House to Astonish Episode 86
Paul and I are a couple of days late due to super-busy schedules, but we’ve got discussion of Chris Roberson’s Monkeybrain Comics, Grant Morrison’s MBE, the DC cancellations and launches, Carlos Pacheco being honoured by Getafe and a canter through the solicits. We’ve also got reviews of The Massive, Spider-Men and Extermination, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe takes tea with the vicar. All this plus the Phantom Stranger’s business card, the embroidered teacosies of Amanda Conner and a knighthood for services to disco.
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I think that Marvel Firsts trade (which according to Amazon they’ll be doing other volumes themed by decades) are looking for the library market. I got the 70th anniversary scattershot trade from my library and it was a handy taster for the material within. Presumably they’re hoping they can sell a few on top of that.
And UXF v1 tpb is out of print, I think, as I managed to get a remaindered copy from a discount bookshop last month. Quite a bargain.
Oh, actually, upon checking those decade specific Marvel Firsts trades are the debuts of characters an already out. I guess once they hit the 00s they had to think of something other than character first appearances, as that would be about four issues long.
Just Googled to confirm, yep, DC have used the title Sword of Sorcery before, because heaven forbid that they make something up. It was a comic adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar stories, apparently.
I don’t want to sound like I’m harping on about this (because I am) but if Batgirl #0 confirms that Barbara was never Oracle, then sorry, Gail, I’m out.
(BTW, following the last podcast you might be interested to know that #2 of The Ravagers opens by explaining to those who didn’t read “The Culling” what a Ravager is, and why this term applies to the baddies but also potentially to the kids. Why they couldn’t do that in #1 is beyond me.)
Spider-Men looked incredible. Now on to the grumbling:
I read Ultimate Spider-Man in trades up to the first relaunch. I’ve read all of Bendis Avengers. What the hell is the difference in characterization between the two Peter Parker’s?! The Marvel Spudey in this issue read to me as being young and off from the character in Amazing (and don’t tell me that us the characterization from Avengers cause he doesn’t have one there other than filler.)
The Marvel Spidey is a scientist and this Spidey sees a machine and says well it appears to be technology. I just don’t see what makes this special when it may as well be Ultimate Peter and Miles.
Would Jimmy Saville be a Kingpin style crimeboss supervillain or a Mephisto type cosmic powerbroker? Given that that one kid (sold his soul) for a ride in the Batmobile, I’m guessing Jim is a DC villain and that New 52 DC Jimmy Saville is some sort of Court of Owls agent.
Also expect Morrison’s next project to be creating a fictionsuit for the the Queen in the form of a limited series comic about an immortal Elizabeth II smashing Tony Blair into the Sourcewall.
I can never forget back in the late 90s, Mark Waid referred to Scott Lobdell and then, in the next issue of Wizard that came out after that, there was a picture of Lobdell sitting at a conference table with his hand on the table in a way that you couldn’t see his thumbs.
That is, Mark Waid said Lobdell was “a thumbless chimp.”
not need to forget the set up of the joke, dummy. :>
I think that regardless of how many issues he had left to do for them, publicly announcing “I will no longer work for you, because I believe that your business practices make it wrong to help you make money,” is acrimonious by any measure. If anything, the fact that he was nearly done makes it more gratuitous: he didn’t have to say anything to explain why he wasn’t working for DC, but he did anyways, just to make the statement.
Lobdell’s quiet issues were always good, but there was usually no forward momentum in plot during those. Comics in which he had to actually work on things like story structure tended to not be good at all. The problem is the X-Men generally have multiple character with interesting traits that he could work with. Superman basically has a single defining trait. I have a bad feeling about this assignment for him.
Also, I always preferred Fabian Nicieza’s X-Men run.
Superheroes-and-villains-team-up-and-fight-back-against-the-alien-invaders was done in the Savage Worlds rpg setting Necessary Evil. Sort of anyway; the high concept there was that the aliens killed all the heroes early on and the villains were the only ones left to fight back.
@Daibhid Ceannadeach
I’m pretty sure it’s an official policy in DC’s relaunch to reuse old titles whenever possible. I think it’s a trademark thing. I’m not a lawyer so I may totally botch the explanation (heck, I’m not positive “trademark” is the right concept, and not “copyright”). You know how every now and then a company will announce a new book only to sheepishly announce a week or so later that they’re changing the name of the book because someone else had the rights to the name they were planning to use. I believe the idea is that recycling old names helps keep the trademark from old books in the company’s hands in case they need it later. Using a name you’ve used before probably also helps decrease the chances of accidentally using a name someoen else owns the right to, though that theory didn’t work for Marvel the last time they wanted to publish a book called “Champions.”
I have a sneaking suspicion that no one involved in giving Morrison his MBE has read The Invisibles, or even its Wikipedia page.
Isn’t the Superman book the one that deals more with his supporting cast, with the Daily Planet and the like ? I could see Lobdell getting some mileage of that.
Impressed by Pauls beatboxing.
Good spot on the Lobdell quiet issues, I’ve never thought about it like that, but I did really like his post-crossover moments, like Xavier skating with Jubilee.
I was pretty new to the funny books back then mind. Did he do the Illyana death issue too?
I thought his run on Wildcats was of a good quality mind. Though the Travis Charest art probably lifted it.
In the same honours list Richard Stilgoe got a knighthood. (Americans who’ve never heard of Richard Stilgoe: count yourselves lucky.)
Giving Phantom Stranger a definitive origin is further proof to me that DiDio really doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. The only other time I’ve read an “origin” story for Phantom Stranger was in an issue of Secret Origins that was published back in the ’80s. However, that comic featured not one, but four conflicting origin stories within the same issue and therefore none of them could be taken at face value.
I liked that. It delivered some interesting theories about the Phantom Stranger while also acknowledging that this particular character isn’t supposed to have a definitive origin story. Or rather, we as readers aren’t supposed to know what that story is. If you make the mistake of clarifying once and for all who he was and where he came from (which DiDio seemingly intends to do), then he won’t be the Phantom Stranger anymore. He’ll become the Phantom Acquaintance.
I’m genuinely baffled as to how the guy in charge of DC can so completely miss the point of such a longstanding character.
@Brian: Nevermind the Phantom Stranger, what about making good old Billy Batson an angry young asshat?
Or shunting the JSA to a separate universe where they were inspired by Supes/Bats/Wondy?
I can see their logic, ‘Trinity is the bestest, every other hero should come after’ (except I guess the Demon Knights?) but it seems wrong to me, every new hero is going to be lesser than Superman..
And why Didio, why take away Deadshot’s moustache? WHY? WHHHHHHHHY?
The DCnU has created some great titles Swamp Thing, Animal Man, Frankenstein, Stormwatch is the best Authority comic in a long time, Flash is great if you can forget Wally West but for every great moment there’s a score of arbitrary changes that make you wonder what the point is.
Deadshot; why?
“Or shunting the JSA to a separate universe where they were inspired by Supes/Bats/Wondy?”
To be fair, that’s what they were originally. I grew up on pre-Crisis DC and I’ve always preferred the pre-Crisis set-up of having the JSA and other Golden Age characters inhabiting a separate universe from their Silver Age contemporaries. I was never keen on the idea of a boatload of superheroes existing decades before Superman. He ought to be the premiere superhero, and at least the reboot rectifies this.
On the other hand, I really have no interest in this completely rebooted version the JSA. With Earth 1 (or whatever it’s being called now) having been completely rebooted, I was hoping for and would have preferred to see the original Earth 2 restored to what it had been pre-Crisis. The classic Golden Age interpretation. That way we readers could have “new/old” versions instead of “new/also new.”
I mean, what’s the point of preserving the original incarnations of DC’s characters if you’re going to completely rework them anyway? To me that’s like saving an historic city building from being demolished only to tear it down yourself and put up something unrecognizable in it’s place.
It seems to me that DC is emulating Marvel here and that they want to make of Earth 2 what Marvel has made of the Ultimate universe– a field for taking risks with properties. Ultimate Marvel has its mixed race Spider-Man, and Earth 2 has its gay Green Lantern.
@Jacob – If it helps, this isn’t really a new direction for the JSA, it’s just returning to their pre-Crisis status quo. I didn’t read the old Golden Age stories so I don’t know if they ever mentioned being “inspired by” Superman back then, but they were contemporaries of the Superman who pushed war bonds, the Batman who eventally became the Huntress’s father, and the Wonder Woman who was sent into “man’s world” to help fight the Nazis and was later retconned to be the modern day Wonder Woman’s mother Hippolyta (not to mention the Hawkman whose helmet looked like a wad of chewed gum, but he tends to get ignored). The only real difference now is that the reboot lets them make the JSA characters younger to be comparable in age to the Earth 1 “Trinity,” so they don’t have to explain why the Earth 2 “Trinity” are so much older than the Earth 1 version.
Deadshot losing his ‘stache, though, is just wrong. Though I got the feeling from recent issues that they’re going to have him grow one soon to cover a scar. So instead of a poinlessly clean shaven Deadshot we’ll have a Deadshot whose mustache has a completely unnecessary “origin story.”
“The only real difference now is that the reboot lets them make the JSA characters younger to be comparable in age to the Earth 1 “Trinity,” so they don’t have to explain why the Earth 2 “Trinity” are so much older than the Earth 1 version.”
That required very little explanation. They were older because they operated during the WWII era. I was able to grasp this as a seven-year-old reading the ’70s revival of All-Star Comics as well as the classic JLA/JSA team-ups in Justice League of America.
Agreed. Admitted i was a pre crisis continuity nerd, but the one panel showing multiple earths was enough for me to get e-1, -2, ….
Well, intelligent people can disagree on this, but I maintain that “There are two Earths and each has its own Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman but the other heroes are different” is going to get you fewer blank stares than “There are two Earths and each has its own Superman, Batman, and Wonderwoman, but they and a handful of other people like Lois Lane and Catwoman were born decades earlier on one of the Earths than on the other (though everyone else was born at the same time on both Earths), but except for the identities of the specific superheroes currently active, both Earths are functionally identical despite one of them having an active Superman for over 50 years while the other’s only had him for 5 or so.” The old Earth 2 concept isn’t impossible to wrap your head around to be sure, but it only existed to explain continuity issues that arose when books that weren’t originally intended to be part of the same continuity got fused together and it was more complex that it needed to be when those continuity issues got erased.
(Also, “they were older because they operated during the WWII era” is a non-explanation. “How can Superman be 60-some years older on Earth 2 than on Earth 1? Well, he fought in WWII.” That doesn’t actually explain anything, it’s just two related facts.)
@ZZZ – You drafted a description of pre-Crisis Earth 2 that was far more complicated than it needed to be. Not to mention inaccurate. Earth 2 didn’t have any characters that were born at the same time as Earth 1’s. All of Earth-2’s major characters were of the WWII generation, not just a mere handful. The only exceptions were the JSA’s children and proteges who weren’t introduced until years later, and they had no Earth 1 counterparts. The only exception to this was Power Girl, and her youthfulness was explained (her ship took decades longer to reach earth).
Furthermore I’m not sure how you consider “He fought in WWII” as a “non-explanation” of age.
But Earth 2 had billions of people born at the same time as their Earth 1 counterparts: Hitler, Roosevelt, Churchill, George Washington, William Shakespeare – literally everyone on Earth who ever existed except for some superheroes and their supporting casts.
Say you met a 30 year old man he introduced you to someone cleary decades older than himself as “my son.” When you asked him “how can your be so much older than you are?” he said “Well, he fought in World War II.” Would that explain ANYthing to you? They’re not older BECAUSE they fought in WWII, they fought in WWII because they were born so much earlier on Earth 2.
(Sorry, that should say “how can your son be so much older than you are?” and there’s a missing “and” in the sentence before it, between “…old man…” and “…he introduced…” That paragraph was originally way too long and when I shortened it I adjusted those sentences wrong. You don’t even want to know what the first paragraph looked like at first – I went off on a tangent about the Green Lantern Corps that I can barely remember how I got to from what I kept)
Jesus.
Earth One – Home to the current, contemporary versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and various other DC heroes.
Earth Two – Home to the original versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and various other DC heroes. On this earth, the heroes have been active since WWII, and many remain active today.
That’s all a pre-Crisis reader needed to know in order to understand the differences between Earth’s One and Two, and it explained why those versions of the characters appeared to be much older than their contemporaries (despite your bizarre insistence that it shouldn’t).
Again, I was able to grasp this as a child, and I wasn’t an especially clever child (and I didn’t get much smarter with age).
Look, if you prefer DC’s latest version of Earth 2, then that’s fine. But the pre-Crisis Earth-Two wasn’t nearly as complicated as you’re trying to paint it.
I also liked the conceit that each of the defunct publishers dc acquired were on their own earth (fawcett, quality, charlton). Not every world needs “a Superman,” especially if have captain marvel on one of them.
@alex: I never really thought about it in this context, but DC really handled the Wildstorm and Milestone characters they acquired the same way the handled the Fawcett, Charlton, etc. characters back in the day, right down to folding them into the main DCU with the next reboot.
@Brian: I think the problem is that we’re describing two different things. The way you describe the two Earth’s is perfectly accurate from a publishing point of view and would make sense to someone familiar with the publishing history of the characters. I was talking about it from an “in-story” point of view (from which standpoint it’s not accurate to call the Earth 2 versions the “original” versions, because that implies the Earth 1 versions knew about them and were inspired by them, which isn’t the case in-story), and how you’d explain it to someone just getting into comics with the New 52, who would have literally no idea that there ever where two (or more) Batmen or Supermen or Wonder Women – I’m talking about the kind of people who freaked out when the media reported that “Spider-Man is black now” because they have absolutely no concept of the difference between Ultimate and regular Spider-Man. Hell, I’m talking about the people that DC is COUNTING on to not know the difference between Earth 1 Green Lantern and Earth 2 Green Lantern so they can say “Green Lantern is gay” and hope no one in the media realizes that it’s not the Green Lantern people know from cartoons and the movie.
And I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to zing you here or anything, but: I understood Santa Claus when I was 7. It was when I got older that I realized that he didn’t really make a lot of sense.
@ZZZ – No, that isn’t the problem.
The problem is that even though a generation of X-Men fans were able to understand Cable’s backstory, you for some reason, seem to think a description of pre-Crisis Earth-Two actually requires someone to point out to readers that Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley, Genghis Khan, Ryan Seacrest and everyone else on that long list of “People Who Have Been Born on Planet Earth” were born at precisely the same time on Earth-Two as they were on Earth-One.
You know, because when explaining the significant differences between two worlds, it’s also very important that we go over every single detail that remains the same, right? Or else readers won’t get it. So therefore, any competent description of Earth-Two must also include: “All the other billions and billions of people born on Earth-Two were born at the same time as they were on Earth-One. Also, ice cream still tastes like ice cream, and the sky is still blue, etc…”
Your Santa Claus analogy is crap, by the way. Santa Claus is an established fiction that your parents try to convince you is real at a young age. Why on earth are you trying to compare that to the premise of a comic book? So, when a comic book premise actually does make sense to you, then you conclude it’s real? That it exists in reality?
On the other hand, if you actually want to argue that “A world where the heroes appeared 50 years earlier.” doesn’t make any sense to you, then by all means, don’t let me stop you.
I agree with ZZZ, that concept of Earth-2 is pretty confusing, because even if you explain how they’re different, the question is WHY, why is Earth-2 concept supposed to be interesting in and of itself. And the answer is that due to publishing and retcons, it just happened to end up that way, not because it was a great idea someone came up with. It became that mess over time. It’s not compelling as its own concept.
@Michael – Then it’s a good thing I’m not trying to argue that pre-Crisis Earth-Two was “interesting” or “compelling.” Whether or not something is interesting or compelling is always going to be up to the individual reader.
All I’m arguing us that the premise behind Earth-Two is not as complicated as ZZZ desperately wants to make it sound. It’s not even as complicated as you make it sound. Very simply, Earth-Two was a parallel earth that housed the Golden Age incarnations of DC’s characters.
The most confusing earth DC ever had was, hands-down, the post-Crisis earth, where it eventually became that clear that there was no solid plan amongst the editors on which characters existed and how/when they existed. See Hawkman for a very obvious example of this.
From Crisis onward that’s when it all became a mess. Not before. DC nailed their post-Crisis earth with retcon after retcon, leading to Zero Hours, Hypertime explanations, and Superboy wall-punching.
THAT world was a mess. Not Earth’s One, Two, Three, etc.
It would have helped if earth-1 had been the golden age and the silver age one was earth-2.
One of the biggest problems with the post crisis mess is the “no superboy” edict, whether it was byrne, carlin or levitz behind it. In addition to screwing up the legion, it went against what the general public knew about the superman mythology.
@alex – I’d agree with that about the earth designations. I can understand why DC preferred to have the newer versions of the characters assigned to “Earth-One” since they were the bigger consideration. But I think it would have been better to label Earth-One as Earth-Prime and label Earth-Two as Earth… I don’t know… Earth-Past-It’s-Prime? Heh.
I’m not quite sure I agree about the Superboy thing though. I agree that erasing Superboy really screwed up the Legion, but I think at that particular time, most of the general public’s familiarity with Superman came from the Richard Donner films, which had no Superboy, and which were generally well-received (well, the first two, at least).
And then, just two years after the reboot, they made the superboy tv show.
“Very simply, Earth-Two was a parallel earth that housed the Golden Age incarnations of DC’s characters.”
That’s not a clear explanation in itself. For someone who knows nothing about comics, you have to explain what “Golden Age” refers to, and contrast it with Silver Age, not to mention whatever term describes the modern age.
But more importantly, you will still have to explain “why.” Why do characters who were published before others have to exist on a completely separate earth?
Michael, as I indicated several times to ZZZ, I was a mere seven years old when I got my first glimpse of Earth-Two. And yet he still wrote the following:
“The way you describe the two Earth’s is perfectly accurate from a publishing point of view and would make sense to someone familiar with the publishing history of the characters.”
But not to anyone else? How familiar do either of you think I was with the publishing history of DC comics at the age of seven? While I don’t recall the exact details of my birth, I’m pretty sure I didn’t crawl out of my mother’s womb wailing “Criiisissss!” with a copy of “The Publishing History of DC Comics” strapped to my ass. The knowledge wasn’t innate. I had to learn it.
I can’t remember who it was, but several years ago, I recall a creator making a very good point about the over-emphasis publishers were putting “accessiblity” and “reader-friendly-ness” in comics. While that sort of thing is important, it’s not everything.
Anyway, his point went something this: When readers are introduced to a character/concept that they like, they’ll LEARN IT. No matter how confusing it appears to be at first glance. If they like it, they’ll learn it. Readers are smart enough to do that, and this creator felt that publishers were getting far too worried that they weren’t. I agreed with him completely.
I remember reading through that first issue of All-Star Comics. By this time, I knew who Superman was, but I didn’t know who THAT Superman was, and I remember being puzzled by the sight of a grey-templed Superman with an odd-shaped “S” insignia on his chest. I knew nothing of Earth-One’s and Two’s before getting my hands on that comic, but I liked what I read and I learned it.
So why are you insistent that everything– absolutely everything needs to be explained beforehand? That’s what the stories are for. If you read them, and you like them, and you stick with them, you’ll get your explanations. While I don’t know Paul personally, I’m pretty sure his encyclopedic knowledge of all things X-Men wasn’t force-fed to him before he actually read his first X-book. Presumably, he learned it.
I’m totally not a DC guy, but I’ve always understood the various earths concept from both publishing and in-universe perspectives. If somebody’s interested enough in reading that stuff, they’ll figure it out without too much trouble.
Asking “why” about just about anything in a comic book universe just leads to pain and confusion. Why were the heroes born earlier on Earth 2? Because that’s the premise of the stories. You don’t need an in-story reason for it.
“The most confusing earth DC ever had was, hands-down, the post-Crisis earth, where it eventually became that clear that there was no solid plan amongst the editors on which characters existed and how/when they existed. See Hawkman for a very obvious example of this.”
Not confusing at all to me, at least when it came to the JSA. In Post-Crisis DC, the JSA was the first superhero team, preceding the current crop of heroes. Now that’s an esay concept to grasp I’ve personally been a bigger fan of Post-Crisis JSA than Earth-2 JSA.
And let’s all not forget that the whole reason Earth-2 existed was because Gardner Fox wanted to come up with an excuse to use Jay Garrick in a Barry Allen story when it had already been established that Jay was a comic book character in Barry’s universe.
“And let’s all not forget that the whole reason Earth-2 existed was because Gardner Fox wanted to come up with an excuse to use Jay Garrick in a Barry Allen story when it had already been established that Jay was a comic book character in Barry’s universe.”
What difference does it make how it came into existence? It lasted for twenty-four years, which means a few more people than just Gardner Fox thought it was nice idea.
As for post-Crisis Earth, even though the basic framework was simple enough, the details were always in constant flux.
“What difference does it make how it came into existence? It lasted for twenty-four years, which means a few more people than just Gardner Fox thought it was nice idea.”
Not necessarily. Sometimes stuff sticks around because of inertia or because someone hasn’t yet thought of a better idea to replace it. Gardner’s idea was inspired for a one-off story, but I’m sure even he didn’t foresee it being expanded into a whole corner of the DC Universe. The mythos of Earth-2 were made up on the fly, and it shows.
“Not necessarily.”
Oh, please. Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and other creators have pointed to some of those Earth-One/Earth-Two JLA/JSA stories as serving as their inspiration to enter the field. It was a popular concept, not just some lingering status quo that neither readers nor creators were particularly enthusiastic about.
“The mythos of Earth-2 were made up on the fly, and it shows.”
How unlike the mythos of post-Crisis earth… where personal histories and continuity details were established and invalidated with alarming regularity.
Just to reassure you, Brian, no one here thinks you’re a pedantic loon for throwing a pants-peeing temper tantrum over other folks’ bemused refusal to adhere, lock-step, to your specific interpretation of a bit of pop-culture ephemera.
No one here thinks that AT ALL.
Okay, thanks, Two Bed. I was getting worried.
Two Bed wins. Thread over.
As a constant lurker and occasional participant, I was enjoying the conversation. I tend to agree with Brian, though, so I’m probably biased.
I love jumping into the middle of stories and not knowing what the hell is going on. One of my first comics was an issue of New Defenders, for goodness sake. Maybe that’s what it takes to be an avid reader of superhero comics? Everyone has to start somewhere midstream, after all.
Anywho, just wanted to counter the critical comment from a non-active participant with a pro-debate comment from another non-active participant. I love this message board. Carry on, please!
Actually Earth 3 came about because Carmine Infantino threw GA Flash onto that Flash of Two Worlds cover in an attempt to flummox Julie Schwartz, who dictated stories from cover concepts.
And Earth 2 as it was. Was not and is not a hard well to the layman. “It’s an alternate reality. Superheroes happened during WW2.” if you can’t grasp that then really, you’re too stupid to be reading fiction.
I’d much prefer if the new Earth 2 bore some resemblance to the original JSA, whether it was set in WW2 or not. The current version seems a waste of the concept. Ultra-modern alternate reimaginings of characters that have already just been revised seems stupid.
Earth 2 sorry. Not Earth 3.
“Oh, please. Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and other creators have pointed to some of those Earth-One/Earth-Two JLA/JSA stories as serving as their inspiration to enter the field. It was a popular concept, not just some lingering status quo that neither readers nor creators were particularly enthusiastic about.”
Inspiring people does not necessarily make something a good idea in of itself. I mean, tons of artists were probably inspired to enter the comics field by those early Rob Liefeld issues of X-Force.
Incidentally, I recall an old Ninth Art column by Paul where compared Batman (an iconic character) to Robin (an idea that’s just been around for a long time). I didn’t necessarily agree with him in the case of Robin, but he did have a strong point in how superhero comics do suffer heavily from accumulating and clinging onto a lot of creative dead wood.
@Martin – Exactly. I too question the wisdom in launching a new series that introduces newly-rebooted versions of Superman, Batman, and etc. in the midst of a line-wide relaunch that also features newly-rebooted versions of Superman, Batman, etc. Seems like something they’d have been wiser to sit on for a couple of years and allow the New 52 to become a bit more familiar first.
@AJ – Let’s dispense with “good idea/bad idea.” Not only are these subjective, they’re beside the point.
What you were initially suggesting was that Earth-Two might not have been a well-liked idea (except by Gardner Fox) and that’s just factually incorrect.
Even though I’m sitting on the other side of the fence from you, and I preferred the pre-Crisis earths to the post-Crisis earth, I’m certainly not going to chalk up post-Crisis earth’s 26 year existence to “inertia” or something that DC just ran with for a quarter century for lack of any better ideas. It had it’s merits and it clearly had it’s fans.
But your initial argument came off as “Well, I wasn’t keen on pre-Crisis Earth-Two, and therefore I doubt anyone else really was either.” I hope that’s not what you meant, because it’s an entirely self-serving argument.
I’m going to jump into this and say, when I was a kid and first coming into comics, part of the major joy was knowing characters had a back story and then going about learning it (and at the time, that was through reading the comics and finding back issues – no easy way to do it via the internet). So it still amazes me that one of the arguments today for rebooting and the like is that a long “history” is a bad thing – that kids just can’t grasp it and it’s a turn off and too hard for them.
Add to that the idea that the pre-crisis concept of Earth One and Earth Two is just too difficult? From my point of view, all of these arguments for why it is just so complicated go overboard in trying to make it complicated simply for complication’s sake.
And if it is indeed true it has become too difficult for kids today to grasp the idea that Earth One has a set of characters and Earth Two has similar but older counterpart characters with some different history (which is all you really need to launch you off into the stories) – I fear for today’s kids and the future of our world.