Are there any DC characters that truly feel "outdated"

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Right?

Why the color of the creators should matter? If they were black we'd be complaining there's not enough white elements in the stories? Or if they were yellow or pink?
What really matters is if the stories are good and the drawings are well done.

The DC universe is a fictional universe, it does not need to reflect the real world in any way. It's the same as complaining that Dragon Ball is too japanese! That there's not much diversity and this and that. Or Greek Mythology needs an update, let's have Hercules fight druglords and evil corporation CEOs instead of fighting the Hydra or Hades, i'm sure people would love that.

It's funny, these politics ideas mixed into comics feel so out of place. They weren't there before, they came from somewhere else. From the news, journalism students or something like that, trying to take over comics from comics nerds.
Both are words typed into a sheet of paper, but comics aren't the news. Stories come from another place, from ideas, dreams, they are philosophical and mythological. Those are the things that lasts forever. It takes a talented experienced creative person to write them.
Only checking boxes like "we need to have these races represented, these genders, those issues addressed" those aren't the components of good storyteling, those are distractions used today to try to hide or get away with bad writing and empty stories.
If you make comics based on the news they lack substance and last only for a second, then they are old news.

The speed at which you're throwing up counterpoints to strawman arguments no one in this thread is making is pretty remarkable. It might be more helpful if you disengage from what you've no doubt been arguing with others on Twitter or elsewhere on CBR and try to stick with what we're trying to discuss in this thread. Making assumptions about people's motives that simply have no basis in reality isn't really the best way to have a discussion.

If you honestly think politics in superhero comics is something new, you really need to re-read Seigel & Shuster's Superman, Simon & Kirby's Captain America, and dozens upon dozens of other comics from Stan Lee, Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams and many others. There was a brief period after the Comics Code came in that superhero comics specifically avoided politics, but they've been fairly present throughout its history. There's been mixed results to be sure, but the idea that "the news" or "journalism students" are responsible for the superhero genre suddenly tackling social issues is demonstrably incorrect.

When Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil created John Stewart fifty years ago, what exactly do you think they were trying to accomplish? Were they simply checking boxes about diversity or were they trying to tell compelling stories that added a new character with a different perspective to the DCU?

[Jim Kelly]

Congo Bill was one of the publisher's longest running characters. He got his start in 1940, MORE FUN COMICS 56 and moved into ACTION COMICS a year later, where he stayed until 1960, when he moved over to ADVENTURE COMICS for another year. He had his own movie in 1948 and he got his own comic book in 1954, which lasted for only seven issues.

He was probably meant as an ersatz Jungle Jim--the Alex Raymond character who had his own comic strip and also inspired a bunch of movies starring Johnny Weissmuller (after his days as Tarzan).

Bill didn't actually meet the golden ape (later called Congorilla) until 1957 and then he didn't actually become Congorilla until 1959, so it was really near the end of Congo Bill's popularity as a character--and probably an effort to give the feature new life by making Bill more of a super-hero. And given that incarnation didn't survive for long, it seems a miscarriage of justice that Congo Bill should be remembered for his stint as Congorilla rather than his many years of straight jungle adventures.

Now, whether the Congo Bill/Jungle Jim concept is viable anymore is debatable in itself. This seems like white man colonialism. I could maybe see doing a series about an African living in the Congo, a person of colour who has adventures and is called Congo Bill. That could work.

Congorilla is just another of the hundreds of apes that have higher inteligence or have the mind of a human--so there's nothing that special about him as a concept. However, the name itself is pretty inventive. Combining King Kong, Congo and gorilla all in one name--that's excellent word play. The person who thought of that must have been feeling pretty clever for a whole week, to have fabricated such a portmanteau.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Congo Bill was one of the publisher's longest running characters. He got his start in 1940, MORE FUN COMICS 56 and moved into ACTION COMICS a year later, where he stayed until 1960, when he moved over to ADVENTURE COMICS for another year. He had his own movie in 1948 and he got his own comic book in 1954, which lasted for only seven issues.

He was probably meant as an ersatz Jungle Jim--the Alex Raymond character who had his own comic strip and also inspired a bunch of movies starring Johnny Weissmuller (after his days as Tarzan).

Bill didn't actually meet the golden ape (later called Congorilla) until 1957 and then he didn't actually become Congorilla until 1959, so it was really near the end of Congo Bill's popularity as a character--and probably an effort to give the feature new life by making Bill more of a super-hero. And given that incarnation didn't survive for long, it seems a miscarriage of justice that Congo Bill should be remembered for his stint as Congorilla rather than his many years of straight jungle adventures.

Now, whether the Congo Bill/Jungle Jim concept is viable anymore is debatable in itself. This seems like white man colonialism. I could maybe see doing a series about an African living in the Congo, a person of colour who has adventures and is called Congo Bill. That could work.

Congorilla is just another of the hundreds of apes that have higher inteligence or have the mind of a human--so there's nothing that special about him as a concept. However, the name itself is pretty inventive. Combining King Kong, Congo and gorilla all in one name--that's excellent word play. The person who thought of that must have been feeling pretty clever for a whole week, to have fabricated such a portmanteau.

Englehart and, I think, Volkes did a wonderful Congorilla miniseries back in the 90s that I really adored. I think the character could still work, but I can also see how the white colonialist elements of the character might be tricky these days. The latest Tarzan movie tried its damndest to address those aspects of the character, but audiences gave that film a collective shrug.

I also agree that the character isn't all that unique anymore with so many other talking apes to choose from in the DCU. I mean, if given the choice between using Congorilla or Detective Chimp, I'd probably stick with Bobo unless I specifically need the history that a century old character like Congo Bill brings to the table. And, even then, why not simply create a new talking ape character that we can explore? It's not like their isn't an entire city of them already in the DCU. I'm kind of surprised that no one has created a female talking ape character yet. The only ones I know of are all male apes. I know almost nothing about female gorillas, but it seems like an untapped vein of the DCU that could yield some gold. What are the gender roles in Gorilla City like?

[BatmanJones]

Right?

Why the color of the creators should matter? If they were black we'd be complaining there's not enough white elements in the stories? Or if they were yellow or pink?
What really matters is if the stories are good and the drawings are well done.

The DC universe is a fictional universe, it does not need to reflect the real world in any way. It's the same as complaining that Dragon Ball is too japanese! That there's not much diversity and this and that. Or Greek Mythology needs an update, let's have Hercules fight druglords and evil corporation CEOs instead of fighting the Hydra or Hades, i'm sure people would love that.

It's funny, these politics ideas mixed into comics feel so out of place. They weren't there before, they came from somewhere else. From the news, journalism students or something like that, trying to take over comics from comics nerds.
Both are words typed into a sheet of paper, but comics aren't the news. Stories come from another place, from ideas, dreams, they are philosophical and mythological. Those are the things that lasts forever. It takes a talented experienced creative person to write them.
Only checking boxes like "we need to have these races represented, these genders, those issues addressed" those aren't the components of good storyteling, those are distractions used today to try to hide or get away with bad writing and empty stories.
If you make comics based on the news they lack substance and last only for a second, then they are old news.

First, and I won't speak to your intention because I don't know your intention, "I don't see color" is typically a convenient way for white people to dismiss the various plights of BIPOC people. “I'm not racist, I don't see color, everyone's just a person" disregards the history of racism/white supremacy in America and the world, a history that continues today, and is an actually racist statement in itself. How nice to be able to ‘not see race,’ a privilege that’s afforded only to white people. BIPOC people don’t have that option. They don’t get to not see color. They live their color, and the consequences of having been born as they were, every single day.

Second, the complaints of politics and especially "social justice warriors" as if they don't have a place in comics disregards the origins of superhero comics. Superman was created to be a SJW. Now when he's written that way, as in Morrison's New52 Action Comics, people complain that that very fact, central to his original stories, is "out of character" and too political.

Social justice, or more to the point social injustice, wasn't 'injected' into comics by journalists or other insidious outside forces; it was the inspiration for superheroes to begin with. Superman was not created to be an escape from reality; his creators endowed him with great powers so that he might overcome great injustices that existed in their actual world and ours. His earliest adventures didn't have him fighting monsters or space aliens. He was fighting corruption and speaking truth to power while he did it.

And when we say the word political in the context of this discussion, let's be straight about it: we're talking about race. Maybe one day systemic racism will be "old news" like you say. That would be awesome. But we're not going to get there without acknowledging the existence of the white supremacy that perpetuates even today. It's been with us since before the founding of this nation and it isn't going away anytime soon. I would love for those things that divide us politically to be "old news," but they literally never, ever have. Sadly, they're not going out of style anytime soon.

Representation is a critical step forward. That anyone, especially a superhero fan, would prefer to stand in place or even step backward, to disregard the greatest injustice/evil in our nation's history, makes my heart ache and my brain explode.

[BatmanJones]

p.s. The Other History of the DC Universe, the most obvious example of representation in today's superhero comics, is the opposite of "bad writing" or "empty stories." Ridley isn't "hiding" behind anything, he's stepping into the light and bringing classic characters of color along with him.

Having read the 1970s stories that provide the settings for Other History, the series could not be more canon-accurate. Every story beat having to do with the original Teen Titans, JLA, and other DC characters that appear in these issues happened in comics that came out nearly 50 years ago. I know. I read them when they were new. It's an almost historic feat to take 50-year old stories and make them feel so immediate, simply by seeing them through the eyes of the C-list BIPOC characters that featured in them.

There is good writing and there is bad writing, and those judgments are subject to taste, but none of that has to do with diversity, equity, inclusion, or representation. The fact of representation doesn't make a comic agitprop and agitprop does not automatically equate to bad stories either. (See: Bertolt Brecht.)

There was a mention in the post I quoted above about the dangers of writing about 'the news.' That's a straw man. The news is only the story of what happened--art is the story of how it felt. And when a story is truly about how something felt it tends to be a pretty terrific story. (See: The Other History of the DC Universe.)

At the time that the most iconic DC superheroes were created, Ridley would not have even been considered as a potential comic book writer. He wouldn't have made it through the front door and, if he had, he wouldn't have been allowed to drink from the company water fountain let alone write stories for a major comic company. There is a reason that all of our classic superheroes are white and a failure of representation is that reason and anything that's done to remedy that is a great thing. It blows my mind that anyone could feel differently than that unless they are under the toxic influence of an Ethan Van Sciver for instance.

(I know that this conversation has hijacked your thread, Bored at 3 a.m. It's a great thread without this stuff and this stuff is a distraction from the premise of your great thread, but when representation is considered to be a bad thing that results in bad stories, it's really hard not to respond to that.)

[Dred]

Other History isn't entirely accurate in its recreation. It makes up some stuff or blithely ignores large chunks of story to get its point across a few times. Which is the point, really, but the narrators are certainly unreliable because of the PoV style.

[manwhohaseverything]

Superman but its feature not a flaw. A well done Superman feels outdated, other than couple Shonen anime Protagonist they don't build heroes like that anymore. I saw people gushing over the scene in Superman and Lois where he saves the kid from the car and I get why it works but feels alien today as well.

That depends on the which shonen hero you are talking about.Even allmight is a guy that has seen **** and is pretty grizzled.He smiles to deal with it.That's not a knight.That's just a stoic.But,i do concur that these guys are generally really positive,goofy and fun.

[Aahz]

p.s. The Other History of the DC Universe, the most obvious example of representation in today's superhero comics, is the opposite of "bad writing" or "empty stories." Ridley isn't "hiding" behind anything, he's stepping into the light and bringing classic characters of color along with him.

But "The Other History" is in the end of the day just a well made version of a "Secret Origin" issue, and not what these characters would really need which are good stories about them doing Super Hero Stuff.

And honestly sofar "The Other History" is imo mostly shining a light on the poor creative choices that were made with these character back in the 70s and 80s.



To come back to the actual topic, would actually say Black Lightings Origin story feels out dated. The whole Black Olympic Athlete comes back to become High School teacher feels like something from 70s or 80s.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

To come back to the actual topic, would actually say Black Lightings Origin story feels out dated. The whole Black Olympic Athlete comes back to become High School teacher feels like something from 70s or 80s.

Did they keep the Olympic athlete part of Jefferson’s origin in his TV show? I stopped watching at the start of the second season so I am out of the loop there, but I seem to remember his origin being largely intact

[Vakanai]

But "The Other History" is in the end of the day just a well made version of a "Secret Origin" issue, and not what these characters would really need which are good stories about them doing Super Hero Stuff.

And honestly sofar "The Other History" is imo mostly shining a light on the poor creative choices that were made with these character back in the 70s and 80s.



To come back to the actual topic, would actually say Black Lightings Origin story feels out dated. The whole Black Olympic Athlete comes back to become High School teacher feels like something from 70s or 80s.

I don't know about that - the CW show has faults, but Jefferson as an athletic principal isn't one of them.
I mean, the Olympics are still a thing (god and covid willing...) and those athletes got to go on to their lives after their sporting careers are done (often all too soon).

[Bored at 3:00AM]

(I know that this conversation has hijacked your thread, Bored at 3 a.m. It's a great thread without this stuff and this stuff is a distraction from the premise of your great thread, but when representation is considered to be a bad thing that results in bad stories, it's really hard not to respond to that.)

No worries, BatmanJones. When I hoped for a nuanced discussion of this topic in my initial post, I knew that the usual Comicsgate talking points would get trotted out sooner or later. Well, at least we got a few pages of that before it got derailed into this. We comics fans are nothing if not a predictable sort

[Aahz]

I don't know about that - the CW show has faults, but Jefferson as an athletic principal isn't one of them.

Even in the CW the made him an older character (who comes of a pretty old fashioned imo) and they give a lot of focus to his daughters.

[Vakanai]

Even in the CW the made him an older character (who comes of a pretty old fashioned imo) and they give a lot of focus to his daughters.

Well, yeah - if he has enough education to be a principal, and had an athletic career long enough to get some medals, and he has kids old enough to be interesting, then he'd have to be an older character!

[king81992]

A good number of the member Global Guardians, the Batman of All Nations and similar international Groups are just pretty lame stereotypes.

And probably the whole Nation of Markovia.

Disagree, Markovia and the characters connected to it( Geo Force and Terra) is a gold mine for untapped potential.

[Aahz]

Disagree, Markovia and the characters connected to it( Geo Force and Terra) is a gold mine for untapped potential.

Markovia as originally portrait in the comics, would maybe fit somewhere in the first half of the 20th century, or the second part of the 19th.