boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian) (02/01/85)
> From: oddjob!paul (Paul Schinder) >> But revisionist Marvel History has it that that issue of SGT. FURY in >> which Reed Richards appears never happened, or that it wasn't *really* >> Reed Richards. Marvel doesn't want Reed to be 60+ years old. > > How can they help it? I remember an old FF where Ben and Reed were > reminiscing about their war days. Ben was a fighter pilot in the Pacific, > and Reed was with the OSS in Europe. I even think there was a Two-in-One a > few years ago teaming up Ben Grimm and the Howling Commandos. I don't > *think* that that was just a dream, although I could be wrong. The fact > that Ben and Reed were in WWII seems to be too ingrained in the FF saga for > Marvel to arbitrarily dump it. Well, Marvel has indeed had to dump some things in order to bring things up to date. Unless they compress their timeline so that things have only been happening superhero-wise for the last ten years, all sorts of problems crop up. Otherwise, you get the "Why was Peter Parker in high school for 12 years?" syndrome. You can't go by anything that happened in any early issues of the various comics. that's why it's "revisionist" Marvel History. Saying that Marvel can't arbitrarily dump it because it happened in an early issue is the same as saying "How can SUPERMAN: THE SECRET YEARS take place in the 1970's, when an issue of SUPERMAN from back in the 60's had Superman meeting President Kennedy?" You just have to ignore those earlier events. > On the same note, does anyone remember the issue of the X-men a few years > back where Wolverine, in a tough situation, says something like "this > reminds me of that night on Monte Casino". Seems like he was in WWII too > (and who knows how many *other* wars he was in. That mutant healing factor > might give longevity, as others on the net have suggested.) Charles Xavier, > I believe, also served in WWII. No, Xavier fought in the Korean War. This was established from the beginning of the title. As for Logan, I recall an interview with Claremont (or was it Byrne?) in which he revealed a plan (that was never followed up on), in which, upon Captain America's first meeting with the new X-Men, Cap recognizes Logan as someone he fought beside during the big W. Apparently, the idea *was* that Logan's healing power does fight off aging to some degree. > From: CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:Pucc-I:Pucc-K:afo (Laurie Sefton) > Since we've started talking about which earth is going to bite > the biggie, and which isn't, I've gotten the feeling that Earth-2 is > the most favoured Earth of the people posting here. Actually, I > prefer Earth-2 to Earth-1 on just about anything. The characters > seem to have more depth, and just seem to be all-around more > interesting. At first (a looooong while back), I though this was > due to stories about Earth-2 and characters thereof were pretty > scarce, and the people doing the plotting and scripting were doing > it more as a labour of love than anything else (ever notice that > when a character gets popular, the glow goes away?). Now I find > that I still prefer the Earth-2 people to Earth-1. I would be > thrilled and delighted if they (DC) punted the entire Earth-1 group > (with a few exceptions), and went with the Earth-2 groups... > > Anyone else feel the same way? Well, I think I've made my position clear on this by now. Anyways, I think you hit the nail on the head about why the Earth-2 characters are better in general than their E-1 counterparts. The rarity does help (of course, with ALL-STAR SQUADRON, they aren't quite so rare, but Thomas tends to focus on the ones who haven't been done to death, anyway). I suspect it's the difference in the characters that sparks interest, more than anything else. That difference implies a fresh treatment of a stale concept. The E-1 characters can't really change all that much, so E-2 provides an opportunity to revamp a character without really doing it permanently. For instnace, back in the early 70's when DC was toying with the idea of redesigning Robin's costume, they tried it out on the E-2 Robin, so that they could gauge reaction without making too radical a change to an established character. I myself prefer the E-2 characters because they tend to have more, ah, character, then the E-1 counterparts. There are exceptions of course --- I prefer the E-1 Green Lantern and Hawkman, to name two. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA