Aging in the DC Universe

[Vakanai]

My favorite thing about the infinitely resetting age side of the argument is that all the comics that you consider seminal or defining for the character of Bruce Wayne can't even be canon to him anymore. Not old enough to pack that many adventures into one lifetime, experience those events in those time frames, etc etc. You, in a roundabout way, aren't even invested in the character you think you're invested in.

That's my biggest foible with never being able to move on from "core" characters. It takes the guts out of any significant story knowing that it's just a matter of time for it not to be significant because we need to keep producing an infinite number of mediocre or bad stories to cash in on popularity.

The stories that matter, matter. It's all the mediocre stories that disappear. Some version of Year One, The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, etc all seemed to have happened. Never mind the seminal stories that were never in continuity like The Dark Knight Returns. And ultimately, does it matter which stories matter to "canon"? Batman's still Batman. Never mind Superman and Wonder Woman still work 80 years later too.

As for never being able to move on from core characters - no one's stopping you, you know.

[Dred]

The stories that matter, matter. It's all the mediocre stories that disappear. Some version of Year One, The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, etc all seemed to have happened. Never mind the seminal stories that were never in continuity like The Dark Knight Returns. And ultimately, does it matter which stories matter to "canon"? Batman's still Batman. Never mind Superman and Wonder Woman still work 80 years later too.

As for never being able to move on from core characters - no one's stopping you, you know.

If you are following the ongoing life of a character I think it helps to, you know, know what happened in his life. No one wants to start in the third book of a trilogy.

Plenty of people are stopping me. Mostly all the people who only care about Batman. If only they cared about other franchises and characters we'd have more variety, but c'est la vie. Batman was the most popular and DC never cared to do anything but cash in on it and now we're stuck in a market that only cares about Batman.

[Vakanai]

If you are following the ongoing life of a character I think it helps to, you know, know what happened in his life. No one wants to start in the third book of a trilogy.

Not really, no. The stories, the good ones, are all standalone and don't require previous knowledge, most of the origin stories are similar, and most of the broad strokes are well known.

Plenty of people are stopping me. Mostly all the people who only care about Batman. If only they cared about other franchises and characters we'd have more variety, but c'est la vie. Batman was the most popular and DC never cared to do anything but cash in on it and now we're stuck in a market that only cares about Batman.

No, they're not stopping you. There's still non-Batman DC books, there's still Marvel, there's still indie comics and smaller labels, there's webcomics, there's manga. This "Batman fans are stopping me" excuse doesn't fly.

[Dred]

Not really, no. The stories, the good ones, are all standalone and don't require previous knowledge, most of the origin stories are similar, and most of the broad strokes are well known.



No, they're not stopping you. There's still non-Batman DC books, there's still Marvel, there's still indie comics and smaller labels, there's webcomics, there's manga. This "Batman fans are stopping me" excuse doesn't fly.

The Batman franchise has significantly over taken DC's comic making output. Lots of characters and stories I would care to read are not allowed to exist because the market does not support anything that isn't Batman. I don't blame the fans for the situation, they are the outcome of DC's lack of ability to build up other franchises or capitalize on ones that were big at one point. I am a fan of DC and its shared universe and wish there were other comics besides the, hold on let me look it up so I'm not lying...9 out of 21 ongoings being Batman or Batman spinoffs. I'd love a DC that's healthy enough to make a second Flash comic that they desperately need to help mend the absolutely screwed up situation the company has made of that franchise. Or, you know, a Green Arrow comic at all to deal with all the crazy stuff going on with that franchise...Wait, all of that's been shunted to freaking Batman spinoff comics! AAAAAH.

And those numbers include stuff like Looney Tunes and Mad Magazine, which don't really account for that shared universe stuff I have 25 years of my life invested interest into. The ratio is legitimately worse than 50% of DC's ongoings being Batman derivative. And I'm not even counting stuff that's arguably Batman derivative because it foists such a high amount of its screentime on Batman derivatives because of their team nature still defaulting to featuring Bat characters. Teen Titans with Dick, Suicide Squad with Harley, JL with the Big Bad Bruce Bat himself. Once you cut out not-really DC properties there's like 6 actual superhero comics that aren't contingent on Batman's influence for success. Action, WW, Sensational WW, Flash, Superman, GL. That's it! That's actually freaking insane. You can't go anywhere without the shadow of Gotham looming over a title.

Even the Limited series runs we got going on right now are DOMINATED by Batman. Maybe even worse than the main line percentage wise, but Limited Series aren't necessarily a look into operations so I'm not quite as critical on that.

It's not an excuse, it is fact. And, for whatever it's worth, I am a Batman fan. I'm just not only a Batman fan, which sadly makes up about half of DC's readerbase.

[Vakanai]

The Batman franchise has significantly over taken DC's comic making output. Lots of characters and stories I would care to read are not allowed to exist because the market does not support anything that isn't Batman. I don't blame the fans for the situation, they are the outcome of DC's lack of ability to build up other franchises or capitalize on ones that were big at one point. I am a fan of DC and its shared universe and wish there were other comics besides the, hold on let me look it up so I'm not lying...9 out of 21 ongoings being Batman or Batman spinoffs. I'd love a DC that's healthy enough to make a second Flash comic that they desperately need to help mend the absolutely screwed up situation the company has made of that franchise. Or, you know, a Green Arrow comic at all to deal with all the crazy stuff going on with that franchise...Wait, all of that's been shunted to freaking Batman spinoff comics! AAAAAH.

And those numbers include stuff like Looney Tunes and Mad Magazine, which don't really account for that shared universe stuff I have 25 years of my life invested interest into. The ratio is legitimately worse than 50% of DC's ongoings being Batman derivative. And I'm not even counting stuff that's arguably Batman derivative because it foists such a high amount of its screentime on Batman derivatives because of their team nature still defaulting to featuring Bat characters. Teen Titans with Dick, Suicide Squad with Harley, JL with the Big Bad Bruce Bat himself. Once you cut out not-really DC properties there's like 6 actual superhero comics that aren't contingent on Batman's influence for success. Action, WW, Sensational WW, Flash, Superman, GL. That's it! That's actually freaking insane. You can't go anywhere without the shadow of Gotham looming over a title.

Even the Limited series runs we got going on right now are DOMINATED by Batman. Maybe even worse than the main line percentage wise, but Limited Series aren't necessarily a look into operations so I'm not quite as critical on that.

It's not an excuse, it is fact. And, for whatever it's worth, I am a Batman fan. I'm just not only a Batman fan, which sadly makes up about half of DC's readerbase.

9 out of 21 still leaves you with 12 other books. It still leaves you with non-ongoings like one offs and miniseries and OGNs. It still leaves you with Marvel, Image, IDW, Darkhorse, and others. It still leaves you with manga. It still leaves you with all the content on the web.

I get it - I'm just as big a Superman fan as I am a Batman fan, and while I'm not a Wednesday warrior concerned with most monthlies (I mostly collect minis, OGNs, one offs, and the occasional trade of the stories that really break out - never mind animation and film) I still have noticed a lack of Superman stuff across all media that really interests me (doesn't help I'm not a fan of the "Superdad and family!" angle that's broken out in recent years). I want more Superman content. I want more attempts at books like Superman Smashes the Klan. I want more unreleased gems to be released, like Man and Superman. I want more Black Label titles like Batman is getting. But while there's less there, I'm still keeping my ears to the ground for Superman books that interest me. It's not all Batman content out there, or DC, or floppies. And to keep it on topic, having the characters age out won't fix any of the problems. Because it's not a Batman problem, it's just a business and fandom problem. And that'll never change.

Vote with your wallet - buy the titles that interest you while they're available.

[Alpha]

Harley Quinn isn't on the Suicide Squad anymore. Talon is though, but he's not really the main focus.

[Vakanai]

Harley Quinn isn't on the Suicide Squad anymore. Talon is though, but he's not really the main focus.

I'm not up on this part of things - this the Talon from Crime Syndicate/Owlman's earth, or one of those coming out of the Court of Owls?

[bat39]

And what makes you think Clark and Lois would have a kid in their 20s considering all the hills that relationship had to climb?

Heck, how young do you think Clark should be before he joined the Daily Planet? I can't imagine a 24 year old getting a job at a newspaper.

Add that age plus however long it took for him and Lois to start dating (which by most accounts would be years) and then add the time necessary for their relationship to develop enough so that they would even try to have a child. Remember that in most versions Clark didn't reveal his secret to Lois until after a while. And there's a good chance that they broke up at least once before getting together and then getting married. Since it's not easy for a human to have a kid with a Kryptonian, I'm sure they had to take some time to plan things out even after they decided they wanted a kid.

Clark would probably be at least 36 years old before Lois got pregnant.

Real world logic vs. comic logic can be very different at times. In the comic world, Clark could graduate college at 21 and get on the writing staff at the Daily Planet by 22 wherein he could meet Lois, and they could go through "Hey, I'm Superman" by the age of 25, if not sooner.

Look at what Superman and Lois has done...Clark and Lois went from being first time parents at the age of 35-38ish to being parents to twins by the age of 24-25?

Yeah this actually illustrates what I'm talking about perfectly.

Yes, it is theoretically possible to say that Clark and Lois are in their mid thirties after having a kid who's (chronologically) 10. But why would you want to jump through those hoops to say that? What's the real merit of saying that ''Superman is 35, not a day older'' when you also want him to be father to a pre-teen? Especially when it just messes up an already messed-up timeline even further?

Before Jon is born the following events needed to happen - Clark needed to join the Daily Planet and meet Lois, some time passed with the classic ''love triangle for two'' status quo, then Lois learns the truth, then their relationship goes on long enough that marriage is seriously on the cards, then Superman dies fighting Doomsday, then he comes back to life after some time, and then some time after that the marriage happens...and presumably Lois doesn't get pregnant with Jon right away.

Clark is typically around 25 when he starts out as Superman. All the stuff I've described above would need at least 5 years to happen anywhere close to how they've traditionally been depicted. And if Clark is 30 when Jon is born, he's around 40 now. Probably older.

And I don't see the problem with that. They don't need to show him cutting a birthday cake with 40+ candles. They don't need to make a big deal about it. They don't need to draw him or Lois as being visibly a whole lot older (though they shouldn't draw them as 20-somethings either). But they don't have to go out of their way to try to prove that Superman hasn't been around that long. Which to be fair, they haven't been doing since Rebirth.

The whole situation with Damian, on the other hand, is a study in messing up the timeline to keep Batman arbitarily ''young''. We were supposed to believe that Batman was around 30 and only 5-6 years into his career, while he had a 10 year old son - a son whose conception couldn't have happened until several years into his career as Batman! Yes, you can always find an explanation, like Bruce meeting Talia during his years abroad pre-Batman, but that's just jumping through hoops just in order to be able to say that ''Batman is around 30''. And when Grant Morrison, in Batman Inc # 2 was firm about Bruce and Talia's first encounters and relationships playing out more or less as they did in classic continuity, we had to come up with other convoluted explanations, like Damian being ''artificially aged up'' - which just fundamentally changes the nature of the character for a stupid compressed timeline.

No, if you want Damian around (at the age of 13 no less!), without radically retconning the circumstances of his birth, then I don't see him being conceived any less than around 5 years into Batman's career (even that's a compression). Okay, we can compress it further to maybe 3-4 years. At the very least, Bruce has been Batman for 16-18 years. Honestly, we might as well accept 20 years (Damian being conceived 7 years into Bruce's career lines up perfectly with classic continuity). If Ben Affleck can convincingly play Batman on-screen, then I don't see why Bruce can't be the same age as him on a comics page.

[Vakanai]

Yeah this actually illustrates what I'm talking about perfectly.

Yes, it is theoretically possible to say that Clark and Lois are in their mid thirties after having a kid who's (chronologically) 10. But why would you want to jump through those hoops to say that? What's the real merit of saying that ''Superman is 35, not a day older'' when you also want him to be father to a pre-teen? Especially when it just messes up an already messed-up timeline even further?

Before Jon is born the following events needed to happen - Clark needed to join the Daily Planet and meet Lois, some time passed with the classic ''love triangle for two'' status quo, then Lois learns the truth, then their relationship goes on long enough that marriage is seriously on the cards, then Superman dies fighting Doomsday, then he comes back to life after some time, and then some time after that the marriage happens...and presumably Lois doesn't get pregnant with Jon right away.

Clark is typically around 25 when he starts out as Superman. All the stuff I've described above would need at least 5 years to happen anywhere close to how they've traditionally been depicted. And if Clark is 30 when Jon is born, he's around 40 now. Probably older.

And I don't see the problem with that. They don't need to show him cutting a birthday cake with 40+ candles. They don't need to make a big deal about it. They don't need to draw him or Lois as being visibly a whole lot older (though they shouldn't draw them as 20-somethings either). But they don't have to go out of their way to try to prove that Superman hasn't been around that long. Which to be fair, they haven't been doing since Rebirth.

The whole situation with Damian, on the other hand, is a study in messing up the timeline to keep Batman arbitarily ''young''. We were supposed to believe that Batman was around 30 and only 5-6 years into his career, while he had a 10 year old son - a son whose conception couldn't have happened until several years into his career as Batman! Yes, you can always find an explanation, like Bruce meeting Talia during his years abroad pre-Batman, but that's just jumping through hoops just in order to be able to say that ''Batman is around 30''. And when Grant Morrison, in Batman Inc # 2 was firm about Bruce and Talia's first encounters and relationships playing out more or less as they did in classic continuity, we had to come up with other convoluted explanations, like Damian being ''artificially aged up'' - which just fundamentally changes the nature of the character for a stupid compressed timeline.

No, if you want Damian around (at the age of 13 no less!), without radically retconning the circumstances of his birth, then I don't see him being conceived any less than around 5 years into Batman's career (even that's a compression). Okay, we can compress it further to maybe 3-4 years. At the very least, Bruce has been Batman for 16-18 years. Honestly, we might as well accept 20 years (Damian being conceived 7 years into Bruce's career lines up perfectly with classic continuity). If Ben Affleck can convincingly play Batman on-screen, then I don't see why Bruce can't be the same age as him on a comics page.

Because the time line comes second to a Superman who's still in his prime, and 35 is more in line with that than 45?

But then, I'm also on of the few here who doesn't want Superman to be a father to a pre-teen,

[Alpha]

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.

[Vakanai]

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.

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...

[Dred]

9 out of 21 still leaves you with 12 other books. It still leaves you with non-ongoings like one offs and miniseries and OGNs. It still leaves you with Marvel, Image, IDW, Darkhorse, and others. It still leaves you with manga. It still leaves you with all the content on the web.

I get it - I'm just as big a Superman fan as I am a Batman fan, and while I'm not a Wednesday warrior concerned with most monthlies (I mostly collect minis, OGNs, one offs, and the occasional trade of the stories that really break out - never mind animation and film) I still have noticed a lack of Superman stuff across all media that really interests me (doesn't help I'm not a fan of the "Superdad and family!" angle that's broken out in recent years). I want more Superman content. I want more attempts at books like Superman Smashes the Klan. I want more unreleased gems to be released, like Man and Superman. I want more Black Label titles like Batman is getting. But while there's less there, I'm still keeping my ears to the ground for Superman books that interest me. It's not all Batman content out there, or DC, or floppies. And to keep it on topic, having the characters age out won't fix any of the problems. Because it's not a Batman problem, it's just a business and fandom problem. And that'll never change.

Vote with your wallet - buy the titles that interest you while they're available.

I'm not sure how you're not getting the point that I like DC comics and want more DC comics options. Yes, I am aware that other comics and companies exist. I do not need a reminder. I'm talking about DC.

My wallet has no value. There are not enough people like me interested in something that isn't Batman derivative anymore. There used to be, but they've been pruned off by DC's decision making processes. And, linking it back to the topic of the thread, that is caused by hyper focus and fixation on singular iconic characters at the detriment of all else. You get in these awful log jams where writers want to come up with new, interesting characters for the era and tie them into the mythos, but if you make a new young character suddenly the timeline stretches and Bruce and Clark are older...too old, can't have that, scrap that new character. Do a reboot. Rework the character to make sure they align with our designated acceptable Bruce Wayne age range.

The inability to let other, interesting characters grow and move on and even exist because the entire universe requires itself to sit in a holding pattern so that Bruce Wayne remains nebulously in his late 30s is part of the cause of this issue and is why I'm firmly in the camp of progression rather than stasis. It happened specifically to characters I was really invested in (The West Twins, Wally West himself) and it took 10 years for us to just...get back to the point we were at 10 years ago. You get abominations like New 52 "Wally West" being created because they fit into this dogmatic idea of proper timelines for "iconic" characters. It's miserable to think about if you care about anything else but those "iconic" characters.

And I get it. No one does. There's no real fanbase for these characters and the general audience isn't big enough to support them...any more. It used to be, but focusing on and building them up was never a priority. The Titans were in eternal regurgitation mode and every new generation that followed them has followed the same path.

[Vakanai]

I'm not sure how you're not getting the point that I like DC comics and want more DC comics options. Yes, I am aware that other comics and companies exist. I do not need a reminder. I'm talking about DC.

My wallet has no value. There are not enough people like me interested in something that isn't Batman derivative anymore. There used to be, but they've been pruned off by DC's decision making processes. And, linking it back to the topic of the thread, that is caused by hyper focus and fixation on singular iconic characters at the detriment of all else. You get in these awful log jams where writers want to come up with new, interesting characters for the era and tie them into the mythos, but if you make a new young character suddenly the timeline stretches and Bruce and Clark are older...too old, can't have that, scrap that new character. Do a reboot. Rework the character to make sure they align with our designated acceptable Bruce Wayne age range.

The inability to let other, interesting characters grow and move on and even exist because the entire universe requires itself to sit in a holding pattern so that Bruce Wayne remains nebulously in his late 30s is part of the cause of this issue and is why I'm firmly in the camp of progression rather than stasis. It happened specifically to characters I was really invested in (The West Twins, Wally West himself) and it took 10 years for us to just...get back to the point we were at 10 years ago. You get abominations like New 52 "Wally West" being created because they fit into this dogmatic idea of proper timelines for "iconic" characters. It's miserable to think about if you care about anything else but those "iconic" characters.

And I get it. No one does. There's no real fanbase for these characters and the general audience isn't big enough to support them...any more. It used to be, but focusing on and building them up was never a priority. The Titans were in eternal regurgitation mode and every new generation that followed them has followed the same path.

I get the point - but you're acting like you have no choice at all, and you do. Blaming Batman fans for making him so profitable DC gives him and his sidekicks 9 books doesn't help. And that's all I'm gonna say on the matter, sorry to bother you.

[Dred]

I think you're intentionally misrepresenting what I said. Because I specifically said it's not the fans' fault. The fact that there's barely anything but Batman only fans is a symptom of a bigger failure. And part of that is based around how DC has deified Bruce and his generation.

[Vakanai]

I think you're intentionally misrepresenting what I said. Because I specifically said it's not the fans' fault. The fact that there's barely anything but Batman only fans is a symptom of a bigger failure. And part of that is based around how DC has deified Bruce and his generation.

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.