Aging in the DC Universe

[sifighter]

If you want to go down that route, then maybe in DC universe time slows down the older you get and no one turns 45 ever?

Besides, you age one hero you have to age them all. And I can't help but ask - why?

It just seems like a thing asked for by people who want to take these characters to the grave with them...

Well actually I take it as a realistic way of acknowledging that a characters stories and history. I don’t need the characters to age to death, but hey I buy at least most of Batman’s stories happened if he’s been Batman from his 20’s to his 40’s instead of just 5 years we got with new 52.

Use comic shenanigans to keep them young (time, magic, reality rewrite) but age to me helps make it believable that these heroes have been doing it for a while and are legends.

[Dred]

I don't know if they deified that generation - I think those are just the characters that've traditionally done the best. They're popular icons.

I mean they've literally defied them before in stories. But DC has failed to make anything else stick. Or, rather, has actively chosen this path.

[bat39]

A 45 year old Superman is no weaker than a 25 or 35 year old Superman. That's not how Kryptonian age in any universe.

True.

Besides, perceptions of age have also shifted with the times. 40 or 45 isn't really considered ''old'' anymore the way it used to be. Most of Hollywood top ''action heró'' stars are around that age, if not older.

If I can buy Tom Cruise at 58 playing Ethan Hunt, I can totally buy Bruce Wayne being active as Batman at 45, and still having plenty of time left in the cowl.

Well actually I take it as a realistic way of acknowledging that a characters stories and history. I don’t need the characters to age to death, but hey I buy at least most of Batman’s stories happened if he’s been Batman from his 20’s to his 40’s instead of just 5 years we got with new 52.

Use comic shenanigans to keep them young (time, magic, reality rewrite) but age to me helps make it believable that these heroes have been doing it for a while and are legends.

Precisely!

In-universe, these guys are treated like they've been around forever in current continuity. And when you consider all the stuff that has happened, even the major highlights, 15-20 years just makes way more sense than 5-10 years.

I can buy Bruce being 30 if Dick Grayson is still Robin. I can just about buy him being 35 when Tim's starting out. But if I'm to believe that Bruce is in his early thirties after the entire careers of Dick, Jason and Tim as Robin, not to mention being a father to a teenage son who's also been Robin for a while now...well, that's a harder pill to swallow.

Its the same with Superman and Jon.

I'm not aging the characters for purely aesthetic reasons. The age is inherent in the way the universe has evolved. Once DC made the shift from episodic storytelling to serial storytelling, it became inevitable. When it was just Batman and Robin (Dick) going on one adventure after the other, the ages and the passage of time didn't matter - for all we knew, they've been doing this for a year or for a week. But when Dick grows up and goes to college, its inevitable that several years have passed since he first became Robin (and by extension, since Bruce first put on the cowl). And as the stories become less episodic and events start to stick, its impossible to avoid the fact that time is passing. It may not be passing at the same rate it is in the real-world, but it sure isn't standing still anymore. And since contemporary comics thrive on big status quo changes and big events nearly every story arc, time tends to move 'faster'. Yes, you can adjust a few things, compress the timelines a bit, but there's a point beyond which it just doesn't make sense anymore and you need to accept the inevitable.

If you look at both Batman and Superman franchises, right now two of their most prominent characters are Damian and Jon respectively - characters who, in-universe, were born after their dads became superheroes, and who today are old enough to be kid superheroes in their own rights (well, Jon was a kid superhero before he got artificially aged up). Saying that Batman and Superman are the same age, more or less, as they were when they started out doesn't cut it anymore.

[The Darknight Detective]

If you want to go down that route, then maybe in DC universe time slows down the older you get and no one turns 45 ever?

Besides, you age one hero you have to age them all. And I can't help but ask - why?

It just seems like a thing asked for by people who want to take these characters to the grave with them...

I would love to have a time machine (not just for this purpose, BTW ) to go back to 1985 and show the DC management of that time what legacies and aging of characters had wrought. I'm not sure they would have been as enthusiastic about it after seeing all of the fan squabbling it created. Yes, a big event was still needed to keep DC afloat and there had to be a shakeup to include more POC characters (not to mention excising certain stories that just didn't work anymore), but keeping the Multiverse would have kept legacies and character aging on Earth-2 (as was evident during the Bronze Age).

[SiegePerilous02]

I would love to have a time machine (not just for this purpose, BTW ) to go back to 1985 and show the DC management of that time what legacies and aging of characters had wrought. I'm not sure they would have been as enthusiastic about it after seeing all of the fan squabbling it created. Yes, a big event was still needed to keep DC afloat and there had to be a shakeup to include more POC characters (not to mention excising certain stories that just didn't work anymore), but keeping the Multiverse would have kept legacies and character aging on Earth-2 (as was evident during the Bronze Age).

Was creating legacies and aging characters the main intent of COIE? I know they wanted to streamline continuity (Ha!), but legacies didn't seem to be the main goal aside from killing off Barry and having Wally be the Flash. The JSA weren't doing to hot in the few years in the aftermath and they seemed to ignore them, their new Supergirl was a revamp stand in and not a legacy, they got rid of Betty Kane's time as Bat-Girl so Barbara would be the only Batgirl, etc. And I think legacy could work on pre-Crisis Earth-1 as well.

Jary wouldn't be there, but if they killed off Barry then Wally would inherit his mantle. The YJ generation could exist just fine if COIE never happened since they were tied to IPs that would be on the main Earth anyway. If we have a time machine, maybe we should tell Wolfman and the Bat-office to reconsider making Dick Nightwing and introducing Jason because that was serialized story progression on Earth-1 that established Batman always needed a Robin, and YMMV on how much of a positive impact that had on Bruce and Dick in the long run. Bruce keeps collecting largely identical kids even when some of them die, and Dick doesn't have his iconic identity anymore and is a less important figure than whoever is Robin at the moment. Would him being an adult Robin (with a new, better costume) have been a worse fate for all involved?

[The Darknight Detective]

Was creating legacies and aging characters the main intent of COIE? I know they wanted to streamline continuity (Ha!), but legacies didn't seem to be the main goal aside from killing off Barry and having Wally be the Flash. The JSA weren't doing to hot in the few years in the aftermath and they seemed to ignore them, their new Supergirl was a revamp stand in and not a legacy, they got rid of Betty Kane's time as Bat-Girl so Barbara would be the only Batgirl, etc. And I think legacy could work on pre-Crisis Earth-1 as well.

I'm not sure legacies were in the cards at first, but once you had everybody on the same Earth, it was inevitable. As for working on Earth-1, sure it could, but it wasn't necessary when you had another Earth for that.

Jary wouldn't be there, but if they killed off Barry then Wally would inherit his mantle. The YJ generation could exist just fine if COIE never happened since they were tied to IPs that would be on the main Earth anyway. If we have a time machine, maybe we should tell Wolfman and the Bat-office to reconsider making Dick Nightwing and introducing Jason because that was serialized story progression on Earth-1 that established Batman always needed a Robin, and YMMV on how much of a positive impact that had on Bruce and Dick in the long run. Bruce keeps collecting largely identical kids even when some of them die, and Dick doesn't have his iconic identity anymore and is a less important figure than whoever is Robin at the moment. Would him being an adult Robin (with a new, better costume) have been a worse fate for all involved?

Nightwing was fine, but Dick should have been the first and last kiddie Robin, IMO. That doesn't mean I don't like the others (I do!), but it's kind of a silly concept beyond the Silver Age. As for Barry, if he had to go, then the virtually identical (at the time) Wally should also have been killed off for a POC Flash. Obviously, Wally made a ton of sense to be the next in line, but DC needed more diversity at the top.

[Dred]

Nightwing was fine, but Dick should have been the first and last kiddie Robin, IMO. That doesn't mean I don't like the others (I do!), but it's kind of a silly concept beyond the Silver Age. As for Barry, if he had to go, then the virtually identical (at the time) Wally should also have been killed off for a POC Flash. Obviously, Wally made a ton of sense to be the next in line, but DC needed more diversity at the top.

See, this is what aging up actually can bring. We really should be moving into a Flash status quo that would've had a korean female as The Flash. The Flash even has a unisex superhero name to make it work! It's a shame that dithering about the same age group, and in other cases retconning back to it, has caused this absurd level of stagnancy and lack of representation.

[Alpha]

Nightwing was fine, but Dick should have been the first and last kiddie Robin, IMO. That doesn't mean I don't like the others (I do!), but it's kind of a silly concept beyond the Silver Age.

Probably true. Although the We Are Robin gang did find a way to make the concept work without being problematic.

[Alpha]

See, this is what aging up actually can bring. We really should be moving into a Flash status quo that would've had a korean female as The Flash. The Flash even has a unisex superhero name to make it work! It's a shame that dithering about the same age group, and in other cases retconning back to it, has caused this absurd level of stagnancy and lack of representation.

Yeah Flash and Green Lantern are the easiest members of the Justice League to mold into a less represented group of people.

[The Darknight Detective]

Probably true. Although the We Are Robin gang did find a way to make the concept work without being problematic.

I agree. That made sense to me, too.

[The Darknight Detective]

See, this is what aging up actually can bring. We really should be moving into a Flash status quo that would've had a korean female as The Flash. The Flash even has a unisex superhero name to make it work! It's a shame that dithering about the same age group, and in other cases retconning back to it, has caused this absurd level of stagnancy and lack of representation.

Yeah Flash and Green Lantern are the easiest members of the Justice League to mold into a less represented group of people.

The problem, though, is creating these factions within the fandom. IMO, It might even be a reason why death doesn't really mean death anymore, too, but I'm speculating there.

[Dred]

I will die on the hill that we should be getting ready for and Iris West II Flash Run. This is my flag and I will forever wave it. Signifies everything good about The Flash. Wally made good on the "promise" sidekicks had of growing up and passing it on to his daughter would be Wally living what made him great in the first place. It's so juicy and right there.

But then Bruce Wayne would look too old sooooo back to Barry Allen it is. And now progress is just getting back to where we were in 1987 with Wally back -- which I'm glad for, admittedly, but it's still one step forward, 5 steps back.

[SiegePerilous02]

We could ditch a complicated shared universe altogether and just let the Flash series show multiple generations progressing, and the Batman corner (or Superman, or Wonder Woman) is no longer obligated to even pretend to give a ****.

[Vakanai]

Well actually I take it as a realistic way of acknowledging that a characters stories and history. I don’t need the characters to age to death, but hey I buy at least most of Batman’s stories happened if he’s been Batman from his 20’s to his 40’s instead of just 5 years we got with new 52.

Use comic shenanigans to keep them young (time, magic, reality rewrite) but age to me helps make it believable that these heroes have been doing it for a while and are legends.

Most stories don't matter - continuity nerds are wrapped up in the timeline, and DC's saying "it all happened" but the vast majority of stories never get referenced because they just don't matter. We've always separated the wheat from the chaff. And I don't need them to be old "legends" in story - I just need them to fight the villain and save the day in a good story. Truth is, if you take the bulk of the best stories, and ignore all the mediocre crap, there's no reason that much time needs to have passed. The biggest thing that marks the passage of time isn't the stories - it's the sidekicks. And...I typically don't give a damn about most of the sidekicks.

[Vakanai]

I mean they've literally defied them before in stories. But DC has failed to make anything else stick. Or, rather, has actively chosen this path.

I don't think they've chosen this path outside of Didio's preference for Barry and Hal over Wally and John, or screwing over a few Teen Titans members. I think the rest is just the invisible hand of the market, supply and demand. If one character is popular, you don't try and build up other characters to be as popular - you sell the character people are buying.