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Post by dupersuper on Dec 12, 2014 9:49:03 GMT -5
Minor Details: Carlin and the gang are trying hard to drop references to past Byrne continuity whereever they can in this issue. It begins in this story with Pa Kent referencing his service in World War II (World of Smallville #1-2). I thought Pa served in Korea? Either way, I think specifying the war was ill-advised given comics sliding timeline. This is why we have early issues of Iron Man and FF that make reference to Tony and Reed in Vietnam. |
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 12, 2014 9:51:40 GMT -5
Which never made sense to me as the JSA was transported to Limbo in a graveyard after Crisis... |
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 12, 2014 9:55:58 GMT -5
Which was stupid as Hal had called Clark on the phone in an earlier ACW issue, and Superman had called GL Hal, so in a later issue of Adventures of Superman Supes must be lying to Guy about not knowing Hals identity for some reason... |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 13, 2014 9:18:53 GMT -5
I thought Pa served in Korea? That was Perry White Maybe they figured there'd be another Crisis in ten years, so it didn't matter? Which was stupid as Hal had called Clark on the phone in an earlier ACW issue, and Superman had called GL Hal, so in a later issue of Adventures of Superman Supes must be lying to Guy about not knowing Hals identity for some reason... Something was going on with editorial in regard to Superman and Green Lantern, and it caused a lot of problems/inconsistencies throughout ACW. ACW #606: Hal and Clark clearly know each other well, and Clark is the second person Hal turns to when he's in trouble in that issue. They also clearly know each other's secret identities. ACW #622: Suddenly, they don't know each other at all, but they're about to team up for an epic multi-part adventure. ACW #623: Suddenly, they're not going to team-up either. (presumably) ACW #635-642: Would have featured Neil Gaiman's Legend of the Green Flame, starring both characters, until DC decided they couldn't use it because it depended upon Clark and Hal already knowing each other's identities. |
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Post by fanboystranger on Dec 13, 2014 16:44:26 GMT -5
Which was stupid as Hal had called Clark on the phone in an earlier ACW issue, and Superman had called GL Hal, so in a later issue of Adventures of Superman Supes must be lying to Guy about not knowing Hals identity for some reason... It was a power move by the Superman office, generally attributed to Mike Carlin. They decided that they would reduce the people who knew Superman's identity to Pete Ross, Mr and Mrs Kent, and Mr Mxyzptik, which left a lot of post-Crisis stories in a questionable place. Mike suggested to Neil that he just have Hal meet Superman at a bank robbery or something at the beginning of the story and then have them talk shop, but Neil felt the story didn't hit the right emotional beats unless they were longtime friends and knew each others' secrets. So, they paid Neil a kill fee for the script, and scrambled to fill the last few issues of ACW. In 1996, Karen Berger started gathering artists to illustrate some of Neil's unreleased Swamp Thing stories for Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days, and Neil remembered the ACW script. He called Mike Carlin to see if it would be something they'd be interested in publishing now, and Mike enthusiatically said yes, handing the project off to Bob Schreck, who pulled together Eddie Campbell, Steve Bissette, Matt Wagner, Art Adams, etc to illustrate the book. Mark Buckingham, who was to have been the artist for ACW, contributed a section, too.
Perhaps the biggest effect that this whole book had was that Neil decided he would no longer consider using well-known characters in his DC books. It would either be a character he could make changes to, or a new character. That's why he used Element Woman and Prez in Sandman-- no one in DC editorial really cared about them. Previous to this, he was considering pitching for Green Lantern to straighten out the franchise, which probably would have been epic.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 14, 2014 0:13:20 GMT -5
Action Comics Weekly #635  This issue, we get the one-shot 29 page The Crash of '88 storyline. Though it does its best to incorporate Blackhawk, Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Superman into one feature, it's really just a Blackhawk story (or at least written in the Blackhawk style; it only features one Blackhawk character), with Green Lantern given some attention at the very beginning, and Black Canary and Superman just tacked on at the last minute. Very forgettable team-up. Worse yet, the entire reason Gaiman's "Legend of the Green Flame" will ultimately get scrapped in a few weeks' time is because editorial (allegedly Mike Carlin) objected to Hal and Clark knowing each other's identities. Yet, in this story, Hal sends his ring to find Superman, and it goes to Clark Kent in civilian attire. So I suppose Hal doesn't necessarily know Superman is Clark Kent, but his ring does and is capable of telling him if he asks. This detail, of course, goes completely unaddressed, as does the concern I'd expect Superman to have if Green Lantern is not supposed to know his secret identity yet sends his ring to find him in civilian attire. I'd certainly think that meant Green Lantern knew who I was. Meanwhile, the current conflict in James Owsley's Green Lantern feature drops off, once again leaving things wide open, as it did with the previous two story arcs. Is Owsley building towards something with all these plotlines left dangling, or does he think running a serial feature means never ending a storyline? Incidentally, if I didn't already comment on it somewhere, I find it interesting that the most prominent character Owsley introduced in this run is called Priest, and he'll be changing his pen name to Christopher Priest in just a few years' time. By the way, the letter column this issue verifies fanboystranger's explanation of why the ACW experiment was ended: A point worth making, John, is that ACW is not being discontinued due to sales--its sales were fine--but rather to the massive strain put on the creative, production, and printing staffs by the size and frequency of the book. The fact that George [Perez] was waiting in the wings made the decision much easier, though. I still maintain the sales couldn't have been all that great either since the run is almost unanimously disliked by anyone who remembers it, and I'm sure that if the book had been a top seller, DC would have found a way to keep it going, but the letter column both here and in the last issue reiterates the idea that the sales were not unacceptably low. ...And then there was Superman. "Power Failure" writer: Roger Stern pencils: Curt Swan inks: Murphy Anderson letters: Bill Oakley colors: Tom Ziuko editor: Mike Carlin grade: C- Forget the super-powered climax we've been building to for weeks upon weeks now. Superman has pulled the plug on both sides of the fight, leaving regular unarmed people to battle each other, which, I suppose, is intended to drive home some point about the persistence of hatred in the absence of logic, but it just feels like a complete buzz kill here. We've waited a very long time for this super powered battle, and now we won't see it. And, by the way, what is going on in this image?  I'm reasonably sure the enormous one is the leader of the Superman-worshipping cult, but her powers involved controlling rock and earth, not blowing up to enormous size. And even if that's some secondary power of hers we hadn't seen until now, their powers have just been cut, and she's posing as if she's just been depowered, and yet she's fifteen feet tall compared to everyone else? If she really is supposed to be enormous compared to everyone else, couldn't she just, ya know, thrash all the bad guys now that their tanks don't work? Something's wrong here. plot synopsis (cuz stuff actually happens this time): The entity that has been powering both sides reveals itself to the Consortium (though we don't see him/her/it), Superman survives and is headed back to Earth, and the fighting continues, even without powers/weapons. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 14, 2014 9:53:30 GMT -5
Action Comics Weekly #635  So, in lieu of getting Neil Gaiman's epic Legend of the Green Flame storyline beginning in this issue, we get the one-shot 29 page The Crash of '88 storyline, and it's not at all a reasonable substitution. Though it does its best to incorporate Blackhawk, Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Superman into one feature, it's really just a Blackhawk story (or at least written in the Blackhawk style; it only features one Blackhawk character), with Green Lantern given some attention at the very beginning, and Black Canary and Superman just tacked on at the last minute. Very forgettable team-up. Worse yet, the entire reason Gaiman's story got scrapped was because editorial (allegedly Mike Carlin) objected to Hal and Clark knowing each other's identities. Yet, in this story, Hal sends his ring to find Superman, and it goes to Clark Kent in civilian attire. So I suppose Hal doesn't necessarily know Superman is Clark Kent, but his ring does and is capable of telling him if he asks. This detail, of course, goes completely unaddressed, as does the concern I'd expect Superman to have if Green Lantern is not supposed to know his secret identity yet sends his ring to find him in civilian attire. I'd certainly think that meant Green Lantern knew who I was. Meanwhile, the current conflict in James Owsley's Green Lantern feature drops off, once again leaving things wide open, as it did with the previous two story arcs. Is Owsley building towards something with all these plotlines left dangling, or does he think running a serial feature means never ending a storyline? Incidentally, if I didn't already comment on it somewhere, I find it interesting that the most prominent character Owsley introduced in this run is called Priest, and he'll be changing his pen name to Christopher Priest in just a few years' time. By the way, the letter column this issue verifies fanboystranger's explanation of why the ACW experiment was ended: A point worth making, John, is that ACW is not being discontinued due to sales--its sales were fine--but rather to the massive strain put on the creative, production, and printing staffs by the size and frequency of the book. The fact that George [Perez] was waiting in the wings made the decision much easier, though. I still maintain the sales couldn't have been all that great either since the run is almost unanimously disliked by anyone who remembers it, and I'm sure that if the book had been a top seller, DC would have found a way to keep it going, but the letter column both here and in the last issue reiterates the idea that the sales were not unacceptably low. ...And then there was Superman. "Power Failure" writer: Roger Stern pencils: Curt Swan inks: Murphy Anderson letters: Bill Oakley colors: Tom Ziuko editor: Mike Carlin grade: C- Forget the super-powered climax we've been building to for weeks upon weeks now. Superman has pulled the plug on both sides of the fight, leaving regular unarmed people to battle each other, which, I suppose, is intended to drive home some point about the persistence of hatred in the absence of logic, but it just feels like a complete buzz kill here. We've waited a very long time for this super powered battle, and now we won't see it. And, by the way, what is going on in this image?  I'm reasonably sure the enormous one is the leader of the Superman-worshipping cult, but her powers involved controlling rock and earth, not blowing up to enormous size. And even if that's some secondary power of hers we hadn't seen until now, their powers have just been cut, and she's posing as if she's just been depowered, and yet she's fifteen feet tall compared to everyone else? If she really is supposed to be enormous compared to everyone else, couldn't she just, ya know, thrash all the bad guys now that their tanks don't work? Something's wrong here. plot synopsis (cuz stuff actually happens this time): The entity that has been powering both sides reveals itself to the Consortium (though we don't see him/her/it), Superman survives and is headed back to Earth, and the fighting continues, even without powers/weapons. I think they did this story much better last summer in the DC Digital Adventures of Superman, only instead of regular people it was an almost magwi looking alien race that worshiped Superman and mysteriously gained super powers and are using them to rebel against the other race which has enslaved them. It had the added bonus of actually seeing the super powered people go up against the super technology as well as injecting a moral dilemma for Superman as he is arresteted by the super-technological oppressors as a war criminal for inciting the other class of people to rebel. The others are using their new found powers to wage a guerrilla war against the society oppresses them and Superman wonders if he should intercede or not. It was a great internal struggle the the point where Superman nulifies both sides at the end was slightly anti climactic. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 14, 2014 12:17:59 GMT -5
I think they did this story much better last summer in the DC Digital Adventures of Superman, only instead of regular people it was an almost magwi looking alien race that worshiped Superman and mysteriously gained super powers and are using them to rebel against the other race which has enslaved them. It had the added bonus of actually seeing the super powered people go up against the super technology as well as injecting a moral dilemma for Superman as he is arresteted by the super-technological oppressors as a war criminal for inciting the other class of people to rebel. The others are using their new found powers to wage a guerrilla war against the society oppresses them and Superman wonders if he should intercede or not. It was a great internal struggle the the point where Superman nulifies both sides at the end was slightly anti climactic. I had no idea this had been redone! My first reaction is "wow". My second reaction is "why?" |
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Post by dupersuper on Dec 16, 2014 1:27:29 GMT -5
I thought Pa served in Korea? That was Perry White I'm pretty sure it was Pa to. Maybe they'll change it after your current place in the reading order due to said sliding time scale... |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 16, 2014 17:48:47 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure it was Pa to. Maybe they'll change it after your current place in the reading order due to said sliding time scale... I though Pa did too, I think I remember learning that during Death of Superman when Pa Kent had his heart attack he had a flash back to his service years. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 17, 2014 9:11:53 GMT -5
World of Smallville definitely has Pa Kent serving in WWII and becoming a POW in Japan.
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Post by SJNeal on Dec 20, 2014 14:30:06 GMT -5
Black Canary: How is this awful thing still going after 10 chapters?? Considering how low readers rated the first Black Canary story arc, I can't imagine what possessed Mike Gold to give this much space to the second arc. I think Gold was just a big fan of Dinah/BC in general. He was also behind her first mini - "New Wings" (pretty good), and the short lived ongoing that followed it (not so good). It's too bad he couldn't seem to pair the character with top notch talent the way he did with Green Arrow and Hawkman... |
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Post by SJNeal on Dec 20, 2014 14:40:07 GMT -5
Perhaps the biggest effect that this whole book had was that Neil decided he would no longer consider using well-known characters in his DC books. It would either be a character he could make changes to, or a new character. That's why he used Element Woman and Prez in Sandman-- no one in DC editorial really cared about them. Previous to this, he was considering pitching for Green Lantern to straighten out the franchise, which probably would have been epic.
*Sigh*... I'm sure everyone involved has kicked themselves many times over the years for missing this boat. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 20, 2014 14:57:10 GMT -5
World of Smallville definitely has Pa Kent serving in WWII and becoming a POW in Japan. I've never read world of smallville, but I did track down the issue where we see Pa Kent in Korea: Adventures of Superman #500 . It's from 1993, so obviously a later retcon but the story is so good its always stuck with me. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 21, 2014 10:35:31 GMT -5
World of Smallville definitely has Pa Kent serving in WWII and becoming a POW in Japan. I've never read world of smallville, but I did track down the issue where we see Pa Kent in Korea: Adventures of Superman #500 . It's from 1993, so obviously a later retcon but the story is so good its always stuck with me. Interesting! I'd assumed they hadn't tampered with the timeline until Zero Hour. |
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