Posted on 12/11/2018 9:01:20 AM PST by Simon Green
It was to sell toys, especially dolls, to little girls....................
Dr. Manhattan could have been a woman, and it would have been FASCINATING.
She would have been all powerful. Nixon trying to convince her to wipe out Charlie.
It would have been great.
She doesn’t let men near her batcave.
BBW - Big Bat-Woman
I know 60+ year old adults who consume every superhero film and tv show out there.
if you tell them that you did read or still reread any comics they look down on you.
If you tell them that the Marvel comics movie plots are below the intelligence of many comics written in the past 50 years they dismiss it entirely (but keep watching the films).
The “social awareness” of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams may have made for some grim reading but it was worlds beyond the tripe they tell today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_O%27Neil
DC Comics
In 1968 Dick Giordano was offered an editorial position at DC Comics and took a number of Charlton freelancers with him, including O’Neil. Charlton talent arrived at DC from a different culture of comics. At DC, the office seemed like a snapshot from 1950, with a crowd of short-haired men in white shirts and ties. The jeans-wearing, hippy trended Charlton crowd visibly represented a different generation.
Speedy’s habit revealed, artist Dick Dillin
O’Neil’s first assignments involved two strategies for bolstering DC’s sales. One approach centered on the creation of new characters, and O’Neil scripted several issues of Beware the Creeper, a series starring a new hero, The Creeper, created by artist Steve Ditko. From there, DC moved O’Neil to Wonder Woman and Justice League of America. With artist Mike Sekowsky, he took away Wonder Woman’s powers,[9] exiled her from the Amazon community, and set her off, uncostumed, into international intrigues with her blind mentor, I Ching. These changes did not sit well with Wonder Woman’s older fans, particularly feminists, and O’Neil acknowledged that de-powering DC’s most well-known superheroine had unintentionally alienated readers.[10] In Justice League, he had more success, introducing into that title the first socially and politically themed stories, setting the stage for later work on Green Lantern/Green Arrow.[2] He and artist Dick Dillin made several changes to the membership of the JLA by removing founding members the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman.[11]
Following the lead set by Bob Haney and Neal Adams in a Brave and the Bold story that visually redefined Green Arrow into the version that appeared in comics between 1969 and 1986, O’Neil stripped him of his wealth and playboy status, making him an urban hero. This redefinition would culminate in the character that appeared in Green Lantern/Green Arrow, with many stories also drawn by Adams, a socially conscious, left-wing creation that effectively took over Green Lantern’s book to use him as a foil and straw man in sounding out the political concepts that would define that work.[2][12] It was during this period that the most famous Green Arrow story appeared, in Green Lantern #85–86, when it was revealed that Green Arrow’s ward Speedy was addicted to heroin.[13][14] As a result of his work on Green Lantern and Green Arrow, O’Neil recounted, “I went from total obscurity to seeing my name featured in The New York Times and being invited to do talk shows. It’s by no means an unmixed blessing. That messed up my head pretty thoroughly for a couple of years. ... Deteriorating marriage, bad habits, deteriorating relationships with human beings – with anything that wasn’t a typewriter, in fact. It was a bad few years there.”[6]
O’Neil’s 1970s run on the Batman titles, under the direction of editor Julius Schwartz,[15] is perhaps his best-known endeavor, getting back to the character’s darker roots after a period dominated by the campiness of the 1960s TV series.[16] Comics historian Les Daniels observed that “O’Neil’s interpretation of Batman as a vengeful obsessive-compulsive, which he modestly describes as a return to the roots, was actually an act of creative imagination that has influenced every subsequent version of the Dark Knight.”[17] O’Neil and Adams’ creation Ra’s al Ghul was introduced in the story “Daughter of the Demon” in Batman #232 (June 1971)[18] O’Neil and artist Bob Brown also created Talia al Ghul.[19] During this period, O’Neil frequently teamed up with his regular collaborator Adams (with Giordano often assisting on inks) on a number of memorable issues of both Batman and Detective Comics. The creative team would revive Two-Face in Batman #234 (Aug. 1971)[20] and revitalize the Joker in “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge!” in Batman #251 (Sept. 1973), a landmark story bringing the character back to his roots as a homicidal maniac who murders people on a whim and delights in his mayhem.[21][22] O’Neil and Giordano created the Batman supporting character Leslie Thompkins in the story “There Is No Hope in Crime Alley” appearing in Detective Comics #457 (March 1976).[23] O’Neil and artist Don Newton killed the original version of Batwoman in Detective Comics #485 (Aug.–Sept. 1979).[24] He wrote a short Christmas story, “Wanted: Santa Claus – Dead or Alive”, for DC Special Series #21 (Spring 1980) which featured Frank Miller’s first art on a Batman story.[25]
When Julius Schwartz became the editor of Superman with issue #233 (Jan. 1971), he had O’Neil and artist Curt Swan streamline the Superman mythos, starting with the elimination of Kryptonite.[26] In 1973, O’Neil wrote revivals of two characters for which DC had recently acquired the publishing rights. A new series featuring the original Captain Marvel was launched with a February cover date and featured art by the character’s original artist C. C. Beck.[27] Later that same year, O’Neil and artist Michael Kaluta produced an “atmospheric interpretation” of the 1930s pulp hero in The Shadow series.[28] In 1975, O’Neil wrote a comic book adaptation of the 1930s hero The Avenger.[29] A revival of the Green Lantern title in 1976 was launched by O’Neil and artist Mike Grell.[30] Reuniting with Adams, O’Neil co-wrote the oversize Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (1978) which Adams has called a personal favorite of their collaborations.[31]
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