Is it even desirable at this point for the Multiverse to return?

[JulianPerez]

The attempts to graft new, complex and "adult" personalities onto these characters (many of whom are already very complex --we are talking about the Clark/Superman duality here constantly) almost always fail and are almost always pathetic.

I'm not certain what you mean by "adult" in this context, but I see no reason why trying to make a previously two-dimensional character three-dimensional is necessarily doomed to failure.

There was a trend in the eighties to nineties by making previously upright Silver Age characters creeps (Howard Chaykin's TWILIGHT comes to mind, as does HAWKWORLD) but this is a massive case of writers of limited abilities like Grell and Chaykin just not getting it, being dishonest to the characters, and by trying to go for shock value.

And adult comedians, underground comics and Mad Magazine have had a field day with Tarzan's sexuality.

Yeah, but that's different. TARZAN is so over-the-top supermacho that, like cowboys and gladiators, he verges into unintentional gay camp.

Doc's problem is that everything about the concept comes off abnormal to many people...because it's so squeaky clean in the context of the pulps.

And while you're at it, why not get rid of the genre trappings (by which I mean the chief markers --the costumes) so people will take you more seriously?  What you have left are adventure stories with fantasy or sci-fi elements, a la the X-Men movies, Heroes TV show, Dr. Who, etc.  Leave the crazy science and outright, careless fantasy to the kiddies.

My response is this: costumes and crazy science can co-exist with a story being taken seriously and not talking down to the audience.

Also, it's not a slippery downward slope as you're making it out to be. Just because the Crocodile Men from Punkus, Lexor, Kanjar Ro, and the Kite-Man are appallingly lame and impossible to take seriously...does not necessarily mean ALL fantasy/science elements that we call "comic book" should be removed and are lame. Thanos sure isn't, nor is Mordru, the Dark Circle, or Atlantis or the Savage Land.

When people say something like "superhero comics are fundamentally for kids," or alternatively "superhero comics are now for adults," I'm not sure how to respond, because I've ALWAYS thought, even reading superheroes as a kid myself, that superhero comics are a challenge, and they work best when they talk up to their audience instead of talking down.

The smarter a story is, the more able adults are to appreciate it, the better off it is - EVEN if it is a children's story.

When people say "superhero comics are adults," my kneejerk response is, "What do you mean? Superhero comics, at least the good ones, always have been for adults." I'm talking about books with wild adventure fantasy, like Gerber's DEFENDERS or METAL MEN the Englehart DOCTOR STRANGE or anything by Len Wein.

Are superhero comics grown-up? Only if they do it right.

With the return to roots feel of comics, do you think we'll see pulp style superhero comics? You know with less comic panels and more written pages?

I don't think so, because the current trend in superhero comics, personified by writers like the hacktastic Warren Ellis, is to consider comics more like movies. The panels are now wide and "cinematic," and some of the more unique things comics offer, like caption boxes and thought bubbles, are not being used as often. Marvel and DC recently both got rid of their letters pages.

Though getting rid of letters pages - and the sense of community they created - is really a crying shame, as are things unique to comics like the thought bubble...the wide, cinematic panels are interesting, especially when used to give the story a big-budget, sweeping scope, as was done in Johns's JSA.

[jamespup]

I too miss the letters pages, but being able to participate in this forum is by far a much better way to go !

[TELLE]

The attempts to graft new, complex and "adult"
personalities onto these characters (many of whom are already very complex --we are talking about the Clark/Superman duality here constantly) almost always fail and are almost always pathetic.

I'm not certain what you mean by "adult" in this context, but I see no reason why trying to make a previously two-dimensional character three-dimensional is necessarily doomed to failure.

There was a trend in the eighties to nineties by making previously upright Silver Age characters creeps (Howard Chaykin's TWILIGHT comes to mind, as does HAWKWORLD) but this is a massive case of writers of limited abilities like Grell and Chaykin just not getting it, being dishonest to the characters, and by trying to go for shock value.

While I still think Chaykin's Blackhawk and Shadow hold up fairly well as examples of this trend, I agree that much of what was done in those two series was done for shock value (in the sense that hiring Chaykin --period-- guarantees a certain take on characters).  The grim morality of Chaykin's characters (from American Flagg! number one: "cruel but fair") is consistent with the puritan attitude of most pulp and early kids' superhero comics characters.  A "real world" reading of these figures that actually worked for me at the time (the premise of the strips being "how would a superhero/adventure hero really behave in a setting more akin to a contemporary crime thriller or tv drama, all things being equal, and how can we do it while making reference to previous incarnations of the character?").

That being said, some characters have more room and continuity for this kind of treatment.  Chaykin generally chose characters who weren't archetypal superheroes (did anyone read his recent Bruce Wayne elseworlds?) --masked avengers, sci-fi heroes.  Blackhawk's origins are partly in aviation strips like Terry and the Pirates --complex serial melodramas intended for adult audiences.  What I meant by "adult" is the idea that by giving a previous whitebread Captain Wonderful character (or even a previously "bad" badguy like Blackie) a few bad habits, sometimes-crippling self-doubt, and graphic violent outbursts, you are creating 3-dimensional characters for a non-teenage audience.

And while you're at it, why not get rid of the genre trappings (by which I mean the chief markers --the costumes) so people will take you more seriously?  What you have left are adventure stories with fantasy or sci-fi elements, a la the X-Men movies, Heroes TV show, Dr. Who, etc.  Leave the crazy science and outright, careless fantasy to the kiddies.

My response is this: costumes and crazy science can co-exist with a story being taken seriously and not talking down to the audience.

Also, it's not a slippery downward slope as you're making it out to be. Just because the Crocodile Men from Punkus, Lexor, Kanjar Ro, and the Kite-Man are appallingly lame and impossible to take seriously...does not necessarily mean ALL fantasy/science elements that we call "comic book" should be removed and are lame.

Just the costumes.  And just in non-preteen "superhero" comics.  I love the absurd things you mention, and can appreciate them as an adult, in the same way all age groups can watch not only silly kitsch intended solely for kids but also Bug Bunny cartoons or John Ford's The Quiet Man.  The problem is balancing the two impossible things in your head at once.  I like to imagine impossible things before breakfast as much as the next fella but suspension of disbelief becomes harder in superhero comics (more than any other) the more elements we are asked to keep in the air.  He comes from Krypton? Sure.  He wears his underwear outside his pants? Okay.  He pretends to be a nerd all the while playing mindgames with his girlfriend because she has cooties?  This is getting weird ... but fascinating.  He lives at the North Pole and uses a giant key to open his giant door?  Ah, definitely a kid's comic ... but weird ... and fun! He fights bad guys for a living?  Of course!  All the bad guys are hard-ass horror-movie monsters, serial killers, and rapists with mullets, camouflage pants and spiked collars and are poorly drawn, to boot?  Gross!  This is stupid!  I'm outta here!

When people say something like "superhero comics are fundamentally for kids," or alternatively "superhero comics are now for adults," I'm not sure how to respond, because I've ALWAYS thought, even reading superheroes as a kid myself, that superhero comics are a challenge, and they work best when they talk up to their audience instead of talking down.

Agreed.  Many of the best Silver and Bronze Age stories did this.

When people say "superhero comics are adults," my kneejerk response is, "What do you mean? Superhero comics, at least the good ones, always have been for adults." I'm talking about books with wild adventure fantasy, like Gerber's DEFENDERS or METAL MEN the Englehart DOCTOR STRANGE or anything by Len Wein.

So "always" means since 1969 or so? I grew up with the increasingly complex soap-opera plot juggling of those 1970s comics as well (and you're right: as an 9-year old I enjoyed the skirt-chasing of Beast and Wonder Man in the Avengers, the big government interference of Peter Gyrich (sp?), and the life-and-death decisions heroes were faced with --certainly more "adult" than the televised superheroics of Batman or The Six Milion Dollar Man) but there came a point when the degree of complexity stopped working for me and the experiment passed its sell-by date (to mix a few metaphors).  For me that coincided with my entry into adolescence --at a time when (maybe also coincidently?) superhero comics were experiencing the effect of things like Crisis, Dark Knight, etc and plunging into the post-Watchmen world of hyper-violence and deconstruction that, in the hands of lesser talents and fan-boys, could only read as derivative and over-written failures.  The decline of the superhero comic.  Hey, all art forms and genres have a decadent period before they are finally eclipsed!

 

[Michel Weisnor]

BTW,

People seem to be missing the REAL reason why DC is introducing a new version of the Multiverse. The reason is the same as to why they got rid of the original version in the 1st place.

That is because, Marvel has a Multiverse and and it's big with their readers. I believe they call it the Marvel Omniverse or something.

"Omniverse" is the collective multiverses, including DC and Marvel (at least that's the way it was explained to me ).

Marvel understands the multiverse concept and uses this device quite often. As an example, during Morrison's run on New X-men, his last arc: "Here Comes Tomorrow" was redesignated Earth-15104. If Marvel doesn't know where a storyline fits, it's retconned to another Earth. 

[JulianPerez]

While I still think Chaykin's Blackhawk and Shadow hold up fairly well as examples of this trend, I agree that much of what was done in those two series was done for shock value (in the sense that hiring Chaykin --period-- guarantees a certain take on characters).  The grim morality of Chaykin's characters (from American Flagg! number one: "cruel but fair") is consistent with the puritan attitude of most pulp and early kids' superhero comics characters.

Don't get me wrong, I like Chaykin and I agree with what you're saying. The fault is more with the folks that had the bright idea to hire Chaykin for a project he was obviously wrong for, as he was with TWILIGHT. I was mentioning TWILIGHT in the context of a trend.

Just the costumes.  And just in non-preteen "superhero" comics.  I love the absurd things you mention, and can appreciate them as an adult, in the same way all age groups can watch not only silly kitsch intended solely for kids but also Bug Bunny cartoons or John Ford's The Quiet Man.

I can't believe you compared a loser like Kanjar Ro or the Crocodile Man from Punkus to early Bugs Bunny or THE QUIET MAN.

I'm not sure how to respond to something like this, because the idiocy and ridiculousness of Kite-Man should speak for itself.

The burden of proof shouldn't be on me to explain why a villain who wears a hang-glider shaped like a children's toy is a laughably terrible idea.

Okay, here goes:

I don't think any of us would be here unless we're classic comics fans. One of the most appealing things about older comics is their weird and fascinating charm.  But...at the risk of stating the obvious here...not every idea is a good idea, even if it is in a silly, or rather, playful idiom.

Hawkman and Hawkwoman, in their Silver Age incarnation, made no sense at all, but it all worked. It had a wonderful adventure spirit that made you stop asking why a guy and girl from outer space were museum curators and used things like 13th Century glaive-guisarmes instead of phaser guns. It was essentially absurd and appealing for that reason.

But underneath the B-movie Nth Metal pseudoscience there was a core of a really great adventure character. Hawkman and Hawkwoman are STRONGER, not weaker, because they aren't packing Kirby BFGs like you'd expect aliens to. The Absorbascon is over the top, but astonishing. With someone like Kite-Man, though, there's no there there.

Nothing bothers me more when people come down on some of the more fascinating and beloved elements of superhero comics as being childish or stupid. But I save my industriousness for concepts that are worthy of being defended. Just because something is from the Silver or Golden Age does not automatically make it a good idea.

There are some occasions (I'm not saying you, of course) where some Silver Age fans defend a character or concept that is absolutely lame, like the Purple Man or Bat-Mite, because they interpret an attack on this concept as being an attack on the Silver Age in general, and they defend this concept in the mistaken belief it is defending the Silver Age in general.

All the bad guys are hard-ass horror-movie monsters, serial killers, and rapists with mullets, camouflage pants and spiked collars and are poorly drawn, to boot?  Gross!  This is stupid!  I'm outta here!

Though I agree with your spirit, in the interest of fairness, Superman in the 1990s did not fight any character like that. Superman in the 1990s has enough flaws that there's no need to invent any.

Anyway, in terms of hideous fashoin statements, Vartox's outfit, reminiscent of Mr. Slave from South Park, has all the nineties guys beat hands down.

Plus, Jerry Ordway did Superman in the 1990s. I wouldn't call that "badly drawn" by a long shot. Again, I agree with you about Superman in this period, but I'm not 100% comfortable with blanket generalities like that.

Marvel understands the multiverse concept and uses this device quite often. As an example, during Morrison's run on New X-men, his last arc: "Here Comes Tomorrow" was redesignated Earth-15104. If Marvel doesn't know where a storyline fits, it's retconned to another Earth. 

Though I always found Alan Moore's CAPTAIN BRITAIN fascinating (especially with art by Alan Davis, arguably the greatest artist of our generation)...it bothered me because it was very much a "DC" book, with Captain Britain as a Silver Age style white male hero. In other words it was Marvel aping DC, down to the multiverse concept: a reversal of the "natural order." DC copies Marvel, not vice-versa.

My point here is, Marvel has parallel universe stories; they're a comic staple right up there with time travel and microverses. But the multiverse as it is presently used in Marvel, in stories like the Abraxas tale in FANTASTIC FOUR, is a DC-style take - which is not fair to the Marvel Universe's identity.

[DBN]

Though I agree with your spirit, in the interest of fairness, Superman in the 1990s did not fight any character like that. Superman in the 1990s has enough flaws that there's no need to invent any.

Are you forgetting the second Bloodsport (racist serial-killer), revamped child-killing Toyman, and Savior (serial-killing nutbag with thought-based powers)?

[Super Monkey]

All the bad guys are hard-ass horror-movie monsters, serial killers, and rapists with mullets, camouflage pants and spiked collars and are poorly drawn, to boot?  Gross!  This is stupid!  I'm outta here!

Though I agree with your spirit, in the interest of fairness, Superman in the 1990s did not fight any character like that. Superman in the 1990s has enough flaws that there's no need to invent any.

OH Really, then who the heck are these people?

http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=49314&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=54074&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=109396&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=87735&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=87739&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=224217&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=51724&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=51587&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=92064&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=92069&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=92091&zoom=4
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=92079&zoom=4

I think that covers everything he described.

[DBN]

OH Really, then who the heck are these people?

Edit: Nevermind, they work now

Technically, Rampage and Demolita weren't villians and the Persuader has been around for decades.