Classic and Modern Version of Superheroes

[Frontier]

I'll keep it short because I had a longer post but my phone glitched out and I don't wanna retype it. so I apologize for my tone in advance

you would either have to be lying to yourself or simply too locked into comic culture to understand that storytelling doesn't end with folks like Green Lantern or Bruce Wayne if you think that's the case. figures like Jay Garrick and Alan Scott debunk that premise because the industry didn't end with their retirement. on top of that, there is reason manga continues to lap comics in popularity, ENDINGS. they prove that there is ALWAYS a new story to be told to fill the void. DC has plenty of original character not derivative of their "big names" and their issue isn't too many "big shoes to fill" stories, it's not enough room to mature and grow into bigger roles. there are plenty of stories that can be told, stories that you wouldn't and can't see from the likes of a Clark Kent or a Bruce Wayne because they are based in ideas that just can't be expressed with characters made over 50 years ago. finality is pivotal to the human experience, if your storytelling culture lacks real stakes and closure it stops mattering and these characters become a joke. but hey, I'm not gonna harp on this too much, again I don't feel like retyping everything. the industry is gonna die if it continues down the path a lot of old hardcore fans think it should (including the ones in DC's employ) and it's because the every successive generation of readers care less and less about watching these 70+ year old characters retell the same story from 20-40 years ago for the umpteenth time.

Conversely one could argue that the Big Two exhibit that there are always new stories that can be told with characters as they change from writer to writer, creator to creator.

The shared universe in the mainstream books need to be interconnected to survive at this point, but it's aimed at an increasingly smaller audience who goes for that sort of thing. New audiences aren't going to be as willing to go for it, which is why manga sells better. Or people who DO like that stuff get it better from the movies and tv shows. Stuff like the Black Label might be a better model for the future of DC and Marvel. self contained but satisfying stories that they can sell in mainstream book stores that are new reader friendly.

I like standalones just fine but I'm a big, sprawling, shared universe guy too.

[9th.]

This caters only to a very specific subset of fans, so I'll say this: if Wally flippin' West, the Flash of 20 years, isn't getting a concurrent book... Well, the future is not looking bright for Conner and the gang.

I wonder how 2 Flash books would sell side by side

[Lee]

Batman comics have gone through 80 years, dozens of titles, several reboots, hundreds of writers and hundreds of artists. It's a bit late in the game to treat it like a cohesive narrative with an end in sight. Manga publishers can sell the complete Sailor Moon saga in perpetuity. DC can't sell the entire Batman saga, and if they could it would be incoherent.

Batman is a timeless, ageless character, like Donald Duck.

[SiegePerilous02]

I like standalones just fine but I'm a big, sprawling, shared universe guy too.

I am too, but sometimes you have to wonder if its best days are behind it. Or if it's just too unwieldy at this point because there are too many creatives and too many fans with differing desires pulling it in too many different directions with way too many characters. And there are redundancies in some of those characters and their roles.

Batman comics have gone through 80 years, dozens of titles, several reboots, hundreds of writers and hundreds of artists. It's a bit late in the game to treat it like a cohesive narrative with an end in sight. Manga publishers can sell the complete Sailor Moon saga in perpetuity. DC can't sell the entire Batman saga, and if they could it would be incoherent.

Batman is a timeless, ageless character, like Donald Duck.

I also agree with this 100%. Batman was in his vague early-mid 30s when I "met" him back in 1992, and he was already over 50 years old at that point.

It seems odd to suddenly act like he's a character with one coherent narrative with a beginning, middle and end at this point that needs to age out and pass the torch to someone else. Even with Sailor Moon, she inherited the power from Queen Serenity and will pass it on to Chibi-Usa, but that event is "off screen" and never actually pans out in the narrative. As far as larger pop culture is concerned, Sailor Moon is Usagi Tsukino is Sailor Moon. Same with Bruce Wayne and Batman.

[Tzigone]

The more that happens, the more you end up with a DC Universe with no original characters, where everyone's origin is "they inherited a name/costume from their predecessor", where everyone's story is a "big shoes to fill" story. The DC Universe goes from a place with ordinary people getting extraordinary abilities and using them to do good, to a place where dynasties have all the power.

The fan base gets splintered the more and more replacement versions of characters are introduced. We have regular arguments about who should be the headline Flash or Green Lantern or Robin, but no such arguments about Starfire or Beast Boy or Wonder Woman.

Agree. I'm all for new independent heroes. Just not derivative new versions old heroes, and especially not ones of heroes that are still being used or ones that get killed off or put on a bus so they can be replaced. I'm not saying I don't like any of them. Loved Jaime. But it's very fan-base splintering, and it's indicative of either a lack of new ideas or a lack of willingness to take chances.

I know new derivatives kinda worked in the silver age, but that was when they weren't replacing old heroes (those were long gone) and weren't in-universe legacies (that only happened when universes got merged later), but were, within the origin stories, truly independent heroes and not those that had had a torch handed to them.

BTW, still would like an anthology series for new characters (or rarely used ones) to get a chance to be used, and to star in the stories they are used in.

Batman-Nightwing
Green Arrow-Arsenal
Diana-Donna (Cassie)
Barry Allen-Wally West
Clark-Conner
Aquaman-Tempest

I'm also strongly against the second/third gen characters being treated as "counterparts" once grown instead of fully-developed and fully fledged independent heroes separate from their mentors. I thought the original Teen Titans generation's best stories were when they were just themselves, instead of kept so tightly tied to (and subordinate to, unfortunately) the earlier heroes. I've very much in favor of them developing their own identities in general. I do not have the legacy-fondness that many do. I'd rather code-names not be passed down the line, but each person rise to their own heights, just as high as the one that came before them without this idea that they are defined by the previous generation, always measured against them or forever in that shadow or just waiting for their mentors to retire so they can be the main heroes.

[phantom1592]

figures like Jay Garrick and Alan Scott debunk that premise because the industry didn't end with their retirement.

I would counter that... actually it KIND OF did! Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are the 'Trinity' of DC because they were the only that kept getting published straight from the 30's. The rest of the Superhero books actually DID crash. When Jay and Alan stopped showing in books... Comics dropped superheroes in general and moved on to westerns and detectives and romance. Then in the 60's they tried to restart the supers with Barry and Hal, but there was NEVER a clean cut 'Golden age hero retires and a Silver Age hero takes their place'. In my opinion that's why the silver age group was so successful. They didn't replace anyone. Those heroes were already done and gone for at least 5-10 years before the new guys decided to reuse an existing name.

[docmidnite]

I would counter that... actually it KIND OF did! Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are the 'Trinity' of DC because they were the only that kept getting published straight from the 30's. The rest of the Superhero books actually DID crash. When Jay and Alan stopped showing in books... Comics dropped superheroes in general and moved on to westerns and detectives and romance. Then in the 60's they tried to restart the supers with Barry and Hal, but there was NEVER a clean cut 'Golden age hero retires and a Silver Age hero takes their place'. In my opinion that's why the silver age group was so successful. They didn't replace anyone. Those heroes were already done and gone for at least 5-10 years before the new guys decided to reuse an existing name.

Actually, Alan Scott was replaced in his comic by his own dog (Streak The Wonder Dog) during the whole Lassie craze of the 50's.

Seriously, a book that was originally titled Green Lantern eventually had the lead character replaced by his own dog and was re-titled Streak The Wonder Dog.

[Tzigone]

Then in the 60's they tried to restart the supers with Barry and Hal, but there was NEVER a clean cut 'Golden age hero retires and a Silver Age hero takes their place'. In my opinion that's why the silver age group was so successful. They didn't replace anyone. Those heroes were already done and gone for at least 5-10 years before the new guys decided to reuse an existing name.

I absolutely agree that's what allowed them to successful. They didn't have to compete with the heroes, and didn't engender fan resentment by displacing them (since they'd been canceled a while ago and because of the transitory, rather than constant, nature of most of comic book readers at the time). And it's a reason I dislike post-COIE setup - it made Barry, Hal, etc. people who took others names without permission or blessing, made them less original and independent (more so Barry, really since all Green Lanterns are Green Lantern from Hal's perspective).

[Lee]

It also took some real shoehorning to fit Alan Scott's magical Green Lantern into a universe where the sci-fi Green Lantern Corps exists.

[docmidnite]

It also took some real shoehorning to fit Alan Scott's magical Green Lantern into a universe where the sci-fi Green Lantern Corps exists.

Not really. It was explained rather easily. The Guardians (after the war between Orderly Science and Chaotic Magic which was later expanded upon by the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons Tygers prophecy that Geoff Johns would later use for Green Lantern: Rebirth, as well as the prequel to Green Lantern: Secret Origins, the build up to and eventual Sinestro Corps War itself and his entire run) collected all of the remaining Chaotic Magic in the Earth-1 universe creating the Starheart, which the Guardians immediately banished from the Earth-1 universe and ended up in the Earth-2 universe where a piece of the Starheart broke off and landed in the Ancient China of Earth-2 setting up the Golden Age Finger/Nodell origin.

After CoIE, they kept the same origin for the Starheart, but instead of the Starheart being banished by the Guardians from the Earth-1 universe and ending up in the Earth-2 universe, the Guardians simply banished the Starheart into deep space.

[Lee]

That's convoluted. And that's not all they shoe-horned in, it got more convoluted than that.

[docmidnite]

That's convoluted. And that's not all they shoe-horned in, it got more convoluted than that.

I just explained it in like 3 sentences. That's the exact opposite of convoluted. And no, after CoIE it actually became less convoluted because of the shared universe concept.

[SiegePerilous02]

Is there even a necessity to explain a link between the GL Corps and Alan across the multiverse to begin with?

Why even come up with a Starheart explanation? GL Corps doesn't exist in Earth-2 universe, Alan is magic, who cares?

[docmidnite]

Is there even a necessity to explain a link between the GL Corps and Alan across the multiverse to begin with?

Why even come up with a Starheart explanation? GL Corps doesn't exist in Earth-2 universe, Alan is magic, who cares?

Tell that to John Broome, Gil Kane and Julius Schwartz. They're the ones who came up with the origin of the Starheart in the early 60's (which was also in the same issue as the first ever Hal/Alan teamup)

[Lee]

I just explained it in like 3 sentences. That's the exact opposite of convoluted. And no, after CoIE it actually became less convoluted because of the shared universe concept.

You didn't explain how Alan Scott ended up with the same name and gimmick (power ring, lantern battery) as a bunch of space cops he had absolutely no knowledge of.

DC did explain it, and it was convoluted.