Storylines That Made A Character Radioactive

[Timothy Hunter]

Storylines and status quo changes that were so controversial that the characters became unusable or at least less popular because of it.

Some examples:

-Hawkworld
-Richard Brunning's Adam Strange
-The Five Years Later Legion of Superheroes
-Emerald Twilight
-Mike Carlin's Metal Men

[HsssH]

How exactly Hawkworld made Hawkman radioactive?

[married guy]

How exactly Hawkworld made Hawkman radioactive?

Here you go (put aside some reading time, it'll take a while..... :
https://www.hawkworld.org/2020/02/th...man-chart.html

[HsssH]

Yes, this does sound terrible:

According to the story, the first version of Hawkman came to exist at the dawn of time, so it appears that Hawkman has lived for millions of years. His name was Ktar Deathbringer. He was the general of the Deathbringers, a winged army who served an evil entity called “The Lord of the Void.” We don’t know where he came from or how he came to exist, but it appears that he was created by this evil entity for the purpose of killing and sacrificing people to this being. Think of Ktar as a "reverse-Lucifer." Venditti has said that this was the pitch he made to DC Comics for Hawkman's origin. The entity desired to enter this reality and gradually gained strength to cross over with the sacrifices offered by Ktar and his army.

[Robanker]

Strange Adventures sure is shaping up to be this.

[married guy]

Countdown to Infinite Crisis - Totally carpet bombed Ted Kord AND Max Lord.
Cry for Justice - What on Earth did Roy Harper do to deserve this ****??

[Gaius]

I don't think he was ever that big a villain but probably Identity Crisis for Dr. Light.

[Timothy Hunter]

Countdown to Infinite Crisis - Totally carpet bombed Ted Kord AND Max Lord.
Cry for Justice - What on Earth did Roy Harper do to deserve this ****??

Countdown to Infinite Crisis was the first time I was exposed to a Ted Kord as a serious character as opposed to his Bwa Ha Ha persona from the Giffen and Dematteis Justice League. You are 100% right about Maxwell Lord in that book. Embarrassingly bad.

[John Venus]

Hawkworld in itself was fine and probably one of the best 'hard sci fi' stories that DC ever put out. The problem arose when they gave it an ongoing and decided to set it in the then present day continuity which caused the continuity equivalent of a car pile up where they were forced to explain who the Hawks that had been on the League up to that point were with each subsequent explanation being worse than the previous one. That Zero Hour issue is what rendered Hawkman radioactive, not Hawkworld.

[John Venus]

I would add in Dr Light/Arthur for Identity Crisis. Knowing he is a rapist spoils every subsequent appearance and every prior appearance.

IC almost irradiated everyone who participated in the mind wipe.

[DrNewGod]

Hawkworld in itself was fine and probably one of the best 'hard sci fi' stories that DC ever put out. The problem arose when they gave it an ongoing and decided to set it in the then present day continuity which caused the continuity equivalent of a car pile up where they were forced to explain who the Hawks that had been on the League up to that point were with each subsequent explanation being worse than the previous one. That Zero Hour issue is what rendered Hawkman radioactive, not Hawkworld.

This is correct. It was a mess that didn't need making.

[K. Jones]

Countdown to Infinite Crisis was the first time I was exposed to a Ted Kord as a serious character as opposed to his Bwa Ha Ha persona from the Giffen and Dematteis Justice League. You are 100% right about Maxwell Lord in that book. Embarrassingly bad.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis also carpet bombed Jessica Midnight and basically the entire rest of Rucka's Checkmate. He had to spend the whole OMAC Project mini afterward at least trying to pull Sasha Bordeaux out of the pit ... then wait a few years and get barely a one-shot during Final Crisis to continue trying to save characters ... and then only pretty recently managed to kind of finish cleaning up Sasha and Jessica Midnight in Wonder Woman and Lois Lane, respectively.

I mean that being said, "Mind Control" is a perfectly fine big old comic book trope for at least explaining away the "How". Not the editorial "Why" but definitely at least the suspension of disbelief aspect within the continuity. The end with Max and Ted was shock schlock and could've easily been a satisfying and more interesting variation. Not only that but even the premise itself ... considering that Max has Mind Control ... could have easily been subverted. Like, the whole world could just "believe" Max killed Ted because that too, part of the "spymaster" plan. Or how about the cool story ramifications of even TED believing he's been killed? But yeah ... nobody has really known what to do with Checkmate since and nobody has really tried hard until Bendis now ... and I've got my issues with Bendis's current ongoing and Mark Shaw thing, but just setting aside story critiques and style critiques and whatever else I might think about it on the good/bad scale, it's a story with interesting characters, but it's not particularly a "Checkmate Story". Sort of Checkmate-in-Name-Only. Like they're not even properly "spy people" ... it's more the DCU Deductions, Pinkertons, Private Investigators and Curiosities Club, far more akin to the "League of Detectives" easter eggs that've popped up in the various Scott Snyder Batman Anniversary and Crisis type showcases lately.

[K. Jones]

Lemme think a sec and contribute to the RADIOACTIVE topic without just heaping on Tom King (because luck and chance means not all his stories will have the result; because you can't stop Batman characters and his stuff with Seeley doesn't have this issue, and like ... I dunno, Omega Men was repetitive but okay and Mister Miracle I liked quite a bit so it's a total mixed bag). Even Robinson's "Cry For Justice" didn't destroy Ollie or Roy. It's tough to actually nuke a character. Even Superboy Prime's last appearances were like a breath of fresh air.

I'm having trouble thinking of good ones.

[JackDaw]

How exactly Hawkworld made Hawkman radioactive?

Basically it didn’t.

The Tim Truman mini was best ever re-launch of a mainstream DC character, with both wonderful artwork and story.

The John Ostrander ongoing that followed the Tim Truman mini was fine when set in Thanagar in an indefinite time era…moving action to Earth late on in the series maybe was a mistake and John O…decided on a continuity fix (there was some nit picking from some fans) that probably wasn’t his finest hour as a writer.

But even allowing for the few niggles at the end, still better than 99 percent of DC runs.

[king81992]

Donna Troy's constant string of identity cruises.