Back in the 1980's, one of my favorite titles was All-Star Squadron. I thought It was great up until issue 50 or so. But in 1985, along came Crisis On Infinite Earths, and it really played havoc with this title and its modern day companion Infinity Inc., in my humble opinion. Pre-Crisis, both titles had Earth-2 to themselves and most DC titles era were set on Earth-1. Post-Crisis, no multiverse, no Golden Age Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, etc etc. All-Star Squadron was cancelled in 1987 and relaunched as Young All-Stars a few months later.
I felt writer Roy Thomas was very frustrated by the whole turn of events and it showed in the stories and also the letter columns, which he personally answered. But Roy didn't take his ball and go home. He stuck it out until about 1989 or so, when both Infinity Inc. and Young All-Stars were cancelled. I know that All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. have their fans, but I find Young All-Stars is largely forgotten, not actively disliked, just forgotten.
Thoughts?
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All-Star Squadron was very Golden Age oriented: it heavily used Golden Age heroes and villains, and many of the stories were based around the idea of treating Golden Age stories as in continuity and canon.
In contrast, in the issues I saw, Young All-Stars was very much a WWII version of Infinity Inc. I don't think the stories were based around Golden Age stories and continuity the same way.(1) But perhaps I shouldn't write this, as I don't really remember the issues' plots, and I didn't see many.
I think Young All-Stars might've been direct sales-only (wasn't it a heavier-paper series?). If so, it might've reached fewer readers.
(1) I didn't realise at the time that Neptune Perkins and Iron Munro had Golden Age roots. Perkins appeared in a couple of Hawkman stories in Flash Comics: he can be seen with Hawkman on the cover of #81. The Iron Munro name comes from a character who appeared in Shadow Comics, but whether Thomas's character was otherwise based on him I can't say. At the time I understood Thomas's Munro to be a homage to Hugo Danner from Philip Wylie's novel Gladiator.
My recollection was, like yours, the Crisis (which hit around All-Star Squadron issue 50) made the series lose a lot of its luster. And Young All-Stars, in my mind at least, gets lumped in with the lesser later issues of All-Star Squadron, rather than as a book on its own. Part of the fun of All-Star was seeing older characters in new WW2-era stories. The continuity implants (like Fury and Iron Munroe, whatever their pedigree, were being used as fill-ins for the Golden Age Wonder Woman and Superman) didn't capture the imagination in the same way, because we could see a little too much of the gears working.
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In contrast, in the issues I saw, Young All-Stars was very much a WWII version of Infinity Inc. I don't think the stories were based around Golden Age stories and continuity the same way.(1) But perhaps I shouldn't write this, as I don't really remember the issues' plots, and I didn't see many.
I think Young All-Stars might've been direct sales-only (wasn't it a heavier-paper series?). If so, it might've reached fewer readers.
(1) I didn't realise at the time that Neptune Perkins and Iron Munro had Golden Age roots. Perkins appeared in a couple of Hawkman stories in Flash Comics: he can be seen with Hawkman on the cover of #81. The Iron Munro name comes from a character who appeared in Shadow Comics, but whether Thomas's character was otherwise based on him I can't say. At the time I understood Thomas's Munro to be a homage to Hugo Danner from Philip Wylie's novel Gladiator.