The New Golden Age #1

[heartsways]

 

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

Corky is the worst.
The strip-mining of Watchmen elements continues to feel derivative rather than engaging.

Also, shame you posted those pages instead of any of the really interesting stuff about all of the other storylines set up here, especially regarding the Thirteen. The old school Who's Who data pages in the back were delightful in finding room for the lost characters in DC history.

I particularly liked the return of the Golden Age Aquaman, one of the few in the bunch who actually did exist (before the original Crisis retconned away his existence).

[mastermahan]

It really does. A number of retconned or restored Golden Age characters piqued my interest, and the data pages in the back continued that. Johns' Watchmen OCs, less so.

Was it ever explained why Mime has superpowers?

[beyondthefringe]

I like the Thirteen, for the most part, as they do inject some much-welcome diversity into the otherwise generic white blandness of the Golden Age, and many come pre-loaded with interesting connections to existing characters or legacies.

Though I do have questions... like how does Cherry Bomb relate to the Human Bomb's other sidekicks, like Hustace Throckmorton, or the Bombadiers? Is the Red Lantern connected to the Red Lantern Corps or is his power source strictly magical like the Starheart? What is the official status of the Mister Miracle lineage between this version of Thaddeus Brown and the recent Source of Freedom miniseries?

And most importantly... why do Harlequin's Son and Obsidian have the same belt and torso design? Who wore it first? Who wears it better? Why is Harlequin's Son wearing Quasar's quantum bands? Is it awkward that Harlequin's son and Green Lantern's son are both gay? Did they ever date before their parents married and made them step-siblings? How does Harlequin's Son relate to Marcy Cooper, who stole at least one set of Molly Mayne's glasses to become the new Harlequin during the Millenium storyline and later? And why am I so obsessed with this one character?

Just out of curiosity, I looked up a few of those "original appearances." For Cherry Bomb, who supposedly debuted in Police Comics #25, there -was- a Human Bomb story in that issue, but it involved his comic sidekick Hustace... I wonder if we'll discover that Hustace was a continuity implant to fill in Cherry Bomb's absense in the timeline (like the Young All-Stars "replaced" certain big name characters when the original Crisis erased them).

For Molly Pitcher and Betsy Ross, who supposedly appeared in Military Comics #6 as being saved from a school for crime by Miss America, that really was the plot of a Miss America story in that issue. And their debut as heroes in the next issue, against a saboteur known as the Moth, reflects a real fight Miss American had in that issue (only without sidekicks...) And that was her last appearance until being revived as part of All-Star Squadron decades later.

John Henry Jr really DID appear in New Frontier #6, in a single panel of a kid reading comics next to a gravestone marking "John Wilson, AKA John Henry" so again, an interesting use of continuity implanting.

However, no sign of any time traveling female speedsters in Flash Comics #10. Likewise, the issues listed for characters like Salem the Witch Girl, Ladybug, Red Lantern, Quiz Kid, leave limited room for them to actually have appeared, but as far as authenticity goes, there -were- Doctor Fate, Red Bee, Green Lantern, Mister Terrific stories in the appropriate issues.

Anyway, as you can probably tell from this lengthy essay, I'm fascinated by the attention to detail going into attempting to portray these as characters who really existed in some fashion at one point, down to weaving them into existing stories or continuity at one point. And it's interesting how this works when dredging Watchman for material clunks so hard. I want to give Geoff Johns a split score for his efforts...

Oh and no, we still don't know how the Mime has powers.

[blueprintstyles]

It was established in in-universe articles that psychics exist in the Watchmen universe, Mime is just the first that's strong enough to do anything of value.

[cyberghostface]

Speaking of the shameless exploitation of Alan Moore's work, the man himself shared an interesting story of how Damon Lindelof tried to grovel before him for his approval for HBO's Watchmen show. In true Moore fashion, Moore told him to get off his lawn.

https://deadline.com/2022/10/alan-moore-watchmen-damon-lindelof-letter-dont-bother-me-1235148502/

[morallyambiguousscience]

Shame, I liked the HBO show.

[thehood]

Moore has always made it known he wanted nothing to do with any adaptation of his work. I'm surprised Lindelof expected anything different

[blues32]

He was pretty cool with the "For The Man Who Has Everything" adaptation in the Justice League cartoon.

[superfangirl1]

I don’t like corky. Someone slap the kid, until it dial down the bratty smugness. It weirdly confuseing how watchmen characters are being used here in the story. ( Going by the scans)

[beyondthefringe]

Don't worry, it's no clearer in the actual comic.

This is basically a continuation of Doomsday Clock, where Dr. Manhattan's kid was dropped off with the former Nite Owl and Silk Spectre to be raised as a normal kid or whatever. Now everyone wants the kid, including the 16-year-old Nostalgia, who was inspired by Ozymandias' perfume line, and Mime and Marionette, the villain couple who were Manhattan's kid's birth parents.

[thanekos]

No one will let Johns do anything with Terra Obscura from Tom Strong, so we all get this instead.

[alliterator]

Which is weird because Terra Obscura is made up of all public domain heroes, I thought.

[blues32]

Did NO ONE teach this kid about not messing with history? That the whole job she has is to keep history proper? Not going back in time to tell John Wilkes Booth not shoot the president! Christ. And she totally lied to him by saying the world remembers him. How many people outside the US knew who that kid was when they read this issue?

[cyberghostface]

The funny thing is he was already a big star before he killed Lincoln. He was one of the highest-paid acting stars at the time. Cracked.com made the comparison that the equivalent would be if Tom Cruise tried to assassinate the president today.

[super_fly]

Seems like a predestination paradox to me, trying to stop something from happening and saying just the right things to ensure it does happen

[blues32]

That's not a predestination paradox. That's when someone travels through time to alter history only to find that their attempts are what put history on the course it had been in the whole time.

Here, it could be argued that the ONLY reason Booth decided to kill Lincoln was because some strange person who only barely knew history (as he was unable to explain WHY John would want to shoot the president or the status of his future acting career) was because he told him that if he did, his name would go down in history. He didn't even clarify that the world would see him as the villain. So he decides to kill the president when he's an adult.

[beyondthefringe]

I dunno. I'm not trying to be Ameri-centric, but I feel as though John Wilkes Booth assassinating Abraham Lincoln may be one of the most likely bits of American historical trivia to have seeped into a larger cultural subconscious, at least as far as an English-speaking audience goes.

Also, Corky's an annoying little shit who probably assumes way too much about how much people know. Maybe "The whole world" means "America" to him.

[alliterator]

I actually thought Corky was trying to *get* John Wilkes Boothe to assassinate Lincoln - you know, keeping history on its path and all that.

[blues32]

I feel the whole "I could have smothered you as a baby in your crib" thing should hammer home that he really shouldn't assassinate the president.

[lordultimus]

He doesn't seem smart enough to use reverse psychology like that to me.

[lordultimus]

We're SUPPOSED to hate Corky, right?

[beyondthefringe]

Let's just say a few people are probably rooting for him to be stepped on by a dinosaur. I'd say "lost in the past" but I'm afraid he'd fuck it up somehow.

[john_drake1964]

"And here we have a discovery made in quarry known containing considerable amounts of flintstone, that of what appears to be a primitive wagon, which used two giant cylindrical rollers made of stone set forwards and rearwards of a central storage or seating compartment..."

"Dangit Corky...

[blues32]

"Strangely there seems to be some form of steering wheel, despite the rollers being unable to move left or right. More confounding was the discovery of an object that was shaped almost like a garage door opener. Carved into the back of this object are the words, "Meh. It's a living" in English. Scientists are truly baffled."

[john_drake1964]

Gotta imagine that any archaeologist and paleontologist digging in Bedrock County has got to be wondering if this is going to make or break their career.

"Okay, so we found stone crockery near what looked to be a primitive stone cabinet. But there were bones of a monkey, turtle and mammoth around it."

"Some sort of altar perhaps, with bone decorations?"

"No, I think it was a dishwasher...."

[blues32]

"Oh c'mon. Next you'll be telling me the bones under here are from the garbage disposal."

"Well..."

[blues32]

Getting stepped on by a dinosaur is pretty dangerous. If Corky has diseases on him that the carrion eaters contract, then the carrion eaters get eaten...so on and so forth.

[shadowpsykie]

i don't get it....