Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Melter

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep....Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Melter

Melter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable comic book bad guy, appeared in a few issues and was killed off. No sources except the comic books themselves. Lord Uniscorn (talk) 09:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional characters-related deletion discussions. —Pixelface (talk) 14:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. —Pixelface (talk) 14:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep well writen OOU style. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, the character's appearances span over 25 years. Looks notable to me. And comicbookdb and marvel.com look like good sources. --Pixelface (talk) 23:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
• Merge to a character list. The character is fairly obscure. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. The character is not obscure, he has been a recurring Iron Man villain from the 1960s to the present day and fouding member of the Masters of Evil. The character did not "appear in a few issues and was killed off", apparently the submitter is unaware of the character's history. --Pc13 (talk) 08:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

He's obscure from an out-of-universe perspective. How much has been written about the character by reliable secondary sources? WesleyDodds (talk) 09:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, he is obscure outside his specific medium. That in itself does not mean he's not notable. Secondary sources for Marvel supervillains? Let me know so I can buy the book too. If you need third party sources for the Melter, then please start AFD'ing more comics articles in general. That said, there is a profile at ironmanarmory.com and The Marvel Bad Guys site and is induction into the Masters of Evil is mentioned here. So there, sources. --Pc13 (talk) 14:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Those are fan sites. Those aren't reliable secondary out-of-universe sources. And yes, the Melter is obscure. Few comic fans can name an Iron Man villain beyond the Mandarin, much less the Melter. The Melter simply isn't all that notable. Hell, the first time I saw the cover to the Avengers issue where the Masters of Evil debuted, my first reaction was, "Who the hell is the Melter?" WesleyDodds (talk) 01:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep. The character is notable within the context of the Marvel Universe, and has been a regular player for over 40 years. The fact that one poster has not heard of the character is not grounds for deletion (they obviously just need to do more reading). By that logic, any character that WesleyDodds has not heard of must be deleted. The Melter is a recurring Iron Man foe, who had also been placed in a nav box - proof positive that he has been acknowledged as a strong member of said character's rogues' gallery. Therefore, it is a strong keep. Asgardian (talk) 01:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have heard about the Melter. But the character is certainly not "notable within the context of the Marvel Universe, and has been a regular player for over 40 years". Notability in a fictional context is irrelevant, and it's not like he's Thanos or something. How many appearances has the character even made? WesleyDodds (talk) 04:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

At least 10 appearances, so there you go. There are articles on characters that have appeared a mere 1-2 times. Asgardian (talk) 02:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Ten appearances in over forty years is quite miniscule, especially given the medium. The fact that other characters have made less appearances yet have articles is irrelevant. Featured Article subject Jack Sparrow has only appeared in three films, a few spin-off books, and some video games, but he's an infinitely more notable character than the Melter. WesleyDodds (talk) 04:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Why are you comparing a film character to a character from comic literature? That makes no sense. Your whole argument seems to be based on your POV. This statement "The Melter simply isn't all that notable" proves as much. The villain has destroyed Iron Man's armour twice, has been a significant player in the Masters of Evil and was killed by the Scourge of the Underworld. The fact is that the character is significant, and as a character in the Marvel Universe deserves an entry - something all the other major Iron Man foes have.

Asgardian (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Delete or Merge - without prejudice for recreation if notability is established. However, I believe extant notability guidelines require reliable third-party references, and I don't see any such yet. John Carter (talk) 01:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep per above Keep votes. The fact that he is dead isn't a problem; his death was part of a major storyline involving a vigilante murdering supervillains. This storyline still affects comics today - take a look at the characters involved in current issues of Thunderbolts. BOZ (talk) 02:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I posted this in my vote on the AfD for Ringer (comics) and am reposting it here as the point is the same: There may be important questions to ask about such middle-rank comics characters, in relation to WP:FICT (and I know I have spoken to various people about this as a lot of the lower level and mid level characters should probably be merged into a characters entry) but I think that requires a broader debate. Deletion is a poor interim solution and, as the entry looks solid enough, I am voting to keep it, at least until the broader issues can be addressed and resolved (not dealt with piecemeal like this) - at which point we might want to return to this. (Emperor (talk) 17:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC))
  • I find this AfD discussion to be rather unusual. The usual case is for a few people to argue to retain the article because, in spite of the lack of third party sources, the topic has notability. Then one or two editors find a third party source, and then the debate ends with an improved article. Here, we have a person arguing to "keep per the keep" votes! Asgardian asked me on my talk page why I nominated the article for deletion, and stated that the comic books themselves are the sources, which they are not. Is there no one who works on comic book articles that is also good at finding sources, or is this a willful refusal to agree that outside sources are required? Lord Uniscorn (talk) 05:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I did, but they were dismissed as "fan pages". Which, in this business, is as good as you can get. As you're probably aware, scholarly research about comics centers more on the art form itself, or on the work of creators than in appreciation of the published work, with a few notable exceptions. So, we need to rely on online sources. One of the sources I pointed out, the Marvel Bad Guys Page, has been online since 1996. It deals with a variety of supervillains, explaining their strong and weak points. I fail to see what's unreliable about that. --Pc13 (talk) 08:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm intrigued as to why this was a reply to my views on the issue - I not only added a reference but I am arguing that entries like this shouldn't be deleted (hence the keep) but that we might want to do something with them in line with the guidelines - which might mean nearly all low-level and a good slice of mid-level comics characters being merged to another entry. I ave taken this discussion over to the Comics Project talk page and invite people to address the wider point there. (Emperor (talk) 17:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC))
  • Outside sources are not actually required when considering this (taken from the equally bizarre AfD on Ego ):

The comment "primary sources do not count as reliable sources" is erroneous. For over 40 years the comics have been the primary sources. When Fantastic Four #48 (vol. 1) was published, it featured the first appearances of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. This is fact. This was the primary source - there was no other. To this day, the comic is used as the main source, a point acknowledged on both characters' article pages.

Also, hundreds of characters have never had a comic of their own. Again, this is not grounds for deletion. Do the master villains like Magneto; Ultron and Dormammu have their articles deleted because they never had a series?

Finally, there is the comment - "personal belief that the character is important". This is also a fallacy. If a character has appeared in over 3 decades of comics printed by a publisher, then they themselves deem the character important, and it is this notion that others now support.

Asgardian (talk) 10:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep Gman124 (talk) 15:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep He was a member of one of the first (and longest-lived) supervllain teams in Marvel (if not comics in general), was one of the first killed by the Scourge of the Underworld (Marvel's attempt to 'clean house'). He may not be as notable an Iron Man foe as Justin Hammer or Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger or the Mandarin, but that doesn't mean he's not notable at all. --Dr Archeville (talk) 16:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep- I have no other words to say ;) StarSpangledKiwi (talk) 20:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I found a reliable source for this one, Lord Uniscorn. Does anybody have this book? (The second one down?) Without the book, it is hard to know what it says in order to properly reference it in the article. Blast Ulna (talk) 22:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Do you mean "500 Comicbook Villains" By Mike Conroy? BOZ (talk) 22:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes. Do you have it? I put the link to the search returns because that was the only way to prove that Melter is in there. Blast Ulna (talk) 00:54, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
      • No, unfortunately I don't. I was asking, because when I clicked the link that was the first book rather than the second. :) I started a thread here regarding that source; maybe we'll find some leads. BOZ (talk) 01:11, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Those of you arguing keep are making a mistake that I myself made when I first began participating in deletion discussions; that is, you're assuming that this character passes notability standards for fictional characters simply because he is an important figure in the work. This is simply not the case. If I wrote a comic tonight that was centered on a character called Admin-Man, would he be notable? Certainly not, no matter how important he is in my comic. Now you might be thinking, "Sure, but this isn't any old comic, it's Iron Man for Pete's sake!" Indeed, but remember, notability is not inherited. Yes, Iron Man is notable, but that doesn't mean every character who has ever graced the pages of the comic is. All that being said, I imagine it is quite possible to find some sources on this character; primarily, I'm thinking Wizard will have covered him at some point. If we go by the letter of the law, this looks like a delete at the moment. However, I think this is an instance where ignoring the rules benefits the encyclopedia. faithless (^speak) 09:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Once again, and I'll keep saying this until it sticks, the comics are the main sources. This was the case for decades when they were being sold at newstands, before there were comic shops selling additional material or even an internet on which to create sites. Past example - Fantastic Four #48 (vol. 1) IS the main source on the first appearance of both the Silver Surfer and Galactus. This is fact. That additional literature came later is a happy bonus. The comics - certainly in the case of Marvel - were also proven to be more reliable than the supporting literature as they constantly proved the later Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe incorrect.

As for the "Admin-man" example, there is some truth in that not every character who graced the pages of a comic is notable. I don't see all the "one-off" foes that Iron Man dealt with in what were usually fill-in issues as being significant. The Melter, however, is. Why? Because with over 10 appearances - which is very notable in comic terms - the character is an integral part of the Iron Man mythos and larger Marvel universe. Again, if Marvel repeatedly insert the character into over 3 decades of comics, then they themselves deem the character important. Asgardian (talk) 10:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The comics can't be used to establish notability. For that we need independent, third-party sources. I really don't know how to state it any clearer. It doesn't matter how important a character is within the series, it matters how important he is in the real world. The comics can be used to verify information about the character (such as your Silver Surfer example), but can't be used to establish notability. If they could, Admin-Man would deserve an article! He's the main superhero in Wikitropolis, after all! faithless (^speak) 11:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) Then the Wikipedia rules need to be altered. By that logic, there would be almost no comic-related articles. Asgardian (talk) 11:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Some people might like that. It would be advisable to work instead on proving that certain internet sources are valid third-party sources for the comics. There was a similar discussion regarding computer science, where the computer guys (reasonably successfully) argued that if a website had editorial control over its authors (so that what was published there was subject to some quality control) then that webpage could be a source for Wikipedia. Are there such sites for comic books? Blast Ulna (talk) 14:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

How about this one? Several authors contribute items under a fixed format. Ironically, the site is self-described about "obscure" characters, so the Melter isn't there. Also, how do you establish notability for a comic book villain? Sales of the comics in question? Constant and repeated use by different creative teams? Appearing in other media adaptations? Action figures? --Pc13 (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Close, but there does not appear to be any barrier to anyone uploading incorrect information to the site. I suppose that use of a character as an action figure, would be an indication that it is notable, especially since there is very likely books out there on collecting action figures. Blast Ulna (talk) 23:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Keep There seem to be less notable characters with articles and this character's appearences seem notable enough to keep the article even if he's currently fallen into disusePalendrom (talk) 11:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.