Take a gander at this double-page spread (which I am too incompetent to present properly...) from DC Sampler #1 (1983):
DC has altered their timeline so that now, no heroes fought in WWII. There are no legacy heroes. For some reason, that would be distracting or confusing. Nope, no heroes until 5
And even the ones they've "revived" for Earth-2 are in another dimension, and are even younger than Earth-Prime's heroes, and a few of them they've even made villains, because that's cooler or something. These guys even let their homeworld be blown up, so, hardly the Justice Society there.
Meanwhile, there's Marvel:
Marvel also had a buncha characters who battled in WWII. But you know what?
Yeah, it defies all sense of probability and logic that pretty much all of the Invaders would still be alive today. But really, isn't it better that way?
Modernization without denying/eliminating the past?? Someone please tell DC that's still possible.
I'm not sure exactly when DC became ashamed of their past. Or when they decided that the public would hate and fear their heroes, so they couldn't have them do anything that might make make them popular, like, oh, I dunno, punching Hitler in the jaw?!?
Man, whoever thought that Marvel would become better at legacy heroes than DC?
DC does seem to just be flailing around lately. It has a truly magnificent history and a vast number of great characters...which for some reason, it is desperately trying to pretend never existed. I wish that they would just embrace their continuity and consider it to be the great asset that it IS... rather than an embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more. DC had such a rich history and wonderfully interesting characters. Moreover, leveraging those heroes provided a much-needed counterpoint to the "superheroes have to be teenagers" meme in comics.
ReplyDeleteBut, no, DC had to go and flush all this history away for reasons that are, as yet, unexplained. It was stupid, and a waste.
Yes, this denial of history -- which in general requires continual reboots -- is perhaps the main reason that I have stopped buying much in the way of comics.
I'm with the choir, DC had something amazing with its legacy of heroism, whether pre-Crisis on several worlds, or post-Crisis, on one. How many times have they got to go back on the decision to, say, eliminate the original JSA, before realising that celebrating the first generation is a good thing, a necessary thing?
ReplyDeleteAnd that recent Invaders series by James Robinson and Steve Pugh was an underrated gem. Just don't look at John Cassaday's Human Torch figurework...
Completely agree with the other posters. I absolutely loved the All-Star Squadron and, to a lesser extent, Infinity Inc. But somehow, this group was just not hip enough or was confusing or interfered with finding younger audiences. So, they were just dumped.
ReplyDeleteIt started with the Crisis in the 1980s when it was decided that the Earth 2 concept was just too confusing to DC's delicate readers. But now Earth 2 is back, but without the rich history -- it's just another reboot.
And, yes, that is why I have pretty much dumped comics, particularly DC comics. It's hard to invest in a character when that character could completely change.
Sad, really