Pro/Con Workshop Poll

[CRaymond]

Does robin need fixing?

My whole deal with Robin is that "Robin" isn't a character identity so much as a role that serves Batman. Whereas other characters can temporarily take on the role of "Batman", it always returns to Bruce Wayne. Robin is a transitional role for a young hero to move on from... resulting in ever-increasing redundancy rather than uniqueness. Dick Grayson successfully becomes Nightwing, Jason Todd eventually becomes Red Hood(bad name), Tim Drake, Red Robin(?) is currently in limbo. And what does Damian Wayne have to look forward to once a writer decides he wants to come up with a newer better Robin?

IF Robin is just a role, I felt the We Are Robin title was genius. Everyone young becomes Robin. Everyone works to fight crime as a grassroots movement. Sadly, it fell apart before making any real waves in the Batcave.

If were up to me, Dick Grayson would never have retired the name Robin, and rather had the name mature along with him. Subsequent sidekicks of Batman would've taken on other names that they could own and mature with as well. We never would've gotten We Are Robin, but that's ok. We would've had something else.

[skyvolt2000]

But he's not writing them, I mean by that logic we should blame Kane and Finger for the choices other writers have made for Batman. Johns doesn't own that.

But Johns started it.

There are 6 Earth based Lanterns not 6 Batmans nor 6 Supermans.

Lanterns is about to be a team not one guy. His pets were created to replace a certain one until another writer refused to do it. So now we have 6 with 3 getting more page time at the expense of the other 3. Thus hello lower sales for Hal's book because those other fans of lanterns are not settling on background fodder or limited page appearances. Along with a bad writer whose build up is never worth the payoff.

So yeah he's to blame for something everyone else saw was going to be a struggle miles away. And he will keep the blame until he gets a writer who understand ensemble cast not praise to one guy.


Who else needs to be fixed

Firestorm

It was DIRTY to get Ronnie's creator to get rid of Jason-who he thought was created in the 90s. Like we can't have two Firestorms? Age Ronnie to his right age with Dick & Wally & Titans and have Jason with Tim's crowd.

[Ascended]

Of those 3, my Hawkpeople concept is probably the least offensive to nostalgia.

Hit it. I want to see what you got.

Love me some Hawk people, and Thanagar, Nth Metal (well, I dunno about it post-Metal), and the reincarnation thing....I basically love everything about the Hawks except for the execution, and I got a few ideas of my own. Would love to hear yours.

As for legacies......great idea, used too often, usually for characters who end up being thrown away (or as good as). This is a powerful tool in DC's arsenal, arguably their strongest (other than the Trinity of course) but they use it way, way, way too much, it ill effect.

Robins.....we have way too many Bat-sidekicks. I have no major issue with Duke, since the guy has found a solid niche (about time Bruce hired a meta), and I think using Detective as a catch-all for the various, otherwise-homeless characters (Tim, Steph, Cass, Batwing, Azreal, etc), was utter brilliance. But I dont think these Gotham Knights are viable long term as it currently stands. Perhaps they could be the new "Batman Inc" type team and expand beyond Gotham?

Firestorm could use some love. Like the Hawks, I have some ideas....but they'd piss off just about everyone here and require giving the IP a reboot. That's how broken I think the property is; it actually needs to be started over from the ground up. And I usually despise reboots just on principal.

Emotional spectrum? Solid idea that added nicely to the mythos, but it's been overused and poorly developed, and consumed the GL line for years, overstaying its welcome. Keep it around, but dont make it a focus anymore. Put Guy back in Red and make the Reds the "biker gang in space" again, and get Kyle back on earth where he belongs. Maybe even get him out of the Corps entirely and tie him to the Starheart or something. The ranks need to be thinned a bit, but I dont want to lose anyone completely either.

And the Fourth World is fine. It just needs a writer capable of handling them. The New Gods are not a property that just anyone can write. It takes an exceptional vision to follow what Kirby was doing there. But the property itself is fine.

[CRaymond]

Hit it. I want to see what you got.

It borrows HEAVILY from Stargate the movie, but with Romeo & Juliet as wizards making a Zentradi space-fold instead of relying on an ancient alien Goa'uld. In the 8,000 years between ancient Egypt and now, Thanagar becomes an interstellar empire reliant on slave trade for expansion and war.

Soooooooo... Earth humans can sometimes have a genetic mutation within them that allows their brains to access the fifth dimension/bleedspace/etc. It's hard to describe exactly, but it manifests differently in different people, at different strengths, and for different durations. It's not a mutation in the X-Men sense of the term, and what they do is SOMETHING like reality-warping Phoenix-level White Hot Room shenanigans, but telepathy and telekinesis aren't prerequisites or results. In any case, this mutation occurred randomly in two people, at the same time and place in Ancient Egypt. These were Chay-Ara and Khufu Maat Kha-Tar.

(Now, what we COULD suggest is that what these two actually had is Martian DNA in their systems, borrowed from the Martian Manhunter Pro/Con. But while Martian mutants result in your basic psychic talents like telepathy and pyrokinesis, Human mutants end up with timespace-rending powers like I describe.)

Wracked by similar nightmares and surrounded by weird happenings, they were brought together by the Pharoah's Vizier Nabu. Upon meeting, Chay-Ara and Kha-Tar fell madly in love. Under Nabu's eye, the two learned the magic of the Homo Magi. Together they created a shared horcrux that would never allow their spirits to dissolve, but be reborn in order to spend eternity together. The enormity of their combined power brought them to the attention of other Homo Magi sorcerers who sought to destroy them --before their passion destroyed the world. So Shakespearean!

In order to aid their escape, Nabu informed them of lands far to the west that they could escape and create a "New Egypt". Nabu meant the continents of America, but Khufu and Chay-Ara's massive power created a portal that reached through galactic space to an entirely different planet. The portal expanded and imploded, transferring an entire village of Ancient Egyptians along with them to this strange new world. They named this land Thanagar, enslaved the indigenous inhabitants as they'd done in Egypt --and with the couple's abilities to open gates through spacetime, began mining and refining ectoplasmic material found in bleedspace: Nth Metal.

Eventually, the King and Queen of Thanagar died of old age, but were reborn on the planet of their birth... over and over again. But their ability to breach spacetime was lost to them, as these new bodies didn't have the mutation.

On Thanagar, the empire they began in to escape Earth's threats, grew like a cancer in its corner of the universe. With Nth Metal, and an enslaved workforce, the Thanagarian Humans leapfrogged into space travel. Thanagarian myths and legends informed generations that their original home was a planet far, far away. Their leadership of Priestesses created a strict matriarchal rule that exploited the strength and expendability of males, engendering a hyper-aggressive, competitive culture that absorbed and brutalized every world they encountered. Among these Thanagarian Priestesses was the woman called Osira.

Using stolen Rannian Zeta Beam technology, Osira heeded the legends of her people, and sought to find their original homeworld. On Earth, she might find and enslave men and women like their original royals who were able to breach space. She arrived on Earth during the height of the Renaissance, and was defeated by timetravelling superheroes. She retreated from the battle by faking her death and hiding in a stasis pod.

Eventually the souls of Kha-Tar and Chay-Ara found themselves in the bodies of Carter Hall and Shiera Sanders, college sweethearts who found they shared dreams of past lives, and sought to uncover them as archaeologists. Their dreams led them to Egypt, where Osira's ship was hidden deep in the ruins. Excavations disturbed Osira's stasis sleep, and she awoke to discover centuries had passed, and her ship had been ransacked. Carter and Shiera had stolen her ships' flightsuits and weaponry.

In due time, Osira faced off against the Hawks as well as Wonder Woman, and always managed to retreat to her safely hidden stasis pod. The Thanagarian technology present on Earth eventually alerted the now contemporary and even MORE advanced Thanagarian empire of a planet far, far away with a very old signal. Unsure of the origin, Thanagarian High Command sent Sky Warrior Shayera Thal to investigate and report her findings. They also informed their most distant slaver, Ava Las, of the planet's whereabouts... as the signal was coming from an encrypted slave ship. Both women arrived on Earth in the new century, just as their first Queen Chay-Ara's soul was being reborn into a new body.

****

So with this setup, you get a somewhat evil, expansionist Thanagarian Empire that has roots in ancient Egypt and magical immortal lovers. It's a little like GotG's Stark aliens, but intentionally butch AF. Thanagarian slave trade suggests relationships with Mongol, Almerac, and puts them at odds with the Lanterns of their sector. But this is all on the far side of the universe.

On Earth, you end up with a LOT of female heroes, which bends the "savage" Hawkman motifs toward something more nuanced and complex.
1. Hawkwoman Shayera Thal, Thanagarian spy who goes from hero to villain to hero again
2. Hawkgirl Kendra Munoz, young reluctant blatina with Chay-Ara's magical memories
3. Hawkman [new incarnation], young blatino in prison (slavery themes)
4. Manhunter Kate Spencer, public defender on Wayne/Hall of Justice payroll
5. Osira, old Thanagarian slaver hunting Earth for magical mutants
6. Ava Las*, new Thanagarian-affiliated slaver reporting to a variety of Thanagar Empire agents
7. Silver Swan made with retro-engineered stolen Thanagarian tech
8. All leading to an eventual Thanagar Invasion

* It'd be cool to try to get Ava Las to be a shapeshifting, haptic telepathic Red Saturnian, and give the Hawks a shared universe villainess with Martian Manhunter power levels.

The themes of Hawkworld lies squarely between Martian Manhunter’s alien paranoia and Wonder Woman’s egalitarianist vision. The Hawks are the first syzygy in comics, and thier pasts come back to haunt them.

The only thing I haven't properly figured out is the Native American connection, with Northwind and Feithera.

[scary harpy]

CRaymond ,

Wow!

Impressive.

I am especially impressed with what you did with Osira. It takes something special to re-imagine a second tier, forgotten villainess.

Is Ava Las a new character?

[Trey Strain]

There shouldn't even be any Red Lanterns. And if there are any, then Guy shouldn't be one. That was the worst idea ever, as I said here when it was announced, and it's been proved.

[Trey Strain]

So yeah he's to blame for something everyone else saw was going to be a struggle miles away. And he will keep the blame until he gets a writer who understand ensemble cast not praise to one guy.

Bill Finger didn't screw up Batman as recently as three years ago, and he's not the chief creative officer at DC. If that were the case, then I'd blame Finger for what was wrong with Batman.

[CRaymond]

CRaymond ,

Wow!

Impressive.

Thanks!

Is Ava Las a new character?

She's Eviless. I thought the recent Satanic version from Steve Trevor's one-shot was boring.

Slow down how you pronounce it, and you get Ee Vah Liss; I bent the pronunciation even more to read more Thanagarian... but now my brain is cooking, trying to get Eviless/Ava Las to be a Red Saturnian, like Jemm and my retcon of Despero. See passages in the Martian Manhunter Pro/Con for messy, rickety, labored details. I really want more overlap between rogues galleries, and a tighter-wound shared cosmology.

[BaneBreaker]

But Johns started it.

There are 6 Earth based Lanterns not 6 Batmans nor 6 Supermans.

Lanterns is about to be a team not one guy. His pets were created to replace a certain one until another writer refused to do it. So now we have 6 with 3 getting more page time at the expense of the other 3. Thus hello lower sales for Hal's book because those other fans of lanterns are not settling on background fodder or limited page appearances. Along with a bad writer whose build up is never worth the payoff.

So yeah he's to blame for something everyone else saw was going to be a struggle miles away. And he will keep the blame until he gets a writer who understand ensemble cast not praise to one guy.


Who else needs to be fixed

Firestorm

It was DIRTY to get Ronnie's creator to get rid of Jason-who he thought was created in the 90s. Like we can't have two Firestorms? Age Ronnie to his right age with Dick & Wally & Titans and have Jason with Tim's crowd.

But he's not the editor either. Seriously, let's stop with the its all Geoff's fault because he isn't the writer or the editor of the GL franchise. Its okay to be disappointed with writing and direction with franchises and characters but criticize the responsible parties, not someone from the past.

[BaneBreaker]

There shouldn't even be any Red Lanterns. And if there are any, then Guy shouldn't be one. That was the worst idea ever, as I said here when it was announced, and it's been proved.

I haven't read Red Lanterns prior to Soule taking over, but when he did, that was a good book. Guy was really great as a Red and I wouldn't mind seeing him there again. I'm not sure what you mean but it was a "proven worst idea ever", it did run for 40 issues.

[CRaymond]

Firestorm

It was DIRTY to get Ronnie's creator to get rid of Jason-who he thought was created in the 90s. Like we can't have two Firestorms? Age Ronnie to his right age with Dick & Wally & Titans and have Jason with Tim's crowd.

I got a concept cooking on this guy too, but I need to give my fingers a break.

[Trey Strain]

But he's not the editor either. Seriously, let's stop with the its all Geoff's fault because he isn't the writer or the editor of the GL franchise. Its okay to be disappointed with writing and direction with franchises and characters but criticize the responsible parties, not someone from the past.

He's the company's chief creative officer, which is higher up than an editor. What writer is going to tell him that his take on Green Lantern sucked?

You don't become less responsible as you move up. You become more responsible.

Yes he does get the blame.

[Trey Strain]

I haven't read Red Lanterns prior to Soule taking over, but when he did, that was a good book. Guy was really great as a Red and I wouldn't mind seeing him there again. I'm not sure what you mean but it was a "proven worst idea ever", it did run for 40 issues.

I don't regard a comic that runs for 40 issues as a success. When a comic is canceled, it has failed. I said right here that it would fail, and quite a few people didn't want to hear that. But it happened.

[scary harpy]

She's Eviless. I thought the recent Satanic version from Steve Trevor's one-shot was boring.

Slow down how you pronounce it, and you get Ee Vah Liss; I bent the pronunciation even more to read more Thanagarian... but now my brain is cooking, trying to get Eviless/Ava Las to be a Red Saturnian, like Jemm and my retcon of Despero. See passages in the Martian Manhunter Pro/Con for messy, rickety, labored details. I really want more overlap between rogues galleries, and a tighter-wound shared cosmology.

Clever!

I think they called her Saturna...she could be the updated Saturnette. Your's becomes the updated Eviless.

On Earth, you end up with a LOT of female heroes, which bends the "savage" Hawkman motifs toward something more nuanced and complex.

I like a lot of female heroes. I especially like Hawkwoman and Hawkgirl separated.

[BaneBreaker]

He's the company's chief creative officer, which is higher up than an editor. What writer is going to tell him that his take on Green Lantern sucked?

You don't become less responsible as you move up. You become more responsible.

Yes he does get the blame.

Okay, but you do understand that books have a book editor and a group editor and those are the ones directly responsible for the stories aside from the creative teams. I mean I get, you like the GL franchise and you're unhappy and want to be doing it instead of others but now you're reaching and frankly, sound petty.

I don't regard a comic that runs for 40 issues as a success. When a comic is canceled, it has failed. I said right here that it would fail, and quite a few people didn't want to hear that. But it happened.

So what do you consider a success? 50 issues? 100? 500?