Hell, I’d rather have G’Nort then Hal.
The only thing that has irked me about SC so far other then its being rushed, as the fact that it does seem at times like one big Hal Jordan Ego Stroke. Hell, it’s like Hal Jordan has creative control at DC or something.
^Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Why is DC constantly sucking Hal’s nuts? I mean, there are like a million other Lanters and this mofo gets all the spotlight time.
Best thing to do is buy GLC and not GL unless it’s a John story. What I plan on doing.
After SC GLC is supposed to be Guy and Kyle, so my two fave human GLs in one book makes it a no-brainer for me.
That’s the blessing and the curse of the current generation of writers and artists being big fans of comics themselves: you get a lot of reverence for the classic stories.
It’s a blessing when you get something superb, like All Star Superman. It’s a curse when you get something like Superman: Man Of Steel. It’s all a matter of perspective, of course–Hal happens to be my favorite Green Lantern, and I think he’s rightly thought of as the quintessential GL. I can’t understand how anybody could possibly prefer Guy Gardner, and I can’t help but see Kyle as Hal’s hasty replacement. Many people do not agree with me, and I’ll respect that as long as nobody’s a dick about it.
Seriously, though, Guy Gardner? The best thing he ever did was get his face rearranged by Batman.
As long as they keep Hal and John away from GLC I’ll be happy. Nothing against John personally. Hal should have his own book sanitized from anything, John should be in the Justice League- he fits best there, and Guy and Kyle should be in GLC so you can have something really different in the DCU and kickass.
Just have Alan Scott bitchslap Hal once a year to keep me happy.
The invincible Ironman animated movie… and for real any DC multiverse crap
I have no qualms about Hal Jordan going ape-shit insane when Mongul destroyed his city. It was natural to go berserk when everything you hold dear was gone in a single instant. I’m a big fan of Hal Jordan. I never liked Kyle Rayner… but it was a cop out when DC established the reason why Hal Jordan went insane; It’s because of a goddamn virus. It would have been cool if they tried to find a way for Hal Jordan to get redemption for all the shit he have done.
Hell he did save the earth from Final Night while being possessed by the Parallax virus.
I still dont understand how Kyle is a main character in Countdown and Parallax in SC i mean either u got continuty or u dont
A little about DC since I do know a few things, nowhere near as much as Marvel. Of course I welcome others who know more about DC to add or correct where necessary.
Goofy stories that should be forgotten aside DC’s continuity problems really started when Flash #2, Barry Allen met Flash #1, Jay Garrick. Barry had read about that Flash in a comic book and happened to enter his dimension and meet him.
In itself this creates a slew of problems. If those comics exist in DC’s new universe, Jay has met Superman and Batman before, Barry would know their identities and so would the entire world! Such a thing is easily settled by saying the comic Barry read only featured Jay Garrick and it wasn’t the same exact comic we read and that would be it. Course you have to remember this was about 40 years ago and people didn’t think that way. Arguably there wasn’t any real continuity in DC at the time between books for you to really care. If you read Batman there was no reason to read Superman. If you read Wonder Woman there was no reason to read anything but Wonder Woman. Even with guest appearances it really didn’t matter because Batman wouldn’t say “I’m fighting the Joker from issues 14-18 at the same exact time check it out!” since stories for the most part where stand alone issues and meetings like this could virtually happen whenever. Anyway, more multiuniverse crossovers of this kind happened over the years and of course it lead to a lot more problems, or things that would become problems much much later.
Along came Marvel. In the old Timely/Atlas days it was the same deal as DC. When we got to the silver age Stan Lee started having multiple characters appear in each other’s books. Soon he would reference those appearances, like Fantastic Four 8 for example would say *See Spider-Man 12. This was a very easy thing to monitor with Stan writing most of the books, even if it was just a way to get you to buy a comic you normally wouldn’t. This is how continuity began, it was an accident really, not something that was planned. I’m sure Stan Lee at the time wasn’t aware that it would get so complicated you would need such a thing like the Marvel Universe books of the 70s, 80s and today along with the internet to keep everything straight.
So with that being the trend DC eventually copied it. Once they did, it really brung up the two problems of the multiple universes and goofy old stories. I don’t know all of the details but it became quite a mess, so they felt they needed the first Crisis to clean things up. My understanding is that the Crisis created more problems than it solved in the end. DC still didn’t really stick to their guns. Man of Steel, Batman Year One are clear examples of that. It’s not so long ago that it was really common for them to introduce Supergirl into this world, if people didn’t like her just forget that happened as they will reintroduce Supergirl again in Superman/Batman, hey people like her now so this is how it happened! 
I laugh but DC was probably better off with this method. For people who follow continuity this is a mess so they felt they needed yet another Crisis, the last one to clean all of this up and streamline it. I think it’s a bit too early to say whether or not this made things more complicated, it does feel that way and for a new universe the books are still not very new reader friendly. You still have to know of a lot of stories that may or may not have happened now to keep things straight… It is still early however so give it a few years I suppose and we will have a clearer picture to determine if this was a mistake (I lean towards yes ATM…) and if it is something that created more problems than it solved.
As DC readers of today know, post Crisis for continuity now you have to take what they say now as opposed to what they were saying then. Well, you always had to really but today slightly moreso. The characters even have flashbacks of things that never happened! Nightwing’s relationship with Barbara Gordon and Starfire is a bit different compared to how it used to be. Nightwing Year One didn’t happen exactly the way Dixon wrote it. Even Nightwing’s relationship with Batman/Alfred is about to change from father/grandfather to brother/father because now Nightwing and Batman are only 10 years apart. Joe Chill was captured a long time ago. Impulse/New Flash was an incompetent goofball now. And so on. Other than the Impulse being a goofball thing I really don’t have too much of a problem with this stuff since it doesn’t erase stories I’ve read in the past. So long as they stick to their guns and/or if they decide to retcon these things just use the Supergirl method and call it a day. Whatever they do please oh please do not put us through another Crisis… Final Crisis writers I’m looking at you. :arazz:
I thought the whole “No more mutants” was a very deus ex machina way of ending that storyline. House of M was really all an excuse to cut down on a lot of mutant characters, (of course without affecting most of the more popular ones, and really other than them exclaiming about how it’s different and there’s less of them, still seems to be almost everyone still running around) without really thinking of any well, clever way to do it. You just have a character “undo” a whole lot of others, and that’s it, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
It was almost as if Marvel staff sat down and said: “Hey, we have too many mutants, how can we get rid of some?”
“Well they all have all sorts of powers, I’m sure one of them could just, on a whim, wipe out the powers of a bunch of them.”
“Oh, cool. Kill Hawkeye while you’re at it. Well at least for a little while.”
“Um, sure?”
Because SC is taking place before that time in Countdown. It’s obvious SC is being very rushed, but it’s still damn good.
I think some of you sort of misunderstand what “retcon” means. A retcon is when they change previously established facts by adding/subtracting something that wasn’t actually there in the story originally.
So the “no more mutants” thing isn’t actually a retcon. It changes the status quo, or even reverts it to something that resembles the past, but it doesn’t retcon a previous story.
Hal turning into Parallax isn’t a retcon; that’s just a bad story. (Lol, I see ya, Taichi!!)
Making up a story that says Parallax was the embodiment of fear ALL ALONG is a retcon.
I’m not even sure if all that stuff with Hawkman counts as retcons. That character has just been revamped way too many times - he’s just convoluted.
BTW ReggieHadoken and anyone else, ever read this site about Spidey’s continuity? An excellent read and a good example on how continuity works in Marvel. Some of it is really funny too. Kind of long but worth checking out IMHO.
http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/SpiderMan101/SpiderMan101Part6.html
A little more off-topic, but this is another expansive article that Spidey fans/90s readers might enjoy. I read all 35 parts one day, in a fit of boredom:
Yeah I realized that, but the difference between a story that changes events, and one that merely resets the status quo to the old status quo were close enough that I thought the no more mutants stuff was at least tangentially related at least enough to be worth discussion. If there is no wiggle room in the topic, than I apologize.
The worse thing about many DC retcons is that they necessitate further stories to clear up the confusion that the retcon creates. I mean it took forever to finally “fix” the whole Psycho Pirate and Power Girl surviving the consolidation of earths. Especially for Power Girl who has the max number of origins any character should ever have.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to pick on you or anything. I was just trying to clarify. I’m like the king of off-topic tangents so I don’t really mind whatever train of thought you take the discussion.
Batgirl.
Ha, thanks! I’ll be camped out at my comp reading that for a while when I get the chance.
BTW, you mentioned a Supergirl retcon in Superman/Batman. I didn’t read Crisis on Infinite Earths, but I read info on the book on wiki and I think that book retconned her out of existence. So how’d Superman/Batman bring her back? I’ve only read the first 6 issues via TPB.
35 parts? Wowzer. Something else to keep me busy.
At one point I was going to read Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis and 52 but now the books just sound like headaches and a man can only take so many pain killers in one day. Sometimes I think those faggots at DC like screwing with things just to screw with things. How many alternate Earths/worlds are there in DC? You know what, I don’t even wanna know because if I find out, I think my brain will malfunction trying to process the absurdity of it all. Oh and Earth-2 Wonder Woman is just so wrong. So Wrong. :tdown:
Superman now has no origin because DC has once again decided to give The Man of Tomorrow a new background. What. The. EFF?! 
DC’s flagship character currently has no origin because DC never seems to be satisfied with it. Spidey’s origin hasn’t changed since 1962 because it worked so freaking well. Batman’s origin, while being touched up here and there is basically the same as well. I’ve always thought Supe’s story of being sent to Earth from a dying planet to be adopted by a kindly couple, and grow into a champion was a touching story. DC, what is so hard about keeping with that? It’s like every few years they just gotta change Supe’s origin. GAH!!!
Sorry, just wanted to get that off my chest. :annoy:
Don’t know if this was a retcon persay, but Frank Miller puting Superman and Batman at odds with each other in Dark Knight Returns was brilliant. These two really do work best in a comic when they don’t see eye-to-eye. Yes, Batman and Superman are friends but their views on jutsice often clash, which makes for some great story telling. I know a lot of people hate John Byrne, I mean, hey the man is a jerk, but I liked how he decided to keep running with Bats and Supes clashing views.
Yeah, DKR wasn’t a retcon since Frank Miller set it in its own independent universe, along with the rest of his Batman stuff (though DC adopted Year One into canon).
The truly antagonistic relationship between Batman and Superman only really works in the DKR universe, since Miller took a few underlying elements of each character (for instance, Batman’s single-minded obsessiveness and Superman’s tendency to adhere to authority) and extrapolated them until they became caricatures of themselves. That’s satire.
DC made a big mistake by trying to adopt the style, if not the substance, of DKR into their mainstream books. DKR is a whole other animal, and should have been treated as such.
I’m not saying Batman and Superman should still smile at each other and refer to one another as “old chum,” but they’re still the World’s Finest team, in spite of their differences in philosophy and methods.
If they’re going to fuck with Superman’s origin yet again (only three years down the line, huh?), I strongly suggest they pull a Grant Morrison: take the classic elements that EVERYBODY knows to be true about the character and etch them in granite. The world doesn’t need a new Superman. It needs the one we’ve had all along, the one that DC has drifted away from for a variety of absurd reasons.
In Superman/Batman’s second arc, Kara Zor-el crashed on Earth in a rocket ship. Apparently she’s really Superman’s cousin. Although the reason for her renewed existence could possibly be because Superboy-Prime punched the walls of reality.
There are 52 Earths now, plus a dimension called the Bleed (something Warren Ellis made up for The Authority) which connects all the various realities. The WildStorm Universe is Earth-52, I think. My brain malfunctioned, too.
Oh, DC… How clever they are. They made a weekly comic named 52 and ended up with 52 Earths! SWEET POETRY
A new origin? When did they do this?
As far as I’m concerned, there is only one Superman origin: “Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple.” That’s all you need, really. Haha, gimme a high five, goody, HIGH FIVE!!!
Haha, oh man, John Byrne… I just today read a three issue arc from his supposedly “classic” Fantastic Four run. It was terrible. It was the one where the FF and other NY heroes teamed up against Galactus. His art isn’t bad but the guy cannot write. It’s like he went to school at Claremont U.