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

[jetengine]

And thats why SUPERMAN HAS TO BE THE FIRST HERO EVAR!!!!1 idea is dumb frankly. The most outstanding and inspiring ? Sure. The first ever ? Nah.

[SiegePerilous02]

How ironic that it was George Perez who ended up writing the revamped Wonder Woman book that threw the Wonder Girl origin out the window. I've seen several posts on this board that have suggested that everything - Wonder Girl, Justice Society, World War II - could've all stayed intact had Perez just made Wonder Woman come to Man's World back in the 40s. Her Amazon storyline could've stayed the same, she would just be much older. Not that it would've matter about being older when she is ageless. Missed opportunities.

To be fair to Perez, I don't think he wanted his Wonder Woman revamp to be in the present day. If given the choice, he would have had her at least be a JL founder and be the one who found infant Donna and brought her to Paradise Island. Why the higher ups at DC didn't see the obvious potential problems of severing Wonder Girl's ties to Wonder Woman is a question for the ages.

And yes, they very easily could have represented Wonder Woman's entire history. She lends herself very well to that. It would have solved the Diana Prince and romance with Steve "problems" that they didn't want anymore: all that happened back in the 1940s. And due his powers making him ageless in some versions, Superman could have debuted in the 1930s as well along with her and the JSA. It would mean losing the Smallville cast in the present day, but that's no big loss outside of Lana IMO. Netting two out of the three Trinity members would have solved some problems and make their respective worlds richer.

And thats why SUPERMAN HAS TO BE THE FIRST HERO EVAR!!!!1 idea is dumb frankly. The most outstanding and inspiring ? Sure. The first ever ? Nah.

Why is it a dumb idea exactly? It wasn't causing any problems for the first half of DC's publication history. The JSA didn't come before him until the late 80s. Why should that idea be considered the better one?

[DrNewGod]

Here's what writer Marv Wolfman had to say about it from The Hollywood Reporter:

Marv Wolfman says he first thought of the story in 1981 while waiting for other creators and editors to show up to Penn Station in New York to take a train to a convention in Pennsylvania.

"When everyone else finally showed up, I narrated what I had of the story to them and they all thought it was strong enough to pitch to DC the following Monday," says Wolfman. "Because we decided to hold it back until DC’s 50th anniversary, in 1985, I had a lot of time to slowly layer in the plot and find and fix all the problems, showing it pays to take the time to do it right rather than doing it fast."

Wolfman says despite the bold move, he had no hesitation about ripping the universe apart, with DC sales flagging aside from his other hit work on Teen Titans.

"We needed to do something big and surprising to show the readers that this was a new DC Comics," he says. If you don’t take risks and try something new the readers, inundated with more media than ever before, will give up and turn their attention elsewhere."

I'm one of the the "they should have either left it alone or completely rebooted all of it" folks, but I get what Wolfman's saying. Things were rough.

Probably the worst thing CoIE did to DC was convince its decision makers that blowing up their whole world is the right answer to every slowdown in sales.

[jetengine]

Why is it a dumb idea exactly? It wasn't causing any problems for the first half of DC's publication history. The JSA didn't come before him until the late 80s. Why should that idea be considered the better one?

You can either have your OG Supes, in which case his supporting cast is all dead etc or you have modern supes with prior heroes. Theres no point in making Superman modern and more relatable to then cut off a chunk of your history, characters and any potential narrative because 'he has to be first'.

[SiegePerilous02]

You can either have your OG Supes, in which case his supporting cast is all dead etc or you have modern supes with prior heroes. Theres no point in making Superman modern and more relatable to then cut off a chunk of your history, characters and any potential narrative because 'he has to be first'.

That's not a given though. Alan Moore did a take on it with Supreme by making expies of the Smallville cast for Supreme's adventures in the 1940s, while in the modern day he created expies of Lois, Jimmy, Perry etc. Superman can debut in the Golden Age with the JSA, and return in the modern age with his core supporting cast being the Daily Planet staff. The Kents are dead half the time anyway, so it's not like them being dead in the present would be detrimental. Pete Ross....is anyone heavily invested in Pete Ross? Again, the only major loss would be Lana.

And in pre-Crisis Earth-1, he was one of the first if not THE first superheroes. There was nothing nonsensical about it because people didn't expect the JSA to come before him. The JSA being on the same Earth as him and coming before him is the retcon, and many fans seem to retroactively act as if it was always that way and to say otherwise is strange and doesn't make sense.

I'm one of the the "they should have either left it alone or completely rebooted all of it" folks, but I get what Wolfman's saying. Things were rough.

Probably the worst thing CoIE did to DC was convince its decision makers that blowing up their whole world is the right answer to every slowdown in sales.

All of this. And I have to wonder if Wolfman himself wanted to start everything over from the beginning. It seems like whatever he had envisioned for the post-Crisis DCU is different than what actually came about. Maybe his would have made way more sense?

[Immortal Weapon]

Hal Jordan is trash. Green Lantern needs an actual interesting character to helm it. I read Geoff Johns run in the franchise and for all nuance and depth he gave to old villains like Sinstero, breed new life with characters like Black Hand, awesome new characters like Atrocitus the star of it all still remained boring, flat and lame. I don't understand why DC continues to keep Jordan at the helm. Give John a shot at being lead and see how that goes. I'll be fine with Kyle getting his lead status back or have the duo of Simon and Jessica get a crack at it. Hal's time is up.

[Jim Kelly]

Many of the traditional DC super-heroes are what I'd call open concept. They can be changed to suit a particular approach that a writer wants to take. This might lead to people thinking these characters are boring. Oliver Queen seemed that way in the 1960s when he had lost his back-up feature in WORLD'S FINEST and could only be seen in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA or sometimes in a team-up story if he was lucky. But because he was a malleable character, other writers and artists could do what they wanted with him and give him a new character.

It's the same with Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Ray Palmer, Arthur Curry. They might end up in a run that redefines their character for the better. Or they might end up in a wrong-way run. In time someone else will come along with a new idea and they'll change again. That's why you don't throw these characters in the trash. No more than you would James Bond.

Unfortunately for some newer character creations they are so narrowly defined that they can't change when creative teams change or new trends take hold. They are good at being one thing, but they can't be adapted to a new landscape.

[Arsenal]

Since Bruce never will, Alfred shoulda killed Joker for what he did to Jason

[Agent Z]

DC doesn't do if enough with their mystic and magic based teams.

[Shockingjustice]

DC doesn't do if enough with their mystic and magic based teams.

I agree with this. They should bring back amethyst.

[9th.]

- Wally isn't that interesting of a character and the only reason he is held in such high regard is he happened to be the Flash when they expanded the speedforce and the Flash's mythology. That being said, I think he needs a new identity so he can so his own thing in his own title.
- Mr. Terrific should be just below Lex Luthor in Intelligence. Him being below Batman doesn't makes sense based on their characterizations now.
- on that note, the idea of Batman being top 2 smartest humans is kinda dumb to me. He should be top 10 maybe top 5 but the second smartest seems like something they tagged on because of his popularity.
- Damian Wayne should be drawn/colored more brown. all the Robins look too much alike as is and it's weird that DC doesn't take the opportunity to differentiate the more racially ambiguous one from the other pale, dark haired, blue eyed, white guys.
- Duke Thomas is a good character with potential and gets an unbalanced amount of hate from some vocal "fans"
- they should relegate the big 3's to their individual books, and the justice league and focus on releasing more books focused on underserved characters.
- we don't need another Hal Jordan story, even if Grant Morrison is writing it. I'd have preferred John Stewart or Kyle Rayner. Hell, I'd take even Guy Gardner. I don't think there is anything left to do with Hal Jordan. We get it, he's space jesus.
- The Creeper is one of DC's greatest underutilized characters and he deserves more attention.
- while I respect the niché she serves, Batwoman has been consistently written as an obnoxious character. She isn't as bad as Damian at his worse, but the overly militaristic schtick is getting grating.
- caning David Zavimbe is one of the biggest mistakes DC's ever made

This is an interesting point, I wouldn't mind seeing a debate on this

[SilverWarriorWolf]

This is an interesting point, I wouldn't mind seeing a debate on this

Honestly, Wally’s my Flash because he was the one who introduced me to the character in the Justice League cartoon, just like how John Stewart is my Green Lantern for the same reason.

I have to wonder how many are like me.

[Armor of God]

Duke Thomas is an awful character and everything about him is forced. How can a character be so safe and bland while also simultaneously obnoxious is beyond me.

James Tynion has written 3 good Bat frachise stories, the crossovers with Ninja Turtles and Talon. Everything else is just bad or outright poor.

[ed2962]

To be fair to Perez, I don't think he wanted his Wonder Woman revamp to be in the present day. If given the choice, he would have had her at least be a JL founder and be the one who found infant Donna and brought her to Paradise Island. Why the higher ups at DC didn't see the obvious potential problems of severing Wonder Girl's ties to Wonder Woman is a question for the ages.

And yes, they very easily could have represented Wonder Woman's entire history. She lends herself very well to that. It would have solved the Diana Prince and romance with Steve "problems" that they didn't want anymore: all that happened back in the 1940s. And due his powers making him ageless in some versions, Superman could have debuted in the 1930s as well along with her and the JSA. It would mean losing the Smallville cast in the present day, but that's no big loss outside of Lana IMO. Netting two out of the three Trinity members would have solved some problems and make their respective worlds richer.

That was my understanding, that the original plan was to have the Perez revamp start with the origin set in the past, then jump to the present. Then management decided they wanted Diana to be a "new" hero after Crisis.

[ed2962]

double post