Calum wrote:
well yes, but that isn't really a satisfying answer.
One thing Archie have always proudly said (or Ian Flynn at any rate*) is that the past stories are all canon, and they are not going to do continuity reboots to fix things they have changed their mind about, and this is one of the things i find very appealing about Archie Red Circle, because i do think it's weak to say "none of what went before actually happened, but keep buying all our books and we'll have endless flashbacks to the same old stories with a few differences, to establish the new canon" and it's especially weak when you know that the publisher will be doing another reboot in two or three more years and everything you've "learned" will be dumped in the toilet yet again.
I personally don't think an alternate universe falls into this category, if it's done Julius Schwartz style, ie: the old stories (in this case the Mighty Comics stories, all (especially Fox, Web, and Black Hood, the others do not have conflicting details in their stories that i can remember)) are said to have happened in another universe, and as an added bonus, sometimes (when the cosmos is in alignment) it is possible for heroes like Green Lantern or Flash to breach that gap. Sabrina #30 already showed us The Jaguar traversing from one similar universe to another, so we know it can happen, and that there are at least two universes on the go already.
Schwartz did this so he could have the golden age versions of revamped superheroes set on another world, but in our case we simply want it to explain all the continuity flubs that haven't been answered yet. Ironically, we would be keeping the golden age stories and the eighties ones on "our" world, and only setting the Mighty Comics stories on another world (we would have to keep Adventures of the Fly 1-4, Double Life of Private Strong 1-2, Fly-Man 31-39, Mighty Crusaders 1-6 (but not necessarily 7) and Adventures of the Jaguar 1-17 on "our" world, so that the eighties Mighty Crusaders makes sense.
Adventures of the Fly 4-30 still present a small problem. They all show an older Thomas Troy (i'd say about 25 years older than in issues 1-4) but issue 8-9 show Lance Strong, apparently the same age as in his own title from 1959, and both characters seem to be inhabiting a '50s-'60s environment, though in The Fly (1983) Tommy Troy doesn't seem to have aged much since the sixties. I prefer to believe that all the contents of AotF 4-30 and DLoPS 1-2 "happened" some time in the late seventies, on "our" world.
So this leaves Mighty Comics 40-50 inclusive, and Mighty Crusaders vol 1 #7 all happening on another world. We could probably bring some of the Fox stories from Mighty Comics up to the seventies as well, and say they "happened" later than they were published, so we could keep them on "our" world as well, but there's such a thing as getting too involved with these things ;-)
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* i am paraphrasing him to the best of my understanding and i wish it to be known i am not attempting to represent his views, or to give any of Mr Flynn's actual comments an unwarranted spin.
Yep. You've broken it down exceptionally well. And I agree.
I do hope Red Circle gives us a coherent (as coherent as possible) Universe... and maybe that is to continue straight ahead.
I'm against re-boots, too.
Schwartz had a Great idea about Earth-2 and we got to see the return of the Original JSA. When I picked that issue off the stands (#123) I thought it was the Best Flash issue ever. It opened many doors and many possibilities. DC messed it up after a while, but it was wonderful for about 4 or 5 years. ( For me.)
Right now, I can't see how Red Circle could straighten out and untangle their past .... but your take is "right on" target.
Their "flubs" will be hard to straighten out....whatever they do.
To do a coherent base line .... of the 1940's ... and move the heroes and their world to the present will be difficult as far as I'm concerned.
This first story of THE SHIELD ---which will harken back to the past--- is probably a good start for the new readers that may not know anything about the Golden Age of the MLJ.
I wished there was a way to tell the
GOLDEN AGE MLJ story in some sort of manageable way so the readers know of the heroes beginning. Maybe they (RC) are trying to get some of that done in the back of THE NEW CRUSADERS.
That picture of THE BLACK HOOD, THE COMET, STEEL STERLING, AND THE HANGMAN (that appeared in the Comic Shop News) makes me think they can get some of it done there.
Too bad the reprint of many of those stories wouldn't probably sell.
Ya got to really love those MLJ heroes to get through some of those reprints. (Yes, I do.)