Such a simple concept, yet completely beyond the grasp of these types of fans.

••

"No sense of history" is a charge I have leveled at many a fan, and many a pro, over the years. "Like Archie" indicates a failure to grasp that Archie is ageless* precisely because those books follow (or followed) the basic model. It started in the newspaper strips, where the characters were similarly ageless (and often timeless). Of course, the rot has snuck in there, too. I remember when DICK TRACY celebrated its 50th Anniversary by having Dick celebrate his 50th birthday. Foolish on many levels, since it did not reflect "real time" (Tracy was not born in the first strip!), and did not accomplish anything other than making the character "old". Of course, "Junior" had long since preceded him down that path.

Marvel was really the first to seriously break with "tradition", as Peter Parker (to name but one) grew older as the years went by. Not quite real time, but enough to prompt Roger Stern to note that in Marvel books the first couple of years seemed to happen in real time, then the brakes went on. Of course, this was not a hard and fast rule, and as more fans-turned-pro came in, traditions began faltering more and more. Eventually the Question of just how long the "Marvel Universe"** had been around prompted the invention of "Marvel Time", setting the launch of the FF's rocket at seven years ago, with the intention that it would REMAIN "seven years ago". But it didn't take long for people to start "doing the math". "Well, if it was seven years ten years ago, it must be, like, nine years by now…" The point that the seven years was "elastic", and did not need years added to it was completely missed.

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* Archie DID age, in fact. He was sub-teen when the character first appeared. But the brakes were applied very early on!

** I die a little inside every time I type that phrase. The "Marvel Universe" is supposed to be OUR universe. The adventures take place HERE, not in some "parallel reality".

••

I sometimes find myself envying those who can think that way. I can't.

Thing, too, was that DC didn't WANT their characters to be "too old", so they started pushing in "legacy" characters -- younger people who would take on the roles of Green Lantern, Green Arrow, the Flash, etc --- none of the originals needing to be "too old" if DC had just stuck to that most basic of all comicbook conventions: THE STORIES ALL HAPPEN "NOW", THE CHARACTERS DO NOT AGE.

I got into a debate with one of the more strident pro-Spider-marriage knuckleheads once, and the issue of teenage characters growing older came up. His reply was, "What? They should stay the same age forever? Like Archie?"

Such a simple concept, yet completely beyond the grasp of these types of fans.

***

A year or two ago, the owner of my LCS had some friends and customers over for coffee. I got into a conversation with a young man of maybe 20 and started to voice my opinions about some of the things I saw wrong with the way comics are today, including my feeling that if you can't accept the serial nature of comics and the fact that a status quo shouldn't have to change to accommodate aging readers and characters who are intended to continue for many years shouldn't age. He didn't quite seem to get what I was saying until I asked him who his favorite character was. He told me it was Green Lantern (Hal Jordan). I pointed out that if Hal had started aging from the beginning of his existence, he'd have aged out of activity long before that particular fan got to read his adventures. "Don't you want to be able to introduce your kids to your favorite character if you ever have any?" I asked him. He got my point then.  

   The comments about Neal Adams and Batman: Odessey have me considering something which could be said about his situation.  Neal is a comics professional.  If he goes to DC or Marvel and pitches something for them to publish that the bosses approve of, he still has to work within the rules that they've set up there.  If the boss calls for blood and guts, Neal will give them blood and guts.  It's not unlike how John Byrne had to act back in the day when he got hired to work for Marvel.

   Today, Byrne has enough clout to take charge of his own destiny in the industry (such as he sees it), and so chooses not to work for the Big Two.  Instead, he plays in the little pond we call "IDW", and does a bang-up job of it.

   Neal Adams has chosen to dip his toes in the ponds at DC and Marvel once more, and goes along with the rules that Dan DiDio and Joe Quesada have tacked up on the bulletin boards there.  I hold nothing against him for doing it (at least at DC, where his Batman maxi seemed separate enough from what was being done on the main titles to seem like an "imaginary story").