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Post by Nowhere Man on Apr 3, 2015 23:16:43 GMT -5
I think a lot of DC's problem at the time was simply that Marvel had more dynamic and exciting writers and artist in the late 70's and early 80's. Besides landing Perez off his Avengers run, Marvel had Byrne, Miller, Simonson, Claremont, Stern, Buscema, etc. It wasn't until Moore started on Swamp Thing that DC seemed to get serious about tapping new talent, but by then Crisis was already in the planning stages anyway. Even as great as Swamp Thing was, it was still a marginal horror title floating in a sea of superhero comics. I'm a big fan of the likes of Bob Haney and Curt Swan now, but realistically, they were probably on their respective titles longer than they should have been.
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Post by earl on Apr 4, 2015 1:06:06 GMT -5
DC caught up closer with Marvel in the mid to late 80s as a good chunk of their classic 70s/early 80s people went there and they were way ahead of the curve pulling all that talent over from the UK.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 4, 2015 15:55:44 GMT -5
I remember talking to Jim Shooter at a con in the early 80's and he told me that the only 2 DC books that would get royalties in Marvel were New Teen Titans and Warlord. He told me those 2 books would have been bottom tier books in Marvel. This is why Crisis was published. Marvel was kicking their buts in sales. Yep. I absolutely do see the commercial need for it. Although I'm certainly not as big a fan as Kurt of the series itself. |
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Post by Action Ace on Apr 4, 2015 19:41:15 GMT -5
It may also be my favorite art job in the history of comics.
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 4, 2015 21:07:34 GMT -5
It may also be my favorite art job in the history of comics. One of the great all time endings. |
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Post by Pharozonk on Apr 4, 2015 21:27:33 GMT -5
It may also be my favorite art job in the history of comics. One of the great all time endings. I just watched it the other night. What a great movie!  |
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Post by berkley on Apr 4, 2015 22:48:52 GMT -5
I'm a big Superman fan - he's second only to Batman in my opinion - and yet I have no interest in the character in any of his incarnations (with the exception of All Star Superman) after 1986 because of Crisis. He's just not the same guy to me. That's more of my thoughts on John Byrne/what followed Byrne rather than my thoughts on Crisis but Crisis is what has made their characters so disposable. In other words, regardless of its merits as a story, I don't feel that its legacy justifies its existence.
And as for the notion that Crisis was necessitated by DC's history being so convoluted, why did it take three issues of The Untold Legend of the Batman to explain everything you needed to know about Batman, one Anniversary issue to do the same for Superman (Action 500), one issue for Flash (issue 300), etc and yet twelve issues for you just to understand how those stories were being thrown away? I'm not a Superman fan so I haven't read these myself, but from what I understand, Morrison's All-Star Superman and maybe the 2 or 3 Superman stories Alan Moore wrote might be worth trying for you. |
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Post by berkley on Apr 4, 2015 22:52:57 GMT -5
This will probably seem like an annoyingly irrelevant question to DC fans, but since I'm mainly interested in the Kirby characters when it comes to DC I have to ask - were the New Gods or OMAC or the Demon, etc included in Crisis at all?
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Post by spoon on Apr 4, 2015 23:41:54 GMT -5
This will probably seem like an annoyingly irrelevant question to DC fans, but since I'm mainly interested in the Kirby characters when it comes to DC I have to ask - were the New Gods or OMAC or the Demon, etc included in Crisis at all? I seem to remember at some point an oddball group of heroes (Dolphin, Rip Hunter, Atomic Knight, and others) visit Apokolips for some reason. I think Darkseid is just seen biding his time. I also remember Kamandi. I think he appeared when those tuning fork towers showed up (maybe around #5). I think the Demon showed up briefly when the mystical characters were working together around #11. I'm not sure when OMAC appeared, but I think it's almost certain that he did. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 5, 2015 8:36:51 GMT -5
Yeah, At the time I loved the series but looking back, I can see it made a mess of the DC universe.
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Post by fanboystranger on Apr 5, 2015 12:05:21 GMT -5
This will probably seem like an annoyingly irrelevant question to DC fans, but since I'm mainly interested in the Kirby characters when it comes to DC I have to ask - were the New Gods or OMAC or the Demon, etc included in Crisis at all? Darkseid has a pretty major role towards the end of the series. I can't remember the others being involved at all. Perhaps a cameo here or there, but not really part of the story. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 5, 2015 13:19:23 GMT -5
I'm a big Superman fan - he's second only to Batman in my opinion - and yet I have no interest in the character in any of his incarnations (with the exception of All Star Superman) after 1986 because of Crisis. He's just not the same guy to me. That's more of my thoughts on John Byrne/what followed Byrne rather than my thoughts on Crisis but Crisis is what has made their characters so disposable. In other words, regardless of its merits as a story, I don't feel that its legacy justifies its existence.
And as for the notion that Crisis was necessitated by DC's history being so convoluted, why did it take three issues of The Untold Legend of the Batman to explain everything you needed to know about Batman, one Anniversary issue to do the same for Superman (Action 500), one issue for Flash (issue 300), etc and yet twelve issues for you just to understand how those stories were being thrown away? I'm not a Superman fan so I haven't read these myself, but from what I understand, Morrison's All-Star Superman and maybe the 2 or 3 Superman stories Alan Moore wrote might be worth trying for you.
I have read All-Star Superman and I truly feel that it lives up to Morrison's intention for the series - "to be worthy of Superman". I strongly dislike Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow" finding the ending to be too mean-spirited for my tastes, but did enjoy his "For the Man who has Everything". His Superman/Swamp Thing team-up is a bit of a mixed bag.
Thanks for the recommendations though, berk!
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 5, 2015 14:23:21 GMT -5
I strongly dislike Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow" finding the ending to be too mean-spirited for my tastes In Moore's defense, he tells us at the outset that it is "an imaginary story," invoking the familiar Silver-Age trope that allowed the writers and artists to tell stories outside the canon, stories that in many cases would have effectively ended the series. In my opinion, Moore adhered closely to the tone of those Weisinger-era imaginary stories and successfully evoked much of the emotional trauma they inflicted on young readers like myself.
For example, Adventure Comics #299 has a Superbaby, rejected by the Kents, become a pawn of the government and a tyrannical despot before leaving Earth to become the hero of an alien world. On a nostalgic trip back to Earth to see what life with the Kents may have yielded, the now SuperBOY encounters a strange gold meteorite (Gold Kryptonite) which robs him of his powers forever. The Kents adopt him at that point and he spends his remaining days wondering why he can no longer lift cars and needs glasses. The end.
And in the grand-daddy of all "imaginary stories," Superman #149, the Man of Steel suffers an unspeakably cruel, lingering death by Kryptonite poisoning at the hands of Lex Luthor. These and other similar stories clearly had an impact on Moore, and I think he simply wanted to pay tribute to them. Having Curt Swan, who had provided the art for so many of those early stories, illustrate "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow" seems to drive the point home even further.
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 5, 2015 14:56:56 GMT -5
I strongly dislike Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow" finding the ending to be too mean-spirited for my tastes In Moore's defense, he tells us at the outset that it is "an imaginary story," invoking the familiar Silver-Age trope that allowed the writers and artists to tell stories outside the canon, stories that in many cases would have effectively ended the series. In my opinion, Moore adhered closely to the tone of those Weisinger-era imaginary stories and successfully evoked much of the emotional trauma they inflicted on young readers like myself.
For example, Adventure Comics #299 has a Superbaby, rejected by the Kents, become a pawn of the government and a tyrannical despot before leaving Earth to become the hero of an alien world. On a nostalgic trip back to Earth to see what life with the Kents may have yielded, the now SuperBOY encounters a strange gold meteorite (Gold Kryptonite) which robs him of his powers forever. The Kents adopt him at that point and he spends his remaining days wondering why he can no longer lift cars and needs glasses. The end.
And in the grand-daddy of all "imaginary stories," Superman #149, the Man of Steel suffers an unspeakably cruel, lingering death by Kryptonite poisoning at the hands of Lex Luthor. These and other similar stories clearly had an impact on Moore, and I think he simply wanted to pay tribute to them. Having Curt Swan, who had provided the art for so many of those early stories, illustrate "Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow" seems to drive the point home even further.
I don't mean the ending in which Superman ... SPOILERS....
loses his powers due to exposure to Gold Kryptonite. I mean the epilogue in which Superman makes a speech renouncing the role he played in society. I know that stories in which he questions his impact on the world had its precedents - probably most famously in the Jeph Loeb inspired Must There be a Superman by Eliot Maggin - but here we have the Weisinger/Schwartz era coming to a close with Superman summarizing himself with the words "Superman? He was overrated, and too wrapped up in himself. He thought the world couldn't get along without him". He also describes Superman as being out of touch with the common man.
Modesty is one thing; this is Superman looking back on his life and thinking "what a naïve putz I was". As the story makes clear, this is Superman's genuine analysis of who he was and not part of his new disguise.
As the coda to what Siegel and Shuster had started over 50 years prior it's left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially knowing that the original plan was to have Jerry Siegel pen the last Superman tale.
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 5, 2015 15:46:06 GMT -5
but here we have the Weisinger/Schwartz era coming to a close with Superman summarizing himself with the words "Superman? He was overrated, and too wrapped up in himself. He thought the world couldn't get along without him". He also describes Superman as being out of touch with the common man. Modesty is one thing; this is Superman looking back on his life and thinking "what a naïve putz I was". As the story makes clear, this is Superman's genuine analysis of who he was and not part of his new disguise. As the coda to what Siegel and Shuster had started over 50 years prior it's left a bad taste in my mouth. Especially knowing that the original plan was to have Jerry Siegel pen the last Superman tale. Ah. I see what you're alluding to now. Here we get into nuance. My reading of that sequence also goes back to the beginning of the tale, where Moore states that the story "ends with a wink," the literary equivalent of crossing one's fingers behind the back, or in Bizarro-speak, the literal opposite of what is stated. I suppose these elements of his story-telling, for better or worse, are what have us still talking about this story 30 years on.
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