DC Comics General

All disintegration-based fates should have an in-built teleportation handwave

Re: Johns and minority characters: while he's usually associated with the return to Silver Age characters (who are usually overwhelmingly white), he did also create Simon Baz, and he’s of Lebanese descent himself, so he tends to be somewhat even-handed with characters of Middle East descent, though other writers usually cock it up.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Eh, I dunno if I'd count Simon Baz as a positive.

My various fanfics.

Johns is Lebanese? Interesting! Never knew that!

I believe he's half-Lebanese, if Wikipedia is an accurate source on things. Grew up in Detroit, which also influenced a lot of the designs for Keystone City in his Flash run, and even Wally himself becoming more of a blue-collar superhero than he'd been previously.

edited 3rd Jul '16 8:43:01 AM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

On the one hand, I think Johns was trying to create this three-dimensional character who didn't want to solely rely on his Green Lantern ring and had problems with prejudice and so on. On the other hand, this turned out to be, "Oh, so the only Muslim character is actually an ex-criminal who carries a gun, okay."

Compare him that to Kamala Khan, who is a teenage girl who writes fanfiction, and you get a pretty weird dichotomy.

I think Johns did a little better with Jessica Cruz, since I don't think we've had a superhero who suffers from anxiety like that before.

edited 3rd Jul '16 10:19:38 AM by alliterator

Wait a minute; Jessica Cruz? She's not related to Ted Cruz by any chance, is she? Because that would be all sorts of arguably somewhat uncomfortable awkwardness...

edited 3rd Jul '16 11:20:34 AM by kkhohoho

Well, she's not a blobfish, so no.

Yeah, it was kind of a 'try to shoot for the stars only to shoot yourself in the foot' moment.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

And seeing as Simon carries a gun, that might actually have been possible.

I saw a comment somewhere ( I believe it was io9) that argued that this would have come across better if the villain wasn't Dr. Manhattan but a cult who worshipped him and did terrible things in his name. I personally think that idea would have worked better

I've mentioned it a few times on Reddit, Ms. Marvel is a fully-fleshed and realized character who is also of the Islamic faith. Simon Baz happened because someone was told to draw "Muslim-Man" and then some Green Lantern bullshit was hotglued onto him.

My various fanfics.

It doesn't help that its only now that Simon is truly the star of his own comic. Hopefully he becomes a better character, sharing the spotlight with Cruz.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Some even suspect he and Jessica might show up in the movies due to Johns' involvement. I'm okay with Simon and Jessica getting a push but I wish it didn't come at the cost of John and Kyle.

It also helps that Ms. Marvel was created by two Muslim women, one of whom is Pakistani-American, and thus was able to make the comic super accurate.

Geoff Johns is great at creating characters that play to his strengths, but "Muslim ex-criminal who carries a gun" isn't one of them.

edited 3rd Jul '16 12:39:08 PM by alliterator

I don't think that would happen, if nothing else but for brand recognition. Simon and Jessica have been around a comparatively short time in comics compared to Kyle or John, so they're much more likely to be chosen by Warner Bros than a couple of (by now) kinda financially unproven heroes.

Same reason a Ms. Marvel movie is kind of a shot in the dark.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Actually, not really. The MCU tends to take a lot more from recent comics (The Winter Soldier, Civil War), although newer characters tend to show up more on television (Jessica Jones, Quake). The fact that Ms. Marvel is so popular a comic, however, could make them introduce her in either the Captain Marvel movie or the Inhumans movie (whenever it comes out) before spinning her off.

In fact, I could totally see them making Kamala the POV character for the Inhumans movie, since she's a new Inhuman and would need everything explained to her.

edited 3rd Jul '16 1:00:34 PM by alliterator

Hal meanwhile, can rot in hell.

I know that's not what you meant, but considering all the chances Hal's had, it's fair to push John and Kyle.

One Strip! One Strip!

That second one would involve a Marvel movie in which The Girl is the main character and it isn't explicitly advertised on the poster. I'd like to see that before I believe it

edited 3rd Jul '16 1:06:34 PM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Despite having pretty much nothing on this fifth week in the month, DC did pretty alright. Rebirth looks to have worked because no one looks like they'll need to return the comics. Johns won't need to pay people!

I believe those two charted this week because they were reprinted, because the stores didn't order enough copies initially.

I mean, I'm glad they charted, because Batman: Rebirth was definitely one of the best of the Rebirth issues. Basically, in my opinion, they go:

• Batman
• Detective Comics
• Superman
• Action Comics
• Green Arrow
• Green Lanterns
• Wonder Woman
• Titans
• The Flash

None of them have been bad per se, but the ones on the lower end of the list, not much actually happened in their Rebirth issues. Wonder Woman is down there because, basically, her Rebirth issue was just "My continuity is all screwy, dammit." Her first issue of the relaunch was much better, because more stuff happened.

Going back to Sandman, my problem is that Neil Gaiman never tries to explain how the Endless fit into the already established cosmology of the DC Universe. OK Neil, we get it, Death of the Endless is Death...but please explain where the Black Race, the Black Flash and Nekron fit in. This is what you should do if you want them to fit into the same universe

IIRC, the Black Flash was introduced long after Death of the Endless. It fell on Mark Waid to explain him, not on Gaiman.

Nekron, I think, was supposed to be not an incarnation of Death itself but a ruler of a section of the afterlife. Kind of like a Hades, not a Thanatos.

The Black Flash is the universe deciding it was unfair that speedsters get to live forever and so appointing a Black Flash to kill them.

At least until The Flash: Rebirth where...fuck, I don't even want to explain that.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

BC on The Flintstones.