Are you disappointed 5G will no longer happen?

[Sacred Knight]

Progressing history forward is overrated, in a way. What I mean is that, while you can and should grow your characters and lore, you age them too much of have things evolve too far, and the various lore begin to lose their meaning and intent. There's only so far things can move forward before the story ends. And these characters aren't designed to end, they're designed to be everlasting. So you can only go so far. 5G was an example of trying to go way too far.

[Dred]

Saying the characters aren't designed to end means absolutely nothing. 90% of any modern day character is far beyond their initial design. They change no matter what we think about it. That they could grow older and move on is just another easy change. Certainly even easier than decades upon decades of absurd, mind bending retcons. What does lore matter in a world where any lore created becomes invalid in a few years, whether by reboot or just incidentally? Is Batman designed to have 70 years worth of stories crammed into 10 years of living? I think not, either, but that's where we are.

I'm not sure how you could say something that they've never done is overrated. We're still focusing on the original three characters from the 1940s. There hasn't been some kind of grand experiment in moving forward as DC has never moved forward. Even the isolated times they did they've largely walked back to a nice, comfortable 1960s status quo.

[Sacred Knight]

What it means is actually quite simple. As I already said it means you don't age them too far or evolve them out of their roles. How do I say its overrated since its never been done? Because it was almost done. It was planned, the prologues ready to roll out. That's how close it came. It was only major internal shakeups that stopped it.

[marvelprince]

Progressing history forward is overrated, in a way. What I mean is that, while you can and should grow your characters and lore, you age them too much of have things evolve too far, and the various lore begin to lose their meaning and intent. There's only so far things can move forward before the story ends. And these characters aren't designed to end, they're designed to be everlasting. So you can only go so far. 5G was an example of trying to go way too far.

How was it going too far? It’s a story, it’s going to go back to the main guys eventually like all of the other “hero replacement” stories we’ve ever had.

[Sacred Knight]

That it was always going to go back to the main guys eventually is irrelevant. A bad idea is a bad idea. You don't make your collective fanbase wait out an initiative where the characters they want to read about are all off the table for an indefinite period.

[Dred]

You can't rate something that has never happened. It can't be overrated if it doesn't exist.

I assume when you're talking about Bendis' Superman you're speaking of Jon, and I agree. Jumping forward without any story actually showing the progress, like they did with Jon, is hackneyed and bad. And is likely what 5g would've been and why I think it would've been bad. But the concept of characters actually...maintaining their growth instead of spiraling back to a status quo that's been beaten more than any dead horse ever is not inherently a bad idea or overrated. Because I know for sure what isn't good is the years of absurdist stories that are used to justify the absurd timeline that we end up in a world that never changes or grows

[Sacred Knight]

What I'm doing is critiquing what we know of the plan. Even if it didn't come to fruition, we know some details of what was to occur. As far as calling a concept overrated, yes I am using Bendis Superman run as one example in regards to something actually occurring. It isn't Jon though, since as you say that never actually happened, it was scrapped. Its Bendis removing Superman's secret ID. He framed it as a natural evolution, as something the character didn't need anymore. It fell flat on its face. It was an unnecessary evolution that actually harmed the character because he's not designed to evolve out of it. Its a key piece of his character. That's the practical application of what I'm talking about when I say you can move too far forward as to negate important pieces of a lore sometimes.

[SiegePerilous02]

We should probably just abandon the pipedream of having one continuity that has the illusion of character and narrative progression. DC has never had a coherent one, and likely never will. Most of their developments also come about about due to reboots or retcons.

More emphasis on Black Label type stuff that creates self contained graphic novels that require nothing but broad stroke knowledge may be the way of the future. That way each creator has free reign to do whatever they want and even provide characters endings while another creator isn't beholden to them.

[Dred]

That's silly. Just because you didn't like Bendis doing it doesn't mean it's some unusuable part of a story. Kingdom Come Superman doesn't have an identity and it's certainly a great Superman story. Wally West shed his secret identity and his stories were great, even if he was designed with a secret identity in mind. It might not be necessary to do, but it's not necessary to have.

I agree that 5g was likely going to be horrible, for reasons I stated earlier. But the idea that characters aren't in the same status quo eternally isn't against their design. I think you're talking out of your rear if you think characters can only exist as they were designed. I doubt many of your favorites are the same was their initial design. And for the better, I bet.

[Sacred Knight]

Its not silly at all. Kingdom Come is a standalone Elseworlds miniseries specifically about the future. Its design, its very purpose, is to tell a very unorthodox tale. Bendis' run is an ongoing continuity. Two different animals. Furthermore Wally West is not Superman. The secret ID means far more to the Superman mythos than it does to Wally's. Not every secret ID is created equal. Superman's is completely and utterly necessary. His dual nature is downright neurological.

[Dred]

Kingdom Come is a standalone miniseries specifically about future scenarios. This is an ongoing Superman continuity. Two different animals.

Hardly. You are not incapable of telling good Superman stories if you change the status quo to make his identity public. Just like Superman suddenly isn't unsalvageable because they gave him the ability to fly, something he wasn't "designed" with. It's perfectly reasonable to want to tell a Superman story about Superman no longer lying to the world if that's what you want to do, even if Bendis didn't do it well by your estimation. It's not like any of this matters to you, anyhow, since you're firmly on board with always reverting back to an original status quo. So it's a temporary storytelling direction at its best.

[SiegePerilous02]

That's silly. Just because you didn't like Bendis doing it doesn't mean it's some unusuable part of a story. Kingdom Come Superman doesn't have an identity and it's certainly a great Superman story. Wally West shed his secret identity and his stories were great, even if he was designed with a secret identity in mind. It might not be necessary to do, but it's not necessary to have.

I agree that 5g was likely going to be horrible, for reasons I stated earlier. But the idea that characters aren't in the same status quo eternally isn't against their design. I think you're talking out of your rear if you think characters can only exist as they were designed. I doubt many of your favorites are the same was their initial design. And for the better, I bet.

Some changes from the original concept are good, some are not.

I don't want to speak for Sacred (though his opinions on Superman related stuff generally line up with mine), but I definitely wouldn't say Superman is better now than the core concepts that went into him in the Golden Age. Which is why, IMO, Morrison's New 52 Action run was the only mainline Superman run worth a damn in recent years and was a great blue print for what a modern and relevant Superman should be. it doesn't matter what that it came about due to a reboot and re-setting him as young, it was just a good take on the character that combined Golden and Silver age concepts with new stuff. But due to poor planning for that era and a return to a different flavor of nostalgia, we lost him and he's boring Superdad again.

[Sacred Knight]

Hardly. You are not incapable of telling good Superman stories if you change the status quo to make his identity public. Just like Superman suddenly isn't unsalvageable because they gave him the ability to fly, something he wasn't "designed" with. It's perfectly reasonable to want to tell a Superman story about Superman no longer lying to the world if that's what you want to do, even if Bendis didn't do it well by your estimation. It's not like any of this matters to you, anyhow, since you're firmly on board with always reverting back to an original status quo. So it's a temporary storytelling direction at its best.

I didn't say it is a downright impossibility to tell a good story where is identity is public. That's not the point. The point is it goes against his very character as a longterm goal. And none of these examples, like flight, come even close to comparing to the importance and longevity of the secret ID.

[Dred]

Morrison's Superman draws from all sorts of modern developments. He's certainly not a port of Golden Age Superman.

It is funny to me that you're lambasting nostalgia while also demanding a return to the original design. These are dissonant ideas.

[SiegePerilous02]

Morrison's Superman draws from all sorts of modern developments. He's certainly not a port of Golden Age Superman.

It is funny to me that you're lambasting nostalgia while also demanding a return to the original design. These are dissonant ideas.

He's not a straight up port (never said he was), but he is the main basis. he also draws heavily from the Silver and Bronze ages. What modern developments does he draw from? There is Superdoom being a revamped Doomsday, but that's more of a metaphor for Siegel and Shuster losing their creation to a corporation and a "take that!" to the over emphasis on the Death of Superman story. Because he certainly doesn't have any major mainstream stories after that ("You're only relevant when you're dying")

I wasn't saying nostalgia in general can be bad. But either way, it's nostalgia running things. Morrison gave us a revamped version drawing from older stuff but executed in a fresh way.. And some fans rejected it because he wasn't the "classic original" who was married. Despite the dissonance that the version who New 52 replaced was neither the original or the classic (perhaps a classic, but certainly not the). So when it came time for Rebirth, their nostalgia won out and it was their turn again.