From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Crisis on Infinite Earths, 6 years later (was Re: JSA#1:BUY IT...)
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 08:06:34 GMT

In article <ISBELL.92Jul24003248@pop-tarts.ai.mit.edu> isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
>Well, I wouldn't call it a failure, really but it could be confused.
>It seems to me that there are two kinds of fans we need concern
>ourselves with:  those that knew and understood the DC multiverse &
>Crisis and those that didn't.

>For the first group, well, they can figure out the doublethink
>necessary to foloow the current continuity.  And for the last group,
>well it's all new to them and so it doesn't really matter.

	I'm not sure that that's true.  After all, the Hawkman patch
happened well after the Crisis.  Someone who began reading DC comics
in the late eighties has to practice the same doublethink with respect
to Hawkman, the LSH, and others.  And there's no reason to think
they're done-- if they've done it in the early 90's, why should they
stop now?  The constant revision of the universe requires mental
skills that the multiverse system never asked of anyone (except,
perhaps, the real old-timers who had to sort out what they knew about,
say, Superman, to the Earth-1 and Earth-2 versions).

	And, again, I don't think that the multiverse required that
much understanding-- after all, it was specifically designed so that
it could be explained in a panel of exposition in the JLA-JSA
crossovers.  A reader of, say, Teen Titans might never need know of
the multiverse unless they crossed over, and the necessary explanation
is really no more onerous than explaining that Starfire is from the
Vega system which has such and such a situation as they begin an
adventure which will take them to Vega.  Conversely, with the
multiverse, it was _not_ necessary to understand that "Donna Troy
_used_ to be Wonder Woman's adopted sister, but that never happened
any more"-- talk about confusion, I have to wonder about how easy it
for a new reader to follow books in which a character can be an old
friend in one issue, and a total stranger a year later, with no
explanation in the book.  (Something which could easily happen if
someone was reading only the Justice League books, say, from 1988 on,
assuming that the League meets up with the new Hawkman.)  I would find
it hard to imagine someone starting LSH around 35 of the last series
and being convinced to follow it through pocket universes and Changes
and such.  It _may_ be possible to start from the beginning of the
current series and keep track, but only if one _doesn't_ buy any
confusing back issues.

	If DC actually were moving towards stability, they might claim
that they had made things simpler, but as long as they're willing to
allow gratuitous retconning, they've made the universe harder, not
easier, to understand.

>Someone emailed an interesting note to my waves-resulting-from-paradox-
>"pressure" theory:  the universe is getting less stable, not more and
>eventually the pressures will force the recreation of a multiverse.
>Which, basically, is a pseudo-scientific analog for the real-world
>"pressures" of the new continutity for DC.  Eventually, they will be
>"pressured" to recreate the multiverse to maintain continuity.

	Again, if they'd worked out the implications ahead of time,
the Crisis could have worked.  Sure, maybe they didn't know everything
that was going to happen, but they _knew_ they were depriving Power
Girl of her origin, and they had a pretty good idea what they were
doing to Wonder Girl and to all the Superman-related series.  They had
this thing on the drawing board for literal years, but nonetheless
they acted prematurely.  They should have had their major retcons
ready and integrated, so that LSH wouldn't have had to flounder for
years before the Pocket Universe patch (which, by its nature, belied
the whole point of the Crisis-- if having one universe is the goal,
what does it say when you're forced into creating another to prevent
one of your perennially popular books from being undercut?  And then
have to have a mini-Crisis [the Change] to rid you of its importance?)
As it is, I wonder how long it takes for new readers to develop
appropriate DC doublethink?  Is it really less onerous than learning
that there's an Earth-2 which is of minor importance (unless you're a
fan of one of the books set there) and a few other Earths of even less
importance?  Is it really easier to understand Superman's importance
in a world which had had its share of heroes when he made the scene,
than to understand the his importance as the first and most important
inspiration for all the others?  Seems to me that the Crisis was a
solution looking for a problem to solve, and the "solution" introduced
its own problems to boot, which DC will be a long time solving even if
motivated to do so.

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)