I dunno. Both Luthors seem pretty comfortable killing and/or ordering killings. The Earth-1 Luthor (once he gained a personality past “I will destroy you, Superman!”) was pretty careful about not letting innocent people get caught up in his vendetta against Superman and rarely (and under Elliot S! Maggin never ) killed people. That’s not to say that they won’t say it’s the Earth-One luthor…but it won’t be consistant with his personality.
BTW–I am currently enjoying a TPB from Kitchen Sink Press. Al Capp was a brillant cartoonist (and promoter), and Li’L Abner Dalies:1939 is six kinds of fun.
JLA #120: I’ve been at family gathering like that.
Action Comics #822: I read the plot description online. I thought, “Sounds like something I wouldn’t give two craps about.” I bought it because I thought Simmone was writing it and she has a way of making potential crap into gold (excluding the Liefeld log which is currently clogging the bowels of Teen Titans). Well, she didn’t write this one and I was bored. The only good thing to come out of this is that I now know that Smallville didn’t pull the “Lois’s father is an army guy” thing out of its butt (Have I mentioned bowels enough in this paragraph?).
Wonder Woman #221: I read the “Crisis Counseling” run-down and was interested. Damn good story. The full page of Diana emerging from the molten metal: hot! If it weren’t for the blatant storyline stretching for the TPBs I’d totally start reading this on a monthly basis.
Fathom #4: Only half-way thru this one. Aspen returns to the surface and tries to reconnect with her land friends and family. Not bad.
Psst, he’s a she, baby!
I think its’ been something like 6-12 months in DC time.
Open Spoilers for The Return of Donna Troy
Donna Troy is now every important female DC character ever. Okay, that’s an exageration. In the multiverse verisons of her were Harbringer, anti-harbringer (Dark Angel I think she was called?), Troia, Wonder Girl, etc. She now has the power to travel between universes and the power to see past, present, and future. She’s taking a crack team of heroes into space to… well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Turning into? All of a sudden? I’m not a huge Bats reader, but he’s been in dick mode for quite awhile now.
I don’t think its’ one villian, but rather a perfect storm. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. Then again… have we seen Detagon in Villians United? He keeps popping up in JSA making cryptic threats. I somehow doubt he has the villian mojo to arrange all of this though.
That’s a bit unfair. Sure, it’s true “depending on who you talk to,” because there are those of us who consistently want DC to move forward and do new, exciting stories, and if they fail sometimes, so be it; and then there are people like Geoff Johns who thinks everything should be the same as when he was a kid (except for the changes that he’s wanted to make since he was 12). Blech – if I wanted fanfic, I could write it myself.
If you dig this stuff, that’s great for you – and I understand that it might be effective for someone who doesn’t have the background in DCU history that my wife is ashamed to admit that I do, but for me, it’s all a return to Status Q. And it’s not using the Pre-Crisis history as a base to spin off in wild new directions like my favorite author does (you know who I’m talking about, I’m sure), it’s just rebuilding the past. (If I were a bigger geek than I am, I’d analogize what Johns and DiDio are doing to the DCU to what Hal did to Coast City 10 years ago, and we know how well that worked out, don’t we, except I’m not that big a geek.)
I love reading comics from the past. But they’re already out there, available. Why do I need Geoff Johns to rewrite them for me?
Oh, speaking of the past:
Showcase Presents Green Lantern, v.1 – This thing is great. The format is similar to Marvel’s Essentials line, but the paper and the reproduction is better. The stories are so much fun, and Gil Kane did the best representation of flying people seen to that point. I also bought the Metamorpho volume – I’m so glad they stuffed it all in this book instead of archive after archive. So far I’m only two issues in, but I’m digging the stylized Ramona Fradon art; I hadn’t seen much of her work before this.
Ex Machina #15 – Great last page, as always. Mitch on a hog is a little weird, but the samurai husband was funny, and does anyone other than me think Mitch’s admiration of GWB is yet another sign that he (Mitch) is not to be trusted?
Y - TLM #whatever – Wow. This was a great issue. The Allison/Rose flirtation was adorable, but that cliffhanger – damn!
Futurama #21, I think – Always nice to see the Zapper, and the idea of this particular menacing race of aliens is funny. It seemed a little quick to wrap up, but lots of good gags, as usual.
–Cliffy
Because they weren’t written in 2005 by Geoff Johns. By the very nature of the changing times, they can’t help but be different from stories written in the sixties and seventies, even in the eighties and nineties. Even if Johns (et al) ripped off plots wholesale, instead of just using older characters and other elements, he’d still end up writing a different story than the first time around.
And because, quite frankly, that’s when Superheroes were done best. I appreciate the modern age’s ear for dialogue and emphasis on characterization, but the Silver and Bronze ages had an energy and sense of wonder that the newer stuff just lacked. And if bringing back old characters and the multiverse is what it takes to get back that enerby, so be it.
My solution to the problem you identify is to buy the reprints.
–Cliffy
Wolfian:
When exactly did that ret-con happen?
Menocchio:
I saw that Wonder Woman killed Max Lord. Is that an attempt to appeal to the “Lady Death” demographic? As for Seven Soldiers, I couldn’t say, I haven’t been readong it.
My point is merely that by explicitly undoing changes in a way designed to appeal to cranky old-time fans,
Of course they can win. They won with Mark Waid’s Flash and Grant Morrison’s JLA. They won with Birds of Prey and with the noir-ish Catwoman. They won with Peter David’s Young Justice and Aquaman and Supergirl. Jerry Ordway’s Shazam. They won by building an audience for characters with their animated series, and then taking the successes from those “universes” and folding them back into the comics in a way that didn’t violate established continuity. And many, many more.
I even like the entertaining stories that have come out of some of the reversions. James Robinson’s Starman is one of my favorite stories of all time. I love Geoff Johns’s JSA series. The return of Supergirl and the rehabilitation of Hal Jordan were enjoyable stories to read. But my problem with them is that by returning to the past rather than building on top of it, they’re limiting their audience (or, to the defeatists amongst us, acknowledging that they have a limited audience).
I believe in respecting what came before. I don’t believe in UNDOing what you’ve done because some people didn’t like it, or because some people took a liking to some characters. After the original Crisis, DC effectively committed to one Earth, a consistent history, Superman the last survivor of Krypton and certain other things. They retconned Power Girl, re-imagined the Huntress, erased Golden Aged Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow and Speedy. It was done. Finished. MOVE ON.
Yeah, right. Babs has her legs back…how long before they’re in tights again?
Hardly. But even less than that it’s not an attempt to appeal to fans of older Wonder Woman comics.
You should. It’s exactly the type of building you seem to be asking for. And we’ve been promised more along these lines after “One year later…”
Which were throwbacks to the Silver Age’s version of the title.
Throwback to older versions of the Titans, still ongoing (despite a hiatus, and new creative team), and cancelled due to lack of interest, respectively.
Throwback to the CC Beck era.
How is a book about a second (third if you count David) generation superhero written in an exceedingly modern style a “reversion”? Heck, IIRC, it even ends with the rod passed on to yet another generation.
See what I mean? Many successs and innovations can be easily be classified as “reversions” (and vice versa, I’m sure) since they’re all building off of something. The question shouldn’t be “does this look like an older form of the product?”, but “is this good?” If the answer to the latter remains “yes” (and I’d argue that it does), then who cares, really?
And if that doesn’t satisfy you, well, we’ll return to this after Infinite Crisis is over and we see what shakes out of “One Year Later”. I think that’ll be the original stuff you’re looking for. I know Morrison was taken on in an editorial-like position precisely for contributing to that end.
She wiggled her toe. She’ll hardly be able to leap from rooftop to rooftop anytime soon. And from interviews with Gail Simone, this was more to acknowledge that spinal patients do often so some recovery than an attempt to bring her back as a costumed vigilante. Besides, I think everyone is aware that Oracle is the more interesting character here. If (and this is a BIG if) Babs returns to costumed vigilatism, she’ll no more return to Batgirl than Dick Grayson will return to the short pants.
If you want, I’ll ask Gail the next time I ‘see’ her. I don’t think I’ll get more than a guarded response if it’s true… but it’s just stupid to leave Babs crippled.
Menochhio:
Clearly, you misunderstand my thrust. I don’t mind “throwbacks” or “homages” to certain eras - as long as it doesn’t represent a reversal of a planned editorial direction for moving forward. That’s the sense in this Starman and JSA represented a “reversion.” The stories were and are great, and they do include passage to a next generation - but the JSA was supposed to have been forever in limbo. The “Last Days of the JSA” story was meant as a send-off story which was dignified, referenced their origins, and had them serving the heroic purpose of staving off the destruction of the world. However much I like the new-generation JSA, their very existence speaks to an inability of writers or fans (or a combination of the two rolled up in one person) to stick to a plan for letting go and moving on.
Nonetheless, a respectable run for a comic title. That Supergirl lasted more issues than the combined runs of all prior Supergirl series COMBINED, including adding the number of issues that the pre-Crisis Supergirl headlined Adventure Comics.
It depended on the reversion of the decision to write a closing chapter to the story of the JSA. I can appreciate the story while still feeling uneasy about the editorial U-Turn that brought it about.
Hopefully, I’ll like what I see at the end of this. I loved the “Five Years Later” Legion, so I expect to enjoy the “One Year Later” DCU. I repeat: I’m enjoying the stories. I just think they might be moving the medium in a bad direction.
Yeah, you know what, that sounds pretty reasonable. I still kinda diagree, but I’ll back off now.
It’s just that there’s a lot of negativity in some comics culture right now, coming from all possible viewpoints and opinions, at leats in the circles I’m travelling in, so I may be a bit jumpy given that DC could hardly be doing better by me right now if I was their one and only target audience.
Apologies if I came on a bit too strong. 