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[QUOTE=godisawesome;5830896]I think it’s scapegoating when people overlook some of the much less divisive and much more successful [I]integration[/I] of stuff into the Post-Crisis Universe; like the New 52, it was a reboot in some areas and not in others, but it wasn’t nearly as disruptive as the New 52 was, and was generally just so much more graceful that some of the things DC tried to “fix” with the New 52 have arguably been proven poor misinterpretations of stuff.
It simply *was* a better idea to integrate the Earth 2/Golden Age characters into the Earth 1/Silver Age’s background, and Wally *was* a major breath of fresh air that reingvirgated a franchise that was floundering in The Flash, while poeple sometimes overlook just how much of the COIE changes [I]weren’t[/I] reboots; Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman were all just continued forwards with an excuse to do “retellings” if they wanted to, while the biggest changes that were actual reboots happened to Superman (and was still successful enough it’s now the equal to the Pre-Crisis telling) and Wonder Woman (where it’s clearly not a matter of replacing the old continuity that causes the problems, but a simple lack o focus from *anyone* with the character.)
One of the trickier elements about the legacy characters, and typified by their “patron saint” Wally West, is that because COIE allowed much of the Pre-Crisis stuff to exist as backstory, they [I]elevated[/I] the mantle beyond a mere one-dimensional IP; Flash is so much bigger than Barry Allen because it became a Legacy mantle, much like Robin did.[/QUOTE]
When you create multiple characters under the same codename, you're asking for battles within the fandom. That's it. It doesn't matter if the legacies are better or worse than the originals, either. I wasn't opining regarding that.
Now for the less popular codenames, sure, the divisiveness is much less, but it's still there. For the more popular characters, then it gets kind of ridiculous.
Scapegoating? No, just stating a fact, that's all.
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[QUOTE=Jim Kelly;5830833]I'm bewitched, bothered and bewildered whenever these old topics are brought back up to the front page and I can see by the little green icon that I must have posted to the thread. I had to scroll through all the comments on this topic until I finally found the one post I made.
Lately, I've been trying to find in this forum the topic about "D.C. House Ads." I posted a lot of images on that thread and I'd like to find it just for that. So I've been going through all back pages on this forum in hopes that the next leap will be the leap home. Still haven't found it. But I've found a lot of charming old topics in my search.
I think the legacy concept has replaced the concept of a supporting cast. I look at Wally West as one in a cast of characters. As one intelligent poster mentioned on another thread, it used to be that super-heroes had a cast of characters--some of those characters could have powers, but a lot didn't--then things shifted to where the comics were just about super-heroes and that was the only cast of characters you had. So the only way for a character to get an audition is if they try out for a legacy role.
I think the best example of this (the most satisfying) is the STARGIRL T.V. series, where you could throw a rock in Blue Valley and hit someone who is a super-person. You might at first think a character is just a regular joe or jill, but you can almost bet they are going to be linked to the other supers and maybe have their own super-power or gimmick. The difference is the T.V. show doesn't have a prior T.V. show it's referencing. It might be an adaptation of the comics, which all reference prior comics, but in the medium of T.V. the only actor that previously had an iteration on another show is John Wesley Shipp's Flash.
For the average viewer, the legacy on STARGIRL is just a story device and it's not referencing a pre-existing series. In comics, the legacy is more than a story--on the meta level it's something that comic book collectors can trace through other iterations and continuities.
Maybe that's what bugs me about the legacy concept--it's not organic to the story the way a Dickens story creates a whole society of characters, with a depth of field. The concept is a fan wonk, meant to satisfy collectors. It's more about costumes and codenames than story.[/QUOTE]
DC had to do something regarding POC characters and their prominence within the universe, so changes had to be made. Probably the best way to have handled that after [I]COIE[/I] would have been to change some of the ethnic makeups and genders of the characters instead of going the legacy route. Yeah, there would still be some bickering, but you wouldn't have these fan divisions like we have today.
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[QUOTE=The Darknight Detective;5830974]When you create multiple characters under the same codename, you're asking for battles within the fandom. That's it. It doesn't matter if the legacies are better or worse than the originals, either. I wasn't opining regarding that.
[/QUOTE]
You're right. DC should just go back to Alan Scott and Jay Garrick as the primary GL and Flash respectively and just wiped away everybody that came afterwards.
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[QUOTE=The Darknight Detective;5830690]How is it scapegoating when it did what it did? Fan squabbling over characters wasn't around pre-[I]COIE[/I], but surely was in force after it. This is just undeniable.[/QUOTE]
As I explained in my initial post, the problems created by COIE were largely fixable without a wholesale reboot.
I don't mind bringing back Hal Jordan since he had been done dirty by Emerald Twilight but the 00's went too far with the Silver Age nostalgia, bringing back Barry, Ollie, the original Captain Boomerang were all unnecessary. Their stories were done. What made fan squabbling worse was in how DC handled it; they retconned Jordan committing genocide but kept beating us over the head about the time John Stewart blew up Xanshi. Then made Hal the default Lantern in every animated show/movie post 2011 with the only exception being JL vs FF. They killed off Shayera Hol in Rann vs Thanagar to make way for Kendra then killed off Kendra to bring back Shiera in Blackest Night, killed off Ryan Choi in the post Cry for Justice Titans series, killed off Lian in CfJ, killed off Gehenna to bring back Ronnie, they killed off Bertinelli off screen to bring back Helena Wayne for Nu52, they tried to kill off John Stewart at one point, literally erased Wally West post Nu52 and tried to replace him with an OC with the same name, literally erased Cass and Steph from continuity for a period to bring back Babs as Batgirl, this is what that breeds fan resentment and pits fanbases against each other. The problem wasn't COIE, the problem was a bunch of middle aged men fixated on their childhood nostalgia that made the DCU into the convoluted mess that it is today.
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[QUOTE=John Venus;5830999]You're right. DC should just go back to Alan Scott and Jay Garrick as the primary GL and Flash respectively and just wiped away everybody that came afterwards.[/QUOTE]
DC could indeed have done that in the '50s, but they decided to have their cake and eat it, too, with the multiverse approach (having both sets of superheroes as the originals of their own unverses). As someone who read stories featuring both Flashes and GLs concurrently back in the '70s, I thought it was an abundance of riches. Oh, no fan warfare, either. ;)
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[QUOTE=John Venus;5831023]As I explained in my initial post, the problems created by COIE were largely fixable without a wholesale reboot. [/quote]
Oh, definitely on a creative level. The problem was that COIE was principally made to keep DC afloat, not to fix anything.
[quote]I don't mind bringing back Hal Jordan since he had been done dirty by Emerald Twilight but the 00's went too far with the Silver Age nostalgia, bringing back Barry, Ollie, the original Captain Boomerang were all unnecessary. Their stories were done. What made fan squabbling worse was in how DC handled it; they retconned Jordan committing genocide but kept beating us over the head about the time John Stewart blew up Xanshi. Then made Hal the default Lantern in every animated show/movie post 2011 with the only exception being JL vs FF. They killed off Shayera Hol in Rann vs Thanagar to make way for Kendra then killed off Kendra to bring back Shiera in Blackest Night, killed off Ryan Choi in the post Cry for Justice Titans series, killed off Lian in CfJ, killed off Gehenna to bring back Ronnie, they killed off Bertinelli off screen to bring back Helena Wayne for Nu52, they tried to kill off John Stewart at one point, literally erased Wally West post Nu52 and tried to replace him with an OC with the same name, literally erased Cass and Steph from continuity for a period to bring back Babs as Batgirl, this is what that breeds fan resentment and pits fanbases against each other. The problem wasn't COIE, the problem was a bunch of middle aged men fixated on their childhood nostalgia that made the DCU into the convoluted mess that it is today.[/QUOTE]
But those middle-aged people were annoyed that their favorites disappeared, which is the same exact reaction you're getting from a younger crowd over their own favorites being replaced in later years. If they weren't replaced in the first place back in the '80s, this thread would not exist.
Look, my idea has always been once you kill off or retire a superhero, that should be it. At least that's the way it was when I first started reading comics. However, if you're not going to permanently sideline them, then don't replace the characters in the first place. What's the point?
Unlike many of you here, I like and have bought numerous comic books featuring both the original and legacy characters and enjoyed them greatly. You will never see me disparage or put down any of the newer characters, either. Yeah, I have nostalgic feelings for the ones I grew up with, but that's to be expected.
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[QUOTE=John Venus;5398401]The longest running legacy character at Marvel, albeit not considered one now, is Carol Danvers.
While DC was busy spitting on their legacy heroes, Marvel managed to make in roads to the YA market through Young Avengers and Runaways, they are doing Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur comic book and animated show, they've put Mile Morales in a critically acclaimed movie and video game, Ant-Man did the 'passing of the mantle' thing in his movie, they are seeding Young Avengers in their Disney+ shows and movies and they've announced that Carol will team up with Monica and Kamala meanwhile WW is busy pining over [I]Steeeeeve[/I], a perfectly cast Donna Troy is being wasted on a terrible show and the rest of the WW family is nowhere to be seen so far. When was the last time Connor Hawke was seen? The only show that's really focusing on legacy right now is Young Justice but the cast is so bloated now and even they've made questionable choices like killing off Wall West.
By the time DC gets their together, they will be accused of ripping off Marvel. Sure, we can wave our copies of Wally West's 23 year long tenure as the Flash but Marvel has marketed and adapted the hell out of their legacy heroes and is ahead of DC as of now.[/QUOTE]
It's kind of crazy to think that Teen Titans, one of the biggest properties DC has in other media through two extremely successful cartoons, was never capitalized onto the big screen and now Marvel is about to build up to a Young Avengers team first. This company is just full of missed opportunities all the way through when it comes to elevating the value of their legacy heroes
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[QUOTE=The Kid;5831234]It's kind of crazy to think that Teen Titans, one of the biggest properties DC has in other media through two extremely successful cartoons, was never capitalized onto the big screen and now Marvel is about to build up to a Young Avengers team first. This company is just full of missed opportunities all the way through when it comes to elevating the value of their legacy heroes[/QUOTE]
Considering the low quality of the Titans TV show and DC'S failure to make a good Justice League movie, it might be for the best that the Teen Titans don't have a live action movie yet.
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[QUOTE=king81992;5831302]Considering the low quality of the Titans TV show and DC'S failure to make a good Justice League movie, it might be for the best that the Teen Titans don't have a live action movie yet.[/QUOTE]
Forget about all of that, do we want a live-action [I]Teen Titans Go![/I]? :eek: Because that's the most popular version of the team, not any of the comic book ones or even the HBOMax show.
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[QUOTE=The Darknight Detective;5831338]Forget about all of that, do we want a live-action [I]Teen Titans Go![/I]? :eek: Because that's the most popular version of the team, not any of the comic book ones or even the HBOMax show.[/QUOTE]
I feel like the Titans as a franchise would benefit from a lighter tone and more comedy, basing a live action Titans movie on TTGO would be taking things too far in the opposite direction.
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[QUOTE=The Darknight Detective;5829654]The problem is DC did deviate from that formula during the '80s and created all of the fans squabbles that we have now.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure that wasn't their intention, but I fully agree that it's a problem. For that matter, all of the names have such easy ways that you can change them into their own name without being derivative. I mean you have The Flash, The Streak, The Blur, etc. They all work.
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[QUOTE=TheRay;5831471]I'm sure that wasn't their intention, but I fully agree that it's a problem. For that matter, all of the names have such easy ways that you can change them into their own name without being derivative. I mean you have The Flash, The Streak, The Blur, etc. They all work.[/QUOTE]
True, but which one of them would sell the most right off the bat? Regardless of what people say about the secret identities and their characterizations, the codenames are what drive the industry. If they didn't, nobody would care about their favorites being moved to a new superhero name.
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[QUOTE=king81992;5831359]I feel like the Titans as a franchise would benefit from a lighter tone and more comedy, basing a live action Titans movie on TTGO would be taking things too far in the opposite direction.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that would be way too juvenile for my tastes.
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[QUOTE=The Darknight Detective;5831484]True, but which one of them would sell the most right off the bat? Regardless of what people say about the secret identities and their characterizations, the codenames are what drive the industry. If they didn't, nobody would care about their favorites being moved to a new superhero name.[/QUOTE]
Okay, unfortunately, I will have to concede that, but wouldn't it upset a lot of people when they buy the comic and they find out that it's not their Flash? Wouldn't the better artistic decision be to introduce the character with their own name first as a side character in a Flash title and then try to move them to their own title afterwards, just to see where they stand?
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[QUOTE=TheRay;5831493]Okay, unfortunately, I will have to concede that, but wouldn't it upset a lot of people when they buy the comic and they find out that it's not their Flash? Wouldn't the better artistic decision be to introduce the character with their own name first as a side character in a Flash title and then try to move them to their own title afterwards, just to see where they stand?[/QUOTE]
Why should my favorite have to be relegated to that!!
:)
For some of us, that would be fine, but others would disagree. For them, it's either their favorite GL/Flash/Batgirl/Robin/etc. at the forefront or bust! Frankly, I don't see this situation changing any time soon.
