Quote: Captain Cranky said: Remember WGBS? Steve Lombard?
Crisis made it so Clark never worked there... if Byrne had rebooted without Crisis then he'd be as guilty of being a hack as Waid is today.
Byrne had an advantage Waid didn't have (he actually had many advantaged Waid didn't have, like Crisis, support, fans, sales, publicity, originality, etc).
Quote: Captain Cranky said:I have 1950's Batman comics where the man's jaw cuts my finger as I turn the page, and Superman comics with villains that Blue Beetle wouldn't break a sweat over. Those stories are so far out of current continuity that they are laughable, but I love them just the same. I'm not going to take a story where Superman fights a pro wrestler seriously. I'm not going to take Egg Fu and try and fit him into a continuous, logical history of the DCU. Some of the DCU past is STUPID.
Which is why Crisis happened, but now Waid is bringing the stupidity back.
Quote: Captain Cranky said:A continuity cop like yourself is trying to make the past fit the present and the future and in some cases it can't and shouldn't be done. yeah, by your lights some current writers have pissed on the past. Seen another way, they aren't handcuffed by a ludicrous past.
That happened back in 87. Today, Waid is bringing back all the crap that got jettisoned with Crisis.
He's bringing the handcuffs back because he liked them.
Quote: Captain Cranky said: How do you suppose some of the classic Superman writers and wonderful Superman artist Curt Swan felt when John Byrne complete a very successful revamp in 1986? At the very least, I'm sure they felt that their labors had been pissed on.
Swan contributed a ton of Superman stories after Crisis.
The only one that felt pissed on was Maggin, Waid's guru. DC didn't accept his idea for a reboot, instead choosing to go with Byrne's.
Today Waid is ghostwriting Maggin's ideas.
Quote: Captain Cranky said:In every field, including non creative ones, policies change and evolve. Sometimes existing policies and ideas are good ones and are either retained and elaborated/expanded on, sometimes they are modified radiccally because situations and thinking have changed, and sometimes an idea isso out of date or stupid it's dumped entirely.
None of which applies now.
The reboot isn't happening because of a magic clock. It's happening because Berganza killed sales and Waid wants to reboot, he's been wanting to reboot for the last five years.
If the comic were selling a million copies, do you think DC would reboot?
Quote: Captain Cranky said:Why shouldn't comics?
Change is a great thing, when done right and when it offers something new.
BR is NOT change, BR is a revival of all the old ideas you have ever seen in a Superman comic.
It doesn't offer anything fresh or unknown.
Man of Steel did.
Man of Steel challenged peoples perceptions of the character to the point that Maggin wanted to buy him from DC because, in his opinion, they had changed him too much from what he considered the character to be.
Today Waid is doing something that fits within people's preconceptions of the character.
He's not doing anything that can be considered innovative.
Quote: Captain Cranky said:DC will do another Crisis once they feel that the crap has to be rinsed off their heroes. Hopefully the new guys will be up to the task. The next crisis will be neccessary.
The first one was necessary.
We don't need one now. The only character in trouble is Superman.
If Johns could fix Hawkman without a Crisis, why can't he or someone else do the same with Superman?
Waid wasn't up to the task, all he did was make a bigger mess of things.
Comics are like a Rorschach test; everyone has a different opinion on what they are and can be...
