Wouldn't he have been in his 20's when Alien came out?

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Yes.  But he is in his 50's now and has the opinion that Alien, of all movies, is boring.  I would guess he had the same opinion when he was in his 20's.

our collective attention span-- partly thanks to the internet and the plethora of cable channels blasting away 24/7--has been reduced to picoseconds. the life of a fruitfly is an unbearable span of time and the fall of a single raindrop an eternity.

and my life is STILL going by too fast! :)

iii

Yes.....Though I think there's a place for motivation(s) as well.

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You mean "the right reasons"?

Stephen Churay wrote: "It's been a long time since I read the SECRET ORIGINS issue that Steven posted. Time plays trick on the mind sometimes and my memory of that issue was that he was who they are now claiming him to be. Even though I don't think that was the actual story in that issue. I actually think it's a cool backstory for A CHARACTER but agree with JB that the Phantom Stranger should remain just that " a stranger".

Stephen, I'm not entirely certain I get what you're saying about this newest revelation concerning the Phantom Stranger's origins, but that issue of Secret Origins offered four distinctly different stories of where the Stranger might have come from, and commited to none of them.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): 1. He is a version of the Wandering Jew, in this case a man whose wife and child were killed when Herod ordered all infants born around the time of Christ's birth killed to prevent the rise of the savior. He bribes a Roman to allow him to participate in the torture of Jesus, and is sentenced to walk the Earth as punishment. 2. He is a good man who is spared by an angel of God during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Unwilling to live while all about him die, he kills himself, but is resurrected and made to travel alone throughout time, once again as punishment. 3. He is an angel himself during the time of the War In Heaven. When Lucifer rebels, here partially against "Yahweh's dangerous plan to make clay sit up and talk," the angel who will become the Stranger refuses to take sides. As a result, in the aftermath, the angels in Heaven will no longer have him and the demons (transformed angels) of Hell cut off his wings and throw him out, leaving him no place to go but Earth and no choice but to walk. 4. He is the last survivor of the cosmos previous to this one ala' Galen, the man who would become Galactus.

It is this last one that is followed up in the Phantom Stranger mini-series that came out after this issue, wherein he is a key figure in the battle between the Lords of Order and Chaos, as is Eclipso.

Later, the Vertigo authors would more or less canonize the Alan Moore origin concerning the War In Heaven.

None of the above stories have anything to do with the origin we're given in Dan Didio's latest train wreck.

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IIRC, during his run on Batman, Brian Azzerella revealed that a 10 year old Bruce Wayne was partly responsible for his parents deaths because he was acting like a spoiled brat who insisted that they go to the movies that particular night. So now we have yet another long time hero stamped with the whole guilt and redemption thing that so many modern creators like to saddle the characters with.

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If we accept that Joe Chill was HIRED to kill the Waynes, which was a long established part of the mythology, then Bruce's behavior would have no impact at all on the nature of their deaths. If they went to a movie, or their favorite restaurant, or for a drive in the country, or STAYED HOME, they would have gotten just as dead.