Originally Posted by
Sutekh
This for me as well. The thing I really, really liked about DC was the sense of legacy, that the concept of heroism was bigger than any one person, and that if a hero did a great job, they could inspire others to take up the fight, leaving behind a legacy of heroism that could stretch on for *centuries.*
Batman picked up a ward, in Dick Grayson, and created an entire new super-hero, eventually growing to lead his own team of heroes, as Nightwing. Other Robins followed, with Jason Todd and Tim Drake, who ended up with their own teams of heroes. Superman fell, and four new heroes arose. (Of which only Steel and Superboy really succeeded, but that's still awesome!) *One thousand years later,* the legacy of Superman lives on, in the Legion of Super-Heroes. Green Lanterns still existed 1000 years later (at least, until they were all retroactively killed off...). Flash legacies from Wally West to Impulse to XS to the Tornado Twins carried on the tradition of Speed Force-empowered heroism. Kryptonian or their descendents, such as Dev-Em and (pre-Manhunter) Laurel Kent carried on the heroic tradition.
And it didn't just extend into the future, but also into the past, with the Justice Society, Young Allies, All-Star Squadron, etc. and those golden age WW2 era heroes had their own legacies in the modern age, with Infinity, Inc.
Unlike Marvel, too scared to ever let Franklin Richards age, despite having been a toddler for fifty years, DC was able to move forward, and introduce new heroes, allowing their older characters to age and grow and marry and even die (as they did with Barry Allen, who had a long run as a hero, then a husband, and finally gave his life to the fight to save the entire universe). Robin wasn't 'stuck' being Robin, but was able to grow and change and become a character capable of existing outside of the shadow of the Bat, and that was, IMO, one of DC's greatest strengths over Marvel, and why the Perez/Wolfman Titans sold so many books, because we got to see change and growth and development, and not the same stories being told over and over and over, because of perpetual resets and age-slips, forcing constant retuning of origin stories to 'catch up.' Oh radiation is out, it's all bio-genetics now, so Spider-Man's origin needs to change. Vietnam is too long ago, now Tony has to have been captured in Afghanistan.
For a product based on a serial narrative, DCs choice to allow its heroes to age and grow *and be replaced* was a brave choice. Frank Miller introduced us to an older Batman, whose back ached and whose knees were shot from years of jumping off of buildings. *And it was glorious.*
And it's gone. The experienced competent heroes are rebooted to impulsive fratboys (that they never were...). The dead are alive again, and much less heroic than they were. The legacy heroes who had, in some cases, begun to grow up and have children of their own (such as Donna and Roy) are back to teenagers, or still missing in action. The heroes of the golden age past and the heroes of the bright future are all gone. DC's gone from being far, far braver than Marvel, in the respect of being willing to embrace change, to being *worse.* That's a shame.
And that's just one thing. I also preferred DC's use of bright colors and hopeful storytelling. Heroes who weren't ashamed of being heroes, or apologetic of having higher standards (like Batman's personal choice to not kill or not use guns, which *nobody* in their right mind would mock him for). Idealism. Heroism. Morality. These weren't dirty words, uttered with a scoff by some bitter misanthrope, but things to look up to and admire and aspire to. A hero being a hero and refusing to accept an ugly practical 'necessary' decision was why they were a hero, and to be respected for not giving up and saying, 'Oh, I guess I can't save everyone, so I'll just decide which ones to let die.'
Hero may have been a four letter word, but it wasn't as shunned (or 'deconstructed') as it seems to be (by both companies) today.
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