|
Post by Cei-U! on Dec 28, 2021 14:49:50 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...
All that speaks to, in my opinion, is the utter lack of imagination such fans (and fans-turned-pro) were displaying. They always came across as terrified of, and therefore scornful of, anything that seemed childish or silly, because it "proved" every negative thing they were told about their beloved comics by parents, teachers, peers, etc., and made them feel embarassed or even ashamed for reading them. I never cared and still don't. I have no problem accepting and embracing a fictional reality diverse enough to include the Legion of Super-Pets and Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.
Cei-U! A pox on such narrow thinking!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 16:34:29 GMT -5
Amen to all of that, Cei-U. Especially your second sentence.
|
|
|
Post by thwhtguardian on Dec 28, 2021 17:38:33 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...
Not that I hate the stories told since then...but better off in the long run is probably the answer to the bold part.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 28, 2021 19:29:17 GMT -5
Marvel stopped being "organic" when they started to mandate a Big Event where somebody important dies every year. quarter. And having every book be part of it. Fixed that for you . But I agree... DC's multiple Earths have always seemed more purposeful. Marvel, even when building alternate universes/time lines, seems to be inclined to bring them all together sooner or later... Alchemax, Halloween Jack, and Miguel O'Hara left 2099.... Miles and the Maker came from the Ultimate Universe... even the Maestro is connected now... Marvel is set up to have a main universe and alternate ones.. while DC also felt more like they were a legit Multiverse, with each just as important as the other.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2021 19:31:51 GMT -5
Marvel stopped being "organic" when they started to mandate a Big Event where somebody important dies every year. quarter. And having every book be part of it. Fixed that for you . But I agree... DC's multiple Earths have always seemed more purposeful. Marvel, even when building alternate universes/time lines, seems to be inclined to bring them all together sooner or later... Alchemax, Halloween Jack, and Miguel O'Hara left 2099.... Miles and the Maker came from the Ultimate Universe... even the Maestro is connected now... Marvel is set up to have a main universe and alternate ones.. while DC also felt more like they were a legit Multiverse, with each just as important as the other. Very well said. I’m kicking myself for not using the word “purposeful” in my original post. Also, and this is down to me being stupid, what constitutes a multiverse in Marvel? Perhaps I didn’t get it, but I always presumed Marvel 2099 was the future of the then-current MU. Did I miss something or did Marvel not convey that properly to readers like me? DC seemed to do the clarity more. I mean, I’m not even sure if Marvel Knights was canonical or not.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 28, 2021 23:19:15 GMT -5
Well, they started with New Universe. 2099 is a possible future, as is MC2 then there's the Arno Stark 2020 world. IIRC, at one of the random 2099 revival things they made it into an alternate universe and not just a possible future. Then there's the Ultimate Universe.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2021 0:22:08 GMT -5
Well, they started with New Universe. 2099 is a possible future, as is MC2 then there's the Arno Stark 2020 world. IIRC, at one of the random 2099 revival things they made it into an alternate universe and not just a possible future. Then there's the Ultimate Universe. Well the 616 designation indicates at least 615 other universes, and I think that bit started with Claremont in Excalibur, but might have been a carry over form his work on Captain Britain, or from Moore and Davis' CB, not sure (been forever since I red that stuff, at least 20 years if not more). -M
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2021 5:51:49 GMT -5
Well, they started with New Universe. 2099 is a possible future, as is MC2 then there's the Arno Stark 2020 world. IIRC, at one of the random 2099 revival things they made it into an alternate universe and not just a possible future. Then there's the Ultimate Universe. New Universe is something I liked very much, I wish I could get every issue they published. I remember one character who had to get used to flying, specifically getting his bearings and being geographically aware. Little realistic touches like that mattered to me.
|
|
|
Post by crazyoldhermit on Dec 29, 2021 14:09:53 GMT -5
Re: Crisis, I think it is one of the biggest missed opportunities in comics history, and one of the most damaging things DC ever did. The negative repercussions of it are still felt today. That being said, I don't think DC could possibly have anticipated just what they were blowing.
At the time, when comic books were a "march forward, never look back" kind of medium, Crisis made sense for streamlining the DC universe. Back continuity was not a priority, the priority was making sure the books of today were accessible and made sense.
The problem? Crisis happened at the exact same time as Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. The moment when DC editorial reconfigured their publishing strategy to appeal to the old mindset of readers was also the moment where a new mindset was being birthed: the trade paperback.
Unforseeable at the time, today's consumer culture is a binge culture. As television has shifted from live broadcasts to occasional reruns to syndication packages to DVD boxsets and finally to online streaming, the mentality of consumers has shifted to the point where they don't just want to start in the middle, they want to start at the beginning. This mentality translates to comics in the form of manga's continued success in Western markets, because well ahead of American comics, manga has been designed to be read and reread, and the default mode for reading manga is to start at the beginning and read through dozens or even hundreds of volumes.
American superhero comics struggle long and hard to reconcile with this. Standalone and creator-owned works do well (certainly a contributing factor for The Walking Dead's regular chart placement). The best they can settle for is long runs by a creator, which hopefully tell their own story within the larger context of the character's journey. But to that end, Simonson's Thor and Bendis' Daredevil are just seasons in an endless TV series. There are always going to be readers who have a pathological need to start at the beginning: Batman's first night out, Spider-Man being bitten by the spider, etc.
On this front, historically Marvel stands above by virtue of the fact that there has been no major Crisis event. Sure they have dabbled and come close, but if you wanted to you could start at Amazing Fantasy #15 and read all the way up to modern day and get something like a coherent story, because Amazing Fantasy #15 is still canon. DC, on the other hand, is screwed. And what screwed the pooch is Crisis.
Crisis's biggest flaw is it made the reboot a story, which means the old canon and the new canon are one and the same, which creates an absolute hellstorm of contradiction that is impossible to reconcile.
What should have happened, an opportunity that is sorely missed now more than ever, is a full reboot. Complete. Square one. When you already have books like Man of Steel and Year One going, why not?
As Batman is what I'm most intimately familiar with, I'll use him as an example.
Year One is by far the most common answer someone will get when they say they want to start reading Batman comics "from the beginning." That's great, because Year One is a great story. The problem is, then what? There is no "Year Two" (no that one doesn't count) that picks up immediately after the first. The story that immediately followed Year One in the series is Jason Todd's origin, which bypasses a massive amount of Batman's history. What remains is a smattering of disparate miniseries, graphic novels and collections from a wide range of creators and time periods. The Legends of the Dark Knight was the perfect opportunity to rectify this, and it seemed to be leaning that way initially, but ultimately that ended up being just another Bat-book. The amount of Batman's story, of significant events that are still referenced to this day, that are only available in pre-Crisis issues is astounding, one major example being Dick Grayson's entire tenure as Robin. Think about that. If you're new to Batman comics and you want to read about the classic Dynamic Duo you need to dig back 50 years.
The smartest approach to continuity in recent years has come from Grant Morrison. In his eyes, every version of Batman happened and it's been one life. That unified approach was touched on by Darwyn Cooke in The New Frontier, which had the Earth 1 and Earth 2 heroes exist in the same world, with Barry and Hal being successors to Jay and Alan and having Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman be former members of the JSA who go on to co-found the JLA. Brilliant, elegant, perfect.
So much opportunity missed if only they could have foreseen.
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Dec 29, 2021 14:34:38 GMT -5
Re: Crisis, I think it is one of the biggest missed opportunities in comics history, and one of the most damaging things DC ever did. The negative repercussions of it are still felt today. That being said, I don't think DC could possibly have anticipated just what they were blowing. The problem was never COIE--it successfully addressed a multitude of problems with the lack of continuity / silly stories that did not--and could not claim to be a part of the same world as any other title, which innumerable DC readers themselves had complained about in the late 60s and 70s. Further, the planned companion books The History of the DC Universe was all anyone needed to go forward as the guide to a (finally) coherent, universe. The problem was that DC did not adhere to the logical structure instituted by COIE/HOTDCU and soon had writers going off of the rails or simply not building instead of whatever they ended up doing. As a DC reader of the period, I was disappointed because I--like the fans who made COIE a great success--could see that all who followed apparently did not know what they were doing (creatively), so all of the necessary, wonderful restructuring which set a very solid path was not followed, which again, was their problem, not the creatives behind COIE or the series itself. Adding to something I pointed out the other day, if DC had continued on business as usual from the 70s, its highly doubtful its superhero line would be here at all. The superhero game was naturally heading in a direction reflecting what readers wanted, and that was not the old type of DC comic where "anything goes" seemed to be their call to action.
|
|
|
Post by crazyoldhermit on Dec 29, 2021 15:07:55 GMT -5
Re: Crisis, I think it is one of the biggest missed opportunities in comics history, and one of the most damaging things DC ever did. The negative repercussions of it are still felt today. That being said, I don't think DC could possibly have anticipated just what they were blowing. The problem was never COIE--it successfully addressed a multitude of problems with the lack of continuity / silly stories that did not--and could not claim to be a part of the same world as any other title, which innumerable DC readers themselves had complained about in the late 60s and 70s. Further, the planned companion books The History of the DC Universe was all anyone needed to go forward as the guide to a (finally) coherent, universe. The problem was that DC did not adhere to the logical structure instituted by COIE/HOTDCU and soon had writers going off of the rails or simply not building instead of whatever they ended up doing. As a DC reader of the period, I was disappointed because I--like the fans who made COIE a great success--could see that all who followed apparently did not know what they were doing (creatively), so all of the necessary, wonderful restructuring which set a very solid path was not followed, which again, was their problem, not the creatives behind COIE or the series itself. Adding to something I pointed out the other day, if DC had continued on business as usual from the 70s, its highly doubtful its superhero line would be here at all. The superhero game was naturally heading in a direction reflecting what readers wanted, and that was not the old type of DC comic where "anything goes" seemed to be their call to action. It certainly doesn't help that about every ten years after Crisis they had to do it again to fix the screw-ups from the last one. Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint, and I'm sure there are other resets in there as well.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2021 15:30:32 GMT -5
Oh yes, crazyoldhermit. Talk about going to the well once too often. Or, in this case, going to the well, buying the well, blowing up the well, etc.
What reason does INFINITE CRISIS have to exist? I received this book recently as part of my Hachette Heroes & Villains Collection. Didn’t care. Some may see it as a “love letter” to the original CRISIS, but it just seems like pedantic, navel-gazing fanboy stuff. There could be a million reasons - none of them CRISIS related - to bring together the DCU’s heroes and villains. I don’t care about Superboy-Prime, I’m not even sure who he really is or whether he’s the pre-Crisis Superboy. The only saving grace was showing Earth-2’s Superman and Lois - and their love for each other.
Will they revisit the CRISIS well again? Probably.
|
|
|
Post by crazyoldhermit on Dec 29, 2021 15:50:02 GMT -5
Oh yes, crazyoldhermit. Talk about going to the well once too often. Or, in this case, going to the well, buying the well, blowing up the well, etc. What reason does INFINITE CRISIS have to exist? I received this book recently as part of my Hachette Heroes & Villains Collection. Didn’t care. Some may see it as a “love letter” to the original CRISIS, but it just seems like pedantic, navel-gazing fanboy stuff. There could be a million reasons - none of them CRISIS related - to bring together the DCU’s heroes and villains. I don’t care about Superboy-Prime, I’m not even sure who he really is or whether he’s the pre-Crisis Superboy. The only saving grace was showing Earth-2’s Superman and Lois - and their love for each other. Will they revisit the CRISIS well again? Probably. Infinite Crisis existed to restore the multiverse, and to undo changes the powers that be were unhappy about from the previous Crises.
Flashpoint did the same thing, rebooting with the New 52. Then Convergence happened that brought back the pre-52 stuff. And now Watchmen is tied into all of this with Doomsday Clock showing that Dr. Manhattan was behind the New 52. And since then it's still going on to the point where they've basically gone back to how it was pre-Crisis.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2021 15:54:18 GMT -5
Oh yes, crazyoldhermit. Talk about going to the well once too often. Or, in this case, going to the well, buying the well, blowing up the well, etc. What reason does INFINITE CRISIS have to exist? I received this book recently as part of my Hachette Heroes & Villains Collection. Didn’t care. Some may see it as a “love letter” to the original CRISIS, but it just seems like pedantic, navel-gazing fanboy stuff. There could be a million reasons - none of them CRISIS related - to bring together the DCU’s heroes and villains. I don’t care about Superboy-Prime, I’m not even sure who he really is or whether he’s the pre-Crisis Superboy. The only saving grace was showing Earth-2’s Superman and Lois - and their love for each other. Will they revisit the CRISIS well again? Probably. They have one reason and it is the only reason they need and the only one that matter sin the publishing business. Their customers buy more of those than they do of other similar products. Their job is to sell comics. If more customers buy "Crisis" comics than other sorts of comics, they have their reason to produce more "Crisis" comics. Big 2 comic publishing is a reactive business. It reacts to actual purchases by their customers, not what their customers say they want. I've said this probably a million times by now but comics fans get the comics their actual purchasing patterns deserve. No matter what people say online, or how much they complain or denigrate it, if they bought it, they are part of the reason why more like it exist. Until such a time as event comics like Crisis do not sell in multiples of what standard offerings do, there will continue to be more like them. Even if they sell less now than they did then, they still sell more than standard offerings currently do, so they still provide a reason for there to be more of them. That's the reality of being a for profit publisher in a capitalistic society. Until such a time it is more profitable for them to not publish such books than it is to publish them, they will continue to publish them no matter how much online kvetching by fans there is. They will listen to customer action not fan complaints. -M
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2021 16:26:35 GMT -5
Oh yes, crazyoldhermit. Talk about going to the well once too often. Or, in this case, going to the well, buying the well, blowing up the well, etc. What reason does INFINITE CRISIS have to exist? I received this book recently as part of my Hachette Heroes & Villains Collection. Didn’t care. Some may see it as a “love letter” to the original CRISIS, but it just seems like pedantic, navel-gazing fanboy stuff. There could be a million reasons - none of them CRISIS related - to bring together the DCU’s heroes and villains. I don’t care about Superboy-Prime, I’m not even sure who he really is or whether he’s the pre-Crisis Superboy. The only saving grace was showing Earth-2’s Superman and Lois - and their love for each other. Will they revisit the CRISIS well again? Probably. They have one reason and it is the only reason they need and the only one that matter sin the publishing business. Their customers buy more of those than they do of other similar products. Their job is to sell comics. If more customers buy "Crisis" comics than other sorts of comics, they have their reason to produce more "Crisis" comics. Big 2 comic publishing is a reactive business. It reacts to actual purchases by their customers, not what their customers say they want. I've said this probably a million times by now but comics fans get the comics their actual purchasing patterns deserve. No matter what people say online, or how much they complain or denigrate it, if they bought it, they are part of the reason why more like it exist. Until such a time as event comics like Crisis do not sell in multiples of what standard offerings do, there will continue to be more like them. Even if they sell less now than they did then, they still sell more than standard offerings currently do, so they still provide a reason for there to be more of them. That's the reality of being a for profit publisher in a capitalistic society. Until such a time it is more profitable for them to not publish such books than it is to publish them, they will continue to publish them no matter how much online kvetching by fans there is. They will listen to customer action not fan complaints. -M I am fully aware of all of that because you have posted that reply to me countless times. I’m having an emotive rant. Forgive me, I’ve had a bad evening and am in a slightly bad mood, but I don’t need these rather patronising economic lessons from you, the same one you’ve delivered to me countless times. I’m aware of business reality. I’m aware that McDonalds sells unhealthy food but still makes profits around the world. I’m aware of the comic industry, you’ve given me no major revelations. I’d have to be a complete dolt not to know the reality of what sells. But I’m entitled, as is anyone, to have an emotive rant about incessant crossovers.
|
|