Tomorrow Stories #9

[laughing_tree]

To some degree, I tend to think most super-heroes, at their essence, if you boiled them down, are only a name and a chest emblem. You think about that with, say, Batman. There is no resemblance at all between the avenging Batman originally created in the late '30s to the smiling, avuncular Batman of the '50s, to Neal Adams' taut/tense/grim/gritty Batman of the '70s, or to Frank Miller's Dark Knight in the '80s. These are not the same person. The only thing continuous is the name and chest emblem. And that, to me, is part of the appeal of the character. I mean, who cares about continuity, really? I thought it would be interesting with Cobweb that, yes, we know she's got a sidekick and has a cobweb design on her belt. Given that, we can do whatever we want with the character. -- Alan Moore

The Cobweb in "Farewell, My Lullaby" -





The First American and U.S.Angel in "The Origin of the First American" -







Greyshirt in "Greyshirt: The Musical" -





Splash Brannigan in "Splash of Two Worlds!" -

Comments

[cyberghostface]

Characters certainly evolve over the years but that's kind of a silly statement. It's not like you could swap Batman out for Spider-Man and act like the characterization or story wouldn't change.

[lego_joker]

Funny you should say that... one of my biggest criticisms of Denny O'Neil's Batman has always been that he trash-talks so much he might as well be Spider-Man (just off the top of my head: the closing page of "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge!"). In the few moments he's not, he's usually mimicking James Bond or some other globetrotting pulp hero.

In fact - given the sheer number of Elseworlds he's produced, I'd say Batman is the most "keep the aesthetic, everything else is negotiable" superhero out there. The dead-parents thing is perhaps the least negotiable plank, but even so, prior to Miller it was mostly a trivia footnote, not something the readers were constantly beat over the head with.

[alicemacher]

I agree. Similarly, the original Siegel "chaotic good" Superman, who had no problem breaking laws in order to make a point about the greater good, isn't the same character as the "lawful good / lawful stubborn" Superman of Miller's first two Dark Knight series and Cooke's New Frontier. Nor is the Silver Age Superman, whose convoluted plans made him a living Rube Goldberg device, the same character as the Bronze Age and later Supes who generally went with a simple "attempt to understand/reason with first; if that doesn't work, then punch or zap" strategy.

[lordultimus]

Depended on which story. O'Neil definitely made it central in several stories ("There is No Hope in Crime Alley", for instance).

[starwolf_oakley]

"The Dark Knight Returns" led to Superman writers wanting to make it clear that Superman isn't a lapdog in his own book set in the "modern day."

Of course, whenever creators want to show "Superman and Captain America aren't lapdogs" that usually translates to "Republicans are bad and you should feel bad." That seemed to be the whole point of CIVIL WAR.

It sometimes goes the other way. During Peter David's INCREDIBLE HULK run, Betty Banner was watching Bill Clinton on the news and saying "The ONE time I vote Democrat!"