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Post by Black Knight on Mar 9, 2007 16:11:43 GMT -5
Aah, sorry my fault, I worded it poorly. Barry is coming back, but not afaik permanently. I merely meant he is definitely back in a Flash costume, which IS confirmed, not that he'd be permanent- and much as I ADORE Barry, I am willing to give Guggenheim a chance to make Bart work right now anyway. No problem. You are correct it has been confirmed he will be back for WW III I believe is what it is called.
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Post by thew40 on Mar 9, 2007 22:21:01 GMT -5
Well, got the issue today. As much as I'm happy with the mainstream hype this is getting, I was actually a little underwhelmed by the issue. There's certainly an air of mystery around it and I like that. The story in it of itself is decent. But it just seemed to be lacking fanfare for Cap.
~W~
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 9, 2007 23:07:18 GMT -5
If you’re looking for cases of permanent takeover of a star hero’s identity, Marvel’s not as good a place to look as DC. Permanent takeover of a star hero’s identity at DC? Think Hal Jordan. I did. In fact I thought of several examples, hence my declaring DC a better place to find them. ( Permanent does not mean “irreversible”.) Why are such changes a more fundamental part of the DC landscape? Perhaps the roots lie in the nature of Golden Age superhero comics and the two companies’ differing approaches in the Silver Age. I’ve read little from the Golden Age, but my impression is that superheroes from both publishers were generally quite a bit flat in the personality department. Additionally, as the Silver Age dawned, the general target audience for comics was still kids, who would not have much knowledge of the comics published several years earlier anyway. With both those factors negating the advantage of customer loyalty toward the old characters, National must have felt fairly free to radically overhaul some of its concepts like Green Lantern and the Flash, even while also bringing back characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman largely unchanged. While Marvel did revive some old characters like Captain America and the Sub-Mariner generally intact and also engaged in some radical revamping of other old concepts like the Human Torch and the Vision, Marvel’s emphasis was on daring new concepts, which were infused with loads of personality. At Marvel, characters seemed unique and real—real enough to encourage loyalty among the fans. Such characters are hard to replace in the long term. Now, I don’t mean to say that DC hasn’t developed fascinating personalities and cultivated loyalties. It has. But its history grew differently. I haven’t read much DC/National Silver Age, but I gather that, by comparison to the Marvel classics of the time, the Distinguished Competition’s characters typically remained bland. At the same time, “The Flash of Two Worlds” and other stories established that the Golden Age characters were still around. Combined, these developments enforced the idea that, contrary to the case with Spider-Man and Thor and the Hulk et al., the roles of persons like Superman and Hawkman and the Flash were just roles that different people could fill, almost as easily as donning a costume. (This became even more obvious in the case of Green Lantern and his Corps.) DC eventually did establish a universe full of rich and distinct personalities, but by that time the idea of succession was much more firmly established, and permanent shufflings of major superhero identities are consequently better accepted in the DC Universe, as part and parcel of the fabric of its mythos.
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Tone-Loc
Reservist Avenger
R.I.P. (... for now)
Posts: 200
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Post by Tone-Loc on Mar 9, 2007 23:17:51 GMT -5
I have looked it over a few times now, and I see the differnce in the guns that was mentioned earlier. There is certainly a difference in the gun that is in the point blank shot early on, and the bulky cartoon gun Sharon has in her "memory" of the incident. Also, I can't tell if the 3rd panel on the last page, of Cap on the gurney is just freaking creepy (is it really necessary to have that image if he is indeed dead), or is it a clue that he is still alive?
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Post by von Bek on Mar 10, 2007 12:48:56 GMT -5
Permanent takeover of a star hero’s identity at DC? Think Hal Jordan. I did. In fact I thought of several examples, hence my declaring DC a better place to find them. ( Permanent does not mean “irreversible”.) No, it means lasting, and I was talking about Kyle Rainer, who didn´t last that much as GL, and all the troubles DC went to bring Hal back. It´s the only example of a reversion to the pre-Crisis status quo that I can think of at DC. Agree with your analisis of the Silver Age differences between Marvel and DC, tough.
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Post by dlw66 on Mar 10, 2007 12:55:00 GMT -5
I only read the Superman/Batman trades, and I don't always follow a lot of other DC books, but isn't the present Supergirl Kara Zor-el?
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Post by von Bek on Mar 10, 2007 12:59:27 GMT -5
Back to CA 25, it was a decent issue, but more or less what one could expect from such an 'event' issue. All people closer to Cap remebering him and why Steve Rogers was so important in their lives and so on. The Bucky/Winter Soldier - Falcon confrontation was a bit anti-climatic, so as the WS vs. Crossbones fight. The interesting part was the mystery of who really shot Cap, again Brubaker sucessfully uses crime noir elements in a superhero comic, proving that a good writer can create a fusion of genres.
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Post by von Bek on Mar 10, 2007 13:02:17 GMT -5
I only read the Superman/Batman trades, and I don't always follow a lot of other DC books, but isn't the present Supergirl Kara Zor-el? It´s a version of her, but IIRC there are huges differences between the Silver Age original and the modern version.
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 10, 2007 14:01:36 GMT -5
If you’re looking for cases of permanent takeover of a star hero’s identity, Marvel’s not as good a place to look as DC. Permanent takeover of a star hero’s identity at DC? Think Hal Jordan. I did. In fact I thought of several examples, hence my declaring DC a better place to find them. ( Permanent does not mean “irreversible”.) No, it means lasting, and I was talking about Kyle Rainer, who didn´t last that much as GL, and all the troubles DC went to bring Hal back. Rayner’s tenure as Green Lantern lasted 10–11 years (if I’m not mistaken, a smidgen longer than Alan Scott’s original run starting in All-American Comics #16 in 1940 and ending, I believe, with the end of the original Green Lantern series in 1949); for those of us who like the Green Lantern concept but dislike Rayner, that era certainly seemed to be lasting a long time…! I only read the Superman/Batman trades, and I don't always follow a lot of other DC books, but isn't the present Supergirl Kara Zor-el? It´s a version of her, but IIRC there are huges differences between the Silver Age original and the modern version. There are, but arguably this is another reversion (with other Supergirls having come and gone in the interim). These alternate histories can be so irritating…. Of course, there is also the return of some Golden Age predecessors to the fold (including Green Lantern, again); but I think that in the greater scheme of things, they have been considered as supplementary title holders, not the principal title holders. Hal Jordan may indeed be the only clear-cut instance of the sort of reversion von Bek is talking about. Agree with your analisis of the Silver Age differences between Marvel and DC, tough. Glad you liked it. I came up with it on the spot! ;D
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Post by dlw66 on Mar 10, 2007 15:26:32 GMT -5
Why are such changes a more fundamental part of the DC landscape? Perhaps the roots lie in the nature of Golden Age superhero comics and the two companies’ differing approaches in the Silver Age. I’ve read little from the Golden Age, but my impression is that superheroes from both publishers were generally quite a bit flat in the personality department. Additionally, as the Silver Age dawned, the general target audience for comics was still kids, who would not have much knowledge of the comics published several years earlier anyway. With both those factors negating the advantage of customer loyalty toward the old characters, National must have felt fairly free to radically overhaul some of its concepts like Green Lantern and the Flash, even while also bringing back characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman largely unchanged. While Marvel did revive some old characters like Captain America and the Sub-Mariner generally intact and also engaged in some radical revamping of other old concepts like the Human Torch and the Vision, Marvel’s emphasis was on daring new concepts, which were infused with loads of personality. At Marvel, characters seemed unique and real—real enough to encourage loyalty among the fans. Such characters are hard to replace in the long term. Now, I don’t mean to say that DC hasn’t developed fascinating personalities and cultivated loyalties. It has. But its history grew differently. I haven’t read much DC/National Silver Age, but I gather that, by comparison to the Marvel classics of the time, the Distinguished Competition’s characters typically remained bland. At the same time, “The Flash of Two Worlds” and other stories established that the Golden Age characters were still around. Combined, these developments enforced the idea that, contrary to the case with Spider-Man and Thor and the Hulk et al., the roles of persons like Superman and Hawkman and the Flash were just roles that different people could fill, almost as easily as donning a costume. (This became even more obvious in the case of Green Lantern and his Corps.) DC eventually did establish a universe full of rich and distinct personalities, but by that time the idea of succession was much more firmly established, and permanent shufflings of major superhero identities are consequently better accepted in the DC Universe, as part and parcel of the fabric of its mythos. Let me also add that I found the above posit to be right on the money -- as I might have written it myself. Thanks for stating it so well!
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 17, 2007 13:45:36 GMT -5
Let me also add that I found the above posit to be right on the money -- as I might have written it myself. The sincerest form of high praise, indeed! That’s nice to hear too, though I wasn’t quite satisfied—it was that sort of idea that seemed so simple and clear in my head but required a lot of struggling to be put into words. Maybe I’ll streamline it one of these days. In any case, I’d like to add that the dichotomy of approaches in the Silver Age has led to an irony. While Marvel delved into greater realism, National stuck with comparative blandness coupled with experiments in downright silliness—let’s face it, the premise behind “The Flash of Two Worlds” is rather silly (each Flash had read comics about the other when they were kids!). But from these seeds a more mature DC Universe eventually grew. By contrast, Marvel’s resistance to the idea of succession is less mature, even if it does have some advantages.
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Post by The Night Phantom on Mar 17, 2007 19:25:54 GMT -5
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fiero84
Probationary Avenger
Posts: 88
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Post by fiero84 on Apr 30, 2007 15:26:19 GMT -5
MARVEL was great when 'Stan the Man', ran it.
Post-modern, new age, alternative, progressive, whatever name you call it, I'm am sick of this treatment done to great classic comicbook characters. SURE, chaulk it up to 'sales'. Porn sells, Drugs sell, should comicbooks 'sell out' just to generate numbers? I doubt their reasoning anyway. What sells is creativeness.
The high school dropout management that seems to permeate comicbook institutions these dayz just has NO CLUE. Imagination - GET SOME!
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