DC Should Have a Policy For Not Bringing Back Heroes Whose Stories Have Ended

[KC]

If your honest solution is never create or try anything new and just follow all the trends we've been following for the last 20 years then I don't know what to say.

You can do this and still create and try new things. Just create and try new things around characters that have already been established.

[Dred]

That's not trying new things. That's trying the same thing that they've been doing forever. Make a new character for Batman, move them aside for a different Batman spinoff, repeat ad nausem, Batman remains the same character he's been since Miller got his hands on him.

[KC]

That's not trying new things. That's trying the same thing that they've been doing forever. Make a new character for Batman, move them aside for a different Batman spinoff, repeat ad nausem, Batman remains the same character he's been since Miller got his hands on him.

New things can and have been done to the characters and their mythos'. Johns' Green Lantern world building is the perfect example of this. I said you can do this not "this is done all the time to every character" Batman and his mythos have not had that many changes through the years and that is fine with most Batman fans.

[Robanker]

Nightwing fundamentally ages Batman. He grew up, so some years passed, Bruce got older.

There is clearly not enough room for everyone. DC only puts out so many pages a month. That's your limitation.

Your solution is Barry is important and gets everything and Wally gets thrown a bone sometimes so that we can forever be in the 1960s. Your solution is their solution.

It doesn't "work fine." There's not compromise in saying that the satellite era is the only era and all these things the rely on a forward moving universe (like, you know, a primary superhero team that isn't a bunch of white dudes from the 60s because that's literally all people in power cared about back then) can eat it.

It's extreme because one side is extremely winning. Your side, as it so happens. And let me be clear, this is not JUST a "I'm upset at Wally West and want only him to be The Flash because my nostalgia is more important" thing. There's nothing I'd love more in the world than the universe moving past Wally to a next generation with the same respect Barry once got. But we can literally never get the story because Barry Allen can't be 40, 50, 60 years old. You can extend this logic to the entire 60s status quo, not just Barry and Wally (though it is the most obvious case because Wally is the success story).

Except in my solution, you can swap their situation because nobody is forever off the table. My point is that there's no need to say "we can only publish this many books, burn the rest of the losers down." It works fine. And no, "my side" isn't winning. A good deal of my favorite characters are neither in print or even in the universe right now. Some are dead or amnesiacs.

Moreover, I'm not married to the '60s status quo like you seem to believe and you are factually wrong if you think I'm "winning." A lot of what I appreciate in the DCU is missing and I'm also dissatisfied with how it's currently directed.

And Barry Allen doesn't have to be 40. Lock him and the JLA in their mid-to-late thirties. Batman's age is "adult." Dick went from "child" to "teen" to "young adult."

Dick is a young adult, Bruce is an adult. That's worked since I was a new reader and has never really bothered me. I don't understand how age bothers people when there are so many other things about superhero comics that make far less sense. But I digress, frankly I don't see you budging and this is becoming recursive. I respect your opinion and that you feel it strongly even if we can't agree. Ultimately, I'm just glad we're both reading and still care enough to discuss the DCU.

[Dred]

Except in my solution, you can swap their situation because nobody is forever off the table. My point is that there's no need to say "we can only publish this many books, burn the rest of the losers down." It works fine. And no, "my side" isn't winning. A good deal of my favorite characters are neither in print or even in the universe right now. Some are dead or amnesiacs.

Moreover, I'm not married to the '60s status quo like you seem to believe and you are factually wrong if you think I'm "winning." A lot of what I appreciate in the DCU is missing and I'm also dissatisfied with how it's currently directed.

And Barry Allen doesn't have to be 40. Lock him and the JLA in their mid-to-late thirties. Batman's age is "adult." Dick went from "child" to "teen" to "young adult."

Dick is a young adult, Bruce is an adult. That's worked since I was a new reader and has never really bothered me. I don't understand how age bothers people when there are so many other things about superhero comics that make far less sense. But I digress, frankly I don't see you budging this is becoming recursive. I respect your opinion and that you feel it strongly even if we can't agree. Ultimately, I'm just glad we're both reading and still care enough to discuss the DCU.

Age bothers readers. They don't want the guy they're reading about to be in his 50s. This is something DC has harkened to many times.

Can Dick grow older? Can he have a family, raise children, watch them age and grow? Can he do for himself what Bruce did with him?

If the answer is no, then there you go. Can't age up Bruce. They've already literally destroyed everything about the batfamily to mess up the timeline just to make Bruce younger. They'll do it again, too. They'll **** Dick over and Tim over and Steph over and Cass over and every other character over time and time again to suit Bruce Wayne.

Apply that to the entire universe. Because that is how it is. Every single other character will forever be spinning their wheels or screwed over for the sake of publishing more Bruce Wayne comics. And of course Clark Kent and Barry Allen and etc etc. Bruce is just the most obvious, as I've said. Lest we forget the myriad of Superman castoffs who'll never make it back or the Flash Family that has been gutted and ruined and "redefined" to suit Barry Allen.

[jetengine]

This is less of a DC problem and more of a "American Comic" problem. Manga can and has done the generational thing and 2000AD has aging built in. Their most famous character (Judge Dredd) ages in realtime, dude is 66 years old now.

[kjn]

One thing I keep coming back to is that superhero comics tries to model themselves after soap operas, when they really are much more similar to mythology or the matters, as they were called in mediaeval storytelling. It is a huge sprawling canvas where characters and stories can be inserted at nearly any point, not a linear progression of interrelated stories (where the linearity and crossconnections breaks down due to number of writers and sheer history anyway).

The popularity of the stories like Character: Year One or "Man and Superman" points to that there is a demand for good retellings of familiar stories.

If DC said screw strict canon continuity and linear storyline progression, they could open up a lot of storytelling possibility. If they have a great Batman story with Dick Grayson as Robin, at most put in a little footnote in the beginning that "this is set when Dick Grayson was Robin" at the start and go to town with it. You can easily tell different stories on how Barbara Gordon became Oracle, or why Lex Luthor hates Superman.

Instead of trying to elevate one specific set of events over another, DC could own the variety.

[Doctor Kent Nelson]

One of the most frustrating problems facing the Big Two is that there is a percieved notion that nothing ever changes. While this isn't technically true (I don't think we will be seeing Dick Grayson in pixie shorts anytime soon), the stagnation in the DC and Marvel Universes from an outsider's perspective is shocking. Characters who have been introduced in the 40s, 50s, and 60s are still their strapping, young selves three quarters to a half a century later, with little character development to boot.

What is even more frustrating however, is when Marvel and DC make changes in the status quo in order to trick the reader into thinking that the change will be permanent (i.e. character deaths, heroes knocked out of action)
but quickly reverting that progression and returning to a state of business as usual.

Examples in relation to DC Comics that I could give are Superman being ressurected after his demise in the mid nineties and Hal Jordan resuming the Green Lantern role after he massacred much of the original Green Lantern Corps.

This is why I think DC should have have a policy for not bringing back a character whose story has ended, whether they die (Barry Allen, Vic Sage) or they merely retire (Jack Knight, Jim Gordon). This would help boost readers' trust in DC as a publisher, knowing that the stories they are currently enjoying won't be struck down and ignored by the next writer in the series, while also forcing DC to think more wisely about which characters to kill off.

Hmm... ... ... ... ... ... ... no thanks and these are icons we are talking about here.

[Aahz]

This is less of a DC problem and more of a "American Comic" problem. Manga can and has done the generational thing and 2000AD has aging built in. Their most famous character (Judge Dredd) ages in realtime, dude is 66 years old now.

Mangas have often a finite length. And in some of the really long runnig Mangas (Detective Conan, and afaik One Pice) the characters also don't age.

Manga alos often some kind of long term story that is supposed to come to an end at some point, most DC comics don't have that.

[lemonpeace]

I for one agree with you; in theory at least. I think allowing characters' stories to end makes them powerful too, as the dude above me pointed out, all manga a building to an end and that's been a pretty successful system. I feel it keeps creators ambitious, keeps the ideas fresh and interesting, and it's insanely popular with it's own icons and everything. The dragonball and AKIRA jacket are pretty iconic in their own right. When a story is done is tricky tho. These old characters were made to be super simple, so they can fit any situation and can tell a diverse wealth of stories while leaving room for new characters and stories to be told. It's like, I don't really need dinosaurs walking around to know they exist but if I saw a dinosaur it'd still be pretty rad, ya know? I just think it's gone on too long and has become a clutch. Comic brands have gotten too popular and lucrative to start moving toward a new model; especially right now. If comic properties were to stop dominating the popular culture, I could maybe see that happening. Regardless, I think it's possible to do both, keep the old icons while progressing forward.

The bigger problem is the back and forth for me. I feel like DC and Marvel need to do better at curtailing whatever is stopping them from moving the needle. The big new thing, gets ignored, gets undone, big new thing, gets undone, gets ignored shtick looks out of touch and it's diminishing the stacks of the stories. Stacks should matter and if they mix up the status quo, that should mean something and there should be something to encourage that.

[SiegePerilous02]

Billy Batson was invented in 1941, and is poised to win a new generation of fans next month. We didn't need to invent a contemporary 10th or 11th Captain Marvel to do it. Same with Wonder Woman and Aquaman. These older characters are not a problem just because they've been around for a while and haven't aged, they can speak to a modern audience just fine.

Natural story telling progression would great in theory, but it's way more difficult to put into practice with something like DC and Marvel than it is with manga or a tv series. Or something like Astro City. Too many creators and fans with different desires and agendas, and no natural end point in sight. Getting rid of the iconic characters in favor of the next generation down just because it MIGHT work (and no, it working great for Wally as the Flash is not a sure enough guarantee, not all of them are going to get the Waid and Johns treatment) seems questionable. It's smarter to keep the characters guaranteed to still be popular and find (God forbid) actual creative solutions to come up with new ideas for the other characters. Nightwing (at one time) and Agent 37 were this for Dick. DiDio bitching about Nightwing being pointless with Batman around means he's not the best person to be in charge, not that can be done with Nightwing or the ONLY way to save Dick is to age out Bruce when he's still popular.

Reading about the 13th Superman or Wonder Woman has no appeal to me and many others. People don't want their icons messed with. it's not that complicated. That doesn't mean we don't want to see new icons invented to go along with the old ones, then everybody gets something they enjoy. But contemporary media (not just comics) doesn't seem to want to take the effort to build new mythologies or icons, just regurgitate the old ones. Hence why Hollywood does seemingly nothing but reboots, sequels or comic adaptations. Instead of Star Wars sequels, it would have been great if we could get a whole new film series to take the world by storm with the current generation the way Star Wars did in the 70s.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

Barry, Jason Todd, and Jean should have all remained dead. Those were impactful moments that are still key today in major stories.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'm gonna add to my previous post, that hypothetically, the universe progressing forward and Dick's generation taking over DOES have some appeal to me if it would ever realistically happen (I think they blew their shot and did COIE instead). However, what I don't like is passing down the mantles. At least not across the board. Like if Batman ever retried, I'd like Dick to carry on his legacy as Nightwing. We don't need a second Batman. Like if we had to have one, Dick!Bats is pretty great, but also establishes a trend I wouldn't be interested in reading in the further it goes. Batman III, Batman IV, Batman V...no thanks.

It worked VERY well for Wally. Barry-to-Wally as the Flash is the main instance of it working for me. To a lesser extent, the JSA identities being passed to legacies works because that's the main thing that sets that property apart. But applying the same trend to the rest of the Fab 5 and then to the YJ generation and down the line is unspeakably boring to me. Let Arthur and Diana focus their duties as rulers of their respective nations and leave most of the active superheroics to Garth and Donna, but don't do it as Aquaman II and Wonder Woman II. I'd like to see some new costumed identities and designs, have writers actually flex their imaginations. And take risks and build NEW mythologies not connected to the major corners of the DCU.

[Dred]

Wonder Woman is not technically a title inherent to Diana, though. Wonder Woman is just the greatest emissary of Themyscira to the rest of the world. It is the ideal title to be passed down if Diana were to take up her role as queen.

[kjn]

Batman III, Batman IV, Batman V...no thanks.

The original legacy hero was the 21st when we first met him

(The Phantom, who swore an oath that he and his descendants would fight pirates and evil back in 1536, and they've been at it ever since… Note that we have had the 21st Phantom since 1936… )