Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Three Golden Age DC Characters After Crisis...No More (Spoilers)

rjbrande, i agree for the most part.

Even Didio recently said some characters were redundant. Personally I am not sure why. I don't care for Oliver Queen much but I love Connor Hawke. They can make both camps of fans happy. I like that Connor is a sppt character in Oliver's title, etc.

I am Wally as the Flash. But I also enjoy Jay, etc.

Which is especially funny since they'll publish four or five seperate versions of Clark (Superman) Kent as the title character in any given month, but to publish two comics in which two distinct people use the name "Starman" is just unimaginable.

And personally, Green Arrow is the one character that I'm most surprised has managed to stay around since the 40s. I mean, come on, one guy who fights crime wih a bow and arrow is silly enough... but a whole family of them? Sheesh!

Some thoughts, directed at no-one and everyone:

I think that you can't possibly overestimate the power of fans having an invested interest in a *character*, no matter what the reason is (nostalgia being a prime one). And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. Fresh concepts, stories, characters, etc. are all very healthy, strong things that need to be constantly shot into the arm of any comic book. But for the most part, I think comic book fans buy comics for their characters, especially for the last 40 years. And that's definately not a bad thing.

I certainly don't want anyone else being Spider-Man than Peter Parker. I saw the changes to Conner Hawke and Kyle Raynor as totally unneccessary.

In fact, if you're going to introduce 'fresh blood', why in the world would it be a new person in an old super-hero's guise. That almost certainly makes them little more than a replacement or 'stand-in', with very few exceptions (notably, Wally West). That very status itself pretty much lends to the line of thinking that one day that hero will be killed. I'm amazed Connor Hawke has made it this long.

This whole topic involves a variety of concepts, but to get back to the main point, relating to Alan, Jay, Ted and the Golden Age DCU characters, and the very idea that they retire and move on. I think its extremely easy for a writer to come along and take a 'deconstructinist' approach--in fact, I'd say it doesn't involve much effort or talent. To kill a hero, retire a hero or break a team down to its basics is an elementary form of writing that any of us can do, let alone a paid writer. DnA's blight/widening rifts/first half of Legion Lost were nowhere near genius level because its extremely easy to write those types of stories. Its much harder to build upon new ideas and move forward and expand a universe. They came close to doing this in the end of Legion Lost and the beginning of the new series, but ultimately failed, because essentially its a very difficult task. That's not to say that some death/change/etc. might take place, but the overall idea of an entire generation of heroes moving on seems to be far too editorial and far too much 'the easy way out'.

Truly excellent writing is when a writer can come along and take an existing character in a new direction and explore new ideas with old & new concepts and make it exciting and interesting. As a corrolary, the same holds true for creating new characters. But destroying old ones is easy and I think that's why fans often feel cheated.

Death sells, which is a shame. But I hardly see much of a decision in picking a Golden Age hero with 80+ years of continuity and love of the fans over a hero that's been around for 5 and is little more than a replacement. As if the Wildcat from Infinity, Inc. wouldn't get killed eventually...the very creation of her (and she's only one example) brought a quiet 'wow, sorry to see a Latina (re: rarity at that point in comic books) introduced in this way, since I know that she'll be killed eventually in the next twenty years'...(and she only made it about 10). Too bad DC's 1990's Deconstructionist 'grim 'n gritty' decided to do the same to Dr. Midnight--and kill the original for shits and giggles too.

The best path they could choose would be one that has worked upon occassion in this artform--instead of using death at all as a selling point (whether a character, a concept or an era), use some truly creative writing and sell it that way.

- Cobie (absolutely dreading the next Kyle Raynor that comes along to one of our heroes)

If I were an editor that would be my policy, and I would not hesitate to tell my writers that 'wow, you're story really sucks pal. You expect us to pay you for this?' I'd have a pick of Julie Schwartz for inspiration.

Sad thing is, Yolanda Montez wasn't even supposed to be Wildcat's replacement...she was originally going to be a seperate hero character called "La Garra" (The Claw). Not that it'd have prevented her from getting killed...

Charles McNider got killed in the JSA "retirement" blood bath in Zero Hour, and given the years between that and the darker Matt Wagner Dr. Mid-Nite series (which was originally supposed to be a period piece about McNider), I'm not sure one can lay those events to a master plan or not.

Of course one of the big problems with superhero comics - in terms of the ideas of "retiring" the older guys is that rarely do heroes ever get to retire. Take Roy "The Human Bomb" Lincoln. Powerless and happily retired in the DAMAGE series. Somehow repowered and active in JSA appearances. Then changed up and killed in the retroactively retconned out of existence ENGINEHEAD series, then killed again in IC.

My point is that its very rare for characters to ever get a chance to retire. Seems like people will just keep bringing them back until they're visable enough to be worth killing (but not in trying to give a push as a selling concept of themselves).

To some degree you're right, older characters don't get to retire. Fans won't let go. How heated did things get while Kyle Raynor became GL? Imagine if folks got as vocal when Hal Jordan came along. When DC replaced Barry Allen, there were some upset readers. But they eventually got over it. They did with Jordan after 10yrs.

DC brought Hal back because the writers wanted to, in a big way. And it was a writer they knew had the rep for sales. They brought Ollie Queen back because Kevin Smith wanted to write Ollie not Connor.

It's sort of like Stan Lee put forth, "With Great Power..." Just because you can tell a great story of resurrection doesn't mean you should. DC has mined Hal Jordan tales set prior to present day. Heck, there have been a few Barry tales since his death.

Look at Batman Beyond. It was a hit cartoon, with a new Batman! Fans will approve of replacements, if done well. It's just too often we get knee jerk reactions, ala' Firestorm.

Cobie, you got a lot of great storeies with Hal and Ollie. I'm wanting the same for Kyle and Connor.

Interesting tidbit from the final Crisis Counseling at the NYCC:

"People asked DiDio’s about his dislike for Golden Age characters working in modern times. He did say that there is room to use those characters and tell stories with them. He said there was one in the works that would be used more as a period piece in the past, when the characters would still be young."

The rest can be found at Newsarama