ICONIC BONDING PT. 2

My entire formulation of bonded ensembles is oriented upon trying to discern which subordinate icons are, or are not, bonded to which superordinate icons in terms of alignment.

Here's my first statement on the ways in which a given subordinate icon, in particular a famous villain, is aligned with a given superordinate icon:

The first appearance of an antagonist often determines his alignment for the foreseeable future. No matter how often the Joker appears in features other than those of Batman, he remains known as a Batman foe.

Now, I said "often" because there have been times that a subordinate icon (I may as well say "villain" for the rest of the essay, since that's the only icon I'll address here) is introduced under the mantle of a given "hero," but the latter has not yet been aligned with a strong superordinate icon, Thus Thanos first appears in an issue of Iron Man, alongside a heroic subordinate icon (Drax the Destroyer), but Thanos is in a "floating alignment" until he's aligned with Captain Mar-Vell.

I've established so far that if the Joker had appeared in a Batman story before Batman teamed with Dick Grayson Robin, Joker would still be aligned with Grayson-Robin, but that no Bat-foe who meets Batman after the dissolution of the bonded ensemble is aligned with Grayson-Robin. But how does this theory apply to the next strongest form of ensemble, the "semi-bonded" ensemble?

Here, I will draw, as specified, upon the AVENGERS title as an example of a semi-bonded ensemble. 

In the earliest AVENGERS stories, all members of the team had their own features. In AVENGERS #6, Baron Zemo, making his first appearance, brings together three villains from each of three heroes' features: the Black Knight from GIANT-MAN, the Melter from IRON MAN, and the Radioactive Man from THOR. As soon as these established villains appeared fighting heroes with whom they were not aligned, this resulted in a charisma-crossover.

However, the reverse is true when a villain introduced as a foe to the Avengers-team fights one Avenger, because by fighting one Avenger, he has in essence declared war upon them all.

So when the Living Laser debuts, he's obviously aligned with all of the Avengers he fights.

But say for argument's sake the Laser never fights the Avenger Iron Man within the sphere of the AVENGERS feature, but that his first one-on-one encounter with the Armored Avenger takes place in the first of two Iron Man stories I analyzed here. This would not be a charisma-crossover, because of the ensemble-bond between Iron Man and the other Avengers. I will leave open the question of whether this bond extends to Avengers who have very limited stints as Avengers, though. Spider-Man was an Avenger for a time, but his time in the group was so short that this membership did not become a major part of his mythos. Thus in his case the Laser fighting Spider-Man in the latter's solo feature probably would qualify as a charisma-crossover, because the bond between Spider-Man and the Avengers is so transitory.

Short-lived team memberships characterize the last form of ensemble discussed, the unbonded ensemble. In addition to the example of a short-lived membership in a greater group, this applies also to such phenomena as "rotating teamups" (such as THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD) and to short-lived partnerships. For instance, for about two years the CAPTAIN AMERICA feature was transformed into CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON, but the escalation factor was not sufficient to create a bonded ensemble. Therefore the Falcon is in alignment only with those Cap-villains he encounters, but not any villains before or after the limited partnership.

Rotating teamups have a similar impermanence, but they incorporate a different alignment-dynamic. I've stated earlier that when the Second Molecule Man debuted in MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, wherein he fights the temporary team of The Thing and The Man-Thing, the villain became equally aligned with both icons, despite his father's association with the Fantastic Four. But if one of the temp-team's villains has fought one of the two hero-icons, that villain remains in alignment with the hero with whom he (or she) has been previously acquainted. The above seen villain Blackstarr first appeared as a Supergirl villain. Then said villain appears later in a DC COMICS PRESENTS teaming up Supergirl and her cousin Superman, and thus there is a charisma-crossover there between Blackstarr and Superman. This crossover-over vibe would not exist, hwoever, if Superman were simply guest-starring in a Supergirl story wherein he and his cousin fought Blackstarr as the menace of the day, and both Blackstarr and Superman were subordinate icons within Supergirl's story.