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COMIC BOOK NERDIST: Introducing Arnie Ross

A couple of weeks ago I was enjoying some delicious Thanksgiving morsels at a friend’s house when I got into a nerd-versation with a delightful chap by the name of Arnie, who doesn’t just love comic books, he nurtures them. I assume that every night before bed he gives them some sort of Cider House Rules tuck-in treatment. Now, I’m not a huge comic guy. My grade school buddy, Mike Soper, scared me away from it. Every week he would buy two copies of EVERYTHING. One to read, and one to keep in the mylar–and the ones he read he still put back in mylar. The depth and breadth of his collection and its organizational system made me say to myself, “Screw this A LOT,” and I promptly became obsessed with chess, D&D and computers. The moral is, WE BOTH LOST. Back to my original point, I really liked Arnie so I asked him to start doing the occassional “Comics Nerdist” report so as not to deprive the young nerdlings who don’t get that need satisfied by my snarky gadgetry talk. Here is his first entry:

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN.

Okay so it’s official, DC wants the Silver Age back. Well, I’m being liberal with the term, “Silver Age”, what I really mean is the status quo that DC enjoyed right before Crisis On Infinite Earths.

It’s been a bit of a slow, almost subtle build up. Over the last few years we’ve seen…

  1. The return of the late Oliver Queen/Green Arrow.
  2. The return of the late Hal Jordan/Green Arrow.
  3. The return of the late Carter Hall/Hawkman.
  4. Black Canary being slightly de-aged and having her Canary Cry returned.
  5. The reintroduction of the Kara the Kryptonian Supergirl.

I’m sure I’m missing a few… and I’m sure someone will let me know…

Anyway, ever since Infinite Crisis hit in 05/06, the brakes on this particular train have been cut…

  1. Diana-prince_smSuperman was Superboy as a young man again.
  2. Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash, is back!
  3. The original Pre-Crisis Legion of Superheroes is back.
  4. Wonder Woman is now Diana Prince again (love the white jumper).
  5. The original New Teen Titans (ground breaking George Perez/Marv Wolfman era) have reformed as the Titans.
  6. The current Justice League Roster looks more like the Satellite era League than what we’ve seen in years.
  7. Earth 2, THE Earth 2 is back giving us the return of the Helena
    Wayne Huntress and the Adult Robin plus many others that were done away
    with in their post-crisis existence.
  8. The return of the original Challengers of the Unknown.
  9. The Freedom Fighters, the Outsiders, the Global Guardians and the Doom Patrol have all reformed with somewhat altered line-ups.

Once again, I’m sure I’m missing something.

The question is: Is this return to the 80’s status quo a bad thing?

Me, personally, I think it’s pretty cool.

I was there reading about these character the first time around and consider them to be “classic”. Maybe I’m reliving the wonderment of reading these tales as a tween boy. Only now, they’re being written for me as an adult. Comic fans are older now, and as a result the books are skewed for an older audience.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “I grew up with comics and comics grew up with me”.

The whole point of the original Crisis was that DC felt that their established multi-verse was too complicated. Well, I was 12 and the concept of Earth 2,3,S,X, etc. made perfect sense to me. It was cool. Don’t get me wrong… at the time I thought Crisis on Infinite Earths was an amazing comic (still do as I sit here typing in front of my oversized poster of Alex Ross painted over George Perez ‘ pencils poster of said Crisis) and I voraciously read everything (nearly) published after the “Man of Steel” mini-series that helped established the new, streamlined DC continuity.

So welcome back multi verse, welcome back Silver Age. I missed you…. Without even realizing it.

Arnie_Aquaman2

My predictions for the future?

1)   Arthur Curry returning from the dead to resume his role as Aquaman
2)   Barbara Gordon becoming Batgirl again

By Your Pal,
Arnie
: The Hero in His Own Comic Life.

“I’m totally bi… I like Marvel and DC.”

Images: DC Comics, Arnie Ross

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Comments

  1. Mastablubba says:

    Hi Guys

    just watched this lustily arse Shaking Video on youtube…

    check it out!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsoHCukkeUo

    May you can share something similar.

    happy watching
    mastablubba

  2. Celo820 says:

    I love comic books but I am not into them as much I would like to be. I like to read about them any chance that I get. So it is cool dat Hardwick has his friend do this, especially that he talked about DC because I love DC. I like Marvel but love DC.

  3. nicofopolous says:

    Chris — thank you for your continued efforts to keep the socially awkward satisfied…

    I’m a huge alternate universe nerd, so I’m glad DC realized that there is no way any comic book company will ever be able to wrestle “continuity” into submission. Wolverine is on every Marvel team. Every single one. I’m pretty sure there’s a Wolvy Clone Saga around the corner that will put Spidey’s to shame.

    A friend of mine contends that DC already has plans to give Barbara Gordon working legs again. You’d think with all the superhero pals she has, if that was going to happen, it would’ve happened already. Oracle is a great character and will be a minor loss to fanboy outcry.

    But long live Hal Jordan.
    And thank all celestial beings for Geoff Johns.

  4. kerry says:

    arnie…wow..those pants are like…i don’t usually go for green pants outside of a lederhosen, but those are workin’ for me, sugar!

  5. This is a cool idea, being as i am a total comic nerd. thanks alot CH