Your DC-Only controversial opinions (part II)...

[Adekis]

Yeah, I can get behind this reasoning. Zatanna is best as her own character, and frankly Constantine is best as his own character too. Romantically tying him to Zatanna connects him too much to the super-hero world in my opinion. They can both be on the same magic team or whatever, but I don't think the romance is a good thing for either of them.

[TheRay]

I think Jason would be completely justified in killing Joker, but I'm glad he hasn't.

[MajorHoy]

I think Jason would be completely justified in killing Joker, but I'm glad he hasn't.

Well, he did kill one of them recently . . .

[marhawkman]

Nope. Her relationship with Constantine is worse.

With Batman, they were childhood friends and trained together. They had good chemistry. She only started liking him after he stayed besides her bedside while she recovered after a Joker attack. She brought up the possibility of a relationship but he turned her down so she moved on and they still remained as friends. It was very maturely handled.

With Constantine, their whole dynamic since the Nu52 is that he lies to her, manipulates her, keeps secrets from her, but she has to keep coming back to him because she can't save the day without him. It's a toxic dynamic yet writers try to play it off as if they were two people who were meant to be. Constantine was also indirectly responsible for her father's death and most writers try to write around it, like Tynion IV trying to establish that Giovanni and Constantine had prior history but imo, it's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It's also forced since they keep trying to turn her into a generic goth girl to make the relationship with Constantine work and taking away her supporting characters, relationships and even personality to try and make this relationship work. They even fridged her in the last JLD movie just to give John manpain. It makes it seem like Zatanna has a bad boy fetish or that she is into toxic relationships and that's not true at all, both in Dini's Everyday Magic and ongoing, she was shown to be emotionally mature when it comes to relationships and will reject any dude who would ask her for something she doesn't want to do.

IMO, John should have a love interest from his own book.

Honestly? I thought the way they retconned Zatanna into being part of Batman's dark brooding past... made no sense for either character.

[John Venus]

How so?

10char

[marhawkman]

How so?

Well, let's see... it only makes sense if Batman was studying something both of them know...... which is... chi-focusing meditation? Batman isn't a magic user. Zatanna isn't a martial artist... what would they be studying together?

the idea that they'd met while Bruce was travelling and studying abroad is... plausible enough. But you need a lot of explanation for how that can lead to them being romantically involved. There needs to be more than "Batman used Bat-charm". Is there? I dunno....all I've seen felt like weird retcons that just... didn't fit.

[Agent Z]

Well, let's see... it only makes sense if Batman was studying something both of them know...... which is... chi-focusing meditation? Batman isn't a magic user. Zatanna isn't a martial artist... what would they be studying together?

the idea that they'd met while Bruce was travelling and studying abroad is... plausible enough. But you need a lot of explanation for how that can lead to them being romantically involved. There needs to be more than "Batman used Bat-charm". Is there? I dunno....all I've seen felt like weird retcons that just... didn't fit.

Does it have to be anything more complicated than "they met and were attracted to each other"?

[John Venus]

Well, let's see... it only makes sense if Batman was studying something both of them know...... which is... chi-focusing meditation? Batman isn't a magic user. Zatanna isn't a martial artist... what would they be studying together?

the idea that they'd met while Bruce was travelling and studying abroad is... plausible enough. But you need a lot of explanation for how that can lead to them being romantically involved. There needs to be more than "Batman used Bat-charm". Is there? I dunno....all I've seen felt like weird retcons that just... didn't fit.

Yeah, you clearly haven't read or watched any material which focused on Bruce and Zatanna's history.

The Zatara's are more than just people who cast spells. They know escape artistry, sleight of hand tricks, ventriloquism and cardistry, Bruce studied escape artistry from Zatara when he was travelling. This was established in Batman: TAS and later adapted into 'Tec by Paul Dini. Then later reintegrated into continuity, albeit differently by Tynion IV.

John Zatara was established to have a mansion in Gotham way back in the 70's when Zatanna first joined the League. Dini and later Tynion simply built on that foundation to establish that Thomas and Zatara had history together, Bruce and Zatanna being childhood friends with some unspoken attraction between them when Bruce trained under Zatara to learn escape artistry from him .

[Catlady in training]

She was killed off in the JLD: Apocalypse movie to give John angst.

I meant in comics.
I wasn't thrilled how she died in that movie either, but to be fair, most of the characters died and since the movie had practically all of DC characters that appeared in that universe, there wasn't enough space to give everyone a proper storyline.

[Adekis]

I like Power Girl. I think the premise of a grown up Supergirl from another world who has to survive in a familiar but still ultimately different world is an interesting premise. Plus, the fact that she is more associated with the JSA than with the Superman franchise meant that she didn't mentally register as a Superman clone in my mind. Supergirl often runs the problem of having a world that mirrors too closely to that of Clark's. Look at her tv show, they made her a journalist, a supporting of journalists and gave her most of Superman rogues to boot. Karen is at least a CEO, has an entirely different world of supporting and at least some villains she can call her own.

I think the whole "Making Kara Too Much Like Clark" is a whole 'nother ongoing issue, but I agree that they Shouldn't Do That.

I think you can make Power Girl work well. Like I said, I used to like her more and think that Supergirl was the superfluous one! But I do think it's difficult to make them both each work at the same time, and the fact that you can describe Supergirl more easily as "Superman's cousin, boom," makes her the simpler option to keep around.

If I was rebooting the DCU, I'd make separate universes for classic and legacy heroes, but one thing I would do is that I'd arbitrarily pick one of those worlds to be Power Girl's and the other to be Supergirl's, just to keep the two more distinct.

Honestly? I thought the way they retconned Zatanna into being part of Batman's dark brooding past... made no sense for either character.

I agree with this. Batman's a "spooky" character but he's not naturally a character with a foot anywhere near the magic side of DC. He's too much of a rationalist. Honestly I think the decision to try and put a bit of that in his past doesn't work that well for me.

[Ascended]

I agree with this. Batman's a "spooky" character but he's not naturally a character with a foot anywhere near the magic side of DC. He's too much of a rationalist. Honestly I think the decision to try and put a bit of that in his past doesn't work that well for me.

I think it makes a degree of sense, depending on how you play it.

If the Zatara's are Houdini style escapists and illusionists who don't use actual magic in their act, and Bruce goes to Giovani/John to learn slight of hand? Then it makes sense. Being Batman isn't just about fighting, and a stage magician has skills that Bruce would want to learn.

But I think it only works if Bruce doesn't believe in actual magic, doesn't even know the Zatara's have real magic, and he just wants to learn how to escape from ropes and stuff.

That said, I don't care for the Bruce-Zee romance. I'm fine with them having met when they were younger, I'm even okay with the idea that they maybe flirted and messed around a little while Bruce was studying with Zee's father. But it shouldn't go any further than that. There shouldn't be any feelings between them beyond friendship.

[achilles]

I think it's time to retcon Power Girl to be from the main Krypton, and either another cousin of Superman's, but older and more experienced and skilled than SG, or simply an older sister of Kal, presumed lost on an exploration mission, held young by proximity to a black hole. That is the only way DC or WB will ever accept her as a viable character, I'm afraid.

[marhawkman]

I think the whole "Making Kara Too Much Like Clark" is a whole 'nother ongoing issue, but I agree that they Shouldn't Do That.

Part of why I like the Red Lantern "phase" for Supergirl.

I think you can make Power Girl work well. Like I said, I used to like her more and think that Supergirl was the superfluous one! But I do think it's difficult to make them both each work at the same time, and the fact that you can describe Supergirl more easily as "Superman's cousin, boom," makes her the simpler option to keep around.

If I was rebooting the DCU, I'd make separate universes for classic and legacy heroes, but one thing I would do is that I'd arbitrarily pick one of those worlds to be Power Girl's and the other to be Supergirl's, just to keep the two more distinct.

either Earth whatever number.... or.... just have one live in Kandor and the other Argo. Superman can have two cousins with similar names.

I agree with this. Batman's a "spooky" character but he's not naturally a character with a foot anywhere near the magic side of DC. He's too much of a rationalist. Honestly I think the decision to try and put a bit of that in his past doesn't work that well for me.

Yeah, You can say he worked at learning stuff... but... for how long? a month or two? Part of the Bat-god problem is having him somehow spend 12 hours a day being Bruce Wayne and 18 hours a day being Batman. Trying to shoe-horn 20 years of training into 5 years of history is the same problem. How does he doing martial arts training AND this other stuff?

Yeah, you clearly haven't read or watched any material which focused on Bruce and Zatanna's history.

The Zatara's are more than just people who cast spells. They know escape artistry, sleight of hand tricks, ventriloquism and cardistry, Bruce studied escape artistry from Zatara when he was travelling. This was established in Batman: TAS and later adapted into 'Tec by Paul Dini. Then later reintegrated into continuity, albeit differently by Tynion IV.

John Zatara was established to have a mansion in Gotham way back in the 70's when Zatanna first joined the League. Dini and later Tynion simply built on that foundation to establish that Thomas and Zatara had history together, Bruce and Zatanna being childhood friends with some unspoken attraction between them when Bruce trained under Zatara to learn escape artistry from him .

I've read some of it... it just feels weird to have John Zatara as a Gotham resident... and Zatanna, when they do basically do nothing while there. Sure the idea of them acting as stage performers works... but... heroic magicians? that's weird when you look at the history of Gotham.

I think it's time to retcon Power Girl to be from the main Krypton, and either another cousin of Superman's, but older and more experienced and skilled than SG, or simply an older sister of Kal, presumed lost on an exploration mission, held young by proximity to a black hole. That is the only way DC or WB will ever accept her as a viable character, I'm afraid.

Yeah, there's several places you could have her live on Krypton. The House of El was presumably rather numerous tbh.

[Stanlos]

My controversial DC opinion today is that Power Girl was perfectly fine as the descendant of Arion of Atlantis (she will never have as cool a sigil as that). Certainly misteps were made with the baby storyline but that seems to be a cultural thing (we saw it reappear in Azzarello Wonder but no really Woman where Zeus impregnates his daughter with himself without do much as an ahem). That era was great and I loved seeing Kara--yes, Kara; that is her name too--go all Power Girl especially as drawn by Ron Randall who is my fave artist on her followed by Sears (shiny)

[The True Detective]

Part of why I like the Red Lantern "phase" for Supergirl.
either Earth whatever number.... or.... just have one live in Kandor and the other Argo. Superman can have two cousins with similar names.
Yeah, You can say he worked at learning stuff... but... for how long? a month or two? Part of the Bat-god problem is having him somehow spend 12 hours a day being Bruce Wayne and 18 hours a day being Batman. Trying to shoe-horn 20 years of training into 5 years of history is the same problem. How does he doing martial arts training AND this other stuff?
I've read some of it... it just feels weird to have John Zatara as a Gotham resident... and Zatanna, when they do basically do nothing while there. Sure the idea of them acting as stage performers works... but... heroic magicians? that's weird when you look at the history of Gotham.Yeah, there's several places you could have her live on Krypton. The House of El was presumably rather numerous tbh.

That's not a Batgod problem all comic book characters do it. How does Clark Kent have time to be a fulltime journalist AND go off for space adventures as Superman? Same with Barry Allen and every other hero with a job. Bruce was able to learn multiple skills in a short amount of time because he's a superhero. Same way a Reed Richards can somehow master every science known to man plus some alien ones when irl it takes years to simply master 2 different fields of science.

Mr. Terrific is an Olympic level athlete with multiple black belts on top of his multiple Phd's, just 1 of those is not something anyone could accomplish in a single lifetime let alone all of them. It takes years of single minded focus in that area to get to that level, yet he did them all. As Agent Z said what if Bruce and Zatanna simply met and were attracted to each other? Doesn't have to go any deeper than that.

I think you're so against Batman for the Batgod stuff that's why you're against the idea of them being together. Not because you think it doesn't make sense but because you can't stand "Batgod."