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Monday, August 14, 2006

Beau Smith Agrees With Me!

Over in his Silver Bullets column (always a good read, that), Beau Smith lists the characters he estimates as being over forty years old.

Among them, Hal Jordan!

Which makes me happy, as I've gotten into fanboy arguments about Hal's age (yes, I'm THAT geeky). If nothing else, Emerald Knights showed a thirty-something Hal from "ten years ago". Not to mention how old he'd pretty much have had to have been to make Captain before ending up in his multitude of odd jobs.

So yay! Someone agrees with me!

posted by kalinara @ 10:33 PM  

13 Comments:

  • At August 14, 2006 11:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The only one I disagree with is Ms. Marvel...off the top of my head, I think he forgot Jay Garrick, Alan Scott and Bruce Banner, who I always thought was about the same age as Tony Stark and perhaps only slightly younger than Reed Richards...with all the de-ageing lately, it's hard to judge relative ages of characters...at least all these great characters are in my age bracket...for now...speaking of ages, I just discovered this week that Renee Montoya is exactly 5 years younger than me...I would have guessed 10 years younger, but then, I don't know the character that well...

     

  • At August 14, 2006 11:29 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    I think Jay and Alan and Ted (Grant) are probably in their own category. :-) Depending on how they're drawn, they look anywhere from 35-60. :-)

     

  • At August 14, 2006 11:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I note that he's got Batman in there but not Superman, and I always thought they were about the same age, Bruce maybe a year or two older. ...which would, I guess, put him at 40, since Clark seems late-30s to me.

    I think he's pointing out specifically ones that don't get acknowledged as being older. The members of the original JSA that are still kicking around do. (Okay, he did mention Wildcat, but...)

    Green Arrow always seemed kinda young to me. Maybe it's just his personality.

    Bruce Banner? Makes sense, I guess. Geez, he's been the Hulk for a while... what that does to a guy.

     

  • At August 14, 2006 11:55 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    Clark may have some Kryptonian lesser-aging or something too.

    Nah, Ollie's got that cranky old guy thing. Besides he's got a kid in his early twenties. :-) I always placed Hal as the younger of the two honestly. :-)

    It might have been the domestic stuff with Dinah though. :-)

     

  • At August 15, 2006 2:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm pretty sure it's canon that Clark's immortal at this point. `` DC One Million, for instance.

    Good point. I think half of it is the way he's drawn. And, of course, not wanting him to fall into the "creepy old guy" thing that Hal did. It'd be much worse with Ollie. @@

     

  • At August 15, 2006 5:10 AM, Blogger Flidget Jerome said…

    I always thought Black Canary was in her 40s, at least, and her youthfulness was due to her trip in the Lazerus Pit. She can't be [i]that[/i] young, not if her mother was active in the 40s.

     

  • At August 15, 2006 12:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Oh, god...thank god that somebody is as geeky as I am.

    I don't know if I agree with Elongated Man being over 40. Perhaps its because of his youthful attitude (well...not so much lately) that makes him seem younger. BUT, I do agree that he's an experience hero. DIBNEY POWER!

     

  • At August 15, 2006 3:55 PM, Blogger Chris Sims said…

    I've always considered Batman to be in his mid thirties. His parents get killed when he's eight, he spends about twenty years traveling the world, then comes back, roughly ten years or so ago. Forty makes him a little too old to be in his prime, athletically speaking, and...

    Yeah, shut up.

     

  • At August 15, 2006 6:10 PM, Blogger ComicBookGoddess said…

    DC would have a character "bible" - You know, the one Frank Miller was talking about in the intro to "Dark Knight Returns".

    You know who would be able to clear this up for you, as to what age DC says he is...

    Of course, I got somebody to ask as well...

     

  • At August 15, 2006 8:24 PM, Blogger padgett said…

    My biggest question in regards to character age is with the Seven Soliders. When did they come back, exactly? Long ago enough that Vigilante looks to be in his 60's (over in Seven Soldiers #0), but Pat Dugan looks maybe 40?

    Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I've seen the others since they came back. Crimson Avenger died in a pre-crisis "Whatever Happened To" story, and looked fairly old then. Are the rest even in continuity anymore?

     

  • At August 16, 2006 6:03 AM, Blogger Marc Burkhardt said…

    I wouldn't withold judgement on Jason Todd. The guy turned into a brown goo monster in Nightwing a few weeks back and ate somebody.

    Sure, he's back to "normal," but after that scene he should probably take another dirt nap.

    And I second the congratulations on your blog@newsarama column. CalvinPitt is an underrated blogger, and I was happy you gave him a plug!

     

  • At August 16, 2006 1:18 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I actually like the way returned-Jason is being used, because he still represents the same thing he did dead; Batman's greatest tragedy. (As opposed to Bruce's greatest tragedy, the death of his parents.)

    The goo-monster thing I blame on the writer of Nightwing. >>v

     

  • At August 17, 2006 4:38 AM, Blogger kalinara said…

    ununnilium: Ollie's got that ageless Errol Flynn thing though. He's probably fine. :-)

    flidget: Definitely. She's of age with Hal and Ollie after all. But she looks and acts so much younger, that's probably why she's not on the list.

    Smith seems to be specifically talking about characters he thinks should look 40+. Hence the Wolverine art comments leading to it. So Canary and Clark would probably be off the list.

    loren: Well, they did say he and Sue were married for twenty years or so, circa Identity Crisis didn't they?

    That said, I've always thought they seemed relatively young in JLI, which was only a few years ago at most in the strange reckoning of time that is comic continuity.

    I'd place him as 35-38 myself. :-)

    chris: Lots of guys are in their prime at 40 though. Personally though I place Batman at 37-38. Ten years older than Dick, (allowing for, if you go by Tim Drake's origin story, him to have been Batman for 2-3 years before recruiting 13 year old Dick. Sets up a ten year interval set between Bruce, Dick and Tim).

    I've spent way too long thinking about it. :-)

    sinspired: But that takes the fun out of it!

    dr flem: Maybe they were affected different by the time experience? or Vigilante made some stops along the way? Pat's definitely around 40, but Greg had already retired for the new female Vigilante to take his place by OWAW.

    It'd be neat to revisit a lot of those pre-crisis stories for post crisis/post IC I think!

    fortress: I'll give him a bit more time to win me. :-) But not in Nightwing.

    And thanks!

    ununnilium: :-) Again, I'll reserve judgement.

     

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