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

I think that Mataza's point is just as a character, Damian is very opinionated and brash, and he's probably the most skilled Robin to date in terms of where he is in his career.

This means that to really nail him as a character, you may need to actively use him more than you would someone like Tim, who was generally more quiet/agreeable (and yes, occasionally to a fault) as Robin. And being unsure of himself was baked into his character, which means he lends himself well to asking questions for exposition purposes. Having Damian fulfill that role you might risk making him come off as too subservient or easy going.

So as a writer who just wants to write Batman, maybe I'd rather have the quiet Robin if I have to use one.

[QUOTE=Godlike13;3684433]You mean Morrison who booted Tim from Robin, and reverted Jason into a balding red head. Ya, there were no complaints there...[/QUOTE]

I think it only worked because of Yost's strong Red Robin run, and then FabNic's decent one.

[QUOTE=Armor of God;3688368]Which refutes Mataza's assertion that a hypothetical Bane story would have Damian stepping in to fight equally with him.[/QUOTE]Not really, since Damian was here not part of the actual story. King took him and the other Robins out of the picture before it really started.

I think they over did it really with Damian's competence, it was better in some stories pre flashpoint were Damian got him self quite occasionally into stuff he wasn't able to handle (like the Zsasz story with Abuse in Streets of Gotham) but in the past years he has turned to much in to a mini-Batgod imo.

[QUOTE=skyvolt2000;3687700]
Tim, Conner, Connor, Bart & Cass SOLD BOOKS as solo stars. You can't justify what was done to them when they moved books.
Most of those Marvel teens are still around. Except for the black males-who seem to all meet the same fate-death.
No one at Marvel will prevent them from being used like we saw with Cass & Steph. [/QUOTE]

Eli Bradley/Patriot for whatever reason is banned from use; there's been rumors from everything to Marvel found him too controversial towards Captain America's original origin to it being because of a dispute with Robert Morales estate.

There's also been rumors Marvel pushed for writers to not use the New X-Men or original Young Avengers in stories, because they wanted to push the new characters or A-Listers. So while yes, you will see Pixie or Hellion in the background; they haven't been developed in years.

Bendis even threatened to kill off Pixie when he was still working at Marvel because fans kept asking for her to be in books.

While Laura Kinney took the Wolverine role for awhile, it was Old Man Logan that got the bigger push from Marvel to be the Logan replacement. She was barely in any of the events or team books, while OML was in several. While she still has a solo series, she is now being demoted to X-23 again.
None of the New X-Men guest starred in Laura's book despite being one of her first friendships. Heck, most of the recaps cut out that time period entirely. Currently Laura's represented as in her 20's, while most of her previous teammates are still being shown in high school. It's like that book didn't even exist.

While African American characters like Synch, do get killed off (despite the original Generation X selling really well in the 90's) characters like Skin (Hispanic), Reptil (Hispanic), Wallflower (female character), and many others have been killed.


While I do agree that Conner, Tim, Cassie, etc. are bigger staples and had successful solo runs (I especially loved Cassandra Cain's Batgirl run and Conner's Superboy in the 90's); both comic book companies are horrible to their teen characters because they see them as less important than the A-listers. Because they were around in the 90's or 2000's, they're doomed to be treated poorly because they weren't the iconic teen team (the New Teen Titans, New Mutants, etc). It doesn't matter if they were successful because writers only seem to care about nostalgia- who was the heroes when they were a child.

I have zero belief that characters like Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, America Chavez, ect. will be any better treated than prior teams. Marvel is already caving to older fan pressure to return to 'the classic heroes'. Sadly in a few years the 'legacy characters' will more than likely- be killed off, forgotten, used as wallpaper for the A-list books, considered 'pitch toxic', or be erased when Marvel inevitably reboots their line.

[QUOTE=Aahz;3688500]Not really, since Damian was here not part of the actual story. King took him and the other Robins out of the picture before it really started.

I think they over did it really with Damian's competence, it was better in some stories pre flashpoint were Damian got him self quite occasionally into stuff he wasn't able to handle (like the Zsasz story with Abuse in Streets of Gotham) but in the past years he has turned to much in to a mini-Batgod imo.[/QUOTE]

Um no, he was part of the story, Batman was even pissed at Bane hanging his son, he got his ass kicked by Bane. He was also in Batman/TMNT 2 where Shredder, Batman and Splinter fought Bane not Damian. The point has been rendered invalid.

The entire Young Justice problem boils down to they were heavy legacy characters that's existence depended on a mature DC universe to exist and it got messy when things went to a status quo.

Tim Drake's problem was relevancy. Someone earlier mentioned it but Dick is iconic and will always be the classic Robin and his role as Nightwing was so popular that he would always be relevant. Jason was the bad boy Robin who died and returned as an anti hero, he's basically dark Dick Grayson and the example of a Batman protege who would kill. Damian is Bruce's son, that's always going to make him relevant to an extant. Tim was basically the Robin who was supposed to be the new Dick Grayson only a little different. He had a family and he was more of a whiz kid. But the whole idea was to get back to a classic Batman and Robin scenario. When Damian became a thing and Tim couldn't hold the role, it was hard to find a niche. He was stuck in this weird thing trying to be another Nightwing.

Wonder Girl has the same problem Donna Troy had. Wonder Woman doesn't work well with a side kick so she just exists in this weird space for legacy titles.

Bart was cool when he was with Wally West, but someday they were going to bring back Barry and Wally was going to struggle to find his own niche and that left Bart even further in the mud.

Here's the thing. They are all good characters but they are all super reliant on being legacy characters and they will always take a back seat to the main hero. And sometimes it's better for Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Flash to all go closer to their initial status quo and trim some unnecessary fat or to progress forward in a way that excludes them from relevancy. The fact that most of them are the third tier legacy heroes behind Dick, Donna, and Wally makes them even more excessive because they weren't the originals and they didn't have that classic Titans run to fall back on and weren't established players for many years (Dick having the whole classic run with Batman as part of the dynamic duo, Wally being Kid Flash for years through some iconic stories).

Superboy's the only one that really makes a whole lot of sense to keep around because the idea of a clone of Superman who is part Clark and part Lex is a cool concept that can stand on it's own and can truly exist supplementary of Superman (IE it's not his ward and not his kid, it's just this additional character that shares his power). That also is helped by there not being another Superboy flying around. He also was the result of a classic story too so he's someone who can always be relevant to the mythos.

[QUOTE=Rise;3684570]You mean how Dick and Damian were the only ones who had roles in his run while the rest were extras? Yeah, he handled them very well.[/QUOTE]

It was like John's Green Lantern where Hal was clearly the star but everyone got their books and moments to shine. What Morrison did opened up a doorway for other characters to have some significant shine without being overshadowed by Bruce. Dick and Damian were the main title, but then you had Babs and Steph in Batgirl doing their own cool thing, Batwoman was getting her footing as a new member of the family and holding her own in Detective Comics and then you had Red Robin which was a cool globetrotting adventure where Tim had some type of purpose. That was probably the strongest the Bat-line was.

Especially since sometimes that line is literally dominated by 3 books that star Bruce.

It wasn't Morrison who give them a chance and he almost destroyed one of them. Some of these characters already have books before Morrison take over Batman.

A poster said that Morrison was able to make the big batfamily work which he didn't. He only used few of them and created more who end up being forgetten and irrelevant.

[QUOTE=KNIGHT OF THE LAKE;3689355] Superboy's the only one that really makes a whole lot of sense to keep around because the idea of a clone of Superman who is part Clark and part Lex is a cool concept that can stand on it's own and can truly exist supplementary of Superman (IE it's not his ward and not his kid, it's just this additional character that shares his power). That also is helped by there not being another Superboy flying around. He also was the result of a classic story too so he's someone who can always be relevant to the mythos. [/QUOTE]

That's an interesting notion, that Conner's ties to Lex sort of bring him up a step from *just* being a Superman legacy, much as Dick's transition to Nightwing kind of 'leveled him up' from just being a Robin, tied to an ageless Batman who is *never* going to retire and hand down the mantle.

I imagine that Wally, Bart, Donna, Garth, Roy, etc. would probably benefit from finding their own niches as well, and getting further away from being 'teen Wonder Woman' or 'teen Flash,' because it's not like Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman or Green Arrow are going to ever be allowed to age out of their current roles.