DC Comics General

over in alan scotts comic they explained the red lantern and his energys relation to the starheart basically while the part of the starheart went out exploring there was a part that was isolated from the rest and got angry from being so lonely and followed the meteor that became alan's lantern to earth. the starhearts energies can be used like the emotional spectrum, which the starheart confirms to alan, but then we see that russia had created the crimson host their own red lantern corps of sort by using the red flame they had taken from johnny/vladamir and giving it to others before it went back and revived vladamir

Edited by Deadpoolrocks on Mar 29th 2024 at 1:09:48 AM

That's as weird as I expect such a story to be.

Yeah but the Tom King Mister Miracle was a prime example of everything this thread has been criticizing. It only really cared about the Apokolips or Apokolips-adjacent characters and wrote them as cool and oddly likable while treating New Genesis as a bunch of stuck-up assholes.

That one's arguably the worst example of this kind of thing because a big theme of that story seems to King acting like he's the only one fulfilling Jack Kirby's wishes and treating his New Gods creations with respect, yet most of his story seems to consist of shitting on Kirby's writing and characters.

It is true that the New Genesis guys aren't as 'cool' as the Apokolips guys, but the issue is that the writers haven't tried to rehabilitate the former so they become as cool as the latter, they have just given up on them.

DC cause it wants that big interconnected universe kinda has a problem with new characters/ old characters where you get the redundancy problem

"Why should i care about the New Gods when I can have the JL fighting Darkseid and co!"

The Villain Turnover rate is just easier then devoting alot of time and effort for characters who the next writer can easily screw up cause well a multitude of factors

all it takes is a writer with an agenda -Young justice dark crisis- or DC pulling a Bendis where they pretty much throw everything everybody else was doing under the bus just so they can give their next big name writer carte blanche over the section and Boom the previous writers hard work goes out the window cause DC always learns the wrong lesson

You also have the premise, The New Gods are suppose to be a glorious space opera/ odyssey, Not Heroes fighting villains in a home city 'DC's comfort zone' supposedly taking place in the future cause all the old gods are dead.

Also, New Genesis being positioned as the Big Good of this cosmic conflict puts them in the same boat as the Guardians of the Universe: if they're not either ineffectual or corrupt (or both), then they need to be destroyed, so that our heroes can (a) be underdogs who have to deal with everything on their own, and (b) demonstrate that Cool People Rebel Against Authority.

I was never really into the New Gods and find Darkseid kinda boring as a result.

Honestly part of me increasingly feels like making the New Gods part of the main DCU instead of some kind of elseworld like what was done with Kamandi was a mistake. I feel like they just don't fit especially great into the wider DCU, and Darkseid only manages to make it work by being simplified into a cosmic warlord kind of character. Same as how trying to keep the Legion of Superheroes part of the mainline DCU and not just another universe led to that franchise's fallen state of gnarled continuity and constant reboots.

And yeah the redundancy thing is a major problem too. Good writers tend to find ways to avoid it or even make it work, often by reworking characters so they each have their own little niche; see Batgirl where they keep all three notable Batgirls around and distinct by leaning into their own unique qualities (Steph as Spoiler, Cass as Batgirl/Black Bat, Barbara as Oracle). Bad writers just keep piling on more and more interchangeable characters.

I agree, esp in light of the aforementioned tendency mentioned . It's far to easy to fall into the trap of wording the actual Archenemies so that they could then be worfed to hype up the Trinity.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Mar 29th 2024 at 9:38:21 AM

The thing is, Kirby didn't mean for the whole New Gods/Apokolips conflict to go on forever. He meant it to have an end. And he did give it an end, of sorts, with the Hunger Dogs graphic novel.

DC, though, continues to prefer to use Darkseid and Apokolips as cosmic-level villains; can't really blame them, because they're really good for that. It just leaves them without much use for the New Gods.

The ironic thing about that is that DC have plenty of other cosmic villains who could be used for those kind of roles without all the baggage attached to Darkseid and Apokolips. Like, if we're really honest, what's the point of using Darkseid when we've got Mongul or Anti-Monitor or any number of other cosmic villains.

Some days you wonder if the Shared Universe was a good idea and if DC should have kept their characters in their own separate universes.

Maybe have each run be its' own universe too, but that's more extreme.

People love crossovers, crossoves print money. The Shared Universe was just the logical extreme of that. And an inevitability.

But that doesn't mean everything DC (or marvel) makes has to take place there. Some ideas could stand to be sequestered to a different setting away from the metas. The Forth World could be one of those ideas.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Mar 29th 2024 at 10:17:52 AM

Though the Fourth World was introduced in the pages of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.

DC being a shared universe is perfectly fine and works wonders. I think the trick is just recognizing which characters and franchises should be made a part of that shared universe and which should be left in their own little worlds.

Aquaman pretty easily slots into his own little world cause he lives under the sea and thus doesn't interact with anyone else 90% of the time.

That will never not be insane to me.

Its two way street it has strengths and weaknesses

Some stories like Batman beyond and Legion pretty much Need to be in their own continuity cause trying to make the effects of the past effect a story set in the future can lead to well

DC's problem is sometimes they are way too quick to shove a book into their over convoluted year long story arcs that just derail any story in the book going on.

I forget but there was one New 52 book that basically had like four issues of its 10 issue run devoted to itself and the rest were just crossovers to promote other stories in other books.

The glut of constant crisis crossovers has been an issue for a long time now.

Obviously there's a simple solution.

Cancel everything and replace it with one big book called The DCU.

It's what DC wants, why bother to complain?

Edited by kkhohoho on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:24:32 AM

You're joking but honestly the idea of having one "main" big DC book where all the big deal shit happens with everything else as more low-scale spin-offs isn't a terrible one. Make it kinda like Grant Morrison and Mark Waid envisioned the Justice League in their runs; as the team book where all the big epics happen while their own books are more chill and character focused.

It also brings to mind the 52 book which was a massive setpiece of multiple storylines with different creative teams all working on it.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 29th 2024 at 3:27:54 AM

That could work, at least it would avoid Red Skies Crossover.

Consider Transtech over at Transformers. There's a giant cosmic monster eating universes. The hyper advanced Transtech transformers band together and negate it. Little do they know it's still alive and eating the barbary worlds. From their perspective the day is won and none else is needed of them. Oops! Well they aren't omniscient and still did more help than harm. The heroes don't have to fight The Big Bad every time either. All the big bad has to do is cause a conflict. The New Gods can fight the big bad sometimes, off panel even, and that in of itself can be justification for Superman "only" needing to face The Quirky Mini Boss Squad, the Elite Four, The Co-Dragons, The Brute, The Evil Counterpart, The Shadow Archetype, The Foil or what have you. Hell, that can be the justification for a Generic Doomsday Villain; it's just a symptom of something larger. Let his conflict, the league's conflict even, be a microcosm of a larger one. Or maybe there's just a cosmic storm brewing and The New Gods can't handle it because New Genesis just fended one off and is currently rebuilding. They can give the mortals advice about how to weather it, however. The New Gods can be an active force in the setting without stepping on everyone else's toes or being knocked down to make everyone else look good.

Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on Mar 30th 2024 at 2:52:42 PM

As a fellow Transformers fan, that's a great comparison and how it should work.