"Sorry for not keeping you up to date on what's up in Dick Tracy! The new creative team has been pretty relentless in bringing back characters and plotlines from the strip’s storied past, and are now apparently moving on to the extremely wacky late '60s period where Dick went to the moon repeatedly and Mysta, the daughter of the Governor of the Moon (no, really), married Dick's son. Later she was blown up by by a car bomb, but now has apparently been … Whatever, any excuse to have a character say 'No! I've had enough of your world! I want to take my family to my real home. Back on the moon!' is a good excuse as far as I'm concerned."
One thing I love about the Silver Age is that the characters simply roll with the craziness and often devise even crazier schemes to remedy the problem.
If Jimmy dies in a Daily Planet helicopter crash then the best way to save him is to get him fired as Planet employee.
Really? That's the best plan?
Maybe you can take him out of the city in 2 days? Or move at superspeed to catch the helicopter? Maybe pull the fire alarm in the Planet before the crash?
If Jimmy dies in a Daily Planet helicopter crash then the best way to save him is to get him fired as Planet employee.
Really? That's the best plan?
Maybe you can take him out of the city in 2 days? Or move at superspeed to catch the helicopter? Maybe pull the fire alarm in the Planet before the crash?
It's just silly Silver Age DC... with the right mindset, it's a lot of fun. With the wrong mindset, it melts your brain.
"Actually, in the Silver Age and the later pre-crisis time, they managed to combine the funland with more serious issues. The imaginary stories in the 60s in particular were very much concerned with sacrifices and hard choices. Yes, they weren't part of continuity, but that's because Mort Weisinger and his writers didn't have the option of resorting to reboots, so they had to have the main characters remain fundamentally unchanged. The stories were written for children, but overall had some deeply resonant themes: sacrifice, love of family, the need to belong.
What was right about them? Read Superman's Return to Krypton by Jerry Siegel and Wayne Boring. Read the stories about Supergirl’s parents in Action 310 or so, read the Virus X story, or the Sally Selwyn stories that another poster mentioned. For all the criticism that those stories take, and the attention lavished on the red Kryptonite stories, or Jimmy Olsen’s disguises, there are a lot of stories that emphasize that heroism involves sacrifice.
Later, under Julie Schwartz's editorship, the stories were written for an older audience, and were more openly about those themes. Elliot S! Maggin wrote a number of good stories involving Lex Luthor. Cary Bates did also, but with a different approach. Marv Wolfman did an excellent series in Action about what happens when someone trying to do the right thing is misunderstood. (That also had some great art by Gil Kane, by the way.)
Nothing wrong with preferring today’s stories — Mr. David in particular has written some great ones, and I’m bummed that his Supergirl series will end soon — but if you’re willing to really look at those old stories there is a lot there, along with the hoaxes and dreams. Just looking at the red kryptonite and the other absurd elements is like just looking at the puns in Mr. David’s work. That’s not the only thing there.
I know that not all the stories from that time were great, and I’m certainly not suggesting that all stories should be like that. But there was an awful lot that was done right, and should be recognized and appreciated.
End of rant."
What was right about them? Read Superman's Return to Krypton by Jerry Siegel and Wayne Boring. Read the stories about Supergirl’s parents in Action 310 or so, read the Virus X story, or the Sally Selwyn stories that another poster mentioned. For all the criticism that those stories take, and the attention lavished on the red Kryptonite stories, or Jimmy Olsen’s disguises, there are a lot of stories that emphasize that heroism involves sacrifice.
Later, under Julie Schwartz's editorship, the stories were written for an older audience, and were more openly about those themes. Elliot S! Maggin wrote a number of good stories involving Lex Luthor. Cary Bates did also, but with a different approach. Marv Wolfman did an excellent series in Action about what happens when someone trying to do the right thing is misunderstood. (That also had some great art by Gil Kane, by the way.)
Nothing wrong with preferring today’s stories — Mr. David in particular has written some great ones, and I’m bummed that his Supergirl series will end soon — but if you’re willing to really look at those old stories there is a lot there, along with the hoaxes and dreams. Just looking at the red kryptonite and the other absurd elements is like just looking at the puns in Mr. David’s work. That’s not the only thing there.
I know that not all the stories from that time were great, and I’m certainly not suggesting that all stories should be like that. But there was an awful lot that was done right, and should be recognized and appreciated.
End of rant."
Basically, Injustice is about Superman being evil. Again. It takes you back to those terrible Silver Age comics that always try to come up with some shocking twist to put on the front cover, and all they could ever come up with was "Superman is now evil" or "Superman is now fat".
— Yathzee Croshaw reviewing Injustice: Gods Among Us, Zero Punctuation
"The story itself is goofy, but of course it's goofy, it's the Silver Age! You couldn't have a story about grocery shopping without it involving three aliens and a rainbow-colored version of the hero's costume."
—Linkara, "Top 15 Comics I'll never review" (Atop the Fourth Wall)
"Then there's an issue where Batman turns into a tiger; then there's one where he turns into Zebra Batman; then he turns into fucking Bat-baby; then he has a pet named Mogo, the Bat-Ape; then he holds an auction to sell off all the stuff from the Batcave; then he has to call in fucking Superman to fight a skunk, okay? So don't act like this fucking dumbass Dracula shit is stupid, okay?"
"I think I was born in the best possible era in American history. It was the era of space travel, atomic energy, discovering what science could do for us to change and make our society better. But at the same time, there was this Cold War paranoia. Atomic warfare was gonna happen at any moment. But then you also have the wonder of getting into space, so you've got good science and bad science. It inspired a whole new kind of superheroes, as if they were an atomic blast themselves."
— Superheroes: A Never Ending Battle, "Episode 2: Great Power, Great Responsibility", opening montage.
