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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2021 11:42:59 GMT -5
What was the damage? I ask because I’ve only read random issues of pre-Crisis Superman, and cannot claim to have any insight into that era beyond standalone tales.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 25, 2021 11:50:53 GMT -5
I don't think it was that the multiple Earths were confusing. I think it was that they were trying to also make their stories fit a continuity that they were never designed for. And then as the "young turks" started writing, that is what they were trying to do. Crisis was a way to give DC more of a Marvel type shared Universe. For those who loved the earlier silver age DC books, that might not be what you wanted. But that was not working in the Market Place. With the Direct Market and more books being read by Comic fans and not casual readers, DC needed Crisis to reinvent itself.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 25, 2021 13:23:25 GMT -5
It’s pretty clear that pre-Crisis DC was incapable of doing anything to keep up in the market. They certainly couldn’t produce New Teen Titans, which was pretty consistently the number two book in sales after X-Men. And they’d never be capable of getting someone like Alan Moore to completely revamp a B-list character and make it a critical and commercial success.
The multiple Earths were clearly super confusing. It took eight-year-old me at least ten minutes to grasp it after reading copies of All-Star Comics and a JLA-JSA team-up. It was clearly too much for adult writers and editors to be able to parse.
It was obvious they needed to desperately try to mimic Marvell instead of embracing what made them unique and continuing to update it.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 25, 2021 14:50:20 GMT -5
My point Slam, was by the time of Crisis, many writers at DC were trying to make the books more like Marvel, but the sales of a lot of their books did not keep up, and the attempts at Universe wide continuity going back to al least Showcase #4 weren't working. DC had a lot of good Bronze Age books, and many fans liked them just the way they were, but not enough. It was a business decision to update the whole line. And looking at post Crisis sales, it worked.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 25, 2021 15:14:11 GMT -5
My point Slam, was by the time of Crisis, many writers at DC were trying to make the books more like Marvel, but the sales of a lot of their books did not keep up, and the attempts at Universe wide continuity going back to al least Showcase #4 weren't working. DC had a lot of good Bronze Age books, and many fans liked them just the way they were, but not enough. It was a business decision to update the whole line. And looking at post Crisis sales, it worked. Yeah; but, you can debate whether it worked because of a shared universe or because they had new blood in the mix and fewer restraints. You could have still had that, and leave a couple of parallel worlds. Captain Marvel never integrated well and was better in his own corner and it took quite a while for Power of Shazam to create a sort of balance; but even that worked better away from the rest of DC. Oh sure, they yanked Black Adam in there and went to town; but they F-ed up Captain Marvel left and right and we won't discuss Mary, before I start using language that isn't appropriate. The JSA, I felt, worked better as an alternate world, allowing us an adult Robin and Huntress, as children of Batman. I would argue it wasn't the parallel worlds concepts, it was entrenched editors and lackluster writers or burnt out writers that held DC back, in the 70s. DC's sales had picked up well before Crisis and were continuing and uphphill traverse, which Crisis served to give them a nitro boost. It wasn't all peaches and cream after Crisis, as some of those Marvel guys F-ed up concepts left and right. Hawkman was revamped about every other year, for a decade. The Flash had to go through a lot of tweaking, though it at least had interesting things at each sage along the way. Green Lantern was a mess. You can point to two specific titles and say, with no doubt, the Crisis revamp allowed them to be much better: Superman and Wonder Woman. batman was unchanged and the quality of stories was pretty similar before and after, aside from specialty projects, like Dark Knight. Superman benefitted from real change and a more modern take; but, still had to be tweaked because some elements went too far and had to be reeled back. Wonder Woman was the best she had been since creation, though I always had a soft spot for her Golden Age adventures, in all their kinky glory. I think be preserving a modified parallel world structure, DC could have had the best of both worlds and that was one of the original intents, that it would be paired down to 2 or 3, with very specific delineations, until they decided to redo the whole thing. However, not starting the whole line from square one was a mistake, in my book. Marvel's Multiverse was less a Multiverse, then editorial claptrap that this sci-fi series isn't the future of Spider-Man and the gang, nor is this one. You get an alternate world, with the Squadron Supreme, so they can do a parody of the JLA/JSA crossovers, by having the Avengers meet the JLA, after a fashion. However, you have an alternate world the moment Captain America is brought in and it is stated he disappeared, believed dead in the war and bucky was killed. Cap appeared in stories past WW2 and was revived in the 50s. now, you have an alternate world where he was frozen in a block of ice and Bucky was blown up, presumed dead (and was, for decades, creating an alternate where he is alive and a pawn of the Soviet Union). What If provided alternate histories, as a gimmick, but some of them, like the post-WW2 Cap stories being the Spirit of '76 and The Patriot, assuming the mantle. Steven Englehart established an alternate 50s Cap in that book. Enter Mark Gruenwald, at Marvel, in the late 70s, after making a splash with his Omniverse fanzine, where he links all comic universes. The more he writes and edits, the more a multiverse takes form. It is less organic than it was a series of different writers either ignoring the past or bringing back the previous past, for the sake of doing something different. DC's was a bit more organic, in that they reintroduced other superheroes and decided to have the new versions encounter the old, leading to the parallel worlds. Then, DC started acquiring properties and plopped them on new Earths. Also, the parallel world thing became the annual gimmick for the popular JLA/JSA crossovers, used to introduce some of these worlds, or to provide enemies, like Earth 3 and the Crime Syndicate and the Earth A bunch. DC's was definitely more of a linear evolution, while Marvel's was a lot of back and forth until the next generation of fans becomes pros and go further.
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Post by kirby101 on Dec 25, 2021 15:32:19 GMT -5
I agree with much of what you are saying Cody. But at the end you are comparing post-Bronze Age Marvel with Silver Age DC. I, nor anyone here, is arguing that Crisis was the best way to go forward, only that they needed something at that time and that is what they decided.
This is as true as it gets;
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 28, 2021 12:25:30 GMT -5
Alan Moore in Tom Strong had great fun with the multiversal concept. I think it's a horrid shame h never got to write a JLA/JSA crossover. I think Cody has it right: the original DC Multiverse was what I loved about the line, and the JSA and the Marvel Family were what kept me coming back even to occasionally mediocre stories.
They didn't need a restructuring at a conceptual level; they only needed restricting at an editorial level.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 12:38:14 GMT -5
Thinking about the Marvel Family, my dad (I miss him) bought me some 70s SHAZAM comics around the early 90s, from a jumble sale. I hadn’t really seen the character in that context, I’d only read his JLI adventures.
It was jarring - in a good way. And as a wiser adult (I wish I was wise), I see how that Earth-S - do I have the right designation? - worked better. There are different levels of suspension of disbelief. For me, Tawky Tawny worked in that context, but I can’t quite imagine him living in the same universe as Denny O’Neil’s Batman incarnation or John Byrne’s Superman. There was a certain charm to those SHAZAM issues my dad bought me.
Now, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Earth-S, semantics, designations, etc. My comments come from an adult context right now. But, somehow, Captain Marvel in the mainstream DC Universe didn’t feel right for a long time. I’ve enjoyed his tales, but I love that Earth-S setting.
Didn’t Captain Marvel appear in a DC COMICS PRESENTS issue as a *fictional* character within Superman’s world? Or some such thing?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 12:54:21 GMT -5
Alan Moore in Tom Strong had great fun with the multiversal concept. I think it's a horrid shame h never got to write a JLA/JSA crossover. I think Cody has it right: the original DC Multiverse was what I loved about the line, and the JSA and the Marvel Family were what kept me coming back even to occasionally mediocre stories. They didn't need a restructuring at a conceptual level; they only needed restricting at an editorial level. Tom Strong was just a fantastic series overall and totally agree with you on how well he treated the multiverse concept. It brought back so much fun to me that had been gone for so long. As an aside, I thought Moore was totally on fire during this time, much as I loved his earlier breakout period with Watchmen and all that, titles like Tom Strong, Top 10, etc. are some of my favorites he ever did.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 13:18:23 GMT -5
Thinking about the Marvel Family, my dad (I miss him) bought me some 70s SHAZAM comics around the early 90s, from a jumble sale. I hadn’t really seen the character in that context, I’d only read his JLI adventures. It was jarring - in a good way. And as a wiser adult (I wish I was wise), I see how that Earth-S - do I have the right designation? - worked better. There are different levels of suspension of disbelief. For me, Tawky Tawny worked in that context, but I can’t quite imagine him living in the same universe as Denny O’Neil’s Batman incarnation or John Byrne’s Superman. There was a certain charm to those SHAZAM issues my dad bought me. Now, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Earth-S, semantics, designations, etc. My comments come from an adult context right now. But, somehow, Captain Marvel in the mainstream DC Universe didn’t feel right for a long time. I’ve enjoyed his tales, but I love that Earth-S setting. Didn’t Captain Marvel appear in a DC COMICS PRESENTS issue as a *fictional* character within Superman’s world? Or some such thing? Fully agree with your comments, Earth-S was its own special place. There were a number of pre-Crisis crossover meetings between Captain Marvel (and other members of the family) with Superman, DC Comics Presents #33, 34, 49, Annual #3. Also the Superman Versus Shazam Treasury Edition from 1978, and earlier there was Superman #276 with Superman meeting "Captain Thunder" that was a very clear proxy for Captain Marvel. Shazam! #15 of course has the Lex Luthor story as well. This all reminds me yet again why I loved the old DC multiverse (besides being older and cranky of course because things "changed")...you could do a crossover and have fun, but still retain what made the original worlds special.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 13:22:22 GMT -5
By the way, here's a collection with many of those stories if interested, I have an older edition of this but this version has been expanded to include some later stories as well: www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=52716961
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 13:24:24 GMT -5
By the way, here's a collection with many of those stories if interested, I have an older edition of this but this version has been expanded to include some later stories as well: www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=52716961Thanks so much. I think I’ve only read the DC COMICS PRESENTS story. I can’t even remember the details. Billy Batson (no, autocorrect, not Bateson) dreams about Superman, somehow ends up on his Earth? Or something different? Can’t remember. Usually a good memory. But I’ll revisit it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 13:34:29 GMT -5
By the way, here's a collection with many of those stories if interested, I have an older edition of this but this version has been expanded to include some later stories as well: www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=52716961Thanks so much. I think I’ve only read the DC COMICS PRESENTS story. I can’t even remember the details. Billy Batson (no, autocorrect, not Bateson) dreams about Superman, somehow ends up on his Earth? Or something different? Can’t remember. Usually a good memory. But I’ll revisit it. In DC Comics Presents #49, Billy dreams about being Captain Marvel, but then wakes up from his dream and has a stack of Captain Marvel comics. He's actually an ordinary kid on Earth-1 where Captain Marvel is a comic book character. He then encounters not only Superman, but Black Adam and the actual Captain Marvel from Earth-S.
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Post by tarkintino on Dec 28, 2021 13:35:43 GMT -5
My point Slam, was by the time of Crisis, many writers at DC were trying to make the books more like Marvel, but the sales of a lot of their books did not keep up, and the attempts at Universe wide continuity going back to al least Showcase #4 weren't working. DC had a lot of good Bronze Age books, and many fans liked them just the way they were, but not enough. It was a business decision to update the whole line. And looking at post Crisis sales, it worked. A business decision and a creative one; as "early" as the late Silver Age, fans of Batman and Detective Comics were sending letters to the two titles, complaining about what they viewed as silly or anything taking cues from the 1966 TV series (I've posted samples from those issues on this board some time ago); when those elements (thankfully short-lived) were eliminated and the more serious stories were created in the hands of Novick, Robbins, et al., fans were overjoyed. I'm saying that because going forward, there was no way to sell the idea of that version of the Bat-world mixing with often inane late Golden/early Silver Age superhero comics (or then-current stories / worlds carrying on the silly stuff, as controlled by other editors). Fans wanted to see an integrated DC world, but again, so much of it just did not mix, or have any sort of continuity from one title to another. It was a mess, which Silver / Bronze Age Marvel readers were quick to point out.
Readers were becoming more sophisticated--like the real world around them--and they were not willing to believe the 900,000 Lois-plots-to-marry-Superman or new/missing/previously unknown/still-living Kryptonian parents type of story (for just two examples) occurred in the same world as the revived Spectre, the Deadman, late run issues of The Doom Patrol, the O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern, late 60s-forward Batman, etc. If DC had not come to the realization that a serious response to the problem(s) was required, who knows where DC's superhero line would be today...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 13:39:12 GMT -5
Thanks so much. I think I’ve only read the DC COMICS PRESENTS story. I can’t even remember the details. Billy Batson (no, autocorrect, not Bateson) dreams about Superman, somehow ends up on his Earth? Or something different? Can’t remember. Usually a good memory. But I’ll revisit it. In DC Comics Presents #49, Billy dreams about being Captain Marvel, but then wakes up from his dream and has a stack of Captain Marvel comics. He's actually an ordinary kid on Earth-1 where Captain Marvel is a comic book character. He then encounters not only Superman, but Black Adam and the actual Captain Marvel from Earth-S. Thanks. I remember it now. Not sure how I forgot the details. I remember thinking that was a really good idea, although I felt sorry for Billy just being ordinary.
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