Aging in the DC Universe

[bat39]

James Jr. in Black Mirror makes anyway no sense.

He is iirc in the flashbacks shown to be only a few years younger than Barbara, originally Barbara was about 13 years older than him.

Based on Batman Year One and Batman Year There it is also pretty clear that he can't be older than Tim Drake.

And there are iirc stories around the Wedding of Gorden with Sarah Essen that show him iirc to be about 10 years old.

Regarding the Barbara thing, I might be wrong but is it possible her age was retconned after IC?

I'm guessing you're getting the whole "she's 13 years older than James Jr.'' bit based on the idea that she became Batgirl around Year Four at around the age of 16?

But its possible that it got retconned after IC. As it is, I'm not really sure whether the whole ''Barbara is the niece of Jim Gordon, or possibly his biological daughter from an affair with his sister-in-law'' thing stuck after IC. And with a 20 year timeline, its possible that Barbara was closer in age to James Jr. and made her debut as Batgirl later? (Then again, there's a limit to how much closer in age she can be...I think a little less than a decade makes sense).

I dunno how Year Three makes it clear he can't be older than Tim Drake, or about his appearance at the Gordon-Sarah Essen wedding. But if we assume he's something like maybe 18, I think its believable that its been 8 years since the Gordon-Essen wedding (which was sometime in the early 90's, if I remember correctly)? That would of course make Tim a bit older. Argh!

Details aside though, the important thing is that Black Mirror established that a character who was literally born during Batman's first year in action was now old enough to be a serial-killer.

[SiegePerilous02]

How is James Jr. not rectonned out of existence yet?

He's just dead weight that nobody cares about.

[JorgeJ77]

How is James Jr. not rectonned out of existence yet?

He's just dead weight that nobody cares about.

Well, as of this moment, he's still dead.

[SiegePerilous02]

Well, as of this moment, he's still dead.

They might as well leave him that way, and quietly pretend he never existed.

He's not worth the headache of trying to figure out where his age fits in with Barbara's and the Bat-mythos as a whole. He was a non-entity to the mythos overall and only (barely) relevant in the Miller works, and the serial killer thing is just bleakness overload if we're factoring in all the crap that has happened to the Gordons already.

[Aahz]

I'm guessing you're getting the whole "she's 13 years older than James Jr.'' bit based on the idea that she became Batgirl around Year Four at around the age of 16?

No her Post crisis Secret Origin shows that she is adopted at the age of 13, while James Jr. is still a baby.

Btw. it was pre flashpoint also canon that Barbara finished collage before she became Batgirl, and that she is older than Dick (or if you go by Black Mirro the same age as Dick). So if you reduce the age difference between Barbara and James Jr. you basically have to massively stretch the time between Year One and Year Three (you can't stretch the length of Dicks time as Robin due to Tim's origin story).

I dunno how Year Three makes it clear he can't be older than Tim Drake,

Because Tim is about three years old in Year Three, and James Jr. would be only two since he was born in Year One.

[Dred]

Not really mixed - some popular characters were always going to be in the spotlight. It's not that I don't mind it so much as I disagree that they'd have not been in the spotlight even if DC had the forethought to think ahead and make sure other characters remained viable.



Not really - that's the idea you want, but not everyone is sold on the legacy aspect and replacing the characters they've loved for decades.

This is what leads to stagnation, though. This is what leads to where we are, infinite repetition of the same characters going through the same story arcs with a slightly different backdrop. I'm not sure how you can consolidate making new characters and pushing them and always featuring the same main cast of characters because they're the current favorites.

[lemonpeace]

DC should (and I'd even say they need to) embrace allowing their characters to age.

sorry in advanced to Robanker (because I know he and I typically are diametrically opposed on this topic) but hot take: people who oppose allowing characters to age do not care about other people's reading experience.

[Rufio]

I would not mind characters aging. I would not mind characters passing on their mantles and what have you. The character could be around as a mentor until they finally pass away.

On that note, one thing I’d like to see in conjunction with real aging is true death. Once a character is gone, they are gone. There is no rebirth for them, no second chance. As long as there is no bull honkey with just killing characters off for the lulz, with characters aging and actually dying, if done right, I think it would make for some awesome and engaging stories.

I would also not want to see magical rejuvenation in terms of characters getting their youth back. I want some grumpy old codgers shaking their canes and saying, “back in MY day this is how we did things in our hero business!”

[SiegePerilous02]

DC should (and I'd even say they need to) embrace allowing their characters to age.

sorry in advanced to Robanker (because I know he and I typically are diametrically opposed on this topic) but hot take: people who oppose allowing characters to age do not care about other people's reading experience.

I don't think any fan is really concerned about anyone else's reading experiences beyond their own, it doesn't really matter which side of the debate (or any debate) they fall on. Fans are gonna fan, they want the **** they like and everything else is secondary.

But rigidly adhering to one strict continuity can create this problem, but when we see that even the mainstream audiences are able to embrace multiple versions of the same characters, it shouldn't have to be. Moving away from one shared universe model and just focusing on crafting good stories that can be placed in any era or continuity in these characters lives should be paramount. The Superman books can age up Clark and do whatever they want to do with Jon, but we can have other books with a younger Clark that can either be earlier in that same timeline or a different one altogether. Some of the best Superman stories (All Star and Whatever Happened...?) aren't even canon anyway, so canon doesn't have to be the end all be all for these characters. If it means better stand alone graphic novels and less mainline runs getting hijacked by dumbass crossovers, all the better.

When I was a kid and watching BTAS I understood that that Batman wasn't the same one in the Tim Burton movies or the old re-runs of Adam West. We aren't following one life story because these characters don't have one life story, they never have even have ad one in the comics. Let some versions of them go through story progression and age out to be replaced by successors whose stories we can follow, but it's be kind of stupid from a business perspective to retire the big name characters across the board.

I would not mind characters aging. I would not mind characters passing on their mantles and what have you. The character could be around as a mentor until they finally pass away.

On that note, one thing I’d like to see in conjunction with real aging is true death. Once a character is gone, they are gone. There is no rebirth for them, no second chance. As long as there is no bull honkey with just killing characters off for the lulz, with characters aging and actually dying, if done right, I think it would make for some awesome and engaging stories.

I would also not want to see magical rejuvenation in terms of characters getting their youth back. I want some grumpy old codgers shaking their canes and saying, “back in MY day this is how we did things in our hero business!”

Multiple continuities would allow for permanent death as well. I could get behind that

Barry never should have been brought back in the main line comics continuity, but that means he doesn't have to be off the table in other comics either.

[Lightning63]

Multiple continuities would allow for permanent death as well. I could get behind that

Barry never should have been brought back in the main line comics continuity, but that means he doesn't have to be off the table in other comics either.

They could've easily have done a team up comic with Barry and Hal instead of bringing the two back.
.

[Dred]

They could've easily have done a team up comic with Barry and Hal instead of bringing the two back.
.

They did. It was called Brave and The Bold and it was written by Mark Waid. And it was great!

And Waid was still adamant bringing back Barry was the stupidest thing you could do in The Flash despite, you know, writing great Barry Allen centric comics.

[SiegePerilous02]

They could've easily have done a team up comic with Barry and Hal instead of bringing the two back.
.

They did that, but I imagine there are a lot of Barry fans who would like an ongoing with him instead of relying just on mini series set in the past when we already know the canon ending for him in that timeline.

So have a canon where Barry remained dead and Wally stayed the Flash (and passed the mantle on further down the line) and another where Barry could have been the Flash and his story is not set in stone. The stories of Barry's death and Wally surpassing him don't have to be undone and we get more stories with them both as the Flash. Two sets of fans can be happy, no need to leave money on the table.

We accept multiple canons in other media, why not do it in the comics? Rigidly believing that one set of imaginary stories is more important than other imaginary stories in these poorly planned out shared universes is pretty silly in the long run.

[Vakanai]

This is what leads to stagnation, though. This is what leads to where we are, infinite repetition of the same characters going through the same story arcs with a slightly different backdrop. I'm not sure how you can consolidate making new characters and pushing them and always featuring the same main cast of characters because they're the current favorites.

I give a model of how to create and push new characters to a wider audience beyond the meager existing market of comic book readers...and your argument is that somehow because the popular iconic characters will still be allowed to exist and not aged out that it's only inviting stagnation because no one can possibly have a new, unique, or different take on these guys?

[The Darknight Detective]

I don't think any fan is really concerned about anyone else's reading experiences beyond their own, it doesn't really matter which side of the debate (or any debate) they fall on. Fans are gonna fan, they want the **** they like and everything else is secondary.

Sounds about right, SP.

[Vakanai]

DC should (and I'd even say they need to) embrace allowing their characters to age.

sorry in advanced to Robanker (because I know he and I typically are diametrically opposed on this topic) but hot take: people who oppose allowing characters to age do not care about other people's reading experience.

Hot take: People who want these characters to age don't care about other people's reading experience because they want to deny them these iconic characters.