![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A blown opportunity
Feb. 9th, 2011 02:10 pmI'm currently reading the Dark Reign storyline. It's quite solid, an example of the phoenix-esque ability of Big Two comics to have a good or great storyline emerge from the ashes of a previous clusterfuck (see Hitman and Anima coming out of Bloodlines, or 52 following up Infinite Crisis).
But they blew a big chance. See, they basically did a reboot/retcon on the assorted Agents of Atlas, the b-list heroes that the company owned pre-Fantastic Four (but who weren't from the pre-Atlas Timely era). So Venus is now a siren, not the actual goddess, Jimmy Woo has been put into a younger body and made to forget thirty years of history, etc. Fine, not a bad idea when dealing with obscure characters from decades ago.
But with all the opportunities for retconning, they kept Marvel Boy's ties to the planet Uranus. They even toss out sentences like, "Now he is an aloof, detached alien after several decades living inside the planet of Uranus." (Italics in the original text for some reason, from Marvel Spotlight: Dark Reign)
Yes. Bob Grayson, AKA Marvel Boy, has been living inside Uranus.
Sigh.
And yeah, I know that ten-year-olds are not the target market for comics these days, but dammit, some of us remain ten-year-olds on the inside. And you know, how hard would it be to say the guy's been living inside Neptune?
But they blew a big chance. See, they basically did a reboot/retcon on the assorted Agents of Atlas, the b-list heroes that the company owned pre-Fantastic Four (but who weren't from the pre-Atlas Timely era). So Venus is now a siren, not the actual goddess, Jimmy Woo has been put into a younger body and made to forget thirty years of history, etc. Fine, not a bad idea when dealing with obscure characters from decades ago.
But with all the opportunities for retconning, they kept Marvel Boy's ties to the planet Uranus. They even toss out sentences like, "Now he is an aloof, detached alien after several decades living inside the planet of Uranus." (Italics in the original text for some reason, from Marvel Spotlight: Dark Reign)
Yes. Bob Grayson, AKA Marvel Boy, has been living inside Uranus.
Sigh.
And yeah, I know that ten-year-olds are not the target market for comics these days, but dammit, some of us remain ten-year-olds on the inside. And you know, how hard would it be to say the guy's been living inside Neptune?