Back in the funky Seventies, DC had a promo page called The Daily Planet Extra which appeared each week in their titles, promoting the books that were out that week without being as relentlessly self-congratulatory as Dan DiDio's DC Nation columns.
A regular feature on these pages was Ask The Answer Man, in which DC editor and writer Bob Rozakis answered fans questions about DC. In an amazingly tiny amount of space, Rozakis banged off 3 or 4 answers per week, about who was from which Earth, what's up with this character, where's X going to appear next. It may not seem like much, but back in the pre-internet days, and with no authoritative reference books available, for a lot of people this was the only source for such official pronouncements.
(I'm obliged to note that, as memory serves me, in the latter days the questions became dominated by kids who were too lazy to go find a Comic Book Price Guide and wrote into the Answer Man such stunning questions as "How much is Flash #172 worth?" Man, I always found that annoying...it's like going to the Oracle at Delphi and asking a question like "How much should I spend on a muffler?" Drove me crazy, I tell you...)
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to occasionally look back at one of the Answer Man columns, to see how well the answers hold up 30 odd years later. This is not to pick on Rozakis, let me assure you; as far as I know, he was always accurate at the time. But I think "re-asking" the questions can shed a little light about the state of the DC Universe three decades later.
So, presenting, the column from Daily Planet Extra for the week of January 9, 1978:
First up, we have this:
Oy. Could we have started with one more complex, more convoluted, more frakked up than this one? Let's just say that Donna's history has undergone more revisions and patches than Microsoft Vista. First they made her one of the Titans of Myth, than they made her a magical clone of Diana who actually created from a portion of Wonder Woman's soul. Then they decided that it was all true, and Donna was "the real sum of every Donna Troy that existed on every Earth, a living key to the lost Multiverse." I think that's where it stands now.
Remember how the first Crisis was supposed to clean up continuity? In Donna's case, not so much--it just opened the floodgates so every writer decided he could inflict his own clever origin on her. Wikinuity...
Next:
Hmmm...Isis is clearly on New Earth, or Earth-1, these days. But in the new multiverse, Earth-5 is essentially Earth-S, so maybe she's there, too.
Next:
Well, the Titans have reformed, and broken up and reformed and broken up ad infinitum since then. Hell, now we even have 3 Titans teams running around, so there's room for more members.
Power Girl is still a member of the Justice Society, but the Star Spangled Kid is dead. There's been a couple more since then, of course.
If Jimmy isn't a teen anymore, does that mean Elastic Lad was kicked out of the Legion of Super-Heroes?!?
NEXT:
Oooh, not quite, Bob. It was another full decade before we got to see the Secret Six again, as a regular feature in Action Comics Weekly in 1988!! (Sadly, this was after Bridwell had passed away...) Marty Pasko and Dan Spiegle revealed that Mockingbird was indeed one of the Six, Durant. But all of the original Six, including Durant, were killed in the second issue!! Don't fret...they were replaced by another Secret Six, and a new Mockingbird...who died...
It only took 17 more years for the new Secret Six, a ragtag bunch of villains, to be formed during Infinite Crisis. And Luthor was the new Mockingbird...oh, my head...
So what's our lesson? Bob Rozakis, be glad you gave up the Answer man gig, because despite the best intentions, everything became much, much, much more complicated after the various Crises.
A regular feature on these pages was Ask The Answer Man, in which DC editor and writer Bob Rozakis answered fans questions about DC. In an amazingly tiny amount of space, Rozakis banged off 3 or 4 answers per week, about who was from which Earth, what's up with this character, where's X going to appear next. It may not seem like much, but back in the pre-internet days, and with no authoritative reference books available, for a lot of people this was the only source for such official pronouncements.
(I'm obliged to note that, as memory serves me, in the latter days the questions became dominated by kids who were too lazy to go find a Comic Book Price Guide and wrote into the Answer Man such stunning questions as "How much is Flash #172 worth?" Man, I always found that annoying...it's like going to the Oracle at Delphi and asking a question like "How much should I spend on a muffler?" Drove me crazy, I tell you...)
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to occasionally look back at one of the Answer Man columns, to see how well the answers hold up 30 odd years later. This is not to pick on Rozakis, let me assure you; as far as I know, he was always accurate at the time. But I think "re-asking" the questions can shed a little light about the state of the DC Universe three decades later.
So, presenting, the column from Daily Planet Extra for the week of January 9, 1978:
First up, we have this:
Oy. Could we have started with one more complex, more convoluted, more frakked up than this one? Let's just say that Donna's history has undergone more revisions and patches than Microsoft Vista. First they made her one of the Titans of Myth, than they made her a magical clone of Diana who actually created from a portion of Wonder Woman's soul. Then they decided that it was all true, and Donna was "the real sum of every Donna Troy that existed on every Earth, a living key to the lost Multiverse." I think that's where it stands now.Remember how the first Crisis was supposed to clean up continuity? In Donna's case, not so much--it just opened the floodgates so every writer decided he could inflict his own clever origin on her. Wikinuity...
Next:
Hmmm...Isis is clearly on New Earth, or Earth-1, these days. But in the new multiverse, Earth-5 is essentially Earth-S, so maybe she's there, too.Next:
Well, the Titans have reformed, and broken up and reformed and broken up ad infinitum since then. Hell, now we even have 3 Titans teams running around, so there's room for more members.Power Girl is still a member of the Justice Society, but the Star Spangled Kid is dead. There's been a couple more since then, of course.
If Jimmy isn't a teen anymore, does that mean Elastic Lad was kicked out of the Legion of Super-Heroes?!?
NEXT:
Oooh, not quite, Bob. It was another full decade before we got to see the Secret Six again, as a regular feature in Action Comics Weekly in 1988!! (Sadly, this was after Bridwell had passed away...) Marty Pasko and Dan Spiegle revealed that Mockingbird was indeed one of the Six, Durant. But all of the original Six, including Durant, were killed in the second issue!! Don't fret...they were replaced by another Secret Six, and a new Mockingbird...who died...It only took 17 more years for the new Secret Six, a ragtag bunch of villains, to be formed during Infinite Crisis. And Luthor was the new Mockingbird...oh, my head...
So what's our lesson? Bob Rozakis, be glad you gave up the Answer man gig, because despite the best intentions, everything became much, much, much more complicated after the various Crises.
The Wonder Girl answer is still accurate as far as it goes, I think: She was adopted and trained by the Amazons, and (as all Amazons are, really) is Wonder Woman's step-sister.
ReplyDeleteIf I were running DC, I'd say "That's her origin, period," and whack anyone who tries to delve further with a rolled-up newspaper. Unlike a lot of characters with messed-up continuity, the character of Donna Troy (as distinguished from Wonder Girl as a Superboy-esque "Young Wonder Woman" was *born* from a continuity error.