Not My Batman V. Not My Superman

I didn't like Man of Steel.

I'm not talking about the 1986 DC Comics miniseries by John Byrne, which is, to the contrary, revelatory in nature. That book brought Superman singlehandedly into the modern era and paved the way for hundreds of terrific tales. (It's also, as I pointed out before, the starting point for my own Superman collection, recently begun anew with the resurrection of the Post-Crisis iteration of the character.)

Rather, I'm talking about Zack Snyder's 2013 film that endeavored to reintroduce Krypton's Last Son to modern audiences. I liked the trailers and I even was excited enough to attend a midnight screening of the movie. I started out really enjoying the scenes that took place on Krypton, displaying the conflict between Superman's father Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and General Zod (Michael Shannon). But the Superman of this narrative contrasts starkly with the version I know and have enjoyed for the last few decades. Gone was the optimism that's often encircled the character, replaced by cynicism at best and pervasive xenophobia at worst. (I shouldn't have been surprised, as executive producer Christopher Nolan always was more at home in Gotham than Metropolis.) Add in enough property devastation to make even Michael Bay blush, and I might have considerable pause. But then--then--give Superman, the very same guy who always, always finds a way to win, an unwinnable situation where the narrative forces him to kill Zod. I checked out like Mark Waid (a writer whose work on Superman: Birthright and other tales I enjoyed).

So when DC announced the "sequel" to Man of Steel would be a battle with the Darkknight Detective himself, as a pitstop between the original and a Justice League movie, I should've known better. When I saw the film back in March, I dismissed it as an unmitigated disaster that got so, so much wrong about both lead characters as well as the villains of the piece. Batman (Ben Affleck) saw everything in terms of absolute good or absolute evil and was a frequent accessory to murder (with the bat-brands on criminals he caught serving as, essentially, a death sentence). Superman (HEnry Cavill) was a man of few words, and those he did say he growled in ways more accustomed to Batman. Lex Luthor Jr. (Jesse Eisenberg, horrendously miscast) was just a lunatic. And Doomsday could fly, shoot heat rays out of his eyes, and explode over and over again like a bomb because, well, I'm not quite sure why. The narrative was a mess, the characters were a mess, and by the time Superman died in the final battle, I was nauseatingly numb.

Of course, like a fool I decided I absolutely needed to watch the "Ultimate Cut" released on July 19. Could the additional 30 minutes of footage turn my opinion of the film around? Putting aside the fact that an R-rated version of a Superman movie shouldn't even by rights exist, I watched.

The verdict? Although the film is still deeply flawed and especially wrongheaded in its treatment of Superman, the Ultimate Cut is a leap forward when compared to its theatrical predecessor.

Others have given more thorough reviews of the films as a set, so I won't go into much detail. The strongest bit re-inserted into this film is the lengths to which Luthor went to manipulate the characters, from Superman and Batman on down to Senator Finch (Holly Hunter), Wallace Keefe (Scoot McNairy) and Kahina Ziri (Wunmi Mosaku), the latter of whom has the most expanded role. What could have been believed as too many coincidences in the theatrical version is spelled out as Luthor's machinations in this version. Granted, very few of the additional scenes actually involve Eisenberg's Luthor himself, so there's an even greater disconnect between the actor's portrayal and what we know the character has done. But putting forth the idea that Luthor knew who Batman and Superman really were from the beginning puts everything in perspective, just as making him direct prisoners to kill other prisoners with bat-symbols exonerates Batman in a way, and makes the opening sequence and the bullet sub-plot have a more sensible connection to Superman.

However, there are things besides Luthor that remain problematic or become even more so as result of the added footage. Batman's visions of an "Apokoliptic" future and the cameos of all Justice League members still stick out like sore thumbs. The explosion at the Capitol Building gets a bit of a tradeoff, as we find out Keefe's wheelchair was lined with lead which prevented Superman from seeing the bomb. However, nothing in this film or Man of Steel shows why Luthor would have any knowledge of this particular weakness of Superman's. (Filmmaking 101: Set 'em up and knock 'em down.) And Snyder really, really doubled down on the bleakness and carnage of the prior film's denouement, using it to form his basis of this one.

The biggest problems of the movie are still, sadly, the biggest problems. Batman still reacts nuttily toward Superman's exclamation that they're going to kill Martha, and Doomsday is still a big gray deus ex machina meant to give all three protagonists something to punch and hit since Luthor's body can't take that kind of punishment. But what was worst of all was the entire sub-plot making Superman out to be some kind of god being worshiped by the people of the world. True, he never actively encouraged any of them, but he never discouraged them, either. Snyder takes pains to dismantle the myth, at least in Batman's eyes, by making him see that he's not a god--that he's just a man, in the "Martha" scene, and then impresses it upon everyone else in the story by having Doomsday kill him at the end. He can die just like the rest of us! O, sad day!

This is all well and good, of course, so long as you don't consider that, in order for Superman to appear in Justice League, he's going to need to be restored to life. And, if you think the huddled masses were going ga-ga over Superman before, just wait until they see that Christ parallel in action! The very direction of the narrative decimates any statement Snyder (or screenwriters Terrio and Goyer) attempts to make.

So, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has a better version in the Ultimate Cut; however, there's still much to overcome. Seeing this cut gives me a little hope in Justice League. Maybe, at the very least, they'll resurrect Superman with the ability to smile, laugh, and see the best in people? After all, Henry Cavill has really looked the part in these last two films, and I know from films like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that he's got charisma to spare. So why not let him, you know, actually use it?

Stranger things...

~G.

Of Spider-Clones and Supermen: Why "Superman: Rebirth" Is the New "Clone Saga"

Ever since hearing that DC Comics was going to kill off the "New 52" Superman and replace him with the recently-returned "Pre-Crisis" version who disappeared nearly 5 years ago, something's been scratching at the back of my head. And now that we're three full issues into the Pre-Crisis Superman taking over for NuSupes, I can finally put my finger on the feeling. It's one I last had about two decades ago.

For anyone having read Spider-Man comics between 1994 and 1996, you're of course familiar with the much-maligned "Clone Saga." For those not in the know, there was a time shortly after DC's "Death of Superman" storyline where editors pushed their talent to manufacture similar, event-based storylines to drive then-record sales figures ever higher. No idea was too silly when Marvel went looking for their own Spidey-centric tale. (Such events have only gotten more grandiose, but I digress.)

So writer Terry Kavanagh dusted off The Amazing Spider-Man #150, coda to a storyline wherein the villainous Jackal cloned both Spidey himself and his alter ego's late girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Spidey threw away a report on whether he was really the clone because of, essentially, a gut instinct. The question became, "What if the Spider-Man fans had been reading since 1975 was really the Spider-Clone?" Writers like John Marc DeMatteis (one of my idols) became inspired, and suddenly the dead clone nobody thought twice about returned to life--and a co-starring role in all of Marvel's Spider-Man series for the better part of two years. He became Ben Reilly (so named after Peter Parker's uncle Ben, with his last name the same as Aunt May's maiden name Reilly) and Spider-Man's life would never be the same again!

I read the Clone Saga when it originally came out. One of my friends in the fledgling days of Internet fandom--the inimitable DRILLN0T--helped me write "The Spider-Man/Jackal Dossier," an ungodly tome that consolidated and promulgated fan theories and unresolved facets of the storyline. So yes, I'm kind of well-versed in the storyline and count it as one of the high points of my collecting.

What's that all have to do with Superman: Rebirth? It's funny you should ask...

Just When I Thought I Was Out... (DCU Rebirth SPOILERS!)

Hey, y'all.

Remember when I said that both DC and Marvel Comics had catastrophically screwed the pooch when it came to handling their greatest super-heroes and super-villains?  (The most recent spate of comments started here with a discussion of Secret Wars and Convergence and continued over here with some talk about Superman: Lois & Clark.)

Yeah, Marvel's still doing it. I think right now I'm about the most opposite-of-excited as I've been for Marvel in a long, long while. Maybe ever! And it's something that's well reflected in my current buying habits. In my Discount Comic Book Service order for the month of May, I've only ordered nine ongoing Marvel titles--and five of those are in the Spider-Man family of books! I'm only reading what I enjoy, but even the current crop is subject to elimination. (And no, Steve Rogers: Captain America isn't doing the company any favors in my eyes, although certainly I'd be more apt to judge after we see more than just the first chapter.)

But DC? This last week returned a skosh of the goodwill they squandered over the last year. And the next several weeks will either validate that early feeling or maybe just sour me the rest of the way.

Of course, I'm talking about DC Universe Rebirth #1, the book that officially pulls back the curtain on the DCU of old and turns the trickle of old DCU carryovers into a veritable flood. Sure, a few characters like Batman and Green Lantern kept the majority of their continuity thanks to writers with long-term projects (Grant Morrison on the former, Rebirth scribe Geoff Johns on the latter). But it wasn't until Convergence with its undoing of Crisis On Infinite Earths that the ripple effect began in earnest.

Post-Crisis (Superman)

[I've been a bad, bad blogger over the last few months. Here's hoping I can start making my lack of regular posts up to everybody and bring back some regular readers in 2016. Sound good to you? Good! --GMM]

Maybe the single book I was happiest about in 2015. Happy irony!

When last I wrote, I was having a little crisis regarding my comic book buying habits. I developed a severe lack of faith in the output of the Big Two in 2015, exacerbated by line-wide events like Convergence at DC Comics and Secret Wars (what, again?) at Marvel.

Looking at some articles out there from not only fans but also some retailers, it appears I'm not alone in my trepidation. One thing the market hates is uncertainty, and in 2015 the Big Two gave it to retailers and readers alike in spades. With a spate of regular series, retailers can base their orders on their regular customers and their buying habits, forecasting here and there for "new" series based on the performance of other, similar books. With a two-month-long event like Convergence, there's a degree more of uncertainty because the entire regular lineup is replaced by forty two-issue miniseries anchored by a 9-issue event series. And because Marvel must take every idea DC has and shoot it full of Gamma Rays to do it "better," they anchored a staggering 42 miniseries of indeterminate length (upon early solicitations), as well as several issues of 10 ongoing series, to their own 9, then 10-issue event series.

So, to recap: we've got big event miniseries, which usually sell gangbusters. But what happens when you tie them to countless miniseries instead of the traditional issues of ongoing series? Remember the theory to using events and crossovers in the first place: namely, to prop up flagging sales of series by tying them--unnecessarily, even--to said event. But how do retailers even begin to determine orders when juggling an event with a whole bunch of new #1 issues for series of unknown length, with no real corollaries to existing series? Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!

DCnU: Crisis? What Crisis? (The New 52 & Rampant DiDioism)

Spoilers for the last four weeks of DC's books. Haven't read 'em? Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland.

Breaking news: Dan DiDio has just punched Superboy-Prime right out of the DC Universe. Film at 11.

Just over a month following my last mighty missive about DC Comics' relaunch of 52 of their titles, I'm back with some thoughts, after having read all but four of the titles I've signed on for. (To be read: Aquaman, Justice League Dark, Superman and Voodoo. Am I a masochist? Consider the books I've already read, noted below, and then attempt an answer.) What did I think of the books? Which books will I continue reading? And hey, just what did I think of DC co-publisher Dan DiDio's recent announcement that all company events bearing the umbrella word "Crisis" have been retconned out with the relaunch?

Those are all questions I'm just itchin' to answer. Shall we?

To date, I've read twenty-three "New 52" titles. The old cliche goes, some are good and some suck. Some of them--albeit very few--are fitting for the new audience that DC states they want to lure in. A few will appeal to those fans who are lapsed readers. For the vast majority, however, it's business as usual, with almost nothing really changed from August's books. And then, there are a couple--just one or two, mind you, and I think you know which ones--that are patently offensive and should be canceled as soon as possible.

Of course, they won't actually be canceled because DC has made it obvious that they thrive on controversy, and apparently every bad word about these books only serves to drive sales figures up, up, up. Joker's face ripped off and hung on the wall in Detective Comics? Controversy! Babs Gordon, out of her wheelchair and back to fighting crime as Batgirl, but with acknowledgment of her previous handicap? Controversy! Mister Terrific and an apparently unpowered Karen Starr (formerly Power Girl) possibly being "friends with benefits"? Horrors! Superman ran around in a li'l cape and jeans in his early days, and has never dated or married Lois Lane? Holy Toledo! Amanda Waller, formerly Suicide Squad's rotund leader, now a svelte, sexy lady who might weigh 100 lbs. after eating dinner? Great googly moogly!

And I haven't even gotten to Catwoman's sexcapades with Batman where they keep most of their costumes on in a fetishized scene. Nor have I told about former Teen Titan Starfire, who once had a long-term relationship with Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing, being reduced to a caricature who doesn't even remember who she fought or slept with--little more than, to be blunt, a pretty, curvy set of warm, wet holes that occasionally speaks.

It's been all over the internet now, of course. And hey, did anyone mention that Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 came out on the exact same day as Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans magnum opus, the hardcover graphic novel Games? You know, a book where Starfire is actually treated with some degree of humanity? For maybe the last time ever? And of course DC closes the book on their end with the proclamation that everyone should look at the rating on the book and take a big dose of STFU. Yes, hooray for tact, DC. You care about the bucks, not the content. We get it.

(Yes, I actually went out and bought Red Hood and the Outlaws #1. I didn't want to give DC a dime for the book. Alas, my decision was made a little better when I considered that my retailer had already paid for the drek that lined his shelves, and I'd be doing him a disservice by not relieving him of the book. I did, however, tell him that I most definitely would not return for any subsequent issues, so he need only take my copy in consideration when adjusting his future orders downward.)

There are, of course, equal-opportunity digs at male characters. Ray Palmer, the original Atom, is a mere scientist in Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. And...wait. Did any male character who was obscenely obese get trim? Did any paraplegic male character get up and walk? Is any male character reduced to humping the leg of any female in sight?

Don't misunderstand: there are parts of the new DC Universe I enjoy. As in my earlier review, I love I, Vampire. It's a brilliant reinvention of the original concepts by J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton. I also really enjoy the stylishness of Batwoman by J.H. Williams III. Couldn't honestly imagine anyone else making the book quite so good. Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is just goofy enough to work. I'm giving Resurrection Man another month or two, but boy, would it thrive under a more stylish artist. Speaking of stylish artists, Yanick Paquette is the next Kevin Nowlan in Swamp Thing, and the story by Scott Snyder fires on all cylinders even as it undoes everything Alan Moore did in "The Anatomy Lesson." Animal Man is the creepy polar opposite of Swamp Thing and I loved that cliffhanger. I even liked Snyder with Greg Capullo on Batman but at the same time I don't feel any compulsion to buy the next one. Aside from the astonishingly sexy art by Guillem March on Catwoman, there's little to recommend--for titillationists only. All-Star Western is okay enough and I could get it in collected editions, but I've the feeling I should reach for Jonah Hex Vol. 1 first. Nightwing? I'm really, really close to picking up number two. And Batgirl? Gail Simone takes into account the ongoing evolution of the character, doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater, and gives me adventures of Babs monthly without my having to dig in the back issue bins. What's not to love? (Okay, besides the overcomplicated costume!) Yes, Batgirl is sublime. As for Grant Morrison's Action Comics...it's Grant Morrison, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't match the complexity of Batman Incorporated, alas, nor is it meant to.

Still, there are a lot of misses. I couldn't stomach Justice League no matter how much I used to enjoy Geoff Johns' scripts. It just felt like a team-up between the two heroes everybody should recognize from the movies, with another movie hero at the end in case anyone started to fall asleep. Hawk & Dove is typical Rob Liefeld, and although I like the relationship between Dove and Deadman....it's Rob Liefeld. Green Lantern tries too hard to turn Hal Jordan into a jerkier Peter Parker. I'd almost be interested in picking up issue two if not for the fact that Johns has burned me out on Sinestro. O.M.A.C. is DC's very own version of the Hulk, right down to the sci-fi milieu, but the "lead" plays just a bit part in the book so far, hardly a character at all. In DC Universe Presents Deadman, Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang don't give me anything better than Neal Adams & co. already offered in the seventies. Wonder Woman, I found guilty of trying way too hard.

In the "didn't make enough of an impression to care" department, I humbly submit Justice League International, Demon Knights and Stormwatch.

Aside from Red Hood, the biggest travesty I've discovered so far has been the book for which I held out the most hope. When DC promised a "reimagining" and a land of new and exciting concepts--when they said the character never existed before now in this post-"Flashpoint" universe--I should have known something would go horribly wrong. And, well, remembering the old jokes about a previous series being named after the fury instead of the character himself...just shoot me now.

The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men is the biggest dud of them all, if you don't consider the horrendous treatment of the women of the DC Universe to be worse offenses. (I kinda do.)

I've still got the next two issues of the series on order from the good folks at Discount Comic Book Service, but from reading the first issue, it was just too kooky, cliche, and derivative to stand a decent chance of working. Where would you like me to start? Cliff Carmichael is recast as a super-badass black ops guy who likes to kill people. Instead of being a potential mentor, Professor Stein is still dead. And Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are about the most generic study in contrasts I've ever seen, all their attributes recited by rote. The Large Hadron Supercollider in Europe replaces the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant for a topical touchstone of superscience. And I haven't even gotten to Firestorm him/themselves!

Long ago, when the series was first announced, I looked at Jason and Ronnie's costumes and thought they were ridiculous. I get the idea: one character is mainly in red, and one is in yellow, and when they merge, hooray! Something vaguely resembling the original Firestorm!

Bzzt. Wrong answer. The bad news is that the costumes don't look any less ridiculous in the issue itself, which actually has capable artwork by Yildiray Cinar. The worse news is that when our heroes merge, they turn into Fury, a Hulky, Anti-Monitor-esque character that oozes nuclear fire and speaks in sixties slang. You can even tell right now that Jason and Ronnie won't be the only two characters to "plug into" this new entity. There are six circles on Fury's chest, y'see, and only two of them are now occupied by emblems that match the ones on their costumes. So I'm guessing we'll get to see four more nuclear characters. Firehawk, Pozhar...Atomic Skull, Tokamak anybody? (And if there are six total slots, why do we have seven nuclear men/women? Check the middle of the book...)

And, pardon me for drawing attention to cliche, but...Jason turns into Firestorm by saying the magic word? What are we, twelve?

Incredibly, "God Particle," the first story in this new era of Firestorm, is co-written by Gail Simone, who wrote Batgirl, which is one of my very favorite books in the "New 52." It seems she does her best, but I've really got my doubts about this new direction. I've got the uncanny feeling I'm about to drop Firestorm for only the second time ever. It's really that different and that unrecognizable to me. We'll see if Simone, Van Sciver and Cinar are able to make me reverse course, but it's not looking good.

All of the above brings me to this week's news from Dan DiDio that none of the events labeled "Crisis" happened the way we remember. Is it really that much of a shock? It appears that, with rare exception centered around most but not all facets of Green Lantern and Batman, everything about DC continuity prior to last month is up for grabs. That means you're best off not even acknowledging any events that occurred before four weeks ago as part of DC continuity. Unless they happened to Batman or Green Lantern. And in those cases, only about seven out of ten of those things happened. Get out your graphing calculators, kids, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Look at what hints at the past we've got in the books, and we're only a month along. Already we know the original Dove (from Hawk & Dove) died during "the worst crisis the world's ever seen." In Red Hood and the Outlaws, Arsenal clearly quizzes Starfire about her previous team, the New Teen Titans, bringing up names including "Vic," which is likely a reference to Cyborg, a.k.a. Victor Stone. The only problem is Cyborg has been set up to be a founding member of the "New 52" version of the Justice League...so why would he have been batted down to the Titans? Similarly, if Final Crisis never happened, under what circumstances did Bruce Wayne "die" so that Dick Grayson became Batman for the better part of a year (referenced in Nightwing #1)?

DC is on a slippery slope with this new approach to continuity. If they really are serious about September being a new beginning, then they should keep the references to pre-"Flashpoint" events to a bare minimum. If they're trying to put the continuity genie back in the bottle--as I postulated in my previous post where I labeled the recently-finished event the "Anti-Crisis"--they should work hard to adhere to their own new set of rules. Without that commitment, the company fails in the same way as they did during the fallout to 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Already we're seeing all manner of new stories that dredge up new versions of the past. Superman showed up in Metropolis wearing a little red cape and blue jeans some five years ago. At the same time we've got him showing up in Justice League, also five years ago, wearing his armor.

I've heard that Batman has been around for ten years, but I don't know how much stock I put in that idea. He must have been around for some time, as he's on his fourth Robin right now...who just so happens to be his illegitimate son. I have to suppress a chuckle every time I see a reference to DC publicity painting Robins as Batman's revolving door internship program. Please.

My point is that if we're really not supposed to think about older continuity, then the whole line should have been rebooted like Man of Steel and Wonder Woman did in 1987, and like only a few books--Mister Terrific, The Fury of Firestorm, Supergirl and a few others--did last month. If we're not supposed to try and fill in the blanks what happened and what didn't, then there shouldn't be four Robins, multiple Batgirls, Batmen across the world, etc., etc.

And if they care about historical interpretations of classic characters, then they shouldn't take characters that are familiar to kids from animated series like Teen Titans and make them into thoughtless sex drones.

Lastly, let's please, please, please not clear the decks of "Crisis"-type events just for the sake of 2012's line-wide event, First Crisis, No, Really, We Swear, Why Are You Looking at Us Like That, Just Shut Up and Buy It Already, These Aren't the Droids You're After. You've already given us hints that everyone's going to start to crossover in the third and fourth issues of various series, but please, if I wanted to read interconnected chaos, I'd be a Marvel Zombie forever and ever, amen.

DC, really, with the relaunch, I'm pulling for you guys. If you're successful, then maybe Marvel will lay off the aforementioned chaos. Then maybe we'll start to heal the industry.

I'm getting the idea you're gonna blow it. Don't do that. Don't.

Or Hulk will smash.

~G.

DCnU: Obsessive Continuity Disorder (2)(How 'Crisis' Changed Everything)

(DCnU Continuity Series:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)

Continuing the fifth in a series of articles inspired by DC Comics' September relaunch, we return to a discussion of the perils of continuity on comics. Last time, I analyzed DC's accidental creation of their own multiverse, and Marvel's considered development of their own, as well as fans' creation of the umbrella term "omniverse." This time out, we emphasize one company's decision to scale back their own multiverse.

Before I go too deeply, I really have to say I owe both the extended break I've had since writing the first section of this series--and the additional insights I believe I've gleaned--to a few books any self-respecting comic book fan owes it to him or herself to pick up. Do yourself a favor and track down Grant Morrison's Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God From Krypton Can Teach Us About Being Human (Spiegel & Grau, $28USD) for an excellent overview of the history, in-world and out, of the comics medium courtesy of one of its very finest writers. The other books are out-of-print, and were never really all that well-circulated to begin with. Mark Gruenwald's Omniverse fanzine, in only two volumes released in 1977 and 1979, is known more by reputation than by anyone in current comics culture having actually read them. Read them I have, and impart to you their lessons I must, and good God, beginning to speak just like Yoda I am, rrrr! Somebody stop me!

While I'm at it, if anybody out there has the text of Gruenwald's 1976 opus A Treatise on Reality in Comic Literature, or the follow-up co-written by Myron Gruenwald A Primer on Reality in Comic Books, hit me up with a message to delusionalhonesty [at] gmail [dot] com, willya? The former--not Omniverse as alluded in my last post--was where the "omniverse" term was first coined. Muchas gracias!

Now then: Omniverse expanded on trends established by Marvel during the 1960s when they created their "shared universe" brought together by close continuity between their titles. Little things happened at first, like Spider-Man wanting to join the Fantastic Four, or the FF being recruited by General Ross to take down the Hulk. The introduction of Rama-Tut, followed by Kang, followed in turn by Immortus and even the Scarlet Centurion established a complex, unifying continuity whereby all ended up being variant versions of the same being! The folks at Marvel were experts at bringing disparate bits of continuity up as catalysts for interesting stories.

For the longest time, DC struggled to keep up with Marvel's "new" way of telling stories. In the sixties, not seeing Marvel as much of a threat, they stayed "continuity-light," with one story not mattering much in context of the next. The important things stayed the same: Superman was still from the planet Krypton (although not so much the "sole survivor"), and Batman's parents were murdered in Crime Alley, but it didn't matter that last month everyone in Metropolis was turned into Bizarros, or that Batman turned into a giant, King Kong-like creature and terrorized Gotham.

Eventually, DC seemed quaint in light of Marvel's bold approach to an ongoing continuity, and bit by bit they started coming around. Green Lantern & Green Arrow was a step in the right direction, and Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' renovated Batman was another. Those successes still couldn't stop Marvel from becoming #1 above DC in the early seventies. Still, instead of slavishly echoing the kind of continuity that made Marvel successful, DC seemed to emphasize their multiple continuities, with books like Batman Family focusing on Batmen and Robins and Catwomen from across the multiverse, and Superman Family shedding light on Kryptonians. They birthed the first Huntress, they birthed Duela Dent, they carried on adventures of the elder "Mr. and Mrs. Superman."

Then, somebody over at DC evidently noticed Gruenwald & co.'s repeated postulations regarding alternate realities in Omniverse. In the first issue alone, the fans treated DC's icons in their multiple continuities more seriously than the company itself had ever dared do, concluding the existence of a third generation of Superman and Batman in between the two extant versions--a "World's Finest" duo (the appellation coming from their sharing one of DC's longest-running series) who had "super-sons" who were teens in the seventies, who didn't fit with either generation already out there. Somewhere out there, somebody got worried that DC's multiple continuities were growing too complex.

Meanwhile, Gruenwald took up a staff position down the street at Marvel, where he edited some books and wrote others--some of which even starred those analogues of DC's own Justice League, the Squadron Supreme. One of his earliest successes at conveying his unique ideology in the Marvel system is Marvel Two-In-One #50, a tale written and drawn by John Byrne wherein the Thing cures his past self, and in so doing creates a divergent timeline instead of curing himself in the present. In general, Gruenwald posited that major events led to crossroads in reality, where new realities were created that explored each path of divergence. Time travel could cause divergence, such as in the MTIO example, but also there were divergences the like of which were seen in What If...? regularly.

While Marvel kept rolling forward with Gruenwald's revolutionary theories, down the street at DC writer Marv Wolfman was plotting to implode it all. And when Gruenwald's brainchild, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, debuted in 1982, DC followed in late 1984 with Who's Who in the DC Universe. Meanwhile, Wolfman and artist George Perez, who'd renovated DC's teen characters in The New Teen Titans in 1980, started work on a series that would, for better or worse, bring continuity to the forefront and pave the way for everything else that's been published since. In 1985, the year of DC's fiftieth anniversary, the twelve-issue Crisis on Infinite Earths was published. And nothing in comics would be the same again.

Wolfman's Crisis one-upped Marvel's newly-created "everybody versus the big bad" event series (1984's Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars) by applying several bits of DC continuity in the mix, including Krona's inadvertent creation of the DC Multiverse in Green Lantern #40 and all the various storylines with a "Crisis" moniker over the previous two decades, including "Crisis on Earth-Two," "Crisis on Earth-Three," et al. The company took the series as an initiative to renovate what management saw as a convoluted continuity, and set about showing what a convoluted continuity it was by giving art duties to the most detail-oriented artist in the business, who loved jamming in tens of characters in every panel, and concocting a storyline that featured--no kidding--virtually every major and minor character to ever have been featured in any DC Comic ever published. It was like Wolfman and Perez were screaming, "See? See how complicated it all is? See how many characters we're jamming into every issue? We have to clean all this shit up, right? See! Are we right or are we right?"

Of course, I don't really think DC proved anything of the sort regarding the Multiverse. Even Grant Morrison in Supergods stated Crisis "began...as an elegiac continuity audit made to purge all story meat that was seen as too strong for the tender palates of an imagined new generation who would need believable and grounded hero books. There were complaints that the parallel-worlds system was too unwieldy and hard to understand, when in fact it was systematic, logical, and incredibly easy to navigate, particularly for young minds that were made for this kind of careful categorization of facts and figures." DC refuted the very concept of the multiverse as Gruenwald had defined it, with the end result of Crisis that virtually all of the "infinite Earths" (someone do the math, quick!) were destroyed, and bits and pieces of the five Earths that remained congealed into one Earth and one Earth only. This one Earth represented the entire post-Crisis DC Universe continuity in all its plain, vanilla glory.

And then, with a few notable exceptions, DC's spate of regular series went on and on. Oh, sure, a few titles were canceled, but mostly it was business as usual. Originally I've heard the intent was to relaunch every DC title with a new #1, similar to what they're doing next month after the finale of Flashpoint, but they couldn't make it work logistically. Instead, Superman and Wonder Woman enjoyed relaunches under superstar talents John Byrne and George Perez, respectively. Wally West took on the role of the Flash in the wake of his predecessor Barry Allen's demise. Batman's origin was renovated by Frank Miller a bit later, and Justice League of America was relaunched with a new team (as if there'd never been a league in the first place).

Without a solid coordinated effort, several continuity gaffes arose in a short amount of time, particularly surrounding characters like Hawkman and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Superman made critical "post-Crisis" appearances before Byrne's Man of Steel relaunched the character--and the series was to have been the formal introduction of the character in the new continuity. In addition, the Legion of Super-Heroes created a big problem just by existing, as they'd palled with Superboy back in the day. Problem was, Clark Kent never became Superboy in post-Crisis history! Oops. (So then, DC created a "pocket universe" to solve the issue--tantamount to invalidating their own "one universe only" rule. Double oops.)

Even more interestingly, a company that was so adamant about telling stories only set in one universe soon published a few stories clearly set outside that universe--and all the better for it. Yes, friends, I'm talking about Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen.

Make of that what you will.

In spite of apparently doing away with the Multiverse, the plain fact behind Crisis on Infinite Earths was that Marvel's cultivated attitude toward continuity finally pervaded DC. Everything had to be connected, simplified and pre-categorized in guides like Who's Who to appease fans also immersed in role playing game lore (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons, hitting its stride in the early eighties). Such categorization only reinforced the skew of comics demographics toward older fans as result of the proliferation of comics specialty shops from the late seventies and throughout the eighties.

From here on, continuity was never not the focus. And, of course, anything DC did, Marvel had to do better.

Next: Continuity³ (All You Need Is Pr0n)

(DCnU Continuity Series:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5) 

~G.

DCnU-Inspired: Continuity - Please Use in Moderation (1)

(DCnU Continuity Series:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5) 

Wow! The DC Relaunch is the gift that just keeps on giving. This article is the fifth in a series centered on issues surrounding DC Comics' September relaunch of all their series. In previous articles, I've addressed a lot of retailer concerns, and even provided a historical perspective on distribution. Now I'm emphasizing fans instead of retailers, content instead of trappings. This article's been in mind for some time, but recent developments concerning DC's flagship character, Superman, have made it unavoidable. Don't know what's happened to Supes lately? Don't know that he's getting super-armor and will no longer be married to Lois Lane? It's just the next in a long line of changes, friends, and it all concerns the big "C"-word: continuity.

The New-New-New-New Superman. (We'll get to him later.) Art by George Perez.

Strictly defined, "continuity" is "the state or quality of being continuous"--straightforward enough. As applied to serial fiction (according to the always-right-yeah-right Wikipedia), it's defined as "consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time." It's a term used in movies and television, where they often have a script supervisor in charge of getting the details right because scenes are often shot out-of-order. A continuity expert makes sure a glass of water is at the same level throughout a scene. makes sure an actor wears the same clothes or is groomed a certain way in every take for a scene.

In comics, continuity takes on an arguably more twisted meaning. When telling stories about the same characters in one fictional universe, the details shouldn't change. Superman shouldn't have the hots for Lois one month and then do the same for Lori Lemaris the next month. He shouldn't have super-strength and speed one month and the next have electrical powers without explanation. It's all a matter of consistency, of keeping characters and their ongoing situations recognizable to the core model from month to month. Even if one waits a year or more between picking up an issue of any given series, the storylines shouldn't be all that different as to render the reader totally lost.

In the early days, consistency didn't even really matter.

In the early days of comics, the thirties and the forties, creators didn't have to worry about continuity except in a very basic sense. In his secret identity, Superman was really Clark Kent, reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, and he often competed with himself for the affections of fellow reporter Lois Lane in between saving the world and reporting about it. Simple, right? Even still, some of the details got mixed up. Clark worked for the Daily Star in one issue, the Cleveland Evening News in the next, and far later the Star became The Daily Planet. A new villain, named only Luthor, was a redheaded mad scientist when he first appeared in Action Comics #23 (1940), and yet he appeared soon after in a daily newspaper strip (and then Superman #10) as a bald man. The goof was attributed to Leo Novak, who either mistook Luthor for a bald henchman or the Ultra-Humanite, another early villain.

No one thought twice about these discrepancies at the time, which brings up another important point about early comics as they were never intended as serious literature. They were designed to be read by children and discarded after a few short years so those children would then form attachments to novels, magazines and the like. Certainly no one expected comic books to gain any manner of cultural relevance! Comic creators were also often those who couldn't get jobs creating newspaper cartoons or who were otherwise unable to write or draw what they wanted elsewhere. Nobody wanted to work in comics! (Stan Lee, hired at Marvel/Timely in 1941, actually changed his name because he wanted to write the Great American Novel, and thought he couldn't do it if everyone knew Stanley Martin Lieber wrote comics.)

The origin of Luthor in Adventure Comics #271 was one of comics' biggest retcons.

Eventually, writers would begin to tell stories that delved into the backgrounds of their characters, like Jerry Siegel, who in 1960 told Luthor's origin in Adventure Comics #271, incorporating his original red hair but stating the reason he lost it--and hence, hated Superman--was due to the Man of Steel's actions when they were both boys. Silly? Maybe. Still, it didn't solve anything since Superman and Lex were both adults in that first appearance when he had red hair. However, in reinventing the past, this story marks an important use of the retcon, or retroactive continuity--a fundamental conceit of comic books that writers have embraced with increasing frequency.

In the later era of the fifties and sixties, Superman editor Mort Weisinger engaged in spotting mistakes in his letter columns, a practice that gave rise to what some might deem the worst kind of fan behavior (actively looking for said errors). I'm told rewards were offered by many publishers--free comics, money, something else. Directly or indirectly, the practice led in 1964 to Stan Lee, Marvel's key writer/editor, instituting the No-Prize, an award given for not only spotting a continuity gaffe, but also explaining why it wasn't really an error at all, because, after all, Marvel didn't make mistakes. Lee forced fans to be creative to win the prize, which originally was mere recognition in a letter column, but soon became an empty Marvel stationery envelope.*

(* My favorite No-Prize idea concerned the Hulk. In the seventies, Banner wore another color of pants, but when he changed they turned purple, which prompted one astute reader to surmise that gamma rays sometimes cause fabric to turn purple! The explanation has remained in place ever since.)

Flash #123: in many ways, a landmark for the comics industry.

Another leap forward came in 1961, just before the dawn of the Marvel Age of Comics. As detailed previously, comics circulation plummeted in the years following World War II, leading to cancellation of many books. Only Superman, Batman and a handful of other characters were consistently published from the late thirties through the present. Hence, DC introduced a new Flash, Barry Allen, instead of returning their original "Golden Age" Flash character, Jay Garrick, and no one was really the wiser. They opened up a can of worms with September 1961's Flash #123, featuring the landmark "Flash of Two Worlds" story by Gardner F. Fox, inspired by DC's then-editor, Julius Schwartz. The tale firmly established the earlier Flash had existed as part of a separate reality that could "cross over" with the then-current DC. But again, the revelation that the other Flash existed in another universe led to questions about the characters who'd been continually published in the same era!

Over the next several years, DC would showcase meetings between its older and newer generations of characters, often framing them as "crises" when the Justice League of America (JLA) teamed up with its predecessor, the Justice Society of America (JSA). The first such meeting between the groups, in Justice League of America #21, established the names "Earth-1" for the modern DC heroes and "Earth-2" for their Golden Age counterparts. Dennis O'Neil and Dick Dillin addressed the "problem" of Superman having existed in both the JLA and JSA eras in Justice League of America #73 (August 1969) with the (re-)introduction of the Superman of Earth-2. That Superman was named Kal-L (not Kal-El), had parents named John and Mary Kent, worked at the Daily Star, and was middle-aged. Soon after the development of the Superman of Earth-2 came the Batman of Earth-2, following a similar premise, and years later DC introduced Power Girl, the Earth-2 counterpart to Supergirl. These characters could do things DC wouldn't allow their Earth-1 counterparts to even consider, like aging, marrying, having children (like Batman's daughter, the Huntress) and dying.

The first of many, many crises for DC's heroes.

Meanwhile, another trend swept comics, spurred on by Marvel Comics throughout the sixties and seventies, but which was also employed by DC: the proliferation of editor's notes. Such notes were used to interconnect various series by indicating in which series and issues certain other events occurred.The last time the Fantastic Four fought Doctor Doom, that time Bucky was killed, a subtle reminder that the fella snapping photos while Daredevil fights the Eel is really Spider-Man--all were in these notes. While many notes were relatively unobtrusive, some writers would get carried away and reference multiple stories or otherwise write a caption that stopped the narrative dead in its tracks. Only infrequently could fans just coming to the hobby readily pick up the books referred to in these notes. (Some notes even cited recent reprints of the stories back when there were such vehicles, in the age before graphic novel collections.) The notes reinforced the shared universe feel of the comics in their best moments, but at their worst could be totally off-putting.

While the Crisis sagas of the sixties and seventies relied on two generations of characters, it was at first a manageable system. The real trouble hastened with the acquisition of other companies' characters and making those characters part of separate universes instead of merely blending them into DC's own "Earth-1" tapestry. Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel (himself the target of a copyright infringement lawsuit by DC) and his ilk became denizens of Earth-S, and Blue Beetle and the other Charlton Comics heroes lived on Earth-4. DC added Earth-3, home to the Crime Syndicate, an evil variant of the Justice League. Every time you turned around, another DC character was doing something crazy in an "imaginary story" that couldn't happen in the mainstream DC universe, and another alternate Earth was created. For a while it appeared that every off-base continuity element from DC's middle decades was explained away by just being another alternate Earth, in a broader continuity of universes, or multiverse.

Steve Englehart retcons the Captain America of the 50s.

By comparison, Marvel took pains to acknowledge all its characters as part of the same cohesive universe. In the sixties Stan Lee established Captain America had been frozen in ice since the end of World War II, and was thawed by the Avengers. Similarly, the Sub-Mariner had been reduced to an amnesiac vagrant until the new Human Torch, the Fantastic Four's Johnny Storm, awakened his dormant memories. Later, writers Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart established the original Human Torch's body was rebuilt and became the Avengers' resident android, the Vision. During the "Kree-Skrull War," Thomas had Rick Jones harness some power that brought to life versions of earlier generations of Marvel heroes without bringing them in from alternate realities. And in the early seventies, Englehart established the Captain America of the fifties was not really Steve Rogers, and used that idea to springboard a new story of his return. In addition, most of the dimensions the heroes visited weren't shadows of the main Marvel universe, but far different dimensions with their own physical laws, like the Dark Dimension and the Negative Zone. Only a handful of alternate realities or alternate futures were ever glimpsed, and were different enough from the main reality to avoid confusion.

Only later would Marvel begin to play in the "alternate universe" sandbox with the advent of What If?, a series starring the Watcher, a tertiary character introduced in Fantastic Four. Fascinated by the heroes of Earth, the alien peered into alternate realities to see other versions of key Marvel events, such as what might have happened if Spider-Man had joined the Fantastic Four back in Amazing Spider-Man #1, or if Conan the Barbarian (then licensed by Marvel from the Robert E. Howard estate) had time-traveled to present-day New York City. The series afforded Marvel the opportunity to tell stories outside canon, while its episodic nature meant that a different hero or team could be spotlighted every issue (occasionally with more than one story per book). Although the book only ran 47 issues, it would return in 1989 for many years. Even today, the series returns annually with a number of one-shots. More than any series before or since, What If? serves as a foremost example of fanservice in comics due to its very nature, where anything can and often does happen to beloved characters--albeit often with a "monkey's paw"-style twist. (DC would exploit their own version of What If? much later in their "Elseworlds" imprint from 1989-2008. The stories were often anchored less to any individual divergence in the comics themselves and more the result of changing world history or the character's milieu, like involving a late 19th Century Batman against Jack the Ripper.)

Marvel's experimentation with the multiverse kicks in high gear.

While Marvel developed their own multiverse in 1977, a group of fans took it upon themselves to analyze the different continua of both DC and Marvel. Mark Gruenwald and Dean Mullaney developed the two-issue fanzine Omniverse and in so doing coined the very term, defined as a system of multiverses: Marvel's, DC's, all the independent publishers', every novel, every piece of literature, every story ever told, even our reality, all strung together in a string theory of deliciousness. The fanzine led to Marvel hiring Gruenwald as a writer and editor, where he put his ideas to further use in some early Marvel Two-In-One stories about time-travel and Serpent Crowns from across the multiverse. He also codified much of Marvel's universe in the first-ever official handbook, called (what else?) The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

Adding to Gruenwald's vision, whether he knew it or not, was British creator Alan Moore, who teamed with artist Alan Davis on a revival of the Captain Britain character for Marvel U.K. beginning in 1982. In that series he established the Captain as but one in a group of British warriors across a myriad of realities. Henceforth the mainstream Marvel universe was dubbed "Earth-616," after the alleged newsstand release date of Fantastic Four #1. (Although the book was cover-dated November, it may have hit newsstands as early as June. The British invert the month and year, hence 61-6.)

And somewhere in there, DC decided that enough was enough. With the newfound attention to multiverses and continuity came the idea to tear it all down and simplify...

Next: "O Crisis! Where Aren't Thou?" (Or, Continuity Gets Kinky)

(DCnU Continuity Series:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5)  

~G.

Meow Mix (Awaiting the Emerald Hairball)

So, on the eve of another potential turkey in the making, it occurred to me, you guys don't know the secret story of how I first (and, for that matter, only) saw that hairball of a movie...

Yeah. That one.

I don't remember what movie I bought to get that Movie Cash to see Catwoman, but get it I did. It had to have been something good, because I can't see buying a DVD just to get one ticket to see one lousy movie I likely wouldn't have seen otherwise. There was a theatre, not too far away from where I lived at the time, probably newly opened not long before, come to think of it. I do believe I went on opening night. And I almost didn't see it at all. Would you believe that?

It's true! The fates tried to steer me away and I stubbornly forged onward. Y'see, when I went to purchase a ticket for the movie, the girl selling the tickets gave me one for the wrong film. Maybe it was the latest Harry Potter. Like an idiot, I actually fussed and said I really wanted to see Catwoman. (Stop smirking!) If you came to the theatre and had a pass to see one crappy movie, but the theatre gods took pity on your poor soul and gave you a ticket for a completely different, highly-reviewed movie, you'd probably not have hesitated, not have refused. But yeah, I did. I'm a sucker.

When I got to the actual auditorium in the theatre, it was one of the smallest screens in the place, with probably only 60 or so seats in it. I sat a few rows up. It was one of those stadium-seating theatres. Soon, a duo of older women joined me in the theatre, sitting in the row behind me. The real terror then began when the lights dimmed and the projector ran. However bad I could have conceived it, the end result was worse. It started out as just boring but veered off into "unintentionally hilarious" territory.

And I laughed.

Yeah, pretty hard.

Patience Philips gets murdered? Tee-hee. A cat breathes green fumes on her and gives her super-kitty powers? Bwa-ha-ha. Her boss gets skin like "living marble" because she's been using some funky skin cream for too long? Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho! I admit, I laughed hard enough that the women behind me had to shush me. Still, I kept up with the giggle-fits. And don't get me started on poor pretty boy Benjamin Bratt, unable to act his way out of a paper bag. Or maybe it was all just the limiting script. Y'know, that award-winning script. The Golden Raspberry winner for Worst Screenplay, just like the movie won other similar awards, for Worst Picture, Worst Actress, and Worst Director.

Worst DC film ever? I don't know. Unlike Marvel, who in my opinion has a few turkeys here and there, Catwoman has a lot of company. Superman III and IV. Batman & Robin. Jonah Hex. The Return of Swamp Thing. And, oh yes, we daren't forget Steel.

Are we ready for Green Lantern to join such illustrious company? Worse yet, are we ready to see the $200-million project deliver a black eye to DC's line of feature films, which have been, let's face it, pretty unspectacular aside from the majority of their Superman and Batman franchises? Comparatively, Marvel has had great success in bringing their characters to life on the silver screen. Can DC catch a break? I'm beginning (heh) to doubt it.

~G.