DCU : The Original Universe

[anarky]

It reminds you of the completely nonsensical nature of time travel in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, doesn't it? "That's because it is tomorrow in San Dimas. You have to dial one number higher."

[anarky]

That reminds me: I've always thought messing with non-linear time travel stories would be fun. Like the thing I proposed about Stryfe and Cable, where Stryfe reforms and becomes Cable--and Cable tries to stop Stryfe, but, even though everything he's doing is creating divergent timelines, he cannot kill Stryfe (who, of course, does not have the same restrictions).

The closest I've seen is when alternate future Galvatron came from 2009 to 1990 (or thereabouts) and first tried to kill Megatron, then suddenly realized there was a chance that, even though it's a different Megatron from the one who would become him, killing Megatron could potentially erase himself from existence.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series had the bit where Arthur Dent's immortal foe (don't remember his name) introduces himself and mentions a run-in at Stavromula Beta. Arthur's never heard of the place, so the bad guy realizes he's reached Dent too far in his past and he can't kill him. (And Arthur realizes that, until he winds up there somehow, nothing can kill him.)

I think the most logical extreme would be two characters, at least one of whom is a time traveler, getting in a fight. They know each other well, and don't throw out barbs about past encounters. Character A finally kills Character B. Only, oops, for Character B, this is a relatively early encounter, so Character A has opened a whole can of worms with the ensuing paradox.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

It was one of the things I tried to pay attention to when I was doing my amateur comics stories back in high school. I created a villain from the future, and deliberately mapped out his story trajectory from his point of view. After each defeat, he just jumped back earlier in time trying to defeat my protagonist and ended up dying in his final attempt. Which of course, from the protagonists (and readers) POV was his first appearance. But I knew he'd be back, and I'd write the dialogue as if he'd already fought the main guy several times before. It might not make sense to the reader immediately, but the bad guy isn't going to monologue his origins to the good guy because A. It's not his first meeting with the guy, and B. he's trying to fucking kill him, so fuck him if he doesn't know who he is.

[Newsbot]

"Open Letter to Geoff Johns about new Iranian hero's death in Aquaman Comic"

DC Comics’ Aquaman #7 marked the New 52 debut of archenemy Black Manta and the introduction of “the Others,” a super-powered team from the king of Atlantis’ past whose ranks included Kahina the Seer, a native of Tehran gifted with prophetic powers. Unfortunately for Kahina, however, her first appearance was also (presumably) her last, as she’s hunted down and killed by the helmeted villain in the issue’s opening sequence.

It’s a turn of events that didn’t sit well with comics writer, and fan, Dara Naraghi (Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland, Ghostbusters: Tainted Love), who’s posted an open letter to Aquaman writer Geoff Johns, reworked from a similar one he sent to Editor Pat McCallum, detailing his “extreme disappointment” as an Iranian-American reader in seeing an Iranian character killed off only eight pages after her introduction.


“Please understand, this is not one of those ‘DC Comics is racist/xenophobic’ essays that you’ve undoubtedly encountered countless times in the recent past,” Naraghi writes. “I’ve been happy with, and supportive of, DC’s attempt at diversifying their universe with a sizable number of comics starring minority and female characters in the ‘New 52′ relaunch of books. But I just don’t understand the logic behind creating a new minority hero – one from a country and culture that’s often misrepresented in today’s media as ‘evil’ – only to have her killed upon her first appearance. What purpose did her death serve, other than being a mere plot point?”

“I’m not asking that DC Comics create a plethora of Iranian characters,” he continues, “or that they should only be portrayed as heroes, or even that once created, they should never be killed. I understand narrative needs, primary characters and supporting ones, emotional beats and motivation. But when there are absolutely NO characters of a certain ethnic or cultural background in your stories, to casually kill off the ONLY example of one, after a mere 8 pages, seems very counterproductive to me. It’s a disservice to your audience, a step back in your strides towards diversity, and just reinforces the negative stereotypes about the stunted development of superhero comics.”


Asked to respond, Geoff Johns said "Pfffft. Minorities aren't real people."

[RoIIo Tomassi]

More from the back issue boxes.

I read a dozen or so issues from Booster Gold's original 1986 series. I didn't realize those were his 1st appearances. It's rare(and rarer now) a completely new character would get an ongoing right out of the gate.

Also read the entire 18 issue Eclipso series from 1992. Eclipso takes over a Central American country of Parador. The first assault led to a semi famous issue at the time where seven C-List villains were all killed. It was interesting to note, that aside from the Joker in the 70s, and perhaps Marvel Villain Team Up, this was the first ongoing title to focus on a straight up villain. Sadly, the art for the last half of the series was gadawful. Audwynn Newman is one of my new all time worst artists. EDIT. Yup. I just cbdb'd him and after Eclipso, he did some back up stories in Marvel's 1995 Conan relaunch and then never worked again.

[anarky]

Problem is, they needed a disposable hero, and they needed a diverse bunch. I doubt there was any thought really given to the matter, to be honest.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I'm so glad I didn't pay more than $1 total for all three issues of
Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search For Swamp Thing.
Only because this book was irrelevant before it even rolled off the
printers. DC knew they were torpedoing this continuity before
they even greenlit the damn book, so it's basically a big $9 Fuck You
to anybody who bought it full price.

[anarky]

I had not considered this.

They should've let the old DCU do out in a huge fucking blaze of glory. Maybe have some huge-ass storyline of real consequence in each book, wrapped up neatly before Flash fucked the old universe and the Wildstorm Cunt Squad showed up.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Except they couldn't do that because Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison would've been whiny cunts about how awesome their GL and Batman continuities were and thrown big granny panty tantrums at throwing it all out the window.

Oh wait. They DID do that, and got their way.

You know what's awesome? Buying DCnU books at 12 cents a piece instead of $3.99. Eat a big bag of dick, DC.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Day of Judgment 1-5. DC's 1999 Event/Miniseries. Short version:The end result is Hal Jordan became The Spectre. This is literally one of Geoff Johns' first works. He had done some back up stories in some Secret Files & Origins books, and had a couple issues of Stars&STRIPE under his belt, but that's it.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

DC Comics Presents. This was a series of oneshots from 2004 dedicated to Julie Schwartz after he passed away. They took a classic cover from his era and then had today's writers and artists make up a story based only on the cover. Then they had tributes and eulogies from guys like Alan Moore, Harlan Ellison, etc. I only have the Flash, GL, Hawkman, and Superman issues (missing Atom, JLA, and Mystery in Space). The GL issue had Breyfogle art. And one of the Superman stories was by Stan Lee and Darwym Cooke! Look forward to finding the remaining issues eventually.


Also DC1ST. or DC First. A set of oneshots from 2002 that retroactively showcased the "First" meetings between two DC characters. Specifically, GA and SA Green Lantern, Superman and GA Flash, Superman and Lobo, and Batgirl and Joker. I don't have the Batgirl issue. The other three were unremarkable.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Fished out of the boxes.

Leftover Final Crisis tie ins.
FC:Revelation 4 and 5. It's been awhile since I read 1-3, but the ending was pretty good(compared to the rest of FC's excrement) involving the Question(Renee) and Huntress redeeming the Spectre so that he can save the world. Written by Greg Rucka.
FC:Legion of 3 Worlds 5. Final issue of Geoff Johns' continuity masturbation of trying to reconcile all the LoSH timelines.
FC:Superman Beyond 3D 2. Remember when, with 10 pages left of Final Crisis, all these characters and a villain who nobody knew who the fuck was showed up and everybody was like who the fuck are these people that have had nothing to do with the last 6 2/3rd issues of this Event? And Dan Didio and Grant Morrison were like, "oh they were in that Suprman tie in that none of you read, because we said you didn't have to read the tie ins to understand the main book." Yeah. This is that book. Fuck you, Grant Morrison.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I was deciding what to read next. Either the first 50 issues of Firestorm's 1982 series. Or 100+ issues of Wally West's Flash series from 1987, including an uninterrupted run from 101-164.
I decided Firestorm first.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Finally finished that Firestorm run. It took me awhile because Gerry Conway isn't my favorite writer. He's a bit pedestrian for my taste(and to be fair, this was 1982-1986 so there weren't any radical storytelling). And I honestly didn't enjoy either of the artists until Joe Brozowski took over with issue 46 right at the end. Pat Broderick started the series, and some of his art was downright awful. I don't know if he got overextended or what. And then Rafael Kayanan took over for the Lion's share of the series and he was hit and miss. He did some good stuff, but he did some awful work too, and the bad seemed to far outweigh the good.
The plots were run of the mill. Firestorm was basically DC's Spider-Man. Ronnie had a bunch of supporting high school characters, his dad was the newspaper editor, and he had a small rogues gallery.
What struck me is how different these early issues were from John Ostrander's latter half of the 100 issue series, which I owned and read back in the 90s. It was a radical shift with the Russian guy taking over and FS becoming a fire elemental towards the end of the series.

Also, it made me think about how the era of publishers taking chances on brand new characters getting ongoing series right out of the gate is long gone. Mostly because publishers fucked so many creators that nobody is willing to make new characters for them. Rather, they just keep the ideas and do Creator Owned series.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

From the 'A' box.
Adventure Comics. DC revived this book post-Final Crisis as a Superboy and LoSH split book. Since it was a "Legacy" book they were dual numbering, so 1 was also 504, 2 was 505 etc. By 516 they dropped pretense and went with the original numbering. But they cancelled the whole thing by 529 in favor of the Sept. Reboot. Eventually, Superboy got his own book, so the Atom took over as the back up feature.
The LoSH was good as it was written by Paul Levitz, but my mind goes numb at the thought of LoSH continuity, so really I'm just reading BlahBlah and BlahBlah and BlahBlah attack arch villain Blah! When one of them dies I'm like 'Who? Eh. Wev.'
I'm still missing 4 issues to have a complete run of the 26 issues revival series, but it's not high on my list. Because its LoSH.

Also Adventure Comics 80 Page Giant A oneshot from 1998 with a bunch of short 10 page stories with WW, Green Arrow, Superboy, Supergirl, Shazam, etc. Decent, but nothing memorable.