From: [scott hollifield] at [the-matrix.com] (Scott Hollifield) 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Golden Age Annotation 1/5
Date: 18 Jan 94 23:49:00 GMT

<Contrary to what I said earlier, in another post, I'm going to go ahead
and post this, instead of waiting for issue #4 to hit the shelves.  That
way, I can hopefully get some comments and (dare I say it?) corrections
in time for the final, post-#4 version of this file.  Such are very
welcome at the address a few lines down.>


Annotations  For
_The Golden Age_

Written by Scott Hollifield
([scott hollifield] at [the-matrix.com])


General notes:

THE GOLDEN AGE
(subtitled: A Different Look at a Different Era)
is a four-issue Elseworlds miniseries published by DC Comics, Inc.
Written by James Robinson
Illustrated by Paul Martin
Colored by Richard Ory
Lettered by John Costanza
Copyright 1993 DC Comics.

There are no page numbers in THE GOLDEN AGE.  Each book is 48 pages;
the story itself is 45 pages.  The page numbers given here are counted
by using the first page of the *story* as page 1.

An awful lot of this file is used to point out where THE GOLDEN AGE
differs with previously established DC universe continuity.  Just so you
know, yes, THE GOLDEN AGE is an Elseworlds story, meaning that it's not
bound by continuity, but a good bit of it *does* use past continuity,
and so I thought I'd point out which of it is, and which of it isn't.

A lot of the continuity for the Golden Age characters was created by
Roy Thomas, in ALL-STAR SQUADRON (and its successor, YOUNG ALL-STARS).
Thomas' affection and dedication to the characters and their histories
was extremely apparent in those stories, and he did an enormous amount
of research in not only tying up various inconsistences that existed
with the characters, but in also placing them in a consistent World War
II historical context.  DC has chosen to ignore a lot of what Thomas
was single-handedly responsible for doing, notably the creation of
new All-Stars like Amazing-Man and the female Firebrand (not to mention
the entire lineup of the Young All-Stars, of whom only non-Thomas
creations Dyna-Mite and Tigress are seen here), so sometimes it seems,
to me anyway, as if Thomas has a rather thankless footnote in comics
history, particularly given the low interest of Golden Age characters
by modern readers.  There is so much that Thomas did to breathe life
into those characters, that you're going to see a lot of references to
his writing in this file.  Still, I'm happy that James Robinson
acknowledged Thomas' work as much as he did (the marriage of Johnny
Quick and Liberty Belle, the prominence of heroes like Robotman and
Tarantula, who were quite obscure pre-Thomas, Hourman's addition to
Miraclo).  Given that the final roster of the All-Star Squadron listed
fifty-two heroes, including three that never appeared with them and six
others who did nothing but attend one of their meetings, there's a
*lot* of ground to cover in handling the Golden Age; Thomas managed a
lot of it, and Robinson takes a good-sized swipe at it.  However, in
the true style of Roy Thomas, who valued *continuity* almost as much as
he did storytelling, I don't hesitate to point out examples where the
visions of the two men differ.

In other words, you've been warned!