So, someone asked me whether I'd buy a team-up of the Golden Age Starman, comics' greatest character, with Halo, comics' worst character, and what I thought would happen in such a story.
The answers were easy:
I already did, over 20 years ago.
They saved Peacemaker.
12 comments:
I'm not sure a couple of panels in Crisis counts as a "team-up", but wow, good find.
Jaime Reyes has no idea the debt he owes Halo - above and beyond the whole "demonstrating how NOT to do the teen-angsty superhero thing", that is.
Captcha: fkwthju. There's an obscene comment involving Vibe there somewhere, but I'll let it go.
It's Vibe's way of asking you out on a date, as in, "Hey, meng, I juana fkwthju."
That is damning evidence right there.
I love Halo. I don't know why. It's an irrational love, obviously, but she's so cute. She's like a DC version of Dazzler, only better.
I've got no special affection for her, but "comics' worst character" seems like ridiculous overstatement. I submit that no character created in any decade other than the 1990s can possibly be comics' worst character-- not 60s Teen Titans villains, not 70s Superman supporting cast, not Silver Age annoying imps, and certainly not inane disco-light-themed heroines from the 1980s. Hal vs. Bane, or Stryfe, or Cyborg Superman, or Shatterstar, or Carnage? No contest.
I'm afraid that I pretty much have to agree with the "90s are, and always will be, the bottom of the trough in terms of comics crappiness" rule.
This even includes the bad stuff being done now; I can understand people who don't like their criticisms being poo-pooed by people saying "ah, that's nothing, the 90s were so much worse", and I'd never use that to deflate someone in the middle of a good rant, but it's still true.
Honestly, I think Halo's story pretty much speaks for itself:
"Halo is a gestalt of a human body and an "Aurakle", an energy-being resembling a sphere of iridescent color. When sociopath Violet Harper was murdered by Syonide, an operative of the 100 and Tobias Whale, the Aurakle, who had been observing her out of curiosity, was sucked into the newly-vacant body, which it found itself animating. The shock of death-and-resurrection induced a profound amnesia in the new combined entity. As such, she was a complete innocent who was discovered by Batman who recruits her for the Outsiders. Regardless of her state of mind, Halo later has adventures in which she had to deal with the consequences of her body's previous occupant's actions, which required the assistance of the team to resolve. In one incident, early in her existence, Halo accesses the memories of the long lived Aurakle and becomes emotional over the tendency of human beings to kill each other in battle.
It would be a mistake to assume she is naive. Halo is very reliable in battle; she helps an army of super-humans fight the Anti-Monitor at the beginning of time.
The innocent Halo is watched out for by her team-mate and friend Katana. Halo has maintained a general air of innocence, despite many traumatizing adventures. For example, Halo and the other Outsiders spent some time imprisoned in a mining camp. Halo was forced to slave in the kitchens, her powers negated by mind-altering drugs. Directly after the mining camp incident, their plane was shot down by the Bad Samaritan, stranding them on a lush, jungle island. Here, Halo came to fear mortality, specifically, dying on the island. In an attempt to escape, she uses her powers to shoot high into the sky, searching for land. She almost did die, if not for the cooperation of her teammates. Later, teamwork did rescue them. During her stint in the Outsiders, she gains a friend in new member Windfall."
Just two quick notes regarding Halo's backstory there:
Isn't the Aurakle inhabiting a dead body basically the exact same origin for the Weird? Isn't it even the same race? Am I misremembering that? I must be; they have completely different powers.
and
Since Violet Harper has the same last name as Roy Harper, and it's a DC comic, doesn't that mean that they're related? Did Bob Haney already cover that? I assume he must have. The man doesn't miss a trick!
She's like a DC version of Dazzler, only better.
I said it before, but it bears repeating: they should have Amalgamated those two. Dazzlo. Would have been perfect. A member of the X-Siders.
Yes, the origin of the Weird is very similar to that of Halo (incorporeal energy being inhabits recently dead body).
Okay, I didn't know the entirety of Halo's backstory, but after finishing [i]Showcase Presents: Batman and the Outsiders[/i] I kind of liked her. I also noticed that BATO seemed to be DC's response to X-Men as well, as there were so many parallel's, particularly with Katana and Halo.
DC's latest response to the X-Men, that is. When the formula of reviving a defunct super-team with a mix of old and new members was such a commercial success for Marvel, how many times did DC try it? The New Doom Patrol; Teen Titans, twice; BATO (maybe not a revival of an old team, but the same formula)....
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