From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Crisis on Infinite Earths, 6 years later
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 04:41:28 GMT

In article <l71cm6INNhod@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> khale@camilla.Eng.Sun.COM (Abhijit Khale) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.182721.1853@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>
>>
>>	Basically, the Crisis was a creative way for DC to allow
>>itself to reconcile various contradictions which had grown up around
>>its multiverse.  But by refusing to discipline itself (setting a time
>>limit for arbitrary changes, working out a consistent timeline and
>>revised origins for "disconnected" characters before starting the
>>whole shebang, and possibly leaving some reasonable outs for alternate
>>histories given that they need them for things like time travel
>>stories and Superboy's pocket universe) DC basically put itself in a
>>difficult situation.
>
>The problem here is the definition of "arbitrary". If Neil Gaiman
>were to say tomorrow " I want to redo the Demon. I dont think the
>humorous style of Alan Grant is good. I want to retcon the whole
>series away", and DC agreed,  would you say it was an arbitrary change ?
>Or would you call it "creative freedom" ? Would you say the same if
>the person who wanted to make the change was Grant Morrison ? Or 
>Peter Milligan ? Would your opinion change if the person involved
>was Keith Giffen ? or John Byrne ? or George Perez ? or Matt Wagner ?

	There are a couple of answers.  First of all, those creators
which are (IMHO) better are precisely those who _don't_ take the easy
way out and say "This never happened".  Neil Gaiman got a brand new
Sandman, yet he was careful to quickly establish links to _both_ the
previous characters of that name.  Alan Moore began with a Swamp Thing
with a moderately long history, and accepted all of it and made it
something more.

	And second, I admit that excellence in storytelling can cover
a multitude of sins.  But even then, there has to be a reason for
making the old story "never happened".  Why does Neil Gaiman want
Etrigan, if he doesn't want the baggage which goes with the history?
If he wants creative freedom, wouldn't it be easier to create his own
charcter (a la Sandman) which can then be indexed in _Who's Who_ as
"The Demon II" or some such?  For some retcons, it's not at all clear
why the creators wanted the original characters, save for the sales
boost at the beginning from the name.  And I really wonder if that
works, in the long run.  Plenty of people may have bought Hawkworld #1
for Hawkman, but in the end this new Katar Hol has to stand or fall on
its current stories, since it _isn't_ building on what Hawkman was.
So is there any long run benefit to make him Hawkman rather than "The
Talon" or whatever, while still doing the story just as it is?  The
new readers don't care, as you note, and some of the old readers will
be annoyed.

>Thats a good point, and its a bit of a sore note with me that good
>buddies Supes and bats arent pally any more. On the other hand, 
>the new relationship makes much more sense, and for most new comic
>readers ( not oldtimers like us), the new DC Universe is not too
>hard to grasp. Its only people who remember how things were in
>old times that have a hard time adjusting, and quite frankly, we're
>in the minority.

	My point is less that the current universe is that hard to
grasp than that it is really no easier to grasp than the
multiverse was.  None of this is rocket science, after all-- whether
it's Earth 1 and Earth 2 or Crisis change waves, it's still just
background pseudoscience in what are primarily adventure stories.

>>How long before they have to
>>give Nightwing a new origin because he's older than Batman?  (Even
>>now, one gets the impression that Dick Grayson must have started as
>>Robin when he was ten and Bruce Wayne was fifteen for their relative
>>ages to work out]).  The original JLA is getting very close to
>>becoming yet another "previous generation" to Superman and Batman
>>(like the JSA), but DC still insists that Superman was the first hero
>>of the modern age.

>That's true, but I think its symptomatiac of a more general
>problem. i.e. allowing heroes to age. As a recent Inside DC pointed out,
>DC has allowed some heroes to age : Oliver Queen, the Legion etc.
>But DC is reluctant to allow Superman or Batman, their two prime
>legends to age and one cant blame them, given the non-comic 
>reading public's familiarity with these.  I agree that its a problem if
>Green Arrow ages or Nightwing ages and Batman doesnt. 
>
>This was a problem prior to the Crisis as well : even worse, since we
>seemingly had an eternally youthful Superboy in Legion. 

	True, but it could be ameliorated by switching earths every
generation or so, while the Legion could have solved its problems at
any time by having Superboy leave for good (as they tried once, then
undid).

>>  (Yet another ill-effect of the Crisis: on Earth-1
>>and Earth-2 both, Superman was the _first_-- here, he's very much a
>>successor to the WWII generation at least.)

>Debatable about Earth-1. Could be Flash or Jonn actually. 

	Theoretically, but I think DC tended to treat Superman as the
first.  J'onn came to Earth ealier, but worked in secret for a while.

>>	In the old system, they could have just shifted Earths,
>>written a new Superman, Batman, Hawkman, LSH, etc. to suit themselves,
>>and still done revivals when they felt like it a la _All Star
>>Squadron_.  

>I'm sure DC must have considered that : it would be akin to the start of
>the Silver Age. It would have been easier than Crisis. But IMHO,
>Crisis was a more innovative idea. 

>But what to do about DCs then best selling comics, Teen Titans ? Would
>there be a new bunch with the same powers in the New Universe ? 

	Why not?  Is it any more unwieldy than the implicit "all of the stories
happened except for the one's which couldn't have-- until we start
deciding that others didn't happen either"?  They _did_ create teams
which were similar-but-not-the-same in membership and history-- they
just revealed the differences gradually.

>What about LSH ? What about Swamp Thing ? There are other problems
>as well, which other people have pointed out. 

>>Now, every time they want to do that sort of thing they
>>have to rewrite history (as done with Young All-Stars, the JLA origin,
>>LSH flashbacks, etc.-- I _liked_ several of these, but I am having to
>>get adept at doublethink) and they _can't_ do some of the neat things
>>they could do with parallel Earths (What about an occasional
>>appearance by a Superman who married Lois Lane?  What if Batman died?
>>What if Supergirl were a bit more assertive and a bit less in her
>>cousin's shadow?)  They could _do_ that sort of thing, and see the
>>reactions of the "mainline" characters to the fates of their
>>counterparts.  

>But quite frankly, this kind of story was the exception. Most stories
>would neglect possibilities like this. Even in the JLA/JSA teamups,
>you'd think that Helena Wayne would show more reaction to an alive
>Bruce Wayne from Earth-1. Yes, she referred to him as "Uncle", but
>that was about it. In most cases, writers prefered to avoid these
>type of stories, with a few exceptions .. 

	And those people would have been just as well served by
Earth-1 or another Earth in the multiverse.  Kid Eternity, for
example, could easily have taken place on Earth-1 (since the Fawcett
KE was on Earth-S).

>Hmm. I know this is debatable, but I think Superman and Hawkman are
>better now. The early 80s Superman was boring. There were a few good
>stories by Cary Bates, but the whole general trend was lack of direction,
>no continuity. Superman was too powerful to have good action oriented
>storylines written about him too. I think the new Superman is much
>better, but I wouldnt argue this, since this is an entire new posting
>in itself. Ditto for Hawkman. 

	Herein lies the problem.  Obviously, if you think that there
are more good tales coming out of DC now than before the Crisis,
especially if many of these depended on the Crisis (like Superman and
Hawkworld) then the Crisis appears to have been a good thing.
Conversely, I _don't_ like Byrne's Superman or the new LSH, and I
think Hawkworld could have been done without using the names and
planet of the Silver Age Hawks.  And I think that the ability to
retcon at will makes writers lazy.  If Byrne had been given Superman
as he was right after the Crisis, he could have depowered him at that
point, faced him off against an evil Kingpin-like businessman (call
him Morgan Edge or Maxwell Lord or John Doe), had Lois grow cold
towards Clark for various reasons, and destroyed Rokyn and the Phantom
Zone or made them inaccessible.  In other words, he could have
done virtually everything he did, without major retcons-- but that
would have required _addressing_ what had happened, instead of doing
it by fiat.  Similarly, I think that the Bierbaums might be much
better if they didn't have the power to insert major matters into the
past (Kid Quantum, anyone?), and simply had to develop things from the
last Levitz issue.  Creative freedom, again, is fine-- but no one's
_forcing_ these creators to use the characters they do.  If they want
total freedom, let them create new characters.  It's not as if that's
unheard of, after all.

>Legion was hurt by the Crisis, I agree, but quite frankly, it was
>a choice between DCs most legendary character and a super team known
>only to a few fans. Which would you pick ? 

	Again, I think that the choice hurt _both_, but that's a
matter of taste and what one considers essential to the Superman
legend.  I think that things like the deaths of his parents teaching
him his limits ("With all my powers, I couldn't save them") and a
confident Superman hiding within a weakling Clark ("and who, disguised
as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter of a major metropolitan
newspaper") are basic to the concept "Superman", and that the
character who replaced him is just that-- a different character.  A
sometimes interesting one, yes, but not one who needed to appropriate
that symbol and that history.  But, as you say, that's a different
(though related) question.

>>	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.

>I think of it as DC allowing its writers and artists creative
>freedom, rather than gratuitious retconning. Things like Ragman
>and Kid Eternity represent heavy retconning, but they also try to
>present a more dynamic and contemporary character to arise. DC didnt
>retcon things that were doing well, viz. Teen Titans (modulo the
>changes required by other books like Wonder Woman). 

>Allowing writers and artists creative freedom inevitably leads to
>some retconning. Why wasnt hawkworld redesignated as "Hawkman,
>Year One", as could have been done ? Because Ostrander wanted
>to cover the new Katar/Shayera relation and because he wanted a
>new Katar, who had just come to Earth. Why was Grant Morrison
>allowed to bring some Doom Patrol members back from the dead ? 
>Because he had ideas of some interesting stuff he could do with them.
>Should the editor of HellBlazer have said that the excellent "Dangerous
>Habits" storyline shouldnt have taken place, since Hell was ruled
>by Remiel and Duma and not the Trinity any more ? Should the Shade
>series have been stopped because of the appearance of Shade in
>Suicide Squad earlier ? 

	Why did Ostrander want Katar and Shayera?  What's wrong with
having an Earth-1 Shade and an Earth-whatever Shade, the latter of
whom can be involved in the Shade series?  Or of creating a new,
similar character?  In many cases, the writer _can_ make things fit if
he bothers to try-- it's not difficult to reconcile Dangerous Habits
and Sandman if one wishes to try, and again, a good enough story will
be its own forgiveness.  But most stories aren't good enough, nor do
most stories _need_ that level of freedom; a good writer can tell the
story he wants while accepting what went before.  And the users of
retcons are trading on the previous continuity even as they ignore
it-- what gave Hawkworld or Superman their audiences except the
previous incarnations of that character?  (Excluding the known skills
of the writers and artists, which don't necessitate using the old
names and costumes.)

>I agree that conitnuity should be preserved if possible :"Sandman" 
>didnt do much retconning per se. However, thats not always possible.
>
>>	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?

>DC did try and redo its major properties like Superman and Wonder
>Woman concurrently with the crisis. Why didnt they have everything
>cut and dried then ? Because they're human and there's only so much
>work that can be done at a time, so they choose to focus on the most
>critical.

	So what disaster would have been precipitated if they'd waited
a few more months to know _what_ they were doing with Superman and
integrating it with the _Crisis_ miniseries.  And maybe also having
Byrne have some conferences with the other series he was affecting,
from JLA to LSH?  Even as it was, they were in a post-Crisis limbo for
months after the last issue of _Crisis_ itself.  So why not delay
things further?  What critical changes _did_ they have ready in time
for _Crisis_ #12?

	Similarly, if the Crisis isn't necessary for these sorts of
changes (as the Hawkman and LSH retcons imply), then why have it at
all?  Why bother killing people and then say they never existed-- or
that they didn't die?  They can't have things both ways-- try to have
an integrated universe, where divergent characters can affect one
another, _and_ allow the creative freedom to "make people didn't
happen" at will.  At some point, it stops being an integrated
universe, and different writers are working with different (though
related) versions of the same characters.

 Hawkman is a relatively minor DC property, so they didnt
>get to it till later. Because they couldnt have predicted that Keith
>Giffen would come by and say " I want to redo the Ragman", so they
>left a number of characters unused or used them very mildly till their
>revitalization. 
>
>The Legion case is interesting. In many ways getting rid of Superboy
>was a good move for the legion, since it allowed them to grow out
>of his shadow. Even before his death, Superboy was used less and
>less. I  would guess that Byrne wanted to get rid of Superboy
>and he had been given creative freedom over Superman, so DC let
>him do it. At that stage, Levitz could have done what T & M did
>in issue 5 (and later retconned !!!), and got rid of Superboy from
>Legion history, but he chose to try to patch it with the Pocket
>Universe and preserve Legion history, which was an important
>point for oldtime legion fans. 

	I was satisfied with the pocket universe revision, as I
generally thought it was an elegant way of saying, "It happened,
perhaps in a modified way, unless we say it didn't."  I don't think
that's true after the latest change.

>True. No one would compare Crisis to Watchmen. On the other hand,
>DCs bread and butter has always been the superhero books, and they
>were indeed revitalized by the crisis in many cases. I agree that
>the best quality work has come about because of the likes of
>Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman and the rest of the Brit Pack, and
>of course Frank Miller.

	Obviously, one's opinion on that depends on whether one agrees
that the books were revitalized.  I think it's clear that we disagree
on that question.  Currently, the only superhero books I'm buying are
Flash and Green Lantern, neither of which was particularly revitalized
by the world-changing aspect of the Crisis.  (The replacement of Barry
Allen by Wally West was the sort of thing which _depended_ on former
continuity, even though it was directly caused by the Crisis, and is
thus the opposite of the sort of revitalization done on Superman or
Hawkman.) 

>"Crisis" has certainly given writers and artists who work for DC more
>creative freedom, and thats almost certainly a plus. Financially,
>DC was doing pretty badly then, and they've been OK since then.
>Admittedly, the mutant steamroller has made the last year or so
>bad for them, but in general, the Crisis has been positive for them.

	Well, if it's made them money, then any criticisms of mine are
pretty much irrelevant.  That's what they're there for, and they'd be
foolish to try to satisfy my aesthetics if it would cost them sales.
(Hence, I can hardly blame them for the Lobo phenomenon, much though I
might wish it to bury itself in soft mud for a millennium.)  If their
1992 sales are better than their 1984 sales, then that's all the
justification they need.  Worst case scenario: I give up DC comics
entirely, and I'm only one buyer.  Admittedly, a formerly pretty loyal
buyer of characters which I no longer care about... but so it goes.

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)