Remember No remakes or revisions, but only original characters.
Why not? The Tom Peyer Hourman, for instance, is different enough in character and with so many other little innovations that the only similarities to the Earth-2 character is that he's made of Miraclo.
Seriously, so far we one The Sandman, who is actually famous but debatable if he's a superhero and Maxima.
Since WHEN does a character being well known qualify them for "good character" status? Sleepwalker and Omega the Unknown are better characters than other, more famous ones that have emerged in recent times. And speaking of Gerber, DEFENDERS was really boring under the household names (Dr. Strange, Hulk, Sillver Surfer) and vastly more interesting under characters like Valkyrie and Nighthawk.
Actually, some (myself included) will argue that the John Broome stories of Captain Comet in STRANGE ADVENTURES were the greatest DC Silver Age book, and poor Comet's never had so much as a 7-11 cup.
If they have nothing new to say, why should I and other readers care? Perhaps it's just time to move on.
Recurring villains and heroes are fine and all, but if that's all you have the same old ones over and over and over and over again it's going to get really boring... really quick, unless you have some incredible writers and artists on board to keep things interesting.
Because Batman vs. the Joker, and the Avengers battling Ultron, are the comic book equivalents of the Rolling Stones playing "Satisfaction."
And just because new elements are not used does not necessarily indicate new stories cannot be told. Walt Simonson for instance, told stories about Thor that built on the framework that the Lee/Kirby JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY provided. the stories about the deadly dragon Fafnir for instance. Simonson even found a new role for trickster Loki. If a new character was introduced that did the same job, it wouldn't have worked as well.
The thing is, history and previous events give stories POWER, because it can be used to alter characterization. If Kurt Busiek had used a new villain other than Ultron for his masterstroke, "Ultron Unleashed," the story wouldn't have worked as well, because of how much these past stories influenced everybody's characterization, making everything more desperate and intriguing.
It ends in 1986, with the death of the most classic comic book universe of them all. So Nova doesn't count.
CRISIS is as good a place to end the Bronze Age as any, but there's as much debate about the end of the Bronze Age as there is about the Silver Age and Golden Age. Actually, at DC, I'd define the end of Bronze Age being several years earlier, when it seemed that Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman were writing EVERYTHING, a period that had some highlights but overall made Crisis a mercy-killing. And if there's any man that could end an era, it would be Gerry-freakin'-Conway, who was EIC of Marvel for - I'm not making this up here - TWO WEEKS, and in that time arguably the two greatest writers in comics history, Englehart and Gerber, left the company.
One thing I do think is that a freshness needs to come in, whether I like it or not...I'm often amazed that people don't see the differences between the Silver and Bronze Age, but then, I figure I'm just older and read more comics from one era...actually, a ten year window seems about right, it keeps new kids coming in and prevents the diminishing audiences of aging fans from dictating results. Nods to continuity may make old fans smile, but I'm not sure its always good storytelling...just on this site, if you read the two Super Teacher from Krypton stories, yikes, they are different...the Super Teacher is sort of the same old lame idealogue, but Superboy himself is very different. It seems clear as day to me that the Silver and Bronze Age Superman and Superboy are very different, but that may just because I lived through the contrast as a comic buying kid.
I agree there is a break, particularly where Superman is concerned, though I'd argue overall, if there is such a thing as a "Bronze Age" it would have been marked by talent coming and going, not necessarily by theme and the "character" of the stories; note how different, for instance, late fifties stories are under Otto Binder, from late sixties stories with guys like Jim Shooter in LEGION, and Denny O'Neil in JLA and HAWKMAN AND THE ATOM. To be fair and accurate as possible, the DC Silver Age ought to be broken into two parts, and even then, their books were totally different from what was going on next door at the House that Stan Built at the same time.
I would argue the reason there's overlap between the sixties, and seventies-to-late-eighties is that the second period is all about keeping the past alive. If I wanted to read about the early issues of Spider-Man or the Avengers, there were reprint books like MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION and MARVEL TALES, and if I wanted to read some classic DC stuff, there were the 100-page DC Super-Spectaculars.
Superman being a living solar battery.
Kal-El as a descendent of Rao.
Expanded supporting cast of Metropolis.
The Eradicator.
Keelix, the robot butler.
Kon-El.
Steel.
Linda Danvers.
Superman One Million.
Kismet
Villains:
Riot
Maxima
Gog
Bloodsport
Hank Henshaw
Solaris
Massacre
Some of these are good ideas, but most of these are not. Maxima and Riot, for instance, I will give you are extraordinary and worthy villains, created by Roger Stern and Louise Simonson, respectively. Hank Henshaw was an ugly, insincere character with a murky origin and murky motivation and personality, associated with the absolute nadir of Superman's existence. Nothing is less cool than someone desperately trying to be cool.
Conner Kent was ONLY interesting when Geoff Johns got ahold of him in TEEN TITANS and made him grow up and behave in a mature fashoin, as well as streamlined his entire concept.
Steel has a big fat nothing of a personality, and his gizmos aren't even that interesting, either. A dull, derivative character that adds nothing to the Superman Mythos.
Though I'm not a Morrison fan, I have to begrudgingly give him props for the over the top grandeur of Solaris, however.
Kal-El as a descendant of Rao is a totally inappropriate concept, because the Superman stories have always been science fiction with his Krypton a 1930s style technocratic and atheistic society, and this grounds it in mysticism (one can argue the PHANTOM ZONE mini did the same, but it was nonetheless in a science fiction context, and one can argue the zone has such liminality that weird elements are certainly possible in it that aren't elsewhere).
Every single one of the Metropolis supporting cast was an annoying, one-dimensional cardboard bore: Ron Troupe, Bibbo (a ridiculous, Giffen-esque caricature meant for "comedy" but like Giffen's work, lacks charm or even the very comedy), Cat Grant, Perry White's drug addict son. Mostly they were used for superhumanly dull, page-killing human interest stories that made Superman's stories earthbound, and Superman into an inferior Spider-Man.
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