Its a frustrating trend, but many writers are many careers out of revising comics history. Some do it well (Ed Brubaker on Captain America), some don't (Brian Michael Bendis on...well, everything).

Mark Waid (and Gerard Jones) have been defending the Silver Age since as long as I can remember (as writers for Amazing Heroes, the first time I was exposed to them), and nothing warmed my heart more than the 'Christmas with the Superheroes' story where we found out that Kara/Supergirl was really out there somewhere! Waid also brought back Superboy (briefly) into his Zero Hour crossover in the Legion book, and made me a life long fan.

With the exception of the two Legion reboots that I reject as canon (sorry), I am loyal to Waid mainly because of his own loyalty to the Silver Age of DC--the foundation of the modern DC U, that too many people have trampled on in the past 20 years. Like Morrison and Moore, he has figured out how to use the magic and awe of that time period to tell new stories in a way that appeals to new readers.

I'm not asking for Lois Lane to learn Kryptonian martial arts--I just think the weird sci-fi/fantasy/fairy tale hybrid that Superhero comics were in the 60s is a far more likely place to find good stories than the dreary, rational world that too many comic writers put their characters in today. I do like Brubaker and Millar's take on Superheroes, but I don't think the rest of today's talent really 'gets it'.

I stand by my theory that the Big Two are keeping our industry in a feedback loop by catering their comics to the people that buy New Avengers and loved 'Batman Hush'. I keep hearing "its what they want", "retro doesn't sell"--but "they" equals about 100,000 people in North America, and THEY are the people that Silver Age stuff "doesn't sell" too.

Any non-comics fans I've ever met have a deeper emotional response to Kirby, Romita, Swan or Wayne Boring. They like that stuff, because it looks like "comics". The pop culture/merchandising landscape is dominated by simple, cartoony characters like Family Guy and 'Hello Kitty', yet Marvel and DC still insist on giving us pseudo-realistic characters that strikes poses and make speeches, and bleed, and all that fun stuff, and not one of them exists in a real story that any reader will remember 20 years down the road.

All the comic book movies use material written 30-40 years ago as their template because the modern storytelling style focuses on realistic dialogue (good) and decompressed, vapid plotting designed to fill trades (obviously bad).

Comics writers are getting away with taking a 22-page story and spreading it out over six issues, and 8 minutes of reading (with no story turns) is not enough to make a fan out of a first time reader. This is why I prefer to read my old Jim Aparo Brave & The Bolds. Not because I prefer the 'silly' situations and stock characters, but because its nice to read a story where something actually happens, and where the writer is showcasing strange and new ideas, and the heroes surprise us with the solutions to their obstacles.

Today, the comics writer beats me over the head about how 'important' his story is, or what the 'ramifications' of his event will be.

BTW, I think most people are misinterpreting Waid's lament of his legacy. It's not that he doesn't think his stories will be remembered (or appreciate that, I'm sure), but that he'll never do anything that will never be undone, because of the fluid (some would say irrational) nature of mainstream comics. And I don't think he's right, actually: he's the ONLY writer that managed to take an 80's replacement character and establish him/her in their own right. Fans accepted Wally West as the Flash, in a way they never accepted Kyle Raynor, John Walker, Jim Rhodes, Artemes, ect.

Legion- Honestly, the “concept” was something that might have flown if there hadn’t been a huge history. And while that may have been the “stumbling block”, and what DC was looking to overcome, it was the core support of the book. Say what you will, and i did, lol, the concept was just…weak for the legion.

That's very subjective - I've looked at other Legion books before and thought they looked like it could be a good idea, but was too caught up in it's huge history - even when it rebooted, it kept going back.
As much as I wanted to read super heroes in space - that didn't need to keep coming back to our Earth, I just couldn't bring myself to get into LoSH.
Once I found out that this Legion had no connection to the others, I picked up the trades and loved the heck out of it.
I have zero interest in reading about the Legion of old brought back - heck, Waid's legion, IMO, only slowed down when it got tied into Supergirl - although that of course could also be because the issues after a year long epic are never going to have that same 'WOW!' factor.

So yeah, I don't know that what you are saying is right (or I could just be reading how you are saying it wrong), but those seem to be the reasons it didn't work for you, not why it didn't work - the very things that you say were wrong with the book were the things that got me interested in the book.

Wow. You actually got mad about this one mention in BIRTHRIGHT were Clark states that he's a veggie? You're pretty easy to piss off, aren't you?! Furthermore, someone you wants a Superman to be a hero for everyone I thought having him travel the world before becoming Superman would be kinda neat. At least, it's that for me.

As for Cap, his run was no where as good as Roger Stern's or the current Brubaker. His Flash started out ok (maybe Brian Augustyn helped?) until the Speed Force came into the picture and the constant trying to convince us Wally was the greatest Flash ever.

But the biggest problem Waid has had was outside of Kingdom Come, he never really had a GREAT artistic collaborator on a memorable run.

I stopped reading the Super-books after the Triangle era, around the time of the Dominus "Our Worlds at War" stuff which I just couldn't care about.

That said -- I loved, loved, loved Birthright. I especially enjoyed the fact that Clark Kent was a REPORTER. He was the KIND OF GUY who would want to do actual journalism. At its worst, "doofus Clark" just stands around the Planet wasting life. Take "Superman Returns" -- what was the point of the Daily Planet in that movie? It was just a set. It provided an excuse for Lois to get into trouble. Waid brought back the early Superman connection between journalism and heroism -- something our country desperately needs right now.

That said, I'm looking forward to Johns' version too. I understand how Waid feels bad, but he's totally wrong that he leaves "no legacy" there. It's just gotta cycle around again. When my current career track crashes and burns and I go into comics, I'll write a Superman who started like Waid has him start.

If there's "no legacy" now it's only because continuity is so effed up that nothing stays the same for two years. Think about it -- 50 years between Action #1 and Crisis/MOS; then barely 20 till Birthright; then barely 5 till "Secret Origin." Probably "Secret Origin" will be retconned two days later, just after everyone recognizes that "Final Crisis" has no connection to the original Crisis whatsoever.

First the return to Flash. Mark gave us a great first run, and introduced a lot to the storied history of the Flashverse. However, he made the same mistake that others have made in the past, such as Ellen coming out on her show. The lost the focus medium they were working. Ellen came out, and it wasn't as huge a thing as everyone thought...until she made her entire show about the coming out. She forgot, in her joy of having come out...to be funny. Thats why the show then tanked that fast. Mark, as nice a guy as they say, forgot that the book was about Wally West, the Flash. Instead, it became "Flash Knows Best". Everything seemed centered on the kids. Thats cool if the book is about the kids, but it wasn't. They could have stayed as babies and it wouldn't have been as much an aggravation as it did when it became "Take Your Superkids To Work Day." Waid told good stories, they just weren't what people were wanting to read.
Legion- Honestly, the "concept" was something that might have flown if there hadn't been a huge history. And while that may have been the "stumbling block", and what DC was looking to overcome, it was the core support of the book. Say what you will, and i did, lol, the concept was just...weak for the legion. This isnt a shot at Mr. Waid. His explanation of what he and Barry, a supremely talented artist, were up against shines a light on even more of the problems that many have with DC editorial right now. But the concept, while interesting, wasn't really at the heart of the legion. The dark distopia that too many writers try to overlay on the legion just turns off the original fan base. And while many writers these days seem to fall back on the "existing fans weren't enough to keep the book going", many seem to overlook the fact that quite a few readers say "its not the team, its the poor writing, the characters out of character, the lack of interesting foes, etc...". And again, this isn't a shot at Mr. Waid. Its something that seems to be infesting comics as a whole, an unwillingness to say that someone missed the boat on the writing. Waid told good stories on legion, but leaving out the villians of the past was a misfire. And unfortunately, the "eat it Grandpa" became almost the same as the raspberries of the "archie legion". Mr. Waid was obviously hamstrung by DC editorial, at least by his comments, but the book failed to hit the ground fast and furiously. That was, as i saw it, the ultimate doom. Waid is still a fine craftsman, just too many things conspired against the run.

F'r example:
Waid's first Flash run was genre-reshaping. Not redefining, but reshaping. At a time when DC was afraid about its Golden Age past- -before James Robinson had come along to make retro cool or Geoff Johns had come along to say that "legacies" were everywhere in the DCU-- Waid created a world for Wally that reached back to Jay and Johnny Quick and the reintroduced Max, and forward to Barry's grandson and granddaughter, and Wally's own Titans past, and made the whole thing fun and heroic and a great example of what the integrated post-Crisis DCU could be. Wally was a mostly-happy heroic hero all through the worst of the 90s, which is impressive in its own right. The fact that some of Waid's bits and pieces became mockable tropes (the speed force and time-trips and the Greatest Love of All) was partly *because* the run was so influential and widely-read. Whatever happens to Wally now doesn't change that Waid's Flash helped create and sustain all kinds of good and important things for a long time in the DCU.

But it quickly became obvious that Byrne was just one of those adults who took kids utterly seriously as little adults. He valued their feedback as if it was adult feedback and he had little tolerance for kid-logic questions. This is silly, but it's also clearly at the heart of his genius. He creates and champions great comics for kids because that's his peer group.

Man, that shouting match at a panel between John and McFarlane was great. John tore into Todd for how late the Image books were and how retailers were clearing lower selling books off the shelves in anticipation of Image books that never came. At one point he waved around a page in the air and he explained that he had a whole pile of pages at home that he could never sell, and he called them all "The Adventures of Steve Rogers": pages of the heroes walking around town living life in their civilian identities. He said that the image books would never survive because the artists weren't willing to draw those pages, so the storytelling never got off the ground. McFarlane didn't respond well.

As always,
NUKLON RULES!

Not exactly, but that's the version of the story that John likes to tell--a lot--so I can understand why some fans might take it at gospel.

If anyone's interested, what really happened was this: Years and years ago, at the annual Chicago convention, I was on a panel with a bunch of different creators, including Byrne. It ws still pretty early on during my run on Flash, and general consensus among the readership at the time was that Wally was still nothing but a poor man's Barry. At one point, the floor was opened for questions about Flash and, filling a lull, John said, "I have a question. When are we going to get the REAL Flash back?" Crowd goes "ooooh" and chuckles, and for the sake of argument, let's assume that John was just trying to be funny and not snarky. Benefit of the doubt. Anyway, I shoot back--mostly but (if I have to be honest) not entirely in fun--with "I don't know, John, when are we going to get the real Superman back?" Crowd goes wild. It's a wisecrack at a panel, it's forgotten the next day.

Except for the past few years, John's decided he enjoys repeating the story and tells it frequently. Except he likes to "remember" that I yelled the question out from the audience as a sandbag, a shot across the bow, without any sort of cue or setup or provocation or banter. Which, of course, if you tell the story that way, makes me look like an asshole, because it would be a jerk-ass thing to do. Problem is, that's not how it happened. I tried clearing this up a few years ago by posting to John's message boards, but to say that didn't go well would be an understatement--kind of like walking into the Republican National Convenion and saying, "Y'know, I'm not sure Governor Palin has all her facts straight." And about as effective.

Believe me if you like. Or don't. I'm just sayin'. But given that I've said and done thousands of legitimately dumbass things over the years, it just grates a little to be sniped at for one that's NOT accurate.