The late 60s early 70s rock band? I thought Born To Be Wild was fine, though a bit of a mama's boy...right up until Superman came back on the scene, which is when he just got punked. Well, of course he got really punked by the Amazons and Greek Gods. And, come to think of it, when Aquaman and Wonder Woman got their second wind, he also got punked. So...threat? In the same sense that the Wonder Woman movie villain turned out to be Ned Flanders...no, maybe said rock band wasn't much of a threat in that movie.
Having re-read Kirby's New Gods, I saw a lot of transmutation type stuff going on, and one thing that interested me was Darkseid's ability (with the help of technology) to resurrect New Gods by rearranging their atoms.
Does anyone know if resurrection plays a special role in other stories or media?
For example, in Mr. Miracle, I remember certain characters were getting murked, and whie I chalked it up to multiverse/simulation possibilities, I did wonder whether they're immortality stretched beyond what I thought.
Thanks for that!
Boomtubes translate Superman and others.
Unfortunately the New Gods and really any divinity in the DCU are often treated as Just Another Superpowered Alien. 52 has done especially bad with divinity. But even if you rewound the clock, the last time Divinity on a broad scale in the DCU were handled well was WAR OF THE GODS.
While Rucka's first WW run was pulling in those concepts again he was shot down and dismantled by editorial. It is quite a shame because we would again have seen the impacts of war among divinities on the 3 dimensional plane (which should always be a Big Deal).
Unless you have talent AND editorial on the same page it ends up being better to see them every now and again. I trust Luke and Simonson to do right by them (as well as the likes of Wolfman, Perez, Loebs, and sometimes Byrne) but not much else.
This points to another challenge to the New Gods (and Divinity in general): CONSISTENCY.
Several times in this thread people have talked about how the New Gods are just aspects cast onto the mortal plane like that is a concept unique to them. While it is insane to think a reader would know that this applied to various pantheon of the Old Gods an editorial team should. However I don't think there's been one that did after Berger left WW. Loebs and Luke's usage of the concept I suspect was a happy accident.
Either way, the point is that was a concept spelled out in great detail across multiple books but it is not widely known.
The only way for the New Gods to gain the sense of divinity they should have, is getting the "Endless treatment". Morpheus and Co. never lost the sense of wonder Gaiman gave them, not even when they appear and Dark Nights and the likes of it. While they are part of the larger DCU, Desire don't get his ass kicked by Superman or Batman every couple years, and that helps a lot.
I mean I only consider Kirby's stuff, Simonson's ORION, and some of Morrison's work to be really 'New Gods'. Everything else is watered down.
Orion is one of the greatest of fictional characters, and Simonson's run is stellar.
Last edited by Flash Gordon; 07-09-2020 at 03:14 AM.