Cast in Bronze

It occurred to me that some younger/newer readers might not recognize some of the Flash's current supporting cast.

Patty Spivot, his new love interest? Not so new. Patty was introduced as Barry's lab assistant in September 1977, actually.

As Enrichetta Negrini was to Ray "The Atom" Palmer, so was Patty Spivot to Barry "The Flash" Allen (specifically, the Sexy Female Colleague Who is the Hero's Intellectual Equal But Not His Girlfriend and is Around Largely to Make the Girlfriend Jealous and Make Readers Think There's an Actual Change to the Status Quo Possible, But Really There's Not).




Captain Darryl Frye? Well, he's also from Flash's Bronze Age (appearing first in May 1980). He was comedy relief who hero-worshipped the Flash. He was also, well--how do I put this in a loving and supportive way....? He was...



a total lunatic, who dealt with his mid-life crisis by trying to become a costumed vigilante "Captain Incredible".

People talk about the Silver Age as "that time of wackiness" in comic books. To which I say, "Balderdash".

The Bronze Age's deep, all-pervasive, underlying absurdity was far more insane than the showy splashes of zaniness in the Silver Age. In the Silver Age, your boss/authority figure would only become a costumed vigilante temporary because he was being affected by mind-controlling alien fruit (1961) or to defy the mayor's orders and jerk Vicki Vale's chain (1957), because that's always fun. You know... normal reasons.

But in the freakin' Bronze Age, people smoked super-cigars (1974) and got hit on the head and reversed their own alter ego (1978). These things, unlike mind-controlling alien fruit and adopting a costumed identity as an F.U. to the mayor, are just insane. And Captain Frye was very much part of that.

Oh, and Captain Cold's sister, Lisa? In her modern incarcation, her job, like many a relative written by Geoff Johns, is to die tragically and inspire her family to greatness (in either Good or Evil). But in the Insane Bronze Age, she was -- wait for it --an ice skating themed villain, the Golden Glider.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Tonya Harding of Bronze Age Earth-1. Wait, did the narrator actually just call her skates "uncanny"...?!

Which is, of course, insane.

Haikuesday with the Trickster

Poor James Jesse.

Is he a victim of the reboot? It's unclear; he's not been mentioned as one of "Captain Cold's gang of rogues", but the presence of Axel Whathisface in the Flash certainly means that James Jesse is not currently operating as the Trickster. Yet he must have; how else would Axel have "inherited" the title and the gadgets?

Is James Jesse dead? Or reformed? Or still in prison?

Really. How do you deal with a crook who might very well be giving you money, rather than taking it?

Jesse occupied a unique place among the Rogues as the unpredictable wacko, and its not a role you can pass to another one of them. Meanwhile, Axel's pretty weak sauce; is Geoff Johns preparing for the original Trickster to make a dramatic comeback at some point?

Because there is no way that little punk Axel could make a getaway on soap bubbles...

WHILE haikuing about it.

"BUT NOT FOR VERY LONG"

They are made of a
special type of soap which will
hold you, as you say.

What haiku can you compose in praise of James "The Trickster" Jesse?

Heroclix Map: The Egyptian Desert

The Egyptian desert is a great locale for Heroclix battles. Many characters--such as Captain Marvel (oops, sorry, I mean, "Shazam"), Black Adam, Isis, Dr Fate, Metamorpho--have Egyptian origins or connections. And many heroes with no organic links to the Children of the Nile still have had aegyptian advenures, such as Wonder Woman versus the violent Bana-Mighdall, Batman versus mad King Tut, and Josh Bernstein versus megalomaniacal Zahi Hawass.

So here's a Heroclix map of the Egyptian desert! There's a dig site, a campsite, a quonset hut, some desert vehicles, and a little pyramid. They provide hindering terrain, some elevated (well, "negatively elevated") terrain, some interior terrain, and some blocking terrain. Just a little bit of everything.


This isn't the most elaborate or beautiful Heroclix map, but it does have one usual characteristic that I've been experimenting with: it's modular.


As you can see above, you can split the map into six equal segments without intersecting any objects or terrain features. As a result you can cut the map into those segments, then rotate and rearrange them in any way you wish to form a valid Heroclix map. So, instead of ONE map, you get...let's see, um.... 134,596? Something like that. I think. A lot, anyway. Much more than one.

There are certainly flaws with the concept. Even though the segments are as different from one another as I could make them given the setting, I'm not sure how much rotating or swapping the segments would actually change the gameplay. Also, while none of the objects are split by the segment cuts, the underlying sand pattern IS, and that's going to be noticeable when you shuffle the segments.

Still it seemed like enough of a novelty to want to share and to see whether any other such modular maps would be of interest to other players.

Read "Night Force"

It must be "Earth-3 Week" here at the Absorbascon, where everyone's behavior is the opposite of normal. First, I joined forces with Archie Andrews. Now, I'm telling you to read something by Marv Wolfman, of whom, it is fair to say, I am not generally a fan.

But as you may have noticed, DC has pulled out a surprise in the Second Wave: the return of Night Force.

Night Force was a horror series in the 1980s, written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Gene Colan (of swimmin' with the Sea Devils fame). Make no mistake; I despise all of Wolfman's superhero work. But I'm a sucker for some Night Force, I'm afraid... .

When Night Force came out in 1982-83, I was out of contact and unaware of it until re-emerging into this place of existence in the late '80s. I stumbled on it at some small local comic book convention, probably hooked by the fact that the action centered here in Washington DC (where night Force's main character, Baron Winter, lives).

Baron Winters is, frankly, a hokey collocation of occult tropes. Past shrouded in mystery. No first name. Undeterminable age. Anachronistic clothing and habits. Can't leave his house under any circumstance for some unknown reason. Amoral manipulator. Talks to his pet leopard, Merlin, a LOT, and seems to think that Merlin talks back. Mysterious mansion that serves as some sort of null point in space-time (and where Zatanna's father died, very dramatically). Handpicked task of force of unwitting pawns, one or more of whom will die.

Trite? Sure. But, curse Wolfman, it works and I fall for it completely. It might become insufferably formulaic in the long run (like, say, the Pretender, whose every plot evolution could be timed with a stopwatch)... but, of course, it won't have a long run. It's a seven-issue miniseries, and you probably don't want to miss it.

Even though there was much in the original run one could disparage, it had impact and stuck with you. Despite being a bit hackneyed, Night Force was a pivot point in the transition from DC's '70s-style horror to the birth of the "Vertigo-verse". If you are liking "Justice League Dark" to any degree, you'll want to read the new Night Force, because, while Baron Winters hasn't been and never will be a big player on the psychic scene, he's a fixture, a sort of neutral Switzerland in the occult landscape. If you want to be an aficionado of the DCU's non-super-side, you need to be able to find your way to, and around, Wintersgate Manor. Although not, perhaps, the way out ... .

Politics Make Strange Bedfellows

Politics –and similar exigencies--make strange bedfellows. Like the time Bronze Age Batman and the Joker and teamed up to solve the Penguin’s “murder” in Brave & the Bold. Or the time Lex and Superman worked together to fight famine in Africa in Heroes Against Hunger. Or when Captain America joined with Hitler to fight worldwide currency inflation. I forget which story that was.

Anyway, thanks to I find myself similarly wedded to the unlikeliest of bedfellows: Archie Andrews.

Thanks, Slay Monstrobot, for exposing this.

As longtime readers of the Absorbascon will know, Archie Andrew is my bête noir. His slow banishment of the heroic Shield from the pages of Pep, his mental enthrallment of the youth of America, his apostlehood of surrealism in comics—the depth and breadth of his evil are unfathomable and illimitable, unbounded as they are by either space/time or the Fourth Wall.

Yet, politics find me arm-in-arm with my Arch-nemesis in solidarity against… One Million Moms, who are boycotting Archie Comics and Toys-R-Us, which is carrying a comic in which Riverdaler Kevin Keller marries his boyfriend. First, a new editor’s notes. I do not know that there are actually one million moms in One Million Moms; I rather doubt it, the same way I’m not really concerned about any threat from Insane Clown Posse or The Butthole Surfers. Also, in the “present day” continuity of Riverdale, Kevin (like the rest of the Archie gang) is a highschooler, with limited dating experienced due to having moved around a lot with his military family. “Kevin’s Wedding” is an “imaginary story” of the future, just like the “Archie Marries Betty” and “Archie Marries Veronica” comics. I will also add that I am opposed to Kevin’s marriage because the story depicted him as a wounded veteran marrying his physical therapist, which is all kinds of professional wrong and which, as we have learned previously here at the Absorbascon, is the road to perdition.

That said, I am obviously not against gay marriage generally or against the general concept of Kevin getting married. Even if I were, I hope wouldn’t take the same stance as this pressure group/rock band One Million Moms ™. Because, even if ‘gay marriage’ is a thing you don’t like, it is still a thing that is happening in the real world—quite a lot—and as such is fair game for inclusion in comics. Of course, rape and murder happened quite a lot in the real world, but I wouldn’t want those in Archie Comics. But if you want to put gay marriage in the same box as rape and murder, One Million Moms, then further discourse on the matter would probably be fruitless. Meanwhile, good luck influencing Toys’R’Us, who I can only assume don’t give a darn what mothers thinks, or their brand name wouldn’t be a grammatical and orthographic horror-show.

By the way, if you get the chance, buy Kevin Keller #1; not only was it kind of touching it was freakin’ hilarious, particularly the Kevin’s Almost First Date and Reggie Gives Kevin a Makeover parts.

What I am really interested in talking about is NOT Kevin Keller, but about the fact that Archie—friggin’ ARCHIE—is leading the mainstream comic book pack on social issues. It’s great, and we should applaud the Archie Comics folks for their efforts to be modern, relevant, but still wholesome. What bothers me is that my preferred comics genre—DC’s ‘super’ titles—are so far BEHIND the curve in representing the realities of gay people being part of modern society.

Don’t get me wrong; I have been very happy to see that the Legion folks stepped right up to the plate and unabashedly portrayed Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet as a couple (a tradition from the Giffen Five Years Later Era). And, of course, Kate Kane has her own title as Batwoman, where her personal and romantic life is very much integral to the story.

However, I cannot help feel that in the New52—so far—it feels like we have taken a step backwards in the portrayal of gay people from what preceded. In the Old52, we could at least point to a handful of gay men in the DCU; admittedly, no one as high profile as Batwoman, but still there were some. There is, to my knowledge, no one to point to in the New52. Naturally, the whole new DC universe is still unfolding and new characters (and old characters newly recast) are being revealed every week, so my observation may simply be premature. But, even if there are no main characters who are gay men, I’m still looking for some sign that gay marriage—a growing modern reality that even Archie Comics has acknowledged and incorporated into its universe—exists in the DCU. I’m not looking for a “Very Special Issue” about it; I don’t think it merits it. But as one occasionally sees straight married couples in the DCU during the course of a plot, one might expect also, at some point, to see a gay married couple as well.

I am aware that the issue is not without controversy in ‘the real world’. I am also aware that superhero comics, on average, do not court social and political controversy. However, I am also aware that DC didn’t wait until integration and ‘miscegenation’ were no longer issues before showing black Americans with white ones in their stories; or am I wrong in that?

I remember looking at the DCU when I was a kid as a more advanced placed, both scientifically and sociologically. Is that no longer the case? Am I now living in a world that’s ten years ahead of the DCU, instead of the other way around?

Archie Comics has always been about preparing young kids for the world they were going to grow into as teenagers. Is DC Comics now just about preserving for adults the world we grew up in as kids?

Haikuesday with Gene Colan and the Sea Devils!

Ah, the Sea Devils, the Homines Superiores of the Sea, the Demigods of the Deep, the Untersee Ubermenschen. I've always marveled at the Sea Devils, who, as repeatedly mentioned here at the Absorbascon, are paragons of humanity, as capable and impressive as the Challengers of the Unknown are incompetent and stumble-footed. Yet they get so little respect; why, they don't even have a page of TV Tropes (where even Small Wonder has a page).

While excited for the new directions that the creative team is taking with Aquaman, I was sad to see that Aquaman's hinted "former team" will turn out not to be the Sea Devils.

It's a pity. The Sea Devils are your classic four-man band (The Leader, The Girl, The Muscle, The Kid), a sort of underwater Fantastic Four without superpowers (other than super-awesomeness). They'd have been perfect "back-up singers" for Aquaman's adventures that preceded his discovery of Atlantis, and I would have loved to see the New52 Aquaman become the tentpole for the reintroduction of all DC's oceanic heroes. Alas.

The Sea Devils were so incredible, that, like Mr. Mxyzptlk or The Phantom Stranger, they pretty much do whatever they want, including violating the Fourth Wall...



and otherwise ignoring the barrier between their world and ours. Why, here's their own comic book artist-- Gene Colan -- joining them on one of their underwater adventures.


Wow. That's... wow. Could Namor or Dracula have dragged Gene Colan in their world? I don't think so.

Let alone induct Gene Colan into the joys of sweet, sweet octopus love?

I think not.

Speaking of "Wow", that's the name of the haiku that the amazing Gene Colan spouts as he and the Sea Devils escape one of their hourly close-calls.

We got away just
before that ancient ship was
swallowed up again!

Such is the ennobling effect of the Sea Devils on all who surround them, elevating them to the heights of human achievement, including casual haiku in the face of near destruction. What haiku can you compose in honor of the Sea Devils or Gene Colan?

The Inevitability of Vibe

So, for this post, you have my wicked friend Noah Van Google to blame. Noah’s an egger; he’s that kid who never got in trouble in school, but was always egging YOU on to see what would happen. Then when Hilarity/Horror ensued, the teacher turns on you and there sits Van Google, smiling sweetly with a little halo over his head.

So, Van Google recently decided to throw peanuts through the bars of my cage at the digital zoo by pointing out—on my FACEBOOK WALL—that Newsarama recently listed VIBE as Number One on the list of “The 10 WORST Justice League Members of All Time”. Okay, Noah; consider the bear baited.

Now, as long-time readers may remember, I have addressed this very issue when egged on to reply a comment by Steve Englehart listing Vibe as “one of the four worst Leaguers of all time”. So I feel no need to address that specific point further. Heck even, the writer of the offending Newsarama article conceded:

“…there's something charming about Paco Ramone's short-lived existence, whether it was his overconfidence or excitement about being a superhero in the first place. Vibe also has a particularly important place in Justice League history as being the first Leaguer to be killed in the line of duty, launching an unfortunate trend that would continue for a long time afterwards. If only he'd joined up with a different team that dealt with smaller problems, perhaps Vibe would still be with us today, and perhaps he would've evolved into a character people remembered as more than a gimmick gone wrong. Who's for a new Vibe ongoing series in the next round of DC New 52 launches?”

To my ears, that’s pretty much a concession that Vibe is not only NOT number one on the list, but shouldn’t be on the list at all. He certainly doesn’t argue that any of the others characters on the list should be brought back, let alone get their own series!

But I will take it one (or more) step further: I posit that not only will Vibe return in the New52, but that the return of Vibe verges on inevitable. And here are the reasons why…

Vibe is simple.

It's good Paco has a superpowers, because his career as an avant-garde interior designer was going nowhere.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you laughing. I’m not referring to Vibe’s IQ or personality; I am referring to Vibe’s concept. Vibration powers? Got it. While what exactly he can do with such powers is still open to exploration, there’s nothing intrinsically vague about them (as there is about, oh, pretty much every single member of Stormwatch except Midnighter & Apollo, but only because they are Batman & Superman expies). His personality—vivacious, optimistic street kid with a bit of a chip on his shoulder—is also fairly easy to understand, represent, and stomach (when properly portrayed). He’s pretty much a modern version of Robin (with superpowers).

Vibe is colorful.

Even sepia tones cannot dim the glory that is Vibe.

Both literally and figuratively, Vibe is a colorful figure. Now, you can dismiss this as unimportant. But the fact remains that wan and colorless characters simply do not do well in the long-run in comics. You can make fun of the shiny spandex types, but they remain after scads of less vivid—or, as they are so often style, “more realistic”—characters have faded from view. The costume, the dancing, the flair; face it, Vibe is a fun, larger than life character, and those are superhero comics’ stock in trade.

Vibe is a “Latino”.

Who's for a Vibe team-up with Mas y Menos? C'mon, 'fess up...!

I’m not one for ‘ethnic quotas’, certainly, but DC has definitely expressed interest in having their character roster reflect a more modern diversity in (American? World?) society. As a Puerto Rican (not Mexican, I’m always amazed when people get that wrong, including the writer of the aforementioned Newsarama article), Paco Ramone would fit easily into that plan. Certainly much better than that drunken caricature, Yolanda Montez, or that double-mockery, Extrano.

Vibe has a high Q factor.

Shut up, ghetto boy, who cares what you think?!

Like it or not…most people still know who Vibe is (was). Look again at that list on Newsarama. Aztek? Bloodwynd? Faith? Vague, indistinct, and unmemorable. Any time you want to discuss them—as rare as such times must be—you have to explain who they are, and probably have a lot of difficulty doing so. Despite having died years before any of those characters were introduced, Vibe is still known and discussed (for good or for ill). In fact, one of the Abscorbascommandos tells me Vibe will be one of the characters appearing in the upcoming “DC Shorts” as part of Cartoon Network’s “DCAnimated Hour”; I’ll bet you a can of Soder and a Big Belly burger that Aztek, Bloodwynd, and Faith will NOT be.

Vibe stands alone.

Of course, when you stand like that, it's obvious WHY you stand alone.

Much like the cheese, Vibe stands alone. And by that I mean, Vibe’s origin or existence do not hinge upon any other character or event, so he can be reintroduced at any point. This may seem like a small or silly point, but it isn’t. There’s a huge host of DCU characters you cannot say this about (e.g., Blue Beetle, Huntress, Nightwing, Donna Troy, Wally West, the Detroit Steel, the Elongated Man, Bart Allen, Power Girl, Mister Terrific, the Metropolis Steel); because their origins are tied into predecessor heroes or specific events from “the OldDC”, their reintroduction causes immediate problems, questions, or revisions. Vibe could be reintroduced next week as a newly emerging hero being recruited by, well, just about any group in the DC. Other than Stormwatch. Although the idea of Vibe blazing around the gloomy abstraktervolk of Stormwatch is hilarious; it would be like having Lady Gaga crash Dowton Abbey.

Vibe has potential.

That's a fetish for somebody. Um... me, in fact.

There’s lots that can be with Vibe’s power. Although still unique, his power has similarities to Black Canary sonic scream and Flash’s vibratory powers… ones that they have done pretty well with. First of all, his raw power is pretty substantial: the power to use harmonic resonances to shake a building apart, wreck a bridge, or start a tidal wave is overwhelming (though mostly destructive). But readers love imaginative applications of powers (such as the Flash’s use of superspeed to vibration through things or Mera’s recently displayed ability to suck the water out of people who make the mistake of pissing her off) and Vibe is ripe for those (make Vibe as able to sense vibrations as he is able to cause them, and you get a world of possibilities). And as a character (rather than just a superhero) Vibe has great potential as the kind of tough, wisecracking, happy-go-lucky hero that made the Golden Agers such exciting role models.

Vibe is redeemable.

Like a gay Puerto Rican Batman, all he needs to win your heart is time to prepare.

Most of the negative associations with Vibe, face it, have to do with two things: being part of the “non-A list” of the Detroit League and associating him with the breakdancing craze in the 1980s. The first one is easily dismissed—don’t put him in the JLA (at least not right away)—and the other is, frankly, silly and date. I hate to break it to all you dance-haters but… breakdancing may have entered popular consciousness in the 1980s, but it didn’t exactly disappear. Let’s start with Step Up (2006), Step Up 2 (2008), Step Up 3 (2010), and Step Up 4 (2012). Broaden that to Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance?, America’s Best Dance Crew—you yourself may not be part of the dance scene, but I (and the alumni and faculty of Garling’s Greater York Dance Center) can tell you that plenty of people are.

Glory awaits those who redeem him.

I'm gonna do GOOD, Paco! For YOU!

Quick, what is Geoff Johns famous for? And, no, “severed limbs” and “weak endings” don’t count, wise guy. The answer is fixing the unfixable: Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Justice Society. When explaining how Geoff became such a towering figure in current comics, you’re not going to say, “Oh, he wrote this amazing story about X, or used X innovative writing technique”. You’re going to say, “He fixed X, Y, and Z, elegantly and definitively.” Because, while readers do like writers who create great new characters and stories, they like much more writers who make existing characters that readers already know into great characters with story potential—particularly those familiar characters and “guilty pleasures” who have fallen on hard literary times. You can joke about it all you want, Internet: but the writer who pulls it off will have the last laugh... and my thanks and admiration.

52 new New52 Questions

1. Is there still a giant penny? And if so, where did it come from?
2. So … Barbara Gordon became inspired to become Batgirl, did the Batgirl thing, got shot by the Joker, was paralyzed, recovered from paralysis, and has become Batgirl again? Within, what, a span of four years? Busy girl.
3. Speaking of Babs: is she actually Jim’s daughter again? I mean, as opposed to her being his brother’s daughter whom he adopted, or whatever wackiness that was.
4. Oh, and speaking of the Gordons! Does Batgirl have a brother or not? If so, is it Tony or the creepy Jim Junior? Or maybe Chuck Cunningham?
5. Speaking of five year time –lines… . I guess we are supposed to assume Batman flew solo for one year, had Dick as Robin for, oh, two years, followed, by one of Jason, one of Tim, and now Damien? With none of them being trained while the others were active? That’s… rather a stretch. Or, more accurately, a squunch.
6. Joe Chill, in or out?
7. Can Batman’s semen time-travel? Because, by my estimate, if Damien is really supposed to be Bruce’s son, then he was fathered a minimum of three years before Batman’s career began.
8. Has Harvey Dent become Two-Face yet?
9. This would be a perfect time to re-introduce/ re-vamp the Riddler, don’t you think?
10. Since Ayla and Salu are now lovers (again?), is it safe to assume there was never an Ayla Rannz/ Brin Londo romance?
11. Make up your minds, DC: is it Triplicate Girl with the power to triplicate, or is it Duplicate Girl with the power to make multiple duplicates of herself? Because you have shown me BOTH in the New52.
12. Speaking of romances… has Brainiac 5 ever met Supergirl?
13. So, when I read old JLA stories, should I just mentally replace all occurrences of J’onn’s “martian breath” with Victor’s “white noise cannon”?
14. Speaking of JJ in the JLA; JLA seems to suggest he wasn’t and Stormwatch seems to suggest he was. Pick one.
15. I guess there was no JLA Detroit (which is for the best) any more. But that means…. Vibe can show up again, right? Perhaps in JLI?
16. ZOMG, is Starro something that HAS happened or something that WILL happen?
17. Wait, wait; does the mean that there was never a Snapper Carr? Because, you know, that ALONE would justify the reboot. Heck, it even makes up for stuff like Voodoo or Hawk & Dove.
18. So, if Wonder Woman has been fighting World War II or supervillains in the last five years before her current storyline… what HAS she been doing?! Running a boutique?
19. Did Alfred’s father work for Bruce’s family or not?
20. Was there ever an Arthur Junior? I thinking omitting the whole ‘death of Aquababy’ might be for the best, since a strong case could be made that THAT is when DC Comics turned a corner toward darkness that it’s just now recovering from
21. Does Aquaman have any powers we’ve not yet seen him use? Oh, heck , I’ll just come out and ask it: can he throw waterballs like in the Filmation cartoon? I just really want him to have waterballs.
22. I’m not really sure this is a reboot question, but the recent issue where the Navy rescues Aquaman makes me wonder: shouldn’t the Navy have some person delegated as the point of contact with Aquaman? You know, like how Steve Trevor is the POC for Wonder Woman.
23. Speaking of Diana: London? Really? Why? I need a reason for that.
24. So… Flash has acquired HOW many Rogues in the last FIVE years? Things really DO move fast in Central City, don’t they? But surely, not a single ONE of them could have been captured more than once, maybe twice, in that time.
25. My friend Mike the Bartender tells me the identity of Kid Flash in Teen Titans remains a mystery. Surely it CANNOT be Bart, therefore… it’s Wally?
26. I’m a little confused: so, in the last five years, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner ALL became Green Lanterns? Really, really, really FAMOUS Green Lanterns? Shovel faster.
27. Is there a Metamorpho?
28. Will the Phantom Stranger turn up? Strike that. WHEN and WHERE will the Phantom Stranger turn up? Because little things like universal reboots cannot possibleyaffect the Phantom Stranger.
29. Krypto. It’s been set up; when do we see the other shoe drop?
30. So how long before the idea that the first time Batman met the Joker, the Joker was naked with a knife in his teeth gets retconned? Because that is…well, let’s just call it ‘non-iconic’, shall we?
31. We all know something is coming for Captain Marvel, but what about DC’s other main ‘acquired legacy property’: Plastic Man? You know they won’t let him go unused; Earth-2, perhaps?
32. Spectre; Earth-1 or Earth-2?
33. Wait, so if Axel is currently the Trickster, does that mean that James preceded him, became famous/died-reformed/reformed-died, then…. Aw, heck, what’s the story on the Trickster?
34. Now that Wonder Woman can’t fly (again) does she have an invisible plane?
35. How long has the Martian Manhunter been on earth?
36. Is Jaime Reyes the first Blue Beetle? Was there a Ted Kord (let alone a Dan Garrett)?
37. Whoa, wait, is there a Wonder Girl? Was there ever?
38. Where’s Skeets?
39. Forget about Ray Palmer; WHERE IS JEAN LORING OMG SHE COULD BE BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW!!!!!
40. Given that Captain Cold used to use a cold gun and he now is internalizing the power… maybe we can do without Mister Freeze, who always seemed like didn’t fit in in Batman’s world?
41. Is there now—or has there ever been—a JLA headquarters?
42. Etta Candy: next Sensational Character Find of 2013 or Embarrassing and Forgotten Fat Funny Sidekick Never to be Seen Again?
43. Since it seems impossible for there to be a Static without someone mentioning Black Lightning, is there no Black Lightning?
44. How did Deadman get dead again? I mean, how clumsy can you be and still be a circus aerialist?
45. Does the presence of Robotman in My Greatest Adventure mean there was no Doom Patrol? And if there was no Doom Patrol who put Cliff’s brain in a robot?
46. So, if that’s the Shade, with his own miniseries… um. He certainly was never a supervillain fighting Jay Garrick. For that matter, there never was a Jack Knight Starman because there never was a Ted Knight Starman. So the Shade is, essentially, a literary shadow being cast by...nothing?
47. How could Bette Kane possibly have had a past career as Flamebird in the Teen Titans? That’s…. I just don’t see how that could happen.
48. Speaking of sidekicks… Aqualad? Is there/was there one? I’d hate to lose Kalduhr, but it might be worth if there never was a big-headed purple-eyed freak like Garth either….

And now… you get to add four questions of YOUR OWN to make it 52…!!!