Post by Pól Rua on Apr 22, 2015 7:27:02 GMT -5
Yup. Earth-4, my bad. Branefarts can strike at any time.
I just think the Charlton Heroes kind of suffer the same problem that the Marvel Family do. Within your standard superhero 'universe' you've got certain archetypes which get filled - The World's Greatest Superhero, The Pulp Adventurer, The Trickster, The Super Soldier, The Master Magician. Most of the big (and a lot of the smaller) companies have characters who fill those roles.
Because DC has the really super-iconic characters, they're versions tend to be the biggest and baddest versions - the REALLY archetypal ones.
By contrast, Captain Atom and Captain Marvel will ALWAYS be 'spare tyre' Superman-wannabes in a world with Superman. You can't have more than one 'World's Greatest Superhero'. The Question has had a similar problem, with a long line of creators trying to figure out a way to make him more than a second-string Batman, and putting him through an alarming number of quite odd permutations in the process.
Blue Beetle's done pretty well, because DC's closest analogue, The Creeper, has ALWAYS been kind of a third-banana type, but Nightshade, The Peacemaker, Judomaster et. al. have really pretty much been relegated to the attic, to be dragged out whenever their fair-use copyright is about to expire.
With that said, this isn't exclusively the fault of Crisis (though it has kind of exacerbated it).
One of the nice things about Marvel's Heroes is that they don't live in each others' pockets. Even though 90% of them live in New York City, the events of the average issue of 'Amazing Spider-Man' don't really impact too much on what's going on in 'Doctor Strange', 'Uncanny X-Men' or 'Captain America'. Conversely, and paradoxically, even though DC's heroes are spread out across the country from coast to coast, it really feels like none of them can so much as catch a cold without a guest star dropping in to say "Gesundheit".
The only real exception is Batman, but only because he's REALLY territorial about his turf.
It can be hard to be Aquaman or Hawkman or The Atom, if Superman is dropping by every few minutes to remind you of how superfluous you are with him around. It'd be nice if we could see more of what James Robinson and Tony Harris did in 'Starman', by making the character a big deal in their own particular setting. By giving the character the room to develop in an environment which was DEFINITELY 'of the universe' without the temptation to have those outside his sphere of influence drop in every couple of issues to steal his thunder. And even when they did have a crossover, the focus was very much on the series' star and his perspective of the 'guest'.
It's one of my old gripes with DC. They have all the best toys, but they won't let anyone play with them because they're too busy trying to figure out what colour to paint the toybox.
I just think the Charlton Heroes kind of suffer the same problem that the Marvel Family do. Within your standard superhero 'universe' you've got certain archetypes which get filled - The World's Greatest Superhero, The Pulp Adventurer, The Trickster, The Super Soldier, The Master Magician. Most of the big (and a lot of the smaller) companies have characters who fill those roles.
Because DC has the really super-iconic characters, they're versions tend to be the biggest and baddest versions - the REALLY archetypal ones.
By contrast, Captain Atom and Captain Marvel will ALWAYS be 'spare tyre' Superman-wannabes in a world with Superman. You can't have more than one 'World's Greatest Superhero'. The Question has had a similar problem, with a long line of creators trying to figure out a way to make him more than a second-string Batman, and putting him through an alarming number of quite odd permutations in the process.
Blue Beetle's done pretty well, because DC's closest analogue, The Creeper, has ALWAYS been kind of a third-banana type, but Nightshade, The Peacemaker, Judomaster et. al. have really pretty much been relegated to the attic, to be dragged out whenever their fair-use copyright is about to expire.
With that said, this isn't exclusively the fault of Crisis (though it has kind of exacerbated it).
One of the nice things about Marvel's Heroes is that they don't live in each others' pockets. Even though 90% of them live in New York City, the events of the average issue of 'Amazing Spider-Man' don't really impact too much on what's going on in 'Doctor Strange', 'Uncanny X-Men' or 'Captain America'. Conversely, and paradoxically, even though DC's heroes are spread out across the country from coast to coast, it really feels like none of them can so much as catch a cold without a guest star dropping in to say "Gesundheit".
The only real exception is Batman, but only because he's REALLY territorial about his turf.
It can be hard to be Aquaman or Hawkman or The Atom, if Superman is dropping by every few minutes to remind you of how superfluous you are with him around. It'd be nice if we could see more of what James Robinson and Tony Harris did in 'Starman', by making the character a big deal in their own particular setting. By giving the character the room to develop in an environment which was DEFINITELY 'of the universe' without the temptation to have those outside his sphere of influence drop in every couple of issues to steal his thunder. And even when they did have a crossover, the focus was very much on the series' star and his perspective of the 'guest'.
It's one of my old gripes with DC. They have all the best toys, but they won't let anyone play with them because they're too busy trying to figure out what colour to paint the toybox.