DC Comics General

I'd say they need stronger central editorial direction. If they want to enforce continuity, they need to set parameters and stick to them.

The problem with legacies is they complicate things. Remember, when they updated characters in the Silver Age, those characters weren't technically legacy characters. You didn't need to know who Jay Garrick or Alan Scott were to understand who Barry Allen and Hal Jordan were. It's problematic to require a ton of explanation for who a character is (Wally West is the Flash, but he was the sidekick of Barry Allen, who used to be the Flash, but there was a Flash in the 40's, too, who was Jay Garrick...). As a method of bringing in new readers, I question their value, as everything is going to be new to the new reader; for new readers, it's more important to give them a jumping-on point. This is not to say I'm against legacies, as I'm not, only that they need to be done carefully and thought needs to be put into their implementation. They shouldn't be done as a gimmick to "shake things up."

Edited by Robbery on Sep 9th 2022 at 12:12:57 PM

There's also the simple fact that these characters are far more well-known for their various adaptations than for the comics themselves. People who have never read a comic book in their lives can tell you that Bruce Wayne is Batman, has a Butler named Alfred, shares info with Commissioner Gordon, watched their parents murdered, trained boy sidekick Robin, all of that. If they then pick up a Batman comic, it's because they want to see more of that stuff. So if Bruce Wayne is dead or retired and some rando named Damien is wearing the cape and cowl, how likely are they to stick with it?

Speaking as someone who is equally fond of legacy characters and "bring the predecessor back" stories, the solution to this is to make the adaptations match recent comics more. Want to make a Damian transition work? Greenlight some movies / TV shows / video games with that status quo and time it so that they release and comics with that status quo release around the same time.

Johns’ JSA was such an utter sweet spot, with the eldest generation mentoring the youngest.

So of course Didio dropped the hammer on it because snot nosed teenagers and crusty old people aren’t hip and cool enough.

Was very glad to hear it’s coming back.

As I said, establish some parameters and stick to them. The only way to, for instance, make Damien Batman is to make Damien Batman. That would mean a moratorium on Bruce-Batman stories cross all the media platforms, at least for awhile, until Damien was established as Batman in the public consciousness. They'd need to commit to it.

Problem is, that involves taking a risk, and media corporations are nothing if not risk-averse in regards to their I Ps. To be fair, it is a huge risk with a minimal promise of reward. Just as people who didn't drink Coke got upset when Coke changed their formula, I expect even people who don't read Batman would care if something happened to Bruce Wayne. Go back and read about what happened when DC killed Jason Todd, or rather, Robin. They heard from loads of people who didn't even read the comics who were upset at the change.

Thing is, too, there's no reason the original characters can't remain vital, if writers can resist the urge of writing them into corners, and if editors can keep the writers from writing the characters into corners.

Edited by Robbery on Sep 9th 2022 at 8:24:04 AM

It's very interesting because it has sometimes worked in the past. Jay Garrick has been entirely eclipsed by Barry Allen and (to a lesser extent as adaptations keep sticking with Barry) Wally West. Hank Pym and Scott Lang have pretty much equal claim to the mantle of Ant-Man and for a good while (most of the 90's) Johnny Blaze was in the backburner for Danny Ketch (although the pendulum has since swung back to Blaze the case is also there to be made Blaze and Ketch hold equal claim to the title of Ghost Rider). Ghost Rider himself is also technically a reinvention of the Carter Slade western but I'm not sure that counts.

Edited by Gaon on Sep 9th 2022 at 9:53:31 AM

Green Lantern is a pretty extreme case of legacy characters as there is no less than currently 8 main human Lanterns.

And they have no idea what to do with most of them meaning the Lanterns are constantly fighting each other for screen time all while DC is constantly introducing new Lanterns who will only be relevant for a couple years before they get shunted to he corner.

There is no reason to introduce new characters when you already have a bunch not being used.

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 9th 2022 at 10:07:34 AM

Alan Scott got entirely eclipsed by the reinvention of the concept into Hal Jordan, although Hal himself is funny in that I think he's technically still the name most associated with the mantle but John Stewart likely outstrips him in pop culture because of the JL cartoons.

Hal had his cartoon, and a few animated movies, but the live action bomb killed his momentum, and really damaged the brand.

John is a weird case since his relevance stems majorly from the cartoon.

He's actually a less prominent character in the source material, Hal's stuff aside Guy has the Justice League International, Kyle headlined the Torchbearer era as the main GL for a time, and Alan is one of the stars of the JSA stuff.

John hasn't had the major stuff by comparison. The closest was his Mosaic series but that got canned because the writer was a sexual predator.

Keep in mind the Beware my Power movie which was supposed to be John's big thing, had outright steal Kyle's entire origin for John and then further rip from Hal's own stuff in Sinestro and Emerald Twilight

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 9th 2022 at 10:17:21 AM

Comics-wise I'd argue Hal's greatest rival for the mantle would be Guy Gardner, but he lacks the really mainstream exposure John and Hal had.

He did have a reoccurring role in the Brave and the Bold cartoon at least.

Adaptation coloring source materials is a pretty interesting. Imagine if the DCAU used the Linda Danvers version of Supergirl instead of Kara. That version of Supergirl with little connection to Superman and whose powers involved being an Earth-born angel or whatever.

She gets a bunch of fans from the show and then find out she was only relevant for that one Supergirl run 1996 to 2003. And that creates a larger fandom rivalry between specifically fans who assume Linda is the primary Supergirl and the general Kara from everything else.

Its an interesting idea, do you bring back Linda because of a group of people who grew up off the one TV show?

Mosaic was not cancelled because of Gerard Jones' crimes (and I don't know if any of Jones' crimes had happened yet at that point). According to Cully Hamner, Mosaic was cancelled simply because someone at DC with clout didn't like it. "I was told at the time, it didn’t fit with DC editorial vision (whatever that means). Sales didn’t matter, fan support didn’t matter; the first issue sold about 210,000 copies and my last issue sold about 70,000, so there was plenty of support for the book. It was marked for cancellation when issue #5 came out, and they allowed Gerry Jones a year to wrap it up, but there was no doubt that it was being cancelled because somebody upstairs just didn’t care for it. So, I had a feeling after a while of creatively being against a brick wall, and got out before the end." https://web.archive.org/web/20090804112217/http://www.comicsbulletin.com/features/112569591736650.htm

Or were you referring to current DC's refusal to reprint the book?

FWIW, DC has reprinted Len Wein and Steve Englehart's Green Lantern runs, which were the first to really spotlight John Stewart. Those, Mosaic, and the current Thorne run form a kind of thematic trilogy, so it is weird (albeit understandable) to leave the middle part out of print.

Edited by StarformDCX on Sep 10th 2022 at 8:55:49 AM

In the case of Jay Garrick and Alan Scott, it's important to remember that they hadn't been seen in a couple of years before their replacements were introduced. And then after Barry and Hal had been introduced, those were the versions DC stuck with, even after finding ways to reintroduce Jay and Alan (and Earth-2 in general).

I think the current situation with Green Lantern is problematic, for all the reasons others have mentioned. Now you've got more than a baker's dozen Earth-based, human Green Lanterns, most of whom they just shuffle off into a corner because they can't think of anything to do with them. It's similar to the current situation with Spider-Man, where there are now at least a half-a-dozen characters calling themselves Spider-Man or something derivative; the only really good treatment of that concept was, in my opinion, Into the Spider-Verse (and from what I've heard, No Way Home, but I still haven't seen that one and so can't comment). At least with Green Lantern it makes some kind of sense in that the Green Lanterns are an interstellar corps of heroes, while Spider-Man is a street-level hero—who is now having adventures with supernatural entities and gallivanting across the multiverse with multiple versions of himself. This is not to say you can't do that kind of story with Spider-Man, just that, in my opinion, writers should always be mindful of a character's core concepts.

Comic books have such a small readership as it is, they can't really afford to alienate anyone. And since every character is someone's favorite, every character has to be given some spotlight.

Granted they could just stop making so many new characters

There was no reason to bring in Jo Mullein or Teen Lantern to the main GL title but they did so anyway and everyone got pushed aside again as a result

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 10th 2022 at 10:45:06 AM

I think rebirth played it pretty good. You had the two newbies in their own book and then you had the other 4 in half and pals. Of course its not like new 52 where they all had books even if they were different colors

There was something that once occurred to me and is doing so right now

In the Green Lantern franchise-

If the power of Green (Willpower) is countered by the power of Yellow (Fear) and the power of Red (Rage) is countered by the power of Blue (Hope) (as it was implied by the GLAS), then what about the other Lantern colors of the spectrum?

I mean, it seems pretty obvious that the power of the Black Lanterns (Death) and the power of the White Lanterns (Life) would counter each other in some way or another. The same of which could be said about the powers of Indigo (Compassion) and of Orange (Avarice), respectively, in some way as well. But what about the rest?

What would weaken the power of Fear?

What would weaken the powers of Love (Pink) or of Hope?

And on a similar type of note:

Since it was implied by the GLAS that the Blue Lantern Corps. rings can enhance the power of the Green Lanterns’, through close proximity alone; which pairs of the other Lantern colors would likely have the same type of effect?

I speculate that Fear could be countered by sufficient motivation, so The Power of Love or a strong desire to act on ones hopes could allow the Sapphires and Blue Lanterns to counter Sinesto's corps. The same could be said for the Red rage.

And given the interaction the Blues and Greens have it also makes logical sense that said motivations would translate into enough willpower to brute force through the weakening effects of the yellow light.

as for other ring combos. I'd say Indigo and Purple (Sapphires) might be the closest as certain forms of love and compassion tend to go hand in hand. But I think the other emotions (Fear, Greed, Wrath) don't have any synergy per se.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Sep 10th 2022 at 8:01:27 AM

If they ever try to put Onomotapia in a live action adaptation I want him to be played by Michael Winslow.

Wrath could be fed by fear. It frequently is.

True, but the Reds' particular brand seems more like the kind that fuels vengeance or righteous fury, rather than the kind that would be fueld by fear of the unknown of bigotry (though they might overlap), if anything I would expect a reverse interaction, vengeful people feeding the fear of what happens if they fail in defeated the source of their vengeance. Granted that could create a feedback loop.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Sep 14th 2022 at 3:25:36 AM

It began with death. It will end with life.

We got a first look at the covers for Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. The main cover does a book ends thing where it started with the League in agony with the phrase "Death of the Justice League" in bold, DCOIE #7 has Nightwing in full ascension mode and in bold is the phrase "Dawn of the DCU".

(Ave Nightwing-ia?)

Also, new Dark Crisis one-shot by Mark Waid and Dan Jurgens (and many other writers): Dark Crisis: Big Bang

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Sep 14th 2022 at 7:20:55 AM

DC Celebrates Stan Lee's 100th Birthday With a Massive Special Release

The return of Stan Lee's take on the DC Universe with a 96-page one-shot anthology

Awwww, that's a really sweet tribute! :)