A cute "what if," except that in the 40s the average comic reader was probably under 12, after which they moved on, something fans of today are simply unable to do.
Editors of the time assumed their readership turned over every 7 years, and I'm betting they were right. Today's publishers cater to 20- and 30-something true believers, which certainly guarantees an audience (if a small one), but it also guarantees you can never do anything daring or creative without generating a firestorm of protest from an army of armchair quarterbacks.
I don't think that's true. Teens and adults have always been a big portion of the audience for superhero comics even in the Good Old Days (TM).
The name of the work escapes me (it was one of those slim "coffee table" overviews of comics heroes), but there was the interesting claim that a major portion of the audience of the Silver Age JLA (and a big reason for that book's unreal popularity) were adults who remembered the original JSA, as well as the original characters the JLAers were Silver Age variations of. These guys were thrilled to see the heroes of their youth in action again.
And you'll never believe how many of the letters pages of the original FF were from old-timers and G.I.'s reminiscing about when they first met Namor during the war, or about younger fans saying stuff like "I showed my Dad FF#6 and he thinks you guys are awesome!"
Absolutely there's a lot of turnover in readership, but there were even more adults that clutched their comics and never let their Moms throw them out. Among them Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, and others that sent old issues of JSA and CATMAN AND KITTEN to each other through the mail.
One attitude I've never quite understood is the idea that today's fandom of teenagers, twentysomethings and thirtysomethings that love superhero comics is somehow something NEW that comics history's never seen before.
Stan Lee remembers IN THE SIXTIES going to colleges where counterculture kids made the Hulk the mascot of their dorm, and gave a special Marvel Achievement Award to one college kid that did his Volkswagen Beetle to look like the Thing's skin.
In 1986 I remember feeling, "Thanks Rao, I don't have to read superhero comics anymore and have my heart broken when a writer or artist leaves my fave series or a new artist who I used to like comes on board and radically changes everything the last team did."
I remember feeling the way around 1986
I remember in 1986 thinking "thank Rao I dont have to read comics anymore becuase they stop publishing superman. I can save all that money I used to waste!!!"
I'm calling B.S. on that, because at the time Crisis happened, it wasn't immediately known what the DC Universe was going to look like, and certainly not enough was known to have a giant drama "I AM LEAVING COMICS FOREVER" fagsplosion. At least, for those of us
without psychic powers.
What's more, at the time when CRISIS happened, it just wasn't a big deal. I've mentioned this before, but a friend of mine told me that when CRISIS came out, nobody cared because everyone was paying attention to SECRET WARS.
What's more, the most popular DC comics, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES and TEEN TITANS, were negligibly affected by CRISIS. And the two major characters that died in the CRISIS itself were a pair of (let's be honest here) has-beens: Barry Allen's book was canceled, and Supergirl had been a supporting character for nearly a decade at the time of her death.
It's easy with 20-20 hindsight to say what the ultimate effect CRISIS had was. But at the time, in '86? I doubt it. The majority of people I've spoken to about the '86 reboots of characters like Superman and Wonder Woman were optimistically curious and even excited...even if they grew to dislike the reboots later.
