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[QUOTE=Mr. Mastermind;2526717]When sales tanked (purely because Batwing is a new character which means he'll automatically sell poorly), DC took this uniqueness away and made him heavily related to Batman and in Gotham because they thought this might help sales (but comic readers still won't read about a new character).[/QUOTE]
Yeah the change to a more Bat/Gotham-centric book did nothing to improve sales in fact I believe they got worse even. So on top of everything else it was a change that amounted to nothing insofar as the book itself was concerned since the change didn't save it. Mistakes were made on all fronts IMO but the bulk of it boils down to the way the writer handled the transition. Had it been better handled fans of the first series might not have felt like they had been slapped in the face by the change and so they might have stuck around. Hard to say at this point. All I do know is I quite reading it after the change and I don't care about the Luke version at all because of this.
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[QUOTE=jules;2526712]It would have been less of a slap in the face for fans of the original run if they'd relaunched with a new number one.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure that would have helped to be honest since the basic complaint people had was down to how things were handled. What would have helped, in my case anyway, is if the writer had written a better send off for David then what we ended up with. There was literally no reason to tear down everything around David just to put Luke in his place. That could have been handled better IMO.
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[QUOTE=JasonTodd428;2526883]I'm not sure that would have helped to be honest since the basic complaint people had was down to how things were handled. What would have helped, in my case anyway, is if the writer had written a better send off for David then what we ended up with. There was literally no reason to tear down everything around David just to put Luke in his place. That could have been handled better IMO.[/QUOTE]
The best way to have handled the switch would have been to bring Luke to Africa, or David to Gotham, and have them team up and work together for a case or two. Give David a change in circumstances (not necessarily a drastic one) that made him want to put Batwing aside for a while, and have him pass the torch.
It might not have boosted sales, but it'd have been less likely to drive people away.
(I'd still have renumbered at the end of the transition, to mark the new beginning with a new guy in the suit, but DC's decisions about when to renumber and when not to seem entirely random nowadays, unless they happen in tandem with a reset of their universe.)
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Massacre and the Kingdom were good for an arc but couldn't sustain the title. David Zavimbe was boring and Batman interfered too much. The book got better when Luke Fox took over because he was a more dynamic and interesting character from a very compelling family.
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[QUOTE=Koriand'r;2542435]Massacre and the Kingdom were good for an arc but couldn't sustain the title. David Zavimbe was boring and Batman interfered too much. The book got better when Luke Fox took over because he was a more dynamic and interesting character from a very compelling family.[/QUOTE]
I know this is unpopular, but while I don't necessarily think David was boring, I agree with you about Luke. :)
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I think it was one of the best ideas of the entire New 52, but much like the rest of the New 52, it was handled poorly.
And DC didn't promote it nearly eough. I don't recall them promoting it at all. What did they expect?
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If Luke Fox can be upgraded to Batman for a good while, so be it. Have fun with it but make him competent.
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I remember liking the original Batwing, though I always thought the character was an Iron Man ripoff. A point which was hammered home in the animated movie Bad Blood, where Luke's Batwing suits up in the Iron Man gantry.
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I wasn't into comics at the time of the original Batwing, so I know next to nothing about him, but I like Luke Fox. I like him as Batwing though, not sure about the idea of him taking the Batman mantle.
He seems to get placed with Batwoman a bit , the Bad Blood film, and in 'Tec he was more friends with Kate than Bruce (they socialised as friends, like the basketball match, and messing around in the lab), and joined Batwoman's side instead of Batman's during the temporary split. He's also going to be in the Batwoman TV series. I see him as more a part of Batwoman's cast than Batman's now.
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He was never really ever part of Batman’s cast.
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The Congo setting is interesting, but since I prioritize starting with the main heroes and main story that encompasses the whole DCU, as in, I started with Justice League then spread out from there, to the head of the family titles and then family title, that means the Batman of Africa is at the very bottom of my Batman Family list and I never actually got to it.
...but I don't make that decision on my own. The way DC market their book and tell their story, they give the impression that you have to read it the way I do. They make Justice League central to the story and the other books have a hierarchy where there's a central book that affects the others, but not the other way around. I saw Batman story affecting the family stories, including Batwing, but not the other way around, so that's how I choose which one is more important, especially with limited income.
Of course, there's familiarity too. I pick Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl first because I'm already familiar with them, in addition to the fact that they're all in Gotham, knowing that they'll gonna be involved in whatever's happening in Batman, the clearly more important book, more often than someone in Congo.
I don't know if Batwing's actually good or not, but as long as DC's marketing gives a clear impression on which books are more important than others, people, unless they're already a fan, will gravitate towards that.
Currently what seems important are Snyder's book, King's book, and Bendis book. All the others are optional.
Of course, what authors choose which character to portray affect this. Snyder, for example, pushes Duke Thomas really hard, so he gets more attention than Luke. They're gonna have to want to push Luke that hard to give the same impression.
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[QUOTE=LifeIsILL;2525503]It just felt like some Black Panther ripoff....only nowhere near as good.[/QUOTE]
you have to know that's a lazy comparison. literally the only similarities they had were they are African and superheroes.
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the problem with Batwing boils down to this, David Zavimbe was a great idea and having an agent of Batman working in African was a intriguing concept; the issue is no one in DC knew how to write an African book. they got a few awesome ideas out there with the Kingdom and Massacre, but you see in the way that they were using the characters from the Kingdom that they were stretching themselves creatively. They didn't know how to write Africa or authentic-feeling African culture or characters, and instead of doing better they opted to pivot to a more culturally familiar take that was lacking in a distinct voice and personality compared to the series before it, despite the former failing its premise. I read both after the series ended and (at the time) enjoyed them but I can not for the life of me remember anything distinct happening to Luke because, in hindsight, while he was a "funner" character he was basically War Machine but somehow with less individuality. I will give Luke this, his family gave him [I]sooome[/I] nice character moments but they weren't anything that any character (David included) wouldn't be able to pull off in a similar-sized cast dynamic. i like Luke enough, his suit is one of my favorite Bat-suits, but imo the book had a niche audience that [i][b]could[/b][/i] have grown with better storytelling and some research but DC doomed it with a lazy gimmick by pivoting. ultimately the only thing they did was **** up two characters and relegate them to the limbo once they had another black face to fill their gap. I just hope Duke fares better over time, but they are fucking with him too. it could be going down like Batwing for Duke, and then where will we be at? we had David Zavimbe as Batwing the African Batman, we had Luke Fox as Batwing the "War Machine" Batman, and Duke Thomas as the Signal the teen daytime Batman. next we'll get Davis Williams-Wayne, Bruce's secret black distant cousin who he adopts and makes into Batmobile, the black teen Batman that rocket skates at dusk...for justice!
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David was a much better idea.
Luke Fox....not so much.
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If the Batwoman tv series does well, and in season 2 or 3 Luke gets to suit-up as Batwing, the character should become more popular.
Can't happen in season 1 of course, interviews with producers confirmed Batwoman fights alone in the first season.