Byrne Robotics: BACKSTORY! The use of civilian identities

Very good point - and one I hope we explore again in the future.

You can try this too often and wind up unraveling too much of a character's history, but on the whole, it was a nice bonus for those of us who'd been around for awhile. And Penny was a fun character.

The downside of course, was that now that we have her in the book, we can kill her, which some unimaginative p.o.s. writer did the first chance he got. This is often done to spit in the faces of the fans and tell them to go the f*ck away. He's in charge now and will piss wherever he pleases. See also: Buffy Season Seven. "You stuck around for this? You get what you deserve, Loser! Here, have some more!"

For brand new fans who like their stuff with an edge, preferably jagged and rusted, well, what could be nicer? For those of who'd followed the books for a while and enjoyed the characters...? Pain, misery, and suffering, dolloped out by the handful! And why? 'Cause life's like that, ya whiners...

Ah, comics were so... intense there for a while, weren't they? You may have gotten off the train at just about the right time, Michael.

I wouldn't know a lot about the "current era"... I'm just not buying new books. Right now, I get four - Kurt Busiek's Astro City, Future Quest, STNV (hi Mr. Byrne!) and I am about to start collecting Mark Waid's new run on Captain America.

Aside from that... my interest is well and truly lost, and I have no urge to regain it. There was a time when I would give a new series a six issue run, to see if it caught me. Now, I don't do that even with Justice League or Avengers. If DC ever brings back Legion of Super-Heroes, I MIGHT try it... but I think it unlikely that the LSH will return.

But to be very certain (coming back to your point) - I agree entirely that Fantastic Four had a lot more backstory than Avengers or Justice League of America. Perhaps I should have cited the Defenders instead... :) I know there were Valkyrie and Nighthawk fans. I mean, there must have been, right?:) :) :)

Hi Brian. I said at the beginning of my post (and don't take this as a criticism to you) "When I first started reading..." for a reason. I started reading ARCHIE and RICHIE RICH (a LOT of consistency there!) when I was 7 in 1973 and really started with Marvel and DC when I was 9 in 1975--what an amazing time! I got many years of the classic heroes that still LOOKED like the classic heroes! I thoroughly enjoyed the Marvel and DC big guns until the mid-80's--a good ten years!--all the way up to CRISIS at DC and, at the same time at Marvel, some undefined lethargy. After that, I drifted away...visiting the comic shops infrequently and paying more attention to a few of the independents.

'Undefined lethargy'. Good way to put it! DC ended up with a rather half-baked approach to implementing a lot of its 'post-Crisis' changes...and over at Marvel, Shooter seemed more interested in thinking up the 'New Universe' than in what was going on in the 'real' Marvel Universe. There was a lot of 'change for change's sake' in between the two SECRET WARS series...and once the New Universe tanked, Marvel got even worse.

I loved the Bates/Novick/McLaughlin run on THE FLASH, but I started to lose interest around the time you mention. I don't know if it was Bates' storyline or if it could be attributed to Don Heck's (then) messy art or Carmine Infantino (at his loosest) returning for the last few years.

I started reading FLASH in early childhood, not long after Iris' death, and I recently got caught up on the whole run from about #270-285. Rich Buckler was supposed to be the 'permanent' replacement for Novick. but he disappeared after one issue (supposedly due to scheduling conflicts and 'other commitments', but DC actually printed a few negative letters about his work on that one issue, so it sounds like there was more to it than that). Don Heck seemed to be a 'loved or hated' artist at DC. I can see where the change in style would be a bit jarring after Novick, but my earliest memories of FLASH were issues that Heck dew, and I went on to enjoy his run in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA. Infantino returned later in 1980, several months after Bates had moved on to new storylines for Barry, but with a somewhat 'lighter', more '60s' look(appropriately enough, Infantino's first issue back featured a battle between Flash and a mind-controlled Elongated Man...as well as the return of the classic 'pointing finger' captions, and Barry's explanations of the scientific aspects of the stories).

To be honest, after a while, I preferred Gerry Conway's 'Firestorm' backup series(1980-81) to some of the 'Flash' work at that time, although the flashback-laden 300th issue had a nice twist.

Once 'Firestorm' moved on to his own book, I missed the issue that introduced the 'Doctor Fate' backup, and quickly realized I could live without the Flash. I did pick up the 'Professor Zoom murder' issue,as well as the series finale, but did not actually go back and reread everything in between until much later. It looked like Bates really had to 'vamp' to extend it long enough to lead into Barry's final fate in CRISIS.

It's too bad he got a better sendoff there than in his own title.

I think both companies were trying to mix things up with their major characters, but often using less than stellar talent. I lost interest in DC sooner than Marvel, and CRISIS reinvigorated that for a time, but then I left again in the post-CRISIS confusion.

I know I didn't totally, but I feel like I mostly skipped the 90's--and I'm happy I did! (Friends who have quit reading comics have given me

their entire collections--mostly 90's stuff...and I see why they didn't

want them!)

I cut way back on comics as the '80s wore on, and by the early '90s, the only DC book I was reading was the so-called 'BWAH HA HA Justice League'...which I dropped sometime in 1992. All I followed from Marvel at that point were the Spider-Man titles(already besieged first by McFarlane, and then his 'draw-alike', Erik Larsen), and in 1993, I quit 'cold turkey' after the (ultimately temporary) death of Harry Osborn, in 'Spectacular Spider-Man' # 200. So, yeah, I go tout before the 'Clone Saga'...and once I was online, within a couple of years of that, I realized I was glad to stop when I did.

(I know I stopped buying FANTASTIC FOUR when Mr. Byrne left, but I'll have to check on the others.)

As did I. Every time I've quit buying comics "for good" I've gotten sucked back in by seeing a JB comic. When I quit as a kid because my parents were giving me crap about comics, I got sucked back in at 13 by FF #243. And when I sold all my comics and quit collecting for a few years in my late teens, I saw an issue of West Coast Avengers on a spinner rack at a Huck's convenience store and thought "John Byrne is doing West Coast Avengers now? This looks amazing!" Picked it up and got back into comics again and pretty much have never completely stopped since then. I blame John Byrne for my addiction. :P

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