March 18, 1998
98077
An Amused in Review reader writes in:
Loud cheers on today's article ("What's wrong with Current DC continuity"). I guess it's a sign of our rapidly-accelerating times that we can't have decent, solid stories and characters anymore, but instead have everything revolve around the latest-in-the-last-six-months "event". Even going so far as "sacrificing" much of the "backbone" of DC (for the older readers, anyway) as firewood for these brief shows.
For me, my interest in DC has declined over the past few years as more and more of a solid 30-50 year history has been eroded, destroyed or mocked by these ephemeral displays.
Brad
Actually, I think it's a sign of the creative bankruptcy of the current DC editorial and writing staff, not a sign of the times. Surely writers like Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid are as much products of our times as the writers who produced the stories that led to my lament yesterday, but their work is as different from those stories as day is from night. I honestly don't think that there's anything wrong with DC that making Tony Isabella Editor-in-Chief, and giving Mark Waid free rein to devise a reboot wouldn't cure. (If you haven't read Tony's How I Would Save the DC Universe, you really should surf there now. I'll wait until you're back.)
In the mean-time, here are another seven things wrong with current DC continuity.
- Clark Kent wasn't a nerd and a wimp, he was BMOC and a football star.
- Krypton was an ice-planet populated by Yul Brynner lookalikes.
- Superman wasn't the first super-hero. Heck, I think that according to the Zero-Hour timeline, Nightwing has been in the business longer than he has.
- The Unknown Soldier was a psychotic CIA agent.
- The Greek Gods are an epiphenomenon of the power that created Jack Kirby's New Gods. Or something.
- Thaddeus Bodog Sivana is an industrialist, not a mad scientist. For that matter, so is Lex Luthor. Mr. Mind is a race of intelligent telepathic worms. Or something.
- Doctor Fate's helmet was melted down to make a knife for a soldier of fortune. In the Silver Age you could have heroes who were museum curators, test pilots, police scientists, librarians, reporters, scientists, engineers; in the 90's protagonists (I hesitate to call them heroes) have to be mercenaries, assassins, or rogue CIA operatives.
Need I go on?
Posted by joshua at March 18, 1998 12:00 AM