Pitch a Direction: Duke Thomas

[G-Man27]

Launch a new ongoing or mini, Signal And The Robin Squad, focusing on Duke and his old We Are Robin pals. I might include Maps as a new recruit and with her comes Olive who might benefit with a love triangle with her Duke and Gotham Girl, lol. Keeping track of leftover dimension stuff from Metal, so a few team-ups with Sideways would be good.

[Katana500]

I'd certainly like to see Duke moved to Gotham Academy. While keeping his current supporting characters such as the WAR squad and his new uncle who seems pretty cool.

Olive and Duke in a love triangle would certainly be interesting or at the very least i would like to see them meeting.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I reread the Signal and the villains made mention of Duke possibly being "the Dial".

It got me thinking they could do a crossover issue between Duke and Dial 4 hero.

[Nick Miller]

Was the Outsiders cancelled?

[TheJudge95]

Was the Outsiders cancelled?

https://twitter.com/bryanedwardhill/...22936617512960

[Arsenal]

Putting Duke on Batman’s black Ops squad still seems like such an odd choice.

[lemonpeace]

Putting Duke on Batman’s black Ops squad still seems like such an odd choice.

Well from a skillset standpoint, not really. His invisibility and ability to track and see things others can't with his metahuman powers make him pretty perfectly for convert ops. It is, however, pretty counterintuitive to all the themes if light and revelation they were trying to push in his miniseries; but better a new direction than languishing in obscurity until he slides into limbo and eventually oblivion.

[Arsenal]

Well from a skillset standpoint, not really. His invisibility and ability to track and see things others can't with his metahuman powers make him pretty perfectly for convert ops. It is, however, pretty counterintuitive to all the themes if light and revelation they were trying to push in his miniseries; but better a new direction than languishing in obscurity until he slides into limbo and eventually oblivion.

I’m not saying that he’s not capable skill or ability wise, just that it feels like a weird fit for him given what he’s done so far. I might be overlooking something he’s done but nothing about him screams “covert ops” member. Something like making him part of the Gotham Knight program (or whatever it was called) would’ve made much more sense to me than the outsiders. It just feels like they are taking him from point A to point D without doing B or C first.

None the less, assuming the outsiders members don’t get changed, I hope Hill can pull it off.

[dietrich]

I feel that since Batman has enough confidence in him to have him fly solo then he is ready for The Outsiders Team and is already at point D.
Important to bear in mind that Duke isn't a sidekick anymore like the Robins.

His meta abilities pretty much scream Covert Op's member.


Duke hasn't been given much opportunities for fans to see him using his abilities. B&TS really only gave of a tease and tec squandered the chance and didn't really spotlight it.

Meaning that most fans don't understand how his meta abilities work or it's potential/capabilities.

Honestly at this point don't mind what title they put in him I just would like to see him using his super power.
. .

[dietrich]

Like I said before some fans will embrace garbage writing.
They will defend it to the point where it's comical to behold.
Amazing the length some will go to justify and rationalise **** stories makes forums like this fun.

[Aahz]

I feel that since Batman has enough confidence in him to have him fly solo then he is ready for The Outsiders Team and is already at point D.
Important to bear in mind that Duke isn't a sidekick anymore like the Robins.

Don't know for me operating solo in Gotham, where the bigger cases are usually handled by Batman and other resident Batfamily members, and he can get back up pretty fast, seems a few steps below working on a international operating Special Ops team.

And iirc the reason why Batman wanted Black Lighting on the team was that he wanted him as a teacher, for Duke and Cass. Thats doesn't really sound for me that Duke is really ready, and having rookies do special ops stuff seems wired.
I know that the YJ TV series also has the kids operating as the Blackops team of the league, but honestly that also doesn't make much sense for me.

And when it comes to Duke powers, is he already in full control of them or is he still figuring out haw they work?

[dietrich]

Don't know for me operating solo in Gotham, where the bigger cases are usually handled by Batman and other resident Batfamily members, and he can get back up pretty fast, seems a few steps below working on a international operating Special Ops team.

And iirc the reason why Batman wanted Black Lighting on the team was that he wanted him as a teacher, for Duke and Cass. Thats doesn't really sound for me that Duke is really ready, and having rookies do special ops stuff seems wired.
I know that the YJ TV series also has the kids operating as the Blackops team of the league, but honestly that also doesn't make much sense for me.

And when it comes to Duke powers, is he already in full control of them or is he still figuring out haw they work?

So Duke already deemed competent enough to have handle Gotham in the Day [that is canon that is Duke's established competency level] joining the Outsiders team with a Teacher on hand as he and Cass get their feet wet with this new operation.


Sounds like there's little to worry about. Everybody has a first day. Look at it as this is Duke's 1st day at that level or Bruce is covering his Bases. i don't really see what the issue is here.

Duke doesn't have a huge library of work but we have what has been established and we have accepted him to be on a certain level. Batman has endorsed him as a hero ready and good enough to not warranty micro managing. Only like Dick and Kate I believe have that privilege in current continuity.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Obscure Batman villain Signalman should have beef with Duke for stealing his name.

This issue is more humourous than serious.

[Arsenal]

I feel that since Batman has enough confidence in him to have him fly solo then he is ready for The Outsiders Team and is already at point D.
Important to bear in mind that Duke isn't a sidekick anymore like the Robins.

His meta abilities pretty much scream Covert Op's member.


Duke hasn't been given much opportunities for fans to see him using his abilities. B&TS really only gave of a tease and tec squandered the chance and didn't really spotlight it.

Meaning that most fans don't understand how his meta abilities work or it's potential/capabilities.

Honestly at this point don't mind what title they put in him I just would like to see him using his super power.
. .

It’s just a pretty big jump to go from relatively new solo hero to part of a superhero black ops squad and I’d of prefered there’d be something in between the two to help ease that transition.

But who knows? Maybe it’ll work. Like you said, DC hasn’t really utalized Duke that well so far so I’m more than willing to give the book a chance if/when it comes out.

[J. D. Guy]

My "pitch" for The Signal would be to let Tony Patrick continue to work his magic, preferably with a cool artist who can keep schedule (loved Cully Hamner's art in the book, but he couldn't keep schedule, which was why, I firmly believe, the book was truncated from 6 issues to 3, and also why the book had delays, including its first issue getting pushed back from August to January, its second issue coming out at the end of the following month instead of the beginning parallel to the first issue, giving a near 2 month delay, and its third issue releasing two months later than it was supposed to on top of that).

I feel that since Batman has enough confidence in him to have him fly solo then he is ready for The Outsiders Team and is already at point D.
Important to bear in mind that Duke isn't a sidekick anymore like the Robins.

His meta abilities pretty much scream Covert Op's member.


Duke hasn't been given much opportunities for fans to see him using his abilities. B&TS really only gave of a tease and tec squandered the chance and didn't really spotlight it.

Meaning that most fans don't understand how his meta abilities work or it's potential/capabilities.

Honestly at this point don't mind what title they put in him I just would like to see him using his super power.
. .

Batman and The Signal "teasing" Duke's powers was two-fold: this was the first time Duke really began using his powers, so only the basic of the basics needed to be covered; Batman and The Signal was, at least at the time, implicitly a prologue promising more to come, meaning a "tease" was warranted. Couple those reasons with the book being 3 issues (only so much can be fit into 3 issues, logically), and that is that.

It’s just a pretty big jump to go from relatively new solo hero to part of a superhero black ops squad and I’d of prefered there’d be something in between the two to help ease that transition.

But who knows? Maybe it’ll work. Like you said, DC hasn’t really utalized Duke that well so far so I’m more than willing to give the book a chance if/when it comes out.

Had Tony Patrick been given the fuller run, there would have been. Batman and The Signal did well, better than apparently expected. But then the higher-ups slept on it... And here we are, going on a year and half later.