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Old thoughts about comics
Aug. 30th, 2011 12:12 amI just came across this old Usenet post of mine (1996):
Discussing the possibility of a total reboot of the DC line, I think in the context of the recently concluded Zero Hour, A. Chilton Lannen wrote:
> To me, this would kill my interest in DC comics entirely. I read
>comics because I love the history of the characters. They have
>experienced many worldview-changing events and occurances in their
>lives and that has made them what they are today. If they are all
>brand new, why do they act the way they do?
Let me tell you about an odd experience I had reading the early issues of Byrne's Superman. I didn't much like Byrne's work on the book, though it had its moments, but I read it because I worked in a comics shop and felt it was important to keep up with (what were becoming, once again) major titles.
I hadn't liked the idea of rebooting Superman in Man of Steel, but I had more or less resigned myself to it. But something slipped past me when I was first reading them: Between MoS #1 and Superman #1, over seven years elapsed. This meant that there was a lot of history of the new, post-Byrne Superman which we would never see.
This was brought home in the first part of the Legends crossover, when Darkseid's Omega Effect transports Clark Kent to Apokolips. Clark lands on the floor, looks up, and thinks something to the effect of "That's Darkseid! I must be on Apokolips!" But we've never seen this Superman meet Darkseid before. The reboot not only cheated us of all of the Kirby Jimmy Olsen stories (by moving them out of continuity), but we weren't given anything to replace them with--this
Superman never had a first encounter with Darkseid.
A "clean" reboot would at least allow the creators to build their new heroes without cheating or rushing over the important stuff.
Discussing the possibility of a total reboot of the DC line, I think in the context of the recently concluded Zero Hour, A. Chilton Lannen wrote:
> To me, this would kill my interest in DC comics entirely. I read
>comics because I love the history of the characters. They have
>experienced many worldview-changing events and occurances in their
>lives and that has made them what they are today. If they are all
>brand new, why do they act the way they do?
Let me tell you about an odd experience I had reading the early issues of Byrne's Superman. I didn't much like Byrne's work on the book, though it had its moments, but I read it because I worked in a comics shop and felt it was important to keep up with (what were becoming, once again) major titles.
I hadn't liked the idea of rebooting Superman in Man of Steel, but I had more or less resigned myself to it. But something slipped past me when I was first reading them: Between MoS #1 and Superman #1, over seven years elapsed. This meant that there was a lot of history of the new, post-Byrne Superman which we would never see.
This was brought home in the first part of the Legends crossover, when Darkseid's Omega Effect transports Clark Kent to Apokolips. Clark lands on the floor, looks up, and thinks something to the effect of "That's Darkseid! I must be on Apokolips!" But we've never seen this Superman meet Darkseid before. The reboot not only cheated us of all of the Kirby Jimmy Olsen stories (by moving them out of continuity), but we weren't given anything to replace them with--this
Superman never had a first encounter with Darkseid.
A "clean" reboot would at least allow the creators to build their new heroes without cheating or rushing over the important stuff.
