Oof. Bronze Age DC was just painful all around. The worst part is, Maggin was one of the better Superman writers: he was warned that Superman was really hard to write for, but Maggin took to him pretty well. Just make him a decent guy and don't overcomplicate things.
It's not a popular take, but I blame DC's editors, trying to emulate Marvel while still mired in their 1950s mindset. They honestly could not tell good writing from bad.
"If "Bronze Age DC was just painful all around"...why do you even like DC in the first place?"
Because there were still things I liked about comics. I liked the idea of people who used their remarkable abilities to help. I liked that a lot of stories were building to something good, even if the execution or the conclusion were often disappointing. I liked the idea of Earth-Two and we could see multiple generations of heroes at the same time. And I liked that, even if most issues of "The Brave and the Bold" were written by Bob Haney, every once in a while there'd be a story by Alan Brennert (and penciled by Dick Giordano or Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez) that made all the pain worthwhile.
So yeah, there was just enough good to keep me reading. But as to the bad, let me give you a good idea of what I'm talking about. Find the JLA / JSA crossover where Mr. Terrific is killed; the killer escapes (by possessing Jay Garrick and running off to Earth-Two (spoilers)) and the story should have ended on a note of somber determination. Instead it ended with Superman declaring victory, and my man Hal makes a way out-of-place joke and everybody laughs. WTF, DC? It really, really smells like an editor saw the story and said, "we can't end on a note of somber determination; the little SOBs would never understand it! The heroes have to win, so make them win! And make it funny!" BTW, I was 12 when this came out, and even as a little SOB I could understand tone and mood and fitting conclusions. I wish the editors had thought higher of me.
Post-Crisis was utter garbage for a long time IMHO; I went 100% Marvel for a while, that's how bad it was. Heroes were no longer defined by their virtues but by their vices. DC was trying a hundred new things, but they weren't trying to build on the things that had actually been working in the Bronze Age.
Taking my man Hal as an example - and he'd been treated pretty shabbily in the Bronze Age (turned into a petty whiner by Marv Wolfman) - in the Bronze Age we learned that he was fearless only because his ring was messing with his mind (thanks Peter David), he was a shiftless layabout who couldn't hold a job (thanks Steve Englehart), and he didn't have a problem with dating a physically-adultified teenager (thanks again Steve Englehart). Where was the brave noble hero capable of self-sacrifice? I get that Hal was a boring dud that writers had trouble knowing what to do with, but maybe don't keep crappifying him and hope the result won't be crap.
Writers seemed to think that "unheroic" equals "relatable"; even Marvel understood that the correct formula is "has relatable issues but is heroic anyway". Take Wally West: writers seemed to think the way to go with him was to make him less and less heroic, rendering his adventures all but unreadable. I'm not going to tell you that Cary Bates's long long tenure on Barry Allen wasn't a cautionary tale about letting a writer be his own editor, but at least I never had to doubt Barry's virtue.
I appreciate you going into such depth! I don't necessarily disagree with any of your points. I was pretty much a 100% Marvel reader (except for Batman) from 1986 to 1992, so I know what you mean.
What brought you back to DC (if something eventually did?)
Well, I liked the straightforward heroism of DC. I didn't want to see the FF bickering. I didn't want to see Spidey whinging about paying bills. I didn't want to see Tony Stark rassling with alcoholism. I sort of appreciated a lot of what Marvel was doing from afar, but it's not what i had a taste for.
I didn't want poorly written tales of heroism either, but sometimes the stars would align and DC would put out a story that, I felt, ran on all cylinders. (Will add that I felt a lot like that during the new 52 era, where there were a lot of stories that were ALMOST great but then they whizzed the ending. The Ulysses arc in Superman, or when the New Gods fought the GLC and destroyed an inhabited planet, spring immediately to mind. I mean, they had all the ingredients for great endings RIGHT THERE, and instead they gave us doggie-doo.)
They are. You may not have liked what they were doing with the characters and universe, but the plotting, dialog, and characterizations in the Bronze Age are objectively terrible.
Depends on the New 52 comic, but there were a lot I liked. I really liked Wonder Woman as another child of Zeus. I like that she won the day through kindness over and over; even my withered heart responds to how Wonder Woman "defeated" Siracca. They understood how to write Wonder Woman as defined by compassion.
"Grayson" was another one, Dick Grayson in a spy agency, doing things the Dick Grayson way. I clapped and giggled like a toddler every time Dick would use a gun like a Batarang.
But there was a lot I didn't like, for sure. Superman was way off-model for almost the whole New 52, except for one appearance in "Jonah Hex" of all places. That's why they introduced that "Convergence" Superman, who was Superman the way people actually like. New 52 Superman was a surly reluctant hero with a bad haircut, riding a motorcycle in a world that hated and feared him. That's right, New 52 tried to turn Superman into Wolverine.
And it's honestly incredible how not a single writer could get Green Arrow right. Anne Nocenti's run was the most hilariously deranged, though Ben Percy deserves credit for trying to teach Ollie about being a minority by turning him into a werewolf. Because apparently Black people are both feral and contagious.
15 comments:
He's definitely in my Top 5 of "how did s/he get that job?"
Oof. Bronze Age DC was just painful all around. The worst part is, Maggin was one of the better Superman writers: he was warned that Superman was really hard to write for, but Maggin took to him pretty well. Just make him a decent guy and don't overcomplicate things.
It's not a popular take, but I blame DC's editors, trying to emulate Marvel while still mired in their 1950s mindset. They honestly could not tell good writing from bad.
- HJF1
"DC's editors, trying to emulate Marvel " Hear, hear.
If "Bronze Age DC was just painful all around"...why do you even like DC in the first place?
"If "Bronze Age DC was just painful all around"...why do you even like DC in the first place?"
Because there were still things I liked about comics. I liked the idea of people who used their remarkable abilities to help. I liked that a lot of stories were building to something good, even if the execution or the conclusion were often disappointing. I liked the idea of Earth-Two and we could see multiple generations of heroes at the same time. And I liked that, even if most issues of "The Brave and the Bold" were written by Bob Haney, every once in a while there'd be a story by Alan Brennert (and penciled by Dick Giordano or Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez) that made all the pain worthwhile.
So yeah, there was just enough good to keep me reading. But as to the bad, let me give you a good idea of what I'm talking about. Find the JLA / JSA crossover where Mr. Terrific is killed; the killer escapes (by possessing Jay Garrick and running off to Earth-Two (spoilers)) and the story should have ended on a note of somber determination. Instead it ended with Superman declaring victory, and my man Hal makes a way out-of-place joke and everybody laughs. WTF, DC? It really, really smells like an editor saw the story and said, "we can't end on a note of somber determination; the little SOBs would never understand it! The heroes have to win, so make them win! And make it funny!" BTW, I was 12 when this came out, and even as a little SOB I could understand tone and mood and fitting conclusions. I wish the editors had thought higher of me.
- HJF1
So did you think post-Crisis was an improvement?
Post-Crisis was utter garbage for a long time IMHO; I went 100% Marvel for a while, that's how bad it was. Heroes were no longer defined by their virtues but by their vices. DC was trying a hundred new things, but they weren't trying to build on the things that had actually been working in the Bronze Age.
Taking my man Hal as an example - and he'd been treated pretty shabbily in the Bronze Age (turned into a petty whiner by Marv Wolfman) - in the Bronze Age we learned that he was fearless only because his ring was messing with his mind (thanks Peter David), he was a shiftless layabout who couldn't hold a job (thanks Steve Englehart), and he didn't have a problem with dating a physically-adultified teenager (thanks again Steve Englehart). Where was the brave noble hero capable of self-sacrifice? I get that Hal was a boring dud that writers had trouble knowing what to do with, but maybe don't keep crappifying him and hope the result won't be crap.
Writers seemed to think that "unheroic" equals "relatable"; even Marvel understood that the correct formula is "has relatable issues but is heroic anyway". Take Wally West: writers seemed to think the way to go with him was to make him less and less heroic, rendering his adventures all but unreadable. I'm not going to tell you that Cary Bates's long long tenure on Barry Allen wasn't a cautionary tale about letting a writer be his own editor, but at least I never had to doubt Barry's virtue.
- HJF1
"in the Bronze Age we learned that" - whoops, I mean "in the post-Crisis era we learned that". etaoin shrdlu
- HJF1
I appreciate you going into such depth! I don't necessarily disagree with any of your points. I was pretty much a 100% Marvel reader (except for Batman) from 1986 to 1992, so I know what you mean.
What brought you back to DC (if something eventually did?)
etaoin shrdlu Don't see THAT much any more.
Well, I liked the straightforward heroism of DC. I didn't want to see the FF bickering. I didn't want to see Spidey whinging about paying bills. I didn't want to see Tony Stark rassling with alcoholism. I sort of appreciated a lot of what Marvel was doing from afar, but it's not what i had a taste for.
I didn't want poorly written tales of heroism either, but sometimes the stars would align and DC would put out a story that, I felt, ran on all cylinders. (Will add that I felt a lot like that during the new 52 era, where there were a lot of stories that were ALMOST great but then they whizzed the ending. The Ulysses arc in Superman, or when the New Gods fought the GLC and destroyed an inhabited planet, spring immediately to mind. I mean, they had all the ingredients for great endings RIGHT THERE, and instead they gave us doggie-doo.)
- HJF1
Maggin's two Superman prose novels, Last Son of Krypton and Miracle Monday, are brilliant.
OK, you lost me with the New 52 thing. You really think those stories were better than the Bronze Age?
They are. You may not have liked what they were doing with the characters and universe, but the plotting, dialog, and characterizations in the Bronze Age are objectively terrible.
Depends on the New 52 comic, but there were a lot I liked. I really liked Wonder Woman as another child of Zeus. I like that she won the day through kindness over and over; even my withered heart responds to how Wonder Woman "defeated" Siracca. They understood how to write Wonder Woman as defined by compassion.
"Grayson" was another one, Dick Grayson in a spy agency, doing things the Dick Grayson way. I clapped and giggled like a toddler every time Dick would use a gun like a Batarang.
But there was a lot I didn't like, for sure. Superman was way off-model for almost the whole New 52, except for one appearance in "Jonah Hex" of all places. That's why they introduced that "Convergence" Superman, who was Superman the way people actually like. New 52 Superman was a surly reluctant hero with a bad haircut, riding a motorcycle in a world that hated and feared him. That's right, New 52 tried to turn Superman into Wolverine.
And it's honestly incredible how not a single writer could get Green Arrow right. Anne Nocenti's run was the most hilariously deranged, though Ben Percy deserves credit for trying to teach Ollie about being a minority by turning him into a werewolf. Because apparently Black people are both feral and contagious.
- HJF1
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