Aging in the DC Universe

[The Darknight Detective]

Okay but this is also comics, to keep using Batman as a reference just a few months ago he had a black lantern ring and a talking alien starfish, so I think him being a little older while fighting will be fine.

Well, if its comics, then Bruce can be at his peak condition well past his eighties and doesn't have to pass down his legacy to anyone.

[Alpha]

The funny thing is, if DC really allowed real-time (or close enough to it) aging and stuck to it, almost all of our favorites would be either retired, semi-retired, or dead. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of readers really don't want this. They want their favorite characters in the driver's seat and no one else to replace them.

We can have plenty of stories set in the past. We could have a comic book about Batman in the 1970s

[SiegePerilous02]

The funny thing is, if DC really allowed real-time (or close enough to it) aging and stuck to it, almost all of our favorites would be either retired, semi-retired, or dead. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of readers really don't want this. They want their favorite characters in the driver's seat and no one else to replace them.

It's always funny to see people say they want to get rid of Bruce and Barry for the "younger" guys in Dick and Wally....despite Dick being "older" than my parents and Wally just barely being younger than them by a couple years.

It would pretty much leave just Jon and Damian's generation at this point

[The Darknight Detective]

We can have plenty of stories set in the past. We could have a comic book about Batman in the 1970s

Sure they could, but if Bruce is still selling more than the others, what happens then? Back to younger Bruce again. No, if DC wants to age their characters "Gasoline Alley" style, then it's all the way or not at all, IMO (with the exception of alternate universes).

[The Darknight Detective]

It's always funny to see people say they want to get rid of Bruce and Barry for the "younger" guys in Dick and Wally....despite Dick being "older" than my parents and Wally just barely being younger than them by a couple years.

It would pretty much leave just Jon and Damian's generation at this point

Right. Which would have been fine, BTW, if that's how the industry was set up at the start. At this point, however, I believe it's too late for anything permanent.

[9th.]

Well, if its comics, then Bruce can be at his peak condition well past his eighties and doesn't have to pass down his legacy to anyone.

The age thing doesn't really apply to Batman, if we were going to be "realistic" then the wear and tear on his body would take him out way before old age does.

[Vakanai]

This is the way it should be

Hard disagree.

[Vakanai]

We can have plenty of stories set in the past. We could have a comic book about Batman in the 1970s

Nobody wants their favorite heroes to be relegated to "Decades ago, in the past" stories.

[transformers03]

I feel like they would've aged Lian up to Damian's age of she never died

I wonder what made DC bring her back after all this time and with a Catwoman connection out of all things. Also doesn't this age Roy up to at least 30?

We were talking about this a bit in the Wally Appreciation thread, but I think the recent returns of pre-Flashpoint continuity stems from the fact that DC has received an overhaul in management in the last year or so. The assumption that these new heads grew up with the comics and stories of the 90s and early 2000s, so that could be a reason why things like Wally being the main Flash again and Lian and Connor's return, happened. I also think that DC was looking for ways to incorporate more diversity into their universe, and Lian, as an Asian-looking biracial girl, was a good viable option as she's a character with a lot of legacy with her background. Also, her death was really poorly handled, only happened because DC didn't feel like Roy should have a daughter anymore, and just left everything with a poor taste. Twelve years out, it continued to be a poor look on DC. It is honestly weird that DC was really against having their characters seem old in the late 2000s, yet are now suddenly fine with Roy somehow having a teenage daughter. It's extra jarring because I don't know how that fits with the current continuity.

For why Catwoman, probably because the Gotham-verse is DC's biggest brand. Everything Batman and Gotham related has become a good nesting ground for introducing new characters, or reintroducing classics like Lian and Connor, before spinning them out to other titles. Though on that note, since now Lian has grown up in Gotham rather with her real parents or Titans, is she now forever linked to Gotham? I love Lian being back, and I loved that dynamic she had with Selina in the Festival of Heroes one-shot, but I want her to be part of the Arrow or Teen Titans extended mythos, not another extension of the Batman family.

[Aahz]

For why Catwoman, probably because the Gotham-verse is DC's biggest brand. Everything Batman and Gotham related has become a good nesting ground for introducing new characters, or reintroducing classics like Lian and Connor, before spinning them out to other titles. Though on that note, since now Lian has grown up in Gotham rather with her real parents or Titans, is she now forever linked to Gotham? I love Lian being back, and I loved that dynamic she had with Selina in the Festival of Heroes one-shot, but I want her to be part of the Arrow or Teen Titans extended mythos, not another extension of the Batman family.

There are kind of two big problems with putting Lian on Arrow or Titans.

The problem with Green Arrow is that he doesn't have a book at the moment, and even if he has one this franchise can't carry more than one book, which massively limits the amount of support characters that franchise can support. Even Roy barely appears in Green Arrow, I think since he stopped being Ollies sidekick in the 70s, he has only been in a hand full of Green Arrow stories.

The other big problems you have in Titans and Green Arrow is that we have there already one Half Asian archer girl with an Assassin as Mother Emiko, which makes Lian there kind of redundant.

Thats in general a problem they have when they bring back the characters that were erased by Flashpoint, in most cases you don't really have any book to put them in. Just look what is going on with Steph and Cassandra, that's very likely going to be similar with Lian and Connor in the future.

[Raz]

The other big problems you have in Titans and Green Arrow is that we have there already one Half Asian archer girl with an Assassin as Mother Emiko, which makes Lian there kind of redundant.

I am not attacking you here because what you've said from a marketing point of view is sadly 100% right, but it's a really shitty way of looking at it - Batman literally hangs around with four white straight boys with black hair who are all martial artist ex-sidekicks and nobody has an issue with that, the idea that Lian and Emiko can't coexist purely because they're both Asian and use similar weapons is ridiculous when you can differentiate them personality-wise as easily as you can all the Robins.

[The Darknight Detective]

I am not attacking you here because what you've said from a marketing point of view is sadly 100% right, but it's a really shitty way of looking at it - Batman literally hangs around with four white straight boys with black hair who are all martial artist ex-sidekicks and nobody has an issue with that, the idea that Lian and Emiko can't coexist purely because they're both Asian and use similar weapons is ridiculous when you can differentiate them personality-wise as easily as you can all the Robins.

I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who have a problem with that. I understand creating Dick Grayson because comics were for preadolescents then and the idea of a kiddie sidekick could work in that context, but any juvenile partner after him is suspect at the very least, IMO.

[sifighter]

In other aging news it appears that Supergirl has now turned 21 in Tom Kong’s miniseries, which I think is a first in the comics that mainline Kara has been older then 18.

[Aahz]

I am not attacking you here because what you've said from a marketing point of view is sadly 100% right, but it's a really shitty way of looking at it - Batman literally hangs around with four white straight boys with black hair who are all martial artist ex-sidekicks and nobody has an issue with that, the idea that Lian and Emiko can't coexist purely because they're both Asian and use similar weapons is ridiculous when you can differentiate them personality-wise as easily as you can all the Robins.

The difference is that Batman franchise has way more books, and the Robins are usually popular enough to either have their own book or be the lead of a team book, and there are pretty big age differences at least between Dick, Tim and Damian.

You have usually only all 4 Robins in one story if it some kind of Event (or some kind of special one shot story), but that's usually something where they get much character development.

That simply doesn't work for Green Arrow (or basically any other DC Character outside of Batman and maybe Superman), Green Arrow has at best a single book (and doesn't really have big events, digital first or anthology series), you can't put that many support characters on the book before you start taking away from the lead character.

In team books you are also kind of limited in the amount of characters you can have, if you want to give every character a decent amount of screen time, and the usually try to give all characters different power sets and characters from different franchises (you will hardly ever see a team book that has a Robin and a Batgirl in the main cast, unless that book is part of the Batman franchise). You could of course put Emiko and Lian on different book, but DC doesn't really has much books with teenage superhero teams (at the moment only Titan Academy iirc) and Emiko and Lian seem to be about the same age which makes it even harder to find different teams for them.

Btw. turning Lian into a Cheshire/Catwoman style character and not in an Archer might make it actually easier to but her on a team with Emiko, since they are not competing for the "Archer slot".

[dietrich]

I am not attacking you here because what you've said from a marketing point of view is sadly 100% right, but it's a really shitty way of looking at it - Batman literally hangs around with four white straight boys with black hair who are all martial artist ex-sidekicks and nobody has an issue with that, the idea that Lian and Emiko can't coexist purely because they're both Asian and use similar weapons is ridiculous when you can differentiate them personality-wise as easily as you can all the Robins.

It really bugs me when white passing automatically = white.