Originally Posted by
Grayson - The Dark Heir
It’s not even really a problem if we get stories set in the past. Robin Year One is one of my favourite stories in all media, and I’d love to see more stories like that. The timeline facilitates this sort of approach, since you could pick any Gen and write a new Superman story. Each Gen features Superman with a different status quo because he’s allowed to develop now. There’s a lot you can do with that.
Surprising isn’t the same as illogical. Luke makes sense. Jon makes sense. Neither is obvious because Dick, Tim, and Conner exist and Jon shouldn’t be an adult by then. Jackson is not obvious because Garth exists. They’re not suddenly going to make Vulko’s son the new Aquaman lol.
Dick Grayson is a Gen 2 character. By publication history, he could be a Gen 1 character. The new faces of Gen 3 are the YJ characters, while the JLA and the Titans are the old guard. It’s still the same going into Gen 4. In Gen 5, it makes the most sense for Tim and the others to become the older, experienced heroes, while the younger Gen 4 characters like Damian and Jon get to be more prominent. When Wally, Roy, Garth, and Donna would still be parents if DC wasn’t terrible, it’s hard to accept them as young adults when they should be parents again with the new timeline. They had their time of prominence, even if they have been treated incredibly poorly for the past two decades.
Hate it or love it, Dick and the others are Golden and Silver Age characters. We’re not in the 40’s, 60’s, or the 80’s anymore. There’s still plenty of stories to tell with Dick, Wally, Donna, etc., but a bunch of straight white characters from decades ago don’t need to be the focus anymore. The same of course goes for the JLA and even moreso for the JSA. Their stories can be set in the past.
All they’d need to do is stop publishing books set in the present and start focusing on stories set in the past until they come up with “better” ideas for the present. There are no bad characters, just bad stories. Maybe it’ll never work and it’ll all end up a failure, but I’d rather they try than stick to doing the same thing they’ve been doing for decades. “Replacements” never work, successors tend to stick around for quite a while (Barry, Hal, Kyle, even Wally).