YJ ANIMATED SERIES vs COMIC CONTINUITY

[Frontier]

Just for the record, the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon came up with Cheshire's cat mask.

[John Venus]

Yeah, that's kind of my point. If her original backstory can be this easily discarded without any issue, why bother with it at all? Simone didn't even give her mother a name and changed the circumstances under which she was trafficked.

I think she did have potential (as I do for most characters) but DC squandered it. The story Simone did was really just an excuse for her to pull off a convoluted plan that involved killing Shiva's master and framing her for her own murders. Any chance at telling nuanced stories with Jade went out the window when they had her nuke Qurac and wrote her as a cliche for most of her subsequent appearances. Really, even her original design kind of hints that she was meant to be a caricature of Asian women.

Simone didn't discard the backstory. She just tweaked the nationality of her father. Her father still abused her mother and Cheshire was still sold into slavery.

I think you can tell the story of a war orphan whose mother was abused by her father and grows up to be a bounty hunter who kills for money and at the same time is looking for revenge on her abusive father without treading into problematic territory. Even the fact that Cheshire nuked a whole country, there is story telling opportunity there because it pushes her into much darker territory. Not to mention what it means for Lian.

If they want to adapt the closer to the original, there is a lot they would have to get rid of. Even then, I still think making her and Artemis sisters would be a nice nod to the YJ show and as I said, it helps both characters.

I don't think they would have to get rid of a lot. Just reframe the whole thing and treat the character with more respect and go from there.

Artemis Crock herself was reinvented for the show. The changes work for the show. I don't know why folks claim the show is an alternate universe at one point then later want comics to change to fit adaptations.

I wouldn't call it sanitary given how abusive Sportsmaster is. I think Weisman and company came up with the idea of Artemis as a member of the Arrowfamily first and then decided to make her and Jade sisters due to the latter's involvement with Roy Harper to add more complications.

As for Batman's parents, they've been adding twists to the Waynes' deaths since 1956, when Bill Finger established that they were the victims of an assassination. Batman, Begins, Gotham and Reeves' The Batman also attribute (or imply) that the Waynes' deaths weren't a random mugging.

Well, I consider Greg Weisman to be a better writer than post 80s Byrne, so I think he pulled it off.

It's more sanitised compared to what's in the comics. Some characters are meant to deal with more real world violence.

The only twist is really whether the murder was premeditated or not and if so who. Anyway, my point is, the violence is rooted in the real world. If you change the gun to a ray gun, you're softening it up. Just like if Cheshire is no longer a war orphan sold to slavery, you're softening her up.

Just for the record, the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon came up with Cheshire's cat mask.

Yep. I think that's the first time anyone has tried to give her a design closer to the cat motif.

[Agent Z]

Simone didn't discard the backstory. She just tweaked the nationality of her father. Her father still abused her mother and Cheshire was still sold into slavery.

Simone did a lot more than tweak Jade's backstory. Here's Jade's origin as given in the 12th issue of Who's Who In The DC Universe.



Nowhere was it ever stated that Jade was a child born of rape. Nor was her mother the one to sell her into slavery out of shame like Simone stated. Simone's retcon is as different from Jade's original backstory as the YJ animated version is.

I think you can tell the story of a war orphan whose mother was abused by her father and grows up to be a bounty hunter who kills for money and at the same time is looking for revenge on her abusive father without treading into problematic territory.

Assuming you're talking about the Vietnam War, that still comes with issues of the sliding time scale and how old Jade is supposed to be if she was conceived during that time.

Even the fact that Cheshire nuked a whole country, there is story telling opportunity there because it pushes her into much darker territory. Not to mention what it means for Lian.

Nuking Qurac (a country that was pretty much created because DC doesn't like using real life foreign countries much) was considered random and out-of-character at the time for even some fans and still is. It also comes across as being rather iffy when you consider the people involved and the real world context.

It's more sanitised compared to what's in the comics. Some characters are meant to deal with more real world violence.

Child abuse is very much real world violence, regardless of who is doing it.

Besides, as should be evident in the past decades, something being rooted in real world horrors doesn't mean it is handled well in fiction and DC has a terrible track record when it comes to rape in particular. I doubt the series writers would have even been allowed to make Jade a sex trafficking survi

The only twist is really whether the murder was premeditated or not and if so who. Anyway, my point is, the violence is rooted in the real world. If you change the gun to a ray gun, you're softening it up. Just like if Cheshire is no longer a war orphan sold to slavery, you're softening her up.

In two of the examples that I pointed out, the Waynes' deaths were orchestrated by shadowy supervillains, with the hitman just being the tool they used to carry it out. And as I said already, Cheshire was originally not a child of rape. She was a victim of slavery but DC never did any real examination of that. Not even in the Outsiders story where Lian was kidnapped by human traffickers.

Comic Pre-Flashpoint Jade is at best character of wasted potential, at worst a racist caricature informed by post-Vietnam War Orientalist biases.

Post-Flashpoint Jade, well, that's another story. We'll see how things play out for her.

Artemis Crock herself was reinvented for the show. The changes work for the show. I don't know why folks claim the show is an alternate universe at one point then later want comics to change to fit adaptations.

I was thinking more of a merger of origins. Jade could be a trafficking victim and still be Artemis's sister, though the former would need a writer who is much better at handling this (no offense to Simone or Wolfman but there depiction of Asian characters could at time be very tin eared).

It's not like adaptations influencing the comics is a new idea. This goes all the way back to Jimmy Olsen debuting in the radio show.

To be clear, Jade and Artemis not being sisters isn't a deal breaker for me. I just think it was a nice change and made the two characters interesting.