DC Characters If They Had Been Created Today

[Alpha]

Yeah man exactly. I lt never occurred to me to have actual famous women that disappeared, but could be a great addition.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

What would be the age limit for sidekicks and teen heroes? 18 and up?

Nahh because I could see teen heroes being more like the Runaways or Power Pack. Separate from the adults and having to deal with things on their own. Teen Titans kinda has that but it becomes less convincing or interesting over the years.

Starting teen heroes at 13-15 is more fitting than 18. Post 18 you should be more of an apprentice than a sidekick. More like Blindspot or Signal than Robin. Plus when you're 18 your technically an adult so it's less murky.

[Agent Z]

What would Hawk and Dove be like today?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

What would Hawk and Dove be like today?

They'd be the next reincarnation for Carter and Shayera or the callsigns for the Thanagaraian cops.

[Restingvoice]

What would be the age limit for sidekicks and teen heroes? 18 and up?

No limit on teen heroes that start independent or kept out of the field. The 18 and up will be for field sidekicks so the adult heroes look responsible

[Agent Z]

Which characters would be orphans and which ones would not be?

[Agent Z]

How would the following villains be depicted?

Black Adam

Black Manta

the al Ghuls

Poison Ivy

Two-Face

[king81992]

How would the following villains be depicted?

Black Adam

Black Manta

the al Ghuls

Poison Ivy

Two-Face

Black Manta and the al Ghuls would be the same.

Poison Ivy would be treated as a controversial hero.

Two Face would most likely get cured and redeemed.

No idea about Black Adam.

[CosmiComic]

To answer the OP, I think the teen sidekicks wouldn't actually be teen sidekicks, but instead already start out in their own "Titans" group. Superman would probably "be" from an immigrant background, and Wonder Woman would be a native of the actual Amazon rainforest. Batman would probably be a multimillionaire, not a billionaire.

[zvrk]

Superman: Syrian refugee

Wonder Woman: gone star spangled and eagle getup, enter a Hindu woman, hailing from something like Gulabi Gang

Batman: black vigilante, something like Punisher, app developer who got rich

Grant Morrison would be a normal person.

I refuse to live in that universe!

[Restingvoice]

Ra's al Ghul would be more like... wait you know what, he's not gonna change. Arab characters are still mainly terrorist or at least have violent setting. Even Baz debuted with a gun and stealing a car.

Hmm... Kyle Rayner's brown.

[80sForever]

On the plus side, DC wouldn't kill off Kyle's girlfriend and shove her in a fridge for shock value. That sort of thing wouldn't fly in the current year.

It didn't fly with readers in the 1990s either. Please do not condemn an entire era (and the people who lived in it) by pretending 2021 is more morally evolved/superior than 1994.

When Gail Simone in 1999 complained about Alex DeWitt's death, she listed female characters who were "killed, maimed or depowered". Let me know if this has been "fixed" in comics today, or it was Gail's myopic feminism overblowing it.

Ron Marz (an outspoken Progressive) wrote Alex's death:

"I see a reference to her being "cut up and stuck in a refrigerator." Firstly, you assume incorrectly Alex was "cut up," which is frankly a rather common mistake. The real story behind that page is that as initially written and drawn, Kyle finds her body stuffed into the fridge. Her WHOLE body, in one piece. In fact, I still have a copy of that original page. The Comics Code went bananas and made us change the artwork so that the door was mostly shut. This had the effect of forcing readers to use their imaginations as to what the "unseen scene" was, and a lot of readers went for the most grisly thing imaginable -- a dismembered body. I think this actually says a great deal more about some readers' minds than it does about our original intentions. Score one for the Comics Code.

All that said, I can tell you Alex was a character destined to die from the moment she was first introduced in GL #48. I created her with the intention of having her be murdered at the hands of Major Force. I took a lot of care in building her as a character, because I wanted her to be liked and her death to mean something to the readers. I wanted readers to be horrified at the crime, and to empathize with Kyle's loss. Her death was meant to bring brutal realization to Kyle that being GL wasn't fun and games. It was also meant to sever his links with his old life, paving the way for his move to New York. And ultimately I wanted her death to be memorable and illustrate just how truly heinous Major Force was. Thus the fridge. From the reactions, I think I succeeded fairly well at those goals. It's five years later and people are still talking about it. More than anything as a writer, you want the audience to react emotionally to your work, to care. I wrote a villain committing a truly despicable deed. That doesn't mean I endorse or admire that behavior. I doubt Thomas Harris thinks of Hannibal Lecter as a positive role model, either. And it's probably worth mentioning that Major Force was punished for the act."

I can't wait when a student from 2099 learns that in 2021 that society (which includes everyone on this board) accepted hate crimes.

[randomideaguy]

. Ron Marz (an outspoken Progressive) wrote Alex's death:

You do realize that this quote does nothing to fix the issue, right? The point is Kyle’s character arc could apparently only be served by a side character death and Gail was pointing out that this violence is typically inflicted on women as a matter of course. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s “lazy writing” since it’s pretty much baked into these Hero’s Journey type stories, but it is definitely old hat and IMO if you use it you’re going to have to be more creative with it.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I could see Kyle more as a mystical character taking after Sai from Naruto or Kid Kaiju from Marvel. They can bring their art to life and that's a more interesting angle to me.

[king81992]

It didn't fly with readers in the 1990s either. Please do not condemn an entire era (and the people who lived in it) by pretending 2021 is more morally evolved/superior than 1994.

When Gail Simone in 1999 complained about Alex DeWitt's death, she listed female characters who were "killed, maimed or depowered". Let me know if this has been "fixed" in comics today, or it was Gail's myopic feminism overblowing it.

Ron Marz (an outspoken Progressive) wrote Alex's death:

"I see a reference to her being "cut up and stuck in a refrigerator." Firstly, you assume incorrectly Alex was "cut up," which is frankly a rather common mistake. The real story behind that page is that as initially written and drawn, Kyle finds her body stuffed into the fridge. Her WHOLE body, in one piece. In fact, I still have a copy of that original page. The Comics Code went bananas and made us change the artwork so that the door was mostly shut. This had the effect of forcing readers to use their imaginations as to what the "unseen scene" was, and a lot of readers went for the most grisly thing imaginable -- a dismembered body. I think this actually says a great deal more about some readers' minds than it does about our original intentions. Score one for the Comics Code.

All that said, I can tell you Alex was a character destined to die from the moment she was first introduced in GL #48. I created her with the intention of having her be murdered at the hands of Major Force. I took a lot of care in building her as a character, because I wanted her to be liked and her death to mean something to the readers. I wanted readers to be horrified at the crime, and to empathize with Kyle's loss. Her death was meant to bring brutal realization to Kyle that being GL wasn't fun and games. It was also meant to sever his links with his old life, paving the way for his move to New York. And ultimately I wanted her death to be memorable and illustrate just how truly heinous Major Force was. Thus the fridge. From the reactions, I think I succeeded fairly well at those goals. It's five years later and people are still talking about it. More than anything as a writer, you want the audience to react emotionally to your work, to care. I wrote a villain committing a truly despicable deed. That doesn't mean I endorse or admire that behavior. I doubt Thomas Harris thinks of Hannibal Lecter as a positive role model, either. And it's probably worth mentioning that Major Force was punished for the act."

I can't wait when a student from 2099 learns that in 2021 that society (which includes everyone on this board) accepted hate crimes.

I never condemned the entire era. Shock value deaths/crippling are always garbage and no, it hasn't been fixed. Simone was RIGHT despite her 'myopic feminism' as you call it. The only problem I had was that she did not point out all the male characters who got killed or crippled in for shock value or to raise stakes.

Even if Alex was created to die, the way Marz did it left a bad taste in my mouth.