Superman Through the Ages! Forum

If comic book heroes tell us something, we should BELIEVE them, people!

This is somethiing that bothers me about post-Crisis reboot series like HAWKWORLD: they assume that what the Silver/Bronze Age Hawkman shows us isn't the truth, and doubt the characters at their word for everything (the Hawks couldn't REALLY be here to study crime techniques; they're spies, and they can't REALLY be happily married, it must be a cover story).

It bothers me when people assume that Doc Savage's "Crime College" in upstate New York is a cute euphemism for brainwashing instead of being exactly what Doc said it was: a way to remove people of their evil and antosocial nature medically. Okay, this involves a naive view of human nature and a view of medicine that is based on discredited quackery, further, one that in order to work means you have to ignore that the twentieth century ever happened...but still, it violates the contract between writer and reader to assume that Doc's college is something outside of what he says it is, outside the spirit of the story.

There's no reason to think that E.E. Smith's LENSMAN universe is a fascistic military dictatorship, as some have called it. E.E. Smith made his universe with heroes that were pure and noble fighting against absolute evil. Yes, the book's politics were jingoistic and pro-military and totally without irony, but Smith said Lensmen were incorruptible; they were depicted as heroic characters and that should be respected.

In the end, it's not what "things would be like in our real world." It's about what things are like in the world the writer creates.

In the real world, the Silver Age Hawks don't make sense at all. They dressed as birds despite being from space, and though they studied crimefighting techniques, they worked at a museum and used the objects/weapons there to fight crime.

In the real world, Lensmen would be a terrifying, status-quo enforcing thought police answerable to nobody with all the nasty elements of the military minset (admiration for brutality, resistance to change, unwillingness to question authority) as well as the positive ones the books showed (honor, courage, loyalty).

It's a very nasty, mean-spirited instinct to say "how you saw something isn't how it really happened." The reason is it undermines the contract between writer and reader, our willingness to buy into the world the writer is creating.

This is why the THUNDERCATS comics totally failed to capture the spirit of the original series. Their view of Thunderra as a class-stratified society is cynicism in a context where it just doesn't belong.

This is also why IDENTITY CRISIS is bothersome. Particularly the revalation that ever since the Satellite Years, the JLA has never been the clean-limbed heroes they were "supposed" to have been, and all along performing morally questionable personality switches.

On the other hand, it's not just about being cynical inappropriately; the danger of assuming the writer is a liar can take many forms. One of the worst is "the Punisher, Conan and Wolverine aren't really heroes." Don't get me wrong, the Dirty-Harry-esque reactionary spirit of the Punisher is very alienating (the book sometimes reads like it was a horrible Reagan-era fantasy written by Peter Boyle as JOE, the hippie killer) and the ultramacho vibe turns me off. But still. In the context of the story, the Punisher and Wolverine are the protagonists. They can be likable or not likable, effective or not effective, interesting or not interesting, but it's not fair to the kind of story being told to deny their ability to function as heroes.

I think what you're saying indirectly is that you miss thought bubbles, and the sense of belief that inherently comes with them.

The silver age Hawks were fine the way they were... why not show a MARRIED couple (a rarity in the SA) fighting crime.  It's more contrived to have one Earth, post Crisis, where Carter Hall was Hawkman in the '40's and Katar Hol as the current Hawkman (if that still applies)... or that both Hawkmen are fighting crime at the same time with similar costumes and methods.

And they used Thanagarian technology "behind the scenes"... Absorbatron, their ship, etc and enjoyed using the medievel weapons.

I feel your pain

On one hand I can appreciate what you are trying to say.  You seem to have a problem with people going back and putting something of a modern sensibility to books and comics of the past.  That's cool and all, just not something I can agree with.

As far as the Lensman series or Doc Savage, well people will read into a book what they will read into.  Frankly even if Doc Savage started a crime college to medically remove their evil tendencies for the greater good there is still an underlying fear that maybe his definition of what is good and what is evil may change as time goes on.  Savage could continue being the quintessential good guy, but given how history works (even fictional history when it is interesting) things could change.  It may not be what the writer had in mind, but then again the writer's word on the matter isn't always the last.

There is a term known as auctorial fallacy, which roughly means that whatever the author had in mind for a piece of writing or a movie or a comic book is not the final word on the subject.  There is a relationship between the writer and the reader and in that relationship the reader is going to take away from the book or story or what have you what they feel the piece is about.  If the author of Doc Savage thinks that the Crime College is a place where criminals are "cured" of their evil ways for the good of humanity then that is fine but the reader worried about the concept and what Doc Savage or someone else could do if their definition of evil comes to encompass things like any form of anti-social behavior, like speaking out against the government.

Now, as far as comic books go, well for roughly three decades now writers have been changing stories and histories to serve their own needs.  While in the abstract the fact that Zatanna mind wiped Dr. Light and Batman and so many other characters "changed" the history and removes the rose tinted lenses it doesn't negate the actual stories printed in the sixties and seventies because the original CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS made all of that history questionable in the current context.  The stories before the revelation still happened and happened in the way the writers intended and now there is another version of that history based on what Brad Meltzer brought to the table.

Just because HAWKWORLD came along doesn't mean that the Silver Age Hawkman stories didn't happen.  It's just another version.

I'm not sure that what Julian is complaining about is "modern sensibility." Marxism is...how old, now? Even crime comics are...how old is Detective Comics? None of the ideas that Julian was complaining about are new, so their modernness isn't the problem. The problem, I think, is that these aspects are out of character for many established comic book heroes.

And for people who think that Marvel is more realistic...really? In real life, when you mutate, you get cancer and die. When you are bombarded with cosmic rays, you get cancer and die. If a spider is irradiated, it dies and doesn't bite you...and if it did, it would just hurt really bad. If some kind of gamma ray nuke explodes near you, you either die...or get cancer and die later. And Norse gods do not exist!

My point? There is a place for realism in comics. However, there isn't a very big place for it in Superhero comics, for obvious reasons.

I think the current trend of "forget everything you knew about..." goes back in some part to Alan Moore's 80s run on Marvelman/Miracleman.  In it, he "reveals" that the character's Fawcett-like, fanciful adventures of the 50s were all a computer-generated dream life created by a government agency while Mike Moran and his two sidekicks slept in sensory deprivation chambers.

This one worked, at least from my point of view, for two reasons: one, the "reveal" didn't make Mike any less virtuous as he's not the one who lied to us and two, since I'd never heard of Marvelman until this series, I didn't have any particular attachment to those older stories anyway.

But as with any good idea in comics, this sort of thing has been run into the ground by lesser talents who don't "get" it.  Too many writers fancy themselves some sort of postmodern, deconstructivist, ironic geniuses for taking wholesome fantasies and turning them into some sort of perverse nightmare.

I have enough trouble with today's generation of hacks, who rake in big bucks by doing so-so to awful work on characters invented by superior talents of another generation who never made squat.   But when these idiots add insult to injury by defecating on the characters as well, it's indefensible.  I think DC is beginning to understand what over a decade of this sort of thing has earned them; a box full of broken toys.  

JulianPerez writes:



It's also self-defeating.  Once you've established that stories can be undone at a whim, ret-conned away, twisted or turned on their heads, then there's really no reason to keep collecting comics, is there?  The big draw, at least for repeat buyers, was always that sense of continuity and evolving mythologies.  If everything that happens this month can be revealed as a lie next year, then nothing any creator does really matters at all.  That's why I always roll my eyes at phrases like "this issue: everything changes!"  Of course it does, and whatever changes you make will soon be undone, too.  Keep your comics, I'm spending my money on DVD box sets.



Never read it, never will.  But having said that, I agree with MichaelBailey that you shouldn't sweat it.  Nothing that IC did can change what happened in the real "Satellite Era," just as nothing anyone else has written since 1986 changes in any way what went before in the Multiverse.

The way I see it, official Silver Age continuity began with Showcase #4 and ended either with Crisis 12 or "What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?"  Anything after that is non-canon and I can take it or leave it.  In fact, sometimes I think anything that happened to any Earth-2 character after All-Star #57 is non-canon.



Technically, the protagonist of a story is it's "hero." But that's not the same as saying he/she is "heroic."  In the 70s and 80s I was okay with Wolverine in the X-Men and his own book because he was sort of like James Bond; effective and efficient if not at all the kind of guy you want as godfather to your kids.  On the other hand, making Punisher a hero stands your syndrome on its head; here is a guy created as a villain, or at least an extremely misguided loose cannon, and transformed into a hero by 80's sensibilities.  When the Punisher debuted, he was a blatant theft of Don Pendleton's "Executioner," but I got the impression he was presented almost as a parody, or perhaps it would be better to say indictment of that character.  His methods and his mindset came off as deranged and abhorrent, if not totally unsympathetic.  But when the 80s rolled around with its celebration of anti-heroes, Marvel raided their closet for "good guy killers" and decided Frank Castle was close enough. And suddenly he was played as a straight good guy with no hint of irony, so that now more than ever he is a direct steal from the Executioner, and why Pendleton doesn't sue Marvel I'll never know.

I agree that in the context of his own stories, the Punisher is "the hero" in that we're there to see him succeed in his mission.  But in no way does he deserve to stand side-by-side with the likes of Spider-Man or Daredevil, and as soon as they see him they should immediately commence whipping up on him with a view to capture and incarceration.

Another example of the sort of thing I'm talking about: there was a movie recently about Joan of Arc where she was presented as being someone that is insane and hears voices, instead of a dedicated nationalist, someone mystic and perhaps a little eccentric. It's very damaging to the Joan of Arc story, and to the power this character has over the imagination, to have her be crazy and hear voices instead of having a purpose.

Maybe this isn't the best example because Joan of Arc was a "real" person; I'm talking here about about the Joan of Arc STORY.

Even stories that have different versions need to keep some things in place to have them be effective. There are hundreds of different versions of Atlantis, for instance, but the really effective ones have Atlantis's sinking be a result of the actions of the inhabitants, usually lapsing into decadence, or dabbling in sorcery, or generally getting too big for their britches somehow.

An Atlantis story where they didn't deserve it brings an element of victimization in a story meant to be about pride.



That's an anxiety that can be true for some characters and not for others. For instance, it's hard to really get anxious about somebody like Doc Savage choosing between good and evil.

I recently got ahold of a Steve Englehart interview from the late 1970s or thereabouts, where Steve was asked if he thought Batman was a fascist.

Steve responded something to the effect of, "Batman isn't a fascist...Batman's RIGHT!"

Doc Savage doesn't brainwash. Doc Savage is RIGHT.  :D



You are correct in pointing out that Marvel - JUST like DC - uses old school "magic wands" like radiation accidents and so forth. Superhero comics wouldn't be comics without dubious weather control rays and all that.

But Marvel comics ultimately ARE more realistic. It's not a question of the presence of costumes or fantasy elements or not; it's question of outlook.

The first is that in Marvel there was a sense that change is possible. This is an illusion, for the most part, but an illusion that is very important. Compare Hank Pym and the Wasp to Hawkman and Hawkwoman. The Hawks were in love, they were married, but there was never a sense that would change or be different; their status quo feels extremely static because they are an idealized relationship instead of a real couple.

Compare that to Hank Pym and the Wasp, who are just as much in love as the Hawks but are much more idiosyncratic: he is considerably older and more mature than she is, she flirts with other team-mates to make him jealous. They've been through some downs; witness the brief period in the sixties where Hank Pym was permanently trapped at ten feet in height and he refused to let anyone see him, including her.

This is not to say that characters should just go through downs, of course. But that downs should be POSSIBLE just like "ups" should.

The Marvel heroes had a sense of joy when using their powers and occasionally used them for mischief. In one early Gardner Fox/Mike Sekowsky issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE, "Snapper" Carr even once tried to use a device from a captive criminal to pass a history test, only to be rebuffed by Wonder Woman. "SHAME on YOU, Snapper!" She said. Compare that to Spider-Man leaving passive-aggressive "presents" for J. Jonah in his office, or how he had FUN web-swinging.

Marvel stories, especially in the beginning, were driven by characterization and character's motives on a story-by-story basis. The FF went back in time to Egypt to discover the Egyptians' cure for blindness. The Mad Thinker attacked the Avengers because he wanted to steal Tony Stark's electronic secrets. The Gray Gargoyle attacked Thor because he wanted to know the secret of the Thunder God's immortality. Johnny Storm sought for a way to break Maximus's Negative Zone because he and Crystal were in love.

In other words, there's a difference between the DC heroes and Marvel heroes that makes the Marvel heroes ultimately more real: the DC heroes were driven by GOALS, whereas Marvel heroes and villains were driven by FEELINGS, and more complicated motivations than "serve and protect" or "respond to a crisis" or "take over the world."

The Marvel heroes got BEATEN sometimes. Take the cover to SPIDER-MAN #39 where he was unmasked, captured and powerless before the Green Goblin. The Marvel heroes occasionally were underdogs.

(Bear in mind I'm talking about Silver Age DC - but these arguments could also apply to Bronze Age DC too, because really despite DC's best efforts they were never entirely successful in creating a three-dimensional, Marvel style world, even today. The DC Multiverse is trapped between being two-dimensional and three-dimensional, like an awkward, piebald teenage werewolf in mid-transformation. The exception is Steve Englehart's 1970s run on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, where for nine issues all of the DC heroes had personalities, could change, and were driven by motives...alas, it was all too quick and didn't last, but for a minute there....)



Good point. In order to care about the characters you have to have a sense that stories and their consequences matter. You keep on reading comics because you have an emotional investment in the characters. And this is severely undone by any circumstance that you question what you're seeing as being "true."

I've said this before, and as much as I admire the incredible achievement that is AVENGERS FOREVER, it laid the groundwork for destroying the entire Marvel Universe forever: Space Phantoms.

Space Phantoms can duplicate another character's powers exactly, and sometimes don't even know they ARE Space Phantoms. Thank Rao nobody has picked up on this yet. Because think about it: at any moment, ANY character can be declared as having been a "Space Phantom all along." It destroys a universe if you can't really accept what you're seeing as being real or the truth.



This brings up an interesting point: the danger of taking irony seriously.

E.E. Smith's LENSMAN universe is entirely quite sincere. Though there is also Robert Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, which also has something of a fascistic military dictatorship...whether Heinlein was trying to be ironic or not ironic with that book is something people go back and forth about and have for DECADES, but still, there was a sense of humor about the entire proceedings and if somebody made a STARSHIP TROOPERS movie or TV show that doesn't pick up on the sly "hee-hee's" about military rule, who plays it perfectly straight...not only would it be creepy and obscene, it would miss the entire point.

That's true. "I need to stop the bad guy to take a picture to get money to buy Aunt May's medicine" is a more complicated motivation than "I need to stop the bad guy because I'M RIGHT!" Still, the difference could be the era that these characters came from. DC's most popular characters are, to this day, products of the Golden Age. Marvel's are products of the Silver Age. The popular mentality during the late 30s and 40s was quite different from that of the late 50s and 60s, and maybe we still hold these characters to some of the same standards, of the conditions in which they were created.

Or the answer could be simpler: Marvel's characters are generally younger. Instead of having teenage sidekicks, the teenagers are the heroes, and in a way that makes them seem more human, having to deal with finding dates and paying bills, etc. As for the Bronze Age, I always liked Superboy stories better than Superman, and maybe this is the reason.

Just my two bits of speculation.

I'm very, very tempted to agree with you, however, to be fair, the period we're talking about wasn't all geniuses like Ed Hamilton and Cary Bates. There was Bob Haney and Gerry Conway.

My point here is, that it's possible to enjoy and appreciate something if it is not 100% great, if you judge it by the high points and not the low ones. FUTURAMA was right on the money when they joked that out of STAR TREK's 79 episodes, only 30 are any good.

I'm loathe to give up on DC for several reasons.

The first is there is a lot of writing talent. "King" Kurt Busiek, Gail Simone, Geoff Johns, and occasionally Waid and Morrison if you catch them on a good day. Superman is a recognizable character again, and using his brain, sporting a high power level yet not having this be an "obstacle," and the strong emotional stories (I have to talk about how much I love the Busiek SUPERMAN in a future post; I've been putting it off because I want to talk about it AT LENGTH, which it deserves).

The second reason I'm loathe to give up on DC is because one of the greatest strengths of it is that it is a LIVING universe.

This is why, as much as I love both mediums, ultimately I'm going to have to say I love superhero comics more than pulp magazines: we've seen all 182 of Doc Savage's adventures. We can never have any more.

Okay, there was that Phillip Jose Farmer thing, ESCAPE FROM LOKI, but still...that's the difference between supercomics and pulps: if somebody does a new comics series about a character not seen in decades, such as, say, Englehart's recent BLACK RIDER, we can accept that these are "new" adventures of that character. On the other hand, if you write a "new" Doc Savage book, it's going to come off as glorified fan-fiction.

To a certain extent it goes back to Roy Thomas and his early WWII retcons (The Invaders, etc) or even earlier to Flash of 2 Worlds.

Oh, did Torch and Subby look like mortal enemies?  They were really loyal teamates all during the war!

I can see how Moore was very influential.  Even Swamp Thing was a retcon. (Is that the right word?)


Thought balloons --bring them back!

But I agree that post-Crisis Marvel and DC do not exist.

ulianPerez writes:



Well, don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying it's impossible to do good comics today, or that everything in the Silver and Bronze Age was high-quality. (far from it!)

What I meant was that whatever happened from 1956 to 1986, whether treasure or trash, has to be dealt with in some way and acknowledged as part and parcel of some continuing, evolving vision of the Multiverse.  But in contrast, nothing published after the Crisis can affect in any way what happened in that previous, 30-year period.  

If a writer in 2005 says the JLA performed mind-wipes during the Satellite Era, so what?  He can't touch the REAL Satellite Era, because he's not writing about those characters.  They are gone.  If Frank Miller says Batman kidnapped and terrorized Dick Grayson into being Robin, who cares?  That doesn't change the way it happened in the Golden or Silver Ages.  

There was a time when the history of the Silver Age could be tweaked and re-written, and that time was the Silver Age (and to some extent the Bronze, since it continued Silver Age concepts).  Uncle Morty was forever messing around with the story of Jor-El and Lara, for isntance.  Sometimes in a good way, as with "Superman's Return to Krypton," sometimes in a bad way, as with the Superboy story that had the El's floating around space in suspended animation.  But love or hate those stories, you had to at least put some thought into whether and how they fit the mythos.  You are under no such obligation to reconcile modern stories.  They are interesting, but they only "count" in modern continuity, not any continuity that preceded them.

When DC published the Crisis, they wrote the last chapter on Earth-1 and Earth-2.  Anything after that involved characters with the same names, but different lives.  

Having said all that, it's not impossible for me to enjoy modern stories on their own merits.  After all, I could enjoy some episodes of "Enterprise" without ever accepting that it fit in the continuity of any other Star Trek.  I rather like "The Seven Percent Solution" though I don't for a moment accept it as part of Holmes "canon."  And when Pierce Brosnan's 007 did that embarassing para-sailing scene in Die Another Day, it didn't retroactively taint Sean Connery's portrayal.

Today's DC can say whatever thay like about any previous age, but it doesn't matter.  When they pulled the plug on the Multiverse in 1986, they removed their own power to revisit the era.  They can't have it both ways.

Anyway, coming in at this stage and casting aspersions on Silver Age characters is pretty pointless.  Today's audiences are too young to be shocked or appalled (since they don't even KNOW the SA characters) and anyone with any attachment to the Silver Age has moved on anyway.

Interesting observation. Incidentally, it was Roy Thomas that first coined the term "retcon" all the way back in the INVADERS letters-pages.

Though when Roy the Boy said "retcon," he had a much more specific definition of it than is often used today: "a retcon is a change to the past that doesn't afffect the present." (emphasis mine)

Though I wouldn't worry about the Subby/Torch fights. Isn't it a rule of "guy" behavior that if two guys fight, they later on will probably become friends, but if they go for a long time not talking to each other, they'll probably be enemies forever?

While this may be overall true, is it more realistic to be "feelings" driven than "goals" driven?  There seem to be abundent real-world examples of both...personally, I like heroes to be goal-driven.

I always think its interesting to look at the Justice League's debut in Brave and the Bold and Avengers #1...both have drawbacks, the Justice League acts more in a solo manner, each showing up and being trapped one-by-one...in contrast, the Avengers story is far more focused on heroes matching up to the Hulk, more of a distrust and take each other on angle.

Nightwing, a big fat "Amen" to that.  You have a knack for eloquently stating some of my own feelings better than I ever could --even if I don't like Batman as much as you (who does?).
And maybe I am starting to like Bob Haney A LOT --can't wait to read the second half of his Comics Journal interview, out this month.

Julian, I agree that the Marvelman/Miracleman retcon was inspired and basically harmless.  Especially since it is possible to put quite a bit of stock into dreams (and especially if you know no other reality).

On feelings vs goals --maybe it is more heroic by our (long-time superhero fans') standards to be goal driven since so much of the world seems to be rule by feelings (rage, greed, jealousy, pettiness of all sorts) whereas someone who says what she stands for and what she is going to do is a relative anamoly.

Not to mention an amazing read, too bad it is trapped in legal "heck". If you are going to recon you better make it a lot better than what came before, and he did just that.

99.9999% of all re-cons are not.

Alan Moore is the master of the retcon, but I don't really like Marvelman past Book One. The same goes for Watchmen: it is critically acclaimed out the wazoo, and I own it, but I guess Moore's fascination with Nietzche at the time doesn't quite do it for me. He basically ends up completely deconstructing/destroying all of the characters involved.

Contrast this with his run on Swamp Thing, or Supreme, and it is completely different. He rethinks the characters' origins, but doesn't deconstruct them. Improvements are made, and they end up better characters at the end.

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. I never said you said that. Rather, the point I was making is, that things have to be judged based on their high points, not low ones.

As for your point about DC no longer really having a cohesive history after Crisis, so it's not possible to retroactively affect anything...well, DC Continuity is such a mess post-Crisis that it's become almost an oxymoron. But like I said, the reason I can't really find it in me to "break" the Silver/Bronze Age from the Modern Age is twofold:

1) It's the Silver/Bronze Age versions of the characters (for the most part) that I care about, and all the neat stuff that happened to them that can be fuel for future stories, and if they're not the same, or a continuation, what's the point of Modern books about them, right?

2) As said in the other post, I believe the DC Universe's greatest strength is that it's LIVING. The idea that Crisis was "The End," the time of death written on the patient's sheet, and now the DC heroes are all placed in the company of characters like Holmes and Doc Savage whose tales can never legitimately be continued...well, it does scare the bejeesus out of me.

I can understand, however, wanting something like the Satellite years to be more "legitimate" and have priority over what "really" happened than IDENTITY CRISIS. There are some cases where one book captures the spirit of something so completely that how it sees things is ultimately truer to the spirit of the characters and events.

For instance, there have been ideas about Kang the Conqueror, and I rank them, in order of priority, this way:

1. Roy Thomas AVENGERS/Steve Englehart's "Celestial Madonna" and "Go West, Young Gods"
2. Busiek's AVENGERS FOREVER and "Kang Dynasty"
3. Roger Stern's Kang tales
4. Stan Lee's early Rama-Tut and Kang appearances
5. Everybody Else

(The reason Lee is so low on the list despite the fact he created Kang is the fact that the character was on shaky ground until the Boy and Stainless - for instance, there was the idea in an early Lee appearance that hinted Rama-Tut and Doom might be the same man, an idea forgotten when a much stronger grasp on the character came into play.)

So, if for instance, something in Roger Stern's work contradicted "Go West, Young Gods," it is the Englehart story that is judged to be more "right."

I say all of this because, ultimately, I do want to read good current comics about the DC heroes. I do want to see and think of them as a continuation of what's come before. Someone (I think SuperMonkey) once said that you can just buy back issues and not worry about what's going on now. Though it sounds hypocritical as hell of me to say, as I do spend more money on back issues than new releases, just buying back issues IS NOT THE SAME. It's the difference between wildlife photography and digging for fossils.



Miracleman was very well thought out, and I love the idea that Adam Strange was brought to Rann intentionally (and instead of being its hero, was despised as a primitive barbarian) but Moore as "Master" of the retcon? If anybody deserves that title, it would be Kurt Busiek. Or maybe Thomas. Most of the retcons that I like have been "Kurticons."

First, there was the incredible ball dropped in Busiek's AVENGERS that Ultron was - and always had been - based on Hank Pym's brain patterns.

Then there was the idea in UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN that the Green Goblin lied, and revealed his secret identity to the Crime Master as J. Jonah Jameson.

This sounds like a really arcane little detail, but it really wasn't, at least to me. Some people may envy me when I say this, but I read the early Ditko/Lee AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in those colored paperback sized digest collected versions (along with my brother's MARVEL TALES reprints) without any preconceived notions, with only the foggiest idea of who everybody was, without having all the really shocking developments that happens decades ago totally blown. I didn't know who the Green Goblin was, and the idea totally captivated me; who WAS he?

Then there was the story about Crime Master, where it was revealed that in their team-up, Crime Master learned the Goblin's identity. This blew my mind. Someone out there knew who the Goblin was.

Oh, and then there was the entirety of AVENGERS FOREVER, which did the incredible and made all of Avengers history one big story.

Generally, retcons are better at Marvel than at DC, because retcons there usually don't throw much away, but instead add some little detail that we didn't know before, e.g. that Magneto was a Holocaust survivor, or the Black Panther joined the Avengers originally as a spy. Not to say there haven't been losers; the idiocy Byrne inflicted on Galactus and the Sub-Mariner gets my Irish up to this day.



I didn't like WATCHMEN until I realized that none of the characters in there were superheroes as we would define them. Once that was gotten out of the way, I could appreciate how skilled Moore was at characterization and worldbuilding, and how great the Dave Gibbons art was.

JulianPerez:



Maybe a few of you missed this, because it tells you why I still have a real problem with this "Marvel is more realistic than DC" claptrap. Some of the supposed reasons are given in this very thread: and somehow a neurotic teenager motivated by his feelings is more realistic than a fully mature man who does things because he believes they are right, and because he has made a decision to act the way he does. I will grant you, the neurotically immature are far more common than the mature man or woman who makes a decision to do right, sometimes denying their "feelings" in the process. So what? Spidey (I love him) suffers an accident and starts throwing his muscle around because he's "feeling" so guilty about Uncle Ben. Hal Jordan is chosen as worthy by a higher power and, instead of using the ring to indulge his "feelings" (imagine if a neurotic teenager -- you know, someone "realistic" -- had been given the ring), he actually decides, as a mature man, to do what he believes is right. When he first got the ring, he didn't know he was being watched by The Guardians. He could have done anything he wanted. Since when was a grown man deciding to use power for good "unrealistic", or less realistic than teenagers who indulge their feelings and do things out of immature, selfish motivations?

I think comparing a movie that has Joan of Arc being schizo to Spider-Man is a little unfair. Spider-Man's neuroses and the way he messes with J. Jonah doesn't undercut who he is because...that's who he is! Further, doing and being these things doesn't interfere with his choices to be a heroic character. Crazy Joan on the other hand, never had a choice like Spider-Man does.

The reason it's less realistic is that being goal-centered implies a simplified characterization. The villains likewise, were motivated by a vague, criminal misanthropy, or greed, or alternatively, megalomania. They wanted to rob a jewel, or take over the earth.

Now, compare that to Roy Thomas's story of Kang the Conqueror battling the Grandmaster in AVENGERS #69-71.

Kang the Conqueror faced the Grandmaster because he wanted the Grandmaster to restore his beloved, Ravonna, to life. In all of the ages Kang ruled, no science existed that could bring her back. He was despondent and desperate enough to put everything on the line for her. Kang's desperation and his love are the two motivators for his actions.

Now, later on, Kang beats the Grandmaster, who offers him the choice of Life (for Ravonna) or death (for the Avengers). Kang, enraged at the Avengers for thwarting his will in the story, is so pissed and proud and full of hate, he chooses powers of death so he could destroy. The Avengers barely escape, and Kang is left with his beloved Ravonna, still dead and cold in her glass case.

The reason this is more realistic is because how successfully it cements Kang in your head, how it gives him a degree of humanity besides his status as a conqueror or time-tyrant.

Hal Jordan is a poor choice for an example because he can't feel fear. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he's unrealistic, but the difference between Marvel and DC ini the Silver Age, the key question that was asked, was what would a person without fear really be LIKE?

There was a Christopher Priest series where Hal Jordan suffered from alcoholism. I'm sure the execution was absolutely terrible, but the idea ITSELF I did like for two reasons:

First, alcoholism is a disease, not a moral failing, so it's compatible with a character like Jordan that has been established as beiing honest and incorruptible;

Second and more importantly, it shows us what a person without fear would really be like. It can't be that Hal can't feel fear, because that's downright inhuman. More likely, Jordan's fearlessness is like the fearlessness of people in high-risk occupations like cops or firefighters: they are fearless because they develop the ability to tell their brain, "okay, I don't need to feel this now." And they suppress it. You don't need to be a psychologist to guess at how damaging that is in the long term. People in these occupations are at higher risk for things like alcoholism, because they need an outlet somehow.

When I was a kid, I never took "without fear" to mean Hal is psychologically incapable of feeling normal human fear; but that it means he is extremely brave, and the fear that would stop a normal man doing something would be under control and wouldn't even slow him down.

When the Battery identified Hal as being fearless, it didn't pick out a nutcase, it picked someone who would not hesitate or run away when facing great danger or the unknown.

It's about someone who has control, in spades.

I'm not so sure alcoholism is a disease, but I do agree it's not a moral failing (if I get your meaning) except in one sense. I do have a big problem with Hal Jordan being an alcoholic... It's one of the most pathetic of all human weaknesses and there's this little problem of Hal's chief attribute: his prodigious will power.

I think it's a terrible storyline for a Green Lantern. It just doesn't wash.



I can't see how that makes him a bad example, as I'm talking about the conscious decision a man can make to use power for good, and that such a man is not "unrealistic" while a screwed-up teenager is "realistic". I'm saying one is not less realistic than the other. I hope I'm making it clear. You could pick any of the old DC heroes. I chose Hal because he had power thrust upon him and could have done anything. But I've explained all that.

Anyway, despite not liking my examples, I hope you understood what I was saying.

I don't know the Kang/Grandmaster comic, but that's a clever story, and a tragedy.

Julian Perez writes:



Well, we're still talking at cross purposes.  I don't mean to say the DCU is "dead," but the continuity that existed prior to 1986 most certainly is.

Again, use the example of the Bond films.  My enjoyment of "The Spy Who Loved Me" is not dependent on any belief that it stars the same James Bond who fought Auric Goldfinger.  Roger Moore is James Bond, Sean Connery is James Bond, but they are not the SAME James Bond.  I don't find that threatening.  If I worried about that kind of thing, how could I ever reconcile the scene in Die Another Day where Pierce Brosnan admires the poison-toed shoe he apparently took off Rosa Klebb's corpse...despite the fact that he would have been 9 years old in 1963?

It's the same with DC.  In 1986, everything changed.  Krypton was not the world it used to be.  Kara Zor-El did not exist.  Wonder Woman didn't leave Paradise Island until the Justice League had already been in business for ten years. Obviously nothing that happened in the old continuity happened in the new, or if it did it happened very very differently.

It's not me saying the Silver and Bronze Ages are over, it's DC.  It's been an editorial edict for 20 years and counting.  Now, that's not to say there isn't some crossover.  Apparently some of what happened to the Bronze Age Batman also happened to the Modern Age Batman, for instance.  But that's nothing new.  In the old continuity, there must have been an Earth-2 Kathy Kane Batwoman and an Earth-1 version, and the Earth-1 Batman at some point or other had the bat emblem without the yellow oval.  But how many of Earth-1 Batman's adventures paralleled those of his Earth-2 predecessor?  We never knew.

All I'm saying is that Geoff Johns, for instance, can no more put words in the mouth of Silver Age Superman than Pierce Brosnan can put words in the mouth of Sean Connery 007.  Mike Henry's Tazan may have run around with a gun and briefcase, but that didn't mean Johnny Wiessmuller's did.  And so on.



You give nice examples from Marvel, but they don't count.  Marvel has never had a declared, deliberate cut-off point where they themselves said, "everything on that side of the line is the old Marvel, everything on this side is the new."  There have been bumps, glitches and contradictions in Marvels' evolving continuity, but for all intents and purposes the Marvelverse of 2006 is the one that began in 1962.  That is NOT the case with DC.



That's your preference, and more power to you.  But it's not DC's stated intent.  At least not in the most literal sense.  Of course any new Superman comic that comes out continues the legacy of Superman in the broadest sense, but in terms of internal continuity, there are few if any ties between 2006 Supes and his SA predecessor.  If you don't believe me, pick up one of those "Ultimate Guide to Superman" books at Barnes and Noble and see how much of it relates to the mythos that existed prior to 1986.  NONE, that's how much.

But again, if you mean it in the broader sense, if you mean you want to read a story about a guy from Krypton who wears a cape and does good (mostly), then no problem.  But if you want to read brand new stories about characters who are the same people you knew growing up in the 70s, then you need to stick with Marvel.



Well, that's one way of looking at it.  On the other hand, a person who eschews the latest Patricia Cornwell novel in favor of vintage Dashiell Hammett can hardly be accused of not being a mystery fan.  Yes, Cornwell's stuff is contemporary and more in touch with trends of the moment, but Hammett's stuff is better, period.  Or to make a more precise analogy, a Holmes fan is no less a Holmes fan for skipping Michael Cabon's "Final Solution" in favor of re-reading Conan Doyle's originals.  You could argue that Holmes comes to life every time one of his stories is read.  It doesn't matter if it's the first time you read it, or the fiftieth.  And if my kids read it ten years from now, it'll be new to them.  Likewise Silver Age Superman lives every time I pull out my Showcase volumes.

For some folks, digging up fossils is a bore and photographing wildlife is a thrill.  For others, the fossils are the height of excitement and the last thing they'd ever want to do is be in the company of a smelly, dangerous animal.  Count me among those who prefer the musty scent of old bones to the stench of fresh spoor.



Weren't those fantastic?!!  I've still got mine.  :D

The whole Green Goblin reveal was a mistake and I don't blame Ditko for quitting over it.

Wow, where to start?

I guess with Julian's stubborn inability to separate the Bronze from the Iron Age.



The short answer is, there is no point. Or, the point is to continue making money.  The "neat stuff that happened" to our favourite DC characters before 1986 can certainly be used as fuel for new stories, but not with any sense of continuity beyond the vaguest echo.  At best, these perversions, adaptions, pastiches, and outright plagiarisms of themes, plots, entire stories and characters can elicit a knowing smile of a flash of recognition from older readers and younger archaeologists.  At worst, they only make us sad, angry, and nostalgic for a vanished world.



Of course it is a living mythology (or brand) but the storylines, continuity and characters of the previous generation have been given an ending.  New characters with the same names but different life stories, origins, jobs, friends, memories, and adventures have been set up in their place in this Living Universe.  To apply the analyses and history of the previous, now "dead" characters to their "living" replacements is problematic.  To talk about one storyline being truer to the character, when we are talking about different characters misses the point of Crisis and the last 20 years of editorial fiat at DC.  I can read some new DC superhero comics on their own terms (especially something like New Frontier or the Morrison Superman which seem to be set in a Universe apart --although the Morrison stories are quite slight for a regular payout of $4 or whatever the price is, especially since I'm not invested in the franchise) but I don't pretend that these comics tell the stories of the characters I grew up with (I probably would have the same problem with a current Spiderman comic although, as I've said, I thought the Busiek Avengers/Avengers Foprever seemed to pick things up where I left off, somewhere around Secret Wars I and the advent of West Coast Avengers, etc).

re: Kang

-That early Thomas characterization of Kang was classic Marvle melodrama and very memorable.  I wonder, would anyone be able to read that today who wasn't already a Bronze?Silver Age fan?  
-Didn't Walt Simonson do a Kang/FF/Thor epic?

re: Watchmen

I think they are definitely superheroes as we would define them today. How are they not? Costumed vigilantes with a more-or-less pro-social/moral mission (however erroneously applied or arrived at), special powers, abilities or tools.  Of course, we come to realize that they are all very troubled people and that even with arguably the best of intentions many of them eventually transform themselves into what would be considered villains in a more traditional superhero melodrama.  This is the story the book tells but it does not negate what they are, at least as we experience them initially.

[/quote]

I think there's a perception that there is a deep break point around the time of CRISIS. And there certainly was a break between 1985-1995, as the Original Universe was handed over to "popular" writer/artists that for the overwhelming most part just didn't know what they were doing.

There was an aesthetic break, certainly, and I don't think anyone will argue against there being a division between the Bronze and Modern Age (though I generally tend to put the break a significant time before CRISIS, when it seemed that obnoxious, Conway, was writing EVERYTHING). And as Nightwing has pointed out, there certainly is an absolute, definite break for Superman, and the colossal mess that is HAWKWORLD, as well as for Wonder Woman, Captain Atom, and later for Richard Dragon under I believe, Dixon.

The thing is, though, "hard" reboots like the kind Superman and Hawkman got are truly, truly abnormal and RARE. They were rare then, in proportion, and rare now. Except for characters like Superman and Wonder Woman, most titles had their history intact, with a few details changed, coming out of Crisis.

For example, Sonar made appearances immediately in the two years after Crisis in the incredible Steve Englehart GREEN LANTERN CORPS, which referenced the first Fox/Kane appearance of Sonar and Modora in 1960. The most amusing use of Silver Age DC in Englehart's GL was the story where freaky bathroom sponge headed alien GL Salakk - NOT Hal Jordan - was brought to the future to become Pol Manning!

And this was barely a year or more after Crisis! So I don't think it's accurate to say that even for the majority of DC concepts, Crisis was a catastrophic break with history. Hell, NEW TEEN TITANS and LEGION were still continuing plot threads before, during and after Crisis as if it wasn't going on! It was a severe break with aesthetics, certainly...Green Arrow was doing very ugly and violent nonsense in that Grell series, and with Giffen writing the Justice League everyone came off as slightly mentally retarded, but still, GA and the League were being badly and inappropriately written...but the Ollie Queen in LONGBOW HUNTERS was still very much the Ollie that Elliot Maggin and Dennis O'Neil wrote about.

(Incidentally, a friend of mine, and fellow Englehart fan, had a conversation about which was the best work Stainless did at DC. There was his big trifecta, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, GREEN LANTERN CORPS, and DETECTIVE COMICS, to say nothing of his minor stuff like his brief stint on MISTER MIRACLE).

As I said, "hard" reboots are not the norm and never really have been. The majority of DC titles went out of Crisis with histories a bit garbled (I'm not even going to go into the B.S. Giffen nonsense about Black Canary being a League founder right this frickin' second), but mostly intact.

This actually came up during a conversation in my comics store recently where I argued that the Legion can't survive without a connection to Superboy: the fact is, they haven't: sans Superboy, the Legion has had four reimaginings: the Giffen Legion, the SW6 Legion, the Waid Legion, and the Peyer Legion. Two of these are "hard" reboots. One "hard" reboot is absurdly rare; two are absolutely, totally unprecedented in all of comics history; the only other person I can think of that's gotten two is Captain Marvel.

Why is it important if a character is not "hard" rebooted? If a character is not "hard" rebooted, it means that their past can be drawn on to create future stories. It means that character is a continuation, and something that has a past to draw on, even a brief one, is stronger than a character without this.

In other words, the contemporary Hal Jordan is the same Hal Jordan that was put on a sham trial by the Manhunters for destroying a planet (in Steve Englehart's 1977 JLA run), the same one that fought intelligent Gila Monsters in the 57th Century (in the Kane/Fox GL), the same one that teamed up with first Barry Allen (in BRAVE AND THE BOLD) and later Green Arrow (in the O'Neil book).



I'm not saying AT ALL that new books are intrinsically superior to old ones by virtue of the fact they're new (far from it, in fact, considering all the crap on the spinner rack, and the depressing fact that Warren Ellis is writing comics instead of riveting girders at a steel mill in Dublin like he should be).

What I am saying is that there is a great deal of appeal in the idea that there's an answer to the question, "what's going on in the DC Universe RIGHT NOW?"

As I said with my pulp comparison, we just don't know what the Shadow and Tarzan and Doc Savage are doing right now, and there's no way anyone could give us an answer that would be anything more than speculation, because their stories are DONE. They could be alive and well, they could be dead, they could have children and their children are fighting evil...who knows?



I think you're right to be angry with creators for mischaracterizations that make a character feel like lookalike dopplegangers, and believe me, I sympathize. The spunky Black Canary that refused to go back to Earth-2 so she could be with the man she loves back in the Satellite years, would NOT have had happen to her what happened to her in Grell's LONGBOW HUNTERS.

Still, to paraphrase an American politician, I don't think there's anything wrong with DC continuity (there's that oxymoron again) that cannot be fixed with what is RIGHT with DC continuity. Dinah's still the tough bird she was in the Satellite Years and in that Alan Brennert 1986 SECRET ORIGINS issue...she's had some bad stories, but she's a superhero, she can handle it; she fought the Lord of Time with Elongated Man. She just needs a good writer to write her correctly, that's all (which she's gotten in the person of the incredible Gail Simone).



I see what you're saying, and for the most part I think you're right...however, there's a difference between having a solid, plausible and altruistic personality type that can exist, and being fully three dimensional.

This by the way, is not meant as a slam to the "serve and protect" white male DC heroes of the 1950s to mid 1960s. The emphasis of the writers was on plot, not characterization and what they created was extraordinary.



Yeah, you can't go wrong with Roy the Boy. What a pro! His Superman and Legion stories are brief, almost fill-in arcs, but they were interesting. The Reflecto story in LEGION (which undid the Conway nonsense about Superboy never returning), the "Fortress of Fear" tale, that one where he time travels...

If you want to read it, boy, do you ever have options! Want it in black and white and cheap? It's reprinted in ESSENTIAL AVENGERS VOL. 4. If you want it in color, it's in the KANG: TIME AND TIME AGAIN trade, which has a great Lee/Kirby story featuring the Growing Man and the definitive Roger Stern Kang tale, too. It was reprinted in MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION too...

The idea that this story has been deservedly reprinted while Stainless Steve's JLA run has never been, however, strikes me as monstrously unfair.



The characterizations in WATCHMEN are meant to make the characters as deliberately unseemly as possible; they're superheroes in a very general sense. There's a definite vibe that even Moore himself didn't want us to like the characters. Night Owl looked like a shy, introverted hero type not unlike Wonder Man without major disfunctions, but then...BAM! There's that creepy, creepy scene where he can't have sex without wearing his superhero costume to bed.

Once you get past this, and understand it, is it possible to enjoy the series.

A major aesthetic break and "hard" reboot of half of the top ten superhero properties at DC is what I would call a big, alienating, near-irrepairable break.

You can have Sonar, whatever that is.



Not to me: one or two barely interesting superhero books, the possiblility of a nostalgic animated show or special project, Vertigo titles by people like Cameron Stewart, Gilbert Hernandez, or some old pro, and reprints of classic pre-1986 comics --these are the things that are going on at DC, among thousands of other things, that I am interested in.  I'm glad there are more things that interest you, though.



I will take anyone's sympathy.  Thanks.



Not much right now from what I've seen browsing the racks, reading online previews and millions of websites fill of news and hype about DC comics, but sure, if they have good writing, consistent editing, and great art, I might start buying DC superhero comics for my kid when he is old enough to read.  Otherwise, there are tons of other great comics and manga for kids out there without giving Warner Bros any more money...

I agree with Telle on this. Here's why. The super-people in Watchmen are just a little further along the super-hero spectrum that includes all the characters of yesterday and today. You can follow the progression, from the clean-cut old-style JLA to the neurotic Marvel types, to the vigilante-type thugs, then on to outright scum. You can follow the evolution quite easily, and I suppose you only need pick which part of the spectrum you prefer.

Julian Perez writes:



Well, here I can only look to what DC's stated intent was.  The Crisis was advertised as the end of worlds and the beginning of a new DC. When it was over, there was much braying and ballyhooing about how bold and imaginative everyone was, and how DC was getting a "fresh start."

However, as you say, they muffed it.  Some characters were rebooted entirely, others partially, still others not at all.  Superman and Wonder Woman were re-done from the ground up; they are demonstrably NOT the versions that existed prior to or even during the Crisis.  Batman seemed largely unaffected, except that Jason Todd was a new person in everything but name.  Hal Jordan the rest of the GL Corps were totally unchanged, with hints that they -- unlike other heroes -- retained full memories of the Crisis and the Multiverse that preceded it (this was picked up on and taken further in "Zero Hour", where Hal/Parralax tries to restore the Multiverse).  Wally West, likewise, seems to remember everything, and there are others.

But I wouldn't confuse imcompetence with intent.  DC wanted to change their fictional universe after Crisis #12.  It took them several months to get started with Superman, even longer with Wonder Woman, and years later in Zero Hour we got still more tweaking (like un-solving the Wayne murders).  Hawkman and Power Girl are still being re-booted every other month.  The fact that DC is too disorganized, unfocused and untalented to do the job right doesn't mean they weren't trying.



Yes, but then he'd also have to be the same Hal who murdered several fellow GLs and went nuts for no good reason in "Emerald Twilight."  (That's right, no good reason.  What did Coast City mean to Hal? He hadn't lived there in years).  If you're going to exercise the right to see a continuation in spite of DC's clear intent, then I'm going to exercise the right to imagine a clear ending for "old Hal" in 1986, despite evidence to the contrary.

For that matter, since I was a kid I've felt free to accept or reject any story I've read on a case-by-case basis.  This month Batman fights the Joker?  Canon.  Next month Batman finds his long-lost older brother?  Doesn't count.  Superman learns his glasses hypnotize people?  Doesn't count.  And so on.  The only difference lately is that instead of only throwing out a month here and there, I've thrown out about 20 years.  That doesn't mean I don't read the stories, and even enjoy some things about them. But for me, they don't "count." I don't commit them to memory and add them to my overall picture of the characters.  They're just excercises in speculation, like your example of modern-day Shadow or Doc Savage tales.



For you.  For me, there's a lot more delight in the answer: "I haven't the slightest idea!"  :wink:

Wow.. what a thread!!

I do agree with points on both sides, Julian, as I see it, is looking at it from and entertainment POV ("Hey, they're comic books... I enjoy them) and nightwing is looking at it from what the DC mgt tried to accomplish.

I agree with you, nightwing... the COIE was supposed to, from a managemt POV:

Clean up the muddied multiverse
Clean up errors in continuity
Give the DCU a fresh start

Well, over the years it evidently did none of that.  Even at the time it did none of that.  That's why we need little reboots like Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis.  Long gone are the days of Morty and Schwartz who would edit dozens of magazines at a time (didn't Julie edit EVERYTHING it seemed in the '70's?), thus ensuring continuity.  Now either Batman is an urban legend or he's not.  Superman wasn't born but conceived in a birthing matrix or he wasn't. So on and so forth.  There's more confusion today that there EVER was!  Then when Hypertime was introduced to give us a bone, that was taken away, so to speak...

Recall, too, how beautiful and peaceful the unified Earth was at the end of COIE?  How different it turned out!!!!

NOW, there's talk of the JLA finding a second Earth soon, with it's own JLA and JSA.

ugh!

But then again, it IS only fiction... so we SHOULD be able to enjoy it for what it is.. but it's like a hyped up book that lets you down, cause it wasn't that great to begin with...

I never believed that...

Comics sales were lagging, big sci fi and fantasy movies with special effects were becoming common, video games were out of the arcade and into homes...

DC wanted a multi issue crossover blockbuster and probably thought little beyond that...if it was about a too complicated universe or a fresh start, DC as a company would have had a comprehensive plan on how to re-start each title, or introduce interesting new titles.

Right, DC never does anything without thinking it through.   :roll:

Ever see the scene in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" where Pee-Wee takes a header off his bicycle and ends up rolling onto his butt, only to announce, "I meant to do that!"

Repeat this scene over and over for 20 years and you've got the post-Crisis history of DC editorial.

Well, really wanting something, and thinking it through are two different things... 8)

Actually, since no remnant of the Crisis was really the same as what it was before, the implications of a reality with no accurate or even "true" history is actually a very difficult thing to write...and to make it plausible would probably take a few years of pretty boring stories.

We are on the 3rd Superman reboot since Crisis.

1st the Dreaded iconoclastic man of steel reboot.

2nd "the well at least he tried but it wasn't as good as we wish it was" Birth right reboot, which I don't think no one really brought, including DC Comics.

3rd the current so far so good post-IC reboot which is showing a lot of promise, but many people here are playing to wait and see game after being burn for 20 years.

Well, that says something about Superman anyway...at least people keep trying and don't let him go...

If I recall correctly, the explanation given during Steve Englehart's GLC Crisis tie-in issues is that the Green Lantern Corps were in the antimatter universes while the other heroes were trying to save the positive ones (which explains why John Stewart, who was Green Lantern of Earth at the time, for the most part was absent during the Crisis itself).



I wouldn't consider any of those to be "hard" reboots besides the 1986 one with Byrne, Wolfman, Helfer and the rest, because for the other two, Superman's background is tweaked, but Superman's post-Reboot history is for the most part still in place. The Superman that Busiek is writing about still experienced some of the great Roger Stern outer space stories, and (groan) the Death of Superman; he knew Steel just how we saw it, and Maxima and Riot, and so on. Things like whether there was a Superboy or not is different, but Superman's post-1986 history for

In other words, saying "...Oh by the way, he might have been Superboy now" doth naught a reboot make.

Though except for Roger Stern's stuff, I absolutely hate the overwhelming majority of this entire period as being a clueless waste (which is why I'm on this website in the first place). actually, I think the fact that it is for the most part still around is actually a good thing.

I suppose that's an inherent difference between me and perhaps Nightwing and others (though I would not want to put words in his mouth, of course), which is that I don't think the solution to out of character behavior is necessarily to expunge the story in question from continuity forever; such a solution is good in the short term, but disastrous in the long term.

The reason is, we are made to question what we are seeing as being "true," so it's not possible to have any emotional or long-term connection to a character or world. If nothing really matters, if anything can be called a hallucination by the next writer...who cares? This ties into the theme of this entire thread to begin with, that the thing that usurps suspension of disbelief the most, is we doubt what is going on.

It is true that many characters have been written in really out of character ways that are really destructive. Nightwing brought up the whole Parallax B.S. - a piece of nonsense perpetrated because the editorship refused to admit that they made a mistake. But I don't think pretending Parallax never happened is really the solution, because like or not, so much has been done with it that it's not possible to bring Hal back without referencing it.

Ultimately, I like how Geoff Johns brought back Hal Jordan, with the whole "the devil made him do it" explanation for Parallax that preserved Hal's heroism and let him return without being "broken goods," but still having in play this very dark chapter of his life that he can look back on and have it influence his characterization.

I don't think it's possible for a story to be so destructive that never again can we accept a character, if they're placed in a framework where their actions make sense. Kurt Busiek once said, and I agree with him, that "Don't worry, they're superheroes. They can handle it." Electric Superman was retarded beyond all reason, but ultimately Superman as an idea has the resiliency to bounce back from something like that.

Boy, did I ever think that Jim Starlin was full of it when he said that any Thanos story that he didn't approve of (in other words, any Thanos story not written by HIM) "in reality" featured a Thanos clone or robot.

>>
Why is it important if a character is not "hard" rebooted? If a character is not "hard" rebooted, it means that their past can be drawn on to create future stories. It means that character is a continuation, and something that has a past to draw on, even a brief one, is stronger than a character without this.

In other words, the contemporary Hal Jordan is the same Hal Jordan that was put on a sham trial by the Manhunters for destroying a planet (in Steve Englehart's 1977 JLA run), the same one that fought intelligent Gila Monsters in the 57th Century (in the Kane/Fox GL), the same one that teamed up with first Barry Allen (in BRAVE AND THE BOLD) and later Green Arrow (in the O'Neil book). <<

Except that the current Hal probably doesn't recall meeting Superboy/teenaged Clark Kent when both of them were teenagers (in an 80's "Superboy" comic I have)... just like Ollie probably doesn't recall meeting Superboy in that early 60's "Superboy" comic... or Hal not recalling trying to go to Earth-2 and failing (in a 1970 JLA/JSA crossover)....and so forth. While almost all of Hal's pre-Crisis adventures still "happened" to the post-Crisis version, it's the "almost" part that's the sticking point in both the old and new Hal not being the exact same guys... :-)

Maybe some of you need to re-define what a re-boot is. I can't stand any of that rubbish about Hal Jordan being an alcoholic and going mad, and being a super-baddie trying to kill the whole planet... or whatever it was.

He was re-booted before, to his detriment. Have another look at Green Lantern #76. What do you call it when a character's whole personality is changed, when his strengths are swapped inexplicably for weaknesses, and he starts taking it where the sun don't shine?

In that issue, DC exchanged Green Lantern for a whole new character who wasn't Hal Jordan anymore. Whatever happened after that was happening to Version 2.

How far back does the term "re-boot" even go?  Just back to the computer terminology?

This is the same guy as Silver Age GL?
http://zonigang.hot.lu/users/4944/k7busrnifyw879wz1654gsoyy2gfhd.jpg

Not even in anyone's worst nightmare!

I think that is an example of what Julian has been calling a "soft reboot".

Here's how I've been thinking of the terms:

"Hard" reboot:
-character basically reinvented with new or radically reimagined origin, history, friends, abilities
-old continuity and adventures are ignored and essentially "never happened" --the character has no memory of them
-usually accompanied by a clear break from the past character in the form of a new series, costume, etc.
-examples: Silver Age GL, Flash, Hawkman; Byrne Superman; Perez Wonder Woman; clone Superboy; that Fighting American thing (jim Lee?)

"Soft" reboot:
-slight changes to setting, personality and/or abilities of characters, usually within continuity so that the character remembers his previous adventures and situation --a "tweaking" or rebranding without the benefit of a totally fresh slate
-many parallels to a retcon, wherein history of the character is creatively reinterpreted to give a different emphasis to events
-examples: Spiderman's black costume, Wally West Flash, Mod Wonder Woman

I agree these were really lousy stories. However, I don't think the fact that Hal Jordan that was once Parallax (especially since "the Devil made him do it" as Geoff Johns asserts) necessarily leaves him totally unable to be a heroic character in the future. They're superheroes, they can weather these things.

Further, nobody can tell me that the Englehart-written Hal Jordan (which was before, during and after COIE) isn't the "real" Hal Jordan. Englehart's take on the character was so worthy, true to life, and interesting that if he ain't Hal, nobody is.



Yeah, that sounds about right. There were reboots prior to the computer age (Jack Kirby taking over the Sandman, for instance) but they weren't actually called that until the computer age.

I'm very interested to find out the origin of the term "boot" and "reboot," which is something I'll have to research, because I'm betting that it actually involves kicking the machine!

TRUE STORY: For a philology course, my final term paper, which was to use firsthand research to uncover the origin of a contemporary word. My word was "debug."

The term "debug" in computer terms goes back to the 1940s, when Dr. Grace Hopper found her several-ton military computer wasn't working, because it had inside of it a hornet's nest! So, she had to get some spray and workmen to "debug" the computer.



These sort of shifts are very disruptive and annoying, to be true. I think it's up to every individual person to determine to what extent these sort of little tweaks work or don't work.

But not all tweaking is created equal. Changing some details fundamentally alters who a character is, but changing others doesn't do this.

For instance, changing the detail that Krypton's destruction was a tragedy, fundamentally alters the Superman story in a very significant way (arguably, to its detriment).

But changing the fact that Oliver Queen once helped Superboy before his costumed career began by dressing up as Robin Hood to a costume party, and using GA's first "trick arrows..." If that never happened, I think Ollie as a character won't be that different.

The computer term Boot (start) comes from the term Bootstrapping.

from Wiki:

The term bootstrap is believed to have entered computer jargon during the early 1950's by way of Heinlein's short story By His Bootstraps first published in 1941.

Bootstrapping was shortened to booting, or the process of starting up any computer, which is the most common meaning for non-technical computer users. "Bootstrap" most commonly refers to the program that actually begins the initialization of the computer's operating system, like GRUB, LILO or NTLDR. Modern personal computers have the ability of using their network interface card (NIC) for bootstrapping; on IA-32(x86) and IA-64 (Itanium) this method is implemented by PXE and Etherboot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28computing%29

Well, it's important enough that the next episode of Smallville is based on that classic silver age story.

While the verb form of boot in romance languages seems to mean "to kick", it seems that bootstrap and boot has more to do with "begin again" or just "begin"...

The reason I'm interested is that the term co-incides with computer usage but also a time when comics casting around for new approaches was happening...I suppose its mere coincidence, but comics are pretty unique in telling new stories about the same characters for decades.