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Post by zaku on Jul 9, 2022 9:02:27 GMT -5
Do you know what's funny? The first story of Superboy is from 1944, the first of the Superman of Earth 1 is around the mid-1950s. So the Man of Steel had a longer career as a kid than as an adult. I never really got hung up on dates. Every adventure is taking place now. I don’t feel the need to put it into a chronology. After a while it became ridiculous. Superboy had more adventure in two subjective years than Superman in all his adult career.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2022 9:07:32 GMT -5
That’s fine if folk think that, I just have tried to always ignore chronology in that sense. Think about it deeply and Batman (or Spider-Man, or anyone) has had more adventures than would be possible in a lifetime.
I can be pedantic - it’s a flaw - but I find I enjoy my comics more if I just accept each story on its own terms, without getting bogged down in time and chronology. Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary.
I read The Beano as a kid. I believe it’s still going, and I’m gonna presume Dennis the Menace is still doing stuff. He’s no doubt had more adventures than would be possible, but accept each adventure as taking place now - and that is how I make it work.
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Post by zaku on Jul 9, 2022 10:05:34 GMT -5
That’s fine if folk think that, I just have tried to always ignore chronology in that sense. Think about it deeply and Batman (or Spider-Man, or anyone) has had more adventures than would be possible in a lifetime. I can be pedantic - it’s a flaw - but I find I enjoy my comics more if I just accept each story on its own terms, without getting bogged down in time and chronology. Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary. I read The Beano as a kid. I believe it’s still going, and I’m gonna presume Dennis the Menace is still doing stuff. He’s no doubt had more adventures than would be possible, but accept each adventure as taking place now - and that is how I make it work. There are character fixed in an eternal present (e.g. The Simpsons) and characters who grow (usually superheroes, albeit very slow). As far I know, the classic Superboy adventures are set when he was 15/16. Even his escapades with the Legion. He was supposed, I don't know, to have three adventures a day? A little too much. Adult Superman obviously didn't have this problem.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2022 10:16:51 GMT -5
That’s fine if folk think that, I just have tried to always ignore chronology in that sense. Think about it deeply and Batman (or Spider-Man, or anyone) has had more adventures than would be possible in a lifetime. I can be pedantic - it’s a flaw - but I find I enjoy my comics more if I just accept each story on its own terms, without getting bogged down in time and chronology. Of course, everyone’s mileage will vary. I read The Beano as a kid. I believe it’s still going, and I’m gonna presume Dennis the Menace is still doing stuff. He’s no doubt had more adventures than would be possible, but accept each adventure as taking place now - and that is how I make it work. Chronology is the biggest reason why continuity and shared universe don't work in a long haul and become absurd after a certain point. There's no way continuity can work if chronology doesn't, since it all has to be crammed in and make sense, and a shared universe needs a common timeline which is impossible if chronology doesn't work, so that universe stops making sense and lacks verisimilitude. If you want to just tell stories of characters on the same world, just do it and keep the stories themselves internally consistent and don't worry about continuity between stories or between characters or about a single logical world that is their setting. But if you try to make the chronology work, not all the stories can have happened and that just degenerates into arguments about which ones are "real" and which ones are "imaginary tales" when they are all imaginary tales. -M
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2022 12:45:01 GMT -5
On a not-entirely unrelated note (which I’ll take elsewhere if necessary to avoid thread drift), it’s why I try not to think too hard about WWII and Vietnam now, in relation to characters. Is Magneto’s origin still tied to WWII? What about Stark and Vietnam? I don’t explore those questions, nor do I think too hard about them. I’ll just enjoy Magneto and Iron Man stories on their own merits.
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Post by zaku on Jul 9, 2022 13:33:17 GMT -5
On a not-entirely unrelated note (which I’ll take elsewhere if necessary to avoid thread drift), it’s why I try not to think too hard about WWII and Vietnam now, in relation to characters. Is Magneto’s origin still tied to WWII? What about Stark and Vietnam? I don’t explore those questions, nor do I think too hard about them. I’ll just enjoy Magneto and Iron Man stories on their own merits. Magneto WWII - > Yes Iron Man -> South-East Asia, they don't name the country.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 9, 2022 13:41:08 GMT -5
Marvel updates the origins every generation or so... Tony Stark's origin whent from Vietnam to the Gulf War to an unnamed east Asian conflict, for instance. I think it CAN work, and a share universe adds alot if you keep sharing it and let the time line move on. The problem Marvel and DC have is instead of allowing time to continue.. having their characters grow, change, and, yes, age, they opted for allowing characters to only 'grow up' so far, and the stop in an eternal late 20-something age. Doing so protects the IP, so you're characters are forever the same and can become icons. The downside is the stories themselves. Young characters 'catch up' to the mentors, leading to weird relationships. There's no room for new characters, since the old ones are still around.. each generation just merging into each other. Would a real time superhero universe work? I have no idea, since no one has ever done it, but I for one would sure love to see someone try it. THere's always an 'untold tales' book
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Post by chadwilliam on Jul 9, 2022 13:55:52 GMT -5
Before I go into the regular post-Crisis books, I'm going to look at a major mini-series released a decade later, set during the same time of Man of Steel. It's not a prequel, or a sequel as much as it is a parallel story. Superman For All Seasons #1In all of my griping, I neglected to mention that I really like you jumping over to a later story set during the Man of Steel/early Byrne period within these reviews and hope it continues. If you're taking requests (or if you're just looking for something that might be of personal interest to you) can I suggest Roger Stern/Steve Rude's The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman from 1999 (but set sometime between Byrne's Man of Steel #6 and Superman #1)? Not that I expect you to cover every story published at a later date but set during this period, but hey - Roger Stern, Steve Rude, The Hulk's 1960's continuity synchronized with Superman's post-Crisis canon - might be fun.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2022 14:04:32 GMT -5
On a not-entirely unrelated note (which I’ll take elsewhere if necessary to avoid thread drift), it’s why I try not to think too hard about WWII and Vietnam now, in relation to characters. Is Magneto’s origin still tied to WWII? What about Stark and Vietnam? I don’t explore those questions, nor do I think too hard about them. I’ll just enjoy Magneto and Iron Man stories on their own merits. On a not-entirely unrelated note (which I’ll take elsewhere if necessary to avoid thread drift), it’s why I try not to think too hard about WWII and Vietnam now, in relation to characters. Is Magneto’s origin still tied to WWII? What about Stark and Vietnam? I don’t explore those questions, nor do I think too hard about them. I’ll just enjoy Magneto and Iron Man stories on their own merits. Magneto WWII - > Yes Iron Man -> South-East Asia, they don't name the country. Marvel updates the origins every generation or so... Tony Stark's origin whent from Vietnam to the Gulf War to an unnamed east Asian conflict, for instance. I think it CAN work, and a share universe adds alot if you keep sharing it and let the time line move on. The problem Marvel and DC have is instead of allowing time to continue.. having their characters grow, change, and, yes, age, they opted for allowing characters to only 'grow up' so far, and the stop in an eternal late 20-something age. Doing so protects the IP, so you're characters are forever the same and can become icons. The downside is the stories themselves. Young characters 'catch up' to the mentors, leading to weird relationships. There's no room for new characters, since the old ones are still around.. each generation just merging into each other. Would a real time superhero universe work? I have no idea, since no one has ever done it, but I for one would sure love to see someone try it. THere's always an 'untold tales' book It's not an unnamed conflict any more. As of The History of the Marvel Universe by Mark Waid published in 2019 it is the Sian Cong conflict that is the Southeast Asian conflict everyone was involved with. Using the nation mentioned in TOS 39 and expanding it into a MU locale like Latveria, Wakanda or Madrioor, it is the "official" locale and conflict all those origins are tied to but it floats in Marvel time to be however long ago it needed to be to make their shared universe continuity work. Reed, Ben, Fury, Castle, Stark, etc. all have their war ties to that conflict now. Kurt Busiek, in the The Marvels (published 2021-present I think there's 1 issue to go in the series) has expanded upon and developed the history of this locale in a story revolving around a number of major and minor players in the Marvel Universe set in current Marvel time. Both series are fun reads, The Marvels is more of a straightforward story, History is a series of flashback during a conversation between Galactus and Franklin Richards at the end of time that lays out the current status of Marvel History. It's also got lots of back matter with footnotes and citations of the stories used to piece together the history for those who like that sort of thing. -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 9, 2022 14:07:24 GMT -5
Oh, ok.. I haven't read that yet... I've not been much in the more for that sort of thing lately (though I used to eat it up). There's so little done to attempt to have a logical universe in Marvel and DC these days I have trouble taking such stuff seriously... you have to really just stop at some point where it all becomes completely untenable.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2022 14:22:48 GMT -5
Oh, ok.. I haven't read that yet... I've not been much in the more for that sort of thing lately (though I used to eat it up). There's so little done to attempt to have a logical universe in Marvel and DC these days I have trouble taking such stuff seriously... you have to really just stop at some point where it all becomes completely untenable. We're way off topic here. But I picked up the Waid series because a) I like a lot of Waid's stuff, and b) as a trained historian I like watching the the craft of constructing historical narratives from disparate sources. Any historian has to evaluate his sources and picks and chooses in the construction of a narrative, so I was curious to see what Waid did. I picked up the Busiek series because a) I am a big fan of Busiek's stuff and will try almost anything he is attached to and b) it was a damn good comic story. One of the few things I actually plunk my money down for rather than wait for Unlimited to read it (Strange is the only other series from Marvel I do that for). Back to Post-Crisis Superman, I had the chance to meet and talk with then DC Executive Editor Dick Giordano at my then lcs right around the time the Man of Steel series was coming out (it was about when Watchmen was launching and I've told the story about him and Watchmen #1 before), and this was what the bulk of the fans attending that day wanted to talk about and ask Giordano questions about. He seemed genuinely excited for the series and to be working with Byrne, but said he was really looking forward to Wolfman's stuff coming up in Adventures and fans shouldn't overlook that title just because Byrne wasn't on it (the owner of the lcs mentioned that the number of subs for Adventures pre-release was just over half of those for Superman and Action, so there was quite a disparity in fan interest at that time). He thought Adventures was the "one to watch" for some exciting stuff to happen. Not sure if things panned out the way he thought they were at that point, with the chaos that ensued with the strained relations between the creators on the Superman books, but the first issue or two of the ongoings would have had to been in process or in the can already at that point if they were going to meet deadlines, but everything still seemed it was in the honeymoon phase the way Giordano talked about it, but then, even if things weren't hunky dory I don't think he would have been airing any dirty laundry to fans at a comic shop. He wasn't the type and was a consummate professional. However the owner of the shop and he had good friends for a long time, and Hal often got a lot of the office scuttlebutt because of his various friendships with the creative community that lived in and around Connecticut, but nary a word of any Superman scuttlebutt ever passed to that stores community of fans. -M
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Post by mistermets on Jul 9, 2022 16:23:13 GMT -5
Superman For All Seasons #3This Lex Luthor spotlight may just be his finest hour. It starts after he's been humbled. Continuity wise, his most prominent early arrest was in The Man of Steel #4, although that doesn't quite work since that was Lex Luthor's first encounter with Superman. It's not a big deal, as we can square the circle by figuring he's been arrested, and got very expensive lawyers to get him out more than once. The other explanation is that this is one of the things that got changed by history in Zero Hour. A humbled Lex Luthor is a dangerous Lex Luthor. It's pretty clear what he does here, but it would be difficult to prove, and it does just show how hard it would be for someone with Superman's decency to deal with a person who will endanger the entire city to prove one point, and who would consider the life of a gifted young woman a small price to pay. The challenge is the nastiest one in the mini-series. An airborne virus has affected most people in Metropolis, and the sequence where it hits is creepy, with surprising pathos due to the connection from all the people in Superman's life with the L.L. initials. A biochemist Superman rescued in a previous issue may be able to save the day. She takes a superhero identity, which is really generic, but that's part of the point of a story of someone inspired by Superman who becomes part of Lex's plan. This is a reminder of one of the things that makes the Post-Crisis Lex Luthor so dangerous. Sometimes he gets exactly what he wants. Grade: A+
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Post by mistermets on Jul 9, 2022 16:25:24 GMT -5
Superman For All Seasons #4
This issue is a Lana Lang spotlight, and the best take on her Post-Crisis character. It gets to her conflicted emotions when she's had to deal with a major shock when things she expected were just not so. There are some big moments in this story, including the first time she sees Superman in costume, and important conversations with Clark's parents. This is the type of stuff I wish DC published more of early in the Post-Crisis days, exploring the big moments glossed over in The Man of Steel. The challenge in this issue is fairly minor when compared to Superman's other feats, and something we've seen a lot in the comics and elsewhere: Superman saving people from a natural disaster, in this case a flood that hits Smallville. However, it is a big deal to all the characters, both when Superman appears in Smallville and when we see the damage caused by the flood. It could be so much worse, but these types of things happen and it takes a while to recover. Another thing we've seen before is Superman experiencing self-doubt. That's a theme of some of the best Superman stories. He is careful about how he uses his amazing abilities, and this is both a weakness and a strength. It's something Lex Luthor exploited, and it just makes sense that he would have to go back to Smallville to think things over. I should also note the most underrated character in the mini-series: Shelby. It's just so nice to have Superman playing with a dog. Grade: A+
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Post by commond on Jul 9, 2022 16:33:42 GMT -5
Before I go into the regular post-Crisis books, I'm going to look at a major mini-series released a decade later, set during the same time of Man of Steel. It's not a prequel, or a sequel as much as it is a parallel story. Superman For All Seasons #1In all of my griping, I neglected to mention that I really like you jumping over to a later story set during the Man of Steel/early Byrne period within these reviews and hope it continues. If you're taking requests (or if you're just looking for something that might be of personal interest to you) can I suggest Roger Stern/Steve Rude's The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman from 1999 (but set sometime between Byrne's Man of Steel #6 and Superman #1)? Not that I expect you to cover every story published at a later date but set during this period, but hey - Roger Stern, Steve Rude, The Hulk's 1960's continuity synchronized with Superman's post-Crisis canon - might be fun. Wait, Steve Rude did a Superman vs. Hulk comic?
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 9, 2022 20:22:18 GMT -5
In all of my griping, I neglected to mention that I really like you jumping over to a later story set during the Man of Steel/early Byrne period within these reviews and hope it continues. If you're taking requests (or if you're just looking for something that might be of personal interest to you) can I suggest Roger Stern/Steve Rude's The Incredible Hulk vs. Superman from 1999 (but set sometime between Byrne's Man of Steel #6 and Superman #1)? Not that I expect you to cover every story published at a later date but set during this period, but hey - Roger Stern, Steve Rude, The Hulk's 1960's continuity synchronized with Superman's post-Crisis canon - might be fun. Wait, Steve Rude did a Superman vs. Hulk comic? Hell, yeah! Damn good one, too! One of the few good inter-company crossovers, between DC and Marvel, from that period (for my money). That one and Batman/Captain America were the only ones I enjoyed, without reservation. The others had good and bad parts and Amalgam was a different animal; but, those two were all good.
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