nightwing
Defender of Kandor
Council of Wisdom
Offline
Posts: 1627
Semper Vigilans
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« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2007, 08:19:46 PM » |
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India, I for one hope you're right and we'll see less of books that try to mix "classic" and "modern" stories.
For one thing, as you suggest, I am a fan of the one but not the other. This is why I passed on the recent "Daily Planet" and "Lex Luthor" TPBs, for instance...the "good" stuff didn't make up for the crud at the end. I understand mixing things up from a marketing perspective; no doubt the aim is to turn modern readers on to the old stuff, and prod codgers like myself into coming back to the monthlies. But I really think we're becoming more and more two different audiences, and nobody's really satisfied with collections that are neither fish nor foul. The average Jim Lee Batman fan, for instance, probably doesn't care a whit for Shelly Moldoff.
Also, from a conceptual standpoint, we're often talking here about very different characters. The Superman of the 90s is not the Superman of the 50s and 60s, and tacking on a Jurgens-era story to a book full of Hamilton and Binder tales is disorienting and frustrating for everybody, IMHO. This is how I felt about the "Greatest Stories Ever Told" books from years ago...especially the Superman and Flash versions. The "current era" stuff in the back of those books didn't fit at all with the rest of the volumes. It reminded me of those annoying previews they stick in the middle of a comic with a totally different audience..."Hey kids, if you think this issue of Spider-Man is cool, check out this cool preview for the Radioactive Gang Banger Skate Squad!"
BUT...I think there are some different explanations for why this particular book is so "classic"-heavy, and why the Kandor book probably will be, too. And that is, the vast majority of this mythology was built up prior to the Crisis. How many stories have there been, really, about the Bat-Cave in recent times (if you don't count blowing it up in that earthquake storyline, and that's probably 2000 pages in itself).
Also, I think it's entirely possible that now DC's remembered they have references like "The Complete Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Heroes," they're using those volumes to select stories around specific themes. And everything chronicled in those books is pre-1965.
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