Why Create A New Character When You Could've Used...?

[Agent Z]

By using the OP's logic, why create Batman when DC(aka National Comics) already had Superman? There really aren't any similarities to Vixen and Naomi besides being black female heroes. Don't get me wrong, I wish DC would give Vixen a big push but Naomi didn't steal much of anything from Vixen.

Here are some DC characters that I feel are redundant:


Cats Eye when Wonder Woman already had Cheetah(two cat-themed Wonder Woman villains).

Maxwell Lord as a Wonder villain when Diana already had Dr. Psycho, Hypnota, and the Duke of Deception who are all mental-powered villains of hers.

Mr. Freeze when Batman already had Mr. Zero(two cold-themed Bat villains).

Faora when Superman already had Ursa(two female Kryptonian prisoners with very similar personalities).

Faora came first so Ursa would be the redundant one.

[skyvolt2000]

Something interesting I found....the last few appearances of Tanya Spears was in Titans Academy I think where she was using the name Powerhouse. However, if you try to look up Powerhouse in Wikipedia...it redirects you to....Naomi. Tanya is a much more layered and interesting character than Naomi. I would have really rather have seen a series about her instead....but as has been stated, Bendis didn't create her.

Naomi came from the same place as Star Girl being inspired by a family member.

Naomi was more about Bendis's daughters than anything else.

But as pointed out earlier what was stopping DC from pushing Vixen like they sort of did with Naomi?

This invest in one POC at a time nonsense is old.

[skyvolt2000]

Honestly? I can't blame writers who do this, especially since most comic book writers get paid jack. I used to feel this way about all the characters that James Tynion introduced during his run (Punchline and Ghostmaker, specifically), but if it helps him pay his rent and put food on the table, I am absolutely okay with that.

Not all writers get anything for those characters.

Not everyone get royalties and if they do it's not to a level some would think.

Trevor Van Eden got $500 for Season 1 of Black Lightning.

Larry Hama gets NOTHING for GI Joe. Now think of how much HE has done from 300+ comics, scripts to all those bios on the back of the packages. He has to keep working despite not feeling well. And he's a war vet.

Tynion's table is NOT getting that much food from DC. It's getting from his Boom Studios work. Wynd, The Woods, Backstagers, Something is Killing Children and House of Slaughter are paying the bills.
Those are what got him the Batman gig.

Unless your contract promises you to get something then sure but even THEN guess what I wouldn't do it. How many characters DESPITE having folks wanting to write them beyond guest spots are sitting in limbo because of their creator.

Blue Marvel and Ultraverse says HI.

[Primal Slayer]

Probably one of the most blatant examples is John Byrne creating Helena and Cassie Sandsmark, instead of using Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis.

At least in Cassies case, they address it full on

[Gaius]

Throw me in with the Sandsmarks being bootleg K.O's of the Kapatelis women.

[Psy-lock]

Wonder Woman has a lot of those:

Why create Grail when Devastation exists?

Why create Dark Angel when Circe exists?

Why create First Born when Ares exists?

Why create Lizzie when Lyta exists?

Why create Jason when Achilles exists?

[Icefan]

At least in Cassies case, they address it full on

It's funny, because the New 52 version of Cassie was explicitly made into a thief.

[Kaijudo]

Why would you use a Doom Patrol villain for a major Wonder Woman arc?

Because he lends himself to the story and there's nothing being done with the Doom Patrol or Immortus currently.

And the same question could be asked about using Joker in a Superman arc, Solomon Grundy in a Justice League arc, etc. It's stupid to relegate a villain strictly to a single hero/team if they can be used well in a different hero's story.

[Dr. Poison]

Faora came first so Ursa would be the redundant one.

My bad. Thanks!

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

It's probably a mix of creators gonna create and there's more money with creating new characters with an existing character doesn't fit the story the writer wants to tell. There's also a lack of knowledge and a belief that an existing character wouldn't work.

The latter options are aspects an editor could push back on or challenge. According to freelancers on Twitter, most writers are approached with a book or a project for them to do.

Speaking of Cassie Sandsmark, why create a new Wonder Girl (Yara Flor) when Cassie is still around?

Yara is a refugee/immigrant from Brazil which gives her a range of possibilities that Cassie can't do. I rather she get her own id than be a legacy of Diana but I don't think it was wrong to create her.

I think a lot of the more recent Bat Characters fall under that.

Why crate Calvin Rose if you have Dick Grayson?

Why create Strix when you have Cassandra Cain?

Why create Ghost Maker and Clown Killer if you have Red Hood?

Why create Jace Fox of you have Luke Fox?

Why create Punchline and the Gardener if you have Harley and Ivy?

Why create Sparrow (Darcy Thomas) when you have Stephanie Brown?

I don't know who Darcy is but the other serve a purpose that you can't really fill with an existing character. Or you can but it would feel incongruous or regressive with them.

Outside of Ghostmaker who should've been a Terry villian than with Bruce.

Jace is like Yara-he would've been better with a new ID than being Batman VII. He'd work better as Nobody- the Question analogue introduced at the end of I am Batman.

Future State as a whole would've worked better as the next Tangent or Just Imagine style universe.

[Riv86672]

Was thinking about Tom King's current run on Wonder Woman, which I'm enjoying quite a bit, and I got around to thinking about the Sovereign, whom I believe was created specifically for this story. As a big fan of the old-school Doom Patrol, it dawned on me that, with just a little bit of tweaking, the role the Sovereign plays could have easily been filled by longtime DP foe General Immortus.

That got me thinking: what are some other cases where a new character has been introduced in a role that could've been swapped out for an established villain, supporting character, second-tier hero, etc.? And to clarify, I'm don't mean characters who would have had to go through radical tweaks/reimaginings to make it work...just known characters who could've easily been slotted into positions that instead went to brand new characters.

Anyone spring to mind?

Because he lends himself to the story and there's nothing being done with the Doom Patrol or Immortus currently.

And the same question could be asked about using Joker in a Superman arc, Solomon Grundy in a Justice League arc, etc. It's stupid to relegate a villain strictly to a single hero/team if they can be used well in a different hero's story.

^^^ reading your thoughts on this, I fully agree.
There’s nothing wrong w. dusting off an unused pre-existing villain and having them interact w. different hero.

Oddly, your thoughts also remind me of something I posted not long ago regarding Powergirl’s current status;
why completely change a pre-existing character to such a degree just to tell your story (which isn’t exactly setting the comics world on fire), then leave that character out in the wind for another writer to fix, when you can just create your own character?

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

It's not exactly the same thing, since Alan (and Jay) had not been in any new stories for years by the time Hal and Barry came along.

Hal brought in a pretty clear difference in premise than Alan; the whole space cop corps and all that came along with it. I don’t think Barry Allen was as big a reinvention as that compared to Jay. I actually don’t know why they didn’t just use the name Jay Garrick again instead of retconning him into being a in universe fictional comic character. But then if that didn’t happen maybe we wouldn’t have the multiverse as such a big part of dc and Superheroes in general; at least maybe not the way it ended up being.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

^^^ reading your thoughts on this, I fully agree.
There’s nothing wrong w. dusting off an unused pre-existing villain and having them interact w. different hero.

Oddly, your thoughts also remind me of something I posted not long ago regarding Powergirl’s current status;
why completely change a pre-existing character to such a degree just to tell your story (which isn’t exactly setting the comics world on fire), then leave that character out in the wind for another writer to fix, when you can just create your own character?

They probably didn't know what to do with Power Girl so they let the writer experiment.

[marhawkman]

Oddly, your thoughts also remind me of something I posted not long ago regarding Powergirl’s current status;
why completely change a pre-existing character to such a degree just to tell your story (which isn’t exactly setting the comics world on fire), then leave that character out in the wind for another writer to fix, when you can just create your own character?

Yeah, IF you're gonna do new stuff... making a new character could be good.

Like the Phantom Zoners.... Zod doing Zod things makes sense, but if you wanna do non-Zod things... don't use Zod...

[DrNewGod]

I think on Jason from WW. They could have used The Olympian, but the writer wanted an emotional connection to Diana. IMO, it sucked, but I get the point.