DC Comics challenge

[C_Miller]

I don't think it needed to backfire and I think they did very well for the most part. It seems that DC does very well with the whole continuity thing when it's not directly addressing the multiverse or reality altering characters. But when you try to do things like Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Legion of 3 Worlds, Flash: Rebirth and from the sound of it, Flashpoint, you run into trouble. The end up doing things that the Crisis was designed to prevent. It doesn't help that they've hired writers who get off to continuity porn.

 

[Skywalker]

Wow, I really need to brush up on my DC. I was able to get about half of those without needing to look them up on Wikipedia.

 

[shivkala]

There are definitely pluses and minuses to how DC handled things, but again, I think developing a legacy was a good thing. DC has just screwed around with it lately because they can't seem to decide how to have their cake and eat it, too. They keep killing off characters, developing replacements, and then trying to somehow have either both around (with diminishing returns) or to kill off the newest character (such as with Ryan Choi).

 

[Broccoli]

I feel things were going great for the first twenty years. Then you got Silver/Bronze Age devotees in charge at DC and tried to bring it back w/o bringing it back completely.

 

[C_Miller]

I feel things were going great for the first twenty years. Then you got Silver/Bronze Age devotees in charge at DC and tried to bring it back w/o bringing it back completely.

Agreed, so much. Now I'm not anti-Silver/Bronze Age by any means, but the thought that all indicators are pointing towards a Big 7 JLA title with Bruce, Clark, Diana, Arthur, J'onn, Hal and Barry makes my skin crawl.

The 60s called, they want their comics back.

Edit: And it's not that I hate older characters. In fact, the Golden Agers are some of my favorites, because they play to their age. It's not like in JSA the Golden Agers are trying to play off like they're current like Hal and Barry are. Ugh, makes me mad (especially since Wally is probably one of my favorite characters ever).

 

[A beaker full of death]

I for one am very pleased TPTB have come to their senses. You don't mess with a mythology.

 

[Broccoli]

Yet, that is exactly what they are doing.

 

[C_Miller]

One of my favorite parts about DC was the legacy. I loved the fact that Jay Garrick grew old and passed the mantle to Barry Allen and then Barry Allen died and passed it on to Wally. Same with Green Lantern, same with Robin, and so many other characters. It made them stand out from Marvel who will have the same characters in their costumes 100 years from now.

 

[Thestral]

Yeah, the legacy nature of DC and the sense of history is one of the things that got me interested in it. Say what you will about James Robinson's writing of late, but at least his JLA has been (was?) an interesting mix of legacy characters.

 

[A beaker full of death]

One of my favorite parts about DC was the legacy. I loved the fact that Jay Garrick grew old and passed the mantle to Barry Allen and then Barry Allen died and passed it on to Wally. Same with Green Lantern, same with Robin, and so many other characters.

See, that's not the DC I grew up with. The concept of Earth 1/ Earth 2 didn't arise until the creation of Barry Allen in the early 60s. There is not clear demarcation between Golden Age and Silver Age for many of the characters. Which Batman was that in 1956? Who can say? Who cared?

The heroes I grew up with in the 70s and early 80s had not really aged since their creation. There was an older generation on a parallel world, and there was the Earth 1 heroes, a pantheon that remained virtually unchanged. Where these heroes were duplicates of Golden Age heroes, that is, where they had been around since the 40s, like Superman and Batman, they remained virtually unchanged since then. Superman was, and had for 40 years been, a reporter at a newspaper; Lois was besotted with him. So it didn't matter which Earth one wanted to say the comics of 1953 were speaking about.

Barry and Hal were who they had been since they had been created. Yes, a few of the juvenile characters had grown to be teens, but that was about as far as they were going to go.
That's just the nature of the form.
Barry Allen simply is the Flash. Hal Jordan is Green Lantern. The fact that ancillary characters have had the stage for very short period of some 20 years doesn't change that.

 

[C_Miller]

I'll begrudgingly agree with you on Green Lantern. But I disagree with The Flash. I mean I won't disagree with Barry Allen being the Flash, that's a simple fact. But Wally has proved himself to be The Flash as well and I won't back down on that.

From the sounds of it you're about the same age as Geoff Johns, who has spend his whole career trying to bring back the Silver Age. Your opinion makes sense in that respect. But as someone who grew up with Wally and Kyle, the same way that you grew up with Barry and Hal, we're not going to agree that they are the one true version of the character.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I for one am very pleased TPTB have come to their senses. You don't mess with a mythology.

They've been "messing with the mythology" since 1938. The characters have constantly been evolving while giving the illusion of staying the same.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Don't other people cringe at the current vogue for calling the vast collection of minutiae built up around relatively recent and trivial characters and stories "mythology?"

They should - it's almost as bad as labeling things that are popular and comfortingly familiar as "iconic."

 

[C_Miller]

Don't other people cringe at the current vogue for calling the vast collection of minutiae built up around relatively recent and trivial characters and stories "mythology?"

They should - it's almost as bad as labeling things that are popular and comfortingly familiar as "iconic."

What do you mean? People have been using the word mythology for this kind of stuff for years. Look at The X-Files.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Don't other people cringe at the current vogue for calling the vast collection of minutiae built up around relatively recent and trivial characters and stories "mythology?"

They should - it's almost as bad as labeling things that are popular and comfortingly familiar as "iconic."

What do you mean? People have been using the word mythology for this kind of stuff for years. Look at The X-Files.

Dennis is old. "X-Files" is recent from his perspective.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Don't other people cringe at the current vogue for calling the vast collection of minutiae built up around relatively recent and trivial characters and stories "mythology?"

They should - it's almost as bad as labeling things that are popular and comfortingly familiar as "iconic."

What do you mean? People have been using the word mythology for this kind of stuff for years. Look at The X-Files.

Dennis is old. "X-Files" is recent from his perspective.

Exactly so - X Files is recent.. Hell, when I started reading Superman comics the Kryptonian had barely been in print long enough to reach legal drinking age. Saying that something has been done "for years" doesn't mean squat - it's recent and it's a nuisance, like young'ns working as sales clerks who think that the polite and appropriate answer to "Thank you" is "no problem."

 

[A beaker full of death]

This may be bordering on a semantic argument, but I can't think of a more appropriate use of the term "mythology" in a modern context than its application to the superhumans who have been depicted in comics since the mid-1930s. They accomplish Herculean feats, have always represented very basic absolute concepts, and, yes, have remained largely unchanged since their respective creations. I'm always intrigued by how those same stories written by Siegel, Kane, the Lieber brothers and so many others keep getting re-told in a modern context.

(and, of course, that's entirely aside from the actual inclusion of mythic gods and demi-gods as characters in both Marvel and DC).

 

[Thestral]

I'll begrudgingly agree with you on Green Lantern. But I disagree with The Flash. I mean I won't disagree with Barry Allen being the Flash, that's a simple fact. But Wally has proved himself to be The Flash as well and I won't back down on that.

I won't even agree on Green Lantern. I acknowledge Hal as the most significant of the Earth Lanterns now, but Kyle Raynor, John Stewart, and even GUy Gardner are just as much Green Lantern.

In fact, until they made the movie coming out this summer, I think John Stewart was more "the" Green Lantern in popular consciousness - who had the role in the cartoon after all? One of the appealing things about the Lanterns is that they're a Corps.

And of course, Barry should've stayed dead. He died a hero and Wally's proven himself. Plus there's Jay, Bart, and even Jesse Quick. If Green Lantern's a Corps, Flash is a family.