I think that any of us, who grew up reading Marvel and DC comics, at last once dreamed about getting hired by one of those companies and write adventures of your favorite characters. Some of fans make those wishes come true. The thing is, that before they got their hands on all those heroes, a lot of time, sometimes few decades, passed. And a lot of things changed, and superheroes changed with them. But, for some reasons, those writers don't like this. They don't want work with current heroes - they want to work with heroes of their childhood. And here comes regressive storytelling - writers remade everything to be as close to the time of their childhood, as it's possible. Hero died and was replaced by somebody else? Well, he's back, because he's the only one true and real incarnation and everybody who likes replacement can go fuck themselves and pray we just forget about him, instead of murdering him.

This behavior has a lot of negative effects. First of all, whitewashing. Lot of writers who are bringing back status quo of their childhood, doesn't realize that said childhood was in times, when nobody ever thought seriously about black, Asian or multiracial superheroes. Christ Sims did an interesting rant about it . I just like to add, that not so long ago DC killed Ryan Choi and that it can be also sexist as well – who cares that Hawk is another woman if refrigerator? Hank Hal is back!

The other thing is, that it can completely kill quality, or even character itself. If change has proven to be good, it doesn't make sense to undo it. And yet, that's what happened in One More Day - one fanboy wanted Spider-Man to be exactly how he was in his childhood. Sadly, he was Marvel's Editor-In-Chief. At basic level of storytelling it kills all the drama or even a point of reading this damn comics. Who cares if character will overcome his flaws, made up for past mistakes, deals with guilt caused by his greatest failure? Heck, who cares, if he will live or die? New writer will just retcon everything to how it was in his childhood. No matter what, heroes cannot change, nothing will stick and sooner or later everything will revert to how fans liked it decades ago.

Currently removing everything that happened in Dark Age and bringing back Silver Age is on the top. Which is ridiculous, because Silver Age was silly and sometimes just plain dumb. We had comics about Lois Lane trying to win Superman's heart and any of her attempts should easily make her spending rest of her life in Arkham Asylum, and stories about Batman, Superman or anybody else weren't much better (Bat Baby, everything involving Jimmy Olsen, Superman blowing up solar system with his breath, Wonder Woman marrying a supervillain, hoping she can change him etc.), but some people are delusional and claim it was best of the Ages. Sorry, it wasn't. In fact, it could be even worse than Dark Age, because Dark at last has Sandman.

The other problem has name that makes rock tremble - fanboys. Fanboys, who are exactly the same kind of people – they to wants only what they got when they were kids and anytime somebody is trying doing something new, they will bash him as strong as they can. This is what killed last Blue Beetle ongoing – Jamie never had a chance, only because he wasn't Ted Kord. Fanboys didn't left him raise to glory reserved only for their favorite Silver Age characters.

I don't understand where that comes from. Don't tell me that people wants to bring back their childhood – if you'll think about it fife minutes, you realize it doesn't makes sense at all. It's impossible to bring back those “good old days” and only complete idiot wouldn't realize this. I don't get how writers cannot hold their inner fanboy/inner child and just do good stories, instead of feeding said inner personality element.
I just don't get it.
And you?

It is a tricky one, sometimes it works other times it doesn't.

For example, spiderman brand new day. I thought a lot of the stories that came after were better than what was happening before. the problem was spiderman or more accurately peter parker had become a dull man in his thirties with a happy life, a far cry from the iconic troubled teenager. Brand new day made sense to a degree, but why when you have ultimate spiderman doing the teenage spiderman so damn well.

generally I prefer comics to move forward, I like continuity and world building.
As a marvelite I would love to see more of the old guard standing down in favour of the up and comers. Look at captain america, even thought they brought back steve rogers the bucky captain america is still captain america and steve rogers has moved onto a new role. In time I would love to see say patriot go on to become captain america.
In x-men professor x has been sidelined and cyclops is the big dog, we get xavier and magneto discussing how their time has passed.

The decision to take things back isn't likely to be the decision of a single writer as oppossed to that of and editor or the outcome of a meeting, okay certain writers do have that power but not many. I fully believe the brand new day was a plan to make spiderman less convoluted and more like the movie version by ditching the changes to his powers and some of the spider mythology that had come about.

The problem essentially is they are concerned anbout the brand over the story, sadly.

I don't have a big problem with retconning, rebooting and otherwise re-imagining a character and his/her backstory. I have a bigger problem when it's decided to reboot a character and, instead of giving that character a fresh start, the company tries to keep the whole of that character's continuity at the same time. To my mind, you have to go one way or the other: keep the continuity or start again. Trying to do both just results in a muddled mess.

But it's not a new phenomenon.

When the DC characters were reimagined for the Silver Age in the 1950s and 60s, the sensible thing would have been to abandon all their Golden Age counterparts. Instead, DC created Earth 2 and pretended that all the Golden Age stories really happened in a parallel world which led to some characters having two back-stories while others who should have been discontinued managed to cling on to existence. Result: muddle!

It happened again in the 1980s when DC finally realised that it had too many characters with backstories that were far too complicated to make any sense. The answer was supposed to be Crisis on Infinite Earths which promised to streamline its roster and restart the characters that mattered. It failed. Because DC was (again!) unwilling to lose the baggage of its past, Crisis became part of the muddled continuity it was supposed to simplify. To add insult to injury, far from reducing the number of superfluous characters, it actually increased the number of second stringers floating around.

The same thing happened again with Infinite Crisis, and One More Day is just the comics equivalent of that infamous season of Dallas which turned out to be "all a dream"!

Sadly, neither Marvel nor DC have the imagination or courage to completely sever their links with the parts of their past that are stopping them from moving forward. Why does the JSA still exist fifty years after it was reinvented as the JLA? Why do we still have four versions of the Flash and Green Lantern in existence at the same time? Why, 25 years after it was decided to get rid of Superboy, do we now have two or three versions of him wandering around the DCU? Does anyone, even within the DC offices, really understand what on Earth Hawkman's backstory is supposed to be these days?

The problem is sometimes the writers' fault but I tend to agree with Genejoke. The real fault more often lies with the publishers themselves. In this age of company-wide crossovers and "events", publishers often dictate absurd story lines to the writers. And, even when it is the writer who comes up with the stupid idea, surely it's the editor's job to slap him down and tell him to go away and do better?!

There ae times when it has been done well, usually it is when they acknowledge the story but put a spin on it or retell it with a twist.

Again talking about captain america but look at bucky/winter soldier/the new captain america.

Bucky barnes was a cheesy throwback to simpler times who was killed off, no one in their right mind would bring him back. But he was brought back and a decent spin was put on the character to make him more interesting and fitting to todays audience bringing us the winter soldier.

The plus side to independants and webcomics is that the writer has full control of back story and timeline.

The problem is made worse because both marvel and DC insist on keeping all their stuff in the same world.
So Spiderman lives in the same world as the X-men, huh?
No. No he doesn't!
Otherwise people would not be amazed at spiderman, they would just go "oh look, a mutant with spider themed powers." Trying to pretend they live in the same world is moronic, as the only time people in Spidermans world seem to know what a mutant is, is when they do a cross over with the x-men. Then suddenly they all remember "Oh yeah! We live in a world with mutants and there is lots of predjudice against them! Doh! How easy that is to forget sometimes!"

DC is just as bad. Metropolis and Gotham City are so difference in style that to try to pretend they exist in the same setting is hillarious. The bright optimistic city and the dark, gothic, hell hole. They just don't mesh. Its like two genres bolted together in the middle. Why not just pretend Rambo and Freddie Krueger live in the same world while you are at it?
When Batman or Superman show up in the others city they seem so horribly out of place that I am left thinking "Is this meant to be funny?"

Worse yet, because everyone lives in one of two worlds, you have weird implications.
Anytime a global event happens, how come dozens of super heroes dont show up?
Joker has a nuclear bomb? If its on the news, why doesn't the flash, green lattern, and superman rush over? Are they too busy to care? or just assume Batman always has it covered?
Sentinel Robots are taking over America, but only the x-men and other mutants are fighting them. Where is Dare Devil, Spiderman, Ironman, Captain America and all the rest?

it just doesn't work, any more then if you declared the Harkovast exists in the same universe as Shades (using some DD examples there.) Any attempt to join them together would be pointless, meaningless fan service at best and ruining both comics at worst.

harkovast
The problem is made worse because both marvel and DC insist on keeping all their stuff in the same world.

Agreed. That's part and parcel of the problem of having company-wide crossovers and "events". It's hard enough keeping continuity straight (and disbelief suspended) when you only have one character to worry about. When you try to maintain it over dozens of titles, control almost inevitably has to pass from writer to editorial committee.

harkovast
Why not just pretend Rambo and Freddie Krueger live in the same world while you are at it?

Please ... don't give them ideas!

harkovast
it just doesn't work, any more then if you declared the Harkovast exists in the same universe as Shades (using some DD examples there.)

You mean they don't?! But ... I've put my heroine in dire peril and now you tell me there won't be a pack of sword-wielding foxes racing to the rescue? Damn! I'm going to have to go and rethink my entire ending now! ;-)

oh crap there goes the human race in malefic. The plan was to have the anthropods from harkovast come to earth and kick demon ass thus saving the human race... guess i can kiss that idea goodbye.

Ooops! Sorry! That was a typo!
I meant to say -
"it just doesn't work, any more then if you declared ANYTHING ELSE OTHER THAN Harkovast and Shades existing in the same universe (using some DD examples there.)"

Don't worry, DAJB, we are still all set for the ultimate mega cross over where Boodica comes in and choke slams The Speaker, while Sir Muir is crashing a blimp into Big Ben!

Genejoke, we will have to expand out multiverse to include malefic, maybe the blimp crash opens a portal in time and space due to exploding time power contained in the clock? (Its no dumber then some of the crossover ideas DC and Marvel come out with!)

(Seriously though, I was expecting a barrage of hate mail for the opinion in my last post, I am glad to see others feel the same way about company wide crossover non-sense)

@harkovast, you know about Heroes Unite, which created Shared Universe here, on Drunk Duck, right? As far as I can say (as a fan of many webcomics from HU Universe), they're doing quite well job.

I dunno, I'm not against the idea of a shared universe in theory. It worked just fine in 60's Marvel. Then again, back then there were less than a dozen ongoing comics that were in the universe. And, all of them were written and/or edited by one guy and drawn by a small roster of artists.

It can be tricky to have a shared universe within the scope of hundreds of comics with thousands of characters. And, not only that, but they also have decades of backstory. (Much of which contradicts itself)

This is why mainstream comics are such a niche market. Some normal schmuck isn't going to pick up a series if he has to do fifty years of homework on it.

I think this is also why the smaller publishers tend to avoid building their own universes. Dark Horse and a couple others tried it in the 90's and it fell apart. Even the most hardcore comics nerd doesn't want yet another sprawling universe of superguys when there's already two of them.

There's a good side as well as a bad side to this kind of storytelling. God of War covered the bad side pretty thoroughly, correct me if I'm being too broad, bringing back Silver Age sensibilities without regard to what development happened to places and characters during the Bronze Age and the Dark Age.
On the good side, or at least the better side, you can have stories that do regard that the Bronze Age's and Dark Age's better stories did bring a sense of realism that previous Ages were lacking. Characters became more psychologically complex and the universe that they inhabit was examined in greater detail. When a protagonist that still adheres to classic heroism,(as a Silver Age character would,) but the world itself is more like a Dark Age one you can get stories that are pretty interesting thematically. If you can excuse the pretentiousness, trying to reconcile nostalgia with realism.

Maybe it's just because I don't know anything about popular comics, but if all these stories carry on and stuff and fit together in the same world, why aren't all the original heroes 80 or 90 years old by now? Superman must have been in his late 20's or early 30's in the 1930's strips, that'd make him almost 100 now, wouldn't it? Maybe he just ages really well, but what about Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane? ... or are they all dead now? :(
But Batman too would be in his dotage and he's famous for having now powers at all.

I suppose there could possibly have been different batmen or something? I did read that somewhere I think... But I'm pretty sure there's also a stream where he's just the same guy.

Personally, I'd prefer it if their world stayed as it was- in the 30's, 40's. Whatever period a character originated from is the place where they should stay, in the same environment. That way you're less tempted to mess things up and mutate stuff to make it seem like one world. -That's just so insane.

ozoneocean
Maybe it's just because I don't know anything about popular comics, but if all these stories carry on and stuff and fit together in the same world, why aren't all the original heroes 80 or 90 years old by now?
But Batman too would be in his dotage and he's famous for having now powers at all.

I think that's where "Hypertime" comes in. Don't quote me on that stuff, the original reason all the DC hero's aren't 100 years old is because of Earth II the place where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all originated in the 40's.
Then in the 80's they blew it up planet of the ape’s style and rebooted everyone. Then they came up with Hypertime, and then they decided to retcon everything they did again in 2004 and then again in 2007. I stopped reading for the most part when all this fan boyish bull killed off all the new interesting DC comics.

But to answer your question on age, YES they should all be really old read "The Dark Knight" for a fan boy’s answer as to why he is now older than Bruce Wayne is. Personally whenever an author tries to address the aging of characters, it fails miserably and it's basically just a wank and homage to their childhood. Cyclops and Jean should have been written out of the X-men back in the 70's but they haven't been and we are now eternally stuck with Jean dying and coming back every three weeks. I probably have a more intelligent and compelling argument to make but sadly my brain isn't quite working yet so I will leave you with these words of wisdom.

READ HARKOVAST because I do not think Harkovast has said it yet.

I think it has more to do with the publisher's bottom line. You have to constantly reinvent and modernize old characters like Batman and Superman in order to keep them accessible to a modern audience.

That's part of the reason why they keep getting their origins retold every decade or so. The first Christian Bale Batman movie was a recap of Batman's origin. They already covered those bases in the 1989 Tim Burton movie, but it was done again in order to rope in the new folks. And, well, it was also done to clearly put Batman into an age that has ipods and other such modern contrivances.

Like computers, a superhero franchise needs a periodic reboot. It makes things more efficient and blasts away a lot of dead wood.

...

And yes, you can keep the character rooted in the time it was created. However, by doing that you are severely limiting your audience. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and the X-Men have all gotten a plethora of facelifts. Their origins have been rewritten more often than a Chinese history textbook. And, because of this, they're more popular than ever.

Compare that to The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, or Doc Samson. Those characters were just as popular as the ones I mentioned above if you turn the clock back by about sixty years. However, they only entertain very small niche audiences now. And, I think that's partially because they've been rooted to the time period they originated in.

Air Raid Robertson
And yes, you can keep the character rooted in the time it was created. However, by doing that you are severely limiting your audience. Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and the X-Men have all gotten a plethora of facelifts. Their origins have been rewritten more often than a Chinese history textbook. And, because of this, they're more popular than ever.

Compare that to The Shadow, The Green Hornet, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, or Doc Samson. Those characters were just as popular as the ones I mentioned above if you turn the clock back by about sixty years. However, they only entertain very small niche audiences now. And, I think that's partially because they've been rooted to the time period they originated in.

And this is where comics set in specific time periods have an advantage. I mean, if the story takes place in, say, the Old West, then there's no need to update everything to include new technology. Same with stories set in the future. Mind you, it is possible to change both slightly, but in different ways: a story set in the past can be allowed to move into the next major historical period if the creators feel they've done everything they can do in the original period, whereas stories set in the future can include the odd mention of our time period (although futuristic stories risk becoming dated if technological and cultural advances take a completely different direction than predicted. See: The Jetsons).