IC #1 - At last they return

[Maximara]

And while LSH continuity is now so massively fracked-up with respect to the rest of the continuity in general as to be essentially incomprehensibe, we are now on our second complete-reboot of the LSH, as far as I know.  I.e. including the pre-Crisis LSH, there are three separate teams that have called themselves the LSH, lived in three separate 30th and 31st centuries, and which are each mutually exclusive to the others.

LSH continuity is now messed up? Heck it has been messed up from the get go as anyone fortunite enough to have ICG's Offical Legion of SUper-Heroes Index knows. Within one issue DC screwed up the Legion: Saturn girl fires lighting bolts from here eyes? Say what? Then for one issue (Action #284) the Legion jumps from the 30th century to the 21st century. Things basicly go down hill rapidly from there and here were are only at 1962.

By the time the Silver age became the Bronze age c1970 Legion continuity looked like a Rube Goldburg machine designed by someone on an overdose of LSD; in short an convoluted mess.

[MatterEaterLad]

LOL, you could be right... :lol:

In the spirit of disageement, I am wondering about continuity and "canon" a lot lately.

[Uncle Mxy]

I really wish that after their reboots, DC and Marvel would establish a relative timeline, then dissect out all of the comic book nouns, interrelationships, and events for every issue being printed.  Throw it all into a database.  Use the database to sort out what's generally possible and not possible to do.  If a need to retcon emerges to tell a better story, try and figure out a way to resolve the brokenness it may cause the database in a way that makes for equally good storytelling.  Have the rabid fan community help in designing and specifying how the database works...  make it "open source".  Don't rely on editors and writers remembering every going on in a huge shared world.

[Gangbuster]

I disagree.

The problem with Crisis on Infinite Earths (besides the horror of watching billions of people die) was the rigid continuity that came afterwards, similar to your database in many respects.

DC didn't allow time travel until 1991. That's what killed the Legion of Superheroes and caused all of these reboots.  Superman's powers were limited so that he could not travel to other planets...making Superman no longer a sci-fi character. Most of the Superman universe ceased to exist, since only the Fourth World was accessible, through boom tubes. The world of Smallville, Bizarro World, Atlantis, Midvale, etc. were no more, while Krypton was too boring to write about. Superman's world became much smaller, because DC forced it to be so.

[JulianPerez]

If anyone really, truly wants those characters back, the resurrection-well in comics is still fully functioning.

I'm not denying that it isn't possible to bring back a character in a way that is satisfying and interesting and that doesn't look completely cheesy (look at all the various resurrections of Wonder Man, for example, made all the better because said resurrections affected his characterization) but in general, character resurrection is an overused device. And also like I said, character resurrection is (for the most part) a male-only option.

If these guys stay dead and gone, given the above options that have been used before, that underscores how unusable they are. The door is always open.

I don't know if I'd agree with this, because some characters that are perfectly usable remain dead for all sorts of reasons apart from whether the character is interesting or not. I suspect the reason Hal didn't return as Green Lantern for as long as he did was because that would mean DC would have to admit that they made a mistake.

It apparently happens in soaps all the time, without the philisophic justification. And grossness.

It's cheesy when soaps kill off the aged patriarch/matriarch that's been on the show since the first season, though soap opera characters generally die of some sexy, romantic wasting disease, whereas female characters in comics generally die from refrigerator stuffing, sexual violence, phallic stabbings, and falls from bridges.

Also - and this is the best news I've heard all week - Luthor, the REAL Luthor, is back in DC-Town. Woohoo!

WHY, do you ask, am I so jazzed about this? Because:

1) he isn't being brought back as a shock value person to kill off, as they so obviously are intending to do with Earth-2 Superman;

2) He's being played up with the competence and dignity that this character deserves and possesses;

3) He's up and around to tan the backside of that creepy Byrne Luthor, and who can be against that?

[Uncle Mxy]

I disagree.

The problem with Crisis on Infinite Earths (besides the horror of watching billions of people die) was the rigid continuity that came afterwards, similar to your database in many respects.

DC didn't allow time travel until 1991. That's what killed the Legion of Superheroes and caused all of these reboots.  Superman's powers were limited so that he could not travel to other planets...making Superman no longer a sci-fi character. Most of the Superman universe ceased to exist, since only the Fourth World was accessible, through boom tubes. The world of Smallville, Bizarro World, Atlantis, Midvale, etc. were no more, while Krypton was too boring to write about. Superman's world became much smaller, because DC forced it to be so.

These are stupid decisions.  I'm not saying "make the universe smaller to make continuity easier" (which I don't think was at the heart of most of those decisions, apart from perhaps time travel).  I'm not saying "make dumbass paint-in-a-corner decisions to ditch the stuff that fans like about characters".  All I'm saying is:  Don't have three "first meetings" because you forgot they already met.  Don't give someone a universe changing power or engage in universe changing event without it making an impact on the universe, and assessing the overall impact beforehand.  Use a tool (as opposed to the tool using you) to track this stuff, to visualize changes before they happen.  20 years ago, that wasn't terribly practical.  Now it is.

[Captain Kal]

If these guys stay dead and gone, given the above options that have been used before, that underscores how unusable they are. The door is always open.

I don't know if I'd agree with this, because some characters that are perfectly usable remain dead for all sorts of reasons apart from whether the character is interesting or not. I suspect the reason Hal didn't return as Green Lantern for as long as he did was because that would mean DC would have to admit that they made a mistake.

First, let me state that I'm a Hal fan.  I'm not one of those Hal-nazis that hate everything Kyle, non-Hal, or makes Hal-less-than-God.  But I do prefer Jordan amongst the GLs.

Sales-wise, Kyle was doing great.  While a certain polarizing occurred amongst GL fans (my own attempt to grievously understate the intense hostility of the two camps heh heh), the actual GL popularity and sales had exactly the hoped and planned for effect.

I recall a story where old GL issues were on sale.  The Kyle books were bought up very quickly.  The Hal books hardly moved in comparison.  Go figure.

Bringing Hal Jordan back as GL isn't so much an admission of error but adding to their options of marketing GL.  DC could have sat back and let Rayner keep the spotlight and their plan would still have worked.

IOW, DC didn't make a mistake as far as their sales were going.  If they wanted to, they could have waited for all the Hal fans to simply die off and it wouldn't have made a difference to how the book was doing.  Heck, I suspect a lot of Hal-fans-Kyle-haters bought the book just to find reasons to diss Kyle some more.  I know some Superman-haters who buy Superman for the similar reason of looking for things to knock Kal-El about.

[Captain Kal]

And while LSH continuity is now so massively fracked-up with respect to the rest of the continuity in general as to be essentially incomprehensibe, we are now on our second complete-reboot of the LSH, as far as I know.  I.e. including the pre-Crisis LSH, there are three separate teams that have called themselves the LSH, lived in three separate 30th and 31st centuries, and which are each mutually exclusive to the others.

LSH continuity is now messed up? Heck it has been messed up from the get go as anyone fortunite enough to have ICG's Offical Legion of SUper-Heroes Index knows. Within one issue DC screwed up the Legion: Saturn girl fires lighting bolts from here eyes? Say what? Then for one issue (Action #284) the Legion jumps from the 30th century to the 21st century. Things basicly go down hill rapidly from there and here were are only at 1962.

By the time the Silver age became the Bronze age c1970 Legion continuity looked like a Rube Goldburg machine designed by someone on an overdose of LSD; in short an convoluted mess.

I know there are lots of other examples, but how about the -- now forgotten -- original version where the Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy that first contacted Supergirl for Legion membership were supposed to be the children of the super-heroes who inducted Superboy?