all or a majority of episodes, or in a significant chain of episodes of the series. Regular characters may be both core and secondary ones. A recurring character or supporting character often and frequently appears from time to time during
1482-608: The world. There were multiple components to the plan. Arthur Nagan created a business empire and formed a population control movement in India based on shrinking the size of humans. Ruby Thursday briefly ran for President of the United States . They were eventually defeated and captured by The Defenders at their headquarters in Norman, Oklahoma. Later, Ruby Thursday was the instigator of the death of another Gerber creation, Omega
1521-493: Was sold at auction for $ 1,000,000 in 2010. Even a copy graded at a much lower 5.5 ("fine minus") sold for $ 956,000 in 2016. Shortly after the record-breaking million-dollar sale of Action Comics #1 in 2010, a copy of Detective Comics #27 featuring the first appearance of Batman was sold for $ 1,075,000 in a Heritage auction. Several factors determine the value of a first appearance. Note: All values are according to ComicsPriceGuide.com and are for editions certified by
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