DC Comics General

TIL the second Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch, is Scottish. I always thought he was Irish.

When Grant Morrison (who created Mc Culloch) writes him, he’s very, very Scottish.

Here's our solicits for June

Woooo Rafa Sandoval is drawing all 6 parts of House of Brainiac!

Fucking baller to have a single artist drawing a whole event story.

Grant is Scottish themselves, so they know how to write the accent. Unfortunately, quite a few American or British writers can't be arsed to imitate the accent in their writing of the character, or even mix it up with Irish.

Like with dialect, accents can be very hard to successfully imitate in writing, even for writers intimately familiar with them. Unless done just right, the result can be unintentionally insulting. Even when done right, they can also be distracting to the reader.

Wait, shouldn't it be themself, since Grant Morrison is one person?

Like, not shaming, I'm genuinely confused.

We need better pronouns for this kind of thing. Like how Order of The Stick fans say "v" in place of "she" or "he". Them should probably just be a plural regardless, with a gender neutral singular. "V" could at least spread to comic book fans, because V for Vendetta.

Also, quick question, to set up some more. Whose book does Neron originate from?

Created for the Underworld Unleashed crossover by Mark Waid and Howard Porter. The DC Wiki has him appearing first in Manhunter, but that was only a month before the crossover so it’d be setup for it.

I'll be getting to it, but first, I'd like to establish that in my opinion Neron was a better character to kill Wonder Woman than Doomsday Superman. The way Doomsday was treated, definitely not the way it/he was written but treated, presented, was better.

Neron right off the bat had personality, history, motivation, explanation to be understood by the reader. He was a better conceived character in a better written story. His big moment though, killing Mongul, it wasn't that impressive. This wasn't the Pre-Crisis Mongul who was stronger than Superman, had a giant space base Superman and Supergirl had to work together to defeat and left the latter stranded as a parting shot in defeat. This was wimpy post-crisis Mongul. Still, there's plenty of time for things to go up for Neron, serial escalation and all that, but then he gets beaten by The Flash. Not without some considerable effort, but Neron is ultimately beaten, not only that, he's humiliated. Here's the next question. Does he ever get revenge on Wally West?

Following his lost to Wally West Flash and...I think his girlfriend, Iris, his loses to a runner and a civilian, Neron butts in during a fight between Wonder Woman and Requiem, killing the former before being driven off by the latter with a piece of silver. So there's Neron's big moment! He killed one of DC's big three...except Diana was explicitly cursed at that point have her strength siphoned off by Artemis. This suggests that if Artemis wasn't around Diana would have at least survived the parting shot, much like Supergirl survived the more powerful Mongul's back in the day. It doesn't make as much of a statement as, say, Superman giving his life to kill Doomsday. Going forward Neron doesn't even have much role in Wonder Woman or Requiem's stories. Artemis was well into her demon hunting career when Neron barged into her life and killed her rival. That would seem like the start of quite the feud but I honestly can't remember what Neron did in any Wonder Woman or related books after that! Does Neron even get his sworn revenge on Wally West?

Its always a joy reading a new thing shitting on Bendis' terrible Legion fat and this is a new bit I found on his Legion's page

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 16th 2024 at 1:28:28 AM

That Bendis Legion run still pisses me off so much. The Legion are one of my favorite DC teams and the fact that their first chance at a big revival in years got squandered because of getting handed to Bendis is infuriating. Furthermore, Bendis' decisions and writing were so terrible that it genuinely makes me question his sanity, like making the Ranzz twins black and giving them a mega-stereotypical backstory or "I LOVE MY GRANDBABIES" Lor-Zod. Even more annoying is that it wasted Ryan Sook's incredible art and amazing designs.

Still praying for the day Johnathan Hickman comes to DC and does a Legion run.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 16th 2024 at 2:56:49 AM

@Indirect Active Transport:

Neron first appeared in Underworld Unleashed #1, so, while he's appeared elsewhere, I expect he was initially created expressly for that event.

Yeah, Dawnstar's name was just supposed to be Dawnstar.

Edited by Robbery on Mar 16th 2024 at 3:28:37 AM

At least establish she hails from a specific tribe, instead of just "Native American".

But no just give her a last name despite Dawnstar being the type of name that makes having a simple last name like Gr'ell sound.

Like Dawnstar doesn't even have that alien apostrophe in her own name, why would her last name have it?

[1]

changing the Lightning kids ethnicity wouldn't have bothered me at all... but then Bendis went with and they come from the "EVERY stereotype about Black inner city kids you can think of" planet

like... why just why?

I mean I get wanting to racial diversify the Legion I get that

but why is it that when Writer try this they always tack on the stereotypes...

ughh atleast Bendis didn't have Dawnstar's family owning a casino ...Right?

Bendis just wanted to change everything to suit his vision. He wanted to leave his mark and become the architect of a new era.

Its why so much of Legion is changed to whatever ideas he had. What made it worse is its clear that Bendis had no prior love for the Legion brand. You can tell how much Bendis loves or is familiar with a series by how much he changes them, and looking at his Legion its evident he had no familiarity at all with them.

His treatment of Lighting Lad and Saturn Girl's relationship is especially evident, erasing the most longstanding Legion romance just so Saturn Girl can date Jon. Which wound up being a boneheaded move as Lightning Lad's racelift gave the erasure of his marriage to Saturn Girl some horrible optics.

If he wanted to use some Africa-American Legionnaires, he could have utilized one or all of the already existing ones, like Tyroc, Computo, the second Invisible Kid, or Kid Quantum (especially Kid Quantum, who I always thought was cool)—or created a new one, or several. If I remember correctly, the decision to make Lightning Lad black was a last minute one, as DC had already shown Sook's designs for a white Lightning Lad.

Edited by Robbery on Mar 16th 2024 at 11:17:33 AM

It's Linda, not Iris.

As for Neron, I don't see why he has to get revenge on Wally. If villains held a grudge over every hero who beat them, there subsequent appearances would all devolve into petty grudges against said heroes, which would make them look even more pathetic. Neron is a villain. His role is to lose.

As for Dawnstar, I never got why she wasn't just made a photokinetic. As far as I am aware, no other Legionnaire has this power and it would be more useful than flight (a redundant power in a series where everyone can fly) or long-range tracking (which is way to stereotypical for Native American characters).

Edited by windleopard on Mar 16th 2024 at 7:49:08 PM

What's even more absurd is that the same run does do a few Race Lift like that that don't have the problems the Ranzz twins do, like making Ferro Lad black (which is what he was originally supposed to be). It makes him turning the Ranzzes into walking cartoon stereotypes even worse.

That's the conclusion I drew too. It's obvious Bendis didn't want to actually use any of the pre-established aspects of Legion lore; he wanted to make something entirely new from the same premise.

Being basically made to be nice and save lives would probably have been a lot of humiliation for such a devil. Must have left him sore for a while.

Bendis was left on his own, wasn't he? It would explain why no one told him how bad the optics were.

Yeah DiDio reportedly gave Bendis free reign to do whatever he pleased on any book he wrote. Which is what DiDio did with everyone he personally liked.

Bendis stuck me as a mid writer that got lucky with Ultimate Spider Man and coasted on the reputation TBH.

Like I assume DC hired him in the he vainglorious hope of capturing lightning in a bottle again by making one of their books the next USM, namely one of their Flagships (Superman). Failed when the lightning inevitably missed and we are left with the consequences. (well some of them, I'm pretty sure Bendis Legion was thrown into discontinuity even in spite of DC's recent "everything is Canon" attitude)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Mar 17th 2024 at 9:47:20 AM

Didio basically let Bendis do whatever he wanted on the hopes of recapturing his success with Marvel in the 2000s and with Miles Morales. Didio went fucking overboard on this giving him Superman, Action Comics, and a whole-ass imprint

Unfortunately Bendis by this point's skills has long since degraded so everything he wrote was a meandering slog with even worse Bendis-speak than usual. I'm reminded of this scene in Checkmate where he devoted an entire 2 pages to having all the characters talk about hotdogs.

Its especially clear that other than Jon the only Legion characters he cared about was the ones he created. He tried so hard to make Gold Lantern but because of his incompetent writing he completely botched the character and made him a loser.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 17th 2024 at 9:59:23 AM

The Gold Lantern thing was so bizarre. It was literally Poochie from Simpsons except played completely straight.

Many writers make that mistake. "Look at my super cool OC, so much better than all those worn out old characters"