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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: re: CRISIS (no spoilers)
Message-ID: <491@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Feb-85 06:36:13 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.491
Posted: Fri Feb  8 06:36:13 1985
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> From:	CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:Pucc-I:Pucc-K:afo	(Laurie Sefton)

> And if we get *really* lucky, Kid Flash will kick off on his own!

Except that Harlan Ellison is supposed to be writing a Wally Wood (*not*
Kid Flash) mini-series. I suspect that KF is not terminally ill, but just
losing his powers.


> From:	ihlts!tjarks	(Tim Tjarks)

> This has been asked before, but does anyone else have any speculation
> on who will die or on any of the major changes promised?  I doubt that
> we'll see any cancellation of titles due to the main character dying
> (unless the title was marginal in the first place and not heavily
> licensed: any candidates?).  I would guess there will be wholesale
> slaughter of old, obscure characters...

Well, both in the fan press and in the text piece in CRISIS #1, Marv Wolfman
*insists* that (1) he has carte blanche to kill off whomever he wants (subject
to the approval of Jeanette Kahn and Dick Giordano), (2) that major characters
will get killed off as well as minor characters, and (3) that even Superman
won't escape unscathed.

Now, it's true that I am skeptical of any top-selling title being cancelled
because the character is killed off in CRISIS. Currently, though, DC only
*really* big sellers are team books (and the team line-ups aren't sacrosanct)
and the Superman books (and he won't get killed off, for sure --- changed,
maybe, but not killed off). Even BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS are selling under
100,000 copies a month.

As far as licensed characters go, the only *real* biggies in that department
are Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and since each of those has two
versions, one can be eliminated in favor of the other. Wonder Woman, especially
has been a thorn in DC's side because she is a valuable licensing product, but
the sales of her comic suck. They probably would've cancelled it (and the
Batman titles) if the licensing wasn't so important. Now, they may have finally
decided that if Roy Thomas has the Golden Age WW appeared occasionally in ALL
STAR SQUADRON, and with Bats in BATMAN $ THE OUTSIDERS, they can afford to
cancel those books. Who can tell at this point?

I couldn't begin to guess at what *changes* may be made, though I've outlined a
possible change in Batman in another message, which also briefly mentions a
possible change in the Superman mythos. Another possible change in Superman
that I could imagine is that his powers could change slightly, or that he will
be made a little less omnipotent.*

[* Look at it this way: according to the MARVEL HANDBOOK, Thor can lift around
95 tons, the Hulk and Hercules around 100. I can't imagine that Superman is
any stronger than any of those characters, and yet I also can't imagine him
being able to lift only 100 tons.]


This, I think, is one of the wonderful things about CRISIS. Unlike SECRET WARS,
where (1) we knew what changes were going to be made before they were made, and
(2) they ended up not being permanent, we won't know what is going to happen in
CRISIS until it happens, and, most of all, they're going to be *permanent*.


--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)

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