How much time passed in the pre-New-52 continuity?

[BohemiaDrinker]

"Never trust anybody over thirty." Remember that one?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Yeah, I do. I said that when was a kid a number of times.

Today, though, my brother (who is eighteen) and his friends actually like to have me (33) and my girlfriend (35) around. There are some groups of friends I game with which stem from 16 year olds to 55's. The resistance to the yesterday's magic number "30" seems extremely outdated for me.

[bat39]

I would posit that the people who are in charge of the comics and the people who are in charge of the movies are not the same people. Or at the very least, they have different priorities for the two. What works in one might not work in the other.

Of course they have different priorities. But why does Batman HAVE to be 'young' (relatively speaking) in the comics, when the movies (which frankly, do a LOT more to shape the public perception of him) will show him in his forties?

Batman has typically been presented as being 30-something, and a veteran crime-fighter, in 90% of stories published about him (barring 'Year One' stories of course)...not to mention media representations.

In BTAS, Batman had already been active for a decade when the series began. I assume the same for BatB. The 'Arkham' games (barring Origins) depicts an older, experienced Batman as well. As does TDKR. (come to think of it, even Begins and TDK had Batman in his early thirties). Batman has, for most of his history, been depicted as a somewhat more mature figure (once you factor in all the Robins, or even one of them, it becomes inevitable). So why the desperation to hold him to a six-year timeline?

[BohemiaDrinker]

Of course they have different priorities. But why does Batman HAVE to be 'young' (relatively speaking) in the comics, when the movies (which frankly, do a LOT more to shape the public perception of him) will show him in his forties?

Batman has typically been presented as being 30-something, and a veteran crime-fighter, in 90% of stories published about him (barring 'Year One' stories of course)...not to mention media representations.

In BTAS, Batman had already been active for a decade when the series began. I assume the same for BatB. The 'Arkham' games (barring Origins) depicts an older, experienced Batman as well. As does TDKR. (come to think of it, even Begins and TDK had Batman in his early thirties). Batman has, for most of his history, been depicted as a somewhat more mature figure (once you factor in all the Robins, or even one of them, it becomes inevitable). So why the desperation to hold him to a six-year timeline?

You know, I think that some of the bias against legacy characters stem from a perception that Higher ups had that they made the silver agers look less cool in comparison. "Dick Grayson was the ultimate DC hero, Wally surpassed Barry, Roy surpassed Ollie in anything but the bow, this sort of thing", and because of that we got to the "let's kill Nightwing, make Barry the Speed Force and cut off Roy's arm, throw him on drugs and make him impotent with anything but dead cats" (damn, Roy got it BAD!) bit.

So, with the reboot, I guess they tried to do away with the first Titans generation and just absorb whatever worked with them to their seniors - of course, it doesn't work like that; you mash up 2 characters, what you actually do is eliminate the charm in both of them. However, keeping the silver-agers under thirty also prevents the next gen to "take their spots"; it's even more convenient if you think of DC as the IP farm they're trying to turn it into.

[Dataweaver]

And yet, DC is prepared to have a Batman who is in his mid-40's and a veteran crime-fighter of several decades standing. So maybe the age issue isn't really a deal-breaker after all!

I think the issue is not so much the age of characters per se, but rather, creating what is perceptually a 'young' DC Universe.

There's an interesting TV Tropes article which talks about 'Superhero Prevalence Stages'. It talks about the evolution and expansion a shared superhero universe undergoes, as ever-increasing numbers of characters and concepts are introduced, and continuity becomes ever more complex. The New 52 was an attempt to turn back the clock to an earlier stage of 'superhero prevalence' (using the articles' jargon) and give the impression of a far simpler and easier to understand DCU. Whether this has worked or not is anyone's guess...I'd say that in the last 3 years, the New 52 has become nearly as complex as the Pre-52 universe was.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...evalenceStages

But the DCCU, despite having a 40-something Batman, will still be a 'young DCU', in that superheroes are only just beginning to appear on the scene and continuity won't be all that complex to begin with.

A very interesting article. Diverging from DCcU’s age for a moment, I rather wish DCnU had gone with Bruce Wayne starting his costumed career 15 years ago in an ‘early stage’ mode and at the age of 18–21 (making him 33–36 now), Clark starting his costumed career 15 years ago in an ‘early stage’ mode and at the age of 13–16 (in Smallville, making him 28—31 now, and giving the DCnU’s Superman a previous career as Superboy), and Clark moving to Metropolis 10 years ago at the age of 18–21 and kicking off the start of the ‘middle stage’ of the setting (the Dawn of the Superheroes). You could have five years worth of “early stage” stories (possibly chronicled in an ‘Adventure Comics’ for Clark and a ‘Legends of the Dark Knight’ for Bruce), ten years worth of “middle age” stories (‘Action Comics’ for Clark; ‘Detective Comics’ for Bruce), and the beginnings of a “late stage” in the present (‘Superman’ for Clark; ‘Batman’ for Bruce).

Other heroes could start crawling out of the woodworks approximately 10 years ago, with the exception of a handful whose backstories practically beg for their own ‘early stages’ who would have operated in the shadows or in out-of-the-way places for a few years (preferably less than five) before superheroes went public. The first generation of sidekicks could show up around then, too: if Dick started out as Robin 10 years ago as an 11-to-14-year-old, he’d be 21–24 now; Jason and Tim could show up six and five years ago, respectively, putting their current ages in the 16–20 range; and if Batman first met Talia right near the end of the early stage, Damian could legitimately be 10 years old in the present. If you really wanted to, you could even push Dick’s first appearance back a year or two into the last years of Batman’s “early stage”, making him possibly as old as 27 now; he was, after all, the first sidekick.

If you want things to be “middle stage” in the present, go ahead and put the Dawn of the Superheroes five years back; but tell Morrison and Johns to abandon their Batman Inc. and War of the Lanterns story arcs, and roll their respective parts of the setting to the equivalent of the mid-90s: Tim has just entered the picture and Damian is nowhere to be seen; likewise, Hal is stuck in space dealing with a recent development that decimated the Corps while Ganthet, the last surviving Guardian, has just given Kyle his ring.

[bat39]

A very interesting article. Diverging from DCcU’s age for a moment, I rather wish DCnU had gone with Bruce Wayne starting his costumed career 15 years ago in an ‘early stage’ mode and at the age of 18–21 (making him 33–36 now), Clark starting his costumed career 15 years ago in an ‘early stage’ mode and at the age of 13–16 (in Smallville, making him 28—31 now, and giving the DCnU’s Superman a previous career as Superboy), and Clark moving to Metropolis 10 years ago at the age of 18–21 and kicking off the start of the ‘middle stage’ of the setting (the Dawn of the Superheroes). You could have five years worth of “early stage” stories (possibly chronicled in an ‘Adventure Comics’ for Clark and a ‘Legends of the Dark Knight’ for Bruce), ten years worth of “middle age” stories (‘Action Comics’ for Clark; ‘Detective Comics’ for Bruce), and the beginnings of a “late stage” in the present (‘Superman’ for Clark; ‘Batman’ for Bruce).

Other heroes could start crawling out of the woodworks approximately 10 years ago, with the exception of a handful whose backstories practically beg for their own ‘early stages’ who would have operated in the shadows or in out-of-the-way places for a few years (preferably less than five) before superheroes went public. The first generation of sidekicks could show up around then, too: if Dick started out as Robin 10 years ago as an 11-to-14-year-old, he’d be 21–24 now; Jason and Tim could show up six and five years ago, respectively, putting their current ages in the 16–20 range; and if Batman first met Talia right near the end of the early stage, Damian could legitimately be 10 years old in the present. If you really wanted to, you could even push Dick’s first appearance back a year or two into the last years of Batman’s “early stage”, making him possibly as old as 27 now; he was, after all, the first sidekick.

If you want things to be “middle stage” in the present, go ahead and put the Dawn of the Superheroes five years back; but tell Morrison and Johns to abandon their Batman Inc. and War of the Lanterns story arcs, and roll their respective parts of the setting to the equivalent of the mid-90s: Tim has just entered the picture and Damian is nowhere to be seen; likewise, Hal is stuck in space dealing with a recent development that decimated the Corps while Ganthet, the last surviving Guardian, has just given Kyle his ring.

An excellent idea you have there...but obviously DC preferred to forego the 'stages' and simply have everyone start 5-6 years ago, in order to create the illusion of a kind of 'early-to-middle stage'. Which REALLY hasn't worked out considering that a couple of years in we were already close to a 'late stage' with 'Forever Evil' and 'Trinity War' and stuff like that.

Fact is that DC really can't afford to roll back their entire universe to the 'early stage' or even the 'middle stage'. So they create the illusion of a 'younger universe' by getting rid of legacy characters/duplicates, de-ageing heroes, undoing marriages and character progression, and having people meet each other for the 'first time'. But when you're publishing 52 titles, many of them highly inter-connected, and there are tons of crossovers already...that REALLY ain't gonna fly!

Batman may be a decade or so younger, but he seems to have been through almost as much sh#t as the Pre-52 version...at least enough to make him a 'late stage' character today. Even more so with Green Lantern perhaps.

You can't have you're cake and eat it too, is what I'm saying.

[Slimybug]

So I've been watching Black Lightning, and was reminded of this thread. Does anyone know Black Lightning's timeline? When in comics history did he have his daughters, and how old are they supposed to be? That would go a long way toward saying how much time has to have passed.

[Aahz]

So I've been watching Black Lightning, and was reminded of this thread. Does anyone know Black Lightning's timeline? When in comics history did he have his daughters, and how old are they supposed to be? That would go a long way toward saying how much time has to have passed.

The problem with his daughters is that they were alter reconned in that he didn't have any children originally.

When Anissa first appeared in 2003 in the pages of Outsiders, she had iirc just finished collage.

Jennifer was introduced 5 years later in 2008 in the pages of JSA, and was roughly 15 or 16 at that time I would guess.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

When they gave Black Lightning his post-Infinite Crisis origin, they retconned his two kids into the story as being there from the beginning. While it's clear Tony Isabella hates the idea, I think Jefferson being a father and teacher is what makes him so much more interesting than most street-level superheroes.