In rec.arts.comics.dc.universe grinningdemon <***@austin.rr.com> wrote:
: >He doesn't need to be WITH them, he needs to HAVE BEEN with them. He's
: >necessary for their inspiration and origin and history, but not for their
: >current adventures.
: ...and I disagree on this...it works just as well if the Legion were
: inspired by the mythic "age of heroes" as they were in their last
: incarnation...it doesn't need to be a specific character and they
: don't need to be physically present.
No, that very much did not work just as well. Superboy was a boy their own
age they hung out with because they thought he was awesome; being vaguely
inspired by an age of heroes? What teen has ever talked about something
like that? "Gee, Sally, let's form a pantheon of godlike beings, because,
you know, the Romans were pretty cool .... ??" Superboy was a LIVING
legend to them, not an abstract concept.
: >Her origin is very important. Wonder Woman saving an orphan from a fire
: >and blessing her with Purple Healing brings a human onto Paradise Island.
: >Wonder Woman accidentally forgetting her mischevious double, who then
: >suffers countless deaths and becomes a universal nexus being, just makes
: >Donna a flawed duplicate.
: Her origin has only ever been important in stories about her
: origin...I can think of about 4 or 5 (2 during the old Wolfman/Perez
: Titans, 1 during John Byrne's WW, and the recent "Return of"
: mini)...in the 30+ years the character has been around...but I thought
: having her as WW's "sister" worked pretty well...it explained all the
: inconsistencies and played out pretty well during Jiminez's WW.
You're discounting her first origin in the original teen titans, the fact
that Wolfman/Perez had to do it about 3 times ("Who is Donna Troy?" could
have been a series unto itself), the fact that Byrne screwed it up
royally, and the fact that Jiminez had to fix it and then Infinite Crisis
fixed it AGAIN. Her origin has BECOME what most of her stories about.
: >Yeah, I don't like that place. Still too ambiguous.
: Ambiguous is fine if there is no good fix for it...which there
: isn't...they can't just restore the multiverse as it was...and let's
: be clear...this new multiverse is just that...new...some of the
: earth's resemble the previous multiverse but others don't at all.
Some is good enough. There's an Earth-1 and and Earth-2 again.
: >Yeah, well, glasses completely disguise his identity too, what do you
: >want, it's comics!
: I can buy that Clark Kent's disguise works for two reasons...first,
: because he carries himself differently as Clark (slouching and what
: not)...and, more importantly, the general public isn't aware that
: Supes even has a secret ID...as far as they know, he's Superman all
: the time...no one is looking around and wondering who he really is
: because he doesn't wear a mask. Placing him in Smallville, however,
: destroys this illusion...it's too much of a coincidence to be
: believed.
Well, not everybody has to know about it.
: >So how is that better? Hawkman's a mishmash of two completely different
: >characters, and Kendra's a failed suicide inhabited by a ghost? Very
: >messy, complicated, and anti-thetical to their once clear concepts as
: >Earth-2: archaeologists with reincarnated souls and Earth-1: Alien
: >policemen.
: Hawkman is not a mishmash of two different characters...the golden age
: Hawkman and Silver Age Hawkman are essentially the same character with
: two different origins...now you can have it both ways.
Yes, that's the definition of mish-mash.
: Hawkman's and Hawkgirl's origns haven't been clear concepts in a very
: long time...they've been rebooted too many times...Johns (and he
: explains this in the intro to one of the tpbs) just tried to take the
: best from each incarnation and blend it together without a
: reboot...and I think he did pretty well.
But he wouldn't have needed to if they'd never been rebooted.
: >No, you're not paying attention to dates. The 80s books suffered, the 90s
: >book tried to make reparations but still suffered, and the 2000s books
: >have been heading towards reinstating the multiverse, which was finally
: >accomplished in 52. From now on things will work better.
: No they won't...they still have the condensed earth...all the
: inconsistencies you hate will continue just as before...because they
: aren't going to separate the characters back onto alternate
: earths...and very few people (other than you) would want them too.
We'll see ....
: >Which never made sense in detail after mangled detail.
: I think the Wolfman/Perez History of the DCU did a pretty damn good
: job...it's the later retcons (usually to try to fix the perceived
: problems you point out) that made the mess...that history was clear
: and concise and laid a great framework to work off of.
And yet no one ever followed it. Why not?
: >Well, that is sort of what we have, only now it's a bit clearer where some
: >of those "holdovers" came from. IE, not from a destroyed past, but from a
: >still existing alternative.
: Except it's not still existing...the current multiverse isn't the
: multiverse of old...you need only look at that panel of earth-2 where
: it shows the newspaper headline about Superman and Power Girl
: missing...Wonder Woman is there...if this were the old earth-2 then
: she couldn't be. Also, the Legion the showed up in the Lightning Saga
Why not? She wasn't dead prior to the Crisis.
: doesn't exactly match any previous version of the Legion...it's just
: close the old one so people are willing to overlook the details...like
: having Karate Kid and Projectra in the same panel together.
Close enough is already such an improvement over not at all.
: >See how simple and clear?
: It would have been...if they stopped there...but they didn't...they
: kept adding more and more characters (and different versions of the
: same characters) on more and more alternate earths until no one could
: make heads or tails of the damn thing...except you apparently.
No, they didn't add more characters. They bought more characters, and
already had a lovely territory cleared out for them: enough worlds so each
could have one of their own. And then, once a year, a crosssover story
where they could meet and intermix, before heading back home.
: >I'll give you the latter, but 100 X 0 is still zero.
: This is what bothers me about people die-hard, old school fans like
: you...you never want things to change...you want things exactly as
: they were 40 years ago...which would be boring as hell and would
: alienate anyone who's started reading since then...which would be, by
: far, most of the current fan base.
Which fans are you seeing in your comic shop? I see a lot of guys my age
when I go in. I don't need things to be like they were. But I do need them
not to suck. The fact is, since Supergirl died in Crisis (in a very good
and meaningful sequence) they've failed at recreating her in about 70
different ways. It's pathetic.
: >It wasn't a mess, that was just an excuse for an event. Starman would have
: >worked just fine on Earth-2, with all the history he needed.
: Starman wouldn't have worked nearly as well on earth-2...if for no
: other reason than all the other Starmen wouldn't have been there...and
: the reincarnations he worked into the plot wouldn't have worked there
: either...since all those characters would have come from separate
: earths.
Which they could travel back and forth from with relative ease. Robinson
could have made it work easily.
: >What you're not imagining is what a horror show it was AFTER they TRIED
: >to
: >clean it up.
: In most cases, it worked just fine...of course there exceptions but
: not nearly as many as you'd like there to be.
Are Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Hawkman and Girl,
Batgirl, Power Girl, Huntress, all just exceptions?
: >And maintained the sense of invention, pseudoscience and funny humor.
: Maybe...but the Silver Age had cheese dripping all over it...even the
: best stories had some very corny aspects...dialogue if nothing
: else...writers back then treated the readers like idiots.
Who for some reason wanted to enjoy fun stories.
: He's not really distinguishing himself on FF right now...time will
: tell about his JLA though.
I think he's excelling on FF, and an immense improvement on JMS.
: >Bringing popularity isn't really a ringing endorsement to me. New Avengers
: >is quite popular; but it's also horrid dreck.
: I think New Avengers is a great book...it's just not the Avengers and
: I really wish they'd stop calling it that...oh, and kill off Sentry
: and kick Wolverine to the curb.
Well, I try calling it Not Avengers all the time, but that just makes
people yell at me. It is, however, a really really disgustingly terribly
written piece of trash.
: No Man's Land wasn't a single storyline...it was a backdrop for a ton
: of stories...many of which were excellent...I'll grant you Bane
: though...but the Dixon/Nolan run on Detective following that
: Knightfall crap was great...best use of Ra's al Ghul since the Neil
: Adams days...and Dixon also did great work on Nightwing, Birds of
: Prey, Robin (though that was hit and miss), and a score of Batman mini
: series...he's a highly underrated writer.
I liked his Batgirl: Year One TPB. Haven't tried his Robin: Year One yet.
: I don't remember many complaints about these two being gone. The few
: who did care that Goliath was killed only did so because he was one of
: the only black characters Marvel has...even if he was lame.
Well, then you weren't reading in the right places.
: >I could have done it for them in 2 minutes.
: Every interview I've read from the pre-Crisis days talked about what a
: mess it was...and they didn't do Crisis just to do a big
Then you haven't read the right interviews.
: event...unlike many of its sequels, it had a real purpose...they
: wanted to simplify and clarify the DCU so that you didn't need a
: freaking guidebook to figure things out...they had ongoing books
Which is why they kept publishing guidebooks ever since?
: taking place on different earths and any new reader, and I'm speaking
: from experience, would have been thoroughly confused and put off by it
: all...multiple versions of Batman, Superman, and Wonder
: Woman...multiple histories to learn...it was crap.
It was easy, and took two sentences to explain. It also let a variety of
versions of characters exist simultaneously in continuity. Which they
still do today, only outside of continuity, which to me is much more
confusing.
: >But Power Girl's old associates on Earth-2 now wonder where she's gone.
: Again...WW's appearance in that panel proves that it's not the old
: earth-2.
Explain that one.
: >It's a much clearer, more immediate, and more defined version again at
: >last, with a lot more storytelling potential than the vague Hypertime.
: There is absolutely no story that they can tell now with this new
: multiverse that they couldn't have done with Hypertime or another
: variation...absolutely the same story potential...this multiverse just
: appeases people like you.
We are Legion!!!
Shawn H.