Your thoughts on Zero Hour

[Fromper]

We recently had a thread about Crisis on Infinite Earths. I just reread Zero Hour, so I'm curious to start a similar thread about that one. What does everyone think about Zero Hour?

[DrNewGod]

It was a mess. I'm particularly bitter about ZH, because it was the point at which Hawkman and Hawkwoman/girl were broken beyond repair.

The only thing connected to it that I liked was Alpha Centurion. I've always been sad that he didn't thrive, but then as he was created as something of An Alternative Man of Tomorrow, I guest there really was no room for him in the main DCU.

[Jon Clark]

The tie-in issues were interesting, but the mini itself was underwhelming.

I always described the result as "a stop sign in Chicago, now never existed" because of how little really changed in DC history as a result. The Batman revelation could just as easily been accomplished by having Bruce re-examine the evidence. If they didn't want to use the JSA, they could have left them in Valhalla instead of bringing them back to be wasted here. Why introduce the alternate Batgirl, if she was going to be erased anyway? It was all just wasted potential. Esepecially since it's stated goal of fixing DC continuity didn't last beyond the final panel.

Oh, and I was actively routing for Parallax (much as I was for the Earth 2 Superman in Infinite Crisis .

[Tzigone]

I always described the result as "a stop sign in Chicago, now never existed" because of how little really changed in DC history as a result

You know that makes me wonder - is there a list somewhere of the continuity changes wrought by these smaller crises/reboots? It's easy enough to know pre-COIE from post-COIE from New 52 to a point. And, of course, there are the garden-variety retcons not associated with events. But I'm curious on what specific changes were wrought in some of these events. But not curious enough to read the events.

[Jekyll]

The positive: It lead to one of my favorite comic series of all time with James Robinson's Starman. Also, it lead to my favorite version of one of my favorite DC characters with the teenage version of Ray Palmer.

The Negative: The mass murder of The JSA.

[j9ac9k]

I felt like someone just started a thread on this last week.... anyway, what I said then was:
-- If not for the choice to depict Hal Jordan as a typical power-mad villain, it could have been a compelling and challenging notion - that he wanted to undo certain tragedies to make everyone happy. It should be at least a bit tempting or lead to a debate since they make universe-altering decisions all the time.
-- The perfunctory clearing the deck of most of the JSA. Not the way to honor those characters.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Am I high or isn't already a thread of this that was started at exactly the same time as the Crisis one?

[caj]

I like pretending any DC Comic where Hal Jordan was a villain as 'never happening'.

I read it but it was underwhelming. I did think it was cool how every DC comic had a '0' issue. Peter David's Aquaman was just on issue #2 but was followed by a #0 issue, which has to be majorly confusing to anyone reading it today.

I will say I loved how Phantom Girl/Tinya was returned to Ultra Boy/Jo and the Legion before the group was 'zeroing out' at the end of the 5-Year Gap Legion book. But that's about all the positives I can muster.

[Buried Alien]

Am I high or isn't already a thread of this that was started at exactly the same time as the Crisis one?

ZERO HOUR always kind of read like a poor man's COIE.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[WillieMorgan]

It's been a long, long time since I last read Zero Hour: Crisis In Time. Like, the year it was first published long. It....

Wait. Major deja-vu vibes coming over me.

Recap: Not a fan. It was published during a period where I was going off comics in general and so I consider it badly executed. I don't like the way Hal Jordan is depicted as Parallax and I should have mentioned that the JSA characters were swept under the rug in rather disrespectful manner here last time too.

[kingaliencracker]

As someone else accurately pointed out, many of the tie-ins were fun but the main series itself was a gigantic mess.

On top of the fact that the two primary villains were former heroes who weren't supposed to be villains originally (wrap your head around that one!), it destroyed the JSA, made Hawkman unusable, and really jacked up the LSH's history.

I'm somewhat indifferent on the changes to Batman, although the whole "urban myth" thing was rather silly once he joined the JLA.

[Fromper]

Sorry if this is a redundant topic. I tried searching for previous threads, but all I discovered is that this web site doesn't actually have working search functionality.

I'm not surprised by all the ZH hate from JSA fans.

As a new reader at the time it was published, I liked the "Zero Month" that came afterward, with #0 issues of every comic that were intended to be good starting points for new readers. But there's really no reason they couldn't have done that at any time, without the crossover event that came before it.

I also liked the new Legion of Super-Heroes that followed, but I can understand why fans of the original were upset by the reboot. But at least it was a clean reboot this time, not the mix of old and new that happened after Crisis.

[jetengine]

I'm a fan of Parallax, DC lack a really good Magneto esque "Doing a good thing in a terrible way" character. Zero hour was badly written though.

[scary harpy]

A slap in the face to Batgirl fans.

Zero Hour gave us Babs as Batgirl again...and then killed her.

A real jerk move DC.

[DrNewGod]

In addition to its other sins, ZH dismantled this venerable classic...

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...to build this poster child for 1990s-ness excess...

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...yuck.