Were there any objections to Stan Lee's Captain America ret-con? in Masterworks Message Board Forum

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Were there any objections to Stan Lee's Captain America ret-con?

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VisualFiction		#101	[-]
Posts: 13664 Feb 18 10 10:02 PM Golden Age Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	alizarin1 wrote: Well that's fine and dandy VF, as long as each individual remains purely in their own personal, private interpretive zone where "the reader [alone] decides which is which" [that is, what constitutes the "truth" for him about a given character]. But when each person then emerges from their cocoon to actually engage in dialogue online with others and two groups of fans cannot even agree on the legitimacy of a particularly controversial retcon, the ensuing conversation can quickly fall off a cliff. Agreed. There's one thing that you'll never understand - and that's a woman. - Elder
GHastly55		#102	[-]
Posts: 4344 Feb 18 10 10:29 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	richard63 said: sigh Don't worry, Richard ... it's nothing to get hung about....
Titanic True Believer		#103	[-]
Posts: 404 Feb 18 10 10:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	ReviveTheRedRaven rote: "The only good kid sidekick is a DEAD one..." mistergoodman wrote: And for the record, I miss Earth 2 too. I never met anyone who found it confusing. Marvel’s “Golden Age hero revival,” which certainly came at the behest of publisher Martin Goodman and was overseen by Stan Lee, actually came in two stages. The first actually predated and anticipated the DC hero renaissance - rare and ironic, considering Timely/Atlas/Marvel’s standard operating mode was “Martin SEE [what DC was successfully doing at the current time], Stan [you] DO [the same thing] – coming in 1953 before the Silver Age Flash premiered in Showcase #4. It was short-lived, but on the heels of the successful reincarnation of the Justice Society as the Justice League in 1960, Goodman famously instructed Lee to create a Marvel equivalent. The pages of the resultant Fantastic Four gave us a Silver Age Human Torch (like DC’s Flash, a new and different version of the Golden Age hero) and the SA (re)introduction of the Sub-Mariner (who was more like DC’s Superman, insofar as he was the same character as he was in the 40’s ) The third of the Timely “Big Three,” Captain America, got a tryout of sorts in the pages of (fittingly) the Torch’s solo series in Strange Tales, before really being revived (literally, from an ice floe) in the pages of Avengers #4 (which – ironically - was much more the Marvel pastiche of the Justice Society/League than the FF ever was.) Cap’s reboot was a combination of the techniques employed in bringing back the Torch and Namor. He was “the same CA” from the 40’s but – owing to Lee’s: a) well-reasoned dislike for kid sidekick’s, mandating the truncating of CA’s GA history (which few of us knew much about, anyway) at a point in early 1945, negating any continuity with stories published between 1945 – 1953; and b) notoriously fuzzy memory – his character history was pruned down to a more manageable (for Lee) level. (Hate to go overboard on this word, but again) ironically this helped him to fit Cap into the tight continuity that he had established in the Marvel Universe, which was such a key element in its superiority to the disjointed, disconnected, chaos of the DC Universe. When the reprinting of the classic (Simon and) Kirby stories began in Fantasy Masterpieces in 1966, they fit in seamlessly into the star-spangled Avenger’s then-current canon. The problem arose when Marvel first reprinted a 1946 appearance of the All-Winners Squad [Hey, Lee – come up with a knockoff of DC’s Justice Society or Laws Legionnaires for us, will ya? OK, Martin.] and subsequently the aforementioned “Atlas Era” appearances from 1953. Having become “continuity zombies,” we demanded a logical explanation for the inclusion of these tales into “Marvel Universe” history, necessitating the retcons cdeveloped by Steve Englehart and Roy Thomas. Although I very much liked RT’s later JSA retconning (before DC’s Crisis of Corporate and Creative Stupidity wiped out Earth Two rendered them moot), I really disliked his parade of patriotic stand-ins for the "late" Steve Rogers, and I hated Englehart’s polemical story line. So my objections are not to Stan Lee's Captain America ret-con, but to Engehart’s and Thomas’ attempts to wedge the aforementioned stories into the Marvel Mainstream. As far as I’m concerned, DC had – and as far as I'm concerned, still has – Earths One, Two, etc. and Marvel has Timely Earth, Atlas Earth and Marvel Age Earth to explain these kinds of paradoxes.
richard63		#104	[-]
Posts: 12822 Feb 18 10 10:46 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It's bizarre when you think about it. The guy with the fuzzy memory (Lee) was the creator of a comics universe where continuity mattered. Was anyone putting little footnotes referring to past issues (...as seen in ish #21! --- Smiley Stan) before Lee started doing it in the '60's?
GHastly55		#105	[-]
Posts: 4344 Feb 18 10 11:00 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Was anyone putting little footnotes referring to past issues (...as seen in ish #21! --- Smiley Stan) before Lee started doing it in the '60's? I recall seeing the occasional footnote in Weisinger's and Schwartz' books as early as 1961 or so, but only when referencing the previous appearance of a villain or guest-star (eg., when Gorilla Grodd mentioned his previous battle with Flash, you'd see the asterisk and the reference to Flash 107 or whatever). But Stan used footnotes much more frequently, and it was Stan that began getting very cavalier and flippant. One Lee-Goodman touch that I have nostalgic memories about were the one-line blurbs randomly dropped at the bottom of many pages promoting other titles in the line. Like "Who??? What??? Is The Incredible Hulk???" I guess they couldn't really afford to devote an entire page to a house ad, so this was their way of spreading the word, pre-Bullpen Bulletins. Roy brought the approach back in the early seventies, and I think it lasted a year or two.
richard63		#106	[-]
Posts: 12822 Feb 18 10 11:18 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I recall seeing the occasional footnote in Weisinger's and Schwartz' books as early as 1961 or so, but only when referencing the previous appearance of a villain or guest-star (eg., when Gorilla Grodd mentioned his previous battle with Flash, you'd see the asterisk and the reference to Flash 107 or whatever). Now that you mention it, along those lines, I believe that the occasional story continuing from one issue to the next might have been something that Weisinger started to do during that period as well. Here's an example from 1960... The early flickerings of a rather basic continuity.
VisualFiction		#107	[-]
Posts: 13664 Feb 18 10 11:25 PM Golden Age Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	alizarin1 wrote: But when each person then emerges from their cocoon to actually engage in dialogue online with others and two groups of fans cannot even agree on the legitimacy of a particularly controversial retcon, the ensuing conversation can quickly fall off a cliff. I didn't read your statement closely enough the first time - I didn't notice the word "online". I "agreed" about it being a possible obstacle to conversation, but if you were alluding to this thread in particular, I've no opinion on that. I've been enjoying the thread. There's one thing that you'll never understand - and that's a woman. - Elder
alizarin1		#108	[-]
Posts: 774 Feb 18 10 11:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was referring in a generic way to any such conversations. It comes down to this (to pick just one example out of many): if two fans cannot even agree on who the 1950s Captain America actually was and what his true motivations for acting were in those stories, then there isn't much common ground for any sustained discussion, is there? Yes, you can chat about surface topics like whether you liked the artwork in those stories or the paper quality of that particular Masterwork volume and so on, but that's about it.
ReviveTheRedRaven		#109	[-]
Posts: 9143 Feb 19 10 4:23 AM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	richard63 wrote: Nothing is real -- John Lennon "Bullets are real." Mark Chapman
Comicsdad		#110	[-]
Posts: 3848 Feb 19 10 4:54 AM Bronze Age Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	alizarin1 wrote: I was referring in a generic way to any such conversations. It comes down to this (to pick just one example out of many): if two fans cannot even agree on who the 1950s Captain America actually was and what his true motivations for acting were in those stories, then there isn't much common ground for any sustained discussion, is there? Yes, you can chat about surface topics like whether you liked the artwork in those stories or the paper quality of that particular Masterwork volume and so on, but that's about it. Hmm, I think artwork is pretty important part of any comic book, I am all for more intelligent discussion on artwork. Let me also say that I have no idea who the 1950s Captain America actually was. I know Brubaker has been telling some pretty entertaining stories (with mostly great artwork!) featuring -- apparently -- also the 1950s Captain America. Good for him. ============= Comicsdad
mistergoodman		#111	[-]
Posts: 671 Feb 19 10 10:33 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	kosh62 wrote: I think what confused people most about Earth-2 were all those Wildcat appearances with Batman in Brave and the Bold. If DC had done something as simple as just firmly established an Earth-1 Wildcat, who knows? We might never have had Crisis.... I wonder though if maybe eliminating Earth 2 never had anything to do with "reader confusion concerning parallel earths". By the time Crisis on Infinite Earths came out, most of the JSA would have been at least in their late 60s. Yeah, you could prop them up with magic and other explanations, but maybe the reader confusion DC was concerned about was readers puzzling over a world where senior citizens were credible crime fighters. Maybe DC just realized that Earth 2's time had passed. (Note that in the JSA's recent appearance on Smallville they kept the idea of the JSA as aging, semi-retired heroes, but eliminated the team's WWII roots so the team wouldn't be in their nineties. It worked quite well, and kept the JSA from being a nostalgia act.) In the end, it's worked out for them. Under Geoff Johns, the JSA achieved a level of popularity the Earth 2 team never managed. Though most of the original team is dead, the current team has headlined their own book for over ten years. - Goodman Currently reading several decades worth of Captain America comics on my iPad, and blogging it at http://readingcaptainamerica.blogspot.com/
Five Years Later		#112	[-]
Posts: 11819 Feb 19 10 11:44 AM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm a big fan and defender of CoIE, but instead of going over the usual arguments, I actually thought of something new! As a young Marvel-only reader before CoIE, one of the things that I didn't like whenever I looked at a DC book were the hero copies. At that point, Marvel didn't have any copy cat heroes while every DC hero had an analogue. On top of that they were old and in lame costumes and always seemed to be fighting Nazis or each other. CoIE happened before War Machine, Thunderstrike, Spider-Girl/Clones, Rulk, West Coast Avengers, USAgent, Fantastic Force, etc. I think the only copies around were She-Hulk, Spider Woman and the New Mutants. Human Torch & Ant-Man were also clanking around but they certainly weren't high profile especially in the 80's. The whole idea of multiple copies was a DC idea and CoIE helped focus DC on the new versions of it's characters and eliminate all the "real" copies leaving only the copies "in name only."
VisualFiction		#113	[-]
Posts: 13664 Feb 19 10 2:17 PM Golden Age Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Five Years Later wrote: The whole idea of multiple copies was a DC idea I think DC would have you believe it was a Fawcett idea. I starting reading comics as a child in the 70's. Thinking about it now, I'd say part of the reason I liked the multiple versions of DC characters is because there's something archetypal about it, like Moorcock's Eternal Champion in different incarnations or even Joseph Campbell's theory of the mythic hero in different cultural guises. On some instinctual level, those ideas probably resonated with me when I first encountered the concept (in DC Comics!). The existence of two Green Lanterns on two separate Earths implies that there's something inherent in and specific to a Green Lantern that must always come to be in every universe, and this in turn implies that there is always a need for one, which is just as exciting. There's one thing that you'll never understand - and that's a woman. - Elder
Heathenson		#114	[-]
Posts: 4057 Feb 19 10 2:25 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Don't forget Ms Marvel and Black Goliath as well. Man-Wolf perhaps?
Five Years Later		#115	[-]
Posts: 11819 Feb 19 10 2:43 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Keeping in mind that I'm was around 8 years old at the time, I thought the whole idea of old Superman and old Wonder Woman etc. was lame (or whatever term was popular at the time). Even now I have little desire to read about senior citizen heroes. I prefer my costumed characters looking like Greek gods and other idealized forms of the human body.
profh0011		#116	[-]
Posts: 4820 Feb 19 10 3:17 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"Here's an example from 1960..." That is the LAMEST-looking "Hercules" I have ever seen!!!
mistergoodman		#117	[-]
Posts: 671 Feb 19 10 3:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Five Years Later wrote: Keeping in mind that I'm was around 8 years old at the time, I thought the whole idea of old Superman and old Wonder Woman etc. was lame (or whatever term was popular at the time). Even now I have little desire to read about senior citizen heroes. I prefer my costumed characters looking like Greek gods and other idealized forms of the human body. Everyone's different, of course. As a kid I thought they JSA were cool because they aged, which made them more real. My "icon" is Jay Garrick, who is friendly, happily married, non-judgmental, etc. I've got action figures of him all over the house. (My wife, even before we met, was into the Huntress. So we were destined to be a JSA-friendly family.) Your attitude was likely more common than mine though. - Goodman Currently reading several decades worth of Captain America comics on my iPad, and blogging it at http://readingcaptainamerica.blogspot.com/
Five Years Later		#118	[-]
Posts: 11819 Feb 19 10 3:39 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maybe it says something bad about me but my icon is Batman with a side helping of Jonah Hex, Sgt. Rock, Moon Knight & Conan.
Marshall Crist		#119	[-]
Posts: 3025 Feb 24 10 3:33 AM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I just re-read CAP #116 and there is quite a bit of letters' page discussion of Timely/Marvel inconsistency.
mistergoodman		#120	[-]
Posts: 671 Feb 24 10 2:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Marshall Crist wrote: I just re-read CAP #116 and there is quite a bit of letters' page discussion of Timely/Marvel inconsistency. I'll have to dig that up and read it for kicks. But really, I doubt there was more than a few dozen people who remembered and cared whether Marvel stories were consistent with stories published 20 years earlier (mostly in comics that were destroyed in paper drives during the war). I can't imagine Stan Lee wanting to take time off to read hundreds of often terrible, contradictory Timely/Atlas stories, and tie his own hands creatively, in order to cater to a couple of geezers who were maybe one tenth of 1% of his audience. (Remember, unlike Marvel, Timely and Altas had both ceased to publish superhero comics, which meant that everybody who read those comics had a clean break during which they could turn their attention elsewhere.) Seriously, total paid circulation for Captain America in 1969 was 243,000, all sold at news stands and drug stores. How many of those readers do you think cared if the latest issue contradicted Captain America 26, published in 1943? - Goodman Currently reading several decades worth of Captain America comics on my iPad, and blogging it at http://readingcaptainamerica.blogspot.com/

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Were there any objections to Stan Lee's Captain America ret-con?