Your DC-Only controversial opinions (part II)...

[phantom1592]

Well, here is a controversial opinion: the Trintiy concept needs to be done away with.

Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman should all be leading their own teams in their own little sub universes. Batman leading the Outsiders, Superman with the Legion or the Superman Squad and Wonder Woman leading either the Holiday Girls or JL Dark. The JL can be lead by Flash, GL and Martian Manhunter.

I agree that the 'trinity' idea is something that should just be killed. I hate the idea of an 'in-universe big three.' It really should be the 'Big Seven'. That said, I want them on the League. I hate when The Justice is packed full of B and C list characters. I like the League to be the best of the best and most powerful and popular characters coming together. A League with no Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman is always an easy pass for me. The concept just feels to diluted and watered down without them.

[Agent Z]

I agree that the 'trinity' idea is something that should just be killed. I hate the idea of an 'in-universe big three.' It really should be the 'Big Seven'. That said, I want them on the League. I hate when The Justice is packed full of B and C list characters. I like the League to be the best of the best and most powerful and popular characters coming together. A League with no Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman is always an easy pass for me. The concept just feels to diluted and watered down without them.

The problem I've always had with this is that the League has characters like Hal Jordan and Martian Manhunter who have never been very popular or if they were, that popularity has faded. Aquaman is popular now, but was considered a joke for decades. Meanwhile, characters who are powerful, skilled or popular in their own right face an uphill battle to be even allowed to serve for just one single run.

This requirement for who gets to be in the Justice League becomes incredibly arbitrary once taken at face value. Just about every member of the original seven who isn't Batman and Superman is only in the League in order to be popular not the other way around.

[HsssH]

I'm not sure if Hal Jordan is a good example here considered that often another Lantern is on JL team.

[Agent Z]

I'm not sure if Hal Jordan is a good example here considered that often another Lantern is on JL team.

I'd say that makes Hal a good example seeing as how his dwindling popularity is why other Lanterns tend to take his place.

[HsssH]

I think you are going in circles here a bit. In your previous post it sounds like you don't like that characters like Hal and Manhunter are regulars on JL teams, but now Hal is somehow a good example because he actually doesn't have regular spot on JL?

[Agent Z]

I think you are going in circles here a bit. In your previous post it sounds like you don't like that characters like Hal and Manhunter are regulars on JL teams, but now Hal is somehow a good example because he actually doesn't have regular spot on JL?

I never said that I didn't like them being on the team. I said that they didn't fit phantom's requirement for being the best, most powerful and most popular heroes. This isn't about me not liking them.

[Jabare]

he was created over 80 years ago but the Joker's never told a funny joke.

Terry McGinnis said it best

[marhawkman]

Totally agreed. These IP *should* be able to carry their own weight, and in other media a lot of them actually do. But in the direct market right now you take every advantage you can get right? Harder for a team to be completely ignored in all the big stories and Events if they're working for Batman. And if adding Diana to the roster is the price of getting the JSA back, it's a price I'll happily pay. Ideally the JSA shouldn't need her to share in the spotlight or move units but alas, the world we live in. ...

heheheeh, or maybe it's really Hippolyta as WW?

I mean... it's a connected character.

Hmmm the idea of having Hippolyta and the JSA show up in the JLA watch tower amuses me TWO WWs? O-o'

[TheRay]

he was created over 80 years ago but the Joker's never told a funny joke.

You didn’t think the Killing Joke was funny?

[MajorHoy]

. . . Hmmm the idea of having Hippolyta and the JSA show up in the JLA watch tower amuses me TWO WWs? O-o'

Hey, we use to get two Dianas at the same time back in the pre-CoIE days.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I remember back in the 90's when Dan Jurgens took over Justice League America after Giffen & DeMatteis finished their run, and all he really did was keep the core JLI roster of Beetle, Booster, Fire, Ice, and Gardner, ditched J'onn and Batman as being the 'senior' League member(s), and replaced those two with Superman (while also adding recurring erstwhile Super-foe Maxima and Bloodwynd, one of the most poorly handled 'new/original-to-the-League's-ranks' characters ever [even worse than Vibe]), while he was also one of the core Super-creators, and he totally distorted the League under Superman's shadow. Didn't help that one of G&D's greatest strengths was their skill at strong, nuanced characterization, giving each character their own distinct personality, and Jurgens just flattened those personalities into one-note shadows of what they previously had been (or that apparently one of the guiding post-G&D editorial mandates was "NO HUMOR ALLOWED, everyone must be serious"). Or, more recently, when Marvel briefly revived the Thunderbolts title by bringing together the core original membership of Atlas, Fixer, MACH-X, and Moonstone (soon to be rejoined by Songbird) under the 'leadership' of the Winter Soldier, who was also being the guardian to Kobik, aka "What if the Cosmic Cube was in the form of an obnoxious little girl?". The damn book should have been called The Winter Soldier and Obnoxia the She-Clown (Guest-Starring the Thunderbolts), that's how badly the 'team' was made supporting cast of their 'super-star' leader. Or when Earth-2 changed writers from Robinson to Taylor, and Robinson's cast of characters became bit players to Taylor's cast of alternative-world-Trinity-related-characters.

Basically, it is far, far more likely that a team will be completely overshadowed if you give them a "super-star" new member or leader, or even just a mandate to have super-star-related characters join up, than it is that said "super-star" will be more smoothly integrated into said team.

[Stanlos]

I remember back in the 90's when Dan Jurgens took over Justice League America after Giffen & DeMatteis finished their run, and all he really did was keep the core JLI roster of Beetle, Booster, Fire, Ice, and Gardner, ditched J'onn and Batman as being the 'senior' League member(s), and replaced those two with Superman (while also adding recurring erstwhile Super-foe Maxima and Bloodwynd, one of the most poorly handled 'new/original-to-the-League's-ranks' characters ever [even worse than Vibe]), while he was also one of the core Super-creators, and he totally distorted the League under Superman's shadow. Didn't help that one of G&D's greatest strengths was their skill at strong, nuanced characterization, giving each character their own distinct personality, and Jurgens just flattened those personalities into one-note shadows of what they previously had been (or that apparently one of the guiding post-G&D editorial mandates was "NO HUMOR ALLOWED, everyone must be serious"). Or, more recently, when Marvel briefly revived the Thunderbolts title by bringing together the core original membership of Atlas, Fixer, MACH-X, and Moonstone (soon to be rejoined by Songbird) under the 'leadership' of the Winter Soldier, who was also being the guardian to Kobik, aka "What if the Cosmic Cube was in the form of an obnoxious little girl?". The damn book should have been called The Winter Soldier and Obnoxia the She-Clown (Guest-Starring the Thunderbolts), that's how badly the 'team' was made supporting cast of their 'super-star' leader. Or when Earth-2 changed writers from Robinson to Taylor, and Robinson's cast of characters became bit players to Taylor's cast of alternative-world-Trinity-related-characters.

Basically, it is far, far more likely that a team will be completely overshadowed if you give them a "super-star" new member or leader, or even just a mandate to have super-star-related characters join up, than it is that said "super-star" will be more smoothly integrated into said team.

That or it could be the Gerard Jones WW thing where the superstar jobs each issue to illustrate how powerful a new foe is (people actually wrote in to literally ask: isn't she supposed to be powerful?")

[Ascended]

Basically, it is far, far more likely that a team will be completely overshadowed if you give them a "super-star" new member or leader, or even just a mandate to have super-star-related characters join up, than it is that said "super-star" will be more smoothly integrated into said team.

Under the thumb of lesser talent or short sighted editorial, yes absolutely.

But I think at the moment it's largely a matter of visibility more than anything. DC has long struggled with their own Bat/League obsession and all their other IP have suffered for it, being made to look like they are less than they are so the Bat and League can be propped up on higher and higher pedestals. And if sales on those other IP are stagnating DC has only itself to blame. But regardless of who or what is at fault, if the market is as rough as people seem to think it is, a JSA with Diana seems much more likely to get made than a JSA without her. To say nothing of how long it can survive on the shelf.

Would the likes of Allan and Jay and Ted get less attention with Diana on the roster? If the writer or editorial aren't terribly skilled at their jobs then yeah, probably. But that's still better than the limbo the JSA are in now.

[Jabare]

You didn’t think the Killing Joke was funny?

no, it wasn't

[TheRay]

Sad, indeed.