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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132282
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 6:15am | IP Logged | 1
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I was fine with JB's Superman.... especially Lex as a business man.•• That was Marv Wolfman's.
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Jim Petersman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 June 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 625
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 9:03am | IP Logged | 2
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“The Mr Fixit Hulk…” —————————————— For the record, that’s not who I was referring to in my post.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“She-Hulk getting stuck as her green alter-ego” ——————————————— YES! Combined with going from “Savage” to “Sensational”!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
“As would have been Batgirl, if she'd been shown a little respect by the writers.” ——————————————- You mean that Barbara Gordon, daughter of a police commissioner and superhero, wouldn’t have a way to detect if someone like the Joker was in her building, let alone at her door? And she wouldn’t just throw the door open inviting herself to be shot?
Between that and her portrayal in Crisis (which is about the sum of my experience with Batgirl), it is no wonder I prefer Oracle.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“I think it's important to remember the topic of conversation, specifically "what changes worked for you?”.” ———————————————- I’m more than happy to debate my (or anyone else’s) choices, but thanks for clarifying that I also wanted to know what everyone else’s choices are and, hopefully, why it worked for them. I’m not always the best at communicating my point in writing.
I would add to my list: JB’s Krypton & keeping the Kents alive, and Wolfman’s Lex.
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 9:27am | IP Logged | 3
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As a very old reader*, I'll go back some... something old, something new...
Hal Jordan - becoming a salesman on the road seemed a little disingenuous. Why NOT be a test pilot? Respected, good infrastructure, and Hal Jordan should be great at his job. As for being made an alcoholic... how the dwarfs must try to tear down the giants.
Spider-Man - Spidey began with a problem, in that a teenager in high school couldn't stay the same forever - but that worked so well for Peter Parker that it was difficult to see him changing. Still... I'm not aware of New York geography, so I've no idea how close Forest Hills is to urban New York; the trip alone might have been prohibitive.
Bruce Wayne - the big change that I can think of was the "new" Batman, who stopped having aliens to fight, and adventures on other worlds, and outrageous crimes and villains. If those were necessary, there was always World's Finest for such stories. It was a good idea putting him back in Gotham City, fighting (relatively) normal crooks. I wasn't so fond of Dick Grayson going to college, but once Dick had a degree, he could just return to Gotham; an easily fixable change. And then, after Crisis (sigh), they decided to make Batman a dick.
Clark Kent - Putting him on TV was not a good idea. Having Morgan Edge purchase the Daily Planet and change things was enough of a switch... but Clark became a reporter to stay close to incoming news. He didn't even have to quit... just do the TV job not quite well enugh so that Edge would take him off. As for the efforts to depiower him... I feel that at the time, depowering Earth-1's greatest hero meant depowering every other super hero, and that was too much.
I could go on and on, but I see that a lot of the issue was A) more and more secret identity story, which meant more and more straying from the original successful characters, and B) depowering the heroes to make them less unbeatable. This happened to Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman... and it seemed obvious that every case was going to be reverted.
For every good change, I think there were five not-so-good modifications.
*Not the oldest on the board. I recall one of the older ones claiming he'd dance on my grave. :)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132282
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 9:39am | IP Logged | 4
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I wasn't so fond of Dick Grayson going to college, but once Dick had a degree, he could just return to Gotham; an easily fixable change. ••• Dick went off to college for a simple reason: killing him off was not an option. Not then, at least. Of corse, an immediate problem was that Dick had to jump a few years to be college age—which meant his pals in the Teen Titans also had to get older... and older... and older. And some of the already older characters became casualties of this. Hal Jordon, Barry Allen, Oliver Queen. They became “too old” and had to be replaced with “legacy” characters. Except Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, that is.
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12438
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 9:39am | IP Logged | 5
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QUOTE:
| ...the big change that I can think of was the "new" Batman, who stopped having aliens to fight, and adventures on other worlds... |
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That, for me, would qualify as a good change. Something valuable existed in those comicbooks, though: a sense of humor. So-called dark & gritty Batman should retain the sense of humor that is so integral to his personality (and appeal).
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12438
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 9:40am | IP Logged | 6
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I suppose young Dick Grayson might just as easily been shuffled off to a private boarding school, nu?
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James Best
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 878
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | 7
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Some of this stuff may seem a bit odd, but here goes...
* I really enjoyed the Byrne/Wolfman change by having Lex Luthor as a ruthless billionaire tycoon. While I grew up reading older stuff with Lex as the evil (and often bumbling) scientist who is constantly beaten by Superman, the "new" version of Luthor came across as being much more threatening. I wouldn't put Lex on the same level as, say, Doctor Doom, but he definitely went up a few notches on the Evil Scale when our host was helming the art and story lines.
* The brief run on The Avengers where Peter Gyrich is attempting to take control of the team's roster and activities was an interesting path, which I thought was going to continue longer than it did. The idea that the government would try to monitor/manage a team of superheroes was something I hadn't thought of and seeing it (with Mr. Byrne's artwork) was quite impressive. I often wonder why the government (via Gyrich) didn't try to do the same thing with other teams. I thought that seeing Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny having to fight off Gyrich and his cronies would have been epic. I was especially looking forward to seeing Mr. G appear in the pages of the FF after his all-too-brief single panel during the Byrne/Claremont X-Men run.
* Mr. Byrne's portrayal of Krypton as a cold, antiseptic society, rather than as a vibrant one. For one thing, it makes the contrast between normal Kryptonians and the good qualities of Superman that much more striking. And it goes a long way toward pointing out what our host highlighted in Man Of Steel about Clark Kent: it is the Earth that made him a Superman, not his origins.
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Ted Pugliese
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 7979
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | 8
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I loved the Sword of the Atom, Batman and the
Outsiders, Wein & Gibbons' Green Lantern, and JB's
Superman! He tops the list. Here's why.
Supergirl was already dead (I kept waiting for
Superwoman to take her place).
I did not like what Frank Miller did to Batgirl
(indirectly) in Batman: Year One, even though I liked
everything else.
I did not like what Perez did to Wonder Girl
(indirectly) in his Wonder Woman run, even though I
liked everything else.
I did not like what happened to Barry Allen. He
should have just retreated to the future, and Wally
could have taken over, if necessary.
I did not like the changes to Green Lantern's origin
in Emerald Dawn (I or II).
I did not like what Hawkworld did to Hawkman's
timeline, even though I enjoyed the original prestige
format mini-series.
John Byrne's Superman was the BEST of the Post-Crisis
reboots.
And we didn't need a pocket universe Superboy either.
Superman himself (or with the Justice League) was
enough to inspire the Legion of Super-Heroes.
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Shane Matlock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 August 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1760
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| Posted: 26 June 2019 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | 9
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I loved the black Spider-Man costume but was not a fan of Venom. Just really loved the look of it, especially on that iconic black and white cover JB did.
Heather Hudson as leader of Alpha Flight.
JB's Superman.
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Marc Baptiste
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3655
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| Posted: 27 June 2019 at 3:15am | IP Logged | 10
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At the time, I would absolutely have said that Perez's WONDER WOMAN reboot was my favorite of the CRISIS reboots - after all, George was my favorite artist rebooting (writing & drawing) my favorite character - but with the passage of time I have to conclude the JB's SUPERMAN reboot was near precision perfect in it's execution and follow-up. With all due love and respect to George's WONDER WOMAN - there were some serious problems involved with that reboot.
Another change that REALLY worked for me (temporary though it was intended to be):
She-Hulk replacing Ben in the FANTASTIC FOUR!
Marc
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Trevor Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 3520
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| Posted: 27 June 2019 at 3:33am | IP Logged | 11
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Selfishly, the boosted age of both the Teen Titans and
the Legion, as well the change of Dick to Nightwing. I
had been away from comics for some time and it was the
Perez/Wolfman Titans and the Giffen/Levitz Legion that
brought me back in.
I didn't give so much as a thought to the impact the
ageing of the characters should have on the rest of the
DCU - I just knew that those were some kickass books!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132282
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| Posted: 27 June 2019 at 5:16am | IP Logged | 12
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There was only one tiny flaw in George’s WONDER WOMAN reboot, from my perspective, and that was the missed opportunity to establish her immortality retroactively, by making her a few thousand years old. YMMV
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