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WHY do countless "Elseworlds" stories, each one set in a DIFFERENT universe, but REFUSE to do the "Earth-1" universe???

I never understood that either.

It reminded me of the very early Batman, pre Robin days. A loose style with an almost Art Deco approach to it. That's all and the original appeal for me was the fact that you don't find original Italian super hero types teamed up in one book let alone 3 of them. True one is Ragars lover, but the Scarlet Executioner is not and he had a few books of his own. That was my only longing...missing the old Batman... Have a great weekend my friend.

Richard

Thanks for the responses, guys.  There's like a half-dozen different "Legion" threads over at Captain Comics, but I figured, why not JUST one?  This way you can discuss ANYTHING related to it.  Given the LSH history, a lot of that is just Uncle Mortie's era.  I have ALL 10 LEGION ARCHIVES books on my top shelf.  I got each one as they came out.  Including the last one, which had the horrible printing... where DC did the right thing.  They did a 2nd printing, which you could trade the bad one in for.  I did!

I appreciated what Paul Levitz did his 2nd time around, particularly with Keith Giffen.  But over the years, EVEN Levitz' work started to get me down in the long run.  And on his own, Giffen was TOTALLY out of control.  A shame Andy Helfer never got on the book.  Look what he (and Keith) did with JUSTICE LEAGUE !

My FAVORITE period has slowly become what was my first... Shooter, Swan, and Klein.  Or... Shooter & Mooney.  I wish Mooney had done more!  He was great.


I joined KLORDNY just about the time the book lost MOST of its longtime readers.  Maybe a year after I joined the group, ZERO HOUR hit, and most of our members WALKED and never came back.  Damn shame.  I actually liked the first 2 years of the "reboot"... but they just KEPT doing the "wrong" things.

Speaking of continuity & crossovers... I don't even quite remember when they did it, but one of the most fascinating crossovers was the Superman "lost in time" story.  he crossed over with the LSH 3 times-- in 3 COMPLETELY different eras!!  And it didn't seem to be a problem.

One thing I have never been able to understand, is DC's absolute REFUSAL to allow any genuine "Earth-1" stories.  STEVE ENGLEHART wrote a BATMAN series set on EARTH-1!  And DC cancelled it halfway thru, and have ever sinbce REFUSED to do the 2nd half, even when Paul Gulacy offerered to draw it.  At the time it came out, many younger fans said they were confused... they apparently didn't "get" thast it WAS NOT set in (then-) "current" DC continuity.

WHY do countless "Elseworlds" stories, each one set in a DIFFERENT universe, but REFUSE to do the "Earth-1" universe???

I remember seeing some Superman comic when I was really young, before I could read. I had the impression that there was a whole family. A Superman and a Superwoman and their Super-kids. Maybe this was an imaginary story. Anyway that's what I believed to be true until I started reading the comics a few years later.

But the Superman I clearly remember is George Reeves. Sometimes if the weather was just right and the signal was bouncing off the mountains, we could pick up the re-runs of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN as a fuzzy picture. I probably also saw him on a re-run of I LOVE LUCY. And then when our family went down to Seattle in '62 for the World's Fair, I was so amazed to see the SUPERMAN TV show clear as a bell on the TV in the hotel room. I would have been only three or four years old, but that's one of the things from that trip that I remember most clearly.

But yeah, I think I was watching the Filmation SUPERMAN, before I started picking up the actual comics. Going by the dates, that would seem to be the case. And it was pretty cool that they used the radio stars for the voices.

I guess I can appreciate variety. Even with some art that is not so great. Google translate says Torrent means torrent which is a fast flow and to me the art looks like everyone is kinda flowing not completely solid

Yes I knew that to be the case since I owned them at one time and I think I still have one of the Owls and the Tiger Girl one as well. Darn! I say.....

Richard

Hay....are you liking the artwork on those Italian books from the 1940's? Pretty cool I'd say.

PS there is a surprise waiting for Admin types in the usual sus. folder.

I got my 1st Superman comic-- an issue of ACTION-- at a coffee shop in the Philadelphia Airport!  I don't remember who was flying in or out (nobody in my family, I'm sure).  But I remember what the shop looked like.  Also, it was one of the few DCs from that period I got with a full cover, so I know we got it new.  "Lex Luthor's First Victory Over Superman!"  Lex (& Brainiac) team up and taunt Superman using a flying "satellite" that hovers over him and blasts Lex's amplified voice at him.  As this is going on, Supes is "practicing" by (I'm not kidding) punching holes in cardboard cut-out "dummies" of Luthor & Brainiac.

The thing I CAN'T remember is... WHICH version of Superman did I see FIRST?  The ACTION comic?  His cameo in the BATMAN newspaper strip?  (Doubtful)  His guest-appearance (played by Milton Berle) on THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE ?  The George Reeves show?  Or Filmation's THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ?  (Actually, the latter is the most likely... I think.)

It was decades before I discovered that the voices in the Filmation cartoon were by Bud Colyer & Joan Alexander-- from the RADIO show and Fleischer cartoons!  They were actually the ORIGINAL actors, the first to ever play the parts.  Wasn't it so cool for Filmation to have specificaly hired THEM?  (Kinda like when Hanna-Barbera FINALLY decided to get Adam West for the last 2 seasons of SUPER POWERS.)

If they had been reprints we could but they were original stories.

It really shows how how much of an impact comics have had when we can remember the first time we saw a particular comic book. The mention of Flyman reminds me of being at my cousins who also read comics. He really was not as into collecting them and had other friends he traded around with. I remember finding Jaguar for the first time in the stack of comics in his closet. I also found a curiosity that neither of us understood in an Adventures of The Fly where he was a kid who became the Fly. I remember thinking the art was really good but I did not understand what had happened. My first experience with a GA character called Dollman was in his tree cabin. I think it may have been issue 40, I am pretty sure Doll Girl was on the cover.

My present feeling about comic books (and other things) is that we don't need to have everything explained. Explaining everything is one way to go--I really love BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS. But I think something about the Silver Age and Legion in particular is that so much was left to the fans to explain for themselves.

Paul Levitz having been a big fan was a bit too keen to shoe-horn in all the explanations he had come up with, once he became the Legion writer. I think it's more fun for all of us if we can have those as side discussions, but not in the comic book proper.

So bringing this around to the Legion, going forward from all the different changes to mainstream Superman continuity. My feeling is they could have kept all of the Legion continuity. They didn't need to explain how it fits with the rest of the DCU or if it realy does. They could have let fans conjecture and theorize about it, without ever having a definitive answer.

I think the only reason they needed to tie the Legion in with the rest of the DCU continuity was so they could participate in cross-title events. And the main reason for those is to promote the individual titles.

And there again I don't think those needed to be explained. There have been many team-ups over the years--in all different kinds of comic books--where it didn't make sense that one character could team-up with another, and it was never explained. And most readers were cool with that. You could make up your own explanation.

Leaving that space for the fans is one way of bringing them into the fictional universe. LOST is a better show when everything is not explained than when it is.