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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 1:14am | IP Logged | 1
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For example: Superman is supposed to be around 29-30 (although that may have changed now that he has a son), and be the first superhero of this generation, but that affects everything else.
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Assuming that math works on Earth-Zero the way it works in the real world, and now that the New 52 reboot has been largely negated, all of the original ("Silver Age") Justice League members and their supporting characters must be much older than the look. Somewhere in their 40s at least.
There are various reasons that could be used to explain away why many of them look so young, most of which aren't worth going into. (Batman's reason for still being at the peak of his "powers": he's taken a dip in the Lazarus Pit more than once.)
Most of the original JSA members are dead, so it's easy to stop talking about them -- and the others have been stolen away by Dr. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
As for Infinity Inc., it's easy to retcon them as having appeared before the League and just not having lasted very long. Most of them are also deceased, and the others have powers that would keep them from aging (Jade, Obsidian, Atom Smasher, possibly Hourman).
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 1:26am | IP Logged | 2
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One thing that got to be annoying after a while, in Superman stories of the '70s/'80s was the need to have Superman keep mentioning that 'the other JLAers are on a mission in space'(or whatever excuse precluded them from appearing)." I guess DC must have been just as annoyed to get letters from people wondering why the JLA can't just handle any and every situation that pops up in any hero's title.
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It's because of those kind of annoying and stupid fanboy questions why I think that the Big 2 should bluntly and unapologetically nip in the bud by telling them that these are the solo stories featuring these characters and that this is just how the art form works and that fans shouldn't take the "shared universe" concept to literally by applying real world logic/rules and asking questions that should never be asked. In other words, it's just a damn fictional story and that the creators only include characters and info that is only pertinent to tell said story. So sit back,relax,and enjoy the ride and don't pop a blood vessel trying to figure out where and when all the pieces fit in said shared universe.
OMT, I find it funny that the Big 2 are hellbent on aiming their comics at a dwindling aging audience of adults, and yet they can't just be up front and honest with that very same adult audience about obsessing over these things.
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 3:58am | IP Logged | 3
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Brian O'Neill - there was a history of Superman reflecting that the other JLAers were off on a mission in space. It went back to Justice League of America itself, and even more so to the Legion of Super-Heroes. The heroes in the story were the ones available; the others were on a mission in space, or in time, or fighting some other villain - the Justice League of America even dealt with that once, in JLA #52 - "Missing in Action - Five Justice Leaguers!" Basically, it was about five JLA'ers who couldn't make a mission, and their story - which made half of that book an issue of World's Finest ("super starring" Batman and Superman on the cover.)
Heroes in their own books were supposed to solve their own cases and problems. No one would argue that Spider-Man #33 would have been a damned poor piece of story if the Hulk had burst in and freed Bug-Man from the heavy machine.
I like continuity, but not to be slavishly bound to it. In the end, these ARE comic books, and aren't intended to be classic literature (and let's face facts... there weren't a lot of continued stories in he classics. Save for the Musketeers, it's pretty damned rare. So there weren't a lot of details to carry from one book to another.)
Crisis fixed a non-problem - but I think the REAL issue was, "How do we do a company wide explosion that'll rival what we got from New Teen Titans?" Once again, when the question was why, the answer was money.
Myself, I disliked all the alternate Earths I had to keep straight between comics, cartoons, live action TV shows, and movies. Try to reconcile one Batman among all of these and you will go mad. So I jus keep telling myself that it's not one universe, and I open another file in my head for each movie, TV show, etc. The versions of Batman, Green Arrow, Superman and Supergirl, Spider-Man, the Hulk, etc. running around in my head are frightening in magnitude...
And there is NO way back, because the fan boys - both readers and creators, and most especially publishers - cannot tolerate a complete restart. Through Marvel Ultimate universe, Crises, Zero Hour, Pu52, Rebirth... too much carries through from the previous iteration because there are books that sell too well to reboot. And so, reality has stomped its iron boot upon the face of comics... forever.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 7:43am | IP Logged | 4
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I'm reading SCOOBY-DOO and SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP. It's as accessible to me as the old cartoons. It's a premise that has been open to every new generation - and very accessible.
Whether you watch an episode of the 1969 cartoon, an episode of the show where Scrappy-Doo first appeared or a modern comic, it's the SAME gang. You don't need in-depth knowledge or continuity. It doesn't need multiple earths; no-one is asking how the gang can exist in the modern world (i.e. using iPads) and have met Sonny and Cher decades ago. They simply ARE.
How tedious it would have been had pedantic questions led to a Scooby version of CRISIS. How boring it'd be if it was decided that 60s Scooby adventures were taking place on another earth whilst modern ones were taking place on a different earth.
Just let franchises be.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 9:40am | IP Logged | 5
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Robbie, what you're seeing there is one of the elements of fan pathology that has truly driven me crazy over the years. Something like SCOODY-DOO escapes the compulsion to dissect and deconstruct in large part because it's "just a cartoon".This would often come up when discussing whether characters should age. I'd point out that none of the SIMPSONS characters have aged in twenty years, and this would be dismissed because THE SIMPSONS is "just a cartoon" and "mot realistic". Whereas a teenager who is bitten by a radioactive spider and so gains all the spider's abilities -- well, that's the very definition of grounded reality!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 9:54am | IP Logged | 6
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How boring it'd be if it was decided that 60s Scooby adventures were taking place on another earth whilst modern ones were taking place on a different earth. •• Now we come to the crux of it all. One of the best superhero stories ever created was "The Flash of Two Worlds". I know. I was 11 years old, and I was totally blown away. Unfortunately, that wonderful story was the first tear in the fabric of superhero fiction. It raised questions. If the Golden Age Flash was "real," what about the other characters he used to hang out with. Where was Superman? Where was Batman? And, if they existed on this "parallel Earth", which versions were "real," and where was the "break" between their storylines? It wasn't long before those questions, and others, started to be answered, and that wonderful little one-off tale in THE FLASH 123 was turned into a millstone around the neck of every character at DC.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 10:30am | IP Logged | 7
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There are many franchises which have done a "The Flash Of Two Worlds" type storyline. Purely for fun. And not so that it could turn into an unwieldy, pedantic millstone decades later. It's sad.
I think such stories work better as an opportunity for two similar characters to meet. Or to explore familiar characters in an unfamiliar setting (i.e. STAR TREK's "Mirror Universe"). But there's a problem when they become a millstone.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 11:14am | IP Logged | 8
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What it all comes down to is a sea change in fandom. Instead of the fans wanting to play the company's game, many wanted the companies to play their game. And the companies complied (since they had been largely infested with those very fans!).
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Brian O'Neill
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Joined: 13 November 2013
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Posts: 1964
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 11:36am | IP Logged | 9
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IMO, it was Earths 3, X, and S that were the millstones, and Earth-2 suffered needlessly.In the midst of CRISIS, during ALL-STAR SQUADRON # 50, Roy Thomas, who had already established many Quality Comics heroes as having originated on Earth-2, finally shunted all of them, including Plastic Man and the Blackhawks) to Earth-X. That seemed like a case where Thomas must have felt he HAD to depict it in print soon, before DC pulled the multiverse rug out from under him. Earth X turned up only VERY briefly,even in the Freedom Fighters' own magazine, as there were more story ideas and guest-star possibilities with the team operating on Earth-1. I vaugely recall a sequence in a Wonder Woman story in the early '80s, guest starring Phantom Lady, showing her confronting a Nazi tank in Paris...which has been almost entirely razed, with only the Eiffel Tower still standing. I don't remember the context within the story, if it was meant to be 'really happening', or a dream/flashback, etc, It was a striking sequence, though(by Thomas and Gene Colan), and it showed one fleeting glimpse of Earth-X's potential.
Earth 3 really was the 'mirror universe' version of any other Earth you could name, in which every major event in history happened 'the other way around', with no regard for context: White people lived in the Americas first and 'discovered' a Europe filled with 'redskin natives', with England eventually declaring independence from the United States, etc. Nobody ever really wanted to do anything with either of those Earths after the respective introductions of the Crime Syndicate and Freedom Fighters. As far as I know, Earth 3 appeared just twice after its introduction, in DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #1(which introduced the Lois Lane and Alex Luthor of that Earth), and then its destruction at the beginning of COIE.
And as for Earth-S: I agree with everyone who said that Captai Marvel should have just had a world to himself with no interaction with the rest of the DC universe. Aside from half-hearted attempts to follow up on the well-remembered 1978 'Superman vs. Shazam' tabloid, that's pretty much what DC did. And with nearly all of his stories (after the first year or so of the revival) being written by DC's 'kiddie superhero story guy' E. Nelson Bridwell, it was, yet again, Roy Thomas who kept teaming 'The Big Red and Blue Cheeses' together, just to fit two Earths together who really had nothing in common. But yeah, it was 'that stupid Earth 2 with the stupid gray-haired Superman' that some a-hole writers (Who? I really wish someone had 'named and shamed' them right off of DC's payroll) found 'confusing', so 'there could only be one Earth'.
Well, guess what? With the exception of JB's Superman, every other 'new version' of a major character after CRISIS sucked Kryptonian Babbotch extremities. The only saving grace for the whole mess was that Jonathan and Martha Kent were alive. EVERY other character/title as of 1986 was inferior to what had gone before.The way CRISIS treated Wonder Woman was especially shabby.
Edited by Brian O'Neill on 29 August 2017 at 12:03pm
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David Miller
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | 10
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QUOTE:
| Earth 3 really was the 'mirror universe' version of any other Earth you could name, in which every major event in history happened 'the other way around', with no regard for context: White people lived in the Americas first and 'discovered' a Europe filled with 'redskin natives', with England eventually declaring independence from the United States, etc. |
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See, this is why alternate Earths are awesome.
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Brian O'Neill
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Joined: 13 November 2013
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | 11
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Oh, I forgot the part where disgraced theater actor Abraham Lincoln assassinated beloved U.S. President John Wilkes Booth.And the designation of 'Earth-X' was supposed to be a swastika...until Julie Schwartz overruled Len Wein.
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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 29 August 2017 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | 12
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This would often come up when discussing whether characters should age. I'd point out that none of the SIMPSONS characters have aged in twenty years, and this would be dismissed because THE SIMPSONS is "just a cartoon" and "mot realistic".
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It's because they're drawn "cartoony." Superhero comics are drawn less "cartoony." So therefore they must be "more realistic."
It's stupid but some people let their eyes override their brains, so to speak.
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