kgrogers1979

PhantomStranger

That was more of the problem. Those early 80s DC comics had a lot of generic artwork and stories from artists past their prime. Outside of Alan Moore, I don't think DC had any superstar creators before they rebooted everything.

I think the increasingly corporate approach taken by DC at the time pushed them to shave duplicate characters from active continuity. Marketing would have told them there was no reason to have two or three versions of Superman running around, so the duplicates were eliminated. That was the real force driving Crisis, management wanted only one character for each hero in active continuity.

Solid Snake

Frank Miller around DC too.

mrhan

I was thinking the same thing. Wolfman and Perez were basically the other two besides Moore. All the other books were pretty generic. Marvel was kicking DCs ass in the late 70's and early 80's. X-Men and Daredevil was the shit back then.

Hokeyboy

In the early/mid 80s DC had New Teen Titans and, to a lesser extent, Legion of Super Heroes. Sadly, most everything else from that era tends to get overlooked, but most of it was deservedly so. Too much "old guard" on the core books; look how long it took them to get Jim Aparo off of Batman or Curt Swan off of Superman. Classic artists, definitely (especially Swan, who drew the definitive Silver Age Supes), but by the 80s their renditions looked stodgy and old hat. It's not like people remember classic runs on Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Justice League... hell even Superman and Batman at the time were pretty workmanlike and competent, at best. And I say this as a LONG-time DC fan, but Shooter-era Marvel pretty much owned them completely.

Post-Crisis is another story. DC really found their voice then, especially with the huge diversity of comics the company was offering. I remember in 1988 picking up Animal Man #1 on a whim, not knowing one whit about the character or who in tarnation this 'Grant Morrison' writer was, and ended up just absolutely loving it. Long before the Vertigo imprint was "a thing", DC was doing strange, magnificent work with Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, Hellblazer, Sandman, and Doom Patrol.

The success of books like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns (and more offbeat fare like Camelot 3000 and Ronin before them) motivated DC to push boundaries, while at the same time not ignoring their core readers (the "main" DCU) and younger readers too.

These days? Plegh. I don't even know what DC is anymore. I don't think DC knows either.

mrhan

Yeah..if Dillin didn't pass away while doing JLA he would have been on it into the 90's. Loyalty to your core employees is awesome but when the work is not up to par it's time to move on. Not that I didn't like him but his art was stale; Perez gave JLA a fresh look.

PhantomStranger

I actually liked the Flash's series for the few years before Crisis but apparently the books weren't selling well, which is one of the reasons why he was chosen to be killed off. In general I agree with you, there wasn't a lot of classic material coming out of DC in the few years running up to Crisis.

brayzie

I just realized that all the cool stuff that came from DC was after COIE. Hawkworld came out in 1989.

I did like Batman/Detective Comics when Don Newton was illustrating it but the rest seemed skipable. Superman comics though looked pretty bland. I bought a back issue featuring the robotic looking Brainiac (the best version IMO) and the art wasn't very good and the dialogue by Marv Wolfman didn't seem to fit Superman very well. I like Gil Kane but his art couldn't touch what Marvel was doing at the time.

I give Jim Shooter a lot of credit for what he did at Marvel. Black Spider-man, Horse Thor, and Jim Rhodes as Iron Man was the Marvel I grew up with.

shadokitty

You mean the now Beta Ray Bill? I remember the days before Thunderstrike, when Eric Masterson -was- Thor.

PhantomStranger

Supposedly the entire multiverse has returned to DC Comics, including pre-Crisis characters if a writer wants to use them. Apparently Convergence as a storyline was muddled as usual but this is supposedly from the DC people in charge.

I won't hold my breath to see the real Superboy make a return.

majorjoe23

His name is Thorsie.

The Valeyard

Convergence turned out to be DC Universe #0 or Crisis on Infinite Earths #0. If you can read through all the mud, essentially everything that's happened throughout DC history still happened. Nothing was wiped out. The original Crisis still happened and rebooted the universe. Zero Hour happened and rebooted time. Flashpoint happened and rebooted the universe again. If Flash or Supergirl didn't sacrifice themselves during the Crisis, it would cause a chain reaction that would effect the current DCU. Same with Hal Jordan as Parallax.

If you're reading Johns' Justice League or Morrison's Multiversity, it furthers that idea and incorporates all the previous versions of the DCU.

It's DC's half-ass attempt to say "Yes. Everything matters."

The Valeyard

So the Identity Revealed storyline runs it's course with Superman #50.



Anyone wanna bet that they put the identity genie back in the bottle by featuring BOTH Supermen?

mrhan

Is this a stand alone story? I don't know if I'm going to get it after that horrible Batman:Oddysey but it does look interesting. Maybe, once it's collected....can't see the point of buying single issues anymore.

http://www.blastr.com/2015-2-10/excl...rman-project-0

Josh-da-man

Watching DC Comics try to manage their continuity is like watching my mother trying to untangle her thirty strings of Christmas lights.

fujishig

The Supermen have underwear on the outside again (plus there's the whole New Krypton on the other side of the sun thing), so I doubt it's "New 52" canon.

I know Lois is reporting or something, but that dialogue is so old school... which I don't mind, just haven't seen it recently.

PhantomStranger

And I love it. If the New 52 had gone with this Superman costume design, I would have been in full support. It's newish while still retaining Superman's classic look. It vaguely resembles one of the alternate Supermen seen in Crisis.

I am down for any Neal Adams project but Superman mixed with the New Gods sounds like a great idea. DC seems to have a better editorial handle on Superman when he's in cosmic mode off Earth, where they don't have to downplay his power as much.

His Lois in the preview does look a little...strange. Not wrong but I wouldn't immediately think that is Lois Lane unless I was told it's her.

Red Hood

This is a make or break year over at DC Comics. If sales don't improve after the Batman v Superman movie, Didio will most likely be canned and Jim Lee and Geoff Johns will be demoted from their current positions. Last year, they hit a new low during and after Convergence and lost a lot market share. Their New 52 experiment is almost completely over, so if sales don't pick up overall, there will most likely be another reboot, probably one that brings back a little more of the old school, pre-Flashpoint stuff.

PhantomStranger

Many, many fans would welcome the end of DiDio's reign.