Don't Blame COIE!

[Hellpop]

I've noticed in several Infinite Crisis threads a recurring theme: "They didn't get it right the first time with Crisis, and they didn't fix it with Infinite Crisis". While the latter is certainly true, to blame the original Crisis for the mess that DC's continuity has become is to miss the target. Crisis had one mission: streamline the DCU so that everything happened on one Earth, and to "fix" certain characters believed to have grown stale (I know, that sounds like two missions...). In this, COIE did it's job well. The thinking at the time was that people were confused about which stories took place on which earths. Superman and Batman in particular were problems, as they were not different characters like their compatriots, and had never ceased publication and thus had no easy "flip" to Earth- One stories. So now everything would have happened on one Earth, and if that meant discarding some characters and stories from continuity, so be it.

The problem actually comes after COIE, when DC hired John Byrne to revamp Superman. I read an interview with Marv Wolfman years ago, talking about how this had destroyed much of what they'd done in COIE, because they hadn't been able to set it up as they had Wonder Woman's reboot. At the time, the belief was that Superman wasn't selling well because his world was outdated, and he was too powerful to be relatable. So his powers were chopped down, and such beloved elements as Krypto, Kandor, Superboy and Supergirl were erased. On the plus side, he now had to shave, which certainly made him more relatable to all the teenage boys out there...:rolleyes:

But DC didn't make any change to their continity when they did this, they just started over. And Byrne's Superman was a complete failure. What no one seemed to getis that it was those elements that made hime Superman, and not like any of the other caped strong men in the world. It certainly didn't help matters that Alan Moore came along and showed exactly how to do Superman in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?"

My point? That all of a sudden the Superman running around wasn't Superman! To make matters worse, they did the exact same thing to Batman, almost an unnoticible change, except that Jason Todd was given a new history, invalidating every story he'd appeared in to that point. And then there was Captain Marvel, pointlessly modernized so that he'd never been around in the Golden Age. Would it have been too hard to simply say that Earth S was merged into Earth at a different point in it's history?

So within a year the work that Crisis had done had been undone. The Silver Age Superman simply vanished. More troublesome, his cousin Kara never lived, and thus never sacrificed herself Against the Anti- Monitor. So, if the Crisis happened, we know it did not happen the way Marv & George wrote & drew it.

I bring all this up because it relates to the "sequel", and the huge gaping problems it creates. If we've brought back Earth 2, what about Earth 1? Yes, all the characters realize that "New Earth" isn't Earth 1, but there's still no mention of what happened to those characters and their continity. How Johns and co. could bring all that stuff back without addressing those very pertinant questions is beyond me. If we know Earth 1 existed, what happened to it?

So don't blame COIE. It did it's job just fine. Blame John Byrne;) . Funny, the whole thing could've been avoided if they'd just given Superman to Alan Moore.

If anyone really wants, I'll explain how it's all Marvel's fault....

[Kevinroc]

The problem was DC editorial didn't exactly follow-up on what COIE was trying to accomplish.

Now, you could say if you thought what COIE was trying to accomplish was good or bad but the point is that DC editorial didn't follow-up on what it actually was supposed to be doing.

So continuity became very confusing.

But the reason why so many people didn't like what COIE was trying to accomplish (which was to start DC over from the ground-up) was because of how much so many loved the history of DC before COIE and didn't just want it all to vanish.

Of course, between COIE, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis... DC continuity is still pretty damned confusing.

[shaxper]

I'll sum up my grievance with COIE by saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". DC erased forty years of comic book legacy in one fell swoop. Of all the major characters and titles, none seemed to really benefit from the revamps other than Wonder Woman (although erasing her from JLA history almost undoes the benefits). Superman and Batman were relatively unchanged (FM's Batman Year One still could have been published as a minor revision), the New Teen Titans and Legion of Superheroes were ruined, and The Flash was never quite as extraordinary again.

I think it was a mistake for DC to turn its back on its own legacy...the very stories and history that had brought it fans for decades. Worse yet, with all these successive revisions, I'm getting very tired of trying to determine what is in continuity and what isn't. If DC wants to publish a guide and say "the following issues are no longer considered 'in continuity' then great. We could probably do without Batman revealing his identity to Jimmy Olson and Superman selling warbonds to "sink the Japs", but that doesn't mean we have to go back and reinvent the wheel.

I'm sincerely hoping IC will bring the new DCU back closer to what it was before the first Crisis. I want to see some of that old legacy reclaimed. For me, much of the joy of comics is in growing with a favorite character over the years, watching them develop as a result of past experiences as well as in response to the times. To reboot a character after all of that is a betrayal to loyal readers.

[DarthAstuart]

The problem was DC editorial didn't exactly follow-up on what COIE was trying to accomplish.

Now, you could say if you thought what COIE was trying to accomplish was good or bad but the point is that DC editorial didn't follow-up on what it actually was supposed to be doing.

So continuity became very confusing.


this seems to be the more realistic view. i'm not sure how I understand that DC fell apart post-COIE becuase of john byrne...that seems more a personal axe to grind to me. :)

however, it does seem to be true (speaking as someone who wasn't reading then, but has certainly read plenty of the back issues) that DC didn't cohesively move their post-COIE continuity forward. There were no overreaching "restarts." Instead, revamps and restarts piddled out, with other stories still seeming to take place in a veritable pre-Crisis universe.

where IC trumps that, IMHO, is that the path forward is pretty clearly defined for all the major characters, with some necessary mysteries to resolve as part of 52. Batman? Set. Superman? Set. Wonder Woman? Soon to be set. JLoA? Soon to be set. Flash? Soon to be set.

I can't think of a character in the DCU right now that was sent into a tailspin like, say, Hawkman was after COIE. To me, that's a good thing.

[Hellpop]

this seems to be the more realistic view. i'm not sure how I understand that DC fell apart post-COIE becuase of john byrne...that seems more a personal axe to grind to me. :)

however, it does seem to be true (speaking as someone who wasn't reading then, but has certainly read plenty of the back issues) that DC didn't cohesively move their post-COIE continuity forward. There were no overreaching "restarts." Instead, revamps and restarts piddled out, with other stories still seeming to take place in a veritable pre-Crisis universe.

where IC trumps that, IMHO, is that the path forward is pretty clearly defined for all the major characters, with some necessary mysteries to resolve as part of 52. Batman? Set. Superman? Set. Wonder Woman? Soon to be set. JLoA? Soon to be set. Flash? Soon to be set.

I can't think of a character in the DCU right now that was sent into a tailspin like, say, Hawkman was after COIE. To me, that's a good thing.

Blaming John Byrne was a joke. That's what the emoticon meant! But you're right, the problem was that, other than Wonder Woman and the Flash, whom they knew they wanted to relaunch, there were no set plans for what was going to happen to these characters, and thus no set up in the big, universe changing event. The one way that IC is much better than COIE is the post- event planning is much better thought out. But Crisis was breaking new ground, and it's easy to look back now and say what could or should have been done better. The idea of "restarts" didn't even really exist yet. I think they figured that most every character would just go on from the Crisis, and that's not what ended up happening. Shame too, because the restarting of the universe in Crisis #10 would have been the perfect way to take care of all of that.

I can think of one character sent into a tailspin by IC, though: Superboy Prime...;) .

[THANOS/WOLVERINE]

Here's why.... because at the end of number 10 everyone at the dawn of time remembered all the past histories. Way to many people remebering what had happened before. Then the delaied Crisis wave which caused everyone to forget about the Crisis(was DC's fault). Although should have all happened at the end of crisis. The whole point of Psycho Pirate remebering made no sense at the end of crisis because about 30 hero's still remembered the crisis. Overall crisis was a good story but faultered on what they hoped to accomplish. Perez and Wolfman even said it was only half way a success.

[Rylon]

If anyone really wants, I'll explain how it's all Marvel's fault....Awww, come on! Look if you really want to blame someone, blame Robert Kanigher and the beloved Julius Schwartz. Yep, Schwartz. :D

You see Kanigher wrote a comic, edited by Schwartz, that some of you may have heard about: Showcase #4 cover dated September-October 1956. In a story titled Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!, a police scientist named Barry Allen ganes Super-speed. But that's not the problem. The problem is that Barry Allen reads a comic with Jay Gerrick and takes the name The Flash based on a superhero in a comicbook, rather than a real person. (Well real to him.)

That small detail retconed every golden age superhero out of existance! They were all comicbook characters now. Eventualy, The Flash found out that thouse comicbook superheros lived on Earth-2, and even more damage was done.

Imagine how simple the continuity would be if Barry Allen had just gone over to Jay's house and asked him if he could carry-on in his (superhero) name. We would have had one earth the whole time.

Don't blame Byrne for being hired to fix Schwartz's monster. :p

[Paul Newell]

Here's why.... because at the end of number 10 everyone at the dawn of time remembered all the past histories. Way to many people remebering what had happened before. Then the delaied Crisis wave which caused everyone to forget about the Crisis(was DC's fault). Although should have all happened at the end of crisis. The whole point of Psycho Pirate remebering made no sense at the end of crisis because about 30 hero's still remembered the crisis. Overall crisis was a good story but faultered on what they hoped to accomplish. Perez and Wolfman even said it was only half way a success.
And after reading the notes in the COIE Absolute Edition I can see why. The ending was completely changed by editorial.