The Official "MAGGIE SAWYER Should Return To The Superverse" Thread

[Carabas]

If the Super-verse was in any way interested in doing something with Maggie Sawyer she wouldn't have ended up in Gotham to begin with.

The looked at a great character and said, you know what, cop characters are just not a good fit for Superman stories, let's put her somewhere where this sort of character can shine.

[TheDarkKnightReturns]

That's not true. In the New 52 she has been a solid part of the Batwoman cast, but before that she was brought over for Rucka and Brubaker's Gotham Central and appeared many times in the Bat-Verse after that title had ended. All of this was about her job. She had all but disappeared from Superman by the late 90s.

So she was an underused character in the Superverse ? Thats interesting. No wonder why DC decided to put her in Gotham.

[TheDarkKnightReturns]

Maggie needs to come back to Metropolis, where WHAT she does is way more important than WHO she does.


#BringMaggieBackToMetropolis

How about this : The Batverse get to keep Maggie Sawyer and we give you Catwoman ? Seems a fair trade to me.

[Sacred Knight]

Catwoman's in that rough a spot right now?

[victorsage]

I loved the SCU. I miss Maggie and her original partner Dan "Terrible" Turpin. Of course by partner I mean police partner. You know... before Batman shot him and all. Plus he wears an awesome bowler hat.

[exile001]

If the Super-verse was in any way interested in doing something with Maggie Sawyer she wouldn't have ended up in Gotham to begin with.

So she was an underused character in the Superverse ? Thats interesting. No wonder why DC decided to put her in Gotham.

I'm certain there was a trade of characters, but I can't for the life of me remember who the Super-Verse got in exchange. Obviously not such a great character as Maggie.

[Carabas]

You know... before Batman shot him and all.

He was alive and well. Okay, he was alive and shot in the shoulder and slightly radioactive and possibly having bits of left over Darkseid in his mind, but alive. Which was the entire point of Batman shooting him with something that's lethal to New Gods but not humans.

[daBronzeBomma]

How about this : The Batverse get to keep Maggie Sawyer and we give you Catwoman ? Seems a fair trade to me.

One, what's this "we"? Are you one of those folks who says "We've got to improve our offense this season" like you're on the payroll of your favorite sports team even though you're just a fan with absolutely no input on what happens to your team? Cuz you realize you're no more an actual member of the Batverse than I am of the Superverse or the DCU in general. We're both just consumers of fiction who only get to choose what we read, not how it's done.

Two, Selina Kyle is the Lois Lane of the Batverse (albeit a much more successful and ALMOST independent counterpart). That trade would be rightfully rejected outright by either side.

Three, the Superverse already has its own morally grey human female vigilante. The Thorn:


More recently:

[daBronzeBomma]

I'm certain there was a trade of characters, but I can't for the life of me remember who the Super-Verse got in exchange. Obviously not such a great character as Maggie.

I don't think there was a "trade". To use professional sports parlance, this was an apparent "Restricted Free Agent" signing which the Superverse chose not to match at the time, so she signed with the Batverse. Superverse got nothing in return. However, this is comics, where, esp in superhero storytelling, nothing is nor can be "forever". Now that Maggie is no longer the love interest that she signed on to be in Gotham, the timing is right for her to pull a "LeBron James" and "Return to Cleveland". If the Superverse Editors have any brains, they will make this move while she is still in limbo.

But, like any good franchise (sports or comics or anything else), the Superverse should have a Plan B.

My proposal: if the Superverse cannot (for whatever intra-company politics) re-acquire Maggie Sawyer from the Batverse, then they should make an all-out push for the next best thing and "sign" the non-Question Renee Montoya to be the new Head of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit. 1 good lesbian character lost = 1 good lesbian character gained. The Superverse cannot have 0 lesbian characters while the Batverse has 3 (one of which they stole from the Superverse).

[exile001]

I don't think there was a "trade". To use professional sports parlance, this was an apparent "Restricted Free Agent" signing which the Superverse chose not to match at the time, so she signed with the Batverse. Superverse got nothing in return. However, this is comics, where, esp in superhero storytelling, nothing is nor can be "forever". Now that Maggie is no longer the love interest that she signed on to be in Gotham, the timing is right for her to pull a "LeBron James" and "Return to Cleveland". If the Superverse Editors have any brains, they will make this move while she is still in limbo.

But, like any good franchise (sports or comics or anything else), the Superverse should have a Plan B.

My proposal: if the Superverse cannot (for whatever intra-company politics) re-acquire Maggie Sawyer from the Batverse, then they should make an all-out push for the next best thing and "sign" the non-Question Renee Montoya to be the new Head of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit. 1 good lesbian character lost = 1 good lesbian character gained. The Superverse cannot have 0 lesbian characters while the Batverse has 3 (one of which they stole from the Superverse).

Sorry, a lot of the sports stuff was lost on me as (a) not American and (b) don't care for sports anyway.

I don't think gay characters should be a transferable quota. They should just be good characters, wherever they are.

If a Superman writer wants to add Montoya to M.C.U. and USE her, I'd be delighted. I love the character, but hated her becoming the new Question and we haven't technically seen her in the New 52. The closest we came was her picture on what seemed to be a memorial wall in an early Batwoman issue. A lot of fans, myself included, were very p**sed off.

However DC doesn't consider her dead, and Snyder has since mentioned that she will return if they find a story worthy of her character's return.

I have mentioned before, Maggie was not brought to the Bat-Verse to be anyone's love interest. She was transferred years before Batwoman debuted because Rucka wanted strong recognisable female characters for Gotham P.D as he was pitching Gotham Central.

Look, this is clearly a massive deal to you and don't get me wrong, I'd welcome Maggie wherever the character shows, but right now I can't see the huge problem with her being in Gotham where she's more likely to be used.

Superman definitely needs character diversity, in fact thinking on it, he desperately needs it but unless he is going to interact with the M.C.P.D again, which seems unlikely, Maggie would simply disappear.

...Unless we could get a M.C.U ongoing with Maggie and Turpin. I'd buy that!

[daBronzeBomma]

I don't think gay characters should be a transferable quota. They should just be good characters, wherever they are.

An well-intentioned sentiment. A bit naive, perhaps, but certainly well-intentioned. Unfortunately, in the real world, that exact line of reasoning just as often leads to a unintended "whitewashing" (regression to the straight white male "norm") of casts in everything from tv shows to movies to comic books. Once you have a good character that is beyond the norm, you should not let them go.

I have mentioned before, Maggie was not brought to the Bat-Verse to be anyone's love interest. She was transferred years before Batwoman debuted because Rucka wanted strong recognisable female characters for Gotham P.D as he was pitching Gotham Central.

So, Greg Rucka is the culprit. Good to know. As comic book creative type, Rucka should have stuck with and further developed Renee Montoya or maybe I don't know CREATED A NEW FEMALE CHARACTER instead of swiping Maggie and thus lessening another CB franchise's already-not-exactly-great sense of inclusiveness and diversity. It was a bad move on Rucka's part, and a bad move by whomever was editing the Superverse titles to not fight him on that score.

Look, this is clearly a massive deal to you and don't get me wrong, I'd welcome Maggie wherever the character shows, but right now I can't see the huge problem with her being in Gotham where she's more likely to be used.

It's "clearly" a "massive deal" to me insomuch as I deem it a sneaky but lazy move on Rucka's part and a short-sighted and weak-willed decision on the Superverse editors' part to let it happen. The Superverse always has a much harder time getting new readers to give them a chance than the Batverse does, on account of their characters being among the most powerful and least "relatable". Incorporating more women of any stripe, People of Color, and LBTQ characters helps erase that perception.

Superman definitely needs character diversity, in fact thinking on it, he desperately needs it but unless he is going to interact with the M.C.P.D again, which seems unlikely, Maggie would simply disappear.

This is so fixable it's laughable. All it takes is an editorial edict and it's done. That's on whomever is currently in charge of the DCU and the Super-Books in particular.

...Unless we could get a M.C.U ongoing with Maggie and Turpin. I'd buy that!

As would I.

[Carabas]

So, Greg Rucka is the culprit. Good to know. As comic book creative type, Rucka should have stuck with and further developed Renee Montoya or maybe I don't know CREATED A NEW FEMALE CHARACTER instead of swiping Maggie and thus lessening another CB franchise's already-not-exactly-great sense of inclusiveness and diversity. It was a bad move on Rucka's part, and a bad move by whomever was editing the Superverse titles to not fight him on that score.

The way I see it, Maggie Sawyer transfered from the DCU to the DCU.
And as I have noted before, nobody was using her at the time, so what gives?

[Prime]

If Batwoman wasn't around I'd say absolutely, but she's been in fine hands as Kate's main love interest in her title. Ripping off Superman's supporting cast and villains was a tiresome trend some time back, but no point snatching an important character in a good title away just to make a point.

Besides, his new iffy origin aside, they already took back Cyborg Superman from his lame role in the GL franchise, so I'm happy.

And is seems Mongul is back as well.

[Prime]

Where is Dan Turpin anyway?

[daBronzeBomma]

The way I see it, Maggie Sawyer transfered from the DCU to the DCU.

Only the DCU is clearly not one monolithic structure. It's composed of several smaller miniverses (franchises) that revolve around their own alpha stars.

It's really more like a sports league comprised of different teams that rarely interact with each other and are competing for limited fan dollars and eyeballs.

Think of the DCU as the Premiere League where the Superverse is Manchester United and the Batverse is Arsenal.

And as I have noted before, nobody was using her at the time, so what gives?

So there was a lull in her usage at the time. That's on the Superverse creative teams back then. But there isn't a use-it-or-lose-it rule at DCE that I'm aware of. It's still lazier to steal an established lesbian character from one franchise than it is to create a brand new lesbian character for another franchise. Or is there a quota on how many lesbians (or non-straight-white-males) can be running around the DCU at one time? I'd like to think no such limit exists.

Now the Superverse has exactly 0 LGBTQ characters when it was responsible for one of the DCU's first.

#BringMaggieBackToMetropolis