I feel sheepish like Hawkeye when Iron Man first sponsored him for the Avengers, in a story, I hasten to say, I know only from reprints. I'll try to be worthy of the assemblage.
First off, I want to thank Greg for inviting me, and especially anyone who really wanted to blackball my candidacy but refrained. Back home I talk about the irony of being invited to join a group I often thought of trying to wheedle my way into anyway.
Topic A in my mind, after the discussion last week, is "revamps" (and reboots), especially what we might call their secret history, though what I really mean by that is "revamps from before we thought of them as such." Downblog we identified the DC Silver Age, starting with Showcase #4, as the ur-revamp, the revamp of which all others are but shadows. And co-blogger Ralf added the first Silver Age Marvel appearance of Captain America to the list. ("All those other Cap stories from the past twenty years? Yeah, they never happened.")
So I'm wondering, what other revamp/reboots predate the acknowledged instigator of the last two decades' restarts, Crisis on Infinite Earths? Does lifting up the name "Ghost Rider" and swapping out the Old West vigilante underneath for a Satanic motorcycle dude count? Does the Silver Age Daredevil count as a revamp if nobody remembered or cared about the Golden-Age version?
Revamp candidates:
During the Tales of Suspense days, Marvel did a whole run of Captain America stories set in WWII. They later resumed present-day adventures.
Wonder Woman losing her powers and then gaining them back.
The Don McGregor-Rich Buckler-Bill Graham Black Panther from Jungle Action (major tone shift from BP's previous appearances), and then, the Kirby series that followed it and had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Speaking of Late Marvel Kirby, didn't his late-70s Cap work pretty much pretend the Englehart-Buscema Secret Empire and Nomad etc. arcs never happened?
I'm much less familiar with Bronze Age and Silver Age DC than Marvel, so I may be missing some candidates there. (Even before Dark Knight Returns, it seems like the transition from pop-art Batman to O'Neil-Adams (and Aparo, and Giordano) Batman counts.
Reboot candidates?
Much harder to find any, beyond Cap and Julie Schwartz. Probably because Roy Thomas wouldn't hear of it.
Posted by Jim at June 21, 2005 9:12 PM
The 1970 "Kryptonite No More!" storyline in Superman was definitely a revamp bordering on reboot, though of course it honored continuity as much as anything did in those days. It included the destruction of Kryptonite, the introduction of some new adversaries (the Sand Creature, Terra Man, and many even less impressive), and moving Clark Kent from the Daily Planet to WGBS. The tone of Superman in the 1970s was generally more controlled, less childish than in the 1950s and 60s.
Before that, Batman underwent two transformations in the 1960s, both of them deliberate and at the level of revamp: The first was the "New Look" Batman, which is the unofficial dividing line between Earth-1 and Earth-2; in addition to the cosmetic change in the uniform, this was marked by events like Robin moving out of Wayne Manor, the introduction of the Babs Gordon Batgirl, and a more "serious" tone focusing more on detection than on the wacky funstuff of the 1950s. Oh, and of course the death and eventual resurrection of Alfred.
After the TV show pulled the comic back towards silliness, Denny O'Neil made a concerted effort to push the title back once again into seriousness. This is less explicitly a "revamp"--there's no single overt marker that says "This is a new approach", but it's unmistakably a period of tremendous reinvention.
Unsurprisingly, all of these revamps had Julie Schwartz's fingerprints all over them--he was editor of Batman from 1964 to 1970, and of Superman from 1971 until 1985.
Schwartz was not involved in the "Emma Peel" Wonder Woman era, though he did revamp her later--I'm pretty sure he was the editor when she got her powers and her old costume back.
And no, I wouldn't count "name recycling" as a reboot, but I suspect you weren't serious about that, either.
Regarding late-Marvel Kirby, I believe I've heard that his condition for doing Black Panther and Captain America was that he would be allowed to ignore his predecessors. Whether that was some sort of "they're my characters and those guys are interlopers" or just his not wanting to read a mess o' comic books, I don't know.
The Mystery Curmudgeon!
But whoever he is, damn!
Dunno why my name doesn't show up. Unless this is what happens when vampires blog.
Alan Moore's first Swamp Thing story is one whopper of a retcon which I think just edges in before the Crisis cutoff. That one's more to blame for all the Vertigo-style relaunches than Crisis itself. The whole "British writer X plus dormant property Y equals new franchise" policy. That one's still going strong today with books like The Losers.
Kevin - Terra-Man first appeared in 1972, about a year after the "Kryptonite No More" story in late 1970/early 1971. I can see why you'd conflate them, though, as Superman is suffering from weak spells during Terra-Man's debut. It's a Kryptonian birth-spell, sort of like Pon Farr only without the screwing.
And that, my friend, is a nit-pick. :)
Denny O'Neil's Green Arrow revamp: although tied to previous continuity, O'Neil's Oliver Queen acted as a rebel and a self-imposed "team conscious" in Justice League, behavior never exhibited in any of his previous appearances.
Most Silver Age DC revamps were all-new characters with the names and powers of Golden Age counter-parts, but no other connections. The Silver age Hawkman, however, had the same name (Carter Hall/ Katar Hol) as, and had many similarities to the Golden Age version.
Marc: a valid nitpick. However, I knew that Terra-man was after the formal "Kryptonite No More!" story--in fact, I would have guessed it was 1973, not 72. Denny O'Neil only lasted like eight issues on Superman--that's the extent of the formal "KNM" story, right? (And to tie it in to the other "revamp", Diana Prince and I Ching guest-starred in one issue.)
But I think of pretty much all of the early Schwartz-edited Superman books as part of the same revamp sweep, maybe as late as 1974 or 75. They're really a lot darker, both visually and narratively, than the pre-1970 books.
How about the Fleisher/Aparo Spectre? From friendly crime-fighting ghost in the Golden Age to cutting folks in half with giant scissors....
Darn, I'm getting tarred with the leader brush again, aren't I? I didn't invite Jim, except insofar as I wrote the e-mail; the Howling Curmudgeons, as a traditional internet small-n consensual cooperative anarchy, invited him.
Wonder Woman, due to the TV series, switched back to WWII stories for a time in the 1970s.
Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes was a considerable revamp from just Superboy.
There have been several revamps of Captain Marvel, post-Fawcett: a couple minor companies, then Marvel's Kree warrior.
I wouldn't call the Myron Fass guy or the Kree guy revamps of Captain Marvel; rather, they just recycled an out-of-use name.
On the other hand, while I've never read the 70's Shazam series, I would suspect that was a revamp of the Big Red Cheese. For that matter, Freedom Fighters probably qualifies as a revamp of the various Quality Comics characters featured therein.
Dr. Strange got revamped by Roy Thomas at one point to make him more like a superhero, and therefore presumably less prone to cancellation. It didn't work.
The Defenders got revamped at some point from "Dr. Strange, the Hulk, and their friends who are most emphatically not a team" to "Most of the original X-Men and their friends, who are a team."
But the big revamp-without-throwing-out-continuity, at least in my mind, is the replacement of the Big Guns with Cap's Kooky Quartert in Avengers.
I think revamps/reboots only count if they are applied to a character from the same company, which is why I'd rule out the SA-v-GA Daredevil as well as the two Ghost Riders.
Does the "Oh, yeah, Reed and Ben fought in WW2 beside Nick Fury" issues of Sgt Fury and the Howling Commandos count?
Speaking of Roy Thomas: his decree in the letters page of Invaders in which he claimed that the only Timely/GA Marvel stories that actually happened are the ones he showed or referred to in Invaders, thereby excluding 75% of Timely's superhero output. (I always wonder why people claim that Thomas loved the Golden Age. He loved aspects of it. He loved a handful of its characters. But--perhaps following Stan Lee's dictates?--he retconned away most of Timely's past, including the inexcusable demotion of Sun Girl from "the nation's most popular personality" to the Human Torch's secretary ).
More Roy Thomas: claiming that the Eternals actually do exist in the Marvel Universe.
"Robin moving out of Wayne Manor" as an indicator of the "New Look" Batman is incorrect in several ways. First, it didn't happen until around five years after the first "New Look" story. Second, it was Robin leaving for college in a different town, breaking up the constant B&R team. Finally, in the same issue, Bruce and Alfred move out of Wayne Manor for a place in downtown Gotham.
One could argue that making Nick Fury and a fair number of the Howlers into SHIELD's commanders was a significant revamp, although it's weakened by both WWII and 60s spy Fury stories being on the market at the same time.
Hudlin's Black Panther is a reboot, although after Priest fans freaked be backed up and said "Year One."
But this book bears so little resemblance to any of the character's established history from the past four decades, it's a reboot.
while I've never read the 70's Shazam series, I would suspect that was a revamp of the Big Red Cheese
Well, kind of. Basically, the explanation for why Billy & Co. stayed roughly the same age after 20 years in limbo was that the entire Marvel Family, including the supporting cast and many of the villains, spent 20 years in "Suspendium." It was a Sivana plot that backfired on the Sivanas too. Therefore, more of a retcon than a reboot.
Now, the post-Crisis Cap had two complete reboots. First, in 1986 or thereabouts, Roy and Dann Thomas did Shazam! The New Beginning, which made Sivana Billy's evil guardian after the deaths of his parents. That really didn't work out well, so in 1994 Jerry Ordway ignored it completely in his Power Of Shazam! graphic novel.
Tom--thanks for the correction; something was nagging at me about the timeline of Dick moving out of Gotham. If the timing is right, that would make a good marker of the start of the "post-TV" revamp.
Iron Man goes under the revamp knife every so often, as his origin slides down the timeline from Vietnam to some vague southern Asia conflict to the Gulf War...ten years out it'll be set in this Iraq War/conflict/clambake. I think it started to slide, or at least Vietnam wasn't name-checked pre-Crisis, but I couldn't say for 100% sure. Strangely, Punisher has stuck to Vietnam in the comics, which means he's getting on in years, and that's just fine with me. Thanks, Garth Ennis!
Punisher is in the unfortunate position of being intricately tied to the feel of the Vietnam era. I don't think it's too much of a problem in a world where Sean Connery and Harrison Ford are still action hero leads, even if artists were to draw him at his chronologically "correct" age instead of the 40ish that he usually appears.
Captain America actually turns out to have the most flexible origin. He's got a suspended animation period built right in which only sporadically requires minor extensions. Whether he woke up in the 60s or the 80s or the 00s, he'll always have the man-out-of-time thing going for him.
Iron Man goes under the revamp knife every so often, as his origin slides down the timeline from Vietnam to some vague southern Asia conflict to the Gulf War...ten years out it'll be set in this Iraq War/conflict/clambake.
Warren Ellis has it down to Afghanistan already. (And either something's gone weird with that book or I've missed the last 3 issues, according to my recent flip through my boxes.)
Nope, Don, because of Adi Granov's incredibly slow pace- well, allegedly anyway, I don't think there's an Ellis project that HASN'T been late outside of UFF since Transmet ended- Iron Man has only shipped three issues, and #4 was solicited for July but recently pulled off the schedule.
The irony was despite the fact that he had three months to draw it, issue #3 was a total rush job in the second half.
I have a hard time believing in the "artist curse" that seems to follow Ellis. A REAL hard time. Movie pitches, screenplays, novels, mailing list entries don't write themselves.
Ah, what a great topic!
Here's one that folks have understandably forgotten: Coming in at the tail end of the pre-Crisis era, DC's blowing up of the "classic" JLA and bringing in the wretched Kiddie Korps: Gypsy, Vibe, Steel with having Aquaman as the borderline psycho-dictator who tossed nearly everyone else out of the League. Thankfully, half of them were killed during the Crisis.
Speaking, as some were, of Roy Thomas, he did a rather normal pre-Crisis reboot of the WWII Justice Society as the All-Star Squadron. When the Crisis occurred, he was forced to create new heroes to replace Superman, Wonder Woman and others who no longer existed in the '40s.
I believe the whole Batman marrying Selina Kyle was the creation of Paul Levitz in the '70s revamp of the JSA as the Super-Squad, picking up the original numbering of the classic All-Star Comics. That series also introduced the Earth-2 Superman's then-cousin Power Girl.
Using Kevin Maroney's Superman standard of "a revamp bordering on reboot", we'd have to include the O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Even though the basic trappings of the character stayed, GL was stripped of about half the power in his ring, the space-opera/test-pilot aspect of the series was abandoned for the "socially relevant," earth-based storylines, the introduction of a "mature" (for the times) relationship between Green Arrow and Black Canary.
Speaking of Black Canary, there was the mini-revamp in the JLA (a couple years pre-Crisis) turning her into her own daughter. Originally, the JSA's Dinah Drake Lance left Earth-Two for Earth-One after her husband Larry sacrificed himself during a JLA-JSA crossover. Fifteen or so years later, it turned out that that Larry and Dinah both died and it was actually their previously-unknown, living in suspended animation daughter who joined the JLA. How she convinced herself that she was actually 20-something older than she really was, was never really explained. (And, what this said about her relationship with Green Arrow, I don't know. She apparently thought she was the same age as he was, but then found out she was considerably younger.) The retcon also explained why she suddenly developed a sonic cry once she got to Earth-One.
Roy Thomas brought a revamped Vision into the Avengers.
Kirby's retooling of Jimmy Olson certainly counts as something.
But that brings up a question I've got. What's the difference between a revamp and a simple change of direction? Kirby's Jimmy Olson didn't negate anything that came before (although it didn't really incorporate it, either), and when it was over, it remained in the continuity (though it was seldom referenced). The same is true of Wonder Woman's Diana Rigg period or the O'Neil/Adams GL/GA.
As the '60s entered the '70s, Marvel and DC didn't hold as constricting a control over their characters as they had. When Weisinger edited the Superman books, for instance, it didn't really matter which writers and artists came through, the stories remained of a piece. But this changed as the editorial hand became a bit lighter and individual creators were allowed to leave a personal "stamp"--books shifted direction more easily. Is it important to differentiate between an editorial reworking of a character or book and a creator just saying, "I was here"?
