JB, I agree that simpler is better. I often wonder these days if the reason writers these days dawdle over the characters' origins is that they don't actually have a story of their own to move on to...

••

Cuz, you know, we CANNOT allow these characters to be just naturally superior examples of homo sapiens. My dog! That would make them BETTER than us!!!

••

The writer's job has become a lot easier. Where once it was required that an ENTIRE STORY be told in six or eight pages, now six or eight ISSUES is more the norm.

When I was doing the first run on NEXT MEN, I allowed the stories to "meander". This was a deliberate choice on my part -- I was treating each story arc as a "novel", and allowed it to find its own borders. (In most cases, my years of training meant that worked out to about six issues, but that was LONG for me!) On other projects, before, since, and during the JBNM days, I worked to a more strict page count. "Meandering" was kept to a minimum.

Now, writers -- working full script, of course! -- will spend a PAGE on having someone fall out of bed, or spend an ISSUE on characters sitting around talking. In so many cases, comics have become the equivalent of hiring Anthony Hopkins to sit in a comfy chair and read WAR& PEACE while being filmed. The result is then declared to be a movie of WAR & PEACE.

Exploiting the strengths of the medium has become of minimal importance.

••

Was that from the dreadful Action Comics Weekly run?  Bugged me then and it also bugged me that the Green Lantern feature (or Nightwing/Speedy) was usually voted as the most popular of the many features in ACW.  Wild Dog, Secret Six, Deadman, and Blackhawk were what I remember enjoying.

••

Thanks! I DID try to meander to places that MATTERED!

Michael, I recall that in the John Broome story which introduced Guy Gardner, it was put forth that Guy was equally worthy of becoming Green Lantern, but that Hal was closer. As a result, he was appointed as Hal's stand-in and first runner-up should Hal ever be unable to fulfill his duties and obligations as a Green Lantern. He was later said to be in a coma so that Denny O'Neill could pass that role on to John Stewart.

Matthew, your clarification does change the argument to some extent. I'll admit that I had misread your proposal and believed that it suggested that Barry was making the conscious decision to empower Wally and not simply serving as an agent of fate. We'll have to continue to disagree on the rest, however. Barry becoming Wally's bolt is still a paradox, just a less tidy one, and it still leaves us then with the question of who was Barry's? Jay maybe? Wally returning the favor? Who knows.

In Crisis, we saw that Barry was going back in time while dismantling the Anti-Monitor's device. Where was he going? Why was he being sent back in time? Fleming's story addresses these questions well, I think, and provides a way for Barry's end to serve some sort of purpose within the Flash mythos. You would prefer that he hand off the baton. I was happy with the paradox as Fleming presented it.

In any case, I prefer than the story be about Barry and not his successor. Wally got his own origin retold in that same issue. He didn't need two retellings of it in a single issue, did he?

It is nice having you back on the forum, by the way!

Regarding the Peter David revisionist GL origin, I remember that Hal was giving some sort of interview when he was asked about why the ring selected him above all others. When he responded, "Because I'm without fear," the host and the audience erupted into gales of uncontrollable laughter...

That burst of uncontrollable laughter in a David story is never a good sign that something worthwhile is coming...