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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133325
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | 1
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The multiverse became "chaos" only in the minds of certain -- and I feel I must use the word -- snobbish fans and pros. The attitude was "Well, we've all been reading these books for years and years, so we UNDERSTAND the multiverse, but new readers -- those poor little pinheads -- will be CONFUSED!"Which was bull, of course. The simple solution to the "problem" of the multiverse was the same solution I applied to Reed and Ben being in WW2: JUST STOP MENTIONING IT! But that was unlikely. The people in charge at DC were cut from the same cloth as the fans (and in many cases WERE the fans) who wanted EVERYTHING to be mentioned EVERY ISSUE. Footnote fanatics. And so CRISIS became "necessary."
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | 2
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John Byrne wrote:
| Which was bull, of course. The simple solution to the "problem" of the multiverse was the same solution I applied to Reed and Ben being in WW2: JUST STOP MENTIONING IT! |
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I believe such an approach is the best way.
I don't know for sure, but I'd wager 007 novels/films might have mentioned something topical, e.g. a particular war, etc. But the creators of those shows no doubt stopped mentioning things. Best approach, to be honest.
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Andrew Bitner
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Joined: 01 June 2004
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | 3
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CRISIS, the original, seems like a case of "if a little course correction is good, fans will go crazy for an unnecessary line-wide reboot...that's incomplete!"
Seriously, there was no good reason to make such a big deal out of half the stuff going on then. Charlton? It's a big world--we can be introduced to these characters without saying that they're being brought in from another (long defunct) universe. The bits and pieces of the Multiverse around as of 1986? Not worth making this big a fuss over; as noted, the actual books and characters NOT set in DC's prime universe were few.
But there always has to be some hyper-cosmic reason why things change even slightly because God forbid, the real world never ever changes.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | 4
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But there always has to be some hyper-cosmic reason why things change even slightly because God forbid, the real world never ever changes.•• Remember, when I did the Superman reboot, there really were people who wrote to decry my leaving out Streaky, the Supercat. Did I not understand how important he was to the mythos? When I was getting into the Biz, there were people like that (tho proportionately not as many!) and the official solution was to IGNORE them. But as time went by, and the Old Pro/New Pro balance shifted, those people who worshipped every jot and tittle had more and more allies in the Offices, and the barnacles became something that COULD NOT be ignored.
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James Johnson
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Joined: 16 March 2009
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | 5
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The people in charge at DC were cut from the same cloth as the fans (and in many cases WERE the fans) who wanted EVERYTHING to be mentioned EVERY ISSUE. Footnote fanatics. And so CRISIS became "necessary."
=================================================
To my knowledge, it was mentioned. Each and everytime there was an Earth-2 or Earth-X story, there were a few panels or page EXPLAINING who these characters were AND where these events take place.
If I read a story where Superman, Batman, WW, Flash, Green Lantern, etc.... from two earths appeared, it was laid out in the story why there were (near) duplicates.
This sounds like the editorial staff gave in to bullshit.
Personally, I like the way JB solved the Earth 1-2 trinity thing in Generations.
There was only ONE Kal-(E)L (Clark Kent), Bruce Wayne, Princess Diana. Others may have worn the mantle of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but the originals set the standard to live by.
Edited by James Johnson on 02 February 2018 at 3:20pm
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | 6
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Even if the Earth-1/Earth-2 dichotomy took a panel or two to explain (really all it took), it still wasn't confusing. And I remember very few stories of any of the Marvel Family describing the difference between Earth-1 and Earth-S... the Superman vs Shazam* tabloid, the three DC Comics Presents issues, the DC Comics Presents annual, and the story where Luthor slipped into Earth-S. And I think only the first Captain Carrot story mentioned Earth-1.
There was just no need for details at every occurrence or mention. And if so, one quick panel could explain it... usually with Kal-El, Barry Allen, and Aquaman on one side, and Kal-L, Jay Garrick, and Kent Nelson on the other to show the degrees of difference.
A complete non-problem which resolution created far too many more issues than it solved.
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | 7
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In retrospect I think it was the WRITERS at DC who couldn't just couldn't keep track of which characters were supposed to live on which Earth. Solution: smoosh the most important ones together into one Earth and get rid of the older "doppelgangers."
OK, that's mostly fine, if you have a plan for keeping everything simple afterwards. Clearly, DC didn't. Hence, the reboots for certain characters that led to plenty of "but what about..." questions for the histories of the Legion, the JSA, the JLA, Infinity Inc., the Teen Titans...
So much for keeping things simple. And I really never liked putting Captain Marvel and his Family into the same world as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and so on. Whimsical characters belong somewhere else, separate from the serious characters.
(OK, maybe not Rex the Wonder Dog or Detective Chimp or other "goofy" characters that give DC a certain charm that Marvel can sometimes lack. But the Marvel Family could've easily been in a line aimed for ten-year olds, completely separate from the mainline DC titles.)
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Adam Schulman
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Joined: 22 July 2017
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | 8
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About halfway through it (first time reading it), and I can't say I'm a fan. I prefer the farmboy made good approach to the god/alien among men approach, so the auras, the S as a repurposed Kryptonian symbol, etc. is a bit much.
That said, I'll give you the Zach Snyder thing. :-)
***
I don't think Waid wrote Clark as a god at all. The "aura" thing was overkill taken from Elliot S! Maggin, I agree. The "S" emblem as Kryptonian...as the symbol of the House of El it's fine, I had no problem with it in the 1978 movie and importing that into the comics is OK by me. I admit that turning it into a "symbol for hope" is too much.
There were various other things I liked about it, such as Clark training himself how to be "Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper." And Lex Luthor, head of Lexcorp but also a very obsessed astrophysicist.
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Mark McKay
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 02 February 2018 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | 9
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One of my first two comic books was Infinity, Inc. New reader, understood it right away, thought it was super cool to see the children of the big heroes.
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Marc Baptiste
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Joined: 17 June 2004
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| Posted: 03 February 2018 at 7:05am | IP Logged | 10
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JB,
I resent the title the of this thread, I CANNOT just "get over" all the wonderful work you have done of the years and the great joy that it has brought to me.
Marc
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 03 February 2018 at 8:19am | IP Logged | 11
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There were various other things I liked about it, such as Clark training himself how to be "Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper."••• Once again casting Clark as the diguise, instead of that being Superman.
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James Johnson
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Joined: 16 March 2009
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| Posted: 03 February 2018 at 9:56am | IP Logged | 12
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Once again casting Clark as the disguise, instead of that being Superman.
====================================
JB,
Did you get flack from DC or any professionals going that route? The idea that Clark was not clumbsy or mild mannered, but was performing these great feats and helping out while remaining anomynous was perfect.
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