Whoops, I didn’t address this.
This is part of the normal Marvel Universe. After World War 2 Namor somehow (I don’t remember how) ended up as a homeless bum with amnesia in the Bowery. He remained there until the Human Torch found him, game him a shave with his flame :eek: and, realizing who he was, dropped him in the river hoping to restore his memory.
Fenris,
I actually stopped reading comic books by the time the Clone Saga occured.
Zev Steinhardt
What If? was great, even if most of the later stories seemed to have endings that brought them in line with the “real” Marvel Universe.
The best one was probably “What If Captain America Were Revived Today?”, where real-Cap has to save America from a rabid right-wing fake-Cap. Includes a wonderful look on what patriotism is really about.
Though my fanboy favorite would have to be “What if Death’s Head Lived?”, simply because it was written by the creator of Death’s Head, un-screwed-up the character’s ham-handed death and resurrection (in the mainstream Marvel Universe), and gave his unauthorized replacement a well-deserved kick in the booty. 
Fenris, you have hit the nail right on the head. As a kid, it seemed to me that Marvel stories were more straight-forward action stories, with big, tough heroes making clever jokes throughout physically dangerous adventures.
However, DC stories were full of all kinds of minutiae, with constant continuity issues. When we talked about DC stories, we didn't talk about how tough or cool the heroes were, or how clever their little battle quips were, but the complexities of their backstories and how they kept changing. It was a little like following a very violent soap opera. I know Marvel stories were like that too, but, DC readers were obsessed with the minutiae because it was so complex.
Which reminds me, a few years ago they put out a book on Batman's girlfriends or something and I was very disappointed to find that they left out my favourite Batman girlfriend, Silver St. Cloud. She was the most significant, I thought, because she appeared in one of the best-written story arcs in the 1970s, because Bruce Wayne was going to marry her, and, most importantly, she was the only person in the whole DC world who, when she first met Batman face-to-face, immediately recognised him as Bruce Wayne.
It was also one of the most tragic stories, because she left him because she couldn't handle his Batman identity. I don't think she was ever again mentioned throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Does anyone know whether she has made a return? But there was still a difference between the Earth-1 and Earth-2 "S"'s themselves, not just the diamond-shaped shield that enclosed them, right? I can't describe it exactly, but I could draw you a picture!
Okay, guys, which was the world that included Superman Jr. and Batman Jr. I believe in "World's Finest," Superman had some kind of alternative reality viewer in which they appeared.
Another thing, it always bothered me at the time when Dick Grayson first took on the Nightwing persona (the first time that DC ticked me off in a major way), that it was never acknowledged that there had been two previous Nightwings in the Superman stories regarding the bottled city of Kandor.
I believe Superman and Jimmy Olsen themselves were the original Nightwing and Flamebird. Then later, those identities were taken up by two Kandorians (whose names were -- do I remember it right? -- Van-Zee and Ak-Var?).Even some of the early ones did this. The seventh issue, IIRC, was “What If Someone Besides Peter Parker Had Been Bitten by the Radioactive Spider?” It was actually three stories, one with Flash Thompson as “Captain Spider,” Betty Brant as “Spider-Girl”, and John Jameson as “Spider Jameson.” In two case they died, and Betty just gave up after unbearably screwing up (Peter’s Uncle Ben still died). But in all three cases, Peter managed to save the spider after it bit the other(s), extracted the last of its venom, made a serum from it, and basically gave himself spider-powers!
That was a good one. ONe of the best ideas for this was one that never got written, AFAIK: “What If Magneto had formed the X-Men?” Basically:
[list=1]
[li]Professor X killed instead of crippled by the alien Lucifer[/li][li]Magneto forms team of original X-Men, with slightly altered names/costumes[/li][li]Adds Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch[/li][li]Defeats/kills Avengers, Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom[/li][li]Imprisons Spider-Man, Daredevil, etc. on Asteroid M[/li][li]Magneto et al take over the world, make it a haven for mutants[/li][li]Everything goes along cool and groovy until…[/li][li]Galactus shows up w/ Silver Surfer[/li][li]Thing long dead, (see #4) so no Alicia Masters, Silver Surfer does not turn against G…[/li][li]Galactus eats the Earth.[/li][li]Few survivors on Asteroid M can only watch, then continue around the sun alone.[/li][/list=1]
Whoa! WOuld have loved to see that! Claremont and Byrne came up with this at the height of their partnership on X-Men; unfortunately, they never got around to it. Pity.
I have this comic, tucked away somewhere. It was a Brave and the Bold #200 (July 1983), B&B having been a team-up series featuring (at that time) Earth-1 Batman and a variety of guest characters.
The villian was a one-shot named Brimstone. The Earth-2 version battles the Earth-2 Batman (and Robin) in 1955 (date supplied by a convention banner within the story). At the end of this chapter, Brimstone hits his head and falls into a coma, emerging in the 1980s. By then, E2 Batman is long dead (this story also contains a cameo by an aged E2 Joker, his last appearance). Still seeking revenge, E2 Brimstone somehow telepathically reaches across the dimensional barrier and “possesses” his E1 counterpart, a lookalike businessman who never became a criminal. This new Brimstone confronts E1 Batman and as in the first story, Batman escapes from a cunning deathtrap with an improvised explosive. Brimstone gets his head whacked again and this drives the original back to E2, relinquishing his hold on his E1 counterpart.
The two Batmen never actually meet or know of each other’s involvement, but it remains one of the more interesting team-up stories to date.
Comic fan Bryan Maloney has a detailed checklist of post Golden-age appearnaces of E2 characters. From this, I see my original post had an error. All-Star Comics was started in the 1940s but halted, only to be renewed in 1976-1978 with adventures of E2 characters. Reader interest in these stories inspired the much more elaborate All Star Squadron in 1981.
I have this comic, tucked away somewhere. It was a Brave and the Bold #200 (July 1983), B&B having been a team-up series featuring (at that time) Earth-1 Batman and a variety of guest characters.
The villian was a one-shot named Brimstone. The Earth-2 version battles the Earth-2 Batman (and Robin) in 1955 (date supplied by a convention banner within the story). At the end of this chapter, Brimstone hits his head and falls into a coma, emerging in the 1980s. By then, E2 Batman is long dead (this story also contains a cameo by an aged E2 Joker, his last appearance). Still seeking revenge, E2 Brimstone somehow telepathically reaches across the dimensional barrier and “possesses” his E1 counterpart, a lookalike businessman who never became a criminal. This new Brimstone confronts E1 Batman and as in the first story, Batman escapes from a cunning deathtrap with an improvised explosive. Brimstone gets his head whacked again and this drives the original back to E2, relinquishing his hold on his E1 counterpart.
The two Batmen never actually meet or know of each other’s involvement, but it remains one of the more interesting team-up stories to date.
Comic fan Bryan Maloney has a detailed but incomplete checklist of post Golden-age appearances of E2 characters. From this, I see my original post had an error. All-Star Comics was started in the 1940s but halted, only to be renewed in 1976-1978 with adventures of E2 characters. Reader interest in these stories inspired the much more elaborate All-Star Squadron in 1981.
**
Ok, whenever modern (1970s/80s) comics showed flashbacks to the E2 Superman, the artist drew the different pentagon (it’s more triangular) and different “S” (E2’s is…thicker and more top-heavy), BUT if you went back and picked up an actual golden-age comic from the era of the flashback, if it was after about 1941/2 Superman would have the modern pentagon with the modern “S”.
**
**
In that “Omniverse” magazine, they suggested that the Super-Sons were on Earth-E (the 1950’s Earth they proposed). That theory was proven wrong when it turned out that the Super-Sons were from E1. They were a computer simulation run by a Kandorian Super-Computer in the Fortress of Solitude.
**
Sure it was: in Titans, IIRC, Dick said something to the effect of “I wanna keep with the ‘bird’ thing, I want something darker and I want something to stand for Superman who I hung out with when I was growing up and I thought of Nightwing!”
**
Ak-Var or Ak-Bar…now I can’t remember. And Van-Zee’s wife was Sylvia.
Fenris
Sigh. Consider those my Earth-1 and Earth-2 posts.
DC had a bigger problem with continuity then Marvel did simply because characters like Batman & Superman had been around for at least 20 years by the time Marvel Comics got popular. The "problems with continuity can also be traced to the “fanboys” who would write letters to the letters columns of the various comics, getting WAY too involved and specific about certain issues and what order certain episodes occurred.
I remember back in the mid 1980’s Marvel Came out with a series that was going to chronicle the “history of the Marvel Universe,” by documenting when all of the characters adventures took place and how they tied together. It seemed like a neat idea, but when you step back and realize that you are going to have to tie together 2oo different issues of 3 different Spiderman books, you should realize how impossible this is going to be. Which is why the series only lasted 14 issues.
I’ve mainly been a DC reader, thou I did get into the X-Men for about 3 years, but it got to be way to much, what with a new X book coming out every 4 months and the writers trying to keep the continuity together. It just got to be really annoying.
It’s gotten even worse ever since Marvel had the whole Onslaught thingee and relaunched almost all of their titles.
Screw that.
I’m more in getting trade paperbacks now anyway.
I have the issue. Sadly, I could find the Fortress Of Solitude more easily.
From Memory- The issue contains Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner. All 3 have visions of Alan Scott. They visit Scott’s wife. He’s been on some mission for months. But he left a message in green flame, and his lantern. The lantern manifests a Scott hologram and tells its story. Long ago, Earth had an alien GL. As the most trusted member of the corps, his ring had no weakness. It could affect yellow. All the power corrupted the GL and he began to manipulate the course of human culture and development. The Guardians punished the GL while he was putting down a revolt of peasants. They made his ring vulnerable to wood. He dies. But his spirit becomes trapped in his lantern. The lantern falls to earth as a green meteor. Alan Scott’s career remains the same.
Roughly the same time DC turned Doctor Fate into the punk Fate. Alan Scott got a new uniform and went from being Green Lantern to The Guardian Of The Green Flame. I don't have too much info on this, but it appears to have undone the retcon and restored Scott's original origin.I think reboots are a subset of retcon. A retcon is anytime you can point to a previously canonical source and say “No, it didn’t happen that way,” whether the reason for the change is internal to the story (like Crisis, where the events actually changed the past) or external (where we learn something that was supposedly always true, but not previously depicted).
–Cliffy
The alien GL whose name I couldn’t recall was Yalan Gur. The retcon occurs in Green Lantern #19 (December 1991).
After his next transformation by misguided and possibly brain damaged writers, Scott was called the Sentinel not the Guardian. The phrase “of the green flame” seems to have been tacked on by my faulty memory. Scott appears as the Sentinel from at least October 95 (Fate #12, Not to be confused with any of the Doctor Fate series. This was the series about the branded, trencoat wearing, surly guy) to autumn 95 (Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #6-in a story featuring the first two women to bear the name Harlequin, no relation to Mistah J’s henchwench).
If anybody has any info on why Scott received the new name and outfit, and whether he still has them, I’d appreciate their sharing.
Hijack-Why does DC keep making $300 dollar lanterns and $80 busts? Why not just sell some anodized aluminum GL rings? True, the profit margin would be smaller, but more units would be sold resulting in a greater net profit.
Alan, who is a major player in the current JSA series as well as a supporting character in Green Lantern these days, is still called Sentinel, although he now wears his original GL costume. I don’t know much about the in-story reasons for the change, but I do know that Alan no longer uses a ring – his power has been internalized.
–Cliffy
As long as you don’t have evil Earth-3 posts and Billy Batson-esque Earth-S posts.
Thanks for the added Brave&Bold info, Bryan.
I’m glad to hear he’s back in his original suit. That uniform is ones of the few that always struck me as perfect just the way it was. Which leads me to wonder wether they’ve tampered with the perfection of Doctor Midnite’s uniform.
BTW-I’ve been thinking of subscibing to JSA, but the whole Previews system means that I’d have bought 4 issues before I actually recieve the first one. What sort of feel does the series have?
I don’t remember the details, but I believe Alan Scott’s ring was destroyed during the Zero Hour mini-series. In some later comic (when DC decided that they should not have killed or de-powered almost every member of the JSA during the Zero Hour mini-series), Alan discovered that he could still do all the Green Lantern stuff without the ring. I think it was at that time that he took the name Sentinel and got his new (temporary) costume.
There were a number of retcons connected to Zero Hour, the most noticible being to Guy Gardner, who suddenly becomes part alien, for reasons that have nothing to do with any other event in Zero Hour.
Squadron Supreme-Minor Spoiler
As Fenris has already pointed out in some thread or another, Marvel's Squadron Supreme is a thinly disguised version of the JLA. In the SqSu 12 issue miniseries, the same thing happens to Dr Spectrum(He was given a power prism (golf ball sized crystal) by a dying alien. He can use it to construct shapes from energy and fly). His prism is destroyed in the climactic battle. A few panels later he discovers that he's somehow internalised his powers. Squadron Supreme predates Kingdom Come by quite a bit, and IMHO does a better job with the same theme. The superheroes decide to take charge and fix the planet. Results are mixed.Good gods, this is why I stick to the Vertigo line! 
Where, btw, Lucien (with the flaming red hair and goatee) is Morpheus/Sandman/Dream/etc.'s librarian.
Interesting factoid: Roy Thomas created the Squadron Sinister in Avengers as a friendly poke at the JLA in Avengers 71 or so. About 12 issues later, a buddy of Roy’s (Mike Freidrich? Rotten writer, in any case) and Roy decided to have the first ever JLA/JSA crossover. VERY unofficially, of course.
In Avengers 85-6, the Avengers travelled to a parallel earth and met the Squadron Supreme. In JLA 86 (which, I believe came out the same month) the JLA met a super-team who’s name I can’t remember, but it featured Wajinda (sp): a weather God, Blue-Jay (a guy who shrunk), The Silver Sorceress (duh, but her outfit featured something very like Scarlet Witch’s headdress) and Jack B. Quick, her super-fast brother.
Damn…I just checked the cover dates. They didn’t come out the same month…close though and I do remember that it was planned. I’m guessing that DC’s 80-page Giant program and Marvel’s (then chronic) Dreaded Deadline Doom caused the problem.)
Fenris