Which of DC's Black Characters Has the Most Potential to Achieve Trinity Status?

[iron chimp]

write a good story.

Ultimately its this.

DC have had what i consider an interesting and diverse lineup with american carnage, michael cray, the gaiman book, naomi, terrifics, far sector - different genres, different imprints, big name creators and art teams; its a good well thought out strategy. Personally i think they need applauding for it.

[lemonpeace]

Ultimately its this.

DC have had what i consider an interesting and diverse lineup with american carnage, michael cray, the gaiman book, naomi, terrifics, far sector - different genres, different imprints, big name creators and art teams; its a good well thought out strategy. Personally i think they need applauding for it.

honestly, with all due respect, they don't deserve applause for doing the barest minimum now with a handful of books. DC has taken some steps in the right direction, but let's not pretend they are breaking any new ground or pushing the envelope or doing anything special in the diversity department; especially compared to most forms of entertainment (even their contemporaries).

[SecretWarrior]

Ultimately its this.

DC have had what i consider an interesting and diverse lineup with american carnage, michael cray, the gaiman book, naomi, terrifics, far sector - different genres, different imprints, big name creators and art teams; its a good well thought out strategy. Personally i think they need applauding for it.

Outside of FS, none of those brands are on the level we're talking about here. FS isn't proven, isn't ongoing, and may not be in continuity unless Jo turns out to be the primary GL in 5G.

honestly, with all due respect, they don't deserve applause for the doing the barest minimum now with a handful of books. DC has some taken steps in the right direction, but let's not pretend they are breaking any new ground or pushing the envelope or doing anything special in the diversity department; especially compared to most forms of entertainment (even their contemporaries).

Agreed.

[Aahz]

Wizard Magazine has already demonstrated it can be:

That doesn't really proof anything, and all that they are basically doing is giving stuff from Hal to John.

Again, taking over a franchise worked okay for Wally West, Scott Lang, Carol Danvers, and Hal Jordan.

- when Hal became the Green Lantern, Allan Scott hadn't been in a comic for several years, and Hal's Green Lantern Mythos is quite differnt from Allan's
- when Carol Danvers became Capatain Marvel, there afaik hasn't been a character using that name in quite some time and she also had allready a sucessfull solo series as Miss Marvel (and her sales and Captain Marvel have for the most part also not been that stellar)
- No Ant-Man had ever a long running ongoing series, that is not really a solo franchise

[Vampire Savior]

Well, yeah, no one is going to care if Michael Holt takes over the Mr. Terrific name, because Terry Sloan (that's his name, right?) didn't have much of an active fanbase. Hal Jordan, however, is one of DC's most popular leading characters, who has been in regular publication with decades and decades worth of content. If you try pushing him aside and giving all his stuff to John, what will happen is this: The fans and probably many professionals will see exactly what you did, and they will say "screw that." And whatever you tried doing with John Stewart will be tossed out the window, probably pretty quickly, and someone will see to it that Hal Jordan is put back.

[iron chimp]

honestly, with all due respect, they don't deserve applause for doing the barest minimum now with a handful of books. DC has taken some steps in the right direction, but let's not pretend they are breaking any new ground or pushing the envelope or doing anything special in the diversity department; especially compared to most forms of entertainment (even their contemporaries).

Having books out is the bare minimum. But id argue dc is doing way more recently than that.a

Saying to warren ellis - heres an imprint - do what you like for as long as you like regardless of sales- no one else is going to do that for Warren Ellis but Jim Lee and DC.

Same with Gaiman.

Paying for historical black drama - who else is doing that? You can publish it at image for sure but you are paying for it yourself. Dc are writing the cheques here.

Getting novelist in and given free reign on Young Animal - good idea

Terrifics - good teams, good concept

Naomi - will be costing DC a lot of money to invest in a low selling book in the hope the pay off comes down the line.

These are original and in some cases pretty expensive books to produce. No one else has got such a diverse line up of genres and styles. No one else is giving some of their writers such artistic freedom and underwriting losses while they do it. No one else is willing to try an integrate a new character into the main universe with such a long term strategy as naomi.

See all this at Marvel? No chance. You see other things at marvel for sure but not this.

Secretwarrior is right - none of this is going to produce Trinity level characters - although i though Terrifics was a great idea even if i didnt like the execution. But.. it would take just one of these books to shift say 35k a month and dc would have launched an even bigger offensive to get readers on.lockdown. As it is it looks like they are going to have to try another tack (5g?) But artistically what they have been doing recently is, for me, very good ideas.

[ed2962]

Having books out is the bare minimum. But id argue dc is doing way more recently than that.a

Saying to warren ellis - heres an imprint - do what you like for as long as you like regardless of sales- no one else is going to do that for Warren Ellis but Jim Lee and DC.

Same with Gaiman.

Paying for historical black drama - who else is doing that? You can publish it at image for sure but you are paying for it yourself. Dc are writing the cheques here.

Getting novelist in and given free reign on Young Animal - good idea

Terrifics - good teams, good concept

Naomi - will be costing DC a lot of money to invest in a low selling book in the hope the pay off comes down the line.

These are original and in some cases pretty expensive books to produce. No one else has got such a diverse line up of genres and styles. No one else is giving some of their writers such artistic freedom and underwriting losses while they do it. No one else is willing to try an integrate a new character into the main universe with such a long term strategy as naomi.

See all this at Marvel? No chance. You see other things at marvel for sure but not this.

Secretwarrior is right - none of this is going to produce Trinity level characters - although i though Terrifics was a great idea even if i didnt like the execution. But.. it would take just one of these books to shift say 35k a month and dc would have launched an even bigger offensive to get readers on.lockdown. As it is it looks like they are going to have to try another tack (5g?) But artistically what they have been doing recently is, for me, very good ideas.

I agree with a good chunk of this, at least in spirit. We can argue about which heroes are "better" or more popular or what counts as groundbreaking, but DC over the last 15-20yrs generally takes more chances with the types of books they are willing to put out.

[skyvolt2000]

These are original and in some cases pretty expensive books to produce. No one else has got such a diverse line up of genres and styles. No one else is giving some of their writers such artistic freedom and underwriting losses while they do it. No one else is willing to try an integrate a new character into the main universe with such a long term strategy as naomi.

See all this at Marvel? No chance. You see other things at marvel for sure but not this.

Actually other companies are doing that.

Many of them are doing it in smaller portions.

No one is trying to do a 100+ issue run anymore. Everybody wants to do portions here and there.

Aftershock, Scout, Lion Forge, Boom, Kaboom and others have done it.

Rivers of London is a comic and a book series at Titan Comics.

Boom is revamping Power Rangers and Buffy.

Folks would notice that if they were having strokes over POC doing ANYTHING in comics at the big two.

Secretwarrior is right - none of this is going to produce Trinity level characters - although i though Terrifics was a great idea even if i didnt like the execution. But.. it would take just one of these books to shift say 35k a month and dc would have launched an even bigger offensive to get readers on.lockdown. As it is it looks like they are going to have to try another tack (5g?) But artistically what they have been doing recently is, for me, very good ideas.

Well until something is done with the at times unjustified and VERY selective push back-nothing will change.

We have seen Betty Boop, Elvira, Barbarella & Betty Page with ongoings. Who asked for those books? Yet ZERO push back.
We saw Lion Forge produce a 10 issue run about a CELL PHONE store with an underachieving black guy as the lead. Who asked for that book (and yes I bought it). ZERO push back.
DINOSAUCERS & VISIONARIES saw books. 2 FAILED 80s properties.

If these books can be made why is there push back to what DC or Marvel does with POC? Especially those who have sold well in the past. They have the well known folks. So why can't they try without a bytchfest?

[SecretWarrior]

Well, yeah, no one is going to care if Michael Holt takes over the Mr. Terrific name, because Terry Sloan (that's his name, right?) didn't have much of an active fanbase. Hal Jordan, however, is one of DC's most popular leading characters, who has been in regular publication with decades and decades worth of content. If you try pushing him aside and giving all his stuff to John, what will happen is this: The fans and probably many professionals will see exactly what you did, and they will say "screw that." And whatever you tried doing with John Stewart will be tossed out the window, probably pretty quickly, and someone will see to it that Hal Jordan is put back.

He's not-- He was outsold by Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz just because they carried the main title. If Hal fans want to make noise, why should John fans care? With hardly any usage or visibility, John is still poplar enough to out-poll virtually every other GL. The pushback to the idea of killing him off is insane. I mean, he's so popular that very single bit of news and every rumor about the next GL film mentions that John will be a lead character. He's still so popular that he's one of two GLs in injustice. He's still popular enough to get people interested in a Justice League book. The idea of giving up is silly. Giving up is fastest way to lose. I say, get on board or get out of the way.

[SecretWarrior]

That doesn't really proof anything, and all that they are basically doing is giving stuff from Hal to John.


- when Hal became the Green Lantern, Allan Scott hadn't been in a comic for several years, and Hal's Green Lantern Mythos is quite differnt from Allan's
- when Carol Danvers became Capatain Marvel, there afaik hasn't been a character using that name in quite some time and she also had allready a sucessfull solo series as Miss Marvel (and her sales and Captain Marvel have for the most part also not been that stellar)
- No Ant-Man had ever a long running ongoing series, that is not really a solo franchise

Yeah, and what about Wally West, who carried the Flash book for 2 decades?

Wizard and the DCAU proved the franchise doesn't need Hal to work. Heck, Kyle Rayner did that. Jessica and Baz outselling Hal did that. GL Rebirth got a bump from Johns and nostalgia like his Aquaman and Flash books. His repetitive light wars and his departure show the real standing of the franchise. Now we're seeing writers avoid the Johns era ideas because they're so generic. Besides SCW, his stories weren't particularly compelling. Most of it was hype that didn't pay off.

[Sodam Yat]

He's not-- He was outsold by Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz just because they carried the main title. If Hal fans want to make noise, why should John fans care? With hardly any usage or visibility, John is still poplar enough to out-poll virtually every other GL. The pushback to the idea of killing him off is insane. I mean, he's so popular that very single bit of news and every rumor about the next GL film mentions that John will be a lead character. He's still so popular that he's one of two GLs in injustice. He's still popular enough to get people interested in a Justice League book.

Although, I do agree with most of this, especially about John Stewart's popularity, which John was confirmed as the main character as well, alongside Hal Jordan in earlier reports of the GLC movie (although this isn't green lit by WB).

Keep in mind that Hal's book outsold Green Lanterns after Kyle made an appearance in GLC.

It really comes down to who DC chooses to push to be honest.

The idea of giving up is silly. Giving up is fastest way to lose. I say, get on board or get out of the way.

That seems like the impression I'm reading here. This reminds me of another poster who wrote a blog about giving up on the John Stewart character and how DC won.

In fact, this sort of reminds me when John Stewart could not get over Xanshi and another instance of John saying how Hal and Guy are better Green Lanterns and are more superior than him (in Judd Winick's run).

[Sodam Yat]

You'd have to go back the last couple pages but here. . . but just for you...



and I said:



The argument wasn't even about John Stewart. It was about a new character becoming a darkstar set on earth doing "Actual Change" and the people that would ally against him for doing trying something like that.

Personally I'd read it but let me tell you something hilarious to me...

Got it.
"No black legacy characters... EVER"
I mean you get to the point where we just have to ignore some of the fringe voices and write a good story.

Ok got it. Thanks for saying this

[Vampire Savior]

He's not-- He was outsold by Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz just because they carried the main title. If Hal fans want to make noise, why should John fans care? With hardly any usage or visibility, John is still poplar enough to out-poll virtually every other GL. The pushback to the idea of killing him off is insane. I mean, he's so popular that very single bit of news and every rumor about the next GL film mentions that John will be a lead character. He's still so popular that he's one of two GLs in injustice. He's still popular enough to get people interested in a Justice League book. The idea of giving up is silly. Giving up is fastest way to lose. I say, get on board or get out of the way.

It's not about "giving up." You want something that has virtually never happened, and there isn't much reason to believe it to happen. John Stewart has never led the Green Lantern franchise, yet I get a feeling from you like you're acting like if you spam enough images from a Wizard magazine from...Jesus, like 15 or 16 years ago, it will somehow happen. Wizard magazine didn't prove anything, because Wizard magazine never published Green Lantern comics regularly. It just published a "What if" pitch, and I'm frankly surprised at the effect that had on you, seeing as it was only a pitch with a few images. I guess there's something kind of endearing about that, but I don't think we should lose perspective. It wasn't as if it was an actual line of comics that came out, just some mental masturbation from Wizard with some comic art put behind it.

This example may be a bit extreme, but it would be like if I was wishing super hard that the next day I woke up, the sun would be purple. But maybe if I spam .jpegs, and WISH really hard, it will happen, because, of course, that's the only thing that makes sense, right? Everyone--and there will be many--who don't see it my way can just be disregarded, right? If they want to make noise, let them. We don't need them to have our purple sunned world! We can just pretend they don't exist and what they want is irrelevant.

[Aahz]

Yeah, and what about Wally West, who carried the Flash book for 2 decades?

I can't really say. I have no idea what the status of the Flash Franchise was in the mid 80s.

But what you have to keep in mind is that most of the big an popular story arcs where all published post crisis, so there is a good chance that Wally's post crisis comics were in terms of quality just better then the pre crisis stuff with Barry.

And I still don't see how a character profile in magazine proofs ...

[Anthony Shaw]

His repetitive light wars and his departure show the real standing of the franchise. Now we're seeing writers avoid the Johns era ideas because they're so generic. Besides SCW, his stories weren't particularly compelling. Most of it was hype that didn't pay off.

I found it really troubling how the franchise collapse after Johns left. Too many wars, and not enough character development really exposed the ring-slingers, imo.