| Posted: 16 January 2015 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | 5
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What used to occur, decades before anyone thought to impose "continuity" on the stories was a sort of organic change in the characters, resetting elements in their history, retooling them for the next few years to come, all without any drastic, conscious attempt to "reboot" them.
The Superman and Batman who debuted in the late thirties didn't last very long, story-wise. Within just a few years, changes were wrought in their temperments, visuals, and methods that rendered the then-current versions all but incompatible. The thick, stocky, often-comedic Superman of the post-war years was not the lean, chisel-featured anarchist in Roman sandals we started off with. The change between the two was gradual yet definite.
There was no intent to "stack" the stories on top of one another, accruing history along the way. Superboy was introduced and for years continued as a separate entity and strip, never altering the already-established backstory of Superman. Despite their supposed premise of being the same individual, Superman never referred to his childhood adventures in costume or met the adult versions of his old rafting buddies. No continuity between the two was established or intended.
Soon, as the Superman Office began to hire more science-fiction writers and the need to make Superman's adventures "bigger" and more deserving of such a popular phenomenon, robots and spacemen began to appear. Kryptonite came onto the scene and Superman finally discovered his own origins, tracking a piece of Green K back to its point of origin and seeing Jor-El for the first time. "That man looks more like me than I do!"
Once Krypton comes into play as a valid storytelling element, one that the host of other comic characters running around couldn't claim, the tone and character of the feature changed once again and one would be hard put to say that this month's Superman was exactly the same character as the one who'd been around five years ago. This transitional phase was short-lived as all too quickly the more familiar Weisinger era came to the fore and accumulated history and continuity played a much larger role in the stories being told.
Once elements like the "package from Krypton" and the "memory restorer" were introduced, Superman needed a fortress to contain all of the numerous treasures from home he could now hoard. Pets began to appear. Additional survivors from Krypton soon began lining up for repeat appearances in the books. Superman had met the occasional Kryptonian before, but they didn't stick around, neither literally nor in the memories of the characters.
Now they did. Now Superboy began to play host to kids who would later grow up to play significant roles in his adult life. And he knew they would because he had a Kryptonian Future-Scope to tell him they would. Now all the stories began to fit together and readers were expected to know that Silver Kryptonite couldn't be real because it wasn't one of the ones we'd been told about and given all the rules to.
Supergirl showed up and stayed. There had been Supergirls before her, but no one remembered them (Well, E. Nelson Bridwell did, and reprinted their adventures so the rest of us could know about them, too, but no one in-story ever mentioned to Kara that she'd once had a predecessor Jimmy had wished on a magic totem stick to bring to life.) Now, no only did Linda have her own consistent existence, but a whole host of supporting characters and continuing adventures...
Clearly this Superman and related assortment of titles was not the one from the Fifties. Or the Forties. Or the Thirties. Again, no hard reboot necessary. The feature simply grew and changed over time. No one had to say, "This story counts!" and "This one doesn't!" Change was built into the equation and there wasn't really any sense that Superman had to answer for having been around for 30 years.
With Marvel on everyone's mind and continuity the raging passion of every fan worth his salt in the 70's, the changes the Schwartz office made to the character couldn't erase or directly countermand the 60's Superman exactly. They just kind of ignored stuff like Comet the Super-Horse and didn't bring up potentially discordant elements unless the story called for them, and then, hey, the writers had been fans of all that stuff back in the day. Why not bring Krypto in and see what's been happening with the old guy? Give him his own strip in Superman Family and see what happens...
Seventies Superman for the first time couldn't simply slough off the accumulated history from his previous decade and sadly, the innocently intended silliness of much of it doomed him to him first "hard restart."
Since then, nothing has happened organically. Everything has been viewed through the lens of the reboot, and the creators keep pushing that button until their fingernails and our eyes are seeping blood.
Once upon a time, things like Secret Identity, Birthright, or the Lee Nu52 guy would have either come about in context with the story or not at all. Superman would just be younger this month. No explanation necessary. "B-But then... Did this story happen? Did that one?" If it doesn't directly impact this month's, I'd say it doesn't matter overly much. Generally, each issue should tell you what you need to know... "B-But does it all fit together?? Do I need to buy eight more comics this month to find out how important yours is to the whole line? After this, it's no more changes, right? This time it's forever, right? Promise me!!"
You know, we took a bad corner there somewhere...
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