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Post by String on Feb 1, 2019 14:30:13 GMT -5
Thanks for the thoughtful responses, people. I am proud to be a member of this forum. Referencing things does have to stop at some point. Didn't Reed Richards mention Korean War or WWII service at some point? Of course that'd be absurd nowadays. Yes, there were tons of contemporary references. The FF's origin was tied to the 1960s Cold War space race. Charles Xavier and his stepbrother Cain Marko were in the same platoon in the Korean War, for instance, and Xavier's parents worked on the Manhattan Project. Magneto's origin was tied to the Holocaust, so they rebooted him into a younger body a couple of times. Nick Fury of course was a WW2 veteran. Etc. Captain America would seem to be the exception to the rule though. WWII is such an integral part of his story that all Marvel has to do in his case is simply extend the length of time he spent trapped in ice. Same with Tony Stark, originally wounded and captured during the Vietnam war yet today it's more a result of terrorist attacks in a country such as Afghanistan apparently. I like the idea of a set canon, one that need not be referenced in every single issue of every comic title released that month, rather a connection that can be called upon or referenced in certain moments and cases instead. Before the internet, footnotes of such connections were a godsend in pointing me in the right direction (and issue) if I wanted to read of a previous encounter. However I think the publishers worked themselves into a corner over this facet because of the underlying need for their characters to remain static. Steve Rogers must always be Cap, Bruce Wayne must always be Batman, etc. The publishing logic back then seemed to be aimed towards young kids that were believed to age out of reading comics eventually only to be replaced by a new generation of young readers and so on. I doubt editors at the time made any serious consideration on the status of these characters 30+ years down the line. Their only intent being, to sell books and make a profit. Limitations may be freeing but it's also an unforeseen consideration. Bruce Wayne is the perfect example. Bruce must forever be young enough to be the Batman. Any stories featuring an older or even retired Bruce were relegated to the imagination, Elseworlds, Hypertime, or a far-flung parallel universe. Ditto for the idea of someone, anyone replacing/succeeding him (and even then, the concept was ultimately appropriated to be the source of how many big events now?) For me, a set canon would seemingly work only if the characters in question were allowed to quit, age, retire, die or some combination therein. New characters, legacy characters would then become the focus and enhance the overall canon (one reason why I loved DC of the late 90s/00s) They expected their readership to change but never their characters. So they painted themselves into a static corner where reboots and relaunches have become the needed norm in order to sell books and make a profit. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2019 14:34:16 GMT -5
Good points!
I've been wondering about Magneto. As WWII becomes a more and more distant memory, for how much longer can Marvel use the Holocaust origins?
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 1, 2019 14:53:05 GMT -5
The holocaust origin is a recent development coming from the movies.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2019 15:00:23 GMT -5
Really? I thought Magneto (to Storm) mentioned the Holocaust in one of Claremont's issues.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 1, 2019 15:03:35 GMT -5
Really? I thought Magneto (to Storm) mentioned the Holocaust in one of Claremont's issues. Yep. The Holocaust thing came out of Claremont's work. Was circa 80-81. It was first hinted that Magneto was Romani before he became Jewish. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 1, 2019 15:16:11 GMT -5
Yes, there were tons of contemporary references. The FF's origin was tied to the 1960s Cold War space race. Charles Xavier and his stepbrother Cain Marko were in the same platoon in the Korean War, for instance, and Xavier's parents worked on the Manhattan Project. Magneto's origin was tied to the Holocaust, so they rebooted him into a younger body a couple of times. Nick Fury of course was a WW2 veteran. Etc. For me, a set canon would seemingly work only if the characters in question were allowed to quit, age, retire, die or some combination therein. New characters, legacy characters would then become the focus and enhance the overall canon (one reason why I loved DC of the late 90s/00s) They expected their readership to change but never their characters. So they painted themselves into a static corner where reboots and relaunches have become the needed norm in order to sell books and make a profit. Who are they? You're right...there were certainly legacy characters in that time period (Wally/Flash, Kyle Raynor/GL, Conor Hawke/GA). But why were they scrapped and the SA versions brought back? Was it tanking sales? Was it editorial (though that seems more likely to be driven by sales) or was it because fan-boy writers wanted to play with the toys they grew up with instead of the then-current toys? One assumes that if the fans weren't on board with bringing back the old characters the Afterbirth mini's wouldn't have been successful. But I gather that they were. Though I don't know. We know that DC isn't going to let Superman not be Clark Kent and Batman be Bruce Wayne because...everyone knows those characters and their secret identities. With most of the rest of them, they're largely unknown to the man on the street. To me, this is another matter of comic book buyers getting what they pay for. The company reboots. Sales go up. Sales then level and start to fall. So the company reboots. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 1, 2019 15:17:25 GMT -5
One thing DC could have done whenever the kind of soft reboot codystarbuck mentioned was deemed necessary was to simply invent the next Earth in line, as they did in the dawn of the Silver Age. Characters deemed too iconic to change very much would simply be the same characters, with minor adjustments, just as the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman were the same as, but slightly different from their Silver Age counterparts. Characters who had lost their books, say by 1976, 20 years after the dawning years of the Silver Age, would be the more experimental ones, with name changes, costume changes, origin changes, etc. The older groups could age more naturally, even die. If they were popular, could do what they've done many times and present their heretofore unrevealed adventures, which would naturally be set when they were in the flower of their youth and thir adventures more enjoyable. Who really wants to see a series devoted to 80-year-old superheroes? They inadvertently messed up that possibility by naming the Golden Age Earth Earth-Two instead of Earth-One and therefore interrupting the natural sequence of revealed Earths. This may be rough around the edges and need some tweaking but really, would it be any less orderly and confusing than the constant chaos-new universe-chaos pattern that has existed since 1985? Now a reboot lasts about as long as Brother Power the Geek did. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Feb 1, 2019 15:30:01 GMT -5
I actually got into DC in the 90's much more than any other time because of Kyle as GL, Conner as GA, Wally as Flash, etc. It was one of the best things DC did to me, and the most money they've gotten out of me since. It made sense that if a group of younger readers (like me, in my teens) were buying comics to continue using the character, but making the person behind the mask more appealing to said demographic, while still keeping the original suit wearers in the picture in some capacity. Oliver was the only one I remember that they killed (though obviously death in comics means nothing) but Conner being his son, Oliver's death still played a part in his character as it was his motivation to be a good as his father was as GA. Honestly some of the best things about DC were the 90's.
Even a younger Robin, with Dick going on to make his own name as Nightwing. I think the suit, the legacy, is far more important than the person behind it. Unless it's Damien Wayne. Ugh
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 1, 2019 15:36:44 GMT -5
One thing DC could have done whenever the kind of soft reboot codystarbuck mentioned was deemed necessary was to simply invent the next Earth in line, as they did in the dawn of the Silver Age. Characters deemed too iconic to change very much would simply be the same characters, with minor adjustments, just as the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman were the same as, but slightly different from their Silver Age counterparts. Characters who had lost their books, say by 1976, 20 years after the dawning years of the Silver Age, would be the more experimental ones, with name changes, costume changes, origin changes, etc. The older groups could age more naturally, even die. If they were popular, could do what they've done many times and present their heretofore unrevealed adventures, which would naturally be set when they were in the flower of their youth and thir adventures more enjoyable. Who really wants to see a series devoted to 80-year-old superheroes? They inadvertently messed up that possibility by naming the Golden Age Earth Earth-Two instead of Earth-One and therefore interrupting the natural sequence of revealed Earths. This may be rough around the edges and need some tweaking but really, would it be any less orderly and confusing than the constant chaos-new universe-chaos pattern that has existed since 1985? Now a reboot lasts about as long as Brother Power the Geek did. That would have been a fairly logical thing to have done. But there are a couple of problems with it. The first is it runs afoul of the "Crisis reason." We were told we had to have a Crisis because things were too complicated for readers. I did not then and I still do not now believe that was remotely true. I think it was too complicated for certain writers and editors. And that lead to continuity obsessed fans having conniptions over trivial crap. The Golden to Silver reboot worked because there was still almost universal fan turnover. I'm sure there were still a handful of long-time fans (Roy Thomas, Jerry Bails) who were still vested in the Golden Age characters, for the most part everyone had moved on. By 1984...that was no longer the case...and it's only gotten worse since then. And I think that's partly why we see so many reboots and so many characters coming back from the dead. Superhero fans (note that I don't say comics fans) have internalized their version of the characters and are unwilling to give them up. Since historically super-hero funnybook writers have been drawn from fandom, they don't want to actually change anything. They want the appearance of change. Look at the conniption among certain areas of fandom when "outsider" writers come in and try to do something interesting. I don't think, given the lack of turnover in super-hero fans that what you were suggesting could have worked. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 1, 2019 15:39:26 GMT -5
I'm not against reboots per se. But I just roll my eyes at the random and arbitrary changes that many characters go through where it seems that the writer completely missed the point of why the character was interesting.
One of my least favorite arbitrary changes took place before COIE. I'm talking about Etta Candy.
Etta is an awesome character! She's the id to Wonder Woman's ego. You can't keep her down! You can't count her out! Never underestimate her!
She was gone from Wonder Woman for a while, then they brought her back about 1980. And they out her in the military. Because … I don't know. It makes no sense to me. Putting Etta in the military puts Etta in a strait jacket. And if Etta's in a strait jacket, there's no reason for her to be there.
If I was writing Etta, I'd treat her as an old friend of Wonder Woman's. But Etta's not a sorority girl any more. She's a professor. I'd make her a professor of economics or geography, and she is, of course, friends with other professors at the university - Holliday University, of course! - so that whenever Wonder Woman needs specific information, Dr. Candy can just say "Let's go see my friend in the archaeology department, Dr. Phineas T. Woopie, and he can answer your questions about the Sanskrit inscriptions that the Blue Snowman and Hypnota were trying to steal."
And she would still love candy and she would still says "Woo Woo!" and she would always pull a rabbit out of a hat and surprise you because she's a force of nature and not the designated hostage that 1980s Etta Candy was.
I see stuff like this all the time in modern comics, where arbitrary changes are made and the new version of whoever is a pale imitation of the old version because all the interesting elements were tossed out and replaced with modern clichés. I really hate the modern Clayface, for example. And New 52 Man-Bat was super lame.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2019 15:46:36 GMT -5
I actually got into DC in the 90's much more than any other time because of Kyle as GL, Conner as GA, Wally as Flash, etc. It was one of the best things DC did to me, and the most money they've gotten out of me since. It's probably worth a topic of its own, Adam, but what you say about getting into those incarnations reminds me of how the industry, and the characters, are, or should be, bigger than any reader. Example: "my" Dan Dare is the one I first read around the late 80s. He was a Dredd-like character with a big gun, having more in common with Dirty Harry than the original Dan Dare. When I read the original Dare (50s) in reprints years after that, it wasn't "my" Dare. I could not get into the adventures. And yet to those alive in the 50s, that Dare would have been "their" Dare. Yet he wasn't "my" Dare. That said, an older reader might have considered "my" Dare to be sacrilegious, but he is the one I prefer. My younger brother likes John Stewart whereas I am a Hal Jordan fan. So it's nice to remember we all have, or should have, our own "toys" to play with. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Feb 1, 2019 16:03:33 GMT -5
One thing DC could have done whenever the kind of soft reboot codystarbuck mentioned was deemed necessary was to simply invent the next Earth in line, as they did in the dawn of the Silver Age. Characters deemed too iconic to change very much would simply be the same characters, with minor adjustments, just as the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman were the same as, but slightly different from their Silver Age counterparts. Characters who had lost their books, say by 1976, 20 years after the dawning years of the Silver Age, would be the more experimental ones, with name changes, costume changes, origin changes, etc. The older groups could age more naturally, even die. If they were popular, could do what they've done many times and present their heretofore unrevealed adventures, which would naturally be set when they were in the flower of their youth and thir adventures more enjoyable. Who really wants to see a series devoted to 80-year-old superheroes? They inadvertently messed up that possibility by naming the Golden Age Earth Earth-Two instead of Earth-One and therefore interrupting the natural sequence of revealed Earths. This may be rough around the edges and need some tweaking but really, would it be any less orderly and confusing than the constant chaos-new universe-chaos pattern that has existed since 1985? Now a reboot lasts about as long as Brother Power the Geek did. That would have been a fairly logical thing to have done. But there are a couple of problems with it. The first is it runs afoul of the "Crisis reason." We were told we had to have a Crisis because things were too complicated for readers. I did not then and I still do not now believe that was remotely true. I think it was too complicated for certain writers and editors. And that lead to continuity obsessed fans having conniptions over trivial crap. The Golden to Silver reboot worked because there was still almost universal fan turnover. I'm sure there were still a handful of long-time fans (Roy Thomas, Jerry Bails) who were still vested in the Golden Age characters, for the most part everyone had moved on. By 1984...that was no longer the case...and it's only gotten worse since then. And I think that's partly why we see so many reboots and so many characters coming back from the dead. Superhero fans (note that I don't say comics fans) have internalized their version of the characters and are unwilling to give them up. Since historically super-hero funnybook writers have been drawn from fandom, they don't want to actually change anything. They want the appearance of change. Look at the conniption among certain areas of fandom when "outsider" writers come in and try to do something interesting. I don't think, given the lack of turnover in super-hero fans that what you were suggesting could have worked. You're so right, and I should have added that reader turnover just stopped happening. This all plays into the argument that characters rarely really work outside of the era in which they were originally set. Tarzan movies set past the 1940s? Yeah, a loincloth-clad white guy meets the Mau-Maus and Idi Amin. And why I would love to see a Batman movie set in the early 40s; and a Fantastic Four movie that takes place during the the Cold War. That's a major reason that I enjoyed Wonder Woman which for my money, is about the best of the spate of superhero movies. Also why I enjoyed the first Captain America movie, The Shadow, The Phantom and the three Indiana Jones movies. (I've heard there was a fourth, but that's fake news.) (Notice how often Nazis play a role in these? They are the non plus ultra of villains. Hell, the Red Skull even showed up in that recent Avengers CGI-noisefest To be fair, I love the Cumberbatch-Freeman Sherlock, but it's an homage within a re-imagining rather than an update, if that makes sense. I much prefer those to the Robert Downey movies, which I would never watch more than the once I saw them. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 1, 2019 16:52:10 GMT -5
Really? I thought Magneto (to Storm) mentioned the Holocaust in one of Claremont's issues. Yep. The Holocaust thing came out of Claremont's work. Was circa 80-81. It was first hinted that Magneto was Romani before he became Jewish. I stand corrected. |
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Post by rberman on Feb 1, 2019 17:30:52 GMT -5
Really? I thought Magneto (to Storm) mentioned the Holocaust in one of Claremont's issues. Yep. The Holocaust thing came out of Claremont's work. Was circa 80-81. It was first hinted that Magneto was Romani before he became Jewish. Yes, it was in X-Men #150 (1981)  |
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 1, 2019 21:08:13 GMT -5
And I think we lost that after COIE. The post-COIE Superman could never have flown about Metropolis while thinking about his fight with Muhammad Ali; pocket universes aside, the post-COIE Superman could never refer to the time he, as Superboy, took down Lex Luthor in Smallville; the post-COIE Superman could never refer to the time he faced Mister Miracle for bragging rights. And that's something DC and its characters haven't had for 33 years now - a legacy. Spawn has a richer history than Superman and if you're a new reader who wants to delve into everything going on with one of today's characters, is a far better choice than anything being published at DC where anything published five or so years ago is already past its due date. Besides, if a company has so many insecurities about its characters and so little confidence in its storytelling abilities that they have a panic attack over what it was doing just a few short months ago, why on Earth would anyone think they have anything of lasting value to offer with the next reboot? I can't think of any other medium which works in this way - are there TV shows out there for instance, where the producer comes right out and says, "Look, we're in Season Three and we really have no idea where this show is going, who the characters are, or how to write this stuff, so next year, we're going to just start from scratch like we did after Season One"? |
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