- So please indulge me a little to talk about this:
Flamebird. Yes, well, that's inevitable I suppose. - Bombshell. Interesting! Some sort of legacy character or not...? A teen Bulletgirl, maybe?
- Power Boy. Zowie. Is he legal yet? Just please tell me he's legal... Given the odd strappish thing on his costume, his pose, and his darling little gloves, I'm currently assuming he's a gender-reversed "Power Girl" originally from another Earth.
- Little Barda. Scott and Barda and too young, you'd think, to have a teenage daughter. But with Fourth Worlders, who can tell?
- Miss Martian. I love the idea of spunky little girl Martian; J'onn is so terribly dour. It makes perfect sense that she have her origins in the Martian Manhunter miniseries, but cynics tell me that makes too much sense.
- Mas Y Menos. Hm. Guess that was baby fat.
- Argent. Shoot me now.
- Hot Spot. I remember him from the cartoon, but isn't this his first comic book appearance?
- The Riddler's Daughter and the Joker's Daughter. Hey ... where's the Scarecrone and the beautious Penguin's daughter?
- Talon. Wow. Apparently a male sidekick for the new Batwoman. I find that fascinating.
- Young Frankenstein. Pronounced "Frahkensteen", no doubt.
- Molecule. A junior Atom, but not as small? Priceless.
- Osiris. Of course, when Isis's brother is found, injured and near death, Black Adam saves him by sharing his power, in perfect parallel to how Captain Marvel gave rise to Captain Marvel Junior.
As much as I traditionally can't stand the Teen Titans, I must now acknowledge the truth: the Teen Titans are one of the main things keeping the tradition of teen sidekicks alive in the DCU. If the Titans didn't require such characters, I'm not sure any would currently be being created, and certainly not these folks, most of whom seemed firmly rooted in DC legacies.
Tell us the truth, you just posted this 'cause love love Lorena didn't you?
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall some panel report where Bombshell was mentioned as a counterpart to Captain Atom.
ReplyDeleteHot Spot in the cartoon was adapted from Joto, a member of the Jurgens Teen Titans, which also gave us Argent and the Teen Atom costume that Molecule based his outfit on. It's a pretty safe bet that Joto just changed his codename.
ReplyDeletenotice the hole near the top of the chest of power boy's costume. thought that was a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteHuh. I thought Joto was dead.
ReplyDeleteI'm partial to Young Frankenstein myself. Sorry Brainiac 5! I guess I'm just a Green Queen.
Other than Frankie (mmm, dreamy), Zatara, Osiris and Offspring seem the most interesting to me in terms of new legacy characters.
Actually, Zatara is pretty cute too. I loves me them dorks!
These new (and old) additions also fit in with the whole "Dynastic Centerpiece Model" that you've fleshed out over the past couple of years.
ReplyDeleteCould Power Boy be the baby Power Girl birthed during Zero Hour?
ReplyDeleteMas Y Menos with proportional bodies are simply unappealing. In the cartoon, the fat duo were always visually interesting as tiny, elf-like things buzzing around the others.
Could Young Frankenstein be the traitor, as an agent of SHADE like GM's Frankie?
I have a soft spot in my heart for Argent, probably from when GM used her in the dystopian future JLA of "Rock of Ages."
Who is Mirage, exactly?
So, will Talon be a young, gay Robin?
my bets are on Talon being Jason Todd, if he weren't so busy pretending to be nightwing and talking like Guy Gardner used too.
ReplyDeleteHuh. I thought Joto was dead.
ReplyDeleteHe was, but he pulled a Spock and transferred his life essence into Prism, and she returned it to his hot hot body in the the last issue.
Everyone knows WHY they changed Joto to Hot Spot, right?
So, will Talon be a young, gay Robin?
... skipping the obvious jokes, that would be pretty cool.
Everyone knows WHY they changed Joto to Hot Spot, right?
ReplyDeleteI heard is was because while Joto means heat in Swahili, it means something completly different in Spanish.
"Dang furriners comin' in an' ruinin' our perfectly good international heroes!"
Apropos of nothing, I heard that, knowing a cash cow when he sees one, Mel Brooks is working on a Broadway musicial version of "Young Frankenstein".
ReplyDeleteOh, well. The man is in his 80s. Hopefully he'll pass away before he gets to "Spaceballs".
I can't wait to see like half these guys get limbs ripped asunder when Superboy Prime comes back. I'm hard at work composing a jaunty march about the Bouncing Leg of Argent.
ReplyDeleteWho's Offspring racing with there, by the way?
Offspring is racing his father, Plastic Man.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the point of half of these. Call me a curmudgeon, but ...
ReplyDeleteOffspring is racing his father, Plastic Man.
ReplyDeleteHah, and here I thought Offspring was the Plastic Man-looking guy (who turned out to actually, you know, be Plastic Man). The mask's all wrong, is the thing. He's got a domino mask going on, not the usual big stupid goggles.
Ah, well.
(Full disclosure: I have never read any of the post-Kingdom Come Kingdom Come-related stuff that Johns seems to love so much.)
I don't see the point of half of these. Call me a curmudgeon, but ...
ReplyDeleteLikewise, there's not much of a point to comic books in general, but we love them anyways.
Anyway, in two pages, Johns may have created more new DC characters than have been introduced in a year.
Well, comic books are enjoyable, but kid sidekicks aren't always. I think kid sidekicks are a neat relic, and I love Robin, but I don't see any point to making new ones.
ReplyDeleteAre they really all going to be good characters? Or are they just being created out of a sense of nostalgia? Will they help bring in new readers, or will they convince prospective readers that we're still stuck in the 1940s?
I tend to think that kid sidekicks went out of style for a reason.
Actually, as near as I can tell, the new characters seen in these pages are less "kid sidekicks" to the existing characters they resemble as they are "youthful counterparts". While some of them would seem to be genuine (and in at least one case, literal) offspring of existing characters, there doesn't seem to be any reason to assume that Molecule has even met any of the versions of the Atom that we've seen so far, unless some sort of "interim Atom" will be created to serve as his mentor doing the "lost year" these kids were running around in. Likewise, it's hard to picture Mas y Menos being attached to any of DC's existing speedsters, and come to think of it, so far the Joker's Daughter/Harlequin has never met the Joker (and if she's NOT the Riddler's Daughter, who is, and why would anyone want to be?). I'm just waiting to see if there'll be any attempt to explain Flamebird/Bette Kane's aunt, Kathy (Batwoman) Kane in relation to Talon's apparent mentor, Kate (Batwoman)Kane. Of course, I had also been waiting to see some explanation for why the Angle Man in "Catwoman" was so radically different from(and markedly inferior to) the various versions of Angle Man from "Wonder Woman", and when it finally came, I found it fairly disappointing--about the only thing that would make that concept work is if there's a Bizarro-Zatanna who cast a spell turning a slick con-artist into a dim-witted mayhem artist...
ReplyDelete-Mindbender
Dangit, people, relax and enjoy the craziness!
ReplyDeleteAlso: apparently Power Boy is a post-IC reboot of a pre-Crisis Superboy villain?
You know, speaking of amazing teens, I would love to see a custom Prez Heroclix...
ReplyDelete"I tend to think that kid sidekicks went out of style for a reason"
ReplyDeleteTo this I can only say
Go read Young Avengers!
I suspect that "Mirage" is Gypsy, now with a less ethnic (and arguably better) codename.
ReplyDeleteMirage is one of the Team Titans introduced in the late nineties. She had a crush on Nightwing and had Mystique powers. She assumed Starfire's body and posed nude, which I thought was awesome.
ReplyDeleteBesides the original Titans (and their later replacements), do we really need young heroes like a kid Atom(Silver Age), a Power Boy(who's obviously gay), or an Osiris(yes, we need Osiris)? They reek of throw-away.
And we know who the traitor is. Didio already said in one of those DC Nation bulletins that The Terminator was starting a Titans East with Joker's Daughter in it. Way to go, Didio. You killed both mysteries in that issue.
I will register to vote just to write-in Prez.
I hope Little Barda is Scott and Barda's kid. That would be good.
Captain Marvel Jr. and Osiris were on the team at the same time, I bet. Must have been wild.
Well, apparently several of these characters are in Titans East. Doesn't mean it's one of them; in fact, I'd be surprised if it was.
ReplyDeleteIf Bombshell is connected to Captain Atom, does that mean that Monarch is going to (or has already) drain her energy as his own?
ReplyDeleteYou know, speaking of amazing teens, I would love to see a custom Prez Heroclix...
ReplyDeleteIf you're serious, let's talk!
Tony sez >Are they really all going to be good characters? Or are they just being created out of a sense of nostalgia? Will they help bring in new readers, or will they convince prospective readers that we're still stuck in the 1940s?<
ReplyDeleteFrom here, it looks like a stunt, like the payoff to a bar bet. "What? Inject 25 extra, quasi-plausible, wildly new yet comfortingly familiar, sidekick/counterpart-type characters, in less than 3 pages? Ha! Watch this..."
Hmf.
That's not to say that they can't make it work. Goofier concepts have been made to work, sometimes even on the first try.
Woops, this post is still a month in the past, iznit? Never mind.
"I don't see the point of half of these. "
ReplyDeleteSixteen years later it's clearer than ever: Johns loves "legacy" characters and creates them whether he has an excuse, like all the new sidekicks he's retconned into the Golden Age.