DC Characters you will get riot if anything bad happens to them

[BatmanJones]

Depends on the character and the execution of the tragedy.

Wally had tragedy and it was also a mediocre story.

I didn't mean to insinuate that every tragedy was guaranteed to be good. The post above answered mine by saying it depended on artistic merits. To both of you I say, yes, of course. All stories should be measured by how well they are told. Every piece of art rises or falls according to its execution.

But this thread isn't about that. It's about "rioting" because "something bad" happens to a character you love. Bad things have happened to all great characters, in and out of comic books. How they respond to adversity is the story in a superhero comic. (See: Oracle, pre-New 52) If nothing bad ever happens, what are they doing, playing cards or something? Having a birthday party? Taking a group hike? Every issue?

I get loving certain characters. I've been doing it all my life, like everyone. I just don't get freaking out if your favorite fictional characters are harmed in a fictional story. I'd actually be more upset if nothing bad ever happened to my favorite characters. That would make them flat characters and eventually they wouldn't be my favorites anymore.

But yes, a tragedy is only good if it is a good tragedy.
And yes, the success of a story depends on its artistic execution.

I'd have thought those things went without saying. I would have thought this went without saying too: a story where nothing bad ever happens to its hero is almost definitely gong to be a bad story.

[BatmanJones]

The problem is that too often the death or tragedy is done with intention of permanently replacing the character.

It took years of Hal fans protesting until he was restored as Green Lantern.

Ted Kord and Vic Sage were killed off to make way for new versions of Blue Beetle and the Question....but again fan popularity resulted in their return.

For most comic fans it's specific heroes that draw them into reading comics, and when they are killed off people lose interest in reading comics and often quit.

That makes sense. I agree. And I wouldn't have replied as I did if the thread was named "DC characters you will riot if they are killed off." But that's not what this thread is.

I mean, they're never really going to stay dead in comics, so I think what makes more sense is 'characters I would riot if they disappeared from comics'. (I was pretty dang miffed over losing Helena Wayne Huntress and Richard Grayson Robin, each from Earth-Two, in COIE. But all these years later Helena was seen in Infinite Frontier #1)

That would be a very different thread. This one is just weird to me.

[Captain Nostalgia]

That makes sense. I agree. And I wouldn't have replied as I did if the thread was named "DC characters you will riot if they are killed off." But that's not what this thread is.

I mean, they're never really going to stay dead in comics, so I think what makes more sense is 'characters I would riot if they disappeared from comics'. (I was pretty dang miffed over losing Helena Wayne Huntress and Richard Grayson Robin, each from Earth-Two, in COIE. But all these years later Helena was seen in Infinite Frontier #1)

That would be a very different thread. This one is just weird to me.

I feel for Helena Wayne fans, or fans of any character that has been wiped out and replaced at any given time.

I can actually live with one of my favourite characters being killed off if I know there is a good chance they will be resurrected, but....

it's when DC signals they have no intention of bringing them back via introducing a shiny new replacement that I riot....or in my case, simply stop buying comics altogether.

Your right the poster doesn't mention heroes being replaced, but I think it"s what a lot of us have been inferring, because we've had so many bad experiences with it.

[BatmanJones]

I feel for Helena Wayne fans, or fans of any character that has been wiped out and replaced at any given time.

I can actually live with one of my favourite characters being killed off if I know there is a good chance they will be resurrected, but....

it's when DC signals they have no intention of bringing them back via introducing a shiny new replacement that I riot....or in my case, simply stop buying comics altogether.

Your right the poster doesn't mention heroes being replaced, but I think it"s what a lot of us have been inferring, because we've had so many bad experiences with it.

I’m down with all that. I mean, that makes sense to me.

[Robotman]

Jaime Reyes.

One of the only Latino superheroes to have any mainstream success.

[K7P5V]

Definitely, my choice would be the SHAZAM!/Marvel Family (especially Mary Marvel):

[SiegePerilous02]

I didn't mean to insinuate that every tragedy was guaranteed to be good. The post above answered mine by saying it depended on artistic merits. To both of you I say, yes, of course. All stories should be measured by how well they are told. Every piece of art rises or falls according to its execution.

But this thread isn't about that. It's about "rioting" because "something bad" happens to a character you love. Bad things have happened to all great characters, in and out of comic books. How they respond to adversity is the story in a superhero comic. (See: Oracle, pre-New 52) If nothing bad ever happens, what are they doing, playing cards or something? Having a birthday party? Taking a group hike? Every issue?

I get loving certain characters. I've been doing it all my life, like everyone. I just don't get freaking out if your favorite fictional characters are harmed in a fictional story. I'd actually be more upset if nothing bad ever happened to my favorite characters. That would make them flat characters and eventually they wouldn't be my favorites anymore.

But yes, a tragedy is only good if it is a good tragedy.
And yes, the success of a story depends on its artistic execution.

I'd have thought those things went without saying. I would have thought this went without saying too: a story where nothing bad ever happens to its hero is almost definitely gong to be a bad story.

I agree stories are better when they have characters put through an emotional wringer and come out the other side. If everything was perfect, I agree it would be boring.

I think that's easier to pull off in non-superhero related media though (at least for the comics). It's usually more effective if an author creates their own story and characters and has everything generally mapped out with a broad plan for a beginning, middle and end, and they have complete control over shaping their character and where they will go. It's another matter entirely in mainstream superhero comics with so many different creatives involved with different agendas. One creator can care a great deal about a character and put the work into making their struggles compelling. Another would just view the character as canon fodder and kill them off, maim them or turn them evil for cheap shock value. Even your Oracle example is a mix of these two approaches. Alan Moore did not care about Barbara as a character in TKJ and even admitted that Len Wein should have reigned him in more instead of saying "Cripple the bitch." The end result was a fairly mediocre story (at least by Moore standards) that mostly impacted Barbara despite her being an afterthought, not even the third most important character in the story after all the men. We just got extremely lucky that writers like Ostrander, Yale, Dixon and Simone were able to do so much more with her, but that is a rare best case "making lemonade from lemons" scenario that other characters don't always get.

Basically, you're right that it is a given that well written hardships/tragedy can be great for drama and characterization. But DC is just kind of bad at it. People are inclined to be protective of their characters when we have examples of what happened to Wally, Hal in the 90s, Sue Dibny, Jean Loring and Lian Harper.

I feel for Helena Wayne fans, or fans of any character that has been wiped out and replaced at any given time.

Helena realizing all traces of her life had been erased and then she was killed and everyone forgot her is one of the most horrifying fates DC has ever inflicted on a character.

I get liking Helena Bertinelli more, but I feel that the post-Crisis favoritism in some fan circles makes people forget that that era was built on some corpses of its own. The grimness and character assassinations were cranked up under DiDio's reign and he shifted targets, but it has still been here a while.

[atomicskull]

None, to be honest. I respect what the writers and editors do. They don't owe me anything. Fans tend to take these things too personal imo.

[John Venus]

Regarding tragedy; 'Daredevil: Born Again' is one of my favorite comic books and an absolute top ten story arcs. The story is about the Kingpin dismantling Matt's life piece by piece from losing his job to his home to his sanity until he is finally rendered homeless and seemingly dies in a car crash but what makes the story is Matt's absolute determination to claw his way back to the top and find the light in his life again.

It's actually very well done, very well crafted, you can tell it's a story that Miller and David Mazzucchelli really wanted to tell and I think people can even find meaning and strength in watching Matt struggle to regain control over his life again.

Compare that to all the times Didio era crap on a character just for the sake of shock value or to prop up another character. It wasn't out of a desire for story telling, it was just them being petty and spiteful simply because they can. If you're a Helena Bertinelli fan would you be inclined to read Helena Wayne if the former was killed or erased from existence (this goes the other way too, but there is no reason why they couldn't have had two Huntresses post Nu52, just say Bertinelli was inspired by Wayne)? Or if you're a Wally West fan would you be inclined to like Barry Allen's return or accept Wallace West if their existence was used by writers to erase your favorites? If you like Cass Cain, you wouldn't be okay with Steph and Babs outright replacing her. It's also unnecessarily spiteful, Waid's Flash run, Johns JSA run (even his GL run) and even Cass Cain's first Batgirl ongoing already showed audiences how you can have younger characters co exist with older characters while the former earns their mantles.

[Captain Nostalgia]

Helena realizing all traces of her life had been erased and then she was killed and everyone forgot her is one of the most horrifying fates DC has ever inflicted on a character.

I get liking Helena Bertinelli more, but I feel that the post-Crisis favoritism in some fan circles makes people forget that that era was built on some corpses of its own. The grimness and character assassinations were cranked up under DiDio's reign and he shifted targets, but it has still been here a while.

Bertinelli is one of my favourite characters of all time, but as someone who has had to endure....much with DC, I can't help but empathise with how Helena Wayne fans must of felt when they introduced a brand new Huntress who has effectively gone on to replace her for several decades.

Imagine being a "huge" Barry Allen fan in the 80's. He's your all time favourite character, you collect Flash comics religiously and then bam! Wiped out of existence for almost 25 years, horrible.

[SiegePerilous02]

Bertinelli is one of my favourite characters of all time, but as someone who has had to endure....much with DC, I can't help but empathise with how Helena Wayne fans must of felt when they introduced a brand new Huntress who has effectively gone on to replace her for several decades.

Imagine being a "huge" Barry Allen fan in the 80's. He's your all time favourite character, you collect Flash comics religiously and then bam! Wiped out of existence for almost 25 years, horrible.

With the Huntresses, it's really easy to have them both if we embrace the Multiverse. Bertinelli on Earth-1, Wayne on Earth-2.

They seriously always sabotage their own attempts to write characters out in the worst ways possible. Barry being killed off as a hero going out in a blaze of glory is pretty much the gold standard of how to do it if we're killing a character off. I feel if Hal got a similar treatment in the 90s, the backlash from HEAT may still have happened but likely not been as bad.

With the Batgirls, erasing Cass and Steph was a step too far. If they had to have Babs back as Batgirl at all, they should have either left them in canon or been consistent with their own "iconic characters only" stance and erased all the Robins except Dick in the reboot. The blatant sexist double standard with the Batgirls made things worse than they already were. Ideally, they really should have just done a younger "Ultimate DC" thing and have Babs be Batgirl there while Cass and Steph were in other books. There's potential profit in all sorts of scenarios with different incarnations of characters.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I guess it depends on whether the tragedy is artistically appropriate

Not every tragedy is well done, or done with respect, or for great drama, or even for drama. Too often it's just "we need cannon fodder to create the illusion of gravitas for our event, and the high-falutin' pretentious clowns who think tragedy always equals ART! and have their noses too high in the air to recognize the short-sighted, mean-spirited bullshit behind what we're doing for what it really is, will always defend us." In some instances, it's done because somebody dislikes a character, their creator, or the work featuring said creator and character, and just cannot rest until they've done everything they can to destroy it. In Didio's case, it was pretty much everything from NTT #1 up until he took the editorial reigns.

[Captain Nostalgia]

With the Huntresses, it's really easy to have them both if we embrace the Multiverse. Bertinelli on Earth-1, Wayne on Earth-2.

They seriously always sabotage their own attempts to write characters out in the worst ways possible. Barry being killed off as a hero going out in a blaze of glory is pretty much the gold standard of how to do it if we're killing a character off. I feel if Hal got a similar treatment in the 90s, the backlash from HEAT may still have happened but likely not been as bad.

With the Batgirls, erasing Cass and Steph was a step too far. If they had to have Babs back as Batgirl at all, they should have either left them in canon or been consistent with their own "iconic characters only" stance and erased all the Robins except Dick in the reboot. The blatant sexist double standard with the Batgirls made things worse than they already were. Ideally, they really should have just done a younger "Ultimate DC" thing and have Babs be Batgirl there while Cass and Steph were in other books. There's potential profit in all sorts of scenarios with different incarnations of characters.

This is true, if your going to kill off a character; Barry Allen as you say, is the gold standard on how to do it.

The difference between between Barry and Hal's legacy characters is that Wally had been around for decades, and he was immensely popular, so people generally accepted the transition, whereas Kyle sort of materialized out of thin air, and having Hal become a mass murderer, was pretty much the execs at DC signaling that he's never coming back as GL.

I wasn't aware that Cass had been erased, which is sad... but it brings up one of the two fundamental problems of legacy characters.

1) Fans of a favourite character ultimately have to pay the price once they've been killed off, erased, and replaced. (It's happened to me 4 times)
Even if they return it's never the same because now they have to share the spotlight with their legacy hero, so usually one or the others appearances are reduced.

(Unless it's someone like Mr. Terrific where the support for the original character is next to nill of course)

2) Legacy characters always live under the threat of being replaced, even when it doesn't make sense, or the DC fanbase has generally accepted the new character (As was the case with Wally West and Cassandra Cain) all it takes is one writer, or someone on the editorial staff to say, "hey let's bring back Barbara as Batgirl" and varoom Cassandra disappears.

[witchboy]

Not every tragedy is well done, or done with respect, or for great drama, or even for drama. Too often it's just "we need cannon fodder to create the illusion of gravitas for our event, and the high-falutin' pretentious clowns who think tragedy always equals ART! and have their noses too high in the air to recognize the short-sighted, mean-spirited bullshit behind what we're doing for what it really is, will always defend us." In some instances, it's done because somebody dislikes a character, their creator, or the work featuring said creator and character, and just cannot rest until they've done everything they can to destroy it. In Didio's case, it was pretty much everything from NTT #1 up until he took the editorial reigns.

What is Didio's beef with Wally and Dick and their whole generation anyways?

[achilles]

I'm pretty sure DC was going to replace PG with the Tanya Spears character and then for some reason reconsidered. Had they done it, it would have been the last straw for me after they did similar things to so many other character I liked.