If there was ONE character that you could take back to their roots...

[Masterff]

Absolutely pulp era Batman and especially (since the op specified just ONE) Robin.

I know this isn't a popular opinion here, yet the truth is Robin to Nightwing was a step down, the most interesting thing about Grayson will always be that he was Robin.
Grayson's Robin identity will always have the most cachet; particularly Grayson's take (going back to the Golden age where he's the young ,devilmaycare, daredevil, solo taking on Zucco (his parents killers) and the mob, somersaulting, slingshoting and kicking mobsters (even the Joker) off city skyscrapers to their death! So much that Batman has to intervene to save them, from Robin.
That's his greatest most defining story arc. Who he is.
This will always be the definitive version, who Batman recognized in himself, had to real in, and take under his wing (and Oath), so he wouldn't become what took his parents.

DC has forever since been trying to retrieve that, with all these crap "new" derivative re-imaginings of the character, so they can have the young version back, and new readers can tell themselves look how edgy and "kick-ass" Robin is now, with mostly (creepy clones) trying to imitate the original. LOL!

With an inherent ongoing sliding-time-scale being the lifeblood of comics characters and why they've lasted so long, (despite some fans here pretending aging them is the way to go) One of the worst moves DC did was aging this character to Nightwing, when the only update he needed was a costume, adding green/black leggings cape and full boots.
Which Neal Addam's pretty much came up with for Grayson anyway, and every "new" incarnation has shamelessly with out credit been appropriating since. : )
Other than founding the Titans which he can still do. Most his extraneous supposed "character development" people cling to like it defined him, has been garbage.
Eliminate all the derivative clones, (if you want tell story beats where they stood in for Robin while he was unavailable, yet eventually took their own IDs that works great too) Truth is Grayson despite some delusion here, will never replace Bruce Wayne as Batman, and you or any writer will never come up with something more interesting than his role as the original Robin. He needs to take back and own his most important and significant role (that everyone from Todd, Timm, Carrie, Hit-Girl to Damian want to be), the one he defined.

Also his visual and thematic nod was both to the Bird and Robin Hood.

I have to say that I LOVE Nightwing much more than ROBIN and also probably more than Batman himself...

I LOVE the costume, his weapons etc. And its nice to see finally a character/sidekick also aging and taking an identity on his own...

Was the best Move DC ever made and brought also a lot of success...

[bat39]

Easy - Batman.

Though "roots" is relative.

Not talking his first appearances but the era of the Venom, Long Halloween and Ten Nights of the Beast etc storylines.

So when I think of the 'roots' of Batman, my reference point is the original 11 issues by Kane and Finger before Robin showed up (and to a lesser extent, the first couple of years after Robin showed up as well). Batman was a mysterious crusader of the night, a detective who solved mysteries and investigated crimes and other bizarre stuff. Sort of like Sherlock Holmes, the Shadow and Zorro rolled into one, which was the inspiration for the character. And I feel the essence of that early interpretation of Batman was recreated by O'Neill and Adams during the 70's and 80's. In turn, it went on to inspire Burton's first Batman movie, BTAS, and to a lesser extent Year One and the Nolanverse.

Batman really wasn't designed to be a superhero, or 'the most dangerous man' in the world', or a borderline psychotic. Those are all interesting and valid interpretations of the character, but they are deviations from the root of the character, which is being this noir-ish man of mystery with a hint of a swashbuckler in him.

[Mr. White]

So when I think of the 'roots' of Batman, my reference point is the original 11 issues by Kane and Finger before Robin showed up (and to a lesser extent, the first couple of years after Robin showed up as well). Batman was a mysterious crusader of the night, a detective who solved mysteries and investigated crimes and other bizarre stuff. Sort of like Sherlock Holmes, the Shadow and Zorro rolled into one, which was the inspiration for the character. And I feel the essence of that early interpretation of Batman was recreated by O'Neill and Adams during the 70's and 80's. In turn, it went on to inspire Burton's first Batman movie, BTAS, and to a lesser extent Year One and the Nolanverse.

Batman really wasn't designed to be a superhero, or 'the most dangerous man' in the world', or a borderline psychotic. Those are all interesting and valid interpretations of the character, but they are deviations from the root of the character, which is being this noir-ish man of mystery with a hint of a swashbuckler in him.

We all need to SCREAM this from the rooftops!

No truer words have been said... (today)

[Jon Clark]

Easy - Batman.

Though "roots" is relative.

Not talking his first appearances but the era of the Venom, Long Halloween and Ten Nights of the Beast etc storylines.

That's not roots. That's favorite era or something.

Roots is stripping the character down to basics or back to the original concept.

You might get away with a later batman if you were taking Tim Drake back to his roots or Bane back to his since their roots sort of tie into the Batman at those times. But Batman's roots are those 1939/40 era stories and maybe some more modern stuff intended to recreate that character. Long Halloween might fir that.

[Mr. White]

That's not roots. That's favorite era or something.

Roots is stripping the character down to basics or back to the original concept.

You might get away with a later batman if you were taking Tim Drake back to his roots or Bane back to his since their roots sort of tie into the Batman at those times. But Batman's roots are those 1939/40 era stories and maybe some more modern stuff intended to recreate that character. Long Halloween might fir that.

Hence the reference to it being "relative". It depends on interpretation.
"Roots" was interpreted as what was the characters "core" (also subjective). So detective, noir, human, non-superhero etc.
Do get where you're coming from though.

[Adekis]

Superman. The GA stories were some of the best IMO because he wasn't fighting the alien of the month, he was fighting corrupt politicians and gangsters. They also didn't focus on Krypton all that much. It was mentioned in his origin and not really brought up again for something like ten years. There was also a focus on Clark Kent as an investigative journalist. Today it's mostly just a disguise he wears when he's not being Superman.

So I basically think that Superman is the "one" character I'd want to mess with, given the opportunity, at any given moment. He's far and away my favorite character of all time, but at the same time I've got some pretty specific tastes that aren't always met.

There's a lot of undercurrent to all these posts that basically, Superman has lost something precious since the Golden Age. And I think it's hard to get that thing back, as well. In the early post-Crisis period, they tried to take Superman "back to his roots" by jettisoning all the Silver Age stuff about Krypton, Supergirl, the Legion of Super-Heroes (thereby kind of breaking them?) etc. But somehow, they messed up. They took Superman back to say, late George Reeves, but not to Jerry Siegel. Even then, early George Reeves was more political on occasion. Byrne et al worked with a Superman stripped of most of his mythology, but who was still the top dog super-hero of the contemporary DC Universe, so they decided he still had to be an Elder Statesmen. Simultaneously, they wanted him to be edgier. I feel like they kept him Lawful, rather than Chaotic, but they still made him more impulsive and paradoxically, unsure of himself, compared to how he'd been? Or he's very sure of himself but without a lot of flexibility, or without the skill to back it up... The result is a Superman who to me manages to seem just out of place to me right now?

It's hard to explain what I think doesn't work about the post-Crisis Superman. It's like in the absence of being an actual moral authority and Strongest Hero, they made him start acting like someone they thought people would think was a moral authority, which mostly makes him come across as self-righteous. And this is the Reagan '80s, so the two don't mix well. Of course, taken on their own terms I think the post-Crisis comics are great, but they don't slot well into the greater DCU to me, especially where the Legion or anything involving space is concerned. Valor is a weird friggin' retcon that I don't really think works that well, even though I love Mon-El.

I love Silver Age Superman too much[to jettison him from continuity]. But that's why the early New 52 stuff was so great (minus the costume) because it was a fusion of the two. Over the top Super God with all the crazy Krypton and LoSH lore, but at his core he was the ballsy investigative journalist who focused on social justice issues.

By stark contrast, I think SiegePerilous02 sums up what works with the post-Flashpoint Superman extremely well. He's got a great mix of the Silver and Bronze age willingness to go full-on zany, with the Golden Age roughneck, street-level mentality, and he never outgrows that mindset or leaves it behind.

The problem of course, was that in order to get to that point, they kind of had to get rid of a lot of the post-Crisis and pre-Flashpoint characterizations. Now personally, I think those are dead ends. He starts off as weirdly self-righteous and ends up as kind of a sad sack. Even though there's a lot of good stories within those periods and along those development lines, I think Superman fans pretty much agree that what Grant Morrison uncharitably called "that weird emo Superman", was a bad execution and had to go. Even as a BvS apologist, I don't seriously want a single Superman story where he spends more time doubting himself than he does doing Superman stuff, to be written within the next ten years.

This. I'm also a proponent that his evolution into a husband and father is an overall negative change. Its only helped in the long process of watering down his personality and mission statement.

At the same time, as much as I agree with this statement, I don't think getting rid of the marriage or Jon is viable at this point, sadly. Taking tools out of the toybox doesn't really work. The post-Crisis era showcases that too well, as Kara, Krypto, various colors of Kryptonite, and even the Legion, made their way back into Superman's world after a while.

I do think that the marriage is kind of a weird crutch for writers working with Lois as well. I think her fundamental absence from the books during the New 52 shows that people just don't know how to write her, or even include her, if she's not a love interest anymore, which sucks. I do think that a moratorium on treating her as just "Mrs. Superman" rather than as an action or intrigue hero in her own right could help. But Jon, getting rid of Jon would just piss fans off.

My comic friends and I have talked about taking all the characters back to their origin period +5 years (just to stabilize their look/powers) at the early stage, before every character grew to outrageous power levels. Having limits on powers made the stories more interesting.

This is my last point. "All the characters."

Superman is the first building block of the upside down pyramid of the DCU. In the New 52, a lot of the pyramid became a bit smaller (no JSA for example), and the harsher roughneck Superman was strong enough to hold it. In the post-Crisis period, Superman was capable of holding up his own little Superman sub-universe, but not the whole DCU.

I think to effectively scale back Superman to the Golden Age levels, which has never really been done long term, you would need to do what Phoenixx9 says and take back ALL the characters to their original levels. Still, that means Alan Scott is weak against wood. Hal Jordan's GL is too rooted in the kind of scale, though not the actual content, that Silver Age Superman gave the universe. It would be really tough to bring that down to Earth. Barry Allen has almost always been able to do crazy universe-hopping stuff. You'd have to go back to Jay.

Ultimately, it would only really work as an "ultimate universe." Still, more Robin is always a good thing.

[bat39]

That's not roots. That's favorite era or something.

Roots is stripping the character down to basics or back to the original concept.

You might get away with a later batman if you were taking Tim Drake back to his roots or Bane back to his since their roots sort of tie into the Batman at those times. But Batman's roots are those 1939/40 era stories and maybe some more modern stuff intended to recreate that character. Long Halloween might fir that.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant in my earlier post.

I feel the 70's Adams/O'Neill stories, and their immediate successors, did a brilliant job modernizing the original Kane/Finger Batman. And Frank Miller's Year One and subsequent noir-driven Batman stories, carried that legacy forward.

[DrNewGod]

That's not roots. That's favorite era or something.

Roots is stripping the character down to basics or back to the original concept.

You might get away with a later batman if you were taking Tim Drake back to his roots or Bane back to his since their roots sort of tie into the Batman at those times. But Batman's roots are those 1939/40 era stories and maybe some more modern stuff intended to recreate that character. Long Halloween might fir that.

You could reasonably argue that either O'Neil's late 60's revision or Miller's Year One were a return to the roots.

Edit: Beat to it by less than 4 minutes.

[Jon Clark]

You could reasonably argue that either O'Neil's late 60's revision or Miller's Year One were a return to the roots.

I agree. But those aren't something I'd describe as "relative". They'd be part of the "roots" along with the 1930's/40's stuff. Different from the era of Venom, Long Halloween, and Ten Nights of Beast alone being considered "roots".

I was trying to point out that say Superman's roots aren't what Morrison was writing in 2011 in Action Comics #1 but 1938's Action Comics #1 by Siegel and Shuster. Or that the Wolfman/Perez Titans aren't the roots of the team even if that is someone's favorite era or the better written and iconic iteration of the team. That Roots has to be something other than "when I thought the character was at his best"

[Sacred Knight]

I agree. But those aren't something I'd describe as "relative". They'd be part of the "roots" along with the 1930's/40's stuff. Different from the era of Venom, Long Halloween, and Ten Nights of Beast alone being considered "roots".

I was trying to point out that say Superman's roots aren't what Morrison was writing in 2011 in Action Comics #1 but 1938's Action Comics #1 by Siegel and Shuster. Or that the Wolfman/Perez Titans aren't the roots of the team even if that is someone's favorite era or the better written and iconic iteration of the team. That Roots has to be something other than "when I thought the character was at his best"

The marriage is definitely a crutch for Lois. And even then most don't write her well. But they're completely and utterly lost if she's not his wife. Definitely sad. Getting rid of Jon would piss his fans off, but, at the same time, his popularity is overstated. He came blazing out of the gate with Rebirth, no denials there, and he still has a fanbase. But as things went on the excitement factor wore off fast. Him and Damian, the marquee dynamic and what I believe to be the main motivation in even bringing him into canon, dropped off the face of the Earth in terms of sales. I'm not saying they're going to get rid of him, I agree with you in fact that both marriage and Jon are sticking around for a good long while. Its why I'm so desperate for other iterations of the character where he's not weighed down by both, as I feel its the only chance I have to get that (though it does look ever more likely that Jon is going to the future with the Legion, maybe that'll help, I dunno). But if they did get rid of him, it wouldn't be the end of the Superman mythos like some would make it seem like.

[Falcon16]

Cyborg I would take him back to his origins, none of this Mother Box non-sense, and he was a NTT.

so you want him to not be happy like the 2003 cartoon version of him? ...but I agree he should have that cute dialect back.

[MajorHoy]

If there was ONE character that you could take back to their roots...

Swamp Thing.

= rimshot =

Don't forget to tip your waitress, people . . .

[Adekis]

I agree. But those aren't something I'd describe as "relative". They'd be part of the "roots" along with the 1930's/40's stuff. Different from the era of Venom, Long Halloween, and Ten Nights of Beast alone being considered "roots".

I was trying to point out that say Superman's roots aren't what Morrison was writing in 2011 in Action Comics #1 but 1938's Action Comics #1 by Siegel and Shuster. Or that the Wolfman/Perez Titans aren't the roots of the team even if that is someone's favorite era or the better written and iconic iteration of the team. That Roots has to be something other than "when I thought the character was at his best"

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I wrote that bloody wall of text about Superman above, but ultimately it's kind of a lead up to the thought that if you brought Superman back to his roots and didn't do it to any other character in the DCU, Superman wouldn't work anymore.

[Anodyne]

Katar Hol - none of this reincarnation nonsense. He goes back to being a policeman from Thanagar who travels to Earth and becomes the hero Hawkman.

And yes, I know you said ONE, but he brings his wife Shayera with him.

Yes. And DC makes it clear that the Golden-Age and Silver-Age Hawks are two different characters, like Jay and Barry or Alan and Hal.

But my one character is Dr. Terrence Thirteen--the Ghostbreaker. I first met Terry in Phantom Stranger (second series) #5. Not sure why, but he instantly clicked with me. He wasn't ranting at the PS then; he was just a man who calmly faced a hurricane with scientific curiosity.

However, I want his roots to be his starting point, not his entire life story. I'm glad DC has kept trying to use him, but I wish they'd stop trying to reinvent him: as Traci's alleged dad; as his own nineteenth-century ancestor; as the guy in a more recent Phantom Stranger title who collected, not debunked, supernatural events. IMHO they had the right idea in the Action Comics weekly, when he was starting to rethink his skepticism in light of his experiences with the Phantom Stranger; if only DC had kept to that path, Dr. Thirteen could have become a strong character whose mission was to distinguish the true supernatural from the false. And like caj with Katar, I want Terry's beloved wife and partner (Marie, NOT Mei-Hui) by his side.

Much as I hated the Vertigo Visions one-shot, which depicted Terry as a raving madman, his behavior in that story could be explained as a misdiagnosed brain tumor.

[Tzigone]

Katar Hol - none of this reincarnation nonsense. He goes back to being a policeman from Thanagar who travels to Earth and becomes the hero Hawkman.

And yes, I know you said ONE, but he brings his wife Shayera with him.

I thought I was the only one who like that version of the Hawks best. Glad to see a few others in my boat.

Batman. The "Bat God" bullshit needs to go.

Hallelujah.

But my one character is Dr. Terrence Thirteen--the Ghostbreaker. I first met Terry in Phantom Stranger (second series) #5. Not sure why, but he instantly clicked with me. He wasn't ranting at the PS then; he was just a man who calmly faced a hurricane with scientific curiosity.

However, I want his roots to be his starting point, not his entire life story.

I liked that version of him, too.


While it's a tough choice, for today I'm going to go with a very unpopular one - Superboy. The Kon-El version. As a human being that was made to mimic Superman's powers, but was not genetically related to him (or Lex). I really liked that he was different. Tactile telekinesis was an entirely new power. The front of his comic said something along the lines of "definitely not the adventures of Superman as a boy." His emotional reaction to not being what he thought he was was great. Being adopted into the family when given the name Kon-El was great. But then he got Superman's power, Superman's other last name, Superman's hometown, and even Superman's childhood home and parents. Toss in a Luthor, too. Meh.