Issue #1
- Barry Allen describes himself as "retired". Is this some development that I missed, or is this meant to be "future" Barry?
- Barry seems to have a large collections of "trophies" from various heroes and villlains. I wonder how he obtained all that stuff?
- Who's the World Forger? Never heard of them. Also never heard that Perpetua was the Monitors' mother.
- Never heard of the Spectre's real name being "Aztar".
- "Ktar Deathbringer and Shrra served an ancient force of evil before being redeemed and reincarnated..." Do we know who this {force of evil" was?
- "Merlin anointed a second Shining Knight"... This appears to be the Shining Knight from Morrison's Seven Soldiers, but if I'm recalling correctly, she was supposed to be from ancient, pre-Arthurian times, so this would appear to be an alteration of her backstory.
- Never heard of these "Demon Knights".
- No sign of the Trigger Twins on the "western Heroes" page.
- No sign of the original Red Tornado, either.
- So Hippolyta is still the Golden Age Wonder Woman? Somehow, I thought that they'd re-written it so that Diana was back in nthe Golden Age again.
- Why is the Invisible Hood being called "Invisible Justice" now?
- Also never heard of this "Justice Alliance" consisting of Captain Comet, Prine Ra-Man, Automan, Tiger-Man and Congorilla.
- Putting Niles Caulder, Will Magnus, Martin Stein and Simon Stagg together as "The Supermen Project" feels like they're trying to create a DC version of the guys who ended up creating Adam Warlock.
Otherwise, most of the rest of the stuff is as I remembered it.
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Regarding Issue #2:
Regarding the Notes for Issue #2:
6. The original Doom Patrollers have known about the Chief's manipulations for a while now... since the Morrison run, I believe. (At least for Cliff; Larry and Rita returned later.) It's caused rifts in the group, driving them away from the Chief on several occasions.
9. All of those origins are being retrofitted into the Superman Project idea. Some might need more tweaking than others.
4. I think Supergirl's foster parents were renamed in the Supergirl TV show, and it carried through to the comics.
5/6. While the flashier idea of time-travel duplicates is less plausible than just having two people with the same names, it's comics, so there's always going to be ridiculousness. It's probably important to consider that these continuity fixes are happening withink the contect of stories being told, and time-travel duplicates makes a weirder and more exciting story than coincidentally similar names. That said, I have no idea what happened to the SSoV GA & Speedy after they met the JLA.
7. Yeah, it would have been good if he hadn't kicked him out of the house, but he did. (Black Canary helped him find treatment.) It's that kind of history that makes their relationship so fraught, even today. (The most recent storyline in GA is a revisitation of Roy's addiction, as someone's been going around Star City shooting people with hypodermic arrows and giving them ODs. After years of being clean, Roy's been exposed to opiates again, and it remains to be seen how he reacts to it.)
I see how Mark Waid is approaching this now. He's essentially cherry-picking elements of modern revisions and placing them in historical (i.e., "Silver Age" or IRL) context. but he is not drawing any hard and fast conclusions. For example, Hippolyta was the first Wonder Woman during WWII (as per John Byrne's version), but Waid doesn't mention anything about the time travel aspect of Byrne's story. I know opinions are split on that, but the way Waid presents it, whichever the individual reader prefers is the one that applies. I happen to like both versions, and I can accept both versions, although contradictory. (I am large; I contain multitudes.) In 1986 it was important that Diana was the first Wonder Woman and that she appeared for the first time post-Crisis; now it's not so important anymore. Same with Last Days of the JSA; I like both versions.
Concerning the origin of the Justice League (no "of America" anymore), I didn't think he'd ever be able to reconcile the pre-Crisis and post-Flashpoint versions, but (AFAIAC) he does. He treats the Geoff Johns/Jim Lee version as a sort of "zeroeth" adventure. "Joining us in this battle was Victor Stone, a high school athlete," narrates Barry Allen. The familiar version From Justice League of America #9 (or I should say "from Secret Origins #32" because it includes the second Black Canary) occurs later. When it comes time for the first JL/JSA team-up, the cover image of JLA #21 is invoked, but no mention of Valhalla or Earth-2 or anything other than "coming out of retirement" is mentioned.
There are countless other examples but you get the idea. And if there's any character you think should have been mentioned but isn't, chances are he/she/they are included in the timeline.
Artwise, this issue is full-page montages and double-page spreads illustrated (alternately) by Michael Allred and Brad Walker.
One thing about this series is that it's made me realize how "out-of-touch" I am with recent "updates" to continuity. And by"recent", I mean, anything much after the turn of the century.
For me, there's only so much continuity I accept as "real." Everything else after a certain point is a neat story until it's confirmed by a project like this. Something like Perpetua being the mother of three beings (Monitor, Anti-Monitor, and the World-Forger) seemed like a neat idea that might or might not have legs. But now it's here, so I know it's officially in the DC cosmology.
Historically, the Seven Soldiers of Victory had only a few stories back in the Golden Age. Even when they were rescued in a JLA/JSA meeting story by Len Wein in the early 1970s they just weren't seen very often from then on. Presumably from that point on we did have two Green Arrows, two Speeds, two Vigilantes and two Wings on Earth-One. It is even possible that the new Vigilante adventures that we saw in the 1970s were about the Earth-Two character in Earth-One, since the Earth-One Vigilante had been seen not long before and had retired by that point. Presumably the current take is that Green Arrow and Speedy of the SSoV were time-clones with a limited shelf life that simply ceased to be shortly after their rescue.
My understanding is that the JSA's time in limbo has been extended by a few decades in order to explain how they are still active. Not a particularly ellegant solution, since that would mean having them effectively fighting demons alone and without rest for all that time.
A bit weird to see Barry Allen talk so much of reincarnation, particularly when it is apparently a part of Katar's backstory. I may be mistaken, but apparently Katar actually died a few years ago, and the current Hawkman is Carter, who debuted after his death in New 52 continuity.
I did not know of Hourman being involved in a first version of the Freedom Fighters, but I suppose that goes a long way to explain his Minutemen of America from the Golden Age.
If Batman had been travelling for two decades and somehow turned out to debut as Batman "at the same time" as Superman, I sure get the feeling that there is a story coming to actually tie the two debuts. It would make sense that unpowered human Bruce Wayne would be split between his obsession and the dangers involved in becoming a vigilante, ending up spurred by Superman's first appearance. Could be a nice and unusual tale.
I have to assume that yes, in this current continuity the original members of the Doom Patrol do not know of the most regrettable actions from Niles Caulder, presumably because they did not happen Or, since Barry states that they did happen, Niles was tricked or forced into causing those accidents. We had plenty of shady Chief stories and they pretty much led to their own narrative dead end. He is not really suitable for long term usage as a villain even if you would rather have him in that role. And if you do... it is not that hard to read what was published.
Barry also mentions Lady Clayface as a result of that project, while originally she was created by Kobra. Perhaps we have a story of the project being corrupted or used by Kobra in the future. Yet another possibility is that Barry is simply misinformed, and we have some future story explaining how come.
A bit surprised to see a clear mention of Golden Arrow (from Fawcett) in #1. He is not particularly unique... IIRC he was at one point meant to take Green Arrow's place in the SSoV, despite having been a Wild West character from his second story.
Much of the Doom Patrol's revised backstory seems to come from John Byrne's Doom Patrol (2004), except that version debuted contemporaneously and the New History version has been retrofitted.
To be honest, I glossed right over the bit which mentioned the Cyborg was put into suspended animation after his initial mission with the soon-to-be Justice League. As long as we're playing fast and loose with the timeline anyway, I see no need for that. One of the reasons I hated that "New 52" reboot so much was that it completely eliminated every version of the Teen Titans from continuity. But in Mark Waid's New History, Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad and Speedy were already in the picture at this point. Since they and Cyborg are all roughly the same age, putting him into suspended animation would effectively put him out of synch with them (unless you want to say Vic is 18, the others are 15, and he was in suspended animation for, say, three years or so). I mean, theoretically, Robin or one of the other sidekicks could have participated with the proto-league on that mission (which they couldn't have in 2011). The whole "Darkseid proto-mission" smacks of Bereet's "techno-art" continuity implant movies, but I approve of it because, if the "New 52" has to be accounted for in continuity, this is less objectionable than the original version. If it were up to me, I'd simply move the whole "Darkseid/Cyborg" mission later in continuity and be done with it.
If Supergirl died during the Crisis, then who is the one in the current comics?
That's a good question. The same thing occurred to me. Then again, this is comics, and the New History itself is being narrated by the Flash, who also died.
Next issue will go from Crisis on Infinite Earths through Flashpoint and should provide some answers.
After the Matrix Supergirl and the white-crop-top wearing human one (neither were Kryptonians, though the latter had an origin which they later tied to the pre-Crisis version), they just reintroduced her for the first time, since, post-Crisis, she retroactively never existed. However, I suspect they have since revised her origin a few more times, what with the popular TV series a few years back and (ɘυƨƨi ɘno Ɉυodɒ яoʇ blɘʜ lяiϱяɘqυƧ bɘɔυboяɈniɘя ɘʜɈ ɘloя ɒ) lяiϱ ჸɈяɒq ɒ яɘʜ ƨɘʞɒm ʜɔiʜw ˎɘivom nɒmяɘqυƧ Ɉnɘɔɘя ɘʜɈ ni oɘmɒɔ яɘʜ
I think suspended animation for Cyborg is a fairly deft way of handling the inclusion of the Darkseid story for the forming of the JLA. That said, Darkseid invading Earth before those New Gods stories occur seems wrong to me.
I'll be interested to see how Waid handles Supergirl in the next issue... and I'll be interested in seeing whether there are any changes to Jon Kent aging up due to a trip with the revived Jor-El, as well (probably covered in issue 4).
I *love* the idea of a retired Barry Allen, btw. Still around to offer advice and help out when needed, but happy to take other people can take the reins. I'm starting to see some of my friends retire now, and it's good to see that life goes on after that happens.
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