Hal Pictures Green Lantern Butt's FOREVER!: The Importance of Birth Order

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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

The Importance of Birth Order

This is a rather odd hypothesis, and I'm not even sure that I have formed it fully, but this is the sort of thing that I get idly musing about. Does your own order of birth have any connection with your preferences in favorite characters?

I'm the second oldest in my family. And it occured to me, with something of a slight shock, that a great number of my favorite characters are ALSO the second children.

Hal Jordan for example. He's a middle child, with an older and younger brother, and the older one, was something of a bully.

Guy Gardner is a second child, and we all know how WONDerful Mace Gardner was. Mr. Golden Boy, and also something of a bully.

Jack Knight is a cool character, and lo and behold, his older brother David was occasionally a douchebag and a bully too.

Heck, even Wolverine had a creepy older brother.

There do seem to be a lot of only children out there, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Flash(Wally anyway), Aquaman, Kyle Rayner, Capt. America, presumably Hawkman, Barbara Gordon, Ted Kord, and probably a ton more.

It's rather nice I think, when superheroes have siblings. Jaime Reyes is actually the oldest, but at least he has Milagro. Booster Gold has Michelle. Even J'onn J'onnz had an evil brother.

And then there's the orphans. Man oh man, are there a lot of orphans. I think that it may be easier to name the superheroes that HAD a two-parent household growing up than the number of orphans, or at least single or widowed parents.

Jaime Reyes heads that list, he has some of the most awesome parents around. Also high on that list are Jonathan and Martha Kent. Bats may be an orphan, but at least he had good and loving parents for a little while. Guy had two parents, although I'm doubtful about the good and loving part. Still...they were at least there. Hal had two for a while, and as much as his mother can annoy me, she did her best to raise three boys on her own.

There were a number of fathers that deserted the families, such as Booster's and Kyle's. I can't think of too many where the mother deserted, although there are a bunch where the mom died. So, I suppose, in a way, that superhero families are pretty much like the rest of the general population's, not at ALL typical. I've rather lost the gist of my original thought however. Do any of you find that you are skewed towards liking a particular character in relation to your own birth order? Do orphans drift towards Batman and Robin? Adopted aliens just naturally like Superman? Single offspring like Tim Drake?

Or am I just blowing smoke?

10 Comments:

At 8:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There do seem to be a lot of only children out there, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Flash(Wally anyway), Aquaman, Kyle Rayner, Capt. America, presumably Hawkman, Barbara Gordon, Ted Kord, and probably a ton more.

Pre-Crisis, Barbara Gordon had an older brother, I forget his name. Wonder Woman had a sister Nubia, Aquaman had a half-brother Orm, and even Batman had a mentally-damaged older brother, Thomas Wayne Jr!

 
At 8:30 AM, Blogger B.G. Christensen said...

Post-Crisis, Barbara had an adoptive brother, James Jr., but I think he and his mom were killed a long time ago and pretty much haven't been mentioned since.

 
At 8:51 AM, Blogger Sea-of-Green said...

I'm the first-born in my family, but I tend to be attracted to second- and third-borns. When I meet other people who are also first-borns, I usually tend to dislike them (before I even known their birth orders). I think because we're so competitive, first-borns tend to see each other primarily as rivals.

 
At 11:48 AM, Blogger The one letter wonder said...

I'm the same way as you Sea of Green (atleast when it comes to birth order stuff,lol)

 
At 12:02 AM, Blogger MetFanMac said...

I'm the eldest and I love Jaime and Booster, but that's because they're so AWESOME :-)

 
At 5:14 AM, Blogger SallyP said...

I knew I'd make the assumption that certain characters were only children and then discover that there were a myriad of temporary siblings in the Silver or Golden Age closet.

I'm sure that you're right Totaltoyz, but for in the interests of my own sanity, I'm ignoring all that.

I don't know if birth order makes a difference in the way that different characters relate to each other as well. Maybe that's one small reason why Batman is so insufferable.

 
At 1:09 PM, Blogger Saranga said...

I'm a twin and definitely do not like twins in comics, or fiction generally for that matter.

Partly because they tend to be identical - in real life that freaks me out, in fiction it's just lazy.
Partly cos they tend to be psychic, which is just a lame ass obvious dull plot.
Lastly also because twins tend to finish each other's sentences and rot like that.

And that's just the good guys. Don't get me started on the bad guys.

And no, I'm not an identical twin.

 
At 5:52 AM, Blogger SallyP said...

Saranga, are you the evil twin or the good one?

 
At 7:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

a myriad of temporary siblings in the Silver or Golden Age closet.

I'll concede Nubia and Thomas Wayne Jr., but Aquaman's half-brother Orm, better known as the Ocean Master (card-carrying Injustice League member), certainly isn't that!

 
At 8:01 AM, Blogger Saranga said...

Oh the evil one definitely!

 

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