Favorite bits of "forgotten" canon.

[AdamFTF]

I figure the people on this board read a lot of classic comics. Personally, I read a lot of Essentials and Showcase Presents myself and pick up some other odd comics when we have a local con or something along those lines. However, some things from the "old days" don't necessarily carry over. So, I thought I'd post a thread for all the little bits of canon that have been forgotten or discarded over time that we love for reasons that maybe we can't even understand. Like . . .

- I love that the Teen Titans original mission statement was to help teens in trouble. It gave the original Titans a sense of purpose that a lot of versions of the team don't have.

- I love that the Silver Age Atom's original motivation for being a superhero was that he wanted to catch crooks for Jean Loring to prosecute so that she could further her career as a lawyer and someday marry him. Ray and Jean's relationship kind of got distorted over time, but he originally did it all out of love for her.

- I love what (pardon the pun) "fusion cuisine" the earliest Firestorm comics are. They're very clearly a straight-up mix of Silver Age Spider-Man's soap opera and Silver Age Flash's science fiction.

- On a similar note, I love that Nova used to be an Earth-bound hero in the same mold as Spider-Man or Firestorm. He used to fight guys like Diamondhead, the Condor and the Corruptor all the time. Superhero comics are in a place right now where origin=mission statement. So basically, if you got your powers from some alien whatsis, then you'd better fight aliens. However, superhero origins used to be able to come from anywhere.

- I love that Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne used to be modeled off of Dashiell Hammet's Nick and Nora Charles with Hank being the homebody scientist and Jan being the adventure-seeking heiress who pushed him into adventures. This is another one where the relationship has gotten a bit distorted.

- I love that Carol Danvers used to think she actually was a Kree soldier when she turned into Ms. Marvel. I know it wouldn't fly today, but it's so weird I can't help loving it.

- I love that the comic book version of the Road Runner used to talk in rhyme. Not sure why.

Anyway, those are some of mine. What bits of past canon that have been lost do you have a fondness for.

[SJNeal]

*Green Lantern's ineffectiveness against anything yellow.

*Aquaman's inability to stay out of the water more than 24 hrs.

[Pharozonk]

Man, seeing how they've ruined some great relationships like Ray and Jean and Hank and Jan is just depressing. Those were some complex character relationships for their time in comic history.

[day_walker]

I agree with all of AdamFTF's examples, but I hated Aquaman's inability to stay out of the water more than 24 hrs. That was just silly, and made it even harder to make him useful in the JLA. Plus, why is it always exactly one hour? It doesn't matter if he's in a tropical rainforest or in the Sahara Desert, it doesn't matter his level of exertion, it's just always one hour. I don't mind the Green Lantern yellow thing too much except it seems like he went up against a yellow foe in every single issue of the JLA.

[AdamFTF]

Y'know, I actually expected more activity on this thread.

I agree with all of AdamFTF's examples, but I hated Aquaman's inability to stay out of the water more than 24 hrs. That was just silly, and made it even harder to make him useful in the JLA. Plus, why is it always exactly one hour? It doesn't matter if he's in a tropical rainforest or in the Sahara Desert, it doesn't matter his level of exertion, it's just always one hour. I don't mind the Green Lantern yellow thing too much except it seems like he went up against a yellow foe in every single issue of the JLA.

When it comes to Aquaman, I kind of miss the days when he wasn't the king of Atlantis. For a good chunk of the Silver Age, Aquaman wasn't welcome in Atlantis. Instead, he spent his time patrolling the seas and saving surface-dwelling seafarers from pirates and sea monsters. The thing is, as king of Atlantis, he really became more about saving Atlantis from threats which I feel was the first step toward making him more Namor-like and having him angry at the "surface-dwellers". Also, I could never really relate to the Atlanteans, so I had a hard time caring if they were saved or not. Now, some land-dweller in a boat who has gotten into trouble, that I can kind of relate to. I kind of feel the same way about Green Lantern becoming more and more space-based. I mean, the space adventures are fun to a point, but I have a hard time caring whether GL saves the asparagus people of Rignus-7, but I get it when he saves Coast City from Sonar or Dr. Polaris.

As for the Justice League, I love how casual it used to be. Back in the '60s they were a club of super-heroes who spent their time not adventuring hanging around their cave headquarters telling tales of their adventures while Snapper Carr paid rapt attention and wrote everything down. They joked around a little bit. Once it was Snapper's birthday and Wonder Woman baked him a cake. I feel like there is no cake at JLA meetings anymore. You rarely see the lighter side of the JLA anymore unless someone's using the "Bwa-ha-ha" League. People treat them like they're the UN or something and that they meet to discuss . . . superhero policy or something. I'd love to see someone take it back to when it was less a big important organization and more just a club for superheroes.

[superiorcrisis]

I miss the interconnectedness of the marvel universe that existed when Stan Lee controlled everything. Dan Didio brought this into the DC universe, but people got annoyed by this, so they seem to be getting rid of it.

I also miss the sense of legacy that existed in the DC universe before the new 52.

[SJNeal]

I also miss the sense of legacy that existed in the DC universe before the new 52.

This! 1000x over, this...

[AdamFTF]

I also miss the sense of legacy that existed in the DC universe before the new 52.

This is hardly "forgotten" canon, seeing as so many fans have a problem with this.

I honestly don't mind a lack of "legacy" in general, seeing as the DC has made due without it in past eras. The problem is that when you simply remove it from the modern comics, there's a hole where it should have been.

[marvelmaniac6169]

*Green Lantern's ineffectiveness against anything yellow.

And as it was stated on Big Bang Theory by Raj when they were talking about the weakness's of the Golden and Silver Age Green Lantern...
"So I could defeat both of them with a #2 pencil?"

[AdamFTF]

And as it was stated on Big Bang Theory by Raj when they were talking about the weakness's of the Golden and Silver Age Green Lantern...
"So I could defeat both of them with a #2 pencil?"

They're comic book characters drawn on paper. On some level, all of them can be beaten with a #2 pencil.

[McFarlane's Green Hulk]

One Hulk personality.
One.
The Gray and Green Hulks were one and the same character; he mutated from gray (smarter, weaker, and smaller) to the green (dull, stronger, and larger) from the gamma radiation absorbing into his system.
Less gamma = gray
More gamma = green.

[andersonh1]

I was reading through Batman Archives vol. 1 last night, and though I knew that Bruce Wayne had a fiance named Julie Madison, I had no idea they actually wrote her out of the series as opposed to just ignoring her existence after awhile. She actually turns up in the second Clayface story and she's the one that breaks the engagement with Bruce, because he just won't do anything with his life (if only she knew about my career as Batman, he thinks to himself). Neither of them seem all that unhappy about ending the relationship.

[fumetti]

I miss the interconnectedness of the marvel universe that existed when Stan Lee controlled everything.

The interconnectedness of Marvel was even stronger under later editors.

Other than those occasional crossover hero fights, Stan Lee actually restricted the appearance of characters. For example, he first put all his "big gun" characters in the Avengers but then took them out because he didn't want the headache of having, say, Thor appear in Asgard in Journey Into Mystery and then in NY with the Avengers at the same time on the stands.

When I started reading the 60s Marvel Universe in the Essential volumes, I read a series up until another major hero made a guest appearance. Then I picked up the other character's volume and read it until the month of the guest appearance. I didn't want to miss any references, direct or oblique. I soon discovered that there weren't all that many such crossovers, not nearly as many as I had been led to believe. The crossing over didn't kick into high gear until he brought in more writers such as Roy Thomas.

I also miss the sense of legacy that existed in the DC universe before the new 52.

There's nothing I hate more about the DCU than all this "legacy" crap.

Super-this, Super-that, xeroxed to oblivion. Gotham is completely overrun by copycat costumed acrobat-detectives. The biggest franchises in comics have been diluted through repetition to the point that no character is special in any way. (This mess began in the 50s with Supergirl and Batwoman, but the former was interesting when it was just her and the latter didn't last long. Things changed for the worse in the 1990s.)

At least with the multiverse concept this was more limited, Superman, Batman, etc were unique in their own universe. DC used one as its primary selling character and the others just popped up occasionally. Now they all run together like a nasty pot luck stew, stinking up the stands with their derivative mediocrity.

I used to like Marvel because they kept their characters unique, special. Now Marvel is sprinting to catch up to DC. It's all so nauseating.

[fumetti]

They're comic book characters drawn on paper. On some level, all of them can be beaten with a #2 pencil.

Good point!

[fumetti]

Any time limitation was just a hokey plot device to limit a character. Aquaman was almost ruined by that limitation alone. Thor's hammer limitation led to a lot of warped plots. Only Hourman made much sense, since it's based on the fact that pills have limited duration.

The SA GL limitation against yellow was just awful. We never got any sensible explanation. The GA GL's limitation evolved from only working against metal (and enabling him to fly thru walls) to working against anything but wood. Both were lame. The strength of a ring user's will and imagination should have been limitation enough, but I guess DC didn't think young readers would enjoy it that way.