Would DC be better if it WASN'T a Universe?

[gildea]

I'm kind of enjoying it. Lex is not up to his usual standard, though.

heh I always find the superman stories I enjoy the most are the out of continuity ones, All star, kingdom come, red son or origin ones when his world is less populated like man for all seasons and birthright.

My favourite is probably secret identity which i got the other day. Such a good comic, something I intend to make all my non comic friends read.

 

[crazy monkey]

There is a wonderful story idea called "fish out of water". You take a character and put him in a situation or environment that he has never been in.
Sort of like Buck Rogers. The point I make with this is if there were 60 years of just noir type Batman stories would people eat it up??? How boring would it be that Batman is fighting yet another crimeboss???? Yes we know Batman can handle several dozen thugs in Gotham...but can he handle several dozen Aliens or Predators????? There needs to be a balance in the stories.

See my post on page two regarding The Animated Series.

I've heard fans complain about the fluxing animation quality, some of the dorky villian choices, the original art style, the 'new' WB artstyle, blonde Selina Kyle, short-haired Selina Kyle, lots of things. But I've never heard any complaints on the over-all storytelling or tone of the show, and there wasn't a Predator to be found. No fish-out-of-water plot devices, just good writing from people who really understood what a character was all about and decided to make that their strength, as opposed to relying on team-ups and "what-if?" fights to pull in the fans.

What'd be so wrong if the monthly comics did the same?

-- END!

 

[CConn]

See my post on page two regarding The Animated Series.

I've heard fans complain about the fluxing animation quality, some of the dorky villian choices, the original art style, the 'new' WB artstyle, blonde Selina Kyle, short-haired Selina Kyle, lots of things. But I've never heard any complaints on the over-all storytelling or tone of the show, and there wasn't a Predator to be found. No fish-out-of-water plot devices, just good writing from people who really understood what a character was all about and decided to make that their strength, as opposed to relying on team-ups and "what-if?" fights to pull in the fans.

What'd be so wrong if the monthly comics did the same?

-- END!

You do realize all of The Animated Series take place in the same universe, right? If BTAS can do classic noir stories, while STAS does futuristic, Norman Rockwell stories while existing in the same animated universe (and having team-ups), why can't they do it in monthly comics?

 

[The Leaguer]

Because that limits storytelling, duh.

 

[CConn]

It's also what keeps me buying 25 DC Comics a month.

Damn bastards.

 

[The Leaguer]

Psh, you're not a real fan if you don't understand that a character needs the complete freedom of his own world.

Jeez, stop putting constraints on writers.

 

[crazy monkey]

I never said that a connected universe 'limits storytelling,' nor even hinted at it. Obviously, it opens up all kinds of possibilities. I stated that I personally feel that it ultimately waters down what a character is in an effort to make everything conjoined, just the way shining a strong tinted light source on objects of multiple hues can wash out their colors.

Was Agatha Christie limited by never teaming-up Miss Marple and Poirot? Was it limiting of Shakespear to never attempt a mix characters from his greatest works? The same can be asked of the Brothers Grimm. Admittedly, this would be a 'new' idea for the current generation if applied to comics, but it's not a new idea in literature.

And I'm not putting constraints on writers. I'm posting on a message board. It's a recreational activity that rarely affects the real world. So rest easy, Leaguer.

Anyway, everyone knows that a true fan actually hates comics anyway (despite all the money he spends on them), and is never satisfied with any contemporary incarnation of his favorite hero.

-- END!

 

[crazy monkey]

You do realize all of The Animated Series take place in the same universe, right?

Uh, yes. You do realize that the Batman and Superman shows became hits in their own right years before World's Finest broke down the wall between them, right?

-- END!

 

[Warhammer]

I like the current DCU and how it's structured. It feels like a coherent universe, where magic and sci-fi and noir and camp and adventure and tragedy all go together to make a solid, ongoing continuity. Starfire, Adam Strange, and Animal Man are stuck on an alien planet right now, and it feels like the most natural pairing despite the fact that none of these people have even met each other before this simply because they are all characters of this unified universe.

Heroes know each other and interact all the time, which makes you care about characters that you wouldn't normally care about solely on the basis that they are friends with or have some sort of team relationship with your favorites. I've never bought a single Hawkman or Nightwing book in my life, and yet I feel like I know those characters very well and care deeply about what happens to them because they exist alongside characters that are my favorites and are important parts of their lives. That's the strengths of a shared universe, one that I feel DC has taken very good advantage of. As much as I love Marvel characters individually, as of the last five or six years the company has failed to maintain relations between their superhero "castes," and now when everyone gets together for larger events like House of M or Civil War, it just feels a bit strained because we haven't seen any of these characters really talk to one another in years and years.

Exactly how I feel.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

Uh, yes. You do realize that the Batman and Superman shows became hits in their own right years before World's Finest broke down the wall between them, right?

-- END!

that still does'nt validate your idiotic idea. they became a hit in ther own right because of the writers and producers. not because batman was in his own world. which logically is correct because the show is based on batman. your idea just does'nt work and it sucks.

 

[CConn]

Uh, yes. You do realize that the Batman and Superman shows became hits in their own right years before World's Finest broke down the wall between them, right?

-- END!

And Batman and Superman are hits in their own right every month with their solo comics "Batman" and "Detective Comics" and "Superman" and "Action Comics".

Save for rare, and quick, crossovers in the books, they're pretty much entirely seperate. You could read an issue of Batman and never think of Superman just as well as you could watch an episode of BTAS and not connect it with STAS.

 

[BrianWilly]

I never said that a connected universe 'limits storytelling,' nor even hinted at it. Obviously, it opens up all kinds of possibilities. I stated that I personally feel that it ultimately waters down what a character is in an effort to make everything conjoined, just the way shining a strong tinted light source on objects of multiple hues can wash out their colors.

Then it just comes down to whether you want to sacrifice story potential so that your few favorite characters can operate in their own little worlds and not get "washed out," or whether you want to maintain the individual integrity of those few characters in exchange for their relations with other characters. It's all just perception and points of view anyway, when you think about it; like I said, I'm not really convinced that your criterion of shared universe vs not shared universes is so much an indicator of story quality per se, rather that it's just a completely subjective indicator of your own personal tastes.

I personally think that you're overreaching quite a bit on the notion that characters are washed out by coexisting with other characters. If anything, characters are enriched by coexisting with other characters. In a shared universe, Batman can cross over with other characters or he could just stay in Gotham with his own supporting cast. In a disjointed universe, Batman can only stay in Gotham with his own supporting cast. Which one, exactly, is more limiting?

More to the point...if you look read any random Batman book out of any random month out of the year, chances are far, far more likely than not that you'll see him on a solo adventure, far from any cosmic shenanigans or magical aliens. The world of Batman doesn't get crammed with "outside" elements except on rare occasions, so how exactly is he being washed out? It's all just perception and points of view. If you don't like seeing Batman with other brightly-clad heroes, then don't read stories about him with other brightly-clad heroes.

The other problem with what you're suggesting is that it would have truckloads more consequences than simply separating a couple of major characters into their own little worlds. What about the more minor characters? What about characters like Starfire, or Mr. Terrific, or Blue Devil, or Thunder, or Stargirl...characters that aren't popular enough to carry their own books but are still decent enough characters that perform well in ensemble books? A lot of them don't fit into neatly packaged little "genres" set up by one or two of the big hitters like Superman or Wonder Woman. All of them aren't nearly big enough names to carry their own ongoing titles, much less their own universe. What happens to them? How can you be a true DC fan, and yet not take them into account? What happens to the JLA, JSA, Teen Titans, or the Outsiders? They are all long-running DCU teams supporting and supported by the concept of the shared universe. Do we just scrap team books altogether?

Even if you split the DCU down into many separate universes based on genre, how exactly are you going to implement that succinctly enough that your original "problems" don't appear all over again? Say that you put Aquaman in the sea and Wonder Woman in the magical UN, like your original idea states. Well, except that Aquaman also has a lot to do with the UN; he's the king of a country and he's had a history working with surface governments. And he's magical and deals with gods, which puts him in a similar genre with Wonder Woman. So already you have two characters existing in the same universe. Then comes Captain Marvel, who's also magical and shares a lot of Wonder Woman's gods. Does he get his own universe, or do you want to put him in with Wonder Woman and Aquaman too? Now there's three major characters operating in the same universe, bringing along their supporting casts like Donna Troy, Tempest, and Mary Marvel. Well, now you're back in square one which is that, supposedly, a bunch of superheroes together wash each other out.

What about Superman? Since he flies around in space a lot, does he fly around in the same space as the Green Lantern Corps? He's also a DCU alien; does he meet the Martian Manhunter, who's also a DCU alien? If he doesn't live in the space sci-fi space that those characters live in, then where exactly do those characters live? If all those characters are just going to live in separate "space" genre universes, won't that just spread the space genre concept too thin since you've got all these universes competing with each other for attention in the same exact company?

What you're suggesting is far more complicated than just a bunch of heroes all of a sudden not sharing the same books anymore. With a company whose characters share as much and as intricate histories as the DCU, I feel pretty confident in saying that it's flat-out impossible.

 

[Tropico]

Was Agatha Christie limited by never teaming-up Miss Marple and Poirot? Was it limiting of Shakespear to never attempt a mix characters from his greatest works? The same can be asked of the Brothers Grimm. Admittedly, this would be a 'new' idea for the current generation if applied to comics, but it's not a new idea in literature.

We don't know that the stories would have been opened up if they were crossing over, either. So, we can't really say that they were being limited by containing everything in one genre, the same way that we can't say that they weren't being limited, could we? After all it would be a new idea for the way the rest of literature outside of comics work

Like CConn said, these heroes spend the great majority of their time in their own cities and self contained stories. There was even a while when WW was dealing with a mythological cast and theme exclusively. I don't know if those issues sold more or less, though. Ironically, it wasn't in the Batman comics where Batman upped his game, it was outside of it, mostly in the JLA. But I guess that wouldn't count as an open universe making something better. I could go on to talk about James Robinson's Starman series and how it was pretty self contained (VERY self contained) but when he stepped out of the boundaries he was usually in by crossing over with other heroes that didn't belong to his "genre" and how it shone when you shared that wonder he went through getting to know these adventurers, but that probably doesn't fall in to your separation idea. But anyway, don't mind me, I was just replying to your post.

 

[crazy monkey]

Then it just comes down to whether you want to sacrifice story potential so that your few favorite characters can operate in their own little worlds and not get "washed out," or whether you want to maintain the individual integrity of those few characters in exchange for their relations with other characters. It's all just perception and points of view anyway, when you think about it; like I said, I'm not really convinced that your criterion of shared universe vs not shared universes is so much an indicator of story quality per se, rather that it's just a completely subjective indicator of your own personal tastes.

Correct, as I have stated multiple times already, although it's not just about my few favorite characters, and the worlds they occupy don't have to be 'little.' Also, the quality of any given story is a perceived thing; it's abstract, open to "personal tastes." So really, they are related topics.

In a disjointed universe, Batman can only stay in Gotham with his own supporting cast.

I never said the above. I just would rather him in a more 'grounded' fictional place instead of mucking about with gods and aliens which, to me, is distracting.

What about characters like Starfire, or Mr. Terrific, or Blue Devil, or Thunder, or Stargirl...characters that aren't popular enough to carry their own books but are still decent enough characters that perform well in ensemble books? A lot of them don't fit into neatly packaged little "genres" set up by one or two of the big hitters like Superman or Wonder Woman. All of them aren't nearly big enough names to carry their own ongoing titles, much less their own universe. What happens to them? How can you be a true DC fan, and yet not take them into account? What happens to the JLA, JSA, Teen Titans, or the Outsiders? They are all long-running DCU teams supporting and supported by the concept of the shared universe. Do we just scrap team books altogether?

The universes don't have to be neat or packaged. Think of them like a video store. In the action department, you'll see military movies, kung-fu flicks and westerns. But you won't see Star Trek, Star Wars, or Aliens. Sure, they're action movies too, but they belong in Sci-Fi. Is my idea becoming clearer? Grounded Universe, Alien Universe, Fantasy Universe, but within each there is still plenty of variety.

Supporting characters' jobs remain the same as now. Why would that change? They serve as back-up, sounding boards, foils and friends for the main characters. As in the current market, if a minor hero becomes popular enough, you give him (or her, or it) his own book. No biggie.

Teams can be formed with the characters of each respective universe.

Even if you split the DCU down into many separate universes based on genre, how exactly are you going to implement that succinctly enough that your original "problems" don't appear all over again? Say that you put Aquaman in the sea and Wonder Woman in the magical UN, like your original idea states. Well, except that Aquaman also has a lot to do with the UN; he's the king of a country and he's had a history working with surface governments. And he's magical and deals with gods, which puts him in a similar genre with Wonder Woman. So already you have two characters existing in the same universe. Then comes Captain Marvel, who's also magical and shares a lot of Wonder Woman's gods. Does he get his own universe, or do you want to put him in with Wonder Woman and Aquaman too? Now there's three major characters operating in the same universe, bringing along their supporting casts like Donna Troy, Tempest, and Mary Marvel. Well, now you're back in square one which is that, supposedly, a bunch of superheroes together wash each other out.

No, again, my problem is heroes of different genres and realms of believability co-existing, not to mention getting occasionally (or, it seems now, yearly) tossed together into whiz-bang spectacles in which their characterizations are lost amidst all the noise. I was simply using the animated series as examples of singular tones in comic book storytelling being widely accepted, even wildly popular, without the need for genre-mixing. But I guess I carried my analogy too far, or my reasoning got too haphazard, and you lost site of my real dillemma.

You've got my idea right, though. Aquaman and Shazam would fit through the Fantasy strainer into Wonder Woman's magicland. Their supporting characters are all mixed into a fictional world that's made stronger by a foundation that is a single idea.

What about Superman? Since he flies around in space a lot, does he fly around in the same space as the Green Lantern Corps? He's also a DCU alien; does he meet the Martian Manhunter, who's also a DCU alien? If he doesn't live in the space sci-fi space that those characters live in, then where exactly do those characters live? If all those characters are just going to live in separate "space" genre universes, won't that just spread the space genre concept too thin since you've got all these universes competing with each other for attention in the same exact company?

See, you do get it, BrianWilly, you really do! All aliens and alien related subject matter get grouped together. Yay.

What you're suggesting is far more complicated than just a bunch of heroes all of a sudden not sharing the same books anymore. With a company whose characters share as much and as intricate histories as the DCU, I feel pretty confident in saying that it's flat-out impossible.

I completely agree with both those statements. I'm just talkin' up an idea I had, is all.

Although, if this conversation were taking place in the mid-nineties, we'd probably take the same stand on the possibility of Marvel reinventing its continuity from scratch...

All kidding aside, your posts are well thought-out and have showed a lot of consideration for this concept. Thanks! You understand the difference between debating and arguing.
-- END!

 

[crazy monkey]

We don't know that the stories would have been opened up if they were crossing over, either. So, we can't really say that they were being limited by containing everything in one genre, the same way that we can't say that they weren't being limited, could we? After all it would be a new idea for the way the rest of literature outside of comics work

Very well put. Maybe you should change your screen name to "Devil's Advocate!"

Like CConn said, these heroes spend the great majority of their time in their own cities and self contained stories. There was even a while when WW was dealing with a mythological cast and theme exclusively. I don't know if those issues sold more or less, though. Ironically, it wasn't in the Batman comics where Batman upped his game, it was outside of it, mostly in the JLA. But I guess that wouldn't count as an open universe making something better. I could go on to talk about James Robinson's Starman series and how it was pretty self contained (VERY self contained) but when he stepped out of the boundaries he was usually in by crossing over with other heroes that didn't belong to his "genre" and how it shone when you shared that wonder he went through getting to know these adventurers, but that probably doesn't fall in to your separation idea. But anyway, don't mind me, I was just replying to your post.

Why would I mind? Keep 'em coming! Starman is an excellent argument to the contrary.

Truthfully, I never suspected that this little idea of mine would generate much in the way of interest, let alone controversy. I half expected to get BBQ'ed and the thread be forgotten. But, in the immortal words of Doc Brown,

"Well, I figured, what the hell."

So I posted it, and to my surprise it really got people heated up. Not that I'm trying to upset anyone, but c'mon. All fanboys know that exhiliration you get when a simple what-if scenario mutates into a rip-roaring debate amongst fellow fans. For a time, I managed a video-game/hobby store which sold comics, and on slow days me and the regulars would sit around and barb each other for hours on stuff like this. Gotta say, I don't miss the pay, but I do miss that time spent.

So yeah, slap a fresh clip into the ol' Thompson and fill my idea with holes. I don't mind defending or clarifying it, so long as I've got the time!

-- END!

 

[Tropico]

Very well put. Maybe you should change your screen name to "Devil's Advocate!"



Why would I mind? Keep 'em coming! Starman is an excellent argument to the contrary.

Truthfully, I never suspected that this little idea of mine would generate much in the way of interest, let alone controversy. I half expected to get BBQ'ed and the thread be forgotten. But, in the immortal words of Doc Brown,

"Well, I figured, what the hell."

So I posted it, and to my surprise it really got people heated up. Not that I'm trying to upset anyone, but c'mon. All fanboys know that exhiliration you get when a simple what-if scenario mutates into a rip-roaring debate amongst fellow fans. For a time, I managed a video-game/hobby store which sold comics, and on slow days me and the regulars would sit around and barb each other for hours on stuff like this. Gotta say, I don't miss the pay, but I do miss that time spent.

So yeah, slap a fresh clip into the ol' Thompson and fill my idea with holes. I don't mind defending or clarifying it, so long as I've got the time!

-- END!

Initially I was going to use your own plant analogy, but this other one came along and I though it was better. This thread would have gone away if you didn't defend your point like you have and would've just said "I like it and you guys suxx0rz". Although some of your replies seem flippant, there's some real though and conviction to them. But, some of us have the same conviction in regards to how comics are; we actually like the idea of the intermingling of genres.

Look, the idea of a universe dedicated to one type of genre isn't new to comics as a whole. I know Dark Horse tried doing it by making various cities their own flavor in the 90's. This is where Barb Wire came from; yeah, the one that sucky movie was based on. I can't really say if Crossgen went about it the same way since I didn't follow their comics but I got the impression that they kinda did. I've also seen the whole government registered heroes thing done in other comics and why I know (or rather personally think) that the whole flavor of Marvel Comics WOULD have to change if they were being faithful to what they're doing. Or maybe it's arrogant of me to think that Marvel should have some kind of similarity with what different publishers have done with the theme. I digress, I guess, since they're free to do what they choose with their properties even if breaking the mold breaks away from what little common sense we can apply to comics. This is mostly why I don't really have a right to say to you "Your idea isn't new, it's been done before. Go and look at those results." because you've contained it to DC. I don't know how much you've explored the site but there are threads were people pitch their own spin on characters. There's also a Fan Art and Fan Fiction section if you want to see re-imaginings of characters in more detail. ]Til next time...

"Devil Advocate Lad" signing off.

 

[Gogo Bananas]

you know...Dc used to do that....

but that was back when they didnt sell many comics....and marvel started whopping their ass...partially because....you guessed it....they had a connected universe

How do you figure since JLA debuted before FF?

 

[crazy monkey]

JLA was a team-up book, and earlier than the FF, true. But Marvel really pioneered characters popping up in each other's books, shared villians, and events that would ripple from one title to another.

Thanks for your compliments, Tropico. Yeah, I am a bit flip sometimes, but who isn't on theses boards; there are certainly plenty worse than me.

Cross-Gen did do something very similiar to my idea, and I liked it, although I didn't like most of their characters. (That's probably where my idea came from, unbeknownst to myself.) As for Dark Horse, well, they're simply no DC, nor were they then. No doubt a portion of the failure rests on the characters that populated the disjointed universes that they attempted, and not soley on the concept itself.

And yes, I love the fanart section. I've done some digital coloring there and in the once great (but still classic) Sequel Designs thread by super scar in the Batman sequels section.

 

[Raj Mahtaj]

I completely agree with crazy monkey. I've always wished the DC characters stayed in their own universe. Particulary Batman since he doesn't have superpowers. I could deal with other ones but I've always hated the appearance of Supes and his baddies in Batman stories.

 

[crazy monkey]

Hey -- a bump for this thread and a vote for my argument. It's like a two-for-one sale! w00t, and such. Thanks, Raj, and welcome to the Hype.

...Can I still say w00t? Is that still net-hip? Sorry, I'm old.

-- END!

 

[storyteller]

Oh comes on i wish dc would come out and just say it.



BATMAN IS A META. He may not have the ability to shoto out heat vision or make the rivers part or change water to wine.......at least i dont think.. But he sure as hell aint no mere mortal.

 

[The Leaguer]

Batman isn't a meta-human. He's normal.

 

[Stupify_me]

I don't to much care for the idea and Marvel isn't even a universe anymore I believe the spelling is Omniverse now

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Marvel's been an omniverse since the What If series started.