Recently, it seems that the trend at DC has been “what’s old is new” - Krypto’s back, Supergirl’s back, Hal Jordan and the GL Corps are probably gonna be back. Hypertime reintroduces the concept of parallel worlds, Wodner Woman reinserted to the Golden Age JSA, etc.
Does anyone particularly disapprove of this trend? I rather like it.
Does anyone have any idea where it started? Is it possibly the reintroduction of the Huntress?
Where do you think they’ll go next with it? Could there be a certain scarlet speedster ready to race out of the grave?
The author of Crisis mentioned that he left a loophole open in order to bring Barry Allen back. He also said he’d tell anyone who asked him at a convention or on the street. Anyone know what it is?
I like a lot of it, reintroducing stuff from pre-Crisis in a new, post-Crisis form. Except for Krypto the Superdog and the new slutty Supergirl, because new riffs on both had already been introduced. And I am a particularly large fan of the non-Kara, post-Crisis Supergirl… what’s to become of her now? How can Superman just give away her name like that?
Both characters also cheapen Superman, as he’s now not the last survivor of Krypton any longer… and the stupid “Other Krypton” storyline that gave us the new Krypto was just abominable. I much prefer the traditional post-Crisis Krypton to that gaudy, silly, too-much-like-Earth place shown in that story.
I’ve been generally disappointed in the feel of the Superman books for years now, though, so that no doubt plays into this. The supporting cast has been totally forgotten, it’s all just Superman fighting. One thing that I liked about the mid-1990s Superman is that it really highlighted what it would be like to be Superman in a world of normal people. Now it’s just fighting, and any blithering idiot can write a fight.
Supposedly, it’s the same mechanism that was later used to insert a Legends of the DCU story “between” the events of Crisis #4 and #5 - basically, Barry gets pulled out of one of his “flash” (pun intended) appearances in the timeline, and adventures for a while, but knows that eventually, he’s going to get pulled back in to meet his fate…
Rumor suggests that the Earth-bound Angel is now an inhabitant of Bete Noire, in the title ‘Fallen Angel’. It nearly got cancelled with #18, but a spike in sales means that it will return with #19 in February, and go on at least a little longer.
The Doom Patrol, has also been rebooted as the original Silver Age team. A pity, too, as John Byrne has taken what was fresh and witty in the hands of Arnold Drake; bizarre and boundary-pushing in the hands of Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack; and at least entertainingly oddball in the hands of John Arcudi, and turned it into a generic superhero potboiler.
Does this surprise you? Why anyone buys Byrne titles is beyond me. Most comic fans deride everything he’s done in the past decade. Send the publishers a message…
I have mixed feelings on the whole thing. On one hand, I don’t mind bringing back certain aspects of the Silver Age that it was stupid to do away with post-Crisis in the first place. I like the new Krypto, because he’s not used very often and is good for the occasional fun or cute story, and I don’t see what the hubbub about Superman having to be the last Kryptonian is all about.
On the other hand, I don’t like how seemingly all the progress made throughout the 90’s is more or less being swept under the rug. I would much rather Ollie Queen (and Hal Jordan, for that matter) have stayed dead and Connor Hawke given his own title (again) with more time to develop as his own character instead of “the other” Green Arrow. It also looks like Kyle Rayner is going to be biting the dust in Rebirth, which really, really sucks even though I think the miniseries is great so far. And don’t even get me started on the new Supergirl, who would be bad enough even if it weren’t for the fact that the entire DC universe (including Superman!) seems not to even acknowledge the existence of the Linda Danvers Supergirl, who had an incredible series with a great finale.
So it’s really a mixed bag. I like the new Zoom, but I could really do without Impulse becoming Kid Flash.
And then some of the Silver Age stuff just comes back without explanation. As I remarked in the JLA vs. X-Men thread, Wonder Woman suddenly (and I do mean suddenly, like within the past year or so) seems to be back at her pre-Crisis power levels (plus flight, although she seems to be using her invisible jet more lately) and routinely getting her ass handed to her by, well, everyone (not least of which Superman - repeatedly - which is a topic in itself) with no explanation as to how she went from tossing subway cars into the sun and punching tanks around in Byrne’s run to exhibiting almost no superpowers whatsoever in her recent fight against Medusa.
Additionally, Steve Trevor recently showed up at the white house looking about 30 years old again instead of the old man he’s been since Perez’s reboot. Again, no explanation given.
And, of course, I hope the new Doom Patrol and Firestorm series are very quickly either retconned out of existence or completely ignored.
Personally, I think it was a mistake to kill Ollie in the first place, but it’s led to some beautifully cynical in-character moments, regarding death, including the bit in IC where Ollie asks Hal “When he’s coming back”.
As for the disregard for the Angelic Supergirl - much of the time, she functioned in a vacuum, occasionally interacting with Superman, or Superboy. Honestly, there are few characters as disconnected as she was.
I would like some clarification on the Wodner Woman issues - having not seen the Medusa fight to which you refer - is it possible her powers were drained, or that Medusa fights at a similar power level? As for Diana vs. Kal - Kal should win. Everytime. And she did make a fairly decent showing in Superman #211 that was consistent with what I believe her power level to be.
I’m ignoring the new Doom Patrol. Ron Raymond reportedly returns in Firestorm’s January or February issue (the one on-sale then, not that cover-date).
I hope not. Unlike Hal and Ollie, Barry died an undisputably heroic death (which was since been further explained as a fast track to speedster heaven, we KNOW he’s happy), and Wally has come in to his own wonderfully. He’s been Flash longer than Kyle has been GL, and there’s never been a serious anti-Wally movement as long as I’ve been reading comics. If Barry came back, he’d be in Wally’s shadow, even if Wally was dead, and that’s just weird. I expect that, occasional Time-Travel shenannigans aside (he said he had more visits to make on his time jaunt when he visited Wally at the end of Blitz), Barry will stay in the grave.
Wally is more Barry-like these days, what with the secret ID and day job for the cops.
It’s possible that her powers were drained, only insofar as in the Walt Simonson run that preceded Greg Rucka’s run, she lost her powers for a little while and regained them at the end of the story. If they wanted her to be less powerful after that, I imagine he or Rucka would have said something. But they didn’t. Another “problem” is that Greg Rucka’s run, for the most part, hasn’t had Diana doing much actual fighting for at least a year, and when she does fight, we’ve never seen her use her super-speed at all (Rucka has said that she lost some of it when Hermes died, but that’s absolutely false).
We really have no idea how powerful Medusa is supposed to be since she showed up and got her head chopped off in the space of about 3 issues (this is after about a year of buildup, btw). But if you’d never heard of Wonder Woman, you sure wouldn’t know she was supposed to have super-powers from the fight they had. Rucka responded to the criticism on his site by saying that Diana was being honorable and so not using her abilities and weapons to their fullest potential. Of course, I think Rucka just wrote a crappy story and shoehorned WW into it, but there you go.
Well, I completely disagree. I don’t think Superman should win against anyone all the time. Heck, I’ll even give Batman at least one round against him. Basically, Diana’s performance against Superman has been inconsistent in the past, but it’s gone way downhill lately. In the aftermath of OWAW, when Supes was deranged and turned into a monster by Circe (and was most certainly not holding back in any way), WW was able to subdue him. It wasn’t easy (nor should it be), but she did it. Now she doesn’t seem to be able to do anything to him.
Of course, my distaste for the big Superman circle-jerk that is the DC Universe lately is a different rant altogether.
That’s true, but I still this it sucks that Superman made absolutely no mention of her when the new Supergirl showed up, and, as spectrum noted, just gave her name away to this new chick (although at least she’s not as bad as Cir-El shudder). Ideally I’d like Linda Danvers to come back, kick this new Supergirl’s ass, take back her codename, and get a costume that wasn’t out of date in 1999. But that’s just me.
I’ll be picking that up, but it seems to me as though it’s probably going to either be one of those misdirection things (like they did in Green Lantern for about five years after Hal went nuts). I can’t imagine they’d want to discard their all-new, all-crappy Firestorm so quickly.
There’s a couple things I don’t mind so much (like Ollie’s return), but the general trend I don’t like.
I like Hal. He’s the GL I was introduced to first (with Guy - the braindamaged, obnoxious Guy - coming in soon after). But I also like Kyle. And I like Hal as the Spectre. The fact that obviously he can’t be Spectre any more, and apparently they’re getting rid of Kyle is really dulling any ‘cool’ factor for Hal becoming GL again. Unlike Ollie’s return where Connor stuck around.
Which is a good example of why I’m not liking this trend. They’re not just doing away with the bad things that have been introduced since Crisis, they’re doing away with the good things, often wrecking two or more great threads to do so. See Byrne’s Doom Patrol. Which is even worse than most of it, because it’s not just reversing what happened, it’s pretending it never happened. Getting rid of Kyle wouldn’t be so bad - no worse than getting rid of Hal was - if it wasn’t part of an obvious trend to return to a stasis point in the 70s.
Even when they don’t need to do that - like Impulse becoming Kid Flash - they’re not improving the character at all. Bart went from a good name and ok costume to a dumb name and one of the ugliest costumes ever (being worse than Wally’s Kid Flash costume was a feat, but they managed it :p). Aquaman’s makeover back to his old look is another good example of this.
If Barry comes back, 21st-century, in-continuity DC books have lost me as a reader. I’ll likely still read Elseworlds and Legion, but the ‘present’ will be ignored until the writers and editors who were reading in the 60s and 70s disappear and their replacements let the old man die again. Beyond that, I’ll ride the wave out unless it hits a cumulative point where I consider it equivelant to the return of Barry.
I have mixed feelings about the Kid Flash issue. Name and costume suck, Impulse’s was much better - plus the original costume would’ve provided a connection to the superb Young Justice series (and as much as I like the current Titans title, I’d still rather have Young Justice). I do like they’ve developed his superspeed learning ability, though.
While it’s kinda nice seeing “classic” characters (Krypto, Supergirl) back, the cynic in me can’t help but wonder if it’s also partially a merchandising move by keeping the characters in the comicbook eye. I’ve heard there’s supposedly a Krypto/Superdog animated series in the works and there’s talk of a Supergirl movie which I presume is in pre- pre- development stage.
There’s kinda a pre-existing familiarity with the characters. I think if you were going to make a kid-friendly action figure based on them, you’d want a short, simple, concise origin on the box. READ: “simple.” What’s easier to explain to a girl when she buys a Supergirl Barbie? She’s Superman’s cousin OR she’s some sort of alien clone who adopted a human form (or what have you)?
While tv/movie adaptations of comic book characters took the books themselves as source material, I argue that the comics followed what was done to the characters in the tv and movies in some instances.
For example,
During the '60s Batman tv show’s run, Batman comics accentuated the “POW!” “BIFF!” sound effects more.
When the Wonder Woman tv show was set in WWII, the comic book followed suit.
In the Spider-Man movies, Spidey’s webs came organically from his wrists, and now I’ve heard a comic is following suit.
I don’t know if I’d say it’s better than Barry’s (which I think is one of if not the best costume ever), but yeah, Kid Flash had an awesome costume.
That said, Bart Allen’s Kid Flash costume is an abomination before the lord. Way too busy with its sill ear-things and boots.
And, as Candid Gamera said, there’s the name thing. I mean Kid Flash? I’ve always thought that was an awful name, and it’s no better in 2004. For god’s sake, “Speed Lad” would be better than “Kid Flash”.
