Now right off the bat (no pun intended) I was never a huge DC comics fan. I knew of the big three heroes, Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, through their various shows on television and movies. When the Onslaught saga shat upon Marvel comics, I thought to myself "I wonder what DC comics are doing right now?". Of course, I started reading DC comics by their back issues and found most of the heroes and villains damn goofy, even from the Big three, even Batman. The only comics that really stood out to me were 80s Justice League and New Teen Titans, both were drawn by George Perez.
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L-R: Beast Boy (Then Changeling), Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Raven, Robin "the Pantless wonder", Cyborg and Starfire
Photo property of George Perez and DC Comics |
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The Titans felt like a well put together team, mixing new and older, more experienced heroes. In the beginning, my favorite titan was Wally West, the then Kid Flash. Being the former sidekick of the Flash, Barry Allen, Wally's story was complex because when the Titans were reformed (He was in previous Titans groups) he wanted nothing to do with them, wanting to just go to college and live a normal life. His speed needed, West is put under a spell by Raven, making West fall in love with her. When the truth was revealed (Raven gathered the team to battle her Demon father, Trigon) the titans became strained but stuck together and Kid Flash's feelings for Raven became genuine. Other issues the team dealt with were Cyborg's longing to feel human again, Raven keeping her dark side in check, Robin wanting to get out of the shadow of Batman and Starfire's understanding of humans.
Their stories somewhat resembled that of 80s Fantastic Four X-men, in that the heroes grew together in their adventures. Most other teams in DC Comics were pretty established, not showing their lives outside of super heroing. There was also the fact heroes like Superman and Batman had about five comic titles that feature them. Besides the two earlier mentioned comics, the only title I read was "Adventure Comics featuring Plastic Man" and I only have the Cartoon Network airing the Plastic Man cartoon to blame for that.
and then "Crisis on Infinite Earths" happened...
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| Photo property of DC Comics |
"Crisis..." was a very complicated but awesome mini-series involving literally EVERY existing DC comics known to man. Look it up because I am not going through the time and effort to explain what happened. All I can say about is a LOT of people died and multi-verses. The mini series helped reboot the DC comics universe into what could only be described as a more...realistic(?) era. At times, it did work and other times, it didn't. My favorite at this time was Superman, mostly because his comics at the time were drawn by my favorite comic book artist, John Byrne. While Supes was still pretty powerful, his powers were downgraded to the point that he wasn't Jesus. The Titans were still around but they didn't quite have same spark they did when they reformed, possibly because most of the Titans were in their early 20s.
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| Property of DC Comics |
One thing I really didn't like that DC comics did, though it didn't happen until years later was taking their lighter characters and screwing them royally. The best examples were Ralph Dibny, The Elongated Man, and Kyle Radner, the 90s Green Lantern. Both of them were easy going heroes who had loved ones killed in very brutal ways by villains who originally were perceived as just goofy. It's like DC were trying to become gritty and/or grown a wild hair up their asses. Oh, and Supes temporarily died while Bats was temporarily paralyzed and no one cared.
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| Look at the edginess off a DEAD WOMAN IN A FRIDGE! |
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Right now, DC comics is guilty of re-boots and useless sagas. Marvel has been doing this quite a bit too but DC does it every two weeks. Just when someone becomes involved in a character or story line, BOOM!, the story is over and the character they were involved with, now dead. Don't worry though, the character who died, they'll be back in the next reboot or saga so no worries.
To me, with the exception of VERY few comics, television shows and movies (and for DC, the movies are pushing it), I have no really interest in Marvel or DC anymore. See, equal hate for both.
