Besides, if there were special places in Hell, I'd rather reserve a space for ticket touts who buy concert tickets quickly and then sell them for double the price to real music fans. That'd be more important. ;-)

The real problem was that DC didn't plan ahead with their "Earth-Zero" reboots. Hence, the Superman reboot leads to problems with the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Wonder Woman reboot leads to problems with the JSA, JLA, Titans AND Infinity Inc. (impressive, really), and Hawkman (Katar), well...that wasn't even supposed to be a reboot until suddenly it was...

And what was the point of putting the Charlton characters in CRISIS in the first place? They'd never appeared in any DC titles before, and they served no purpose in the story. They were just "extras."

And from all of this endless rewriting and revamping, not one element came out of it that was actually superior to what the original writers had created. It was all fan-turned-pro jibberish that no one except the people coming up with it cared about. So, the next time someone said, "Hey, you guys got rid of Bat-Mite, right? 'Cause I have an aces way of doing him for today's audience!!" the new one not only didn't match the original, it didn't match the last revamp. Or the one before that. 

In its ignorant and destructive pursuit of continuity, DC in fact destroyed any semblance of one for all time to come. Nothing sticks anymore. Every one gets to rewrite everything again every time the ball is put into play. "The last guy got to rewrite everything. Why shouldn't I be allowed to?" And hey, it's not like the new, new version was worth defending, even if the editors or writers knew about it, so, why not do a new Comet or Bat-Mite? 

Not only that, but "Universe-Shattering Reboots" are a genre unto themselves nowadays. The scale of events is so off the charts that the stories are essentially meaningless all the time. What? This latest series is actually going to end the Universe? Really? No more DC books after that? You guys are all just packing it in and going to work in a brewery? No..? Then I guess I don't really need to buy your book then, do I? Or any of the 48 attendant crossovers. 

Way to screw the pooch, guys. You all jumped up and down on the concept that this is all make-believe and written in sand so often that nothing you can ever write from this point forward will stick around long enough to be of any interest to future readers.

I have a friend who really wants the new DC universe-mystery-crossover series Metal to finally, finally establish a good version of Hawkman in the DCU. One he can finally invest in and enjoy. My question is, so what if it does? That version will last as long as the current editor and writer find it interesting, and then back into the grist mill Hawkman goes, coming out "savage," drug-addled, or looking like a hood ornament all over again... Not that that one will be around for long either, of course... 

One final element of the whole useless, ugly tragedy that lingers with us today. How many individuals died in Crisis? If each Earth had some six billion people on it and we managed to save just one out of an infinite number, then that is a lot of people Superman did not save. Or Wonder Woman. Or any of them. Um, I think the idea was that since we went back to the start, and restarted everything without multiverses, there never were all those people, so none of them ever lived OR died... except that's not true. We saw them dying. Wishing it all into neverwas doesn't decrease the wanton lack of concern for the victims that comics currently evince. Regular people are just cannon fodder to drop Chemo bombs onto these days. Kill everyone in New York. Next month, kill 'em again. And again. Yay, death.

I remember when part of the fun of this was that people's lives meant something and that saving someone was cool. I know. How backwards, right? It mattered once upon a time that an innocent woman was going to be wrongfully executed for murder. 

These days? Ha! She's so dead. And so are 49,000 exact duplicates of her on other Earths. And an infinite number of non-exact duplicates of her on others. Not to mention her mom and dad, siblings, family, pets, everyone she ever met, an infinite number of times over! Everyone in her city. And state. And country. In every country. On every Earth. Endlessly. Ad infinitum. And we're going to take time to save exactly...

None of them.

People's lives don't mean anything unless they're one of our costumed properties. And even those don't fare too well, right, Human Bomb? Blood, death, destruction, chaos, endlessly, forever and forever... sigh. Comics are so rewarding...

***

Substantial? He appeared a lot. He didn't DO much of anything. Sorry, Mr. Giordano. If the Charlton characters hadn't appeared in CRISIS it wouldn't have changed the story at all.

JB, since we're talking about them, were you ever interested in working on any of the Charlton superheroes after DC took them in? Long-term, I mean...I believe they've popped up here and there in your DC work (Blue Beetle appeared in Legends, IIRC).

I think it would've been fun to see your take on the Beetle, or the Question, or Captain Atom--any of the Ditko characters, really!

***

METAL is just re-establishing the "Geoff Johns Hawkman," which was a "healthy" version of the character. (The one that keeps dying and getting re-incarnated. I don't think we'll be seeing the Thanagarian version again.)