David Zavimbe Appreciation Thread 2019

[Falcon16]

The closest DC has gotten to their own Black Panther, and too bad he was replaced with Luke Fox, who's not even African (though African-American.) I'd love to hear David in a live action/animated show or movie, I bet he'd have a South African accent like T'Challa does haha

[Eto]

I liked David and honestly thought he’d more potential. What a shame.
I’m not really a fan of the current Batwing.

[lemonpeace]

David was criminally mishandled and selved. Smh at least they left it so he could be kicking around Africa fighting the good fight his own way. I hope one day an ambitious writer will come in and reestablish him as his own man ...(though it likely will never happen)

[Robotman]

I would love to see him leave the Bat mantle and become his own superhero

[lemonpeace]

Wild pitch: what if, after his time as Batwing, David gave into his anger and the corruption around him, used his connections to Lord Battle to muscle in his way to the political sphere of the country of Buredunia under the name Matthew Bland (to obfuscate his unsavory activities from Batman) and became the Red Lion (the warlord from early in Christopher Priest's Deathstroke run).

[Falcon16]

I'd like to see him become something similar to Black Panther, but not actually Black Panther. The third Wildcat?

[Dog of War]

Soo , is the Batwing run worth reading? Think I've read like the first issue a while ago.

[Falcon16]

Yes! It's worth it!

[Rakzo]

Really liked David. Luke Fox was fine (especially when he was written by Palmiotti and Gray) but he always paled in comparison to the more interesting David and his whole world, wish that Winick would have been given more time to expand his worldbuilding and mythos.

Now that I think about it, Christopher Priest would be a great follow-up to those ideas since he already created a pretty good antagonist for Batwing in the form of Red Lion.

[byrd156]

I really don't care for Luke, I don't really like having more of the Fox family being involved outside off Lucius. I prefer the Batman Inc/Batmen of All Nations approach to doing more Bat-members and David held a very cool/unique position as Batwing. It keeps Gotham from getting to cluttered with characters while giving the new characters their own unique flavor and locals to explore.

[MajorHoy]

from Batwing #0 (2012)

[lemonpeace]

from Batwing #0 (2012)

*groans* I hate when they just use Africa as a blanket term for any where in Africa. he's based out of the Congo, is it that hard to remember? like c'mon, they even made a whole fake city for him to be from; it's written right there!

[K. Jones]

*groans* I hate when they just use Africa as a blanket term for any where in Africa. he's based out of the Congo, is it that hard to remember? like c'mon, they even made a whole fake city for him to be from; it's written right there!

I thought there was some seriously botched execution in how they presented Batwing. But I do love the character.

Some of the story arcs were a little on the weak side. Some stuff was a bit contrived out of the gate without earning it or at least building toward it. His initial conception - Morrison picking up a random one-off concept from an old story and dusting it off, was good. Introduced as the man on the ground in Africa, tracking meta-human farms run by Leviathan, using a teched out Batman armor (effectively being DCU's Iron Man), and being part of the big Leviathan storyline. Running into New 52, the costume redesign was strong, Tinasha is a good concept, and as predictable, rote, and cliched as it is, the initial arc introducing Massacre and his backstory is at least solid, "neat", superhero comics.

Then he fights a Court of Owls Talon who happens to be the Civil War era one, to save the only other black Batman character of note at the time, Lucius Fox, which feels a bit contrived. But it's a done-in-one tie-in and it's fine.

His main book weakened more and more after that, with no real plan. The Lord Battle stuff was kind of just ... blah. The Nightwing team-up was nice, with the Marcus To art, but the villains were ... blah. It went out with a whimper. The Luke Fox transition was controversial. I'm a big Luke Fox proponent - I like that character a lot. But his success didn't necessarily need to come at the expense of the other character. I don't want to derail this into a Luke Fox topic, but I like the Batman Beyond connections, where the Fox model of the suit is closer to the Beyond suit conceptually, Luke begins the FoxTech company that was showcased in the Beyond animated series. I don't see why David Zavimbe can't play into that - re-don the mantle and Luke be his tech wizard. You could definitely do a bit of a Tony Stark / Rhodey thing with the two of them. Look, the Iron Man parallels are so overt, might as well lean into it.

But it does kind of factor into the whole general concept of "stretching the Batman character" (In-universe and as a publication) way too thin. Like you can slap a bat on a book and see how long it lasts, but it never lasts, unless it's Batman or Batgirl or by virtue of the strength of the concept, Batwoman now (though her comic runs are still on-again/off-again, she still shows up frequently and we can guarantee once that TV show hits a new volume launches).

A+ for that one panel of the global Bat-Men punching out Leviathan agents and Batwing uppercutting Kone, though.

[MajorHoy]

An early version that would influence the creation of Batwing, from
Batman #250 (July 1973):