Now that we are starting a new post-DiDio era of Hope & Possibility, I want to lay out some of my requests to DC early on in case there is some sort of 'first come, first serve' policy. Again.
High on the list? Stop trying to force us to love the following characters and sell them as the Sensational Character Finds of Insert Year. Because we don't and they aren't.
Captain Atom. I know I have already devoted lots of words to how much I get sick of Captain Atom pushes, but it's still not enough.
Vixen. Look; it's not Vixen's fault that she's a stupid semi-sexist, semi-racist Storm knockoff. But she is.
Luke Fox. Why not give Luke Fox a SON?! And he can be... whatever we need at the moment! They keep throwing that liver against the wall, but it slides down eventually. He works on teevee on Batwoman where he's just Lucius Junior or Sexy Cisco. But stop trying to shove him in a cape. Besides, forget, Luke, what about DUKE? You forgot about Duke, didn't you? Again? DC could make Duke ("The Signal") Thomas work... but they keep turning to Luke instead.
Firefly. Poor man's Heat Wave. That wasn't Firefly's original schtick; the Golden Age firefly was a LIGHTING expert. That's unique. That's challenging. Everybody needs a freeze villain, we all accept that. Everybody does NOT need a fire villain.
Katana. Such a lazy character, literally named after her weapon. Somebody had to remind me today that she was in the Suicide Squad movie, because I'd forgotten. Stop trying to force this colorless Kill Bill reject on us.
Cassandra Cain and Lady Shiva. Martial artist ass-kicking Asian lady. It's trite, it's trope-y. Cassandra had an okay run, but she's just another failed Batgirl-manquee. If they were serious about her, they'd put her in Batwoman's supporting cast. But they aren't. They just gave her a costume and a pathetically lazy codename because they were afraid of fan semi-outrage if she disappear. Or just went to therapy.
Geo-Force. I am not even going to bother to waste any words on this one. It's Geo-Forced.
Deathstroke. Generic evil Captain America mercenary. A one-eyed mercenary; obviously the creation of someone who's never fired a gun. He's colorless at best and absurd at worst. There's a reason Deadpool is a joke, people.
Red Hood. There's a reason people voted to kill off Jason. RESPECT THE VOTERS. Also, stop trying to make 'anti-heroes' work in the DCU. They belong at Marvel.
OMAC. OMAC is stupid. OMAC has always been stupid. I mean, OMAC made a little sense in his original story but...stop making characters that Kirby told a story with into something they aren't. If you have to change the concept so much that all the remains is the look and the name, why bother? Similarly...
The New Gods. Aging Kirby fanboys (creators, mostly), get OVER it. I know you liked his art, so you fell in love with his work before you realized how stupid it was, but he's DEAD now; move on. The New Gods are goofier than pretty much anything else in DC Comics (except the Green Team and Goody Rickles, but guess why THAT is). I am not embarrassed when non-comics fans ask me about things like Grodd, or the Doom Patrol, or Killer Moth. Or even Green Arrow. But the childish fairytale New Gods -- or, rather, the fact that creators insist on taking them deadly seriously -- make me EMBARRASSED to be a comics fan.
Regarding Luke Fox, another excellent alternative would be Charley "Blackwing" Bullock (with a better codename), a character from the Huntress (Helena Wayne) backup series in Wonder Woman, way back when. Not only was he basically already superhero Luke Fox forty years early, but he similarly shares a name with (and thus, by comic book logic, must be closely related to) a major Batman-franchise character who generally doesn't seem to have any family. Make him Harvey's (adopted? mixed-race?) kid, and you've got something that could work.
ReplyDeleteThe Asian fighty-ladies, I also agree are a failed experiment, but I'd also like to see what they could become in the hands of--get this--writers who happen to be women of Asian descent, instead of white dudes who vaguely remember thinking Michelle Yeoh (or whoever the age-relevant reference might be for the writer) was hot.
And much as I loathe the New Gods (except Mister Miracle, who's basically Oliver Twist-meets-Harry Houdini), I do feel like they're "easily" fixed by scrapping all the surface trappings and making them work more like a real-world pantheon of gods (if updated for modern times, hence the name) that generally harass the god-influenced superheroes (Wonder Woman and the Shazam Family, most prominently) instead of irresponsibly aiming them at Superman and the Justice League.
I mean, if you strip out the cannon fodder--the "generals" and civilians who aren't particularly divine--and think about them abstractly, you have a prophet (obviously shouldn't be a god), a psychopomp, and gods of escape, technology, institutional power (particularly orphanages), war, and maybe a couple of others. Without the dead weight, it's not a terrible foundation to build on. It could even be seven-realmsed like everything else magical at DC, echoing the New Genesis/Apokolips division.
And sure, once you remove so much useless material, plus the pseudo-Aztec armor, pudgy faces, and pun names, you're close to starting from scratch, but I can't even imagine the central core that could be used for a new Geo-Force, when even the Black Lightning writers room can't seem to make him interesting with an fairly good young actor in the role. Or Captain Atom, who's painted so far into a corner with bad ideas that every semi-successful attempt to fix him has ended up as a completely different character, like Dr. Manhattan or Breach, and even DC's first version bears little resemblance to the original Charlton character.
Plus, it's either that or admit that the entire Fourth World has just been an elaborate Thor parody that went off the rails. And yes, that's almost precisely what it was (Kirby originally pitched the New Gods as the outcome of a Ragnarok plotline at Marvel that would wipe out Thor and his allies, so he sold it to DC), but after half a century, DC can probably do a bit better...
I have never understood people's fascination with the Kirby Fourth World stuff. Then again, I was born in 1970 and even when I got into DC in 1980 it was all old history to me.
ReplyDeleteI actually think my first introduction to Darkseid was actually a few years later in "The Great Darkness Saga" when at least it felt like they were revisiting this way old thing in DC history.
I would give a month's salary for a three-year hiatus on both the Joker and Harley. I realize the company wants to milk a cash cow, but that cow has long since run as dry and arid as Vince Colletta's pen.
ReplyDeleteYou don't like Captain Atom. You don't like Deathstroke. You don't like Katana. You don't like Geo-Force. IIRC you don't like Halo, Cyborg, Starfire, or Raven. Could it be that maybe you just don't like the Eighties...?
ReplyDeleteWell, Cassandra Cain is my second favorite DC character, so getting rid of her entirely is not going to get me buying more DC comics. You want to jettison something that nobody cares about, try Aquaman or Damien Wayne.
ReplyDeleteThe only way the New Gods make sense to me is if they're characters from morality plays, which I think was a big part of Kirby's original intention (with Billy Graham serving as the inspiration for Glorious Godfrey, for example). Have them operate a bit like "The Phantom Stranger" stories, where there is a normal person caught between evil mystical forces and a mysterious benevolent guy who knows how to rock a fedora. Have Darkseid and his minions try to manipulate people into evil, while the New Gods try to inspire them to do good.
ReplyDeleteCyborg too, right?
ReplyDeleteWhile I pretty much agree with CalvinPitt that Aquaman is useless (I mean, has anyone ever made him work?), I love Damian--especially the too-short arc where Dick subbed for Bruce and we had the great juxtaposition of a light-hearted Batman and a dour Robin.
ReplyDelete"Could it be that maybe you just don't like the Eighties...?"
ReplyDeleteI think it would be more accurate to say that the 80s had phenomena (the Marvelization of the DCU) that I didn't care for. I enjoyed 80s a lot. Too much, I could make the case.
"You want to jettison something that nobody cares about, try Aquaman or Damien Wayne."
ReplyDeleteI'll kindly ignore the Aquaman part cuz that's just silly. But the only reason Damien didn't make the list is...
I forgot about him.
They seem -- for the moment -- to have stop forcing Cyborg down our throats.
ReplyDeleteCybog is currently not The Guy From the Movies; he's the Guy on Doom Patrol.
Dave: from where I sit, Aquaman's biggest problem is that his greatest source of exposure (the JLA) is also the one place on earth where he's only like the sixth most powerful person in the room. Original lineup-wise, he's not as strong as Superman / Wonder Woman / Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern and the Flash have vastly more power. Only Batman doesn't have as many physical abilities, but these days that counts for nothing where Batman is concerned.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you're going to put Aquaman on teams, put him on teams where he's not quite so redundant. Create a team where Aquaman is the powerhouse, Green Arrow is the Bag Of Tricks, Talon (Calvin Rose) is the martial artist / escape artist, and so on. That's what I'd do, anyway.
As for Damien Wayne, I love the little jerk, so DC can keep publishing him all they want. They just need to keep in mind that he's got the overconfidence of childhood, a bad upbringing, and a desire to live up to his more recent good role models; mix those three together and Damien is fine by me.
Regarding Katana, she started out (prior to joining the Outsiders) as a vengeance-seeker whose family had been killed, one of so incredibly many in the 1980s. She had (if you'll pardon the expression) cut herself off from human contact and emotions, becoming a proverbial slashing machine (IIRC Mike W. Barr *usually* dodged the question of whether or not she actually killed anyone). She named herself after her weapon because, in her own eyes, she was no longer anything but a weapon. Until Batman and Halo helped her rediscover her humanity. OSLT.
ReplyDeleteAll New Gods proves is Stan Lee (more as editor than writer I suppose) is why Marvel was successful. Come on. I'd like a Kirby fan to look at the picture of a comatose Black man who dresses like a downhill skier to become the avatar of death and tell me otherwise...
ReplyDelete"There's a reason people voted to kill off Jason. RESPECT THE VOTERS."
ReplyDeleteThat election was a long time ago and many new voters have been born in the interim. You're livin' in the past, Scipio, quit livin' in the past! I mean, within the parameters of specific meaning of the phrase.
;-)
I've been thinking a bit more on the Jason Todd thing and I think I've come to the conclusion that anti-heroes could have a place in the DCU. However, most writers are completely unable to resist the lure of pretending that popular anti-heroes are actually heroes. So, the Red Hood is kind of a viable character until some idiot slaps a bat-logo on his chest and starts inviting him to Manor cookouts to chill, because it makes no sense for him to be "part of the team."
ReplyDeleteThe WB's Arrow does a terrible job with this, too, talking about the ideals of heroism back to back with bringing a bunch of guys whose powers are automatic weapons that they can (and do) murder lots of bad guys with. And nobody in-universe thinks that's at all strange, somehow.
The right relationship, in Jason's case, is to use him to reflect the Gordon-Batman relationship, where Jim appreciates what the vigilantes accomplish, but shouldn't allow himself to get entangled with someone who regularly breaks the law to get those results.
Either that, or retcon Jason's blood-thirsty behavior as undercover work and finally wash the black dye out of his hair after thirty-five years as a symbol of him taking his identity back. Because that PTSD story is a lot more interesting (in a comic book context) than anything Tom King might write.
And yeah, Cybrid's right. That vote is old enough to be raising a kindergartner born after the vote was old enough to rent a car. If the vote had a kid when the vote was old enough to vote, the kid could be a surly teenage sidekick named Jason stealing hubcaps off the Batmobile. It's been a while...