"Death to the Golden Age"?

Whew... It's been awhile since I've posted. That's due to the fact that I recently got the online game City of Heroes. Needless to say, it's been consuming me. But that's neither here nor there.

Regarding the title of this post, I should assure you that I do not hate the Golden Age. Far from it. I love every tasty morsel of it. The Golden Age is a delightful feast that I will enjoy until I die, sprawled out like a beached whale.

Hmm... My similes and metaphors may be out of hand. I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about is something I see a lot on the ComicBloc message board (see sidebar) that I frequent. A lot of fans there are decrying what they see as the gutting of their favorite Golden Agers. They place this blame squarely on Dan DiDio, claiming that he hates the Golden Age and wants to see it destroyed.

I think that those people may be a little off base. What DiDio said is that eighty year olds shouldn't be running around fighting crime unless there's a damn good reason for it. And he's right. But to prove my point let's take a look at a few things (warning: spoilers to follow). First, the preeminent Golden Agers:

The Flash: Still going strong after all these years. Stars in JSA and co-starred in JSA Classified the past two months. Covers prove that he survives the Crisis.

Wildcat: See The Flash. The same circumstances a appy.

Green Lantern: Still kicking, and playing a major role in three (!) books come the One Year Later jump.

Obviously Dan DiDio hates these characters. He also must hate Ma Hunkle and Rex Tyler, two Golden Agers who were recently returned from "presumed death."

Ah, but what these people are really upset about is not the death of Golden Age characters. It's the death of the sometimes tacked on legacy characters from Infinity Inc., a series that came long after the Golden Age ended. Here we have a number of characters -- often only tangentally connected to the Golden Age -- being killed left and right.

The foremost example of course is Jade. But it could be that Dan DiDio simply hated Jade. That's not hard to do. I hated Jade. Lots of people hated Jade.

Then there's Hector and Lyta Hall, two characters so pointless that not even Geoff Johns knew what to do with them. Good riddance. (As as aside, Hector's removal from the stage leaves things open for a more Golden Age style Dr. Fate to move in. Truly they must hate the Golden Age!)

Of course, for every Infinity Inc. character that's been destroyed in recent years there are a spate of Golden Age legacy characters that are being rejuvinated, created, or brought back to their roots. Just look at Obsidian, Manhunter, and the Spectre.

So that's all I really have to say. DC doesn't hate the Golden Age. They're using it more now than they have since, well, the Golden Age (and incidentally much more than when the Multiverse was around).

Now since you're done with this post go read Ragnell's blog. She just got back and her blog is a lot better than mine anyway...