What happened to the YJ generation? [BYO tinfoil hat]

So ive been going through the new 52 teen titans. My god what a disaster.

Im late to the party but i havent seen it discussed anywhere else on the net (but admitedly i didnt do a throrough search) so i was wondering if anyone could offer an insight into what really happened with the new 52 and this whole generation.

From what i saw ive drawn these conlusions.
They became disposable with the new and DC didnt care about the fans, so they decided to quite simply dump what they considered garbage to make room for other properties. Lodbell was ordered to write them the way he did, to reinvent them like this, so im hesitant to put all the blame on him.

Tim Drake was clearly sidelined to make room for Damian, there is just no other way to look at this. I dont know if it was PR, didio or any of the higher ups. But the character was assassinated in favor of the new Robin. Its amazing how many elements of the character got poached by others and a clear indication that the character became disposable. Dick, Jason, Duke, Harper.

Conner kent just aged Clark. In many ways he was his son. Clark was shown to be a young adult, he was more comfortable with Dick than with Bruce and having Conner around just messed with the whole direction for the character.

Bart Allen. Poor kid, he never had a chance, he just couldnt exist in a world where wally west got reintroduced in his teenage years.

Cassandra Sandsmark. She was just seen as irrelevant to the wonder woman mythos.

In limbo:

Connor Hawke. No idea to be honest, if i had to take a stab at it, they didnt want him to upstage Oliver, also hawke aged him.

Cassandra Cain. Same than with Connor i guess. Tho i believe DC just hates her.

Stephanie Brown. DC just hates her.

There are others of course, tho i really havent read that much of the new 52.

Rebirth brought a lot of it back, but it has felt so half assed. We are 2 years in and we still havent gotten any of them back, even Tim Drake is still being depicted as a naive tech guy, when that was never the character in the old continuity (or maybe only in the eyes of snyder).

So i was interested to know what you guys think, do you believe DC sabotaged these characters, didnt mean any harm and just sidelined them, or they honestly thought they would succeed.

Reminder that they turned them into: a rapist, a mass murderer, a terrorist and a thief.

PS: remember to be nice, this is just another speculation thread.

They keep then around because they have fans and didn't want to lose those readers, but they didn't really know what to do with then, all the "Young Justice" line from the New 52 was a general failure, i don't think that they were sabotaged as much as just an afterthougth in their new universe, after all they couldn't even decide what was canon and what it wasn't.

They destroyed them completely. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but they slaughtered the whole generation.

[IMG]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/b4/a4/34b4a46dd7e9cd11c1a63864fc68f4ce.jpg[/IMG]

With Tim Drake the problem was that it's clear the writers have no idea what to do with him. They've had trouble giving him a defined niche. Dick is the Robin who grew up and became his own man. Jason is the bad boy Robin. Damian is the current Robin. But Tim? Even having him strike out on his own as Red Robin was essentially just a retread of what Wolfman did with Nightwing back in the New Teen Titans era.

As for the others, they kinda got thrown out with the bathwater. Fans hated the darker, grittier new takes on Superboy, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl, but rather than actually fix them, DC thought it was easier to just toss them into limbo. The fact that they had attractive replacements in the forms of Jon Kent and Wally West II (particularly given the TV show synergy) made it even easier to ditch Conner and Bart.

It's DC doing what DC does. When a new direction for a character goes over badly, they blame the characters rather than the writers.

[QUOTE=Holt;3680810]With Tim Drake the problem was that it's clear the writers have no idea what to do with him. They've had trouble giving him a defined niche. Dick is the Robin who grew up and became his own man. Jason is the bad boy Robin. Damian is the current Robin. But Tim? Even having him strike out on his own as Red Robin was essentially just a retread of what Wolfman did with Nightwing back in the New Teen Titans era.

As for the others, they kinda got thrown out with the bathwater. Fans hated the darker, grittier new takes on Superboy, Kid Flash and Wonder Girl, but rather than actually fix them, DC thought it was easier to just toss them into limbo. The fact that they had attractive replacements in the forms of Jon Kent and Wally West II (particularly given the TV show synergy) made it even easier to ditch Conner and Bart.

It's DC doing what DC does. [B]When a new direction for a character goes over badly, they blame the characters rather than the writers.[/QUOTE][/B]
Ain't this the truth.

[QUOTE=shadowsgirl;3680788]They destroyed them completely. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but they slaughtered the whole generation.

[IMG]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/b4/a4/34b4a46dd7e9cd11c1a63864fc68f4ce.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

"Has anyone seen my wallet?" LOL

[QUOTE=Mataza;3680739]

Tim Drake was clearly sidelined to make room for Damian, there is just no other way to look at this. I dont know if it was PR, didio or any of the higher ups. But the character was assassinated in favor of the new Robin. Its amazing how many elements of the character got poached by others and a clear indication that the character became disposable. Dick, Jason, Duke, Harper.

[/QUOTE]

I don't think this was the idea. Besides Tomasi & Gleason's Batman and Robin, Damian was more or less sidelined until Morrison came back to finish his Batman run on Batman, Inc. Snyder was the main writer of Batman, and he never used Damian as Bruce's partner, he only appeared in issue #1 in a party, and in issue #17, when Bruce rescued his allies from Joker. At that time, Damian was murdered, and Batman & Robin turned into Batman and guest star.

Snyder said he didn't want to use him on Batman, because he felt it was wrong having a kid exposed to dangerous situations. Instead, he tried to force Harper Row to be Batman's coolest, smartest and most useful partner. After Damian's death, Snyder also tried to force Duke to be the new Batman's partner, even after Damian came back to life.

All these things also helped to sideline Tim's place in the bat family. Even in Batman & ROBIN Eternal, he was only a secondary character. That series was more like Harper Row Eternal. Damian hasn't been Batman's partner since 2012. There`s no more "Batman & Robin".


About the other characters, maybe these will be SPOILERs for you:

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown have already been reintroduced in Batman Eternal and Batman & Robin Eternal.

Conner, Bart, and Cassie from a possible future, along with their Tim, have also appeared in the story Super Sons of Tomorrow.

There have been some references to Bart in Flash current series -images, statues, flashbacks from Wally-

Green Arrow's writer during Rebirth wanted to reintroduce Connor, but he is now out of the book.

Honestly, the decline of YJ began with some of John's more sketchy decisions when he wrote TT. Lobdell just continued what John's started and put his own unique spin on things.

Tim(and most of the TT)got shafted because of Damian's popularity. Also, it seems like the current writers have no idea what they want to do with Tim.

There is no reason for Kon not to exist with Jon. Jon and Kon having adventures together would be really cool and sell like crazy but writers don't seem to realize it yet.

Bart is probably close to returning, there have been a lot of references to him in the Flash. Could he return after Flash War?

Cassie...excluding the movie, the Wonder Woman franchise is kind of a mess right now. If writers were truly creative, Jason would be her father. That would justify all the focus he's getting right now.

There have been rumors that YJ will be getting a relaunch because of the cartoon coming back but nothing is confirmed.

I don’t think it was intentional. They wanted those characters to be the backbone of a line for them initially.

[QUOTE=king81992;3680947]Honestly, the decline of YJ began with some of John's more sketchy decisions when he wrote TT. Lobdell just continued what John's started and put his own unique spin on things.

Tim(and most of the TT)got shafted because of Damian's popularity. Also, it seems like the current writers have no idea what they want to do with Tim.

There is no reason for Kon not to exist with Jon. Jon and Kon having adventures together would be really cool and sell like crazy but writers don't seem to realize it yet.

Bart is probably close to returning, there have been a lot of references to him in the Flash. Could he return after Flash War?

Cassie...excluding the movie, the Wonder Woman franchise is kind of a mess right now. If writers were truly creative, Jason would be her father. That would justify all the focus he's getting right now.

There have been rumors that YJ will be getting a relaunch because of the cartoon coming back but nothing is confirmed.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, Johns idea into making then more iconic was when their true downfall started, specially because by "iconic" he meaned make then more like their mentors, so we pretty much with Superman lite, Wonder lite, KF generic and Batman from the early 2000s lite :p. Althougth Kon and Tim managed to recover some of their old spark after TT.

[QUOTE=Godlike13;3680972]I don’t think it was intentional. They wanted those characters to be the backbone of a line for them initially.[/QUOTE]

They were intentionally writen as completely different characters tho. So they were merely using their names and fans to push something else.

The olympic athlete, the psycho, etc. Also instead of the fun bunch from YJ or the capable new generation of titans these were a group of misfits with an x-men vibe.

They could have went the way of Wally West, like they did with a lot of characters at that time, but instead they tried to make them fit, and made them the first incarnation of the Teen Titans and the flagship book of an entire line. It was poorly done, and it crashed and burned, but they tried to do something with them and invested an entire line and franchise behind them.

[QUOTE=Godlike13;3681021]They could have went the way of Wally West, like they did with a lot of characters at that time, but instead they tried to make them fit, and made them the first incarnation of the Teen Titans and the flagship book of an entire line. It was poorly done, and it crashed and burned, but they tried to do something with them and invested an entire line and franchise behind them.[/QUOTE]

I dont see how they could have done anything else tho. A mob of angry fans would have burned down DC if they just got rid of them.
What they did wasnt any better, and with the benefit of hindsight fans can see that.

No, I don’t think fans would have. Things with those characters were already bad even before the New 52. What they did might not have worked out better in hindsight, but being given a line and attempting to make them their premier young heros is better then being kicked to the curb. If DC truly saw them as disposable at that time then they would have simply disposed of them. Like they were doing with so many at that time. DC gave them more then the generation above or below them with the New 52.

I liked those characters. Even when they grew up. I liked how they took a darker turn, and everything seemed lost, then a tragedy after another, only to end on a more lighthearted note. Cassandra finally taking a hold of her destiny, Tim coming to terms with the kind of hero he is. Kon growing up, bart becoming more than anyone ever thought he would. Steph maturing, becoming what she always wanted to be, Cass finally finding her way back to the family.

They were in a good place, or about to get there. Then their origins got destroyed, their personalities changed to something anyone that ever read the characters would find disgusting. I dont see how you think this generation got more, sounds to me like they got the shaft and DC was just trying to cash in on their previous established fanbase with something completely different.
We even have a character that literally got the mantle outright retconned from him to make room for another character heavily featured in films and adaptations.

[QUOTE=Mataza;3681182]
We even have a character that literally got the mantle outright retconned from him to make room for another character heavily featured in films and adaptations.[/QUOTE]

Who is that?