Comics are Awesome II

[andersonh1]

I would agree that Scott's longevity, on and off the page, was a point in his favour. But, it was off-set by the fact that he had been de-aged so many times when he simply should have died from old age long ago.

Not a problem in a sci-fi/superhero based universe. If Vandal Savage or Ras Al Gul or Jason Blood can live for centuries with no problem, why not a few heroes as well?

[Sparky Prime]

The current Amanda Waller is not a bad character. But, she does not even begin to fill the role of the old "Wall". DC may well rectify that in some way, either "upgrading" the current Waller or introducing a similar character. But, right now, something is missing.

Not having read Team 7, I don't have much for a comparison here but Waller has also briefly shown up in some other titles, like Green Lantern. She's a lot thinner than the previous version of the character, but she seemed like she was still characterized like the old Waller.

Alan Scott was one of a half dozen Green Lanterns. He was a character with a long history. But, his history stretched back to the 1940s, and included volumes of forgettable stories. It was time to move on. Waller, on the other hand, was unique on more than one level, making her more useful to keep around.

Alan Scott is unique among Green Lanterns in that his powers, while similar, are different to the GL Corps. And andersonh1 is right, being an older character with adult superhero children of his own was another unique quality about him and is not something you should dismiss so callously.

[Dominic]

"Team 7" is a flashback series, set maybe 5 years or so before the "current" books. So, it is possible that the relatively younger Waller is not as hard as the current Wall. The weight loss is still bothersome though, as it undermines her as a counter-example of the various stereotypes mentioned above. (In other words, Waller was politically superior when she was heavier. Just saying.....)

Not a problem in a sci-fi/superhero based universe. If Vandal Savage or Ras Al Gul or Jason Blood can live for centuries with no problem, why not a few heroes as well?

Maybe if Scott and the rest of the JSA had not been aged, de-aged, and in some cases killed and raised so many times (in a genre where such things are cliche), I would be more okay with this.


Dom
-had a temp job evaporate out early, and is practicing with Forensic Software while posting this.

[andersonh1]

Maybe if Scott and the rest of the JSA had not been aged, de-aged, and in some cases killed and raised so many times (in a genre where such things are cliche), I would be more okay with this.

By and large, there wasn't any rampant aging and de-aging, with three exceptions. My impression was that even when the JSA characters were in the original Earth-2 they were older than the contemporary counterparts, and that everyone in the group had slowed aging thanks to energy from a fight with Ian Karkull, I believe. They still aged, but not as quickly, and essentially enjoyed decades of middle to late middle age. Then Zero Hour restored all of them except for Alan Scott to their true ages, with some dying right then (the Atom, Doctor Fate) and others dying not too long afterward. I know Wesley Dodds was 80-something (and looked it) in the first issue of JSA, and he threw himself off a mountain. The original Starman died as well at the end of the 90s Starman series, in which he had already retired.

The only characters who bounced back from Zero Hour were Jay Garrick and Ted Grant, both of whom had reasons other than Karkull's energy to keep them younger. Alan Scott had been de-aged by the Starheart prior to Zero Hour and returned to his true age sometime later, but he had become an energy being anyway, who could look like whatever he wanted, really. He no longer had a physical body that was subject to aging.

[BWprowl]

You know, none of this BS would be a problem if comics didn't have this asinine need to keep flowing in semi-real time and trying to age characters to keep up. If the setting was just a loosely-defined, general, 'modern-day' setting, characters could just stay whatever age their character was 'supposed' to be, with the 'old guys' just being that for whenever they showed up. Instead of having to be tied to 'Alan Scott and Jay Garrick have been active since the 1930's, so they're practically in their hundreds now!' or whatever and having to continually reset and de-age them and shit like that to keep them alive, they could just go 'Yeah, they've been around for a really friggin' long time, nothing too specific though.'

Of course, DC goes back and forth with this anyway, the way they would age guys like Jay and Alan in 'real time' while guys like Batman got to stay perpetually in their thirties. Whatever.

Or at least pick a year that the comics take place in and keep it there in 'comic time', rather than trying to keep the comic years and real years synchronized, which leads to this kind of stupidity. 'Negima!' started in 2003, and the story stated itself as such to take place then. It kept running for like nine years, but since in-story barely a year had passed, it was still only ever stated to be taking place in 2003-2004, they didn't try to move anything up.

(This put it in an interesting place with Love Hina, Akamatsu's earlier series that occupied the same universe, since the finale of that series was stated to take place in 2005. Luckily, the age of the characters that appeared between both was ambiguous/close enough that this wasn't too much of an issue.)

[andersonh1]

It would help if DC wasn't embarassed to publish old characters as well. Every so often some editor in charge comes along who thinks every character has to be 30 or under, so the old guys are swept under the rug or retired. Then someone new comes along and the characters thrive. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[Onslaught Six]

Valiant solved this by simply having everything in real time. (Even the books that took place 100 years or so in the future continued to advance on a mostly month-to-month basis.) I'm sure Jack Boniface (Shadowman) being told he would die in 1999 meant that in a Shadowman issue published in 1999, Jack Boniface would die. (As it turns out, I have no idea how that ended. I never made it to the end of the series. I do know that Jack Boniface did totally die though.)

[Sparky Prime]

Valiant solved this by simply having everything in real time.

How does that work? Like 12 issues is a years worth of time in the context of the story?

Honestly, I like that DC and Marvel pull some tricks to age or de-age characters. How they might go about it sometimes might not always be told very well, but it allows them some freedom to play around with the characters and stories in different ways.

[Shockwave]

Valiant solved this by simply having everything in real time.

How does that work? Like 12 issues is a years worth of time in the context of the story?

Honestly, I like that DC and Marvel pull some tricks to age or de-age characters. How they might go about it sometimes might not always be told very well, but it allows them some freedom to play around with the characters and stories in different ways.

Of course it does. I mean, I could tell the story of my life but it would be a much different story if I kept being aged and de-aged. That kinda goes without saying. And it wouldn't be a very consistent story as a result.

[Sparky Prime]

Of course it does. I mean, I could tell the story of my life but it would be a much different story if I kept being aged and de-aged. That kinda goes without saying. And it wouldn't be a very consistent story as a result.

Why wouldn't it be consistent? A character aging and de-aging doesn't have to be. Equate it to something like Professor Xavier being able to walk. Just because he's been confined to a wheelchair and fixed up again several times doesn't change who he is or what he's done.