Standing Wolf
11-15-2015, 12:22 PM
It occurs to me that just as the cinematic Marvel Universe has pretty much taken over the world, the comic publishing side of that enterprise has made a move that may end up alienating a great many older fans and, at best, seriously confusing the younger ones.
For those non-comics-geeks among us who might not be familiar with the history - in the late '50s, D.C. comics revived some of the costumed superheroes from the '40s and '50s, the rights to which they owned, and gave them new secret identities, life histories, etc., and of course set their stories in the present day. Beginning in the '60s, they hit upon the idea of having the older versions of Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, etc., meet their modern counterparts, and the "Earth One"/"Earth Two" concept was introduced. (I can still remember the two-issue "Justice League of America" story arc where the JLA and Justice Society first met in 1963, which blew my nine-year-old mind.) Put simply, they were establishing the existence of alternate universes in the comics - something Marvel, as they were gearing up at about the same time, would eventually adopt as a plot device, as well.
Both companies have, over the years - in an effort to increase interest and readership - periodically destroyed or merged or seriously pruned their various universes. This has usually taken place within the context of a 6, 8, 10 or 12-issue "miniseries", with parts of the story emanating out into all of their regular titles. A few characters will inevitably die - for awhile, anyway - but then things usually go back to some semblance of normalcy, and writers and editors continue to crank out new alternate universe stories until the next cataclysmic, multi-issue event or company-wide reboot makes them start over. (As I recall, D.C. combined Earth One and Earth Two in the mid-'80s, but since they rebooted everything a few years ago, I think they're back to being separate places again.)
About fifteen years ago, Marvel came out with the Ultimate Universe, and it was very cool. The Avengers were the result of a government project. Nick Fury was Black and looked like Samuel L. Jackson, and other elements of the Ultimate Universe were later incorporated into the films, as well. However, in the recent Secret Wars miniseries and associated story lines in the regular Marvel titles, the Ultimate Universe has been destroyed, along with the "mainstream" Marvel Universe and all the others. All that is left is something called "Battleworld", which is comprised of pieces - albeit world-sized pieces - of the former realities, into which the surviving Marvel characters are divided. The Ultimate Universe Nick Fury, in this reality, is actually Nick Fury, Jr., the out-of-wedlock son of the original Nick Fury. (From a purely cinematic perspective, this makes Samuel L. Jackson the illegitimate son of David Hasselhoff, which is just too weird to contemplate.)
Personally - and yeah, I know, they're just comics, but this is the Geek Out Zone, so you must understand - this idea of the entire Marvel Universe - which I've been reading about and inhabiting in my imagination since I bought copies of both Avengers and X-Men #1 off that squeaky circular grocery store comic rack in the Spring of '63 for twelve cents each, and yes, I still have them - being destroyed just sort of bums me out and has made me re-think whether I even want to continue reading titles that I've bought, read and collected for decades. I suspect that younger readers - by which I mean those just discovering comics now, whether they're ten or thirty-five - will not be bothered by such things, but I have to confess that I am.
For those non-comics-geeks among us who might not be familiar with the history - in the late '50s, D.C. comics revived some of the costumed superheroes from the '40s and '50s, the rights to which they owned, and gave them new secret identities, life histories, etc., and of course set their stories in the present day. Beginning in the '60s, they hit upon the idea of having the older versions of Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, etc., meet their modern counterparts, and the "Earth One"/"Earth Two" concept was introduced. (I can still remember the two-issue "Justice League of America" story arc where the JLA and Justice Society first met in 1963, which blew my nine-year-old mind.) Put simply, they were establishing the existence of alternate universes in the comics - something Marvel, as they were gearing up at about the same time, would eventually adopt as a plot device, as well.
Both companies have, over the years - in an effort to increase interest and readership - periodically destroyed or merged or seriously pruned their various universes. This has usually taken place within the context of a 6, 8, 10 or 12-issue "miniseries", with parts of the story emanating out into all of their regular titles. A few characters will inevitably die - for awhile, anyway - but then things usually go back to some semblance of normalcy, and writers and editors continue to crank out new alternate universe stories until the next cataclysmic, multi-issue event or company-wide reboot makes them start over. (As I recall, D.C. combined Earth One and Earth Two in the mid-'80s, but since they rebooted everything a few years ago, I think they're back to being separate places again.)
About fifteen years ago, Marvel came out with the Ultimate Universe, and it was very cool. The Avengers were the result of a government project. Nick Fury was Black and looked like Samuel L. Jackson, and other elements of the Ultimate Universe were later incorporated into the films, as well. However, in the recent Secret Wars miniseries and associated story lines in the regular Marvel titles, the Ultimate Universe has been destroyed, along with the "mainstream" Marvel Universe and all the others. All that is left is something called "Battleworld", which is comprised of pieces - albeit world-sized pieces - of the former realities, into which the surviving Marvel characters are divided. The Ultimate Universe Nick Fury, in this reality, is actually Nick Fury, Jr., the out-of-wedlock son of the original Nick Fury. (From a purely cinematic perspective, this makes Samuel L. Jackson the illegitimate son of David Hasselhoff, which is just too weird to contemplate.)
Personally - and yeah, I know, they're just comics, but this is the Geek Out Zone, so you must understand - this idea of the entire Marvel Universe - which I've been reading about and inhabiting in my imagination since I bought copies of both Avengers and X-Men #1 off that squeaky circular grocery store comic rack in the Spring of '63 for twelve cents each, and yes, I still have them - being destroyed just sort of bums me out and has made me re-think whether I even want to continue reading titles that I've bought, read and collected for decades. I suspect that younger readers - by which I mean those just discovering comics now, whether they're ten or thirty-five - will not be bothered by such things, but I have to confess that I am.