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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7581
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 5:54am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

DC are launching a 'linearverse' where certain characters
are said to have lived longer (from my understanding).

Why can they just not get their head around the
possibility of just telling stories and not worrying
about this stuff.
All their stories just keep circling around to this point
when they just don't let it go.

It really isn't rocket science

Linearverse
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 30833
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 6:17am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

So it’s GENERATIONS, then...
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Jeffrey Rice
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 10 September 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1161
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 6:55am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Not quite. No one is really aging. So the Bruce Wayne from 1937 is still young and wearing overly rendered costumes in 2021.
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132135
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 6:59am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

DC has a "history" of publishing collections of series/characters/concepts they are about to screw up. So this explains the recent GENERATIONS omnibus.

I wonder what they are about to unleash on the New Gods.

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Eric Jansen
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Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2280
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 7:54am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Was Earth One and Earth Two really all that difficult?

With Earth One characters continually in the present and the Earth Two characters older.  Sure, you had the problem of the JSA aging, but that would simply be one or maybe up to four titles to deal with (four because the characters were popular enough).  Just establish that Earth Two was "behind" Earth One a few decades--it hadn't progressed past the 80's.  The JSA could still be going, Infinity Inc. could be the next generation, and maybe Huntress and Power Girl could each have their own titles.  The 80's wouldn't look that much different than the present, and it would allow for flashback stories to the well-defined 70's, 60's, 50's and 40's.  Heck, I'd even buy a 50's-set Mr. & Mrs. Superman title!
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132135
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 7:59am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

With Earth One characters continually in the present and the Earth Two characters older. Sure, you had the problem of the JSA aging, but that would simply be one or maybe up to four titles to deal with (four because the characters were popular enough). Just establish that Earth Two was "behind" Earth One a few decades--it hadn't progressed past the 80's. The JSA could still be going, Infinity Inc. could be the next generation, and maybe Huntress and Power Girl could each have their own titles. The 80's wouldn't look that much different than the present, and it would allow for flashback stories to the well-defined 70's, 60's, 50's and 40's. Heck, I'd even buy a 50's-set Mr. & Mrs. Superman title!

••

Of course, we might consider just IGNORING these "problems".

Sadly, that had become pretty much impossible with the fanboy incursion that started just before I got into the Biz. Gotta cross all those Ts and dot all those lower case Js.

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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7581
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 8:45am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

All this stems from people being incapable of
understating topical references and insisting that those
remain untouched.

Was Tony Stark in Vietnam? Or was he just in a war? I
know Extremis moved the war, and that was the right thing
to do, but have they now entrenched the war it was moved
to?

The Iron Man of 2020 was basically saying Iron Man of the
future. the date was topical. He would now be the Iron
Man of 2060.

We don't have flying suits of armour, we didn't have
flying suits of armour in the 60s, 70s or '80s, why is
there insistence that stories must have taken place in
the year they were published?

Except the Simpsons of course.
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132135
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 9:07am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

STAR TREK caught this blight, too, with highly influential fans insisting the TOS adventures took place exactly 300 years after their original broadcast dates—ignoring three in context references that set the show 200 years in the Future, and not bothered at all, it seemed, by Star Fleet apparently taking three or four months off every Summer.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2280
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 9:07am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

To the last two posts:

We didn't need Tony Stark to be involved in Vietnam, but we sorta like the JSA being connected to World War II.

We could ignore the JSA aging, but we sorta like the Huntress being Batman's daughter.  (And I really liked INFIINITY INC. too!  And Power Girl.) 

You could avoid the "problem" by retiring the JSA from any sort of publication and making the Huntress the daughter of a mafia don (ugh).  But we LIKE the JSA and Batman's daughter the Huntress.  There's gotta be some give and take, but contually telling us there's no multiverse while at the same time using it in TV and the movies (to great effect) doesn't work.  It never worked.
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132135
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 9:12am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Never give the fans what they THINK they want.

Nowhere is there a more convoluted demonstration of the wisdom of that phrase than in DC’s multiple Earths.

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Vinny Valenti
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8009
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 9:33am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I (used to)* say that there was never an explanation needed/given for the multiple incarnations for comic book movie characters - why are they needed in the comics themselves?

*Well, that's been going out the window the latest TV and movie projects. But it took a while!
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132135
Posted: 23 February 2021 at 9:40am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

So many people who work in comics see Hollywood as the desired “next step” in what they imagine to be their career arcs. So, of course they tend to follow Hollywood’s lead. After all, don’t want to risk offending someone out there who might one day offer them a job!

I still maintain, tho, that there is zero evidence that faithful adaptations would be any less successful than what we’ve been given.

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