Posted: 10 February 2018 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | 1
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One of my most fondly remembered comic stories from way back when was a Justice League tale in which the team is confronted by a collection of DC's historical characters such as Jonah Hex, Enemy Ace, and nurse Betty Lynne, a.k.a. Miss America. It cross-promoted their titles (those who had them) and served as a history lesson of sorts for the characters with whom the readers might not have been familiar. Years later, the JLA did a western crossover which closely mirrored an Avengers story from some years before. In the Eighties, the WCA would spend a long time trapped in Marvel's Western era. Superman went to 1776 and on another occasion met Sgt. Rock, serving as a member of Easy Co. Iron Man and Dr. Doom were trapped in Arthur's England.
As a reader, I really enjoyed these trips into the past absent all of the alternate timeline fooferah and "Sound of Thunder" butterflies crunching underfoot. Don't get me wrong, I like a good alternate timeline and Tyme Sefari kicker as much if not more than the next man, but with these stories, it was more the novelty of seeing characters interact who realistically* wouldn't have the opportunity to; The chance to get to know a character I might not have investigated otherwise. Spider-Man and Red Sonja? What a great idea! "What If Conan Walked the Earth Today?" Bring it on! I liked Two-Gun Kid's sojourn into our time as well.
Another variation on stories of this type is the "hero is sent travelling through time" set-up recently done with Batman in Morrison's "R.I.P." saga. "Hawkman" has done a lot with various incarnations set in different times. Veitch's "Swamp Thing" went time-tripping as well**. And then there are those stories featuring characters who are long-lived or effectively immortal, such as Thor and the Demon, who often have stories set in the past because, well, they were there.
More recently, Marvel and DC have adopted the concept of simply setting their heroes in past eras ala' "Elseworlds" or 1602, without any transportation element to the story. (Yes, I know 1602 is a bit labored on this point.) The heroes simply live there and always have.
I also like it when characters from other eras simply age forward into our's, as was done with the Justice Society and Dominic Fortune in an issue of Marvel Team-Up. The 3-D Man from Marvel's 1950's made a memorable appearance in Hulk #251.
How about you? Do you have any favorite Cross-Time Capers or appearances by characters outside their regular temporal contexts you'd like to list or talk about? I would expect JB's Revolutionary War-era Superman annual will get a lot of love here, as will Generations.
Also, which historical character do you feel might do well transported to another era, present-day or otherwise? DC tried it with "Hex," set in an apocalyptic future. Would they have done better had they instead published "Ace?***" Or "Hawk, Son of Tomahawk?"
This thread could also be a place to simply expound upon a feature set in another time period that you really enjoyed. I may go off on the "Creature Commandoes" here pretty soon... :-)
* Always a relative term at best in comics ** I really like the issue with Tomahawk from this story cycle. With art by Tom Yeates, I recommend it if you're prowling through a back issue bin at some point. *** No, not the dog.
Edited by Brian Hague on 10 February 2018 at 1:56pm
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