Okay, so I’m at my FLGS the other day and I what was in effect a Zombie Superman toy. It was just wrong. I found out it was for Blackest Night a Green Lantern storyline. Okay now before I go on I have not collected since X-Men age of apocalypse and while I do try to keep up on what’s going on with comic books I’m by no means hardcore. That being said I read up on the Green Lantern story so I know the basics, but something just kept bothering me about the Superman thing. Now I’m team Batman make no mistake, but I’ll freely admit Superman’s the most famous and iconic superhero and it just struck me wrong.
At first I thought it was simply my pride as an American. Superman to me is a symbol of the USA and I just didn’t like him being a Zombie ‘like’ (yeah I know they are not Zombies in the Romero sense of the word). But really that wasn’t it, or at lest that wasn’t all of it. I work for a Law Library I was going through some old copies of the Daily Journal (a Law news paper) and found an article on the lawsuits over Superman ownership from the families of his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. (As an aside I’m actually on DC side of the question, yeah they might of created the character, but they sold it to DC, how many characters did they buy that never became iconic, no one at the time knew what Superman would become? Sorry guys but you sold it, and you knew what the comic book business was like). In any case, sorry lost track of my point, it seems to me the whole Zombie Superman as a sick slap in the face to the character and his creators.
My logic goes something like this, Siegel and Shuster’s creation was the Superman of the 1930s, hence Superman of Earth 2, who has been coming back a lot lately even though 86’s Crisis on Infinite Earths ended his story, more or less happily. And each time DC has basically been throwing mud in his face as a hero of a bygone era, until now with this final(?) insult of insults now you’re an undead zombified corpse. Now maybe I’m wrong but its almost like DC is saying, fine if we have to share ownership of Superman with the families of his creators, were going to really F*** with your creation, and we have an easy out because the ‘real’ Superman isn’t the one form Earth 2.
Like I said I’m actually on the side of DC on the ownership issue, but it seems like they really have a bad case of sour grapes and wanted to get back and Siegel and Shuster in a back handed way.
Sorry just had to rant.
TTFN DRE
All these lawsuit issues did for me was really screw with my Legion of Super-Heroes. I still haven't gottom past that, much less do I intend to be "Ok" with DC's lame excuses for a re-right. As far as I'm concerned, the Legion was based on the legends of Superboy/Superman and thus granted Superboy membership in issue #247 of Adventure Comics. My Legion of Super-Heroes game stands as such.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
Long story short, Re: Blackest Night
Basically anyone who was dead was 'fair game' for the rings to animate. They went after people for whom others had strong emotional connections. Since Kal-L and Earth-1 Lois died in the 'Core' universe, they were fair game.
As to being offended, I don't think it was meant as a slap to the Segals, as a lot of characters got the 'zombie' treatment. Was BL Wonderwoman a slap to Marston? Or BL Grant and Addie a slap to Marv Wolfman? What is was meant as a slap to was the reader. To show no one was safe.
Now that beng said, I thought the carnage was overdone, and some of the characters they brought back annoy me (I liked Gen, Damage, Tempest, and Holly Granger, and would rather have seen Zoom and Digger stay dead. I am glad Martian Manhunter and Jade are back.)
I just spent three hours on Wikipedia hip deep in DC material trying to figure out what the heck is going on with this story.
All these lawsuit issues did for me was really screw with my Legion of Super-Heroes. I still haven't gottom past that, much less do I intend to be "Ok" with DC's lame excuses for a re-right. As far as I'm concerned, the Legion was based on the legends of Superboy/Superman and thus granted Superboy membership in issue #247 of Adventure Comics. My Legion of Super-Heroes game stands as such.
Say on about these Loshsuits- whaappen? Are there any characters that aren't "legally" in the legion?
All these lawsuit issues did for me was really screw with my Legion of Super-Heroes. I still haven't gottom past that, much less do I intend to be "Ok" with DC's lame excuses for a re-right. As far as I'm concerned, the Legion was based on the legends of Superboy/Superman and thus granted Superboy membership in issue #247 of Adventure Comics. My Legion of Super-Heroes game stands as such.Say on about these Loshsuits- whaappen? Are there any characters that aren't "legally" in the legion?
I really don't know. What I learned from the Legion World web site is that at one point DC replaced Superboy with Mon'el and then stated that certain stories never happened or something like that. I've never been able to get it straight.
Set could probably set us straight though.
All these lawsuit issues did for me was really screw with my Legion of Super-Heroes. I still haven't gottom past that, much less do I intend to be "Ok" with DC's lame excuses for a re-right. As far as I'm concerned, the Legion was based on the legends of Superboy/Superman and thus granted Superboy membership in issue #247 of Adventure Comics. My Legion of Super-Heroes game stands as such.Say on about these Loshsuits- whaappen? Are there any characters that aren't "legally" in the legion?I really don't know. What I learned from the Legion World web site is that at one point DC replaced Superboy with Mon'el and then stated that certain stories never happened or something like that. I've never been able to get it straight.
Set could probably set us straight though.
Long story short, Re: Blackest Night
Basically anyone who was dead was 'fair game' for the rings to animate. They went after people for whom others had strong emotional connections. Since Kal-L and Earth-1 Lois died in the 'Core' universe, they were fair game.
As to being offended, I don't think it was meant as a slap to the Segals, as a lot of characters got the 'zombie' treatment. Was BL Wonderwoman a slap to Marston? Or BL Grant and Addie a slap to Marv Wolfman? What is was meant as a slap to was the reader. To show no one was safe.
Now that beng said, I thought the carnage was overdone, and some of the characters they brought back annoy me (I liked Gen, Damage, Tempest, and Holly Granger, and would rather have seen Zoom and Digger stay dead. I am glad Martian Manhunter and Jade are back.)
You might be right, I could simply be overthinking it. But honestly the timing just seems suspect. Last I saw of Earth 2 superman, who is the superman that the Segals created, he, Lane, and Superboy (oh yeah as to the superboy debate look up superboy of earth prime, WTF? You will not be happy) we sent off to a paradise world. Now 20+ years later they couldn't leave the first true superhero be, and at the same time the Segals are sueing and, i think, won the rights to superman.
As to everyone fair game and all the other characters and creators, I see your point but from what I've read the only other big names are Aquaman and Martian Manhunter. In the end I suppose it gets down to the fact that Earth 2 superman was spared at the end of Crisis and honored with a happy ending that he should have gotten, but because of that DC left a loop hole to the whole Infinite Earths deal created in the 50's that they wanted to fix.
TTFN DRE
PS here is a funny irony, I once heard that DC did Crisis for two reasons, one and the main reason, it was getting too complex with too many worlds to keep track of and heros and stories to keep stright; and two newer readers were becoming very hip and better educated, and science (real world science that is) discredited the idea of multiple diminisions.
The Irony being that now Science and embraced the concept of multiple diminisions and the DC universe, for being one universe keeps messing up and re-starting things over and over again.
Welllllll...last months Adventure Comics put Superboy, yes Clark Kent not Conner, back firmly in the Legion so I guess all the old stories are canon again