|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2023 13:17:46 GMT -5
I read the modern Secret Wars when it came out, but I mostly remember having a hard time following the series. It felt really jumbled to me. I was trying to find my collected edition just now to give it a reread but I think it's buried in an unsorted box. So a typical crossover event. Hah! There's truth in what you speak. I "think" if I'm remembering this one at all correctly, some of it may have to do with Hickman. I actually think he's a great "ideas" guy (well, up until the X-Men stuff, another topic for another thread), I really liked his plots during his FF run. But I don't think the guy can write dialogue very well, and I think this impacted the flow of stuff like Secret Wars. If nothing else though, got to give props to the art, Esad Ribic made the books look quite lovely. |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 25, 2023 13:21:23 GMT -5
So a typical crossover event. Hah! There's truth in what you speak. I "think" if I'm remembering this one at all correctly, some of it may have to do with Hickman. I actually think he's a great "ideas" guy (well, up until the X-Men stuff, another topic for another thread), I really liked his plots during his FF run. But I don't think the guy can write dialogue very well, and I think this impacted the flow of stuff like Secret Wars. If nothing else though, got to give props to the art, Esad Ribic made the books look quite lovely. I haven't read a huge amount of Hickman's work, but what I've read seems to run in the same vein...Big idea that seems very cool and then runs on and on with no payoff until it just peters out in the end. |
|
|
|
Post by tonebone on Sept 25, 2023 18:33:24 GMT -5
On the Kamandi thing, I guess you can kind of do the same thing as Batman above, but the title never really felt like “proper DC” to me. Which is fine, it didn’t have to be, but the fact that they tried to selectively make it cross over on a very limited basis…I don’t know, I felt like they could have put some more effort into it to make sense Making sense was not on the table where DC's pre-COIE clown car attempts at time travel / alternate reality stories were concerned. Despite late 60s DC making major strides to leave the silly crap of the earlier Silver Age behind, they continued the self-inflicted damage with writers (by the time TBATB #120 hit the stands) still not being able to figure out which universe / timeline their characters truly operated in, and just tossed crap at the walls. They seemed to forget readers (and their expectations) had matured in the ten years leading up to TBATB issue, and were not inclined to accept their "anything goes" plotting regarding where and how characters existed. Eventually, some comic writers realized certain actions were necessary (mirroring the complaints of many a reader), which paved the road to COIE, however. I liked the clown car time travel. I was a big fan of Brave and the Bold and didn't mind if it didn't make sense at all. For my money, if you try to make ANY sense of time travel, you are asking for a non-ice-cream ice-cream-headache. |
|
|
|
Post by Cei-U! on Sept 25, 2023 18:46:48 GMT -5
There were actually several other alternate futures for Earth-One besides the Legion's and Kamandi's. There was a whole series of stories from the Weisinger stable featuring the 30th Century descendants of Superman, Batman, and The Joker, stories set in a future clearly distinct from the LSH's. Flash's foe Abra Kadabra was from yet another alternate future. Green Lantern sometimes went adventuring in the 58th Century using the alternate identity of Pol Manning. Then there were those timelines where Tommy Tomorrow and Space Ranger had their adventures, and on and on.
Cei-U!
I summon the limitless possibilities!
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2023 19:36:00 GMT -5
If we allow for "timeline branching", we could cheat a little and make most of the "alternate future" stuff make sense. I mean, yes, you could just reject this topic out of hand and life goes on, but if you wanted to nerd out a little (which I personally enjoy doing), I feel like that could kind of neatly get you there.
For example, Earth-1 is just cruising along in the present, at some point the timeline splits where one version gets the Great Disaster (Kamandi) and the other does not (Legion). And therefore pre-Crisis is not just parallel "worlds" (Earth-1, Earth-2, etc.) but parallel timestreams as well (multiple Earth-1's, Earth-2's, etc.). And if you "follow the right branch", Kamandi can meet Batman, and you follow another branch, Superboy can meet the Legion. They don't contradict as long as you have the "travel mechanism" to get there. And the simple overall connotation is that "alternate futures" doesn't just mean "possible", they all really do happen.
I mean, Kang was splitting timelines left and right in Marvel, same concept. Even with stuff like the aforementioned Kamandi/Karate Kid crossover, you could rationalize that the real implication was more like one branch could collapse potentially.
Just to reiterate, I'm not saying we NEED this type of explanation to enjoy the stories themselves, more just if you enjoy this type of thought exercise.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2023 19:55:17 GMT -5
Which MEANS, there may have been a timeline split where one branch had the Crisis happen, and the other did not. Which then means my beloved pre-Crisis world is still safe and sound, they just stopped publishing stories from it. I can sleep so much better tonight with that knowledge.
|
|
|
|
Post by zaku on Sept 26, 2023 0:28:08 GMT -5
There were actually several other alternate futures for Earth-One besides the Legion's and Kamandi's. There was a whole series of stories from the Weisinger stable featuring the 30th Century descendants of Superman, Batman, and The Joker, stories set in a future clearly distinct from the LSH's. Flash's foe Abra Kadabra was from yet another alternate future. Green Lantern sometimes went adventuring in the 58th Century using the alternate identity of Pol Manning. Then there were those timelines where Tommy Tomorrow and Space Ranger had their adventures, and on and on. Cei-U! I summon the limitless possibilities! Earth-1 having multiple possibile futures was even explicitly said in Superman 295!  The problem is DC never had an official system to catalogue them! 🤣🤣🤣 |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2023 3:58:43 GMT -5
There were actually several other alternate futures for Earth-One besides the Legion's and Kamandi's. There was a whole series of stories from the Weisinger stable featuring the 30th Century descendants of Superman, Batman, and The Joker, stories set in a future clearly distinct from the LSH's. Flash's foe Abra Kadabra was from yet another alternate future. Green Lantern sometimes went adventuring in the 58th Century using the alternate identity of Pol Manning. Then there were those timelines where Tommy Tomorrow and Space Ranger had their adventures, and on and on. Cei-U! I summon the limitless possibilities! Earth-1 having multiple possibile futures was even explicitly said in Superman 295! I see now where you are getting the term "possible futures" from that page. It may be picking a point, but that's the wording that has been throwing me off the entire time here. "Possible" to me suggests something may or may not happen (like there are multiple possible futures, but only one actually comes to be), whereas I was envisioning multiple alternate futures that DO happen in parallel (per my comments above) which is what they are further suggesting. |
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 26, 2023 4:39:59 GMT -5
Earth-1 having multiple possibile futures was even explicitly said in Superman 295! The problem is DC never had an official system to catalogue them! 🤣🤣🤣 The Green Lantern's name is Xenofobe? He's not from Earth, though, so I guess it's one of those unfortunate instances of an innocuous word meaning something else entirely in a different language, like that town in Austria called F**king... |
|
|
|
Post by zaku on Sept 26, 2023 6:04:06 GMT -5
Which MEANS, there may have been a timeline split where one branch had the Crisis happen, and the other did not. Which then means my beloved pre-Crisis world is still safe and sound, they just stopped publishing stories from it. I can sleep so much better tonight with that knowledge. You mean... EARTH-1985?!??!   Earth-1 having multiple possibile futures was even explicitly said in Superman 295! I see now where you are getting the term "possible futures" from that page. It may be picking a point, but that's the wording that has been throwing me off the entire time here. "Possible" to me suggests something may or may not happen (like there are multiple possible futures, but only one actually comes to be), whereas I was envisioning multiple alternate futures that DO happen in parallel (per my comments above) which is what they are further suggesting. This is from COIE #2, THE GREAT DISASTER It is sometimes in some future, in a time line that at times stands between modern Earth and a 30th which knows nothing of its existence...decide yourself what it means   |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2023 6:37:49 GMT -5
I don't think that scene quite addresses my point (which by the way clearly says "some future" which still suggests one of many to me). I'm simply clarifying the difference between "many futures are already written" and co-exist in parallel versus "one future timelime emerges". I think this is all semantics though. If you drive down a road that branches into a few more roads, you could say all of those are "possible routes" and you choose one to follow, but it doesn't make the other ones not exist. Or you could be designing a road system, and there are many "possible routes" you could create, but ultimately you settle on one design and that's what gets built (and the other "possible" alternatives do not exist). It's just defining terms. Anyhow, I tend to think undertaking extensive classification may make you end up like this poor fellow from the Legion: "Sit back a moment and imagine witnessing eternity: looking upon Earth in all its ages, from the dawn of time to the dusty end of the world... Then expand the imagining – and look upon the universe in all its many eras, as you gain power from the very flow of time as each unending eon passes... Now try to make the imagining so beyond the moment – and make it a terrifying reality that literally lasts forever – and now you can understand why Jaxon Rugarth has gone mad!" ![]()  |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 26, 2023 9:46:26 GMT -5
I don't think Abra Cadabra's 42nd (43?) Century origin or the 58th Century Pol Manning stories are incompatible with the Great Disaster and the Legion.. alot can happen in 1000-1500 years.
Like Democracy. Cell phones. Tiktok. did people during the fall of Rome think a great power across the ocean was fictional? probably.
|
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 26, 2023 9:55:32 GMT -5
I don't think Abra Cadabra's 42nd (43?) Century origin or the 58th Century Pol Manning stories are incompatible with the Great Disaster and the Legion.. alot can happen in 1000-1500 years. Like Democracy. Cell phones. Tiktok. did people during the fall of Rome think a great power across the ocean was fictional? probably. Exactly this. And when you get to 2000 years it gets even dicier. We know that a group we call the Sea Peoples attacked Ancient Egypt and other areas in the Middle East during the Bronze Age Collapse. But we know nothing about them. We know next to nothing about the Minoan Civilization (4000 years ago) and can't even translate their writing. Postulate a couple of civilization collapses between now and the Legion and a lot could have happened they don't know about. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2023 10:30:29 GMT -5
I just thought my timeline branching might be interesting to consider (though clearly it is not) since as zaku posted, they actually DID say in some of the comics from that era there were alternate timelines. If some events could all work in a common timeline, that's interesting to contemplate as well, I don't think the point was to say that's not viable. But if a canon comic says the Time Trapper destroyed some other timelines to get rid of the Legion, why would you argue there is ONLY one timeline that everything can fit into? This thread has completely reversed my perspective...at first I was like "Legion future is the real one", now I'm standing up for the alternate timelines. Curse you zaku haha!! |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 26, 2023 10:48:40 GMT -5
I just thought my timeline branching might be interesting to consider (though clearly it is not) since as zaku posted, they actually DID say in some of the comics from that era there were alternate timelines. If some events could all work in a common timeline, that's interesting to contemplate as well, I don't think the point was to say that's not viable. But if a canon comic says the Time Trapper destroyed some other timelines to get rid of the Legion, why would you argue there is ONLY one timeline that everything can fit into? This thread has completely reversed my perspective...at first I was like "Legion future is the real one", now I'm standing up for the alternate timelines. Curse you zaku haha!! I'm fine with alternate timelines too. To the extent I have a dog in this fight, which isn't a large extent, I'm fine with anything that gives the creators and opportunity to do fun stuff rather than tying their hands to someone's precious continuity. |
|
