nightwing:
Anyway, the only down side of the whole "Multiple Earths" concept was that it was the beginning of the notion that every inconsistency can somehow be explained away.
I suppose you're right. But the problem, to be more specific, was brought to my attention by a comment of India's:
India Ink:
Every time DC tries to explain....
The company never used to explain things, or "explain away" things. Why did they ever feel they needed to start?
Now, my favourite version of Superman is O'Neil's from the "Sand-Superman" saga. But, is he the same Superman from other stories I love? Is he the same Superman as the one from "Superman's Day of Truth"? "The Super-Prisoner of Amazon Island"? The deformed Superman from "Love is Blind"? The Superman who lost his powers in "Who Took the Super Out of Superman"?
The answer is, for me, yes, it's all the same Superman. Call him the Earth One Superman if you like, and I'm OK with that. But to me he's just Superman. I don't need anyone to try to explain away the perceived differences in the character, especially not the company. I couldn't care less. I love each and every story on its own merits.
The continuity for me is that it's all Superman.
India Ink:
....it develops it into a rigid scheme that reinterprets those 1940s stories as if they were set on Earth 1--overlaying the continuity of a later date onto these stories and ignoring contrary continuity as anomalies.
This tortures logic.
It does.
Your "retroactive continuity" tells us the Golden Age Superboy must have been Earth One Superman as a boy, but this is best left as the private thoughts of random readers, or a subject for discussion between enthusiasts. I'm probably with you, in that I could read a Golden Age Superboy story and have no desire whatsoever to try to fit it into the Earth One chronology of DC's long and amazing history. I can just take it for what it is, a little gem of a story that lives or dies on its own merits, and -- I'm not sure how to put this -- my mind is firmly in the Golden Age as I read it.
The mistakes come in, I feel, when the company tries to explain things. They will never get it right and they should stop trying to get it right. Let the fans argue. That's part of the silliness of being a fan of
anything.The company could concentrate on delivering great stories. NOT on creating thin, multiple-issue episodes that owe greatly to the past and also to the future -- doubly in debt -- but on rich, satisfying stories that stand on their own merits. And this may leave the reader with a genuine and long-term desire to purchase further stories. It's like a good, hearty meal versus a junk food meal. On the one hand you may have free range roast chicken (cooked by your wife), carrots, peas, roast potatoes, and gravy -- and on the other hand you will have a franchise burger, french fries, a big Coke, a plastic-wrapped, microwave-heated dessert bar, and a little plastic tub of potato made by mixing hot water with dehydrated flakes. Now, one meal will satisfy you for the entire evening and make you feel great; the other meal will fill your guts, but not for long, and you will want another the same in maybe two or three hours, and you will feel a little "off" into the bargain, as if you missed out on something.
Now, there is a logic some may see, that says hook the customer into the cheap, greasy, sugar-rush meal, because, before you know it, he'll be back for more. And that's true. But is he a "satisfied customer"? I don't think so. I think he's coming back because he's a dissatisfied customer, only he doesn't know it. And does this produce those winning comic book sales figures? The evidence says no. Why? Because there just aren't enough people who are addicted to junk.