DC’s middle generation problem.

[Aahz]

This would be less of a problem if those characters weren't designed to just be either sidekicks or trinity-themed heroes. Characters like Batwoman, Sonar, Batwing, Gotham Girl, Spoiler, etc. are just redundant. If DC would just design brand-new heroes and vigilantes that are completely unrelated to any existing characters, we wouldn't have these directionless ones we have now.

DC created new unrelated character quite often, problem is that their books don't sell.

[9th.]

Flip side of that arguement is that newer characters really don’t catch on with readers the way they used to.

That's the issue, they don't sell. Spoiler and Batwing can't be original properties if they don't have anywhere else to go. If people love the Batverse and keep buying his books then thats where they're gonna go.

[Vampire Savior]

If you ask me, Dick Grayson should have never left the Robin identity, and should be the only Robin. My understanding is that only happened because Doug Moench wanted to use "Robin" but Marv Wolfman was using Robin in Teen Titans at the time, which was super popular. I think Moench came up with the idea of Dick dropping the identity so that the classic dynamic duo would still be intact. If that's true, and I believe it is as I heard if from Moench himself, and I think I'm remembering things correctly, I find that reasoning all kinds of faulty. What I definitely do remember is whatever the reason for Dick no longer being Robin was dumb.

However, this doesn't mean that Dick always has to be Batman's sidekick. Let some new sidekicks take other names. 2394783947347 Robins is incredibly stupid, IMO.

[witchboy]

I think Nightwing has been very successful as a new identity for Dick. Jason wasn't embraced as Robin but he did well as Red Hood. Fans loved Tim as Robin but then Damian took that slot. Tim does suffer from being one too many Robins. By the time you add in Batwoman, Batgirl and all the other supporting characters it's a crowded stage for everyone in Gotham.

[Frontier]

If you ask me, Dick Grayson should have never left the Robin identity, and should be the only Robin. My understanding is that only happened because Doug Moench wanted to use "Robin" but Marv Wolfman was using Robin in Teen Titans at the time, which was super popular. I think Moench came up with the idea of Dick dropping the identity so that the classic dynamic duo would still be intact. If that's true, and I believe it is as I heard if from Moench himself, and I think I'm remembering things correctly, I find that reasoning all kinds of faulty. What I definitely do remember is whatever the reason for Dick no longer being Robin was dumb.

However, this doesn't mean that Dick always has to be Batman's sidekick. Let some new sidekicks take other names. 2394783947347 Robins is incredibly stupid, IMO.

I think the progression ended up helping the characters and brand a great deal more then it would have if Dick had stuck on as Robin indefinitely.

[Fromper]

If you ask me, Dick Grayson should have never left the Robin identity, and should be the only Robin.

Well, that one belongs in the controversial opinions thread. Not that there's anything wrong with you having an opinion. I just think most people are happy with Dick "growing up" and becoming his own man, with the new Nightwing identity that's not directly tied to Batman.

And there was nothing wrong with having a successor as Robin. The problem is that the first successor, Jason, was handled poorly and unpopular. After he died, the second successor, Tim, showed how it could be done right. And then the next problem was that they kept going and adding more after that.

[Dr. Ellingham]

I just think most people are happy with Dick "growing up" and becoming his own man, with the new Nightwing identity that's not directly tied to Batman.

Sure, but growing up does not necessitate abandoning the Robin role. Even before Nightwing, DC was telling stories with a grown up Robin on Earth Two. So that option was there for E-1 Robin as well.

After all, they're both the codename for the same guy, with the only differentiator being his age. Imagine him being Robin, just with the Nightwing costume. It's ultimately the same thing.

I gotta agree with Vampire Saviour - the revolving door of teenage sidekicks waiting to wear that costume is like a line ride at Disneyland. It makes DC more insular, and it resulted in the very concern raised in this thread.

[married guy]

I'm a grumpy old fart, so my opinion on this is probably different from younger readers, but when Tim was introduced it was done SO well, that he became my favourite Robin.
The feeling was solidified by Chuck Dixon's AWESOME run on the the solo title. (Seriously, read these issues and Dixon's Nightwing. The character interaction between Dick & Tim is note perfect)
And while I enjoyed the Dick/Batman Damian/Robin stories quite a bit, I still believe it was a mistake having the son of Batman become canon.
As soon as he did, it instantly threw Tim Drake under the bus.

[married guy]

The middle generation as a whole SHOULDN'T be a problem, but DC has to decide where it stands.
Do ALL characters remain like Bart Simpson (a perpetual 10 year old), meaning the four tier system will always work
Golden Age characters - JSA
Silver Age characters - JLA
Bronze Age characters - Titans
Current - Young Justice etc.

OR, they can allow the characters to age, and have the sidekicks assume the mantles of their predecessors? (Of course this won't happen - Look what they did to Wally!!)

The issue I think is DC want their cake and eat it too. They make the same mistake with each reboot. They're too scared to overhaul everything, so they keep trying to do partial do overs that just screw things up more.
They did it with Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and Rebirth.

[Nine Crocodile]

I also remember Drake being the first Robin to have his own series. Even Grayson hadn't had one as Robin, and he was still a couple years away from getting his first solo book as Nightwing.

Tim was definitely the first Robin to star in a book with that title. But Grayson had a solo series (and was often the cover feature) in Star-Spangled Comics for five years starting in 1947, which makes him the first Robin to go solo.

[H-E-D]

Tim, on the other hand, fell into the Robin role by detective work - his origin story involves figuring out the Bat-family's secret identities.

This has always been one of the stumbling blocks with Tim for me. I have trouble buying into the notion that off all the people who'd be interested, it's just this one kid who is capable of figuring it out.

[Restingvoice]

This would be less of a problem if those characters weren't designed to just be either sidekicks or trinity-themed heroes. Characters like Batwoman, Sonar, Batwing, Gotham Girl, Spoiler, etc. are just redundant. If DC would just design brand-new heroes and vigilantes that are completely unrelated to any existing characters, we wouldn't have these directionless ones we have now.

They did and most of the New Age of Heroes or New 52 revival series like Green Team or The Movement flopped because readers are rightly more interested in characters they already know and still hasn't come back instead of new ones they don't know, or even old ones they never heard about.

Also, there's nothing wrong with designing a character just to be a sidekick or supporting cast, it's just that you can't really tell which characters become popular. I think both DC and the fans have to cool down the expectations ...or actually make a matching response.

There are fans who, when they latch on to a character and seeing that all the other sidekicks grow and become the main character of their own, want their faves to survive and rise higher than that, even though they're probably a loud minority.

Then there are DC writers who want their character to be popular, so they include them as much as possible, in many stories or events in the hope that people will like them, but then it turns out they don't and forcing them just make them annoyed.

Then, of course, there's the time where fans do respond enthusiastically, just not at the character DC want, so either they slowly fade them out or extremely change them so the reader will pay attention to other characters.

If the character is not well received, maybe it's better to fade them out
If the character is well received, maybe actually invest, hire a really good writer that can evolve them instead of forcing the other characters

Of course, since the only available sales number to judge is single issues for LCS, we can't really tell. All I can tell is "this character is or isn't bought by stores or people who go to LCS"

Because of that, I can't say if DC has put enough effort into this particular character that matches their audience or not. What I said above is based on readers and writers online response, but I don't know if they actually represent people who buy or drop the books and how many

[Agent Z]

This has always been one of the stumbling blocks with Tim for me. I have trouble buying into the notion that off all the people who'd be interested, it's just this one kid who is capable of figuring it out.

Other people have figured it out too, it isn't just Tim.

[Masterff]

DC created new unrelated character quite often, problem is that their books don't sell.

Not true:
Nightwing for example is one of the top-sellers of DC even before Wonder Woman.
Superboy in the 90ies was also one of the Best-Sellers of DC.

I think even in pre flashpoint they stopped being the new kids at some point.
The bigger problem is that they can't really graduate out of beeing teenaged, because this spot is already occupied by Dicks Generation.

I think in the new 52 they tried to solve this problem by mostly erasing that generation, which was also not really popular among the fans.

Not true..

In Pre-Flashpoint Conner,Tim,Cassie,Bart were introduced as young characters, but then became older, especially during Johns TT.

If you would take this system:

JL: Age 35-40 (Martian Manhunter etc. are older)
Titans: 28-30
Young Justice: 22-25
Teen Titans: 13-18

It would work perfectly.

Problem is REBIRTH and NEW52.

Young Justice are younger than they were as Pre-Flashpoint ended.

If you ask me, Dick Grayson should have never left the Robin identity, and should be the only Robin. My understanding is that only happened because Doug Moench wanted to use "Robin" but Marv Wolfman was using Robin in Teen Titans at the time, which was super popular. I think Moench came up with the idea of Dick dropping the identity so that the classic dynamic duo would still be intact. If that's true, and I believe it is as I heard if from Moench himself, and I think I'm remembering things correctly, I find that reasoning all kinds of faulty. What I definitely do remember is whatever the reason for Dick no longer being Robin was dumb.

However, this doesn't mean that Dick always has to be Batman's sidekick. Let some new sidekicks take other names. 2394783947347 Robins is incredibly stupid, IMO.

Thank God he left.

Nightwing is one of the best Characters DC ever created.
I like him more than 99% of the Rest of DC.

While plenty of characters are eligible for the Nightwing treatment, a majority of them seem to suffer from being completely generic personalities. Unfortunately, it seems that DC lacks the talent and motivation to evolve characters like Tim Drake into an interesting, independent character. DC only adds to the problem when they think it's a good idea to have 10+ heroes operating in Gotham City; all of which have little personality beyond being tied to Batman in either theme or involvement.

Not true:

Plenty of characters like Conner,Tim,Bart,Cassie... became great characters during the Johns TT Run and developed.
Problem is more that they are now young again and lost huge part of their legacy.

This would be less of a problem if those characters weren't designed to just be either sidekicks or trinity-themed heroes. Characters like Batwoman, Sonar, Batwing, Gotham Girl, Spoiler, etc. are just redundant. If DC would just design brand-new heroes and vigilantes that are completely unrelated to any existing characters, we wouldn't have these directionless ones we have now.

Not 100% true:

Cassie,Conner,Tim,Bart for example are also trinity themed heroes and became unique characters during YJ and TT.
Also Cassandra Cain became a really great and interesting character on her own.

Others like Batwing,Batwoman...are redundant yes.

Characters like Tim Drake and (superboy) Conner have a problem because their whole identity was built around being the “new kid”. So when a new generation comes around they are left with very little direction and purpose. Batman and Superman and other adult superheroes are to popular ( and lucrative) to ever fully leave the stage permanently. And every new generation of writer wants to leave their mark by adding new characters to the mythos. Thus you wind up with a crush in the middle. A bunch of characters that aren’t the new kids anymore but will never be the head liners. It’s the major flaw in DC’s legacy idea.

Not true...

They were the "new kid" during YJ. BUT! during Johns TT they developed and became more mature and also independent.

The Problem of this Generation is:

It started as they lost Conner in IC and then Bart became the adult Flash. This led to the TT recruit new members, Tim and Cassie leaving the TT etc.
This werent the TT anymore and even Cyborg stated it as he came back. Then Conner and Bart came back, but it was also strange afterwards between Conner and Cassie etc. Then the last Superboy series started (BEFORE NEW52) which I also didnt like.

Then with NEW52 a new Cassie, a new Bart and a new Kon El came.

NOW with Rebirth we dont know how much of the YJ and TT Legacy of Conner,Bart,Tim and Cassie is still In-Continuity and they are young again.


If these things wouldnt have happened the middle generation wouldnt have a problem now, because in Pre-Flashpoint during TT they were on a VERY good way to develop and become more independent etc.

You only have to leave out NEW52 and Rebirth and think what could have happened if DC wouldnt have rebooted the Universe:

-Conner might have whitnessed the birth of Jon (like it happened in the Anime Series) and now he maybe would have given Jonathan the Codename Superboy and would have chosen a new Codename (this will probably also happen now, but with the Pre-Flashpoint History it would have been much better, because in Pre-Flashpoint Conner was quite a legend with his own statue next to Superman etc.)

-Cassie might have been now married to Conner

-Bart might also have been passed the Code-Name Kid Flash to Wallace West...

The middle generation as a whole SHOULDN'T be a problem, but DC has to decide where it stands.
Do ALL characters remain like Bart Simpson (a perpetual 10 year old), meaning the four tier system will always work
Golden Age characters - JSA
Silver Age characters - JLA
Bronze Age characters - Titans
Current - Young Justice etc.

OR, they can allow the characters to age, and have the sidekicks assume the mantles of their predecessors? (Of course this won't happen - Look what they did to Wally!!)

The issue I think is DC want their cake and eat it too. They make the same mistake with each reboot. They're too scared to overhaul everything, so they keep trying to do partial do overs that just screw things up more.
They did it with Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and Rebirth.

I would say currently they have 2 problems:
1 history is unclear, because of the Time-Line AND so the characters (ESPECIALLY CONNER (Creation,Death)) are unclear and this takes MUCH away of them
2 they are young again

I would get back to the Pre-Flashpoint Timeline so they have all their history back and try to integrate Rebirth Characters like Jon Samuel Kent in it.

Then divide it:

-JL (Age 35-40)
-Titans (Age 25-30)
-Young Justice (Age 22-24)
-Teen Titans (Age 13-18)

Conner,Tim,Bart and Cassie had a great development during YJ and TT and they also became older during it.
Problem is that this stopped, because of the NEW52 and now the missing years in Rebirth.

In a linear timeline (like you see in YOUNG JUSTICE ANIME) they would surely now have become more independent characters on their own.

Like for example Conner would have given the mantle of Superboy to Jonathan etc.

This is the real problem: that now they lost much of their legacy as TT and also are younger now than as they were at end of Pre-Flashpoint.

I am sure that in a linear timeline (without NEW52 and Rebirth) YJ would now be an established Team like the Titans with Nightwing,Wally etc.

[comicstar100]

Honestly every time they try to either reboot a character out of existence or kill one they end up getting brought back. At this point accept the genie is out of the bottle and just create interesting stories for all established characters.