DC Screen Continuities

DC has three multi-character screen continuities:

a single TV series;
several interconnected TV series;
several interconnected feature films.

Earlier DC screen continuities include:

a ten film continuity (five Superman, one Supergirl and four Batman);
a Batman trilogy;
the Batman TV series;
the Gotham TV series;
three different earlier TV versions of Superman;
Wonder Woman on TV;
an earlier Flash TV series;
the film, Green Lantern;
the film, Constantine;
Swamp Thing in films and on TV;
Steel;
Superman and Batman in cinema serials;
animated versions.

There are others. These continuities feature several different versions of many comics-derived characters but I have lost interest in trying to keep count.

Green Arrow: A Mini-History II

The previous post skipped over Neal Adams' and Dennis O'Neill's 1969-1983 remake of Green Arrow which transformed GA from a generic comic book hero into the character we know.

In 1989, there was a Green Arrow and Speedy Secret Origins (see here) and, in 1995, Chuck Dixon wrote a Green Arrow Year One Annual. One way to revise GA origin stories is to change what happened on the island. In the Year One Annual, young Ollie, given a bow and arrow at Christmas, goes into the grounds of the Queen mansion and kills a rabbit. This is the equivalent of young Bruce running in the grounds of Wayne Manor and falling into the Cave.

Both The Longbow Hunters and GAY1 reference Howard Hill. Errol Flynn playing Robin Hood influenced Ollie in the same way that Tyrone Power playing Zorro influenced Bruce.

Green Arrow: A Mini-History

Green Arrow began publication in 1941.

I first read about GA in 1956-1960.

The Dark Knight Returns was published in 1986; The Longbow Hunters in 1987.

GA first appeared in Smallville in 2006.

GAY1 was published in 2007.

Arrow began in 2012 and is on-going.

The Wiki article reveals an incredible history of changed continuities.

I am watching Smallville and Arrow dvds and have started to reread The Longbow Hunters and GAY1. IMO, these and DKR are the most significant GA continuities.

Jerusalem

When I get a copy of Jerusalem, Alan Moore's second prose novel, should I discuss it:

on Comics Appreciation because it is of interest to readers of comic books written by Alan Moore;

on Personal and Literary Reflections because it is a work of literature;

on Religion and Philosophy because it addresses philosophical issues;

at least partly on Poul Anderson Appreciation because it will be possible to compare Moore's analyses of time, history and society with Andersons'?

Meanwhile, the cover at least (see image) deserves to be contemplated on Comics Appreciation.

The Name And The Man

We can know a name and see the man without necessarily connecting them. A couple of days ago, I referred to John Diggle (fictional) and Andy Diggle (fictional/real) here. This morning, as I drove my granddaughter to a medical appointment, Andy Diggle (real) walked down the street opposite the surgery. In this case, I did happen to make the connection.

A guy called Pat Reid:

escaped from Colditz Castle during World War II;
wrote The Colditz Story and The Latter Days At Colditz;
was played by John Mills in the film of The Colditz Story.

When the film was shown at our school in the 1960s, someone said that Reid had been at our school. Calculating when he would have been in a particular academic year at the school, I checked the photograph, hanging in a corridor, for that year and found the name "P. Reid" listed. Decades later, it was an easy matter to google "Pat Reid" and confirm that he had indeed been at the school (as, briefly, had James Joyce). Most of us watching John Mills' performance had not known that.

Heroes Arrive IV

To the six Green Arrow continuities listed here, we should add Mike Grell's The Longbow Hunters and his subsequent monthly series. That on-going series continued the high quality writing and art of the introductory Prestige Format miniseries.

The Longbow Hunters is a mid-life crisis that summarizes the post-Crisis origin story. Thus, the sequence of comic book continuities is:

Golden Age
Silver Age
The Longbow Hunters
GAY1

GAY1 was a later continuity: 52, I think. The Dark Knight Returns was a post-Crisis possible future that has not come to pass. Thus, it would have followed The Longbow Hunters. Either late in Grell's run or soon after (I think soon after), GA had to die or lose an arm and preferred the former. Losing an arm would have taken him in the direction of DKR. He was succeeded by a son in implausible stories that I stopped reading but he was then brought back by some impossible return from the hereafter.

During Grell's run, most of the stories could have been set on Earth Prime where superheroes exist only in comic books. A child draws Superman who could however be a fictional character. Hal Jordan visits but without his Green Lantern costume or power ring. That series should have continued.

Heroes Arrive III

In Arrow, not only is there a character called John Diggle but also he has a murdered brother called Andy, named after the writer of the Green Arrow Year One miniseries, thus another metafictional reference to an earlier continuity. In this and the previous two posts, we have referred to six continuities each featuring a different version of Oliver Queen:

Golden Age;
Silver Age;
The Dark Knight Returns;
GAY1;
Smallville;
Arrow.

Of these:

the four comic strip Olivers fought crime;
the DKR Ollie also fought the US by sinking a sub and helping Wayne against Kent;
the first screen version fights Luthorcorp;
the second fights the corrupt controllers of Starling City.

Continuities go somewhere.