that was back when Keith Giffen could actually draw.

And when Paul Levitz actually did work. The “Levitz Legion” was good, but so was the initial reboot. I liked LEGION ‘89 (and ‘90) too.

The Crisis was OK, because it needed to be done; the DC universe was just too confusing with all the parallel universes, 5 different Supermans, all the hopping back and forth and teaming up…I remember the bit from Giffen’s Ambush Bug limited series, where Jonni DC (I think) has a post-it note (among a haphazard pile of them) saying “before going to Earth-2, check with Roy” (Thomas, I assume). That’s a ref to how confusing (and constraining) it was even for the writers.

Some of what I consider DC’s best writing came immediately post-Crisis.

Why it worked was that, apart from the occasional year-dropping, they weren’t tied to any specific “dating” references.

And yes, I can still enjoy those stories. But I also know that there won’t be any more. It ended — and on a crappy note.

J.

But did you notice how they didn’t really age 30-40 years in that time? As a self-described “continuity nut” did that bother you?

Those stories are still there. Can still be enjoyed. The characters you “had literally grew up with” have not “all vanished into oblivion”. And while continuity is certainly something that adds to the enjoyment, it isn’t something that anyone who enjoys comics for any significant span of time (let alone 30-40 years) can really look at too closely.

And, that my running mate is really a plant from Oscorp.

Guys, it’s comics. There’s no rule that time has to flow in a straight line.

So seeing Mr. Obama’s face not quite right doesn’t surprise me. I think it’s intentional.

You ever read the Great Darkness Saga? That was the Legion at its absolute finest. And what high concepts it had… including a whole planetful of Daxamites brainwashed by Darkseid, reshaping Daxam into a sculpture of Darkseid’s face…

There was one sequence that showed a bunch of Daxamites flying off the surface that featured some very thinly-disguised Marvel characters… Wolverine, Thor, Black Bolt… that was back when Keith Giffen could actually draw.

J.

If I want continuity, I read something that’s designed to end at some point.

BTW, I now have to get rid of hundreds of comics, the overwhelming majority of them Marvels from ‘92 to ‘05, with some DC (Batman mainly), Image, and Dark Horse. Also on the block is 16 years of wrestling tapes (1985-2001), most of which I don’t feel like copying to DVD…

Now it looks like DC is bringing back the Legion that I loved so long and so well, in a sense, and I am happy. But it just isn’t the same. I miss the Legion that started out in the 1950’s and ended in the 1990’s with the first in an endless series of reboots that keep fans from daring to invest themselves in the characters — because, sooner or later, they’ll just go away and a “new” Legion will be brought in.

This latest reboot had potential, especially when Jim Shooter was brought back to Legion. But that didn’t last, either.

Sigh…

J.

In 1963, Superman revealed his secret identity to President John F. Kennedy (in an issue that came out right around Kennedy’s assassination, establishing Superman as born in the mid-30’s to the 40’s or so. Then, later, Superboy met President Kennedy. I think even Superbaby later met President Kennedy.

As liberalrob pointed out, a bunch of DC heroes were active during Ronald Reagan’s administration — meaning they’ve now been around for at least 20 years. That puts them around 40 or so at the least.

Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Superman’s funeral in the 1990s. Now that, too, will be soon outdated, as we’re coming up on 8 years since Bill Clinton left office. I sincerely doubt that eight years in comic continuity have passed since the “Death of Superman” storyline (the bare minimum needed to have President Clinton give a eulogy), let alone the 15 since the actual story was published.

At one point, the Legion of Super-Heroes was set exactly 1,000 years in the future. That turned out to be a mistake, as the calendar kept turning over much faster than the charactera aged.

At one point, Marvel did it right. At the height of Watergate, they had a group of bad guys called “The Secret Empire.” Their head, the mysterious “Number One,” reveal to be a “very high-ranking government official” who was plotting a coup. They never named him, but the implication (and, I believe, the artwork) strongly hinted that it was Richard Nixon — but they never said so explicitly.

That was the right approach to real-life events and people in comics — imply, but never explicitly state it. It simply causes too many problems long-term.

J.

Ew, ew, ew. Worst Superman artist ever.

Why not bring in Ethan Van Scriver? Rags Morales? Jerry Ordway, even?

Heck, I would’ve been okay with John Byrne for this gig. Byrne might’ve lost his better sense of late, but he was remarkably adept at drawing comic-book Ronald Reagan in several titles over the 80s.