Anyone remember the Ray who was Asian?
Lucien Gates?
Part of the 52 Freedom Fighters relaunch, he was a nice new take on the character. Which utterly failed to take hold.
In part what few Freedom Fighter fans there were probably wanted to see a previous version.
And post speculator age, just putting a #1 and "all new direction!" on something doesn't automatically mean it will sell.
It also didn't include the shocking death, mutilation, crippling or vilification of the previous one, so = No Buzz.
I actually would have loved to see him team up with the John Trujillo Black Condor.
I don't even think they got as far as introducing a new Black Condor.
Freedom Fighters among other things might suffer from to many revamps syndrome.
For any "new" characters to actually take hold they actually have to be used, and consistently.
Morrison is now bringing in a new faze of Freedom Fighters, I assume that will now become the default FF team.
Lucien Gates, John Trujillo, Ryan Choi, Rhonda Pineda etc.. are easily forgotten.
And eventually someone will always default to a previous version.
What!?
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Last edited by Güicho; 11-17-2014 at 11:21 AM.
That's not the way I remember it. A few months ago, I reread Kendra's earliest appearances (she debuted in 1999 and promptly joined the JSA in its new ongoing title).
It seemed to me that in those early stories, the colorist was usually giving her pretty much the same skin shade as lots of other Caucasian characters who were her new teammates after she joined the JSA (such as Ted Grant and Dinah Lance). I think the idea of making Kendra consistently look a bit darker than her "whitebread" teammates must have only come along later -- although I admit I didn't try to take notes on whether or not Kendra's complexion looked "darker than Dinah's" in any given issue, all the way through that JSA title's seven-year run. (It didn't seem all that important at the time, once I'd established to my own satisfaction that in the early days she wasn't being colored as "darker than the whitebread superheroes," which I had been wondering about when I started rereading her old stuff.)
Last edited by Lorendiac; 11-17-2014 at 12:04 PM.
There's always bootleg superman analog - Capitan Rayo!
Literally a "repainted" Superman.(although with Aquaman's head.)
Not mine...
He seems to have a culty fan following.
I wish DC/Mattel would just outright buy (like they often do) the rights to this figure and character, and have him be a legit part of their Universe.
And go even further and actually develop his rogues from the card back.
Last edited by Güicho; 11-18-2014 at 08:33 AM.
I would love to see Tezumak, the Aztec Batman-like character from JLA: The Obsidian Age, be brought back. The Obsidian Age version could never be a straight up hero because he practiced human sacrifice in traditional Aztec fashion. Still an interesting character.
Tezumak was awesome, and looked cool.
If Manitou Raven was the Apache Chief analog was Tezumak El Dorado? (the two that crossed into our time)
The whole Justice League of Ancients seemed conceptually to have a very - how to introduce the HB created heroes into the DCU, feel to it.
Although they evolved very much past that, and into their own drawing from all over.
I've always wanted to see Kelly and Mahnke take them on again, and just admit it was them.
Maybe rework them as an amalgam with their JLU version
And their Young Justice incarnations.
But just finally crystallize them into one recognizable version that actually exists as a team in the DCU proper.
Last edited by Güicho; 11-18-2014 at 08:37 AM.
You mustn't ever forget Cheshire
"History of the DC Universe" by Wolfman and Perez, when the DCU use to make sense.
Lynx
"History of the DC Universe" by Wolfman and Perez, when the DCU use to make sense.
Did they release that last Ray mini series in trade? I read the first few issues and loved it.
The first few?
It went for 4 issues. Don't know if it was how it was planned, or because of sales?
But is that enough to collect as trade? Maybe it was packaged with the similarly launched "Second Wave" Human Bomb or Phantom Lady (Doll Man) relaunches.
They seemed to be building to Freedom Fighters then it all just vanished, and any mention of Lucien Gates with it.
If you have more than 2 issues of it, at this point you might be better off tracking down the one or two issues you missed, instead of looking for a trade collecting them.
Last edited by Güicho; 12-02-2014 at 07:48 AM.
Last edited by Güicho; 11-18-2014 at 09:11 AM.