Template talk:Infobox superhero/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Is this template needed?

Is all of this sub-trivial information necessary? This isn't the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe; we don't need to list that the Invisible Woman has an unnamed aunt or that Gambit was briefly involved with the Crimson Pirates. If the information is pertinent to the character's history, it should be mentioned in the actual article text and given context; if not, it shouldn't be presented at all. -Sean Curtin 01:28, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

This template was on the checklist of things to create as part of WikiProject Comics. So, I created it. Minor details should indeed be left out, and I'll do that in the future. --brian0918™ 01:33, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've added 'notable' to a couple of fields to make it clear that the info shouldbe a summary, not exhaustive. -- Vodex 08:39, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
I think having the summary information is helpful, as long as it is a summary/short list of reasonably important info to the characters (As opposed to adding stuff that's never kept to, e.g. height, weight, power levels, aliases used in passing, etc). Especially, in relation to the "Notable Powers" section of the infobox, given the occasional propensity of some people to add a bunch of psuedo-scientific guff that either has no basis in the comics or is copyvio from the Official Handbook/etc to the main article "Powers" sections (see Hulk (comics) - powers for a particuarly bad example that's actually broken out into it's own article. And I seem to recall it being worse at one stage before the breakout...) -- SoM 22:22, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Well, that's essentially the point that I was making. Gambit refers to Gambit's alliance with the Crimson Pirates (which lasted for about one or two issues, tops) and his alias of "Le Diable Blanc" (ditto); are either of these relevant to the character as a whole? Invisible Woman gives us several context-free aliases; anyone reading that and seeing that she was once called "Malice, Mistress of Hate" or "Susan Benjamin" either won't have the slightest idea of what that means or refers to, unless they've already read the stories that these aliases came from (or any Official Handbook entries that explain said aliases). That article also uses some pretty egregious pseudo-science: "Psionic manipulation of ambient cosmic energy to mentally bend light for invisibility. Her body cells produce an unknown form of energy that she can mentally project around other people or things for invisibility. She can also mentally project protective force fields originating from hyper-space." The superheroboxes are, thus far, either redundant with the article (telling us the character's real name and first appearance when these facts are given in the intro paragraph), or are uninformative infodumps that provide data without telling the reader what that data means. -Sean Curtin 23:13, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure that the powers you've mentioned above can be explained in physical terms. Should they just be left out? What's the point of comic book superheroes then? --brian0918™ 23:28, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
No, the guff should be left out. For this specific example, "Invisibility, force-field generation" for the box is quite sufficient (in other cases, you might need to phrase it as "Ability to XXX", but that's it). The powers section in the main article doesn't need to be quite so concise, but describe the effects of the powers, not irrelevant pseudo-science about how they're generated.
And there should be nothing in the box that may be misleading out-of-context without it being in the main article in expanded form SoM 23:56, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Also, adding these lengthy boxes en masse is not a "minor edit". -Sean Curtin 23:13, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
I'm just modest I guess, or I always forget to uncheck that box when necessary. --brian0918™ 23:28, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In theory I agree with the idea of an infobox, but there are a few things that bother me about this one. This infobox is pretty huge on a 1024x768 monitor and overpowers the text of the article. This sheer size of the box also creates a whole whack of problems with regard to formatting and inclusion of other images unless it's a really long article. The colours for the infobox serve no purpose because someone would have to visit Wikipedia:WikiProject_Comics to realize what they mean. The infobox tries to summarize too much information, eg. previous affiliations and relatives. I agree with Sean that if information is relevant to the character's history, it should be mentioned in the actual article text and given context. I'd prefer to see a small simple info box that contains a good image of the character, character name, publisher, first appearance, and creators. (Sort of like the top half of the current superherobox.) --NormanEinstein 16:43, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

300 pixels is way wide for an infobox. Template:Albumbox is 225 pixels, I think, and the taxoboxes (which I think are the oldest and most well-developed infoboxes) are 250 pixels. If we're having trouble making the template skinnier, then perhaps we need to rethink its design. grendel|khan 20:53, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
I've had thoughts on that score for a while. How about this? - SoM 22:43, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Wolverine #17
John Byrne, artist.
Wolverine
 Real name James Howlett
 Publisher Marvel Comics
 First
 appearance		 The Incredible Hulk #181
 Created by John Romita, Sr.
Len Wein
Stats
Status active
Affiliations X-Men
Previous
affiliations		 Secret Defenders, Devil's Brigade, Four Horsemen, First (Alpha) Flight, Weapon X, Canadian Parachute Battalion
Notable
aliases		 Logan, Death, Patch, Weapon X
Notable
relatives		 Viper (ex-wife)
Notable
powers		 Healing factor
Adamantium-coated bones, including retractable claws
Enhanced senses


Err, I dunno. Removing the tables from the infoboxes isn't that great a solution because then it makes our infobox look different from all the other infoboxes on wikipedia. A similar change was shot down on Wikipedia:WikiProject Arcade games. I think we should keep the tables unless all the other wikiprojects agree that the borderless tables are the way to go. I kind of think its important to have consistency across all wikipedia and wikiproject topics. However, maybe we could collapse all the inner tables? Something like this. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:16, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
Wolverine #17
John Byrne, artist.
Wolverine
Real name James Howlett
Publisher Marvel Comics
First appearance The Incredible Hulk #181
Created by John Romita, Sr.
Len Wein
Statistics
Status active
Affiliations X-Men
Previous
affiliations		 Secret Defenders,
Devil's Brigade,
Four Horsemen,
First (Alpha) Flight,
Weapon X,
Canadian Parachute Battalion
Notable
aliases		 Logan, Death, Patch, Weapon X
Notable
relatives		 Viper (ex-wife)
Notable
powers		 Healing factor
Adamantium-coated bones, including retractable claws
Enhanced senses


Aliases

Should the "Aliases" field be including catchphrases like "The World's Mightiest Mortal", "The Amazing Amazon", "The Pliable Paladin"? --Paul A 04:31, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

They ought to be in the article text telling the reader that (for example) "Superman is often called the Man of Steel and the Man of Tomorrow", not put into the template. -Sean Curtin 02:44, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
I agree. I think the definition of an alias is that it's an alternate name chosen by the subject and not something that others started calling him. That's a nickname. dfg 02:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Equipment/Paraphernalia section?

In some cases, a character's equipment/tools/gadgets etc doesn't make sense in the Power box. Should a 'notable equipment' field be added?

  • Is this overkill?
  • How would it affect current templates?

--Vodex 22:13, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

A generic "Notes" or "Other" section could be added for any other comments. -- BRIAN0918  22:26, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That would be open to abuse, though, filling the section up completely
My first choice would be to leave it for now, but I'd prefer a specific Equipment section to a "notes" section. Anything which needed to go in there should just be in the main text - SoM 22:31, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Nature of Relatives

A list of things must be determined about the relatives section. To sum:

  • Do clones count?
  • What is the proper formatting for relatives that are also superheroes or supervillains? Is is it "Real Name (Alter-ego, relation, status)", or "Real Name (relation, status, Alter-ego)", or something else?
  • How far should they go? Should they include grandparents, aunts and uncles, or what? Should they include people not related by blood, outside of wives and husbands?

Apostrophe 05:15, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is all IMO, but...
  • Yes

--El benito 16:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC):*Not sure on the formatting

  • I would go with "people who have, or could support, their own entry," rather than a complete list - ergo the "notable" - SoM 11:45, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Seconded. dfg 02:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

For the formatting, I would just stick with Character name (relationship) and put deceased inside the parentheses as well if they're deceased. (ex: Sabretooth (father) )-- BRIAN0918  13:20, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You are forgetting alternate reality genetic parents. --Chris Griswold 18:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

In the interests of pushing the discussion further, I draw your attention to the ultimate acid test: the Hyperstorm family tree! As a challenge for us to draw up some guidelines, I've added in any character with their own article who holds any position on Cousin chart, including clones and alternate realities/timelines... and an adopted son from a deleted future timeline of a clone of the half-cyborg son from the never-quite-anulled marriage of the clone of the grandmother with the genetic grandfather. All I need to do now is whip up an article for Scotty from the Mutant X comic book and then we'll be able to invent a whole new world for the relation of an alternate reality son created by an affair of the maternal grandmother with a paternal grand-uncle! weeeeee coffee! --El benito 16:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

You missed X-Man (Nate Grey). - SoM 17:40, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Ha! Good point. He's in there now. I miss anyone else? Bueller? Bueller? --El benito 21:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Kang the Conqueror? Immortus? Iron Lad? --Chris Griswold 01:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Oooh tempting, but probably not doable since it has't been proved :( --El benito 04:40, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
what about gambit? in x-men the end it was shown that gambit is a partial clone of cyclops now since "the end" titles aren't neccasarily considered canon wouldn't it be atleat an alternate/timeline reality releative? --scorpionspupil 13:52, 2 september 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have to admit that was more than a little bemused that the relatives field had gotten disabled completely as fruit of the Hyperstorm experiment, but it's time to make this work again. I say keep it specifically to parents/siblings/offspring. No grandparents, uncles or aunts, unless they fulfill the role of a parent (Aunt May). From the superbox, I also say we cut out all clones and alt universes. Those can be mentioned in article. Include a section on relations if necessary, but the superbox needs to be limited to the type of information you'd find on a baseball card (which I think is the best way to think of it). Use normal names via piped links. Curious minds can click or read the body of the article. We either have to keep this very strict, or we're going to have to follow through with the preliminary judgement and just strike the field altogether. --El benito 05:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Color Scheme

I'm a little confused about the use of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Color scheme, particularly in regards to America's Best Comics. ABC used to be an imprint of Image comics, and is now part of DC. For a series like Promethea, the series was primarily under Image. Should I use the Image or DC color? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:15, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

You might just want to use the "Other" color. --brian0918™ 19:22, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, there was some precedent on the Tom Strong page for using the DC Comics color, so I figure as long as all the ABC comics use the same convention, it's probably fine. Thanks. -DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:59, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

infobox borderless

Has the "infobox borderless" class been changed? There's something pretty funny going on with it's white-space. Until I find out what, the main class for the table will stay on the old one. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 03:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Ever heard of trying to get consensus for major changes? - SoM 03:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
I forgot the width parameter! That's what went wrong! Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 04:10, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Image centering?

What happened that caused the image to be on the left as opposed to the center, like it was before? --DrBat 00:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've reverted the most recent change. That seems to have fixed it. --DrBat 01:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Don't understand how making the image parameter optional broke the centering in Internet Explorer, but then IE's CSS rendering is, and always has been, screwed up badly. Showed up fine in Firefox. *makes note to test in IE next time...^ - SoM 05:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Statistics?

Hello, I came across this template on the Batman page, and see that the bottom half goes under the unlikely heading "Statistics". May I ask you to please think of another heading, guys? The word statistic (and its plural) have several distinct meanings; under none of them can "real name" or "special powers" be considered examples. I do appreciate that popularly (and erroneously), the word is sometimes employed in this way, but it shouldn't be in an encyclopedia. Thanks! —Encephalon 15:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me; any suggestions? dfg 02:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
'Character Information' or 'Additional Information' or ... 'Vital Statistics'? -- Ipstenu 15:17, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I just changed it to "characteristics". --P3d0 12:54, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Non-vertical lists and punctuation

Me and User:Lesfer think it would be a good idea, both practically (saves space) and aesthetically (less white space, especially since we want short powers descriptions in the Infobox), to change the template's Notable Powers section from a vertical list (with all the <br>s in it) to a not-vertical list. We wanna reach consensus on it, too. Also, I believe most manuals of style state there's no need for punctuation at the end of a list such as this. dfg 02:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Alternate Reality in the Super-hero box

i remember there being an official line on alternate reality relatives and teams here but can't find it. relatives (in continuity) are listed and "notable" if they have a page on wikipedia. but what about batman, who lists several of his alternate reality children, plus several out of continuity WWII teams.

his relatives look like this:

Thomas Wayne (father, deceased), Martha Wayne (mother, deceased), Phillip Wayne (uncle and foster father, deceased), Alfred Pennyworth (butler and foster father), Dick Grayson (adopted son), Jason Todd (adopted son), Helena Wayne (alternate reality daughter, deceased), Ibn al Xu'ffasch (alternate reality son), Terry McGinnis (alternate reality biological son)

Not only, is there Earth-Two, and Kingdom Come info, there's continuity from television.

What's the deal? Opinions anyone? ---Exvicious 08:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

SupaBox usage on mult character pages

I'm trying to rough out a page for Mister Fear, who's had 4 different people wear the costume. None of these had particularly different powers or interpretations of the character, but had different identities/debuts/relatives. I can't personally justify splitting the character into 4 separate articles, but if I put in 4 superboxes it doesn't look pretty. I'm not aware of a way to make the superboxes line up with the content subsections.

For another example, consider the Serpent Squad article. Are we going to put a bunch of superboxes in there? How?

--El benito 19:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Check out Mister Terrific (comics) 161.38.222.14 04:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
That looks...er terrific, but the difference between Mr Terrific and the 4 Mr Fears is that at least for the moment, there isn't enough notable information to usefully pad the text column until it's as long as or longer than the superbox. I could try adding whitespace to the entries (is that even possible on MediaWiki?), but that would only work well for people with the same text size --El benito 17:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
There's not much info in the boxes anyway. i'd just throw in the relevant info in the article. 161.38.222.14 20:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Status variable

Declaring that a character "is" alive, dead, inactive, etc., contradicts the MoS guidelines for writing about fiction—fictional stories exist in a perpetual present. The complete lack of context for this description renders it nonsensical as well; a fictional character is depicted as deceased in X work, not actually deceased. I think a much better use of this would be to convert it to stating whether the character is currently being published—is there an ongoing comic book series that features this character? If not ongoing, the last appearance can be given, or perhaps just a statement like "occasionally appearing in JLA." Thoughts? Postdlf 06:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Status should not be included. That is for the article to explain. --Chris Griswold 06:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I think you've got an excellent point there. I've had problems figuring out what to do with that myself. Dead/alive, active/inactive are very poor descriptors given not just your reasons, but also how comic book characters so often "get better" despite whatever straits we last saw them in (most recently for me The Venture Bros. :D ). I think publishing status and/or last appearance could work, but Chris has a point with just axing the whole damn thing too. --El benito 22:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I was about to bring this up when I saw that it already had been... brought... up. I agree it should be removed, for the same reason we shouldn't use "recently." --Newt ΨΦ
I disagree. With serial fiction, there is a distinction between the archived stories of 10 years ago and the stories that are unfolding now. In ensemble stories such as X-Men, there is also a huge difference between "not currently appearing" (a phase every character goes through from time to time) and "currently dead" (all jokes aside, sometimes comic book death is very permanent). With something as important as "Is this character currently alive or dead?", it's worthwhile to have that fact at the top with the character description. I'm sorry I got in late on this discussion. I was just surprised to see the "status: deceased" tags disappear all of a sudden. WallyCuddeford 08:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I also disagree. I think that A) there is an implication with infoboxes that this is how such and such a character is depicted, and B) that if status is an issue because someone is depicted as dead rather than dead, what about their powers? They don't have those, they are merely depicted as having them. Code name? Real name? Relatives, teams, associations? I may be misunderstanding this, but please clarify how status is different from any other bit of info in these boxes? And if it's not, then either status should be restored under my assumption of A, or these boxes themselves aren't viable, if that makes any sense at all. Darquis 21:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Postdlf had a compromise for the "affiliations" variable that could be applied to all of the questionable variables/fields (and would also make them more informative and out-of-universe) the character's team affiliation would be included with the issues of comic books the character was a memeber of the team. Status could be the same, as could powers, however, this could get rather unwieldy. --22:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
If what he suggested works for affiliations, I'd be willing to go with that for status as well. Basically we're just citing resources in that case. But I can definitely see it getting unweildy..I just dislike this whole out of universe writing as it applies to superboxes.Darquis 00:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I think status could be turned into the current publication status of the character, with a concise explanation: "lead character in ongoing monthly titles Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, and Ultimate-Spider-Man;" team member in monthly title New Avengers;" "Recurring villain in Flash, last seen in #506"; "Not currently published; death portrayed in Mongomangamania #5 (Jun 1987)," "Not currently published; last seen as backup feature in Crack Comics #39 (Mar 1950);" that sort of thing. This should be easy for lead characters; it will be trickier to establish a clear convention for more trivial ones. Maybe we should list out the possibilities, and try to come up with a set of simple terms that can then be elaborated upon by parentheticals? Postdlf 00:43, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I also disagree about the status box. It should be included. I just came to this page to find out if a particular character was deceased or not. I don't want to read his whole history just for that. For encyclopedic uses, it should be included. scarecroe 15:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I recommend reading the end of the article, then. --Chris Griswold (☏) 09:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I think status is pretty relevant, at least as much so as anyting else going in the boxes right now, even if it can be mercucial at times. To me, it's exactly what type of information the SHB should contain. Darquis 18:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The status may be relavant (and yeah, it really is in a lot of ways), but it's also damned hard to come to a consensus as to what it should be. Depowered, active, inactive, retired, kind of retired, missing, dead, resurrected ... the list of what you can put in is nearly endless, and at that point it ceases to be useful and just gets messy. Unless we can come up with a strict list of what belongs there, it's dead useless. -- Ipstenu (talk|contribs) 19:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Not only that, it's difficult to maintain uniformly. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 19:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with listing a character as depowered, active, inactive, retired, kind of retired, missing, dead or resurrected? The policy should be that only one at a time applies. —scarecroe 19:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Nothing's wrong, but the list isn't consistant or quantified (nor was my example nearly complete as based on the myriad of options I've seen used in the Status field), and the 'status' is dependant on publisher, in-story understandings, and it's helpful when so many heros are flipping back and forth between statuses. Which is ongoing and eternal. You also have people who put in 'Repowered via

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