Comic Book Resources

Thanks Brian, I’d never heard of Earth B before. I remember as a kid that Batman teamed up with Sgt Rock, it was set in the ‘Sixties with flashbacks to the Second World War. Sgt Rock and the Iron Major looked much older in the ‘Sixties’ segments, but Batman looked exactly the same age in 1944 as he did in 1969. That really bothered me as a child.

Could “Earth-B” just have stood for “Earth-Bob”?

Oh… And as surprising as an artist pulling a vanishing act like that, what I find even more surprising is that he wrote a letter of apology to all the people he let down, blaming only himself!

I had heard about the Milkx case, but I didn’t knew he apologized in that letter, once again, thanks for this great blog!

And, if you allow me, I wanted to show you a new blog I’m putting together, it’s called “A panel, a book”
http://apanelabook.blogspot.com/

Thanks and keep the good job!

Great edition. I find that even when I’m not necessarily interested in the character/creative types involved in the legend, there’s still enough of a story to make me want to keep reading.

@Tanwer

It’s true, it was in Uncanny X-men 325! If you look at the newspaper a guy is reading in the subway scene you’ll see the headline, “Cruz swipes again!”

I remember the Milx/Mo_o fiasco. Eric Moreels, of ComiXfan, covered it in detail here.

And, in a face-to-face interview with Newsarama, Milx emphatically stated that he wasn’t Mo_o.

So…there’s that, I guess.

On the Brave & Bold continuity issues and Earth B, I seem to remember a different take on this, although if it was in a letter collumn or possibly at a convention, I don’t really remember. Regardless, it was suggested that the Spectre on Earth 1 was the same entity as the Jim Corrigan Spectre of Eath 2, who had the ability to transfer the Spectre entity between the parallel Corrigans at will. Therefore, although the Jim Corrigans were seperate beings, the Spectre was not. I remember thinking at the time that this was pretty cool and a power you could definately imagine the Spectre having.

It had also been suggested that the Wildcat in Brave & Bold was a parallel version of the Earth 2 Wildcat, who was rarely seen in public and had a very short, unspectacular superhero career. I thought this was a fine explanation. There’s no reason to assume that a hero who was very popular on Earth 2 would have the same poularity on another Earth. The Earth 2 Green Arrow and Earth 2 Aquaman had very different carrers that their Earth 1 counterparts. Granted Earth 2’s Green Arrow was trapped in the past playing Robin Hood, and thoughts of an Earth 2 Aquaman didn’t reach fruition until a bit walk-on in All-Star Squadron, but their careers were more diverse than let’s say The Flashs, Atoms, Green Lanterns and Hawkmen, who ironically were totally seperate beings with completely different origins. Diverse in the sense that the heroes I list above spent years on a Superhero team and pretty much in the public limelight, while Earth 2’s GA and Aquaman were more reclusive.

I remember the Milx/Mo_o fiasco. Eric Moreels, of ComiXfan, covered it in detail here.

And, in a face-to-face interview with Newsarama, Milx emphatically stated that he wasn’t Mo_o.

So…there’s that, I guess.

Yeah, I remember the situation from the time, Ian, and just look at those links - not a debate I’d like to get involved in when I can’t add anything new, proof-wise.

Wildcat, though, Paul, showed up a LOT in Brave and the Bold, so I dunno if I buy the “he was a short-lived Wildcat” argument.

As for the Spectre thing, though, you’re absolutely right that people came up with other theories for the Spectre. I believe Roy Thomas was even planning on addressing it in an issue before Crisis made the point moot.

That goes to the whole unofficial nature of Earth-B.

By the way, I’ve been told that Joe Madureira accused Roger Cruz of swapping his art in the pages of an anniversary Uncanny X-Men issue, is it true?

Well, if i were Milx, i would run outta that SS book too. It sucked really hard.

So, in other words Earth-B is the DC equivalent of “A wizard did it.”?

Plastic Man is a really great example of the necessity of Earth B: the Plastic Man stories in Brave and the Bold have a whole continuity / storyline to them that has nothing to do with anything else the character appeared in during the ’70s. Haney would pick up the character every 3-5 years and pick up *where he left off in B&B* and progress that storyline.

And let’s not get started on Bruce Wayne having a brother that was being permanently occupied by Deadman…

After Final Crisis, Earth B will be all that remains.

Wait and see…

If I had to work on a Steve Niles project, I’d run too. Dude sucks hardcore.

DC’s pre-crisis Plastic Man history is even more unique. He was retconned as an Earth 2 character, who “moved” to Earth X sometime before the end of WW II. I don’t think it was ever explained if it was a voluntary move, although I suspect not. Who would want to leave an Earth where the allies were winning the war for an Earth where the axis powers were in control.

@Paul Valois

OMG! Plastic Man is a nazi!

Yeah, I’m betting Earth-B stood for “Earth-Bob”, too.

Milx’s letter doesn’t really explain WHY he just disappeared, does it? If I were an editor, I would like to know the full facts before I’d consider giving the guy more work. (It’s possible he just had a panic attack under the weight of too many responsibilities- I had one of those in College.)

I remember the oddities of Haney’s run on Brave & The Bold, but they didn’t bother me much- with the exception of the Jim Aparo story where the artist had to run from some criminals who wanted to stop him from finishing the very story they were a part of! THAT one had to be a joke, of course. (But don’t tell Grant Morrison- he’ll turn it into the centerpiece of his next metafictional project! )

Btw, don’t you think you had a few too many B&B covers there? Sure, they’re nice to see, but where they REALLY necessary to make your points? I’ve noticed you do this sometimes. I can understand that you love comics covers and want to share them with us,but it does look excessive sometimes.

Out of interest what were the “try-outs” for B&B #57&58 ?

Wow, Milx story is just incredible! I mean, there are hundreds, if not thousands of artists struggling to make a living out of their art (Including me!), and this guy succeeded… and then dropped it! Amazing!

Yeah, broken English aside, I gotta say that letter is kind of a (belated) class act on the part of the artist. Maybe all the specific references can be replaced with blanks so that we can turn it into a form letter. Then Damon Lindelof, Kevin Smith, Frank Miller, and Bryan Hitch can all sign one.

Wasn’t Haney’s Plastic Man the FIRST post Golden-Age appearance of the character?

I don’t see how that can be counted as violating continuity.

I don’t see how the Spectre (God-like powers include dimension travel) and the Earth-One Wildcat (who showed up in a Creeper team-up written by Denny O ‘Neil) are serious continuity fluffles, either.

The Super-Sons, Sgt. Rock, Batman’s brother and all his adopted children, though… Yeah, there’s an argument there. (Although, basically, I think Bob Haney’s work is the one true continuity, and everything else is a pale imitation.)

@Ariel S. >>Wow, Milx story is just incredible! I mean, there are hundreds, if not thousands of artists struggling to make a living out of their art (Including me!), and this guy succeeded… and then dropped it! Amazing!

It appears he’s aware of a personal “problem” and some type of self-destructive behavior. I hope he did whatever was necessary to straighten it out. I’m reminded however, of a Wonderman story I wrote for one of Marvel’s B & W magazines (Marvel Preview) as a try-out. I was paired with an young artist living in MA (I’m from RI). When I first went to see him, I couldn’t believe his enthusiasm. I heard how this was his “big break” & how much attention he was giving to the (6 page) project. Anyway, we got tons of excuses and apologies, but the artwork never came. I finally received a notecard from Marvel explaining that they were discontinuing their B&W magazine line and all solicited work was being cancelled. I spoke to the artist months afterwards he basically told me he was a real F^ck-up and would usually find a way to screw up a good thing.

BTW, a bit off topic, but this artist had the strangest comic-related job. He would buy damaged, torn and well-worn copies of old comics and spend weeks (maybe months) carefully cutting out each panel, recoloring and inking over whatever was necessary and even recreating entire panesl too damaged to use. He would then paste the completed panels onto new sheets and sell the books at comic conventions s “reconditioned classics”. I remember seeing a copy of Uncanny X-Men #1 he had just completed and it was really quite spectacular. I never saw anything like that before and never have since. The amount of time and effort it must have taken to make these meticulously reconstructed comics suggested to me he was anything but a F^ck-up.

One of my first comics as a kid was an issue of Brave & The Bold teaming up Batman with the Unknown Soldier. I never gave it much thought at the time, but as I grew older and learned more about DC’s books, I began to wonder how in the heck that team-up actually could occur. Now learning about “Earth B” makes it all so clear to me…

Wasn’t Haney’s Plastic Man the FIRST post Golden-Age appearance of the character?

No, there was a (forgettable) 8 issue revival before the first B&B appearance, followed by 2 year bi-monthly in the 1970s.

Haney pretty much ignores either of them anytime there’s a Plastic Man appearance and relies on his own supporting cast and characters– which I could sort of understand in the late ’60s but in the ’70s they had fully revived Woozy Winks and the whole format and continuity with the original 1940s comic… so when Haney’s Plastic Man is saying he’s done nothing except aimlessly drift after what happened with Ruby Ryder 5 years ago it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.

I remember the Milx episode. Initially he denied being Moo (because his story was that he had a complete mental breakdown and had withdrawn from the Internet completely, which didn’t square with continuing to write fanfic). But several people from the fanfic site who knew him previously as the guy who had gotten the Silver Surfer assignment blew the whistle. I believe he then ‘fessed up, but by then it didn’t really matter to Brevoort since they’d moved on with Medina (and that series had bigger problems than the art). Most of this went down/was reported at the ComixFan boards.

Didn’t the whole idea of Earth-B start with Mark Gruenwald, back when he was doing things like the TREATISE ON REALITY IN COMIC BOOKS and the short-lived OMNIVERSE fanzine?

Oh, and PLASTIC MAN ran for 10 issues, not 8. The first issue was great (Gil Kane), but then Win Mortimer took over, and while Mortimer is a fine artist in his own right, he wasn’t the right guy for Plas. I wouldn’t dismiss the whole Silver Age run as “forgettable,” though. If you didn’t know about the Jack Cole version, the 1960s version was mildly entertaining, usually good for one or two laughs per issue.

The cover illustrations take time to load on my phme but they add immensely to what you’re telling us. Keep them coming. Please.

To add to my above post, part of what caused the Milx/Mo_o uproar was that some of the messages Mo_o posted on the fanfic forum at the time appeared to make direct reference to the abandoned assignments and had a mocking, dismissive tone that indicated he didn’t much take it seriously, and was in fact glad to be rid of it. This was at the same time that Tom Brevoort had reported that they made multiple attempts to contact Milx with no response, followed by Milx eventually contacting them weeks later with claims of a mental breakdown. Tom actually showed sympathy for the guy, but then the Mo_o posts came to light. Milx then went on a damage control tour, doing interviews denying he was Mo_o and taking a humble tone full of contrition that was in direct contrast to the tone of the Mo_o postings. This was what caused some his fellow fanfic writers to get disgusted and blow the whistle, and Milx gave up the pretense and faded away after that.

Now, what exactly is the relationship between Milx and the IDW artist known as Chee? They both sound too dairy to be completely unrelated…

“Out of interest what were the “try-outs” for B&B #57&58 ?”

Metamorpho

Graeme Burk,
with respect I must disagree, Plastic Man isn’t a “really great example of the necessity of Earth B”
plastic man is fictional, and if he was doinf something in b&tb the he wasn’t doing elsewhere, its because he isn’t real, and writers are telling stories, this is why my brain develops a shield to continuity explanations, the reason why kal-l was raised at an orphanage and kal el by ma and pa kent are the same superman isn’t because of some crystal universe the superboy punched, its because he isn’t real.
I’d rather a company just go, “that superman that couldn’t fly and let gangsters fall to their demise? we changed him, oh and batman doesn’t kill either” than crisis in final infinite finite invasion earths, a 20 year long $12000 saga of trying to explain why superman has a different haircut.

Aha, but the first Silver Age appearance of Plastic Man… sort of.. was in July 1966 in House of Mystery.

In Dial H for Hero 169, Robby Reed (now an incredible blogger at http://www.dialbforblog.com/) turned into Pas!

The idea that the Spectre used parallel Corrigans was established in two Roy Thomas stories: JLofA #219-20, where an E-1 Corrigan was seen trapped in Limbo, and America Vs. the JSA #3, wherein a narrative caption remarked that the Spectre had “been Jim Corrigan on two Earths.”

I think Roy Thomas proposed the Elric idea but it sort of petered out — whether to do new stories, whether those should be from my story lines and so on — and eventually Roy worked with Craig Russell to do the Pacific/First adaptations of the original Elric stories - and good they were, too. Dark Horse recently contracted to reprint these, which will be worth looking forward to. There are now, of course, more Elric novels to adapt but I’ve tended to concentrate on new Elric stuff with my buddy Simonson for DC. MAKING OF A SORCER was, from my POV, a great interpretation by Walter. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing someone do THE FORTRESS OF THE PEARL or REVENGE OF THE ROSE at some point.

erks…
Seeing myself to be listed in Comic Book Urban Legends really feels weird to me… Really!

owh well.

So all the events in the Countdown books happened on Earth-B?

milx, perhaps you could take this an opportunity to clear up everything.

Are any of Bob Haney’s stories collected in the Brave and the Bold Showcase editions? Some of the crazy continuity comments have got my interest piqued.

I know there’s a couple of Wildcat stories in the second BATB Showcase - and I also didn’t blink twice when reading them, simply shuffling them into a modern context I guess - but I’m not sure if they’re Haney stories.

Let’s not forget some of the strange, but stellar Brave and Bold team-ups, specifically….

Batman vs Eclipso #55
Flash & Doom Patrol #65
Metamorpho & The Metal Men #66
Bat-Hulk & Metamorpho #68
Spectre & The (Barry Allen) Flash #72

I seem to recall an old “Ask the Answer Man” column in which Bob Rozakis said the Superman/Spider-Man team-up(s) took place on Earth-B as well.

As for cover images, as a whole, people like as many images as they can get (note how a standard issue of Alter Ego or Back Issue is set up), so while I certainly can understand why it is not everyone’s cuppa, it is going to be a continuing thing.

Let me take this time to once again thank the Grand Comic Book Database! What an amazing resource they are!

COMIC URBAN LEGEND: An artist stopped working on his comics without informing anyone, including the editors on the books he was drawing.

How uncommon is this I wonder. When I read the text my immediate thought was Martin Wagner’s Hepcats. Which as I remember things was originally an indie book which petered out after about 10 issues (the last of which was stunningly brilliant), only to resurface being published by someone else. The deal was to be that this new publisher would produce an introductory issue, reprint all the old stuff and by then Wagner would follow on with the rest of the story.

Alas, the guy dropped completely out of sight at roughly the point the new publisher began to expect the follow on issues and it all became a bit painful. When I started reading usenet all those years ago it was a huge cause celebre.

Brian, I love the fact that when I read these columns, the responses seem to include a few of the actual participants showing up to say their piece. That speaks pretty darn well for you and your column! Bravo! Mike Moorcock and Milx! Hello!

As I was reading about Earth-B, I began to wonder if it was actually short for “B.S.”… in other words, how do we (DC) explain this one? Give them the Earth-B BS…

Well, there’s nothing much to clear actually.
Yes, the “urban legend” is indeed true ’bout me, the email and the breakdown.

Until today, the Mo_0 part never been solved. ;/

You left people who took a chance on you in the lurch, lied about it, and now 5 years later, you’re still dancing around and playing games? Very sad.

Earth-B was a cool Urban Legend, but how about some discussion of the supposed Earth-1A, which Bob Rozakis supposedly proclaimed was where the Super Friends adventures took place?

Thanks for the Milx story. I would like to add my own little addendum in the hopes that it might prompt Milx himself to do something to rectufy the situation as he seemes committed to doing with Marvel.

I am a huge Silver Surfer fan and have trying to buy original Surfer art from all of his major artists. In the wake of hurricane Katrina, my friend Ron Koomas alerted me to an auction for the last page of the Silver Surfer #1 issue that Milx had drawn. The proceeds of the auction would go to hurricane victims. I thought I’d be killling two birds with one stone so I asked Ron to put in a bid for me and we won. I sent my cheque over but I never got the page. I’m not sure who is at fault. I have tried contacting a few people about this, but to no avail. I would really like to get that page and if anyone out there could help me out with this, I would really appreciate it.

Here’s the article that sums up the original Milx saga:

http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=21318

Clearly Mo_0 was X, the writer of the shortlived “The Brotherhood” comic. It’s all connected.

Rickin’ Rich, if my theory about the “mystery villain” in Batman RIP is correct, you may be right.

Jason, the Showcase Brave and the Bold volumes are basically wall-to-wall Bob Haney. With rare exceptions (although occasionally with uncredited “help” near the end), Haney was THE B&B writer from #50-157.

IIRC, the “B” in Earth-B stood for: Bob Haney, Murray Boltinoff and Brave and the Bold (since that’s where the majority of the current continuity flubs occured - although there’s a letters page response that said that they were all in continuity, but just because they were published at a certain time doesn’t mean the stories necessarily occured at that time. (Official or no, it made it into the “Crisis on Infinite Earths Index” that came out however long ago.)

The story singled out in the Crisis Index of Catwoman taking a life referred to Brave and the Bold#131. She also caused the death of an Axis agent’s son Det.-Sgt. Richard Stuart

Batman No. 346
April 1982
Story: “In the Land of the Dead” (7 pages)
Editor: Dick Giordano
Writer: Bruce Jones
Penciller: Trevor Von Eeden
Inker: Pablo Marcos
Letterer: Shelly Leferman
Colorist: Tom Ziuko
Feature Character: Catwoman (next appears in issue #348)
Intro: Mr. Kyle (Catwoman’s father; in flashback; only appearance)
Villains: Det.-Sgt. Richard Stuart (dies in this story), Lyle, Pete (first and only appearance for both), the Jeweler (in flashback; first appearance; dies in this story)
Synopsis: Catwoman finds that the detective who hired her is an ex-Nazi searching for a hydrogen bomb formula hidden on the train, and that he seeks revenge on her because her father killed his father.

reprinted in Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told volume 2 featuring Catwoman and the Penguin

http://grimbor.50megs.com/cw2.htm
scans of the above tale

I’ve been reading the 2nd Brave and the Bold showcase this week and was wondering about how the continuity folks dealt with Haney’s playing fast and loose. Haney’s B&B is all kinds of awesome.

Lest I forget, John Wells designated apocryphal stories to Earth-32 in a guide in the Ultimate Edition to the Crisis:

Check entry#81

Bob Kanigher was another writer, during the Silver Age, who wouldn’t let continuity get in the way of telling a good story. If it meant getting Sgt. Rock in a situation that could highlight how soldiers encounter truly human experiences during a war, he wouldn’t feel obliged to be bound by what had been written before.

Why would a guy do that? I mean, I think I might take that option to run and disappear if the responsibility felt to heavy, but look at that fucking Silver Surfer. That’s awesome! I think I’d slowly ruin my career, not blow it up at the start.

Vichus Smith:
I’d imagine it was a breakdown, imagine drawing for marvel!!

I have imagined drawing for marvel- it ended up with a balled up piece of paper with a stick figure drawn on it being thrown at my head.

“You left people who took a chance on you in the lurch, lied about it, and now 5 years later, you’re still dancing around and playing games? Very sad.”

Aww..man. If you meant that I lied ’bout the Mo_O guy, heck, I’m over with it already. I don’t know who’s mo_o n that’s that. I read the comixfan article years ago, over n over again. That guy wrote fanfic, I don’t write (more like I cant write), I just draw.

Personally, after 5 years, this is not something I’m proud of, not something that I’m “dancing around” with.Yes, it was the most ugliest career suicide n regrets for me, it’s up to other people to justify it, I’m just gonna continue drawing.

-”Bob Kanigher was another writer, during the Silver Age, who wouldn’t let continuity get in the way of telling a good story. If it meant getting Sgt. Rock in a situation that could highlight how soldiers encounter truly human experiences during a war, he wouldn’t feel obliged to be bound by what had been written before.”

And that’s perfectly OK. As long as he makes it clear to the readers that this story *doesn’t* fit into continuity so as not to confuse them. Truth in labeling and all that. And remember, just because a writer THINKS his unofficial story is worth telling doesn’t really mean it is. If it were allowed all the time, comic universes would be a mess. (And I know some people like them that way… What’s Archie’s continuity these days? But you can’t have it both ways, and the majority of the people want their sequential fiction to *be* interconnected.)

At least Milx, you rebounded by getting the DC female imprint named after you.

Thanks a lot, Edda, for the Catwoman info!

If I get a job in this industry I’m going to be honest and put out the best stuff I can because that’s what the fans want and what I want to give them. I’ll refuse to squander my talents turn in stuff (too) late and try to get the writers to give me a decent plot. I want to be the best comic book artist for the new millenium.

ALEX ‘08

“That guy wrote fanfic, I don’t write (more like I cant write), I just draw.”

So how did he have advance knowledge of what you were working on?

““That guy wrote fanfic, I don’t write (more like I cant write), I just draw.”

So how did he have advance knowledge of what you were working on?”

I dunno man. The last time I was so into “investigating” this guy, with Rich Johnston, mo_o IP address lead to somewhere in Singapore. Which is within my region. That’s the most that I know ’bout him or her or whoever he is.

Once and maybe for last time, I’m not Mo_o. In this matter it’s my lost, he could be dancing n gigling ’bout this now. I’m the one having a hard time to come back n continue drawing. Which I choose to continue using nickname milx, no matter how tainted n ruined the nick is, coz it’s mine. Stupid move, some may say it, but that the nickname that I always gonna be associate with, in my entire life.

Brian, Just to add to the article, during that period of time, other than Silver Surfer and Wake the Dead, I was also offered a gig with Dark Horse.

Anything personal, shoot email to me milxart@gmail.com

Superman changed haircuts?? That’s it, I’m never reading DC again!

I read somewhere (Sims probably) that the B in Earth-B stood for both Bobs - Haney & Kanigher.

And that’s perfectly OK. As long as he makes it clear to the readers that this story *doesn’t* fit into continuity so as not to confuse them. Truth in labeling and all that.

I wouldn’t say “truth in labeling” so much as hand holding and mollycoddling the section of the audience that is both (A) fairly dense, (B) anal retentive in a particular “mommy and daddy are getting a divorce but at least my one issue of Batman agrees with my other issue of Batman (or something) so at least that makes sense in this world” wayand (C) can do the mental gymnastics required to reconcile, say, Stan and Steve’s Spider-man and JMS Spider-man despite being completely different in intended audience, story-telling style, theme, mood, and tone, into stories that are somehow consistent with each other.

Or maybe just people who haven’t read, like, A LOT of comics. You read enough from different eras ya realize there are, generally, dozens of subtlely different interpretations of the same character all runnin’ around. Every writer, every artist, worth a damn is going to donate something of their own worldview to their fictional charges.

Granted, *Very* few do it as well as Haney, at least when he’s on. But I grant ya: If you take the ideas of magically empowered juvenile power fantasies dressing up in their turn-of-the-century acrobats and fighting “evil” than Haney’s stuff is probably not for you.

-”I wouldn’t say “truth in labeling” so much as hand holding and mollycoddling the section of the audience that is both (A) fairly dense, (B) anal retentive in a particular “mommy and daddy are getting a divorce-”

No offense, mister, but I stopped reading your response *right there*. That part immediately told me that you were not seriously considering what I said but were just using your post to blast away at a topic you hate without really considering the feelings of others in the matter. (Maybe I’m wrong, but I refuse to read the rest of your post to find out. That’s what you get for taking such a tone in a debate.) Brian’s columns are usually free of that kind of attitude, which is why I often post there. If you still feel inclined to flame, I recommend the regular CBR boards.

Lan Medina is a really underrated artist.

@Sijo:

I can’t do the snark anywhere near as well as MarkAndrew (though I think he’s missing a word - “seriously”? - in his last sentence), but I’ll make a point he leaves out: You’re committing a historical fallacy by expecting Bob Kanigher to “label’ certain stories as out of continuity. In the Silver Age at DC, there simply was no obsession with continuity. That’s on the part not only of the editors, but of fans. Marvel essentially introduced the idea of tight continuity - ongoing stories, a strongly interconnected universe (as opposed to the “let’s put all our best toys in a box together” approach of the JLA), soap operas - and DC didn’t truly pick up on that till probably the mid-70s. Ideas like Earth-Two weren’t created to “solve” continuity problems per se; they were just neat ways to have some fun with old characters.

That doesn’t mean that some Silver Age DC writers and editors didn’t adhere more tightly to continuity than others - Bob Haney was certainly on the fast ‘n’ loose end of the spectrum - just that no one thought it was all that important, which explains how Haney’s stuff got published in the first place. These were comics that were being published for sporadic newsstand consumption by an audience who were (presumed to be) kids, not obsessive fans who picked up every issue at their local comic book store. There were no local comic book stores.

In other words, know your history. That “the majority of the people want their sequential fiction to *be* interconnected” is a modern thing.

Folks,

And there was definitely counter-trend, in the 1960s, with an emphasis, in the stories edited by Mort Weisinger, that there was continuity, so that people knew just how many types of Kryptonite there were. That seems to have been the model for comic book storytelling that has won the day, although that may come as no surprise, since the fans who bought the comic book series every month wanted stories to have the same level of continuity as the events in their lives. Perhaps the late Bob Haney and Bob Kanigher would not write comic books today if they felt that their story-telling had to abide by what was done with the characters years or decades earlier. But I bought and read “Brave and Bold” for a number of years, not especially worrying why Plastic Man was in a crypt, for one story, or how the “haunted, hunted” Metal Men were suddenly considered heroic again. They were all stories.

Do a majority of people really want their sequential fiction to be interconnected?

“O”,

You estimation of Silver Age DC is not exactly a universal truth. The Silver Age approach to continuity varied tremendously by editor. You had context-free insanity like Kanigher’s Wonder Woman into the Bronze Age, but the Superman family of books was tightly edited and followed a very well-maintained continuity as early as the 50’s.

A plot device that showed up in one story in Jimmy Olsen could show up ten issues later, Supergirl had plot threads weave through all of the Superman family books, and major additions to the cast introduced in Superboy or Superman could expect to have adventures later on in satellite books that explicitly referenced their earlier adventures as something they remembered happening. Now, it’s true that the 50’s Superman family wasn’t written as a serial but as a situation comedy, but the fact remains that plot devices from early Jimmy Olsen stories would show up later on, complete with editorial footnotes to the earlier issues.

As a result, whenever the Superman family of books were going to do a story that “didn’t count”, like Jimmy Olsen marrying Supergirl and having a daughter who becomes Supergirl’s successor, they clearly labeled them as Imaginary Stories. Books under the aegis of other editors didn’t do so because those specific editors didn’t care, not because it was strictly the zeitgeist of the era.

Honestly, reading early Superman books, there’s so much continuity and such a huge continuing cast that it’s kind of like reading X-Men in the 90’s…. only the writing and art are better.

@Lynxara:

We’re not really disagreeing. You write, “The Silver Age approach to continuity varied tremendously by editor,” and I wrote, “That doesn’t mean that some Silver Age DC writers and editors didn’t adhere more tightly to continuity than others.” I think your claim that “the 50’s Superman family wasn’t written as a serial but as a situation comedy” is very much to the point. When modern fans talk about continuity, they don’t just mean “do we have consistency in the various types of kryptonite” (to use Catullus’s example), but does the story make sense with respect to the history of the character, which is expected to have some sensible, continuous temporal sequence, i.e., a serial.

As for “imaginary stories,” those were largely reserved for events that (a) cut so strongly against the very central features of a character’s “continuity” that they couldn’t be reconciled with what the average reader - the kid at the newsstand - knew about the character, and/or (b) had major consequences for the character (Superman permanently depowered, etc.). Few of Bob Haney’s stories met that criterion; the only one that springs to mind that comes close is the story that introduced Bruce Wayne’s long-lost brother. Even Haney never wrote a (non-”imaginary”) story where, say, Bruce Wayne died and was replaced as Batman by, oh, I don’t know, Alfred’s son.

You can probably think of exceptions to what I’m saying - I’ve read few Silver Age stories since I was a child in the Silver Age! - but I’m talking in generalities here.

As you write, “Books under the aegis of other editors didn’t do so because those specific editors didn’t care, not because it was strictly the zeitgeist of the era.” My point was that the DC Silver Age zeitgeist allowed for both relatively tight continuity (tight, that is, by the standards of the day, rarely by modern standards) and a more freewheeling approach - something the modern zeitgeist (for the most part) does not.

Aha, but the first Silver Age appearance of Plastic Man… sort of.. was in July 1966 in House of Mystery.

Technically, the first Silver Age appearance of Captain America was in Strange Tales 114, where an imposter dressed as Captain America battled the Human Torch. And yet Captain America’s first appearance is considered to be in Avengers 4. I think the same rule applies: that wasn’t the ‘real’ Plastic Man but Robby Reed in Plastic Man’s guise (with his powers).

“O”,

Kind of begs the question about the “why” of comic book stories. When they’re more mythic, it doesn’t matter as much what had happened before; the story could be intended to contain a lesson (Bob Kanigher’s Sgt. Rock stories seemed often oriented in that way). Yet Marvel in the 1960s did a great job of weaving continuity into the stories, drawing a page from soap operas, by making the internal life of the characters more accessible. Perhaps this is the form of continuity-based storytelling that prevailed instead of more exterior one of the Weisinger era.

Catwoman’s long-forgotten second post-Crisis appearance was a three issue try-out stint in Action Comics Weekly (around issue 613 or so). At the end of this happy-go-lucky story, Selina casually killed off several characters. Even at the time, the first bloom of the all-violence-all-the-time era, readers were shocked and complained in the letters page. I was really poorly written and disturbing.

(The Alan Davis two-parter in Detective #569 and #570, though it overlapped with “Batman: Year One”, was clearly the pre-Crisis Catwoman, making her final appearance)

The idea of “continuity” has degenerated to the point where readers want to know if the stories “count” or “really happened” with the fictional universes. That kind of thinking irks me, as I prefer a good story to a “valid” one. I do like it when a good story is in continuity, but I don’t really care that, say, Morrison’s X-Men doesn’t fit seamlessly with Claremont’s.

@ O:

-”I can’t do the snark anywhere near as well as MarkAndrew
Which is why I read your full post and not his.

-”That doesn’t mean that some Silver Age DC writers and editors didn’t adhere more tightly to continuity than others - Bob Haney was certainly on the fast ‘n’ loose end of the spectrum - just that no one thought it was all that important, which explains how Haney’s stuff got published in the first place.’

Definitely true.

-”These were comics that were being published for sporadic newsstand consumption by an audience who were (presumed to be) kids.

And guess how old I was when I bought them?

-That “the majority of the people want their sequential fiction to *be* interconnected” is a modern thing.”

No, it’s as old as professional fiction publication, which I believe started in the 19th century with the likes of Verne, Wells,