From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Is there a cure for the retcon blues?
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:45:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.170428.12252@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> dvandom@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (David VanDomelen) writes:

>Last night I was reading printoffs of Omnicom #33, and remembered something 
>very important from Animal Man's "Crisis II" storyline, about destruction of 
>favorite stories.  The quote went something like "As long as people still have
>the old comics, and still read them, you [talking to Earth-various characters 
>like Power Ring and Sunshine Superman] still exist."  Sure, maybe our favorite
>story in LSH has been retconned away by the Bierbaums...but you can still read
>it.  They didn't come to your house and say, "Sorry, that comic is no longer 
>official...you'll have to hand it over so we can dispose of it."  And with the
>oft-remarked-on-racm trend of Silver Age comics flooding the quarterboxes, a 
>whole new audience can be introduced to these grand old tales.

This is true enough, and is in fact what I've been doing with the
notional part of my budget which was going to LSH ("notional" because
I'm not nearly organized enough to actually _have_ a budget, of
course).  At the last Chicago Comicon, I spent about $30 or $40,
buying nothing over fifty cents, of which two thirds of my purchases
were Legion-related titles-- mostly old SLSH and LSH v.2, but a few
Adventure's as well.  Got the issue with the first appearance of the
Dominators, for example.  (those folks who think that the 30th century
was a perfect utopia might wish to consider the fact that the UP was
at constant war with the Dominators for twenty _years_ prior to this
story...)  Lots of fun nostalgia.

But I could have done that _anyway_-- I'm still going to be annoyed
that the story had to end, and end abruptly-- I mind somewhat less the
fact that Superman was cancelled back in '86, since he at least got a
Last Story which provided some resolution.  If they'd done the same
for the LSH, doing a real, good Last Legion Story before giving the
Bierbaums the right to use the names and fragments of the history, it
would have been slightly better, I suppose-- though I'll grant that
the fact that there won't be any more Superman or Legion stories
somewhat annoys me regardless, particularly since DC insists on
rubbing salt in the wound by doing poor variants on the characters.
(I'd say that they pretty much hit their height on that when the
letters column of the last LSH issue-- I flipped through it in the
store, okay?-- taunted readers by referring to the _Valor_ series as
(paraphrased) "the closest thing fans will ever see to a Superboy
series in the current DC universe".  Oh, gee, thanks.  You know, it's one
thing to tell me that your company will no longer produce chocolate
bars.  It's another to produce soap shaped like chocolate bars and
suggest that as a substitute.)

Ah, well, at least the writers of Flash and Green Lantern still have
some love of tradition-- Gorilla War is easily the most fun tribute to
the Silver Age I've seen.  (The arc in Morrisson's Animal Man, while a
better and deeper story, was not precisely a tribute, IMHO.)  Not that
I want comics to return to the Silver Age-- I prefer characters with a
bit more depth of character and potential for change in these latter
days.  But I'll take Paul Levitz and Bill Messner-Loebs and Mark Waid
and Gerard Jones (at least in GL-- apparently someone's using a
brain-beam on him in the Justice League book) over the Bierbaums or Al
Gordon when it comes to doing modern superhero books (and given that
Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman have other fish to fry).

Mike
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Workers of the world, forgive me.
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 You had more to lose than I thought."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Karl Marx (1990) as imagined by
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Jim Koncz (konc@midway.uchicago.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc