[John C]

Just to clarify my comments...hopefully, I can keep THIS message short, but really, what are the odds, right?

jcolag: I've seen the argument that DC has neglected its imported characters before, but I'm not totally convinced, even with a list of examples like yours. You could make such claims about any group of characters if you dwell on their low points. For example, the original JLA: they killed Superman and the Flash, broke Batman's back and replaced him, turned GL into a mad killer, Martian Manhunter was neglected for many years etc. And that's looking at DC's most successful characters. It seems to me that many people at DC have tried to make successes out of the imported characters, and some have worked better than others.

I have mixed feelings on this, because I see the "native" DCers as single instances.  Superman and Batman were "events" that nobody ever believed would be permanent except some real-world journalists.  Green Lantern...well, it wasn't a bad idea (and if you read the story carefully, he only killed twice, at the very end), but the post-change execution was miserable.  Flash?  Eh.  Nobody was reading the book at the time.  It's kinda like griping about Supergirl.  People like the idea more than the book.

I exclude the Martian because there are only two groups of people who consider him a major player:  There's the group who, like myself, started reading in the '70s, when he was a rare guest star in huge stories, and he was interesting for the novelty.  The other group started reading in the '90s when the "heart and soul of the League" line became DC's mantra.  But he was NEVER an important character, even in his own strip.

That's actually my point.  As DC acquires all these characters, Green Arrow gets yet another book.  Black Canary becomes everybody's go-to sidekick.  The Martian Manhunter is woven into everybody's origin story.  Wonder Woman is promoted as an equal to Superman and Batman (no matter her sales figures).  There are a couple of other examples, but the consistent story is that the "natives" get the marketing while the "immigrants" are tossed in a closet, somewhere.

It's actually not the deaths and mayhem that bother me, it's the dismissal of the characters in favor of supposed "icons" that aren't as interesting.  There's never a Spy Smasher series when they could have another six issues about Deadshot whining about his family life.  Black Canary chairs the Justice League and Zatanna (the most boring character ever) is getting a new series while the latest Phantom Lady--who has been published at least once a decade since her creation, by various companies, proving her popularity--is a bit player in a Freedom Fighters mini-series that is never advertised.

It's also not a matter of being "true" to some original form.  Len Wein's Blue Beetle (the '80s series published contemporary with his Justice League appearances) was very good, and possibly better for the period than Steve Ditko's, for example.  I'm not against modernization, by any means, because that kills the industry (and the Shazam series shows that).  I'm against ignoring the past to "create the character from scratch."  I mean, why isn't there a Marvel Family member founding the JSA?  The Marvels work well in that era, so play it up!  The current Billy and Freddie are in the line of succession, and that doesn't take anything away from them, but rather would show that DC is allowing the imports to be "foundational" rather than afterthoughts.  Blue Beetle and Captain Marvel made it to the Justice League (successfully, I felt, though you seem to disagree on the latter), it's true, but only because they were on the list given to Keith Giffen of characters they didn't care about!  Like Phantom Lady, there's been a Blue Beetle series at least once per decade, and DC assumed he was worthless out of the gate.

You say that "they're treating the characters as new, rather than historical and important". I hadn't heard this. Maybe they'll just be new to the characters they meet, or to the new earth or something?

Stracynski's words were to the effect of the Shield will appear as if he were being created today, and they won't be using the Hangman's third cousin or anything.  To me, that says that Joe Higgins lost his father twenty years ago (in Grenada, I hope, because that'd be funny) and is just discovering the formula today.  (They've also stated that both the Archie and Milestone characters will all be on the current DC Earth.)

Let me repeat that I don't consider this a distinctly bad thing.  It CAN pan out well, as the Blue Beetle examples show.  But seriously, if you're going to license the first-ever patriotic-themed hero, why wouldn't you flaunt that by setting him in 1940 and making him the childhood idol of every square-chinned defender of justice this country has ever produced?  DC has never had a figure that could compete with Captain America, and this would be a great opportunity for them, but it doesn't look like they've noticed.

And again, because it seems like I'm down on the whole thing:  If they can prove me wrong, here, and make them work, I'll be very happy and might start risking some of their other titles.

[FlyingSquid]

FlyingSquid: I could never get into most Elseworlds I've read. To me continuity (or "baggage" if you like) is a major attraction of the big companies.

There's continuity and then there's just plain old baggage. And the baggage is why there are constant retcons and re-launches. I mean just recently they completely rebooted Spider-Man, wiping out years of continuity, and very likely, they will at some point bring all of that continuity back in by doing something majorly convoluted only to lose it yet again in some other convoluted way.

It's very hard to have a character have monthly (or even weekly) adventures for 30, 40, 50, 60 years AND keep it fresh. Thats why, as I said, I like Elseworlds. It's a fresh new take on characters that are, at least to me, explored fully in their own universe. We know everything about their powers, their interests, their likes and dislikes, every member of their family, their ancestry, what they'll be doing in the future, etc.

What more is there to say about Superman or Batman in the regular world? After all of these decades, even for comic books, it's bizarre that characters like the Joker or Brainiac continue to come back time and again to taunt the same heroes and all because they have a 'we won't kill you' code, and even if they DO kill them, it turns out to be a robot or a clone or a dream. It just gets harder and harder for me to suspend my disbelief.

[John C]

What more is there to say about Superman or Batman in the regular world?

I see this as a lack of imagination on the part of the writers, rather than an inherent problem in the concept.  After all, people live longer than seventy years without getting bored out of their minds, so why can't fictional characters.

The real problem I see is that, for many years, the writers WANT to merely bring something new to the table, whether it's a new villain, a new color of kryptonite, a new member of the supporting cast, or whatnot.  So "what haven't we seen before" really means that there's no novel piece of flotsam to cram into the title that will let us return to the status quo...which is obviously defeatist from the start.

However, there's PLENTY of space to question the mission, get out of a rut, revisit some old plot with new experience (actual continuity), and so forth.  It's a shame writers can never manage to do this for more than a couple of months at a time, and a bigger shame that the next writer invariably ignores or reverts this.  In fact, Spider-Man is a perfect example.  He grew up.  He got a new job.  He got married.  His entire life changed, slowly, over the course of many years.  So they ditched it.

Siegel and Shuster understood this, actually.  They wanted to let Superman evolve over time, back in 1940, but the editors were uncomfortable publishing a character in transition and so deep-sixed the "K-Metal" story.  While nobody could say for sure, if that story was printed and successful, I don't think people would see Superman (or any character) as stagnant, because the writing wouldn't be stagnant.

[FlyingSquid]

Excellent points all. I think that the only way to fix it, however, is to do true reboots because all of the retconning and absurdity because of the retconning and the re-retconning of some of the absurdity leading to even more retconning is a big part of the problem.

I think it would be very interesting if Marvel and DC has a big writer shake-up and brought in a huge amount of new talent. Marvel started to do that by bringing in J. Michael Straczynski and Kevin Smith, but then they screwed it up by making all sorts of from-the-top editorial changes. I would love to see someone like Charlie Kaufman allowed to work on a mainstream comic title without editorial interference.

[John C]

I feel that it's a mistake to blame "editorial interference" for all the flaws in comics.  Most of the current writers (with some notable exceptions) are prima donnas with no understanding of story structure or a long-range plan for the characters beyond some specific set piece--I'm reminded by a Grant Morrison quote that he "always wanted to shave the Shaggy Man," so he built a story around it.  The editors should be supplying that vision so the writers don't run amok like that.  That's not to say they should plot the stories, but they should make sure that every writer keeps his characters and titles "on message," whatever that message happens to be.

I really do think that, as long as the editor requires answers to key questions (like, "how will this affect the book's dynamic" and "how will this affect the universe at learge") before green-lighting a story, all the problems of continuity, crossover organization, and boring non-events will iron themselves out.

[FlyingSquid]

Oh, definitely it is not only the fault of the editors, but some majorly stupid continuity stuff is a result of them, like the recent "Peter Parker and Mary Jane never married" ridiculousness. JMS himself said it was a decision from on high.

But you are also right in that there are a lot of writers in the comics industry today whose egoes are much bigger than their talent. I think the perfect example of this is Frank Miller whose writing has gotten worse the more famous he's become.

Batman: Holy Terror sounds like a joke.