DC 5G: the Replacements

[kurenai24]

I see it similarly. I definitely think Aquaman will have some kind of pacific background when you tally up the various factors you mentioned. Never heard of Viking Judge. Sounds like Thor and Ghost Rider, but changing the mythology could be cool. Grace Choi would be a good choice, but a pre-New 52 history could age her up too much to be a part of 5G. Their Trinity branding will definitely have an effect on who their Wonder Woman will be.

I wonder if Luke was chosen in part because of the popularity of Black Panther... The success of Mamoa-man might similarly influence Aquaman.

Yeah, I just kind of want to know where DC's head is at when it comes to Aquaman and Wonder Woman, b/c I do think the only characters really set in stone is Luke as Batman and Jon as Superman; any of the rumored ones might be chosen but could change.

I don't want to totally disregard Jackson as a candidate but learning that Jackson and Garth weren't the only young male candidates associated with the Aquafamily and that there's this Koryak person who is a Pacific islander like the live action Aquaman and that even if he is an outlier there is that aquababy who could very much be aged up dramatically for 5G, it kind of made me pull back from thinking Jackson is the next Aquaman.

With Viking Judge, the inspiration is Thor and Brienne of Tarth, Orlando and Sook gave her a pretty good backstory and design just to kill her off in the first issue of a comic, but she's coming back in an issue of Wonder Woman so I guess that's something. I also remember the Odyssey of Amazons comic connecting the Greek and Norse mythology a bit by making Amazons and Valkyrie sisters ...don't really know where Viking Judge would stand in that since I don't think she's a Valkyrie.

Unfortunately you may be right when it comes to Grace Choi, I have no idea what they did or didn't do with character in the new 52, so I'll have to research that but I do know that she has a pretty defining relationship with Thunder and it kind of defines her character, so would DC progress Grace without Thunder ...Idk.

I know for Wonder Woman that they probably want the 5G successor to be a powered up female warrior like Diana is, but whether they want them to be Amazonian, related to a God, non-alien is all up in the air, we have no idea how similar or different they want these 5G characters to be. I have said Artemis seems like a likely candidate but I don't think DC would pick characters who have been Wonder Woman before, the thing is when it comes to Diana her Wonder Woman family isn't that big in comparison to Batman's and Superman's so any character in association with her is the "expected" choice.

You're right tho in saying that "their Trinity branding will definitely have an effect on who their Wonder Woman will be".

Raises the question of what happens to characters like Kaldur and Wallace... The aesthetic point is real-- Some of the most "deserving" or obvious young characters are black sidekicks. Besides the surprise of it all, the push for less obvious choices could be so that the varsity roster isn't too white or too black or too fleshed out to not do something new with.

How do you sideline the current sidekicks and former apprentices without insulting their characters? That'll be interesting to see.

I think DC just needs to be creative, maybe bring back some stuff they did and redefine it, there's a couple of things I would like to see back especially after knowing some of these sidekicks are gonna be skipped over.

We know the bat offices are cooking something up for Tim and Steph and that it likely won't be ready until 5G just based on the fact that they're still in planning stages.

But I think when it comes to Jackson and how his likeness/image is associated with Young Justice, I do think he'll be okay. He'll either be 5G Aquaman or he'll be one of the defining leaders/teachers of the Young Justice team; I remember Superlad reminding me that Bendis talked about taking inspiration from the cartoon and so I could very much see it being generational.

In regards to Wallace, I have no clue.

Speaking of Luke-- I wonder if he'll go through some tragedy to make him a grimmer character. Personality-wise, he needs to be different enough from Bruce to make a Batman-Beyond-dynamic work, which would align with his existing lighter personality. But he also needs to be different enough from Jon to make a World's-Finest-dynamic work, which would favor a darker personality. Maybe DC will have him be a badboy like Terry when Terry was with the League but make him less guarded when he's with Bruce.

I'm also curious about whether the reason Bruce preferred Luke to David is the same reason he chose Luke over the Robins.

I hope they don't try to put Luke through tragedy, the thing that makes Luke stand out and makes his 5G book appealing to me is that his whole family is alive and not one of them is a villain.

If they want to play up some tragedy aspect they could idk emphasize that despite Luke having a good life, he is a black man who sometimes gets stopped from going into his own home b/c people think he's in the wrong neighborhood, he gets pulled over for dwb (driving while black) and the excuses given are dumb, purses are clutched when he walks by and so he finds reprieve as Batman b/c he can breathe a little easier, walk a little taller, and doesn't have force his presence, his body, his whatever to be less intimidating.

I mean is that not a tragedy in of itself and that definitely would be a different experience to Jon whether Jon had a secret identity or not; and I know Batman/Bruce goes at it with people but who's to say that it won't be the 5G Wonder Woman who's snapping at people.

So they better not kill any of his family members, I don't care if it's not crime related, no deaths.

[Superlad93]

But he also needs to be different enough from Jon to make a World's-Finest-dynamic work, which would favor a darker personality. Maybe DC will have him be a badboy like Terry when Terry was with the League but make him less guarded when he's with Bruce.

Can't really say how they'll workout that dynamic. I mean, his friendship with Damian doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but given that the rumor is that Jon and Luke will be getting the solos associated with their new titles, I have to imagine they'll also get the shared Batman/Superman book, so that dynamic seems more than likely to take some shape.

Well Luke is already older (nebulously anywhere from 18 to 20 whatever), so if the timeskip 4 to 5 years like I'm expecting, Jon'll be between 21 and 22. So maybe they play up Luke being pragmatic and measured in comparison to Jon's Superman? Jon'll technically have a lot more years as a hero under his belt (by the time 5G hits he'll have been a hero for about 12 years since he started when he was 10), so pulling the "slow down rookie" deal on him would be kind of odd, but you could play on Jon kind of seeing the forest before the trees in terms of helping people because he'd be coming from the future where he's see what we'll one day achieve, and he may get lost in that?

Whatever the case, I imagine they'll try not to make Luke just a skin color swap of Bruce in terms of how he interacts with people.

[Superlad93]

I hope they don't try to put Luke through tragedy, the thing that makes Luke stand out and makes his 5G book appealing to me is that his whole family is alive and not one of them is a villain.

If they want to play up some tragedy aspect they could idk emphasize that despite Luke having a good life, he is a black man who sometimes gets stopped from going into his own home b/c people think he's in the wrong neighborhood, he gets pulled over for dwb (driving while black) and the excuses given are dumb, purses are clutched when he walks by and so he finds reprieve as Batman b/c he can breathe a little easier, walk a little taller, and doesn't have force his presence, his body, his whatever to be less intimidating.

I mean is that not a tragedy in of itself and that definitely would be a different experience to Jon whether Jon had a secret identity or not; and I know Batman/Bruce goes at it with people but who's to say that it won't be the 5G Wonder Woman who's snapping at people.

So they better not kill any of his family members, I don't care if it's not crime related, no deaths.

Oh man, you could totally do a shade or two of Jon as the totally well meaning "post racial white dude". It works especially perfect for him since he'll be coming from the bubble of the two greatest and most accepting parents ever that preached nothing love and service to all, and also the *actual* post racial (at least in terms of Earth humanoids) 31st century. The kid'll probably have such little frame of reference for what Luke may go through that he'll quickly find his foot in his mouth at least once.

Play up how Luke would love to get to that tomorrow Jon's been to, but he's gonna get through today first. A good writer would be able to walk the line just right and keep this from being "a very special episode" of Justice League.

And maybe they could become friends over how both will likely have to overcome whispered accusations of nepotism and "affirmative action" while they both try to fill the two most iconic roles on the planet?

[Aahz]

I don't want to totally disregard Jackson as a candidate but learning that Jackson and Garth weren't the only young male candidates associated with the Aquafamily and that there's this Koryak person who is a Pacific islander like the live action Aquaman and that even if he is an outlier there is that aquababy who could very much be aged up dramatically for 5G, it kind of made me pull back from thinking Jackson is the next Aquaman.

Koryak is afaik Inuit and not a Pacific islander.

[Badou]

Oh man, you could totally do a shade or two of Jon as the totally well meaning "post racial white dude". It works especially perfect for him since he'll be coming from the bubble of the two greatest and most accepting parents ever that preached nothing love and service to all, and also the *actual* post racial (at least in terms of Earth humanoids) 31st century. The kid'll probably have such little frame of reference for what Luke may go through that he'll quickly find his foot in his mouth at least once.

Didn't Jon grow up on Earth 3? That bubble he grew up in when he was still just 10 kind of burst when they had him spend his adolescent years on an evil Earth stuck there by an evil version of his own father.

Might be a situation where Luke is way in over his head dealing with the things Batman deals with and they go for that kind of dynamic. Although I don't know if DC will really do any Worlds Finest or Trinity things for the 5G. When Dick became Batman they didn't really try and find replacements for a new Trinity or Worlds Finest. It was mainly just Dick as Batman looking over Gotham and running the JL.

[SecretWarrior]

Didn't Jon grow up on Earth 3? That bubble he grew up in when he was still just 10 kind of burst when they had him spend his adolescent years on an evil Earth stuck there by an evil version of his own father.

Might be a situation where Luke is way in over his head dealing with the things Batman deals with and they go for that kind of dynamic. Although I don't know if DC will really do any Worlds Finest or Trinity things for the 5G. When Dick became Batman they didn't really try and find replacements for a new Trinity or Worlds Finest. It was mainly just Dick as Batman looking over Gotham and running the JL.

Good point. IIRC, Clark and Diana were still in their respective roles then.

DC kinda had a similar dynamic with Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Crime with Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Robin, but the founding Titans were never put on that same pedestal. There were references to it in the Young Justice cartoon.



DC has created new, more parallel Trinities with Jason and Tim though.





These trios are more callbacks than pedestals, and Tim's group usually includes Bart as a fourth, so maybe Jon and Luke won't directly parallel the Trinity either. But maybe they will? Who knows.

[astro@work]

In looking at who the 5G replacements are for the more prominent heroes, I hope DC looks at how Marvel approached their generational replacements and what didn't work. Marvel was more successful using characters we already had an investment in. Bucky and Sam/Falcon were easier to get behind as the new Cap because we already had a history with them. Riri as Iron Man was a tougher choice because we barely knew her before she took the mantle...and fans rejected her pretty quickly (but seem to have accepted her more easily as Ironheart where she isn't a "threat" to Tony in the role).

For this reason, I hope the Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Flash replacements aren't somebody we literally don't know at all or have never met.
I can see fans turning away in droves from those titles if the successors are some brand new character we have no investment in.
Garth or Jackson as Aquaman would have far more resonance than BRAND NEW! CHARACTER X! that we've never met.

DC seems to frequently forget we aren't just fans of the costume, we're fans of the character. If they want us to stick around, they need to be doing the work now to build up the successor characters so fans will at least give the 5G characters a chance instead of launching blanket cancellations on our pull lists.
There doesn't seem to be anybody obvious in line for Wonder Woman in particular, considering they never show Donna or Cassie in the main title.
Flash has been utilizing Wallace and Avery pretty regularly (although Avery could use some character development...she's pretty much a tag along so far).
Green Lantern has a lot of peripheral characters on the fringe, but none of them getting used in the main book.
Aquaman has Jackson showing up a lot, Garth never mentioned, Tula on the fringe, and an Aquababy who isn't even born yet...if Aquababy is the choice they'd better get busy on that one!

[Superlad93]

Didn't Jon grow up on Earth 3? That bubble he grew up in when he was still just 10 kind of burst when they had him spend his adolescent years on an evil Earth stuck there by an evil version of his own father.

Yeah, you're not even wrong given the fact that it's now been confirmed that he spent most of his time on Earth-3 out and about. I suppose a writer could play it like he kind of just compartmentalized all the bad sh!t from that Earth in the thinking of "well, it's not my Earth. It's a bad Earth". Or maybe Earth-3, ironically enough, wasn't as racist as our normal Earth because it was too busy being awful in other ways? I mean, in issue 16 of Superman Jon did say that artificial flavoring was outlawed, and it made the food around Earth-3 taste amazing if not better than Earth-0.

Ultimately, I dunno. I was just throwing something out there with the limited knowledge I have.

Might be a situation where Luke is way in over his head dealing with the things Batman deals with and they go for that kind of dynamic. Although I don't know if DC will really do any Worlds Finest or Trinity things for the 5G. When Dick became Batman they didn't really try and find replacements for a new Trinity or Worlds Finest. It was mainly just Dick as Batman looking over Gotham and running the JL.

Since there's a very in continuity Batman/Superman book that just came out and doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon, I'd say there's a chance that they'll at least explore the Worlds Finest of the new generation.

[astro@work]

Yeah, you're not even wrong given the fact that it's now been confirmed that he spent most of his time on Earth-3 out and about. I suppose a writer could play it like he kind of just compartmentalized all the bad sh!t from that Earth in the thinking of "well, it's not my Earth. It's a bad Earth". Or maybe Earth-3, ironically enough, wasn't as racist as our normal Earth because it was too busy being awful in other ways? I mean, in issue 16 of Superman Jon did say that artificial flavoring was outlawed, and it made the food around Earth-3 taste amazing if not better than Earth-0.

Ultimately, I dunno. I was just throwing something out there with the limited knowledge I have.



Since there's a very in continuity Batman/Superman book that just came out and doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon, I'd say there's a chance that they'll at least explore the Worlds Finest of the new generation.

I think I recall Bendis hinting around that there was more story to be told about Jon's time on Earth 3. I also doubt that story will get told in the pages of Legion, because there's too much other story to be told introducing the large roster of newly reinvented characters. Maybe the Earth 3 years will be examined when Jon returns to the present for 5G. While I'm not a big fan of the Jon age-up, the time on Earth 3 would make for some interesting backstory.

[Superlad93]

I think I recall Bendis hinting around that there was more story to be told about Jon's time on Earth 3. I also doubt that story will get told in the pages of Legion, because there's too much other story to be told introducing the large roster of newly reinvented characters. Maybe the Earth 3 years will be examined when Jon returns to the present for 5G. While I'm not a big fan of the Jon age-up, the time on Earth 3 would make for some interesting backstory.

From what I understand, it does actually seem like those Earth-3 flashbacks will be told in Legion. He brought it up during a Legion interview. I mean, yes, there's a lot of major story being told in that book, and you need to introduce newly reinvented characters, but, frankly, both apply to Jon. Him being part of the Legion and being in the future is a major and ongoing story beat as we saw in the end of issue 1, and he's had 6 years of new back story added to him essentially making its exploration just as necessary as the exploration of someone like Saturn Girl.

[SecretWarrior]

From the March 2020 solicits:

WONDER WOMAN #754
written by STEVE ORLANDO
art by V KEN MARION
cover by ROBSON ROCHA and DANNY MIKI
card stock variant cover by RAFAEL GRAMPÁ
Just when she thought her troubles were over, Wonder Woman is thrust into a new adventure that takes her out of this world! Princess Maxima, the former ruler of the planet Almerac, has crash-landed on our hero’s doorstep and is desperate for her help. Maxima’s people are victims of a vicious lie, and only the truth she’s discovered will set them free. With Wonder Woman by her side, can she retake her throne and bring back the planet’s peaceful matriarchal society? Back on Earth, there is no peace…only Warmaster! The vengeful villainess has obtained a weapon of mass destruction that can wipe out the Amazons for good!
ON SALE 03.25.20
$3.99 US | 32 PAGES
CARD STOCK VARIANT COVER $4.99 US
FC | DC
This issue will ship with two covers.
Please see the order form for details.

Thoughts on Maxima becoming Wonder Woman? Given her sci fi background, she'd be more like the Bekka Wonder Woman from Gods and Monsters. Her age wouldn't be an issue if her physiology ages differently.

[kurenai24]

And maybe they could become friends over how both will likely have to overcome whispered accusations of nepotism and "affirmative action" while they both try to fill the two most iconic roles on the planet?

Lol, I could totally see this ...in and outside of comics.

Koryak is afaik Inuit and not a Pacific islander.

Thank you for correcting me.

Since Koryak is not Pacific islander maybe he's not a candidate, or maybe they'll change his race/ethnicity to being Polynesian which wouldn't be great.

And that Aquababy is a girl, so that takes her out.

Is it really between Jackson and Garth with Jackson as the winner.

When Aquaman had amnesia who were the indeginous people he stayed with ...maybe one of them will be Aquaman.

From the March 2020 solicits:

Thoughts on Maxima becoming Wonder Woman? Given her sci fi background, she'd be more like the Bekka Wonder Woman from Gods and Monsters. Her age wouldn't be an issue if her physiology ages differently.

DC's trinity is human, alien, and god, which are 3 different facets of the dc universe.

Maxima would be a good choice and even if her physiology is the same as humans, doesn't she have a daughter that looks exactly like her with the same name so that shouldn't be a problem, the only issue is that she is an alien, wouldn't she essentially be a female Superman in some respects.

~~~~

Maxima is a good choice, it's the alien part that could be a drawback.

Grace Choi is a good choice, it's her age and her relationship to Thunder that could be a drawback.

Viking Judge is good choice, it's her being half black and in stiff competition with other black characters who could potentially be leads of a book that's a drawback.

Donna and Artemis are good choices, it's them having been Wonder Woman that could be a drawback.

Cassie's a good choice, it's her being an obvious choice and from a defined generation that could be a drawback.

[SecretWarrior]

That's a good analysis of the WW candidates. Speaking of the connection to the gods, any 4th World possibilities?

[Superlad93]

Is it really between Jackson and Garth with Jackson as the winner.

I think that might be the case. I feel like the Young Justice show just casually giving us our first POC Aquaman, and an LGBTQ Aquaman at the same time may inspire the choice to be Jackson.

When Aquaman had amnesia who were the indeginous people he stayed with ...maybe one of them will be Aquaman.

People of all races I believe. Outside of maybe one of the sea gods, I don't really see a candidate there.

[kurenai24]

That's a good analysis of the WW candidates. Speaking of the connection to the gods, any 4th World possibilities?

Big Barda ...I guess, she's an alien so that could be a drawback and she's a mom and whether intentional or not that ages her, then again we got that New Gods movie that will eventually come out so who knows.

There's also Grail who is also an alien and she has spent significant amount of time in the Wonder Woman book, the real issue with her would be the fact that not only did the 5G Flash dabble in villainy but his dad was a villain as well and then we have the possible thing with Jackson being 5G Aquaman and his dad being a villain and so she would be bringing the exact same thing in her book so her drawback would repetitive story.

I think that might be the case. I feel like the Young Justice show just casually giving us our first POC Aquaman, and an LGBTQ Aquaman at the same time may inspire the choice to be Jackson.

This is also true but like someone pointed out, is DC gonna really have more than 2 of their 6 main heroes be black.

If you think about it from a team perspective, 3 black characters on a 7 to 9 roster is not a big deal, even if it can result in the rule of 3 that Dwayne McDuffie talked about; but if you look at it from the book perspective and how 5G is gonna have different people under the mantle and that DC's most known heroes are gonna be leading the character change as well as the ones who are guaranteed books.

That means 3 of DC's main defining heroes out of the 6 that are guaranteed books are gonna be black heroes... I don't think DC would necessarily do that.

Which leaves 2 slots, Luke is a lock-in which leaves Aquaman, Green Lantern and even Wonder Woman as possible books that could have black leads. And yes Jackson is lgbt and would be the first aquaman of color but Jo was being advertised as the first black female lantern and she too is lgbt.

And then add in the fact that DC is repurposing an Aquaman Earth One story for 5G which Jackson wouldn't need as he has enough material and backstory to sustain a book and then on top of that his father is a villain just like 5G's Flash, are they really gonna have 2 characters of similar stories leading a book, is that not gonna be repetitive to have similar books about a hero who's parent is a bad guy.

I may be looking at this more deeply than DC would but one thing that is obvious is, if you're gonna have 2 black characters why make them both male...