Things That Made Me Happy in My Comics This Week: Justice Society of America #6

I read Justice Society #6 this week.  

Apparently in #5, which I read but have already forgotten, the Villain Who Couldn't Be Stopped and Who Kicked All Our Asses Simultaneously was stopped by the Heroes Trying Harder All Together.  But that's how EVERY Geoff John's plot (certainly those with the JSA) ends.  It also ends the other way every (possible) Geoff Johns' story ends:

with Courtney being right.

Because Stargirl shits g-d marble, as we all know. Because it took Stargirl to come up with the radical idea of the JSA taking time-displaced Golden Age side-kicks under their wing. I'm sure that wouldn't have occurred to Mister Terrific, one of the DCU's three smartest humans, without her help.  He was probably on the verge of sending them to Granny Goodness.

But that sort of thing aside, I enjoyed the issue (as follows).

The Stranding of The World's Phinest.

Power Girl's in the mix, too, for different reasons, but I forget whether Johns did that, and, regardless, it didn't happen in the pages of this Justice Society story.

When Geoff Johns wants A Baby, he is (unlike many writers) PERFECTLY capable of throwing out The Bathwater.  And in this case the Baby is Helena Wayne (NOT Bertinelli).  Johns does not shy away from the crux of a character, no matter how stupid or inconvenient it may be, he makes that crux his battle standard.

Geoff Johns knows darned well that the FUNCTION of the Huntress character is to be the daughter of Batman and Catwoman; if she is not THAT, she serves no purpose.  So that's what the Huntress is.  From a future she has now wiped out by her (heroic) actions in the present, and to which, therefore, she cannot return. Fin. 

Sensible Batman.

Johns' Bruce Wayne is sensible, calm, and supportive.  Because of course he is. Batman is a Golden Age hero, after all, although we forget to think of him that way.

He's going to help this Helena lady, who is not his child at all (even though her father WAS Bruce Wayne), because it's the right thing to do.  In a way that doesn't smother her and keeps her out of his hair, but, jeez, one unsolicited offspring whose creation he wasn't involved in is MORE than enough.  Amusingly, Johns' even has Helena mention the current Batman storyline where he's running around like a basketcase fighting his own family, in stark contrast to His Normal Self we see here.  Johns loves to troll that sort of thing.

Flash back.

GJ has just dumped a passel of Golden Age sidekicks into the present. Obviously lots of their stories will have to do with the difficulties of adjusting or making themselves part of current families and dynasties blah blah. 

But Flash hasn't got time for that nonsense.  Judy Garrick returns and when his dad remembers her, everyone else does, because it's Jay Garrick and that's just how it is.

Fin.

Steel's Ancestry.

You're his great-uncle, numbskull. It's not exactly a "post-War" concept.

This one is interesting to me.  It's unique because it's kind of backwards.  The sidekick isn't getting iconic oomph from a connection to a Golden Age hero; he's GIVING Golden Age oomph to a Modern Hero.  John Henry "Steel" Irons has zero connection to the Golden Age.  His roots go EXACTLY to the Death of Superman story, which Golden Age fan GJ knows is a weak point for any character.  So he's inserting this fellow (he hardly looks as if calling him a "kid" is appropriate) into Steel's PAST as a way of connecting Steel to the Golden Age.  Might as well; no one else has ever been able to figure out what to do with Steel, a literary conundrum that has stumped even the likes of Shaquille O'Neal.

Justifiable Rudeness

There is little I hate more in comics than the Gratuitously Unpleasant Character. Like, well, any character being written by Roy Thomas.  And the last place such a character should be is in the JSA or its derivatives.

One of the many Things Roy Thomas Didn't Understand, since none of his characters can get through two sentences without being ****s.

So obviously "Salem", the stupidly named and snide protégé of the Golden Age Dr. Fate, Kent Nelson, has been my least favorite of the rediscovered sidekicks. At least until GJ explained WHY she is like that.

She's rude in order to keep people at a distance so THEY DON'T DIE BY HER CURSE.  That's some Greek Tragedy stuff, right there.

Simple. Elegant. Rooted in the character's origin.  You don't have to always like WHAT Geoff Johns is doing to appreciate the sheer EFFICIENCY with which he does it.

He COULD have tried to streamline Dr. Fate's history. But he didn't. Because it's messy and that's just now a core part of the character.  

The Red Bee's Legacy

"As insane as it sounds" is Geoff Johns' credo.

Michael.  

M I C H A E L.

GJ knows that Michael, THE ABSURDITY of Michael, is at the crux of the Red Bee. Johns doesn't shy away from that as a stupid embarrassment, he embraces it with the fervor of a post-War lover returning to his beloved.

So Michael, who apparently is not only hyperintelligent BUT AGELESS, is there to greet his sidekick in our time.  Because all you need for the Red Bee is Superior City, a hero in a ridiculous costume (which this girl CERTAINLY qualifies as), and... Michael.

I like to imagine that Michael occasionally does lunch with Detective Chimp and Rex the Wonder Dog.  Very quiet lunches. Until Robbie the Robot Dog shows up.

Trinity (and a great many topics it touches on)

 Let's talk about How Bad An Idea This Is and In What Ways.

I have a feeling we won't be the only people.

This... creature, in case you do not already know. is the (theoretical) daughter of Wonder Woman. Or, as the Crimes Against Comics Division calls her, "Tom King's rap sheet, page #74."

Tom King is DC"s current exemplar of the Hot Young Auteur From The Outside World. It's one of DC's real-world tropes.  Such a person: 

has some sort of outside credentials the company thinks brings gravitas; 

is imagined by DC to have a following of readers independent of the characters they are writing; 

is give near carte-blanche to upset the applecart and take characters in New (unwise) Directions; 

usually has a distinct style that they adapt characters to, rather than the other way around.  

He's not the first and you can probably list them better than I. As the song lyrics go, "Such as —Wwhat d'ye call him, Thing'em-bob, and likewise—Never-mind;  and 'St,'st, 'st, and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who; but the task of filling up the blanks, I'd rather leave to you."

So, aa a dear friend of mine once said, "Let's start with your clothes."

I can only assume her civilian job is as a yoga teacher.

Judges...?

Thank you, Judges. Expertly put.

I only wish Blockade Boy were still with us to give his reaction to this monstrosity. Tom King mentioned in an interview that he used his 12-year-old daughter's interest in Wonder Woman as a reference point (just about the only positive thing he did say). Well, it sure looks like a 12-year-old designed that costume. "Y'know what's even COOLER than a magic lasso? THREE magic lassos!" 

After all, a girl can never have too many ropes.

Yeah, no; she LITERALLY has three magic lassos. What could be more practical in battle? One for the left hand, one for the right hand, and one for, um.... Let's play it safe and say "one for dragging".

I'm just going to assume her inevitable death by Isadora Duncan ia a future Fixed Point in time.

I'll leave aside the stupidity of that, which needs no belaboring. I will take a moment to linger on her hilarious (and surely dangerously sharply-pointed) heart-shaped breast-plate (which will CERTAINLY be lamp-shaded as such at SOME point,

"She wears her heart on her sleeve.
Well, maybe not her sleeve, exactly...."
< panel of her torso in chiaroscuro>
See, I can write bad comic book dialog just like the pros.

Trinity = Love, you see. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget to mention her name? It's TRINITY.  You know, like in Christianity's creakily literal interpretation of Genesis 18-19 (et sim.)

Obviously, we have Augustine to blame for this, 
Aristotle would have slapped him silly had he been there to do so.

It is stunningly tone-deaf that (even) Tom King would have Greek Olypmianist Diana give her daughter a name (1) that's an English abstract noun and (2) so inextricably associated with an incompatible (and historically hostile) religion. Even a comic book geek should realize that's the primary evocation of the word "trinity".

Maybe there simply isn't any "Christianity" per se in the DCU. But there is always Christmas, right, so doesn't there have to be Christianity? Otherwise, how would machine gunners lure Wonder Woman onto roottops?

But in using the name King is trying, of course, to evoke the "DC Trinity" (i.e., Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman).  Which, well, I hate to have to resort to such an over-used and trite modernism as "cringe". But.. it's cringe.  Cringe-y? Let's go old school and call it "mortifying awkward to outsiders " (which I suppose is why people coined the term "cringey").  

The use of "trinity" to describe DC's three tip-top-tier heroes has always been tacky, due to its religious associations. But I've usually turned a blind eye to it for several reasons.  

First, there are so many people who don't know any better and don't think anything of it. I don't actually encourage the dominance of the shadow of historical Christianity over modern culture and thought, and it's an example of people kind of forgetting what 'trinity' originally meant, well... so be it, I guess.  I don't consider its usage "sacrilegious"; it's just tacky.  

Second, call me old-fashioned, but I'm still conscious of how artificial a construct DC's "trinity" is.  Real world references to it are one thing but any in-universe references are painfully forced.  The "trinity", remember is entirely a post-Crisis concept, in which DC decided to elevate a re-launched Wonder Woman into a tier which previously included only Superman and Batman (and by extension Robin). I am not saying this was a bad idea, per se, but it comes with challenges.  Much of post-Crisis disappointment in what's been done with Wonder Woman stems from how the bar has been raised for the character, perhaps beyond a point the concept can reach.  

Besides, DC blew its chance to do the obvious in a post-Superfriends era: create a QUATERNITY, with both Wonder Woman and Aquaman raised to the top tier.  

DC, you had a generation (or more) prepped from childhood to view this a quarternity of top-tier iconic heroes and you wasted the opportunity. You are incredibly good at wasting opportunities.

They are kinda/sort slow-rolling that nowadays, but Aquaman is sometimes as much "over there" as he is "up there" in the heroic hierarchy.  I suspect the lingering hand of Pope Innocent III, whose Fourth Council of the Lateran rejected the concept of the Quaternity in 1213.

Who would make an awesome addition to Aquaman's rogues gallery.
Kind of like an updated Torpedo Man.
"Continue to enjoy your graceless state!"

Third, there's not really a much better term. "Triumvirate" doesn't work because that refers to three men  etymologically, and to political rulers, a very bad connotation indeed.  "Trio" is a musical group, "triad" a musical chord", "troika" is too Commie-sounding, "ternion" is AWESOME but no one without pince-nez is going to use it, etc.

"Trigon", unfortunately, was already taken.

But, as stated, while I'll endure its use in our world, its use in-universe is unacceptable.  And the idea that Wonder Woman would name her daughter that?  Honestly, it's the most "cringey" fan-ficish thing I've seen since I don't know when.

I'd have to give it some thought.

Add to this the "me-too!-ism" of it all. Superman and Batman have children now, so Wonder Woman has to!  Because rather than have her, gods forbid, be her own person, we have to have her mimic Superman and Batman in order to remain at their level.   

It's a modern day mutation of the Dynastic Centerpiece Model, you see. We still WANT Kid Sidekicks but we feel bad nowadays about heroes picking them up at circus fire-sales, dressing them in bright colors, and throwing them at gun-wielding gangsters.  Plus, so many readers nowadays aren't children but rather HAVE children that we want heroes who share that condition so we can continue to identify with them.  So now the craze is for our heroes to have children who are way older than they should be, whom they dress in bright colors and throw at gun-wielding gangsters. But it's their own children, so it's okay.

Therefore our only actual sensible sane responsible adult iconic superheroes are Hal and Barry. Just you think about that.

So, how IS Wonder Woman's child inappropriately-old already? Oh, that's easy.... she's hasn't been born yet. This is a FUTURE person.  From the FUTURE.  Where fashion has gone to hell, apparently.

Yes, it just keeps getting worse and worse.  It's another "possible future that's definitely going to happen" that one writer creates and fans takes as gospel, because well, we actually like pretend this stuff makes sense, rather than just "whatever nonsense the most recent Auteur was allowed to spit out".    No offense to Mark Waid, but DC's readership is STILL in collective therapy from Kingdom Come.  So, rather than do the work, King is just skipping to the answers in the back of the book.  

Well, this is wrong on so many levels.  I'm going to pass over the obvious ones that come from this approach. We've all seen them before and can identity them easily enough. I'm just going to point out the irony of taking this approach to creating WONDER GIRL.  The only reason there was ever a Wonder Girl character separate from Wonder Woman to begin with was because sloppy editors/writers at DC weren't paying any attention to the fact that, when they created Teen Titans, the character Wonder Girl WAS WONDER WOMAN as a youth (in the same way Superboy was Superman).  DC has spent 60 trying to fix that mistake (still unsuccessfully).  So, yeah; having Wonder Girl be from a different time period? Not a great plan, historically.

Longtime readers know there is only one writer who could have cared so little about continuity.
Until now.

And that brings us to our final point. DC's slash-and-burn approach to Wonder Girls. To be fair, they have this approach to a LOT of characters.  

Some versions may deserve to be slashed and burned, however.

No matter what snow they shovel at you now, these characters were not made to work with one another. They were made to supplant one another. 

Kid sidekicks/youth heroes (and the broader heroic dynasties they are part of) are at the heart of conflict between two opposite tendencies at DC.  DC often mixes up the concepts of heroic "legacies", to show that heroism is a tradition that is carried on rather than dying with an individual, and "replacism", the avid rush to ditch any existing version of a character for a newer version that The Kids or a Different Audience Might Like Better.

POOCHIE IS FROM SPACE AND HE'S THE NEW GREEN LANTERN

When you have all the copies and younger duplicates lying around, it becomes VERY tempting to the powers that be to ditch That Old Character They Didn't Create and Feel Constrained By and Don't Have Creator Rights To.  The very tools that are supposedly created to respect the past are used to kill it.

And Replacism has a strong pull in an era given to narrowcasting rather than broadcasting; where we make a lot entertainment tailored to smaller varied audiences rather than a few shows designed to appeal to a broad audience.  The classic DC icons are "broadcast" icons designed to appeal broadly and they are correspondingly generic.   

Almost interchangeable.

The more people who can identify with Mr./Ms. Secret Identity, the fewer people can identify with him/her CLOSELY.  Hey, I'm Modern! I don't want your generic old white guy superheroes, like stupid brain-damaged Hal Jordan! I want a Green Lantern I can IDENTIFY with, who's like me. Somebody gay. Blond. Left-handed. Independent. With fashion flair. Who despite being not too young, looks REALLY good for his age. And likes dark-haired guys named Alex.

Okay, DC. You win this round.

But this can lead to increasingly rapid turnover/proliferation in a character that instead leaves everyone with next to nothing.  Instead of one Green Lantern we can all see a little of ourselves in every month, we each get one Green Lantern we could see a lot of ourselves in... if we ever saw them, which we don't, because there are 87 of them.  

In recent years, DC (or certain forces at DC) have been smarter about this issue and drawn a line in the sand. Despite taking guff for it, for example, Geoff Johns rolled back the turnover-cascade that had taken over Green Lantern and Flash by re-establishing Hal Jordan and Barry Allen as those mantle-bearers.

A task they handled easily, even after being dead for twenty years, because making it look easy is what they do.

One can complain about Johns' bringing back "his generation's version" of those characters, but the choice is defensible as where the problem started. If you draw the firebreak anywhere else, the choice seems arbitrary and the problem might take root again.  His recent work with reintroducing kid sidekicks and the Justice Society is also his attempt to re-inject the concepts of Dynasty and Legacy to help stabilize how DC deals with balancing past, present, and future.  

"Trinity" is... pretty much that opposite of that. She's just The Latest Author's Version of Wonder Girl, since I guess we've already consigned Yara Flor to the Discount Bin of discarded versions of Wonder Girl.

Remember her? Me, neither. I literally have never seen her in anything. At least her costume is marginally less ridiculous than Trinity's.

Except this one comes with the cheap trick of being Wonder Woman's daughter, which King clearly hopes will insulate her from eventual elimination (as it has odious Damian and the incomprehensible and blandly controversial Jon Kent).

It's a headline-grabbing, de-stabilizing pyrotechnic thrown out by an author who can't write a mystery, so instead he 'subverts expectations".  Well, what I expected from the Dawn of DC was certainly better than "Trinity" so consider my expectations subverted, Mr. King.

Welcome to the Gilded Age

Yesterday, I was asked by a commenter, in response to my post on Geoff Johns reintroduction of Wing, the Crimson Avenger's sidekick (originally, valet/chauffeur)::

I wonder if anyone has an answer to this question: does anyone even want all these sidekicks? One or two of them might be entertaining, I guess, but is there anyone who was saying "you know what we need more of: Golden Age sidekicks"? What is Johns's game?

Of COURSE I have an answer to that question! It ain't called "The Absorbascon" for nothing.  

I would have thought "Johns's Game" would be obvious based on everything else I've written about it.

Or, for that matter, everything HE's written.

But sneaking what is obvious in retrospect past you is one of the hallmarks of Geoff Johns' work.  

Pseudonymously, Geoff Johns writes fan-fic about Benoit Blanc and his precocious tagalong niece, Héloïse Grise.

I have covered this in pieces in other posts, but it bears repeating, I suppose.

The last 20 years has been a Manichaeistic battle for the soul of the DCU between Didio's Dark Forces (writers of the grim & gritty and feet of clay) and Johns' Bright Brigade (champions of heroic idealism).  Didio lost; Johns is now trying to make sure that loss actually, several years later, starts to result in a DCU of a different tenor, hence the Dawn of the DCU (an image of new light, you'll note).  

Didio hated "legacy characters", and famously wanted to kill off Dick "Nightwing" Grayson, who is the ORIGINAL kid sidekick, the personification of legacy characters.  It's no coincidence that Dick Grayson now is the centerpiece of the Dawn of the DCU. It's no coincidence that the Justice League is on sabbatical so that the Titans et al. can see some more time in the light.

Okay. Maybe I should have chosen a different metaphor in that particular case.

It's perfect timing, too, as the James Gunnification of DCU Entertainment promises to align DC's intellectual properties (what you and I call "characters") in a more consistent and coherent (if not unified) way across properties. Johns is offering just the kind of broad plan and vision that Gunn is looking sell on the hustings.

Johns's Game has several dimensions to it, but they all bear his trademark expansive approach.  

One is spatial: the multiverse has been reintroduced. Not ambiguously, as it was in the wishy-washy Hypertime concept. Nor in a limited and un-useful way, as in Morrison's Multiversity art project.  No. It's the Big Ol' DC Multiverse, Bigger and Ol'er than Ever, with numbered earths for everybody, and all of it introduced by (who else?) Barry Allen, the character who introduced the ideal of the multiverse into the DCU to begin with (the one so synonymous with the concept of the multiverse that DC killed him off WITH it in "Crisis on Infinite Earths").  

NEVER forget that the last person Barry Allen sees before he dies is Batman, his face covered in custard. Remember the Creped Crusader, people.

One dimension is temporal; DC's iconic heroes must be shown to be mentoring potential future heroes as part of their legacy in the future. They must also be shown to be inheritors of traditions of costumed heroism and that very concept of apprenticeship from past generations of heroes.  

[Batman #135, btw]
Tom King killed off Alfred Pennyworth.
Geoff Johns would have HIRED him for a two-year run on "Batman Family".

This is why Johns is reconnecting the current DCU to the Golden Age.  Characters are being inserted in the Golden Age to help anchor the present to the past.  Present Ollie Queen turns out to have been the Golden Age Oliver Queen after all.  There actually WAS a Golden Age Aquaman and won't HIS connection to modern Aquaman be interesting to learn about.  The Golden Age JSA exist on an earth of their own (Earth-2, natch), but a version of them also exist in the past of Earth-0.  There are forgotten kid sidekicks who will be rescued from limbo by Stargirl, a legacy of a Golden Age hero, and Red Arrow, the kid sidekick of a current iconic hero (who is ALSO a Golden Age hero).  It couldn't be any tighter or clearer.  The concept of the "kid sidekick" is being reintroduced to reassert the importance of legacy and the need to pass along the traditions of heroism.

"They might want to hit the deck; it's going to be oomphy."

Geoff Johns is no Roy Thomas.  He's not trying to connect to the Golden Age to save the past; he trying to connect to the Golden Age to save the future. In fact, that's exactly the plot of his new run on Justice Society of America, isn't it?

Starman's face is only partially shown, lest his glory eclipse his contemporaries

One dimensional is financial.  This isn't mere nostalgia. It's good business sense.  The direct market era saw the aging of the comic book buying population and, in the long run, if you lose KIDS as part of the audience for comics you will run out of adult audience.  

Didio had his own answer to this problem and it was characteristically reductive: kill off the old characters and replace them with ones that had been created under HIS aegis, for a New Glorious Era; the "5G Plan" that was the final straw that got him fired.

He was disappeared, really. I think the Shadow Demons got him, which, of course, would be comic book irony since, like him, they represent the forces of darkness in the DCU.

Johns' plan is characteristically expansive. One of the reasons to connect with the Golden Age is because the Golden Age knew how to do something that most people have forgotten--how to write superhero comics for kids without pandering.  He's reintroducing the concept of "kid sidekicks" -- let's call them "heroic apprenticeships" to update the idea -- for the same reason the Golden Age introduced them: to give kid readers an in-story character to identify with (rather than the hero, who is a character to aspire to). 

I wonder whatever became of that kid.  Probably got killed off by some cynical writer of a later, darker era.

Do you think it's coincidence that David, the Boy Thunder, from Mark Waid's "previously untold story of Superman's kid sidekick" has just been revealed in World's Finest to be... Magog, the personification of the loss of heroic idealism in Mark Waid's Kingdom Come, the falling domino who leads to its dystopia? It is not a coincidence; Mark Waid is part of Johns's Bright Brigade.  This is part of showing of the breakdown of the heroic apprenticeship system, of the failure to establish legacy leads to disaster in the future.  

Just as failing to instill a love of heroic ideals --and the salable intellectual properties DC owns that represent them! -- will be disastrous for today's children (and tomorrow's comic books sales).  And the answer isn't simply to pump out a bunch of coloring books and Underoos or conflict-free goo-goo Justice League Babies books.  It's to make regular, mainstream superhero comics with a broader audience, including younger readers, in mind.

I know some (all?) of you don't understand my postings of Sims games with DCU characters. But it's not without reasons. 

"You see, son, archery takes focus, strength, and patience."
"You GOT this, Ollie!"
"Ugh. Archery sucks."

The makers of the Sims games, over the years, could have given in to pressure from their existing audience to become increasingly inward-looking in their product.  Instead, at every juncture where they might have had the game become deeper but less accessible, they have chosen instead to try to make it broader and more inclusive, sometimes to the disappointment of some present players.  But as a result, the base of players has only expanded and diversified with time, and, by opening the game up to easy modding, the player-base is free to deepen the game in ways that it wants to without corporate interference.

Clearly, that's easier to do in a game where the players tell the stories  than in comics where the corporation has to. But the analogy is clear.  Left to its own devices, fandom (of ANY kind) will crawl up its own *** and become withdrawn and increasingly inaccessible.  The actual guardians of the objects of fandom --who are not the fans, no matter what we think-- have to make sure that they aren't pulled in along with them.  

Johns's game isn't fan-pandering nostalgia.  It's not squeaky-clean Silver Age fluff.  He's trying to initiate a new Golden Age when comics were unafraid to be "childish" in their idealism,  unapologetic about the need for young and old to face the evils of the world, when they were accessible to a broader population and not just comic shop denizens.  

John's is starting the Gilded Age of Comics.

A Wing and a Prayer

Geoff Johns wants you to think this is Wing.

 

I'm here to tell you it isn't.

Oh, I don't mean that it's a fake-out or a shapeshifter or anything.

What I mean is that this is the revised version of Wing that Johns is shilling. Not the Real Original Wing.

This is real original Wing.

The real original Wing is 20-something (MAYBE he's 18).  He's a professional valet and chauffeur for a living, so he's not underage.  He's your basic bad-ass super-competent trustworthy Asian valet/chauffeur; he's "Kato".

Kato, as portrayed by Some Chinese Actor.

The reason that Wing was Kato is that the Crimson Avenger was the Green Hornet. That's certainly nothing DC talks about, but nothing could be more obvious. The Green Hornet was created in 1936 and the Crimson Avenger, a nearly identical character, in 1938.  I mean: he was a wealthy newspaper publisher with a Asian valet/chaffeur, his color-named alter ego wore a suit, fedora, and domino mask, used a gas gun and huge honking limo, and was suspected of being a criminal by the authorities. Really, now. They might as well have named him "Rhett Breed".  

Wing wasn't an action-star like Bruce Lee; he's really more of an "Alfred" than a "Robin". 

I would NOT mind being taken under his Wing.

But he was an invaluable partner, with useful talents and contacts.  

"A friend of Wing's is mine also." Even Tong officials respect Wing.

This was how the Crimson Avenger and the Wing were originally portrayed in the Golden Age, one of the comics features where Chinese characters were consistently portrayed with dignity and respect. 

Until. Detective Comics #44, Oct. 1940 (which you probably remember better as the "Speed Saunders versus the exploding bowling balls" issue).

-FIN-

Note, for later, two things about Wing.
He's a big hulking MAN.
His English is imperfect but not intended to be comedically or offensively so.

We can blame Batman & Superman (et al.) for this absurdity. By 1940, it was clear that pulp-style slouch-hatted avengers were OUT and costumed crimefighters were IN.

This is NOT going to be oomphy.

The Crimson Avenger, now authored by people other than his creator, leapt on the bandwagon so as not to get left behind.

Marty's late for school again.

The Crimson Avenger did not make the transition gracefully.

That's got to be embarrassing.

The Crimson Avenger didn't do anything gracefully, in fact.

I think the fin helps the aerodynamics of the frequent falls.

His letterer seemed to have a drinking problem.

I mean, I'd drink, too.

The Crimson clearly wanted to be Starman.

In the previous panel the lion has gorilla hands.  Check if you don't believe me.

His stories became lurid, even by Golden Age standards.

DEATH BY DACHSHUND PIT

Almost as if to emphasize how badly the transition was being made, his costume sported a stylized bullet-hole symbol at exactly the same time that he switched from carrying actual pistols to gas-guns.

Just how MUCH gas can be in that gun?

Yet, somehow, all this pales to how badly they messed up WING.

They re-made Wing over as a kid sidekick so that C.A. would fit in better with the Soldiers of Victory (yet ANOTHER strike against the SoV).  The costumed version of Wing debuted in World's Finest Comics #4 (Dec. 1941).

December 1941 was not a good time to be an Asian character in comics. Even if you were a Chinese good guy.

This guy:

Handsome, dignified, and well-spoken.

Adult, huge, and manly.

was now THIS guy:

It's...bad.  Even for 1941, it's bad.

This is the guy Geoff Johns is trying to bring back. Or, more accurately, to fix.  

I sympathize with what he's trying to do. But doing so overwrites what we should be remembering, which is the real original Wing, rather than this painful embarrassment that GJ is trying to redeem.  Who knows, Johns being Johns, he may have the Real Original Wing in mind as Costumed Wing's older brother; I wouldn't put it past him.  No one know how to have his cake and eat it too like Geoff Johns.

But the other problem is: Real Original Wing debuted in 1938, but this Costumed Wing in 1941.  Real Original Wing pre-dates ROBIN, the Sensational Character Find of 1940, and the Costumed Wing does NOT.  I don't want Johns retrofitting Costumed Wing in a way that backdates him into being a costumed kid sidekick before Robin, The Boy Wonder, who actually IS the original costumed kid sidekick. Because that sort of thing can take on an inaccurate life of its own, and my fervent prayer is that it does NOT.

Anyway, just so YOU know, no matter what Johns does with it: Wing did not start out as a costumed kid sidekick.