Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities *poof*

*poof*

Probably the closest equivalent to what you suggest, gone, is "Gasoline Alley," in which most of the original characters have aged, died, and been replaced by younger characters.

However, last I checked, Walt Wallet was still alive, even though he'd be nearly 120 now. (His wife, Phyllis, and his friends Avery and Doc have all passed away.) And "GA" also uses "timeless characters" such as Joel, Rufus, and Melba, who do not age, according to Wikipedia.

Why is Walt still kicking and why does the series use timeless characters? I suppose "staple" characters add an element of consistency -- identifiable "landmarks," if you will, to assure readers that, yes, this is the same series you've always loved. Without such characters, a series runs in danger of being about anything and everything and losing every connection to its original focus.

To use a real world example (which may or may not fit), the rock band Jefferson Airplane started out in the mid-60s as a folk rock band, a la the Byrds. A few personnel changes, including the arrival of vocalist Grace Slick, transformed them into a psychedelic rock band, although they incorporated elements of blues, folk, country and western, and other genres.

But in the 1970s, the group transformed into Jefferson Starship and, in the '80s, into Starship. After Grace Slick's departure in 1988, no other members from Jefferson Airplane remained. In some ways, the group's ability to transform itself resulted in great commercial success ("We Built this City," et al.), but too much transformation alienated their original fanbase and left them with little creative focus or vision. Starship's last album, in 1989, bore no resemblance to anything that made the Airplane unique or popular.

So replacing older characters with newer, younger ones -- appealing as it sounds -- is very risky. Fans of Superman, the thinking probably goes, want to read about Superman, not about Superman's son, who would be an entirely different character, whatever the similarity in powers, costume, etc.

Didn't DC *DO* this in the 90s, with Wally-Flash, Kyle-GL, Connor-GA, etc?

[And then Didio & Johns came along...]

the problem arises when some age and others do not. What happens when Dick ages to be close in years to Bruce?

It would need to be consistent, and it would need to explain past characters (or else it'd just be another 'boot).

and yes, it would be risky to replace Superman with a son/grandson.

Yup.

The aging/non-aging of characters does not bother me at all. Heck, given all the titles he is in, there aren't enough hours in the day for Batman to do all of it. It is part of the suspension of disbelief you have to give to comics.

Responding to Candlelight's quote, the biggest difference between comics and televison shows is that in television shows, the actor playing the character ages. You don't have that problem with comic book characters.

While characters aging is certainly one factor in reboots, it's probably not the only one. Another factor, it seems, is that most story lines actually go somewhere, with the characters being different at the end. In Legion terms, this means characters marry, have children, get injured and die (as Candlelight also mentioned). Comics publishers prefer to foster the illusion of change, so they hit the reset button when things go too far.

I first became aware of the reset button back in the '80s, when Captain America had a relationship with a woman named Bernie Rosenthal. It was a very serious relationship and his first love interest since Sharon Carter. But before the relationship progressed to marriage (as one might expect), some excuse was concocted to remove Bernie from the series and from Steve's life. I guess a married Cap would not be desirable from a publishing perspective.

Reboots are merely the latest fad in retarding character growth. Rather than concoct in-story reasons for lack of change, it's easier to wipe the slate clean.

The problem with the soap opera approach is that, eventually, one writer will be replaced by another and the next writer will interpret characters differently in a way that will put off certain fans. Eventually the characters' behavior becomes inconsistent and contradictory, and certain fans will favor different writers' approaches to the same characters. If the incoming writers were more respectful of the outgoing writers' approach, this wouldn't be a big problem, but over the past 30 years or so, writers have increasingly come on to books with an agenda, and usually that agenda is to either tear down what's been established or build up a simulation of the way things were during his/her favorite era.

Take, for example, the Scarlet Witch. After being practically a glorified damsel under Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart made her strong, assertive, and confident. Then Englehart left Marvel, and both his initial replacement, Gerry Conway, and eventual successor, Jim Shooter, pretty much reverted Wanda to the way she had been pre-Englehart; for every brief glimpse of the strong Wanda, there would be five instances of her being weak or unsure. Subsequent writers consistently undermined Wanda's strength (most egregiously when she was possessed by Chthon) until Englehart came back nearly a decade after he had departed. But he wasn't the same person anymore, or the same writer, and while Wanda did make some headway back towards her definitive characterization, Englehart spoiled it by trying to make her and the Vision a domesticated suburban couple, sort of a metaphor for Englehart's generation of former wild children tamed by the passage of time. Enter John Byrne, who really threw the baby out with the bathwater by taking away her husband and her children and turning her all the way back to the way she had been characterized pre-Avengers, as a villainess! While Byrne was mercifully fired before he could inflict further damage, the damage was done. Wanda floundered for the next several years until Kurt Busiek took her into Mary Sue-ville, amplifying her powers ridiculously and making her virtually perfect -- and utterly boring. Along comes Brian Bendis, who used the inconsistencies to justify Wanda going insane and becoming a mass murderer. Currently, Allan Heinberg is pinning the blame for Wanda's rampage on Doctor Doom, and methinks a return to Mary Sue-ville is just around the corner.

Is it any wonder, then, that a lot of people eventually start making up their own alternate timelines or just give up on comics altogether?

No, it's no wonder.
sigh

It seems to me that character/event assassination happens both ways.
Either characters become so over 'evented' to the point that dis everything and go back to a previous era, a personal rebooting, or ALL of the characters are rebooted.

Both versions get just as much fan anger and alienation as the idea of natural aging and replacement would.
Or that's my hypothesis.

I really enjoyed the Elseworld miniseries 'Generations' (or something like that) by Davis and Farmer a few years ago.

I know that Dick Grayson taking over for Bruce Wayne seemed natural and popular in the last timeline and I also liked Dick as Nightwing before that.
Adding Bruce's son as the new Robin was fun, too.

I know that comics present unique issues in staffing and continuities, but I think that one of the reasons that they get little respect is that the characters don't really progress, so they kind of stagnate and become irrelevant.

As far as books go, all of my favorite series have characters that age and grow as human beings, even if the aging is much slower than in real life, sometimes.

One of the fun things about the Potter series, in the book form AND in the movies, is that each book was a new year in the kid's lives.

I don't know how the changing writer/editor issues could be dealt with effectively, though,
or the event reset idea.

Earth 2 should do this.

I'm pretty confident that Superman without Superman would never work. But that doesn't mean the stories themselves can't have real change in them. As HWW mentions, any story of any substance has to have something happen between the start of the story and the end of the story--some personal change for one of the main characters--to really justify its existence. With good, solid writing, there can be monthly Superman stories showing exactly this for years and years.

Either Superman, or Lois, or Jimmy, etc., can experience real change that matters. It doesn't need to be a over-sensationalizd event either, like a wedding or a death. It could be something a bit more subtle yet still substantial, like a change in a point of view, or a turning point in an important relationship or any other number of things.

The real problem for is franchise comic books in the last 'x number of years' have relied on over-hyped events and marketing schemes and therefore take things to the most extreme. They've skipped over the other more subtle, and often times better approach of change and evolution for the characters because while it could tell a good story, it can't be plastered all over a solicitation or cover and used a marketing slogan.

Superman ages super-slowly, and Wonder Woman is immortal, so those two characters don't need to advance in years and get replaced (although the notion of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Steve Trevor, etc. growing older and older would change certain assumptions!).

Batman, on the other hand, barring some Lazarus Pit shenanigans, seems likely to get replaced by Dick or Tim or even someone less 'obvious heir' like Barbara or Cassandra.

You'd end up with a League that consists of Superman and Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter, and the 'new' Flash (Wally, Bart, whomever) and the 'new' Green Lantern (Kyle, John, Guy) and the 'new' Green Arrow (Conner) and the 'new' Bat-person (Dick, Barbara, etc.).

So, in a way, DC has already started to drive that road, but jerked away and gone back to the 'reset.'

Being a fan of Kyle and Wally, and increasingly not so much a fan of Bruce, I'd be fine with that, but Geoff Johns very much disagrees, and DC has relaunched their entire line to make everyone the young original cast from the sixties and seventies again.

*poof*

I'd like to expand on my earlier comment, now that I actually have some time on my hands.

DC is in the unique position of already having two distinct, yet similar universes, thanks to Gardner F. Fox, Julius Schwartz and an All-Star roster of talented writers and artists who helped flesh out the concept of Earth-Two over a period of years. Unfortunately, the concept was diluted over the years by more and more parallel worlds being created, often for no other reason than to explain away continuity gaffes. This led to so much confusion among fandom that DC was compelled to publish Crisis On Infinite Earths, the result of which was to combine all the parallel worlds into one universe. This, to me, is a classic example of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The basic idea of Earth-Two, a world where people started dressing up in costumes and fighting crime just prior to World War II, has a wealth of untapped potential. Roy Thomas was just beginning to tap into that potential when the Crisis hit. Sadly, the Crisis had an even more devastating effect on Infinity, Inc. than John Byrne's Superman reboot did on the Legion, basically ripping the guts out of the entire concept.

My wish is to see an Earth-Two that is marketed as an entirely separate line from the DCnU. The centerpiece of the line would, of course, be the Justice Society Of America, continuing the concept of older heroes sticking around to mentor their younger counterparts that has been done so well over the past 10 years. Instead of the regular DC Comics logo in the upper left hand corner of the cover, books could have a DC Earth 2 banner across the top, making it clear to even a casual reader that this is an entirely different world than the one occupied by Hal Jordan, Barry Allen and company. In this world, characters would go through the kinds of changes real people have to face, such as getting married, having children, growing old, retiring, and yes, even dying.

As long as the emphasis stays on the characters as people, Earth 2 could end up being more popular than the DCnU. And wouldn't that be a kick?

I'd ditto that, Hermie.

I could also live with an alt-reality that had both a 1940s JSA and a 1960s JLA, and Legacy heroes descending from both.

Or, with further brainstorming, with everyone, in which everyone aged. The 'DC Explosion' characters would be younger than a Silver Age JLA, but still AARP candidates themselves. The 80s Titans would be heading for 50, and would be distinctly different than the 60s Titans or later Titans. It would require multiple Bat and Supe generations, and even more Robins, if there were indeed Robins all the way through.

I could also see a Power Girl who was the original Superman's daughter, but had to hide that, even from the JSA itself (thus the 'cousin' bit).

Hermit,

Actually each new Earth was for the characters that DC acquired from old comic book companies. Earth-S had the old Fawcett Characters - Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher, Bulletman, etc. Earth-X had the old Quality characters - Ubcle Sam, Phantom Lady, Dollman, Human Bomb, Ray, Black Condor. And introduced in Crisis was Earth-4 which featured the Charlton characters - Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, Nightshade.

There was, in a sense, an Earth-B for all the out of continuity stories. This was never real canon but was suggested in a letters column by Bob Rozakis. per Wikipedia the B standing for Bob Haney who with his Brave & the Bold stories had a lot of out of continuity stories. The main one I remember was a team-up of Wildcat & the Creeper.

As good as some Roy Thomas material was, his urge to tie everything together got a bit much at times.

Well, currently Batman is a member of the Justice League of America, Justice League International, runs Batman Inc., has solo adventures, and adventures with Robin. On top of that he maintains the Bruce Wayne persona. So, that sounds like he has 5 jobs and a personal life. Even part-time jobs take up time. And don't forget Batman is a detective foremost. That is a very time consuming occupation. Plus maintaining stakeouts. And maintain his physical training. And as a human, he needs time to sleep. It is not inconceivable that such a schedule could be maintained, but, to me at least, highly improbable.

But as with the aging/not aging issue, for me it is about a willing suspension of disbelief. So I can either worry about how Batman is finding the time to do all this stuff or I can just enjoy the story. I can worry about how Supergirl aged from 15 to 22 while Superman hasn't aged or I can just enjoy the story.

It seems to me that the beauty of the Earth-2 concept is that it does allow one to play with the idea of what the world would be like today if super-heroes had been around since the 1940s. So, assuming the stories featured in All-Star Comics actually took place, what can one extrapolate about what happens after that? In what ways would the presence of super-heroes have benefited the world? Would we, for example, have colonies on Mars by now if Superman had been around? Would we have come much closer to achieving World Peace under the influence of Wonder Woman and the Amazons? Would historic events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis have gone differently thanks to the JSA or their legacy? There's interesting questions one could explore about the influence of magic, which was much more prevalent in the Golden Age than in the Silver Age. I'd love to see a book or even a line of titles which takes this theme seriously.

Good thoughts. And, as so many JSAers and other mystery men were wealthy industrialists, were they as war heroes well-poised to entrench themselves into political power?

Imagine a second-generation of late-60s baby boomer children of the JSA railing against their parents, the very core of 'the Establishment,' maybe even of the military-industrial complex itself. How many JSAers would have naturally continued WW2-era patriotic militarism into the Cold War, and seen Vietnam as a necessary and just war? What would a battalion of Miraclo-using soldiers be like? Would the war have been won, or would the Mai Lai incidents have been far worse?

You're absolutely right about the actual reasons for the creation of most of the parallel earths. For a while there it seemed like we could count on seeing a new one every year when it got to be JLA-JSA team-up time.

I was never sure if Bob Haney was ignorant of various continuity issues or just didn't care. Unfortunately, Haney's attitude was the rule rather than the exception at DC during much of the Silver Age. Stan Lee rightly saw this as the flaw that would allow Marvel to topple DC from its position as the world's leading comic book company.

Ironically, the multiple universes were not really the problem. It was the inconsistencies within a supposedly shared universe (such as the incompatibility of Aquaman's and Lori Lemaris's versions of Atlantis, despite Aquaman and Lori's friend Superman appearing in the Justice League together) that created the biggest continuity headaches. Unfortunately, the multiverse got blamed for those as well, even though it had nothing to do with them. If only the Crisis had been used to fix these kinds of problems instead of trashing Earth-Two *sigh*.