...
http:///www.comicsalliance.com

Not that I read superhero comics anymore, but this means the current "Supergirl" series won't reach #81, thus surpassing the previous series. I was so hoping for it to do so as a blow to that pretentious, arrogant Peter David's ego.

What was your problem with Peter David's run on Supergirl? How was it pretentious?

Well, first, let me say that I bought and read the entire run. Peter David writes humor very well. I laughed out loud a lot.

HOWEVER:

Good humor is not a cover-up for a bad idea. The fact is this series was "Supergirl" in name only. A protoplasmic blob that merges with a dying human girl and becomes "the Earth-born angel of fire"? It's very clear that he was just writing his own concept, and it made it to 80 issues only because of the "Supergirl" name. If DC had allowed him to do this with an original character, the series wouldn't have lasted this long.

The final story arc, "Many Happy Returns", dealt with the pre-Crisis Supergirl being brought into post-Crisis continuity, undoing the effects of the Crisis in the process, so Linda goes into pre-Crisis continuity (which shouldn't even freakin' exist anymore, since the post-Crisis Earth is a merger of Earth-1 and Earth-2!) to take her place. After spending 7-8 years there, the Spectre shows up and tells her that only Kara can set things right; anyone else will simply create a "divergent" timeline and fail (it's never explained WHY this is the case).

Oh, and Linda falls in love with pre-Crisis Superman, marries him, and has a daughter (even though she knew she was going there to die in Kara's place).

This was around the time that Peter David claimed on the Supergirl message forum that Hypertime was not involved, only for the phrase "all things hyper" to appear in issue #79 or #80. He's a liar.

Linda goes back to post-Crisis continuity, knocks Kara out cold, puts her in her rocketship, and sends her back to crash-land on Earth-1 as she did in 1959, her memory having been erased.

Despite the fact that Linda did this (which was WRONG of her), Peter David claims everything she experienced in pre-Crisis continuity still occured, and she was still 7-8 years older than she should be ("The artwork doesn't reflect that, but she was"), and none of the other characters commented on it ("8 years is subtle in terms of aging").

Linda has a dream or whatever of her daughter (who she made the Spectre promise to spare, "or else all reality can go to Hell") flying a hoverboard throughout space/time happily (her memory of Linda having been wiped).

Linda gets all depressed or whatever, leaves on a trip to find herself or some crap, and mails her skateboard to Clark. The end.

On top of this, it was revealed the plot of the final two issues was a rush job. Peter David said he was so convinced his bringing in Kara would "bring in the readers in droves" that it would convince DC to not cancel the series, and he would use his supposed clout to convince them to allow him to create a spin-off team book called "Blonde Justice", starring Linda, Kara, and Power Girl.

I'm curious- what kind of comics do you read/have you typically read? From your "Who's Jack Kirby?" comment a month or so ago, I gathered that you hadn't read much of anything beyond Archie Comics, because I thought ALL comics fans knew the most influential artist in the medium. Were you mainly a Supergirl fan? Because I've heard you talk about her a lot before (mainly from "Smallville", but still).

My first comic book was the second Supergirl safety belt campaign, which my entire elementary school class got free copies of (this was in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade, so 1986-1989, but likely on the early side):

http://www.comics.org/series/10448/

I later stupidly traded this issue into a store in the local flea market (I want a copy of it again) and got a few random issues of things to try out (which I later traded in as well). Here's what I remember, based on the covers:

http://www.comics.org/issue/36871/

http://www.comics.org/issue/22552/ or http://www.comics.org/issue/222975/

possibly this: http://www.comics.org/series/1696/ (it was some adaptation of the H.G. Wells story, anyway)

My first Archie ever was Archie Comics Digest Magazine #102, which mom got for me at a local supermarket:

http://www.comics.org/issue/293137/

This was followed by #108:

http://www.comics.org/issue/293143/

She didn't get me any more, so I kept re-reading these two.

For some reason (maybe through school; I dunno), I got Archie & Friends #3:

http://www.comics.org/issue/237973/

I started buying the digests on my own at a local supermarket (first everything but then going down to just the female titles). I'm not sure around which time, but it was shortly before I rediscovered Cheryl (who had appeared in a story in that first digest from 1990) on a rack in a store when my mom, sis, niece, and I had gone down south somewhere (this was possibly when sis decided to surprise me by taking me to a Backstreet Boys (who I had no interest in) concert in Orlando on December 31, 1998). There she was on the front cover of Cheryl Blossom #20:

http://www.comics.org/issue/238256/

I remembered her instantly and snatched up that issue as well as some of the other female pamphlets that were up there. I kept with it to the end of the series (but still need most of the back issues). I was able to follow the pamphlets back then, because I'd just graduated from the local community college in December, and I had to attend university in Ocala (northwest of here), and there was a Waldenbooks in the Paddock Mall with a comics rack. Also, I made occasional stealth shopping trips on my own back then, driving around an hour each way while mom was at work, to buy anime on VHS tapes at the Gulf View Square Mall in Port Richey (south of here), and there was a bookstore (Books-A-Million, I think) on the way home.

One day, after one such anime shopping trip (or perhaps specifically for just comics), I stopped at the bookstore and saw Supergirl #42:

http://www.comics.org/issue/63223/

I had been away for so long. I had no idea about her death, the Crisis, or anything. I thought she was still Superman's cousin. I picked it up, kept getting the new issues until the end of its run, got the two trade collections, and got all of the back issues.

This snowballed into me collecting pretty much EVERYTHING female-related from DC and Marvel (Catwoman, Wonder Woman, Emma Frost, Rogue, Mystique, and on and on and on...) as well as Top Cow (Witchblade, Tomb Raider, Fathom, etc.), Malibu, and comic tie-ins / reimaginings of cartoons (Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man, Thundercats, etc.). It got out of control. I didn't even have time to read everything. They just piled up.

At some point (due to space reasons), I sold my "first batch" of digests (except my initial two as well as a duplicate that my niece had bought me as a present) as well as most of the pamphlets (except Cheryl and, I think, that issue of Archie and Friends) to a local used bookstore in the flea market (a different one than the one mentioned above). I've regretted doing that.

Eventually (during the early issues of Catwoman's most recent series), I read an issue where it was Selina's birthday. Her friends threw her a surprise party, but the writer and artists went out of the way to avoid mentioning her age. There was a balloon that said "Look Who's", but the number was off-panel. That's when I realized the characters wouldn't ever really grow, and I was dealing with this weird universe where TPTB refuse to acknowledge any meaningful passage of time. I sold pretty much all of my superhero stuff (Supergirl was the last to go), of course receiving nowhere near what I'd paid for it all.

I got back into the female digests after joining this forum. I saw Betty and Veronica Double Digest Magazine #150 at work:

http://www.comics.org/issue/297907/

I picked it up and have been collecting the female digests (and male digests whenever Cheryl appears) ever since!

The X-Men of the '80s seemed right up your alley- Chris Claremont was an even bigger man-hater and femslash-lover than YOU are, and wrote nearly all of his women as ultra-powerful, snarky rebels who always seemed to have a girl-crush on somebody (the kids in The New Mutants- Wolfsbane & Moonstar, were plainly in love, even during the '80s!) on someone.

Hehe, interesting, but I doubt I'll get into it.

Yeah, the whole "they never age" thing is pretty much old hat as far as comics is considered (Archie is arguably the MOST famous character who never ages!- it`s stated in virtually every news article about Archie Comics)- ever since the 1930s- there's plenty of character development, but actual aging? -- not unless you're "For Better Or For Worse" or "Gasoline Alley". And aging works for THOSE stories, as it's about day-to-day life, but in regular comics? I don't think so.

In some cases, that's preferable. I really wouldn't want to live in a world where there are NO X-Men or Spider-Man because the characters got old and ended up replaced by new people. Sure, Kryptonians don't age at the same rate as people, but Lois Lane would have died eons ago.

And then think about Archie Comics- Archie and company would probably have died of old age- Cheryl Blossom debuted as a teen in the late 80s- so she'd be 37 right now!

Cheryl would likely be 46, assuming she was 17 when introduced in 1982.

Anyway, I stuck with Archie, because it, unlike the others, doesn't pretend to have a logical shared universe. With DC and Marvel, the world around the characters change, but they remain the same, even though everything is supposed to count. It doesn't make logical sense.

Not helping matters is they sometimes have references to the current President, they celebrate multiple Christmases, and they sometimes mention specific years (such as on a gravestone - or that time that Lex Luthor won the 2000 Presidential election, which "Birthright" invalidated when Clark's origin was retold, and he debuted as Superman in his 20s after 2000, and Lex was only slightly older, and Clark's parents were younger, and I recall Lana being drawn like Kristin Kreuk at least once, and I'm getting a headache).

Anyway, so, yeah, I'll stick with Archie for my comics. For DC and Marvel, I've got the movies.

As for Street Fighter, IV takes place before III, so we've got some leeway with Chun-Li's age for the moment.

Check out the comments on this story.  One poster details the results of the DC/Siegel heirs lawsuit.  In sum, DC may shortly no longer own all of the Superman mythos, including his origin and Lois Lane.  This may be part of the reason for the reboot and the rumors of a divorce. 

Really, if that's the reason, that's just insanity.  Pay to the money to the Siegel estate for god's sake to license that stuff.  What are they going to do, put out a version of Superman without Krypton and Lois Lane, while the real Superman is licensed to Marvel Comics?  I could see that happening if DC/WB doesn't pull their heads out of their back sides.  It would be hilariously interesting to say the least.

Article mentions Batwoman maybe being launched under this insanity.  Well, that will be one title I read I guess.  Unless they try to degayify her.  Of course, I doubt that will happen.  This is DC, not Marvel.  LOL.

I'd be more in favor of this updating of the whole line, if I didn't know ahead of time that they're going eventually put everything back the way it was.  (And repeating all of the old stories like J-Syxx said.)  Staying true to the core character concepts, flushing out the continuity baggage and some of the old embarrassing characters and events that have accumulated over decades, and telling some fresh new stories, sounds like a good idea.  Of course, that's not going happen.  Archie Comics has figured out the best way to deal with story continuity in a serialized periodical: don't bother with it.

Archie Comics is weird.  It's like the lite reading of the of the comic world.  The short, unconnected story format works for some other stuff, like say Heavy Metal Magazine, but I don't know if it would fly with most super hero books. 

I dunno, I think continuity could be easier to use if certain companies weren't so protective of their more famous characters.  I mean stuff printed under Dark Horse has continuity, but it doesn't have the same problems due to the fact that the creators aren't so handcuffed about what they can do with the characters because they don't want to harm some corporate "brand." 

And I guess also the idea of one huge continuity for everything can become a problem after a while, but that wasn't a problem in the past.  Maybe if they tried to stop doing so many crossover events, it would be less of an issue.  It's kind of weird when in the past most heroes had their own villains galleries.  Now they'll have a villain show up that has probably appeared in 27 different titles.  I'm sure that has to be a pain to keep track of.

I really don't know if continuity would prohibit me from reading anything honestly.  Sometimes, I kind of like starting from the middle of something.  I just imagine it's kind of a nightmare to manage something on that kind of scale where you have this shared continuity with 100 or so other titles.  I also think some of the mega crossovers are offputting because you're expected to buy all these different titles to get the entire story.  Definitely a marketing gimmick in essence.