The Flash - speed question
Ohioguy
lived TV version. However, I think the whole "speed force" thing is
kind of contrived.
After reading some of the more recent comics, I found myself
wondering about his speed, and how he perceives others.
If the Flash can move about at these fantastic rates of speed, then
does he get extremely bored when forced to move about and interact with
those moving at a normal human rate of speed? I would think that it
would be incredibly frustrating to him, forcing himself to talk slowly,
and waiting what would seem forever for the beginning of an answer to a
question.
I could see him going to do something in another room, then coming
back at about the time when the other person started answering him.
I haven't seen them address this aspect of his ability.
grinningdemon
They actually do little things like this all the time.
> I haven't seen them address this aspect of his ability.
It has come up here and there along the way...particularly when it
comes to Wally West because he has often been portrayed as impatient
with a short attention span...but this kind of thing has actually come
up far more over at Marvel with Quicksilver...I remember a great issue
of Peter David's original X-Factor run where the team all went in for
a therapy session with Leonard Samson and, in one page, Peter David
perfectly explained Quicksilver's personality...he moves so much
faster than everyone around him that he is constantly waiting around
for everyone to catch up so he becomes easily annoyed and frustrated
when dealing with other people...hence, his arrogant and abrasive
personality.
David Goldfarb
> If the Flash can move about at these fantastic rates of speed, then
>does he get extremely bored when forced to move about and interact with
>those moving at a normal human rate of speed? I would think that it
>would be incredibly frustrating to him, forcing himself to talk slowly,
>and waiting what would seem forever for the beginning of an answer to a
>question.
One of the associated minor powers that seems to come with superspeed
for most speedsters is immunity to boredom. How many times have we seen
the Flash do stunts like build a wall to fend off a tidal wave...one
handful of beach sand at a time? Or open a combination lock by going
through every single possible combination? Heck, if his running is
subjectively not much faster than real running (and it would have to
be, otherwise navigation would be incredibly hazardous), think of how
much subjective time it would take to jog all the way across the USA.
--
David Goldfarb |"You know, squids are really an underutilized
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | villain origin in many comic books today."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- David R. Henry
Jason Todd
That was aces!
"You know how frustrating it is when you're standing at an ATM machine
and the person in front of you doesn't know how to use the damn thing?
You know how you stand there grinding your teeth waiting for the
person to finish. THAT'S MY WHOLE LIFE! I am forever trapped in a
world full of people who can't use the ATM!!!"
Lilith
Goldfarb) wrote:
>In article <4Gzkn.16747$ND2...@newsfe05.iad>, Ohioguy <no...@none.net> wrote:
>> If the Flash can move about at these fantastic rates of speed, then
>>does he get extremely bored when forced to move about and interact with
>>those moving at a normal human rate of speed? I would think that it
>>would be incredibly frustrating to him, forcing himself to talk slowly,
>>and waiting what would seem forever for the beginning of an answer to a
>>question.
>
>One of the associated minor powers that seems to come with superspeed
>for most speedsters is immunity to boredom. How many times have we seen
>the Flash do stunts like build a wall to fend off a tidal wave...one
>handful of beach sand at a time? Or open a combination lock by going
>through every single possible combination? Heck, if his running is
>subjectively not much faster than real running (and it would have to
>be, otherwise navigation would be incredibly hazardous), think of how
>much subjective time it would take to jog all the way across the USA.
Somewhere back when Wally took over the name of the Flash he explained
that on these long cross-country runs his mind has to enter a
dissociative state in order to avoid the subjective passage of time.
To some degree I would associate that with the state that many drivers
where controlling the car is more subconscious than conscious,
especially on long hauls.
I was thinking just this afternoon about how back in the Silver Age
Superman would reconstruct entire buildings in just a few seconds and
wondered how he made the mortar set or get heat-vision-welded girders
to bear a load so soon after fusing. If you accept the super powers
the rest of the physical world still has to play by the rules.
--
Lilith
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 00:32:48 GMT, gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David
>Goldfarb) wrote:
>
>>In article <4Gzkn.16747$ND2...@newsfe05.iad>, Ohioguy <no...@none.net> wrote:
>>> If the Flash can move about at these fantastic rates of speed, then
>>>does he get extremely bored when forced to move about and interact with
>>>those moving at a normal human rate of speed? I would think that it
>>>would be incredibly frustrating to him, forcing himself to talk slowly,
>>>and waiting what would seem forever for the beginning of an answer to a
>>>question.
>>
>>One of the associated minor powers that seems to come with superspeed
>>for most speedsters is immunity to boredom. How many times have we seen
>>the Flash do stunts like build a wall to fend off a tidal wave...one
>>handful of beach sand at a time? Or open a combination lock by going
>>through every single possible combination? Heck, if his running is
>>subjectively not much faster than real running (and it would have to
>>be, otherwise navigation would be incredibly hazardous), think of how
>>much subjective time it would take to jog all the way across the USA.
>
>Somewhere back when Wally took over the name of the Flash he explained
>that on these long cross-country runs his mind has to enter a
>dissociative state in order to avoid the subjective passage of time.
>To some degree I would associate that with the state that many drivers
>where controlling the car is more subconscious than conscious,
>especially on long hauls.
All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
retained any of the knowledge.
Joe Sewell
grinningdemon <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:55:25 -0600, Lilith <lili...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Somewhere back when Wally took over the name of the Flash he explained
> >that on these long cross-country runs his mind has to enter a
> >dissociative state in order to avoid the subjective passage of time.
> >To some degree I would associate that with the state that many drivers
> >where controlling the car is more subconscious than conscious,
> >especially on long hauls.
>
> All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
> relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
> couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
> retained any of the knowledge.
If memory serves, neither Barry nor Wally (nor Jay, now that I think of
it) could manage that; they couldn't retain what they'd "speed-read" for
long at all. Bart, somehow, was the exception, perhaps due to the rapid
aging thing.
Barry never seemed to have any problem with adjusting his perceptions to
whatever speed he was at. Wally, on the other hand, always has, or at
least he has since he "mainlined" the Speed Force.
grinningdemon
wrote:
The impression I always got was that adjusting to the speed powers
just kind of came naturally to Barry while it was always a little
forced with Wally so he has had many problems along the way.
They really need to get this speed force mythology under control and
consistent...first Wally "mainlines" it...then Bart internalizes
it...and now Barry is the source of it all...I don't have a problem
with the speed force idea the way some do but they really need to pick
a rulebook and stick to it.
Duggy
> All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
> relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
> couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
> retained any of the knowledge.
In Impulse, Bart was told by Max not to study at Super Speed because
the knowledge doesn't stick.
Maybe nobody told Johns.
===
= DUG.
===
Duggy
> They really need to get this speed force mythology under control and
> consistent...first Wally "mainlines" it...then Bart internalizes
> it...and now Barry is the source of it all...I don't have a problem
> with the speed force idea the way some do but they really need to pick
> a rulebook and stick to it.
Hi, grinningdemon, this is comics. Comics, this is grinningdemon. I
don't believe you two have met.
===
= DUG.
===
Lilith
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
>relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
>couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
>retained any of the knowledge.
Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
Have they every tapped into the vast well of Bart's knowledge since he
came back from dead?
--
Lilith
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:39:42 -0600, grinningdemon
><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
>>relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
>>couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
>>retained any of the knowledge.
>
>Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
>if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
How could you ever test that?
>Have they every tapped into the vast well of Bart's knowledge since he
>came back from dead?
I don't think so, no...it only came up in the first couple story arcs
of Johns' Teen Titans run and then was promptly forgotten.
grinningdemon
Retcons, retcons, everywhere.
grinningdemon
Yes, yes, I know...inconsistency abounds...but Geoff Johns usually
addresses this type of thing if only to retcon it out.
MWG
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:22 -0600, Lilith <lilith...@gmail.com>
People wonder why I hate Johns' interpretation (read: mutilation) of
Bart's character, and this is pretty much it. He put Bart through all
that crap and it went absolutely nowhere and the character is no
better off now than when Johns "improved" him. Guggenheim got Bart's
personality more when he was setting him up to be killed than Johns
ever did.
grinningdemon
I still loved Johns' Teen Titans run (and his Flash run, for that
matter)...it's the only time the book was worth reading other than the
classic Wolfman/Perez run.
MWG
There were bits of Johns' Teen Titans run that were very good, I
agree. Conner definitely got some good spotlight time and seeing his
relationships with Tim and Cassie strengthen so much was the high
points IMO. But there was just so much angst that it really
overshadowed the main characters actual personalities. Conner, Bart,
and Tim already had several years of characterization each, and all
three had solo series that lasted at least five years. And Young
Justice already went over a lot of the same ground Johns did (and I'd
take Peter David's versions of the characters to Johns versions any
day of the week). FWIW, the Jurgens run on Teen Titans was ok.
But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. Maybe they are
planning to relaunch them together. They might want TT to hit issue
#100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
Origins" that run for three issues to fill it out. Maybe they are
stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
grinningdemon
I loved Young Justice but I didn't think that it covered much of the
same ground as Johns' Titans...PAD's version was mostly a fun romp but
Johns' version was when the characters finally started to grow up...it
felt like a natural progression to me and it was one of the few books
that actually managed to stay good once OYL kicked in...it just sucks
that Johns lost interest and jumped ship shortly afterward because the
book has been shit ever since...and I didn't think much of Jurgen's TT
run.
>But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. Maybe they are
>planning to relaunch them together. They might want TT to hit issue
>#100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
>Origins" that run for three issues to fill it out. Maybe they are
>stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
They do need to fix these teams but I don't think relaunches are
necessarily the way to go...and all three are heading off in new
directions (lame as they are) so I don't see that happening for a
while anyway...if nothing else, Robinson's current Justice Titans
line-up is obviously setting up the eventual return of the big guns.
Lilith
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:22 -0600, Lilith <lili...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:39:42 -0600, grinningdemon
>><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>>All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
>>>relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
>>>couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
>>>retained any of the knowledge.
>>
>>Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
>>if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
>
>How could you ever test that?
Maybe not test but at least project using number of pages in all the
books in the library, average number of words per page, words per
minute of a speed reader. 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year. Do
the numbers pan out?
--
Lilith
Ken_from_Chicago
That's the speedsters' hidden power: To decouple their mental speed
from their physical speed. Those who drive long daily commutes can
attest to how their minds can decouple from their physical awareness
and they drive mostly on reflex, until they come to major turns that
require active attention, but then go back on mental cruise control.
While speedsters may be moving at 100x normal their thinking might be
10x, otherwise yes, they would subjectively feel the same elapsed time
as it would take them to accomplish their acts normally. Otherwise,
even tho they may run around the planet in seconds, subjectively it
would feel like it take years have elapsed.
Wally West and Bart Allen have been depicted as so impatient that no
way could they withstand the subjective elapsed time if they could NOT
decouple and speed up mental speed from their physical speed.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/msg/1659a921a8b8c95c?hl=en
There was an episode of HEROES where Hiro lost his ability to teleport
but still had the ability to "freeze time" (actually move outside the
timeframe of the universe so that the rest of the universe appears
frozen). In order to escape with his friend from a deathtrap, he had
to carry his friend in a wheelbarrel a mile away--and he subjectively
felt the time it takes to wheelbarrel the body of an adult a mile--and
he was soaking wet from sweating and mental fatigue from subjective
elapsed time.
-- Ken from Chicago
MWG
The bit in YJ with Cissie deciding to retire after almost losing it
and killing a guy was basically as serious as the book got, but it
equals any idea Johns had IMO. It is a pity that it basically caused
Cissie to disappear though (I would like to see her meet Mia Dearden
before DC kills either of them). But there didn't seem to be as much
balance in Johns' TT, it was mostly angst and not much fun. And given
how it was meant to mirror a free-wheeling TV show it seemed more out
of place.
> >But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. Maybe they are
> >planning to relaunch them together. They might want TT to hit issue
> >#100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
> >Origins" that run for three issues to fill it out. Maybe they are
> >stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
>
> They do need to fix these teams but I don't think relaunches are
> necessarily the way to go...and all three are heading off in new
> directions (lame as they are) so I don't see that happening for a
> while anyway...if nothing else, Robinson's current Justice Titans
> line-up is obviously setting up the eventual return of the big guns.
A relaunch wasn't the way to go with the last JSA book (which was
rolling towards a #100 issue) but they did just for Johns return.
They can get pretty good sales on a new #1 of a team featuring a
"classic" lineup though and DiDio is always fussing about having
characters in their "most iconic" versions, which naturally will
filter over to teams also. The Justice Titans and Deathstroke Titans
seem to be end-runners to set up the eventual relaunches to me
(probably resulting in a boring cross-over miniseries to boot). How
Teen Titans will get there, I dunno. The current writer is a newbie,
but was given a book that is in critical condition. The sidekick
characters always have to wait for the big gun JLA people to get back
to normal status quo anyhow. But they are heading towards
restorations of the classic line-ups (sadly meaning Hal, Barry, and
Ollie dominating the JLA most of the time) and a bunch of these
current runs will seem like ancient history, even if the relaunches
happen fairly quickly.
ri
JLA, JSA, JSA All Stars, Outsiders, Shadowpact, Legion of Superheroes, etc.
Maybe time to prune some back?
Bill Steele
<393e2944-b5fe-4ab7...@d27g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > � �After reading some of the more recent comics, I found myself
> > wondering about his speed, and how he perceives others.
> >
> > � �If the Flash can move about at these fantastic rates of speed, then
> > does he get extremely bored when forced to move about and interact with
> > those moving at a normal human rate of speed? �I would think that it
> > would be incredibly frustrating to him, forcing himself to talk slowly,
> > and waiting what would seem forever for the beginning of an answer to a
> > question.
> >
> > � �I could see him going to do something in another room, then coming
> > back at about the time when the other person started answering him.
> >
> > � �I haven't seen them address this aspect of his ability.
>
> That's the speedsters' hidden power: To decouple their mental speed
> from their physical speed. Those who drive long daily commutes can
> attest to how their minds can decouple from their physical awareness
> and they drive mostly on reflex, until they come to major turns that
> require active attention, but then go back on mental cruise control.
> While speedsters may be moving at 100x normal their thinking might be
> 10x, otherwise yes, they would subjectively feel the same elapsed time
> as it would take them to accomplish their acts normally. Otherwise,
> even tho they may run around the planet in seconds, subjectively it
> would feel like it take years have elapsed.
>
> Wally West and Bart Allen have been depicted as so impatient that no
> way could they withstand the subjective elapsed time if they could NOT
> decouple and speed up mental speed from their physical speed.
Bottom line here is that if there were a real way to achieve superspeed,
no sane person would want to use if for cross-country travel.
Now, anybody want to get into friction and the compression of air in
front of the runner? I don't think I've ever noticed a sonic boom
associated with Flash or Supes.
Lilith
wrote:
>Now, anybody want to get into friction and the compression of air in
>front of the runner? I don't think I've ever noticed a sonic boom
>associated with Flash or Supes.
Of course, the friction is covered by the aura. I recall Flash having
mentioned back in the Silver Age that he set up counter vibrations to
eliminate the sonic boom.
--
Lilith
GregoryD
Flashes are immune from friction. Supes certainly isn't. He's set crops
on fire by flying too fast, too low near them. In one particular
instance, he used a sonic boom to distract gunmen from shooting Jimmy
and Lois.
I think the difference between Flashes and Superman can be summed up by
the following:
A Flash, by default, perceives time much slower than a regular person.
They have some control over this due to the metaphysical properties of
the speed force, but they're impatient for the most part because
everything is just so slow. They can run free of friction, but go too
fast, and into the speed force you go.
Superman, by contrast, perceives time at a normal rate but can operate
at a much faster rate through concentration and physical ability. The
prelude to Infinite Crisis was one such example where he was imprisoned
by a Green Lantern, decided on a course of action, and concentrated
until time slowed down for him before making his move. Friction does
affect him when he's in the atmosphere, but he can travel much, much
faster than a Flash when he's in outer space.
Flashes aren't necessarily faster than Superman; they're just quicker
since being fast is what they're about.
GregoryD
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:29:03 -0600, grinningdemon
><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:22 -0600, Lilith <lili...@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:39:42 -0600, grinningdemon
>>><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
>>>>relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
>>>>couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
>>>>retained any of the knowledge.
>>>
>>>Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
>>>if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
>>
>>How could you ever test that?
>
>Maybe not test but at least project using number of pages in all the
>books in the library, average number of words per page, words per
>minute of a speed reader. 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year. Do
>the numbers pan out?
You do the math and let me know...I'll take your word for it.
grinningdemon
I did like that story but I wouldn't go that far...and, even if I did,
that's only one storyline from a 50+ issue run that got progressively
weaker in the back half.
It is a pity that it basically caused
>Cissie to disappear though (I would like to see her meet Mia Dearden
>before DC kills either of them).
I'd like to see that too but it seems DC has basically forgotten
Arrowette...she'll probably just end up as cannon fodder in some
"event"...I'd really like to see Mia back in the Teen Titans...I
thought she was a good fit but she didn't stay there long.
But there didn't seem to be as much
>balance in Johns' TT, it was mostly angst and not much fun. And given
>how it was meant to mirror a free-wheeling TV show it seemed more out
>of place.
There were some fun moments (like when the kids stole the batmobile)
but I agree it was more serious...it was a different take but I
thought it was just as good and certainly more consistent than YJ
(which seemed to jump back and forth from great to lame from one issue
to the next)
>> >But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. �Maybe they are
>> >planning to relaunch them together. � They might want TT to hit issue
>> >#100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
>> >Origins" that run for three issues to fill it out. �Maybe they are
>> >stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
>>
>> They do need to fix these teams but I don't think relaunches are
>> necessarily the way to go...and all three are heading off in new
>> directions (lame as they are) so I don't see that happening for a
>> while anyway...if nothing else, Robinson's current Justice Titans
>> line-up is obviously setting up the eventual return of the big guns.
>
>A relaunch wasn't the way to go with the last JSA book (which was
>rolling towards a #100 issue) but they did just for Johns return.
>They can get pretty good sales on a new #1 of a team featuring a
>"classic" lineup though and DiDio is always fussing about having
>characters in their "most iconic" versions, which naturally will
>filter over to teams also.
Yeah, he likes to spew that bullshit but then he turns around and does
things like killing off Batman and replacing him...the guy is just
talking out his ass...but I do agree that a stronger, more iconic
line-up will eventually return...I just hope they have the forethought
to throw a little something new into the mix as well to create a new
dynamic because it seems to me that whenever DC (or Marvel) tries to
reunite a classic line-up without adding something new(er) to it, it
turns out badly...case in point, the current Titans book.
The Justice Titans and Deathstroke Titans
>seem to be end-runners to set up the eventual relaunches to me
>(probably resulting in a boring cross-over miniseries to boot). How
>Teen Titans will get there, I dunno. The current writer is a newbie,
>but was given a book that is in critical condition. The sidekick
>characters always have to wait for the big gun JLA people to get back
>to normal status quo anyhow.
Most of the current Teen Titans have never even BEEN sidekicks...and I
don't think the line-up has ever been weaker...they really need to get
some decent talent and characters in that book.
But they are heading towards
>restorations of the classic line-ups (sadly meaning Hal, Barry, and
>Ollie dominating the JLA most of the time) and a bunch of these
>current runs will seem like ancient history, even if the relaunches
>happen fairly quickly.
Like I said before, I think that's still a ways off (except for Hal
and Ollie dominating because we unfortunately have that even with the
Justice Titans) since these new directions are just starting up.
grinningdemon
Titans has been absorbed by the JLA and is about to turn into a
Deathstroke-centered Secret Six knock-off.
JSA had so many characters that it deserved two books...I just hate
how they went about it and that Magog is even in it at all.
The Outsiders book will likely die out now that Didio is writing
it...which is unfortunate because I had been enjoying it until he took
over.
Shadowpact hasn't had a book in quite a while now...and the Legion is
typically outside of the regular DCU though not so much at the
moment...something I hope they change soon.
MWG
Some probably will be (I don't really see JSA All Stars going that
long) and others will probably take breaks for a couple years. It'll
take a bit for the original Titans characters to get back to a decent
status quo, but they seem to reunite them in a new book about once
every three years.
Mike B
> Now, anybody want to get into friction and the compression of air
> in front of the runner? I don't think I've ever noticed a sonic
> boom associated with Flash or Supes.
They addressed this once back in the Silver Age, saying Barry
Allen learned how to somehow absorb the boom by vibrating
his body and was able to teach this to Superman. However,
this may have been a reply to this question in a letter column
rather than in a story.
--Mike Blake
OM
wrote:
>Supes certainly isn't. He's set crops
>on fire by flying too fast, too low near them.
...IIRC, this has only happened when he's crash-landed at high speeds
from an orbital start point.
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[
grinningdemon
>On Mar 9, 9:57嚙窮m, ri <coors...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> MWG wrote:
>> > On Mar 8, 5:14 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>> >> On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:23:15 -0800 (PST), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> On Mar 7, 8:29 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>> >>>> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:22 -0600, Lilith <lilith...@gmail.com>
>> >>>> wrote:
>> >>>>> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:39:42 -0600, grinningdemon
>> >>>>> <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>> >>>>>> All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
>> >>>>>> relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
>> >>>>>> couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
>> >>>>>> retained any of the knowledge.
>> >>>>> Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
>> >>>>> if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
>> >>>> How could you ever test that?
>> >>>>> Have they every tapped into the vast well of Bart's knowledge since he
>> >>>>> came back from dead?
>> >>>> I don't think so, no...it only came up in the first couple story arcs
>> >>>> of Johns' Teen Titans run and then was promptly forgotten.
>> >>> People wonder why I hate Johns' interpretation (read: mutilation) of
>> >>> Bart's character, and this is pretty much it. 嚙瘡e put Bart through all
>> >>> that crap and it went absolutely nowhere and the character is no
>> >>> better off now than when Johns "improved" him. 嚙瘦uggenheim got Bart's
>> >>> personality more when he was setting him up to be killed than Johns
>> >>> ever did.
>> >> I still loved Johns' Teen Titans run (and his Flash run, for that
>> >> matter)...it's the only time the book was worth reading other than the
>> >> classic Wolfman/Perez run.
>>
>> > There were bits of Johns' Teen Titans run that were very good, I
>> > agree. 嚙瘠onner definitely got some good spotlight time and seeing his
>> > relationships with Tim and Cassie strengthen so much was the high
>> > points IMO. 嚙畿ut there was just so much angst that it really
>> > overshadowed the main characters actual personalities. 嚙瘠onner, Bart,
>> > and Tim already had several years of characterization each, and all
>> > three had solo series that lasted at least five years. 嚙璀nd Young
>> > Justice already went over a lot of the same ground Johns did (and I'd
>> > take Peter David's versions of the characters to Johns versions any
>> > day of the week). 嚙瘤WIW, the Jurgens run on Teen Titans was ok.
>>
>> > But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. 嚙瞎aybe they are
>> > planning to relaunch them together. 嚙�They might want TT to hit issue
>> > #100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
>> > Origins" that run for three issues to fill it out. 嚙瞎aybe they are
>> > stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
>>
>> There are a ton of teams in the DC universe now...Teen Titans, Titans,
>> JLA, JSA, JSA All Stars, 嚙瞌utsiders, Shadowpact, Legion of Superheroes, etc.
>>
>> Maybe time to prune some back?
>
>Some probably will be (I don't really see JSA All Stars going that
>long) and others will probably take breaks for a couple years.
I like the idea of a second JSA book but the current writers need to
go...the book used to be so great (and even JSA Classified has some
good stories) and it's sad to see it fallen so far.
It'll
>take a bit for the original Titans characters to get back to a decent
>status quo, but they seem to reunite them in a new book about once
>every three years.
And those books generally suck...that said, they've pretty much all
just transitioned from Titans to JLA so they still are reunited.
MWG
Stealing the Batmobile and Bart attempting to get a tattoo were
alright, but they seemed to happen very early in the run. With YJ,
the boys all had their own solo books for most of that time which may
have impeded the stories some. I do think what Conner went through
during and after "Sins of Youth" was as serious for him as finding out
he was part Luthor (and conveniently forgot he was part Westfield
before that).
>
> >> >But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. Maybe they are
> >> >planning to relaunch them together. They might want TT to hit issue
> >> >#100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
> >> >Origins" that run for three issues to fill it out. Maybe they are
> >> >stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
>
> >> They do need to fix these teams but I don't think relaunches are
> >> necessarily the way to go...and all three are heading off in new
> >> directions (lame as they are) so I don't see that happening for a
> >> while anyway...if nothing else, Robinson's current Justice Titans
> >> line-up is obviously setting up the eventual return of the big guns.
>
> >A relaunch wasn't the way to go with the last JSA book (which was
> >rolling towards a #100 issue) but they did just for Johns return.
> >They can get pretty good sales on a new #1 of a team featuring a
> >"classic" lineup though and DiDio is always fussing about having
> >characters in their "most iconic" versions, which naturally will
> >filter over to teams also.
>
> Yeah, he likes to spew that bullshit but then he turns around and does
> things like killing off Batman and replacing him...the guy is just
> talking out his ass...but I do agree that a stronger, more iconic
> line-up will eventually return...I just hope they have the forethought
> to throw a little something new into the mix as well to create a new
> dynamic because it seems to me that whenever DC (or Marvel) tries to
> reunite a classic line-up without adding something new(er) to it, it
> turns out badly...case in point, the current Titans book.
>
Have they ever actually killed Batman? Ignoring Obsidian Age and I
think Pre-Crisis Earth 2 (where he probably died of old age/natural
causes)? They pretty much blew this death by showing him to merely be
"lost" soon after it happened. As for reuniting classic line-ups,
they seem really scared of stepping on the toes of current creators of
the various characters now. Hence everything has to be between issues
of various solo books or only vaguely acknowledge most developments
the characters have had and god forbid the team book's writer does
anything to the character (unless he is blessed from higher on or
ordered to do it).
> The Justice Titans and Deathstroke Titans
>
> >seem to be end-runners to set up the eventual relaunches to me
> >(probably resulting in a boring cross-over miniseries to boot). How
> >Teen Titans will get there, I dunno. The current writer is a newbie,
> >but was given a book that is in critical condition. The sidekick
> >characters always have to wait for the big gun JLA people to get back
> >to normal status quo anyhow.
>
> Most of the current Teen Titans have never even BEEN sidekicks...and I
> don't think the line-up has ever been weaker...they really need to get
> some decent talent and characters in that book.
>
> But they are heading towards
>
> >restorations of the classic line-ups (sadly meaning Hal, Barry, and
> >Ollie dominating the JLA most of the time) and a bunch of these
> >current runs will seem like ancient history, even if the relaunches
> >happen fairly quickly.
>
> Like I said before, I think that's still a ways off (except for Hal
> and Ollie dominating because we unfortunately have that even with the
> Justice Titans) since these new directions are just starting up.
>
Morrison's JLA was really the best at blending new and old characters
(or characters from different 'generations' like the current Justice
Titans team) that I've seen. It all seems so "blah" now with the
Silver Age or Johns/Johns-approved revamped version of the characters
dominating. Who knows exactly when the "classic-fied" relaunches will
happen, but I think they will all be in place by 2012. Gotta have a
bit more wind in some of the boats' sails before they can all group
up, but that wind is blowing.
MWG
> On Tue, 9 Mar 2010 18:29:23 -0800 (PST), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Mar 9, 9:57 am, ri <coors...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> MWG wrote:
> >> > On Mar 8, 5:14 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> >> >> On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 19:23:15 -0800 (PST), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>> On Mar 7, 8:29 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> >> >>>> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:22 -0600, Lilith <lilith...@gmail.com>
> >> >>>> wrote:
> >> >>>>> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:39:42 -0600, grinningdemon
> >> >>>>> <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> >> >>>>>> All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
> >> >>>>>> relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
> >> >>>>>> couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
> >> >>>>>> retained any of the knowledge.
> >> >>>>> Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
> >> >>>>> if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
> >> >>>> How could you ever test that?
> >> >>>>> Have they every tapped into the vast well of Bart's knowledge since he
> >> >>>>> came back from dead?
> >> >>>> I don't think so, no...it only came up in the first couple story arcs
> >> >>>> of Johns' Teen Titans run and then was promptly forgotten.
> >> >>> People wonder why I hate Johns' interpretation (read: mutilation) of
> >> >>> that crap and it went absolutely nowhere and the character is no
> >> >>> personality more when he was setting him up to be killed than Johns
> >> >>> ever did.
> >> >> I still loved Johns' Teen Titans run (and his Flash run, for that
> >> >> matter)...it's the only time the book was worth reading other than the
> >> >> classic Wolfman/Perez run.
>
> >> > There were bits of Johns' Teen Titans run that were very good, I
> >> > relationships with Tim and Cassie strengthen so much was the high
> >> > overshadowed the main characters actual personalities. Conner, Bart,
> >> > and Tim already had several years of characterization each, and all
> >> > Justice already went over a lot of the same ground Johns did (and I'd
> >> > take Peter David's versions of the characters to Johns versions any
>
> >> > But DC does need to fix the Titans teams and the JLA. Maybe they are
> >> > planning to relaunch them together. They might want TT to hit issue
> >> > #100 first, but they can find ways to reach that, like doing "Secret
> >> > stalling until that rumored Young Justice League cartoon debuts...
>
> >> There are a ton of teams in the DC universe now...Teen Titans, Titans,
>
> >> Maybe time to prune some back?
>
> >Some probably will be (I don't really see JSA All Stars going that
> >long) and others will probably take breaks for a couple years.
>
> I like the idea of a second JSA book but the current writers need to
> go...the book used to be so great (and even JSA Classified has some
> good stories) and it's sad to see it fallen so far.
>
I'm pretty fond of the JSA and its run the last several years, but it
really hasn't been able to export that success to its "family" books.
Starman and Hourman both were already running when the book started
and both had the misfortune to end early in the JSA's run (not really
that book's fault). Classified could've been better, needed a bit
more Sand and a bit less Wildcat. The Hector Hall Dr. Fate mini was
alright, but basically ignored. Hawkman had highs and lows but was a
bit more independent. I see no reason to bother with Magog or Power
Girl. And the Johns relaunch (re)created one character I found
interesting (Amazing Man - hated seeing the second killed but this one
is a fine replacement) and he basically disappeared after one story.
I am a bit surprised they haven't used more of Johns' groundwork to
get a Shazam reboot going yet.
> It'll
>
> >take a bit for the original Titans characters to get back to a decent
> >status quo, but they seem to reunite them in a new book about once
> >every three years.
>
> And those books generally suck...that said, they've pretty much all
> just transitioned from Titans to JLA so they still are reunited.
>
This too will end in some stupid tragedy where the Titans group will
again look like total failures and the old guys will come in and clean
up. Then it will be ignored/quickly patched to get them ready for
another try. If they can just avoid the Graysons and Winnicks this
time. And go at least twenty issues without killing/maiming/rebooting
some core character (I think Ms. Grayson was revamping Donna within
the first ten issues of her run?).
GregoryD
> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:00:04 -0600, GregoryD<deergr...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Supes certainly isn't. He's set crops
>> on fire by flying too fast, too low near them.
>
> ...IIRC, this has only happened when he's crash-landed at high speeds
> from an orbital start point.
>
Regardless, he encounters friction, and the Flashes don't. There's
nothing magical about entering the atmosphere from space versus
travelling parallel to the ground at the same speed.
GregoryD
Bill Steele
Lilith <lili...@gmail.com> wrote:
Silly, but I'll give them credit for thinking about it.
Bill Steele
<c21dd24e-05e5-4e25...@q23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
MWG <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And the Johns relaunch (re)created one character I found
> interesting (Amazing Man - hated seeing the second killed but this one
> is a fine replacement) and he basically disappeared after one story.
Sorry I missed that. I loved the Golden Age Amazing Man; one of the
first comics to introduce heroes with problems. I gather he popped up
for a while in the Iron Fist universe, but I missed that too.
YKW
@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu:
> In article
><c21dd24e-05e5-4e25...@q23g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
> MWG <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And the Johns relaunch (re)created one character I found
>> interesting (Amazing Man - hated seeing the second killed but this one
>> is a fine replacement) and he basically disappeared after one story.
Damn shame the solo spinoff title went to (ugh) Magog rather than this
cat.
> Sorry I missed that. I loved the Golden Age Amazing Man; one of the
> first comics to introduce heroes with problems. I gather he popped up
> for a while in the Iron Fist universe, but I missed that too.
>
These DC "Amazing Men" had no relationship to the actual Centaur
character of that era, though.
--
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
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|| ----------- || ------------------------------------ ||
||Replace "-at-" with|| Keeping Usenet Trouble-Free ||
|| "@" to respond. || Since 1998 ||
------------------- ------------------------------------------------
"It's not that I want to punish your success. [...]I think
when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
-- The One, 14 Oct 08
YKW
@z4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:
> Have they ever actually killed Batman? Ignoring Obsidian Age and I
> think Pre-Crisis Earth 2 (where he probably died of old age/natural
> causes)?
He actually died in battle, coming out of a cancer (and Psycho Pirate)
induced retirement to save Gotham one final time.
grinningdemon
It was a different book...it was meant to be more serious than YJ...I
liked YJ but I think it ran it's course and Johns' run seemed like a
natural progression for the characters...he made Conner infinitely
more interesting than he had ever been before (though I still wish
he'd stayed dead).
With YJ,
>the boys all had their own solo books for most of that time which may
>have impeded the stories some. I do think what Conner went through
>during and after "Sins of Youth" was as serious for him as finding out
>he was part Luthor (and conveniently forgot he was part Westfield
>before that).
We're going to have to disagree on that...PAD didn't even come close
to Johns in terms of character development...other than Cissie (who
might as well have been created for the book), the only character who
really developed at all within the book itself was Wonder Girl and
even that didn't go very far.
To the DCU, he was dead...he was out of the books and
replaced...that's as dead as anyone in comics every gets...and, as
long as Didio is pulling stunts like that, his rants about bringing
back the icons are totally ridiculous...you can't claim that DC is all
about bringing back the most iconic versions of the characters as they
ditch their most popular character and immediately shove someone else
into his suit.
As for reuniting classic line-ups,
>they seem really scared of stepping on the toes of current creators of
>the various characters now. Hence everything has to be between issues
>of various solo books or only vaguely acknowledge most developments
>the characters have had and god forbid the team book's writer does
>anything to the character (unless he is blessed from higher on or
>ordered to do it).
There actually aren't a lot of characters on teams currently that have
their own books...GL, GA, Batwing, and Power Girl are about it...and
GA seems to be lining up behind JLA...and, as fun as it is, I doubt
anything of significance will ever happen in Power Girl.
>> The Justice Titans and Deathstroke Titans
>>
>> >seem to be end-runners to set up the eventual relaunches to me
>> >(probably resulting in a boring cross-over miniseries to boot). How
>> >Teen Titans will get there, I dunno. The current writer is a newbie,
>> >but was given a book that is in critical condition. The sidekick
>> >characters always have to wait for the big gun JLA people to get back
>> >to normal status quo anyhow.
>>
>> Most of the current Teen Titans have never even BEEN sidekicks...and I
>> don't think the line-up has ever been weaker...they really need to get
>> some decent talent and characters in that book.
>>
>> But they are heading towards
>>
>> >restorations of the classic line-ups (sadly meaning Hal, Barry, and
>> >Ollie dominating the JLA most of the time) and a bunch of these
>> >current runs will seem like ancient history, even if the relaunches
>> >happen fairly quickly.
>>
>> Like I said before, I think that's still a ways off (except for Hal
>> and Ollie dominating because we unfortunately have that even with the
>> Justice Titans) since these new directions are just starting up.
>>
>
>Morrison's JLA was really the best at blending new and old characters
>(or characters from different 'generations' like the current Justice
>Titans team) that I've seen.
Morrison did a great job on JLA but I would have to give Johns the
edge for JSA as far as blending the new, old, and different
generations...at least his first series, anyway.
It all seems so "blah" now with the
>Silver Age or Johns/Johns-approved revamped version of the characters
>dominating. Who knows exactly when the "classic-fied" relaunches will
>happen, but I think they will all be in place by 2012. Gotta have a
>bit more wind in some of the boats' sails before they can all group
>up, but that wind is blowing.
And then they will immediately do another "event" to shake things up
so they have to start building back to that all over again.
grinningdemon
Starman was awesome and actually what helped launch JSA in the first
place (I just wish the character could have stayed in the
book)...Hourman was totally forgetable...JSA Classified was hit or
miss but it had more hits than misses (and it easily outdid JLA
Classified)...Hector Hall was easily the best Dr. Fate since the
original (I'm still pissed they ditched him)...I loved Johns' run on
Hawkman and, even afterwards, it continued to be enjoyable until it
switched to Hawkgirl and turned to crap...I'm with you on Magog as I
can't believe they would ever give him his own book but Power Girl has
been a fun read (not exactly high drama but very entertaining).
As much as I generally loved his JSA work, I didn't care for any of
the new characters Johns introduced in his second series except
Cyclone...I thought he was totally out of control with all the
replacements/legacies and the roster got so ridiculously large that it
was impossible to properly service ANY of the characters.
>> It'll
>>
>> >take a bit for the original Titans characters to get back to a decent
>> >status quo, but they seem to reunite them in a new book about once
>> >every three years.
>>
>> And those books generally suck...that said, they've pretty much all
>> just transitioned from Titans to JLA so they still are reunited.
>>
>
>This too will end in some stupid tragedy where the Titans group will
>again look like total failures and the old guys will come in and clean
>up. Then it will be ignored/quickly patched to get them ready for
>another try. If they can just avoid the Graysons and Winnicks this
>time. And go at least twenty issues without killing/maiming/rebooting
>some core character (I think Ms. Grayson was revamping Donna within
>the first ten issues of her run?).
Good luck with that.
Ken from Chicago
"Bill Steele" <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:ws21-177891.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
Unless one could decouple your mental activity from your physical activity
so that you run on reflex. Plus if you could fly then it would definitely be
easier.
Then again, considering the speed of speedsters in the DC universe, it's
preposterous that they are depicted as not flying since they routinely break
escape velocity and more than easily move fast enough to "swim" thru air.
> Now, anybody want to get into friction and the compression of air in
> front of the runner? I don't think I've ever noticed a sonic boom
> associated with Flash or Supes.
Flashes and speedsters using the Speed Force have auras that shield shunts
the friction and excess kinetic energy into the Speed Force dimension.
However some speedsters, e.g., Wally, can control their auras, to minimize
the auras effect so they can deliberately create sonic booms, whip up the
surrounding air into whirlwinds, etc.
Supes, not using the Speed Force, can create sonic booms, even tho it's not
always highlighted. Altho I think it was a few times in SUPERMAN RETURNS,
but I'm not sure. Moreover Supes' super toughness and tactile telekinesis /
force field protects him and whatever he's touching from some of the effects
of flying.
-- Ken from Chicago
Bill Steele
YKW <FluffyM...@foxnews.com> wrote:
> >> And the Johns relaunch (re)created one character I found
> >> interesting (Amazing Man - hated seeing the second killed but this one
> >> is a fine replacement) and he basically disappeared after one story.
>
> Damn shame the solo spinoff title went to (ugh) Magog rather than this
> cat.
>
> > Sorry I missed that. I loved the Golden Age Amazing Man; one of the
> > first comics to introduce heroes with problems. I gather he popped up
> > for a while in the Iron Fist universe, but I missed that too.
> >
>
> These DC "Amazing Men" had no relationship to the actual Centaur
> character of that era, though.
Apparently it was John Aman, the original Amazing man, who appeared. No
costume, but still doing the green mist thing.
Joe Sewell
"Ken from Chicago" <kwicker1...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Supes, not using the Speed Force, can create sonic booms, even tho it's not
> always highlighted. Altho I think it was a few times in SUPERMAN RETURNS,
> but I'm not sure. Moreover Supes' super toughness and tactile telekinesis /
> force field protects him and whatever he's touching from some of the effects
> of flying.
Superman never had Tactile TK (TM); that was given to Superboy (Conner)
to approximate the Kryptonian powers they couldn't work out otherwise,
even though he's managed to get most of them anyhow.
I recall one story, set early in Superman's career (though *which*
history it was I don't recall) where he was able to minimize the sonic
booms, presumably by shaping himself or his Byrne-certified
invulnerability force-field to neutralize the shock wave (much like
they've done experimentally with some plane designs).
Uncle Vince
news:NIadnZqswcO6YAvW...@giganews.com:
> Flashes are immune from friction. Supes certainly isn't. He's set crops
> on fire by flying too fast, too low near them. In one particular
> instance, he used a sonic boom to distract gunmen from shooting Jimmy
> and Lois.
In the Thy Kingdom Come story in Justice Society of America, Superman-22
heard a young lady across town talking about committing suicide. In order
to get across town fast enough to save the young lady as she jumped from a
building, he flew fast enough to set off a sonic boom that shattered glass
in windows along his path.
--
I've seen that look on Hawkman's face enough times, Jess. He's about to go
off.--Rick"Hourman"Tyler
Joe Sewell
Lilith <lili...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:29:03 -0600, grinningdemon
> <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:55:22 -0600, Lilith <lili...@gmail.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:39:42 -0600, grinningdemon
> >><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>>All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
> >>>relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
> >>>couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
> >>>retained any of the knowledge.
> >>
> >>Could a regular human read the entire city library within a year even
> >>if they could keep at it 24 hours a day?
> >
> >How could you ever test that?
>
> Maybe not test but at least project using number of pages in all the
> books in the library, average number of words per page, words per
> minute of a speed reader. 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year. Do
> the numbers pan out?
I'm reminded of one of those silly little Superman/Batman Annual stories
designed to "upgrade" ones of years gone by. This was tried to blend
several stories together, but the whole thing began with a writer
obsessed with writing his "great American story." A mysterious creature
of unidentified origin gave him the ability to do it, but not the
ability to stop. He finished just as he spontaneously combusted after
going without food, water, sleep, "waste removal," or anything else.
Joe Sewell
<af5abc41-00ad-42ea...@v20g2000prb.googlegroups.com>,
Duggy <Paul....@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> On Mar 7, 3:39 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> > All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
> > relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
> > couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
> > retained any of the knowledge.
>
> In Impulse, Bart was told by Max not to study at Super Speed because
> the knowledge doesn't stick.
>
> Maybe nobody told Johns.
>
> ===
> = DUG.
> ===
Elsewhere, though, either Max or Jay found out that Bart was the
exception to that rule. It was true for all the other speedsters, but
not Bart.
Joe Sewell
grinningdemon <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:50:57 -0500, Joe Sewell <ultr...@spamcop.net>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <rte6p5hvtlercc0rm...@4ax.com>,
> > grinningdemon <grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:55:25 -0600, Lilith <lili...@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Somewhere back when Wally took over the name of the Flash he explained
> >> >that on these long cross-country runs his mind has to enter a
> >> >dissociative state in order to avoid the subjective passage of time.
> >> >To some degree I would associate that with the state that many drivers
> >> >where controlling the car is more subconscious than conscious,
> >> >especially on long hauls.
> >>
> >> All that kind of goes out the window when Geoff Johns had Bart spend a
> >> relative year reading an entire city library in an hour or so...he
> >> couldn't have done something like that in a dissociative state and
> >> retained any of the knowledge.
> >
> >If memory serves, neither Barry nor Wally (nor Jay, now that I think of
> >it) could manage that; they couldn't retain what they'd "speed-read" for
> >long at all. Bart, somehow, was the exception, perhaps due to the rapid
> >aging thing.
> >
> >Barry never seemed to have any problem with adjusting his perceptions to
> >whatever speed he was at. Wally, on the other hand, always has, or at
> >least he has since he "mainlined" the Speed Force.
>
> The impression I always got was that adjusting to the speed powers
> just kind of came naturally to Barry while it was always a little
> forced with Wally so he has had many problems along the way.
>
> They really need to get this speed force mythology under control and
> consistent...first Wally "mainlines" it...then Bart internalizes
> it...and now Barry is the source of it all...I don't have a problem
> with the speed force idea the way some do but they really need to pick
> a rulebook and stick to it.
All of those can still work, when you recall that it didn't happen all
at once. Wally directly tapped into it in ways nobody else had (and
Barry didn't even know about it, though some later stories "revealed"
that Barry was a little concerned about his humanity after the lightning
struck). The Speed Force became completely messed up in Infinite Crisis
when they tried to trap Superboy-Prime in it; the result was that Wally
disappeared "somewhere," along with Linda and the twins (as babies). It
was after Prime escaped that Bart managed to escape as well, resulting
(somehow) in the Speed Force "internalizing" in him, cutting off access
for Jay (though they brought back the good old "metagene" to keep him
running). The end of the adult Bart's run restored the Speed Force,
while other events restored Wally & the family. Still later (Final
Crisis) brought Barry back and revealed his connection.
While it's convoluted, it wasn't inconsistent. No retcons were needed,
merely some unpopular events.
Tim Turnip
wrote:
>In article <Xns9D379060C4ED5...@69.16.185.250>,
Correct, Marvel has repurposed the the Centaur version, John Aman, as
the "Green Mist" in their Iron Fist books (as in, "Orson Randall and
the Green Mist of Death"). He's also been seen with his original
Amazing-Man moniker as a background character during Dynamite's
Project SuperPowers.
DC's versions of Amazing-Man are technically unrelated, though Roy
Thomas christened them with that name as a direct homage to the Golden
Age version.
MWG
PAD got the group dynamics set-up for Johns. Before YJ, I think Kon
and Tim had met once in that Worlds Finest 3 thing, and neither had
worked very much with Bart. And the Cassie/Cissie friendship was born
there. The individual development for the characters was confined to
their solos/parent books (except that Cassie was mainly ignored in
Wonder Woman and Cissie was created in Impulse so the GA crew wasn't
responsible for her). Johns may have tightened Conner's relationships
with Tim & Cassie, but I'm surprised he didn't order the artists to
change Conner's "S" symbol to a yin-yang. Tim didn't benefit at all
from his dad dying either (I know, not Johns doing but he milked it
some), and I've already said what I think about "Bart" (wishing you
could de-age Wally, Geoff?). Maybe if we'd seen more of the group
from "52" it might have been stronger, or even what happened with
Beast Boy and Raven (talk about showing developments!). And I'm glad
Conner got "unkilled", dying was a punishment for crimes beyond his
control. He didn't deserve to be thrown away like trash after earning
the "redemption" he didn't need, he deserves to learn from it and
become a stronger hero.
DC never forgot how much publicity they got for killing Superman.
Even if the buzz was only temporary (and even if it did seriously hurt
the industry later) it was huge while it lasted. But it doesn't work
as well anymore because in the Death/Return of Superman saga, DC
unintentionally blew the secret behind the trick of "killing"
characters - that it is almost always (basically) a temporary vacation
for the character. And even people that don't keep up with comics
that much know that Clark is Superman, Bruce is Batman, and that DC
will never have the guts to change that for a very long period.
Killing/Unkilling them is a stunt to attempt to revitalize sales once
in a while.
MWG
Starman was great (but really should've been called "The Shade guest
starring Starman") but it was almost done when JSA launched. Jack
being with the JSA at all felt very tacked on. I agree that they
wasted Hector Hall/Fate, but Robinson & Johns could've probably fixed
the Jared Stevens version if they wanted and people would've loved
it. Hawkman was ok, but they needed to fix Katar as well (we can have
multiple Flashes but not multiple Hawkmen?), and I never cared for the
revelation about Kendra basically being a shell for Shiera (Kendra was
actually interesting and a decent new legacy character, but I guess we
can't risk new characters succeeding). Carter assuming she was his
property really hurt my interest in him as well. I would kill to see
some more Sand development, but the sand-monster stuff was a mistake.
> As much as I generally loved his JSA work, I didn't care for any of
> the new characters Johns introduced in his second series except
> Cyclone...I thought he was totally out of control with all the
> replacements/legacies and the roster got so ridiculously large that it
> was impossible to properly service ANY of the characters.
>
It always seemed to be pushing towards either a second team or dumping
some characters on a different Earth. They wasted time involving the
JSA with the boring legion love-fest and the overly long "Kingdom
Come" story that had a "vacation" story about new Earth-2 right in the
middle of it. But the JSA should usually be able to field a second
team, given how many characters in the current DCU usually have very
direct ties to them.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> We're going to have to disagree on that...PAD didn't even come close
>> to Johns in terms of character development...other than Cissie (who
>> might as well have been created for the book), the only character who
>> really developed at all within the book itself was Wonder Girl and
>> even that didn't go very far.
>>
>
>PAD got the group dynamics set-up for Johns.
I agree with you there.
Before YJ, I think Kon
>and Tim had met once in that Worlds Finest 3 thing, and neither had
>worked very much with Bart. And the Cassie/Cissie friendship was born
>there.
Yes, but, since Cissie has barely ever appeared in any other book, it
has gone nowhere since.
The individual development for the characters was confined to
>their solos/parent books (except that Cassie was mainly ignored in
>Wonder Woman and Cissie was created in Impulse so the GA crew wasn't
>responsible for her). Johns may have tightened Conner's relationships
>with Tim & Cassie, but I'm surprised he didn't order the artists to
>change Conner's "S" symbol to a yin-yang. Tim didn't benefit at all
>from his dad dying either (I know, not Johns doing but he milked it
>some)
Even though I have serious issues with the story itself, I liked how
Johns handled the fallout...with Tim already losing his dad and Steph
and then getting hit with Conner's death...and I really liked the
dynamic with him and Cassie when the OYL stuff kicked off (it was
about the only OYL book I still liked)...I just wish Johns had stayed
on long enough to play that out more.
, and I've already said what I think about "Bart" (wishing you
>could de-age Wally, Geoff?). Maybe if we'd seen more of the group
>from "52" it might have been stronger, or even what happened with
>Beast Boy and Raven (talk about showing developments!). And I'm glad
>Conner got "unkilled", dying was a punishment for crimes beyond his
>control. He didn't deserve to be thrown away like trash after earning
>the "redemption" he didn't need, he deserves to learn from it and
>become a stronger hero.
To me, it felt like a natural conclusion for the character...I no
there were real world issues that lead to the decision to kill him but
I think it worked and was a good story...that said, if he had to come
back, I would have preferred to see it handled better...I also would
have preferred he and Cassie not immediately get back together since
her whole character had been about coming to terms with his death and
learning to stand on her own (it was a good idea even if much of it
was poorly written).
The weird thing here was that DC didn't try to milk Batman's "death"
at all...there was very little buzz about it (certainly compared to
Suiperman's and Captain America's) and they didn't even make an event
out of it...they just tacked it on to another event that Batman barely
had anything to do with and then made a big deal out of naming his
successor (even though only an idiot couldn't have guessed who it was
going to be)...it was a terrible send off for the character and I
can't wait for this wretched Batwing period to be over.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> Starman was awesome and actually what helped launch JSA in the first
>> place (I just wish the character could have stayed in the
>> book)...Hourman was totally forgetable...JSA Classified was hit or
>> miss but it had more hits than misses (and it easily outdid JLA
>> Classified)...Hector Hall was easily the best Dr. Fate since the
>> original (I'm still pissed they ditched him)...I loved Johns' run on
>> Hawkman and, even afterwards, it continued to be enjoyable until it
>> switched to Hawkgirl and turned to crap...I'm with you on Magog as I
>> can't believe they would ever give him his own book but Power Girl has
>> been a fun read (not exactly high drama but very entertaining).
>>
>
>Starman was great (but really should've been called "The Shade guest
>starring Starman") but it was almost done when JSA launched. Jack
>being with the JSA at all felt very tacked on.
I disagree...I thought it worked very well since Jack hadn't really
been around many of those characters and there was already some
history built in...I liked the kind of sibling rivalry that developed
between he and Black Canary over what happened between their
parents...and the mentor/big brother bit he had going with Star
Spangled Kid...I think there was plenty of room for him to continue to
be a part of the team if Robinson wasn't so insistant on putting him
out to pasture.
As for Shade dominating Starman, it was certainly true at times but
that book was always more of an ensemble anyway...Jack may have
technically been the star but I can't think of long running title with
a more interesting supporting cast (though I do think there were some
missteps along the way).
I agree that they
>wasted Hector Hall/Fate, but Robinson & Johns could've probably fixed
>the Jared Stevens version if they wanted and people would've loved
>it. Hawkman was ok, but they needed to fix Katar as well (we can have
>multiple Flashes but not multiple Hawkmen?),
I was fine with them doing away with Katar...I loved how Johns'
blended all the elements of the Hawks' mythology together in one.
and I never cared for the
>revelation about Kendra basically being a shell for Shiera (Kendra was
>actually interesting and a decent new legacy character, but I guess we
>can't risk new characters succeeding).
I was fine with this too...she was still a unique character in her own
right and I liked that Hawkwoman was still around too...I just wish
they'd done more with her before killing her off for no reason.
Carter assuming she was his
>property really hurt my interest in him as well.
It seemed to fit with the barbarian aspect that he was playing up at
the time...Carter got over that eventually.
I would kill to see
>some more Sand development, but the sand-monster stuff was a mistake.
I never really cared for Sand, actually.
>> As much as I generally loved his JSA work, I didn't care for any of
>> the new characters Johns introduced in his second series except
>> Cyclone...I thought he was totally out of control with all the
>> replacements/legacies and the roster got so ridiculously large that it
>> was impossible to properly service ANY of the characters.
>>
>
>It always seemed to be pushing towards either a second team or dumping
>some characters on a different Earth. They wasted time involving the
>JSA with the boring legion love-fest and the overly long "Kingdom
>Come" story that had a "vacation" story about new Earth-2 right in the
>middle of it. But the JSA should usually be able to field a second
>team, given how many characters in the current DCU usually have very
>direct ties to them.
I don't think there needs to be two totally seperate teams for there
to be two books...I think they could follow the model of the X-Men
titles in the early 90s with characters just kind of wondering back
and forth between books as the stories dictate...it would work well if
they have a single writer or team handling both.
Unknown
"MWG" <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:2f0047ac-0ade-4b4b...@f8g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> I would kill to see some more Sand development, but the sand-monster
> stuff was a mistake.
Just wanted to point out that the sand-monster stuff was created in a
JLA/JSA team-up back in the '70's and not by the more recent JSA writers.
However, it was their decision to use that even though it hadn't been
referred to in twenty years.
MWG
I'm aware of that. My problem is the JSA writers initially indicated
one direction for Sandy (following Wesley's detective angle) and then
suddenly made a hard right turn into high powered geomorph.
Revisiting the sand-monster stuff was one thing, making it the center
of the character was another. I preferred the strategic-thinking Sand
better than the one that relied mainly on his "strongest" powers
(being able to sense seismic disturbances and move through the earth
was one thing, tossing chunks of ground and maybe causing earthquakes
is another).
MWG
wrote:
I liked the idea that Tim didn't plan to be a hero forever. That he
seemed to be doing it more to uphold the common good rather than a
grief-fueled crusade. The possibility of him eventually walking away
and having a nearly normal life is appealing to me. But they tortured
him so much that it seems unlikely to ever happen now (at least Jack
Knight is living the dream though).
> , and I've already said what I think about "Bart" (wishing you
>
> >could de-age Wally, Geoff?). Maybe if we'd seen more of the group
> >from "52" it might have been stronger, or even what happened with
> >Beast Boy and Raven (talk about showing developments!). And I'm glad
> >Conner got "unkilled", dying was a punishment for crimes beyond his
> >control. He didn't deserve to be thrown away like trash after earning
> >the "redemption" he didn't need, he deserves to learn from it and
> >become a stronger hero.
>
> To me, it felt like a natural conclusion for the character...I no
> there were real world issues that lead to the decision to kill him but
> I think it worked and was a good story...that said, if he had to come
> back, I would have preferred to see it handled better...I also would
> have preferred he and Cassie not immediately get back together since
> her whole character had been about coming to terms with his death and
> learning to stand on her own (it was a good idea even if much of it
> was poorly written).
>
I think Conner adds something to Superman's life that hasn't really
been there before. He functions as the son we may never get to see
Clark have. And even if Kal-El may be theoretically immortal, he was
raised human and grew up familiar with the concept of people
eventually dying and no longer being around, but their offspring
remain and carry on bits of their parents. Clark definitely believes
he won't be around forever and may be afraid to reproduce. Having
Conner around kinda forces him to deal with these issues. Plus we get
to see Conner continue to grow. I think death in serialized fiction
is a waste anyhow, it can reduce possibilities too much. I agree the
unkilling could've been handled better. I would've preferred it
coming as one of the high points in Blackest Night. And I'm glad they
resolved Conner/Cassie quickly, since I would like to see this couple
last. They should've acknowledged the idea of "taking it slow"
though.
I admit to losing track of Final Crisis early on (and not really ever
following the Bat-books that closely) but they were coming off a well
received movie, so how many people were going to buy into the theory
anyhow? And Batman has the trademark on letting people think he's
dead/off the playing field only to show up just in time to foil the
villain's most serious plot. Didn't they reveal the truth about his
situation a few pages after his "death" anyhow? They even mentioned
this one some TV shows where some of the DC big-shots blabbed it
(think it was on G4 covering last year's SDCC?). And it might have
been DiDio himself, which would be a huge surprise since Dan is well
known for NEVER doing that before... Especially blowing some surprise
at a convention panel with the writer sitting right next to him...
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> Even though I have serious issues with the story itself, I liked how
>> Johns handled the fallout...with Tim already losing his dad and Steph
>> and then getting hit with Conner's death...and I really liked the
>> dynamic with him and Cassie when the OYL stuff kicked off (it was
>> about the only OYL book I still liked)...I just wish Johns had stayed
>> on long enough to play that out more.
>>
>
>I liked the idea that Tim didn't plan to be a hero forever. That he
>seemed to be doing it more to uphold the common good rather than a
>grief-fueled crusade. The possibility of him eventually walking away
>and having a nearly normal life is appealing to me. But they tortured
>him so much that it seems unlikely to ever happen now (at least Jack
>Knight is living the dream though).
I guess I can understand that...but, let's face it, Tim always had the
tragedy angle going for him anyway even if they did downplay it...his
mom was murdered and his dad was crippled...and that all happened very
early on...that said, other than his dad, the more recent tragedies
have all been reversed (or are in the process of being reversed) so
they could conceivably get him back to that in the future.
As for Jack, I hated the way that series ended...he came back from
space ready to devote his life to being Starman and one story arc
later he just gives up and walks away...from Starman and from
Opal...and, even if he had to retire, that shouldn't mean he couldn't
make the occasional appearance here and there...he has established
relationships with certain characters...certainly to Stargirl and to
the supporting players of his own book that Robinson has recently put
front and center...he's also been established as Manhunter's
cousin...it sucks that Robinson has just totally taken him out of play
and we aren't likely to ever see him again...and, if we do, it will
probably only be for one or two stories.
I don't recalll them ever playing up that type of relationship between
Conner and Superman...Conner was always portrayed more as a younger
brother or even as a mirror of Clark himself at that age...the
parent/child dynamic was never really a factor here the way it has
been with Chris Kent/Nightwing (another character I'm not overly fond
of).
I think death in serialized fiction
>is a waste anyhow, it can reduce possibilities too much. I agree the
>unkilling could've been handled better. I would've preferred it
>coming as one of the high points in Blackest Night.
I think death in comics is way overdone (to the point where it has
become essentially meaningless) but, when handled properly, it gives a
stronger sense of urgency and drama to the stories because there is
the possibility that everything isn't going to turn out ok in the end.
And I'm glad they
>resolved Conner/Cassie quickly, since I would like to see this couple
>last. They should've acknowledged the idea of "taking it slow"
>though.
I never really liked them as a couple...it always just seemed like a
way to have Superman and WW hook up without actually committing to
that...it was fun early on in YJ when it was mostly just Cassie with a
crush but I quickly got bored with it...I was actually far more
interesed in the Tim/Cassie pairing that was toyed with in Teen Titans
after OYL.
As opposed to all the other high profile hero deaths? What's the
difference?
And Batman has the trademark on letting people think he's
>dead/off the playing field only to show up just in time to foil the
>villain's most serious plot.
But that's not really what happened...he showed up just long enough to
betray his principles by using a gun and just stand there like a moron
and let Darkseid blast him...it was decidedly unbatman-like.
Didn't they reveal the truth about his
>situation a few pages after his "death" anyhow?
Yes and no...the last issue of FC kind of revealed he was still around
but it didn't really explain anything and, to the rest of the DCU, he
was still dead...to the point where everyone thought Tim was nuts for
refusing to believe he was dead.
They even mentioned
>this one some TV shows where some of the DC big-shots blabbed it
>(think it was on G4 covering last year's SDCC?). And it might have
>been DiDio himself, which would be a huge surprise since Dan is well
>known for NEVER doing that before... Especially blowing some surprise
>at a convention panel with the writer sitting right next to him...
Didio needs to be fired in the worst possible way...this Batman
plotline was actually his idea to begin with...he was never supposed
to die but Didio got all excited over the "Batman RIP" title and had
Morrison tack on an actual death.
MWG
wrote:
Jack was more interesting in his civilian life really. And he tended
to be lazy about the hero stuff. I mean, Jack discovered Mikaal by
accident, and only went after Grundy due to the green chick making the
prompting him. He could handle the responsibilities, but seemed
content to stay away unless it was absolutely vital, or if something
(someone) about the mission interested him.
> I agree that they
>
> >wasted Hector Hall/Fate, but Robinson & Johns could've probably fixed
> >the Jared Stevens version if they wanted and people would've loved
> >it. Hawkman was ok, but they needed to fix Katar as well (we can have
> >multiple Flashes but not multiple Hawkmen?),
>
> I was fine with them doing away with Katar...I loved how Johns'
> blended all the elements of the Hawks' mythology together in one.
>
If there had been foresight, editorial would've realized Katar was
fixable (they restored Wonder Woman as a founding member of the JLA
and kept the idea of her mom as the JSA WW working, so the continuity
is patchable). The idea of Katar's father meeting Carter and Katar
being half-human (and Native American to boot) was good. Tie that to
the idea of Khufu & co. discovering a crashed Thanagarian ship and it
blends fine anyhow. The idea of Katar & Carter being stuck in one
body and control flipping back & forth occasionally needs to be tossed
though.
> and I never cared for the
>
> >revelation about Kendra basically being a shell for Shiera (Kendra was
> >actually interesting and a decent new legacy character, but I guess we
> >can't risk new characters succeeding).
>
> I was fine with this too...she was still a unique character in her own
> right and I liked that Hawkwoman was still around too...I just wish
> they'd done more with her before killing her off for no reason.
>
> Carter assuming she was his
>
> >property really hurt my interest in him as well.
>
> It seemed to fit with the barbarian aspect that he was playing up at
> the time...Carter got over that eventually.
>
The thing with Kendra was it seemed she could flip into full-on Shiera
at any time though, and it just seemed like a matter of time. A
Carter/ Shayera might have been fun though.
> I would kill to see
>
> >some more Sand development, but the sand-monster stuff was a mistake.
>
> I never really cared for Sand, actually.
>
> >> As much as I generally loved his JSA work, I didn't care for any of
> >> the new characters Johns introduced in his second series except
> >> Cyclone...I thought he was totally out of control with all the
> >> replacements/legacies and the roster got so ridiculously large that it
> >> was impossible to properly service ANY of the characters.
>
> >It always seemed to be pushing towards either a second team or dumping
> >some characters on a different Earth. They wasted time involving the
> >JSA with the boring legion love-fest and the overly long "Kingdom
> >Come" story that had a "vacation" story about new Earth-2 right in the
> >middle of it. But the JSA should usually be able to field a second
> >team, given how many characters in the current DCU usually have very
> >direct ties to them.
>
> I don't think there needs to be two totally seperate teams for there
> to be two books...I think they could follow the model of the X-Men
> titles in the early 90s with characters just kind of wondering back
> and forth between books as the stories dictate...it would work well if
> they have a single writer or team handling both.
The old guns of the JSA are sorta clique-ish though, tending to "vote"
together on stuff and I can see this being unbearable for newer
characters. Plus Infinity Inc. was able to work for a very long time
on their own, so I can see some of the new characters wanting to try
the same gimmick. Having distance between the 'kids' and 'parents'
may well make both sets of hearts grow fonder, especially if they
aren't constantly irritating each other.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Mar 13, 11:11 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com>
That was certainly true in the beginning but it changed over the
course of the series...by the time he came back from space, he was
ready to devote his life to being Starman...that's pretty much what
his character arc was all about...and why I think the finale was a
step backwards for the character.
>> I agree that they
>>
>> >wasted Hector Hall/Fate, but Robinson & Johns could've probably fixed
>> >the Jared Stevens version if they wanted and people would've loved
>> >it. Hawkman was ok, but they needed to fix Katar as well (we can have
>> >multiple Flashes but not multiple Hawkmen?),
>>
>> I was fine with them doing away with Katar...I loved how Johns'
>> blended all the elements of the Hawks' mythology together in one.
>>
>
>If there had been foresight, editorial would've realized Katar was
>fixable (they restored Wonder Woman as a founding member of the JLA
>and kept the idea of her mom as the JSA WW working, so the continuity
>is patchable). The idea of Katar's father meeting Carter and Katar
>being half-human (and Native American to boot) was good. Tie that to
>the idea of Khufu & co. discovering a crashed Thanagarian ship and it
>blends fine anyhow. The idea of Katar & Carter being stuck in one
>body and control flipping back & forth occasionally needs to be tossed
>though.
That was never the case, though...it was always Carter in the drivers
seat with some of Katar's memories and feelings thrown into the
mix...I thought it worked well and streamlined the Hawkman mythos...it
allows you to tell stories to suit the GA or SA Hawkman with the same
character...of course, I always preferred the GA Hawks anyway...I
loved the original Hawkworld mini (and the Legend of Hawkman mini too)
but, beyond that, I'm not a huge fan of Katar...I did like Shayera
though.
>> and I never cared for the
>>
>> >revelation about Kendra basically being a shell for Shiera (Kendra was
>> >actually interesting and a decent new legacy character, but I guess we
>> >can't risk new characters succeeding).
>>
>> I was fine with this too...she was still a unique character in her own
>> right and I liked that Hawkwoman was still around too...I just wish
>> they'd done more with her before killing her off for no reason.
>>
>> Carter assuming she was his
>>
>> >property really hurt my interest in him as well.
>>
>> It seemed to fit with the barbarian aspect that he was playing up at
>> the time...Carter got over that eventually.
>>
>
>The thing with Kendra was it seemed she could flip into full-on Shiera
>at any time though, and it just seemed like a matter of time.
But she never did (unless you count the final arc of the Hawkgirl
series) and I appreciate that...she is a distinctive character that
still has elements of the original...I'm sure some version of the
Hawks will return but I'm really hoping it's the same
version...endless reboots and revisions is how their history became
such a mess in the first place...Johns made some sense out of it and
I'd hate to see that thrown out.
A
>Carter/ Shayera might have been fun though.
They definitely should have used her more...I also liked the dynamic
set up with her and Adam Strange once the Rann/Thanagar War started
and I think it would have been fun to see that explored more...she
would have been a nice addition to the current Rebels series too.
I prefer the mix and match approach rather than seperating the
generations on different teams...otherwise, it's too much like the
Justice League/Titans dynamic.
Unknown
-----------------------------------
I see what you are saying but it seems that only members of the Batman
family can be non-powered members of a DC super-hero team.
grinningdemon
Well, there is GA and his bunch...and the JSA actually has several
non-powered members...Mr. T, Dr. Midnite, Wildcat (unless you count
the whole 9 lives bit), for instance.
OM
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>and the JSA actually has several
>non-powered members...Mr. T
"Who be da foo' who says Mr. T ain't got no superpowahs? Mr. T is
powah incarnate, and you won't like me when I'm angry! I'll clinch up
my butt cheeks and rip yo' dick off!"
OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[
MWG
wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:02:58 -0700 (PDT), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> Even though I have serious issues with the story itself, I liked how
> >> Johns handled the fallout...with Tim already losing his dad and Steph
> >> and then getting hit with Conner's death...and I really liked the
> >> dynamic with him and Cassie when the OYL stuff kicked off (it was
> >> about the only OYL book I still liked)...I just wish Johns had stayed
> >> on long enough to play that out more.
>
> >I liked the idea that Tim didn't plan to be a hero forever. That he
> >seemed to be doing it more to uphold the common good rather than a
> >grief-fueled crusade. The possibility of him eventually walking away
> >and having a nearly normal life is appealing to me. But they tortured
> >him so much that it seems unlikely to ever happen now (at least Jack
> >Knight is living the dream though).
>
> I guess I can understand that...but, let's face it, Tim always had the
> tragedy angle going for him anyway even if they did downplay it...his
> mom was murdered and his dad was crippled...and that all happened very
> early on...that said, other than his dad, the more recent tragedies
> have all been reversed (or are in the process of being reversed) so
> they could conceivably get him back to that in the future.
>
There was tragedy in Tim's life, but nowhere near the levels of most
of the rest of the Bat-family. That his dad had recovered and was
moving on was proof of that. That Tim was telling Conner how messed
up his mental state has been (in Adventure and Red Robin issues) shows
how far the character has drifted. But I would love to see Tim manage
to be the character that eventually walks away from the Bat-family's
obsessive tendencies and enjoys a decent life.
It was really a fumble on the writers end that Conner and Clark didn't
seem to have that. Clark showed up to console him after some of the
bigger parts (the Westfield reveal, the aging lock) and did some
decent stuff, like giving him a name other than "Superboy", and
defending him to Batman after the Luthor reveal. There may have been
more of a "brotherly" relationship between the two, but Conner was
"born" already at a teen level of maturity. Chris Kent was portrayed
as much younger (and I despised him when he debuted, when Conner's
body wasn't even cold yet).
> I think death in serialized fiction
>
> >is a waste anyhow, it can reduce possibilities too much. I agree the
> >unkilling could've been handled better. I would've preferred it
> >coming as one of the high points in Blackest Night.
>
> I think death in comics is way overdone (to the point where it has
> become essentially meaningless) but, when handled properly, it gives a
> stronger sense of urgency and drama to the stories because there is
> the possibility that everything isn't going to turn out ok in the end.
>
> And I'm glad they
>
> >resolved Conner/Cassie quickly, since I would like to see this couple
> >last. They should've acknowledged the idea of "taking it slow"
> >though.
>
> I never really liked them as a couple...it always just seemed like a
> way to have Superman and WW hook up without actually committing to
> that...it was fun early on in YJ when it was mostly just Cassie with a
> crush but I quickly got bored with it...I was actually far more
> interesed in the Tim/Cassie pairing that was toyed with in Teen Titans
> after OYL.
>
I disliked Tim/Cassie more than I disliked Tim/Steph and that says
something. Now Batman & Wonder Woman hooking up I would be very
interested in. But Conner only worked with Tana Moon or Cassie. Tim
and Cassie kissing just seemed to obvious a place to go with the plot.
The difference? He's the freakin Batman (c)! Bats has a much higher
profile than any other DC character (Robins are a tie-on), and only
Spiderman & (groan) Wolverine are really near his tier. Superman
dreams of getting half as good a mainstream (outside of comics) push.
But its hard to imagine a recent period of time (longer than six
months) when Bats wasn't starring in his own toon or highly featured
(Justice League, his shadow looming over Robin in the Teen Titans
toon).
> And Batman has the trademark on letting people think he's
>
> >dead/off the playing field only to show up just in time to foil the
> >villain's most serious plot.
>
> But that's not really what happened...he showed up just long enough to
> betray his principles by using a gun and just stand there like a moron
> and let Darkseid blast him...it was decidedly unbatman-like.
>
> Didn't they reveal the truth about his
>
> >situation a few pages after his "death" anyhow?
>
> Yes and no...the last issue of FC kind of revealed he was still around
> but it didn't really explain anything and, to the rest of the DCU, he
> was still dead...to the point where everyone thought Tim was nuts for
> refusing to believe he was dead.
>
> They even mentioned
>
> >this one some TV shows where some of the DC big-shots blabbed it
> >(think it was on G4 covering last year's SDCC?). And it might have
> >been DiDio himself, which would be a huge surprise since Dan is well
> >known for NEVER doing that before... Especially blowing some surprise
> >at a convention panel with the writer sitting right next to him...
>
> Didio needs to be fired in the worst possible way...this Batman
> plotline was actually his idea to begin with...he was never supposed
> to die but Didio got all excited over the "Batman RIP" title and had
> Morrison tack on an actual death.
>
I wouldn't miss Danny if he somehow disappeared from DC and Johns got
more control over the company's overall direction. But he has managed
to exploit Johns popularity and apparently made DC enough cash he'll
probably be able to stay as long as he wants.
grinningdemon
wrote:
See, I don't understand that...I don't understand wanting to see a
character I like quit and walk away...hoping that he might have some
future happily ever after is one thing, but actually seeing it happen
would just be lame.
So, basically, you missed Conner for a relationship he NEVER even had
with Superman...and you hate the character you actually DOES have that
relationship with Superman...that makes sense (not that I'm much of a
Chris Kent fan myself)
>> I think death in serialized fiction
>>
>> >is a waste anyhow, it can reduce possibilities too much. I agree the
>> >unkilling could've been handled better. I would've preferred it
>> >coming as one of the high points in Blackest Night.
>>
>> I think death in comics is way overdone (to the point where it has
>> become essentially meaningless) but, when handled properly, it gives a
>> stronger sense of urgency and drama to the stories because there is
>> the possibility that everything isn't going to turn out ok in the end.
>>
>> And I'm glad they
>>
>> >resolved Conner/Cassie quickly, since I would like to see this couple
>> >last. They should've acknowledged the idea of "taking it slow"
>> >though.
>>
>> I never really liked them as a couple...it always just seemed like a
>> way to have Superman and WW hook up without actually committing to
>> that...it was fun early on in YJ when it was mostly just Cassie with a
>> crush but I quickly got bored with it...I was actually far more
>> interesed in the Tim/Cassie pairing that was toyed with in Teen Titans
>> after OYL.
>>
>
>I disliked Tim/Cassie more than I disliked Tim/Steph and that says
>something. Now Batman & Wonder Woman hooking up I would be very
>interested in. But Conner only worked with Tana Moon or Cassie. Tim
>and Cassie kissing just seemed to obvious a place to go with the plot.
I actually didn't see it coming...but I thought it made perfect sense
given what had happened with both characters lately and I would have
liked to see it further explored...and it could have made for some
interesting tension once Conner came back...I always loved Tim/Steph
though and I'm really glad they brought her back (though I"m still not
wild about making her Batgirl).
I've always kind of liked the idea of Batman/WW too even though I
really wouldn't work in the comics...they do like to toy with the idea
from time to time (most recently Blackest Night: WW) and it worked
well in the cartoon.
And I would think all that would make them want to make a bigger deal
out of his "death" instead of just letting it blow right by.
Well, he's starting to write more books, so hopefully that means he's
on his way out as an editor (not that he's any good as a writer
either)...unfortunately, you're probably right though...and it's the
same problem with Quesada over at Marvel.
MWG
It seemed like Robinson was about out of ideas when he got done with
the space story though. And it really felt like the space arc was
meant to happen a lot earlier than it did (given how it was previewed
as an epilogue to the first arc, along with Mikaal). Then some of the
other stuff would've worked better after. The 1951 arc should have
preceded the Grand Guignol story. But it made sense to me with Jack
having to balance losing his father and gaining some kids (plus being
made aware of the Mist family blood influencing some of his
descendants), I can see him wanting to be as far away from the hero
stuff as possible (at least as far as he can get in the DCU).
>
>
> >> I agree that they
>
> >> >wasted Hector Hall/Fate, but Robinson & Johns could've probably fixed
> >> >the Jared Stevens version if they wanted and people would've loved
> >> >it. Hawkman was ok, but they needed to fix Katar as well (we can have
> >> >multiple Flashes but not multiple Hawkmen?),
>
> >> I was fine with them doing away with Katar...I loved how Johns'
> >> blended all the elements of the Hawks' mythology together in one.
>
> >If there had been foresight, editorial would've realized Katar was
> >fixable (they restored Wonder Woman as a founding member of the JLA
> >and kept the idea of her mom as the JSA WW working, so the continuity
> >is patchable). The idea of Katar's father meeting Carter and Katar
> >being half-human (and Native American to boot) was good. Tie that to
> >the idea of Khufu & co. discovering a crashed Thanagarian ship and it
> >blends fine anyhow. The idea of Katar & Carter being stuck in one
> >body and control flipping back & forth occasionally needs to be tossed
> >though.
>
> That was never the case, though...it was always Carter in the drivers
> seat with some of Katar's memories and feelings thrown into the
> mix...I thought it worked well and streamlined the Hawkman mythos...it
> allows you to tell stories to suit the GA or SA Hawkman with the same
> character...of course, I always preferred the GA Hawks anyway...I
> loved the original Hawkworld mini (and the Legend of Hawkman mini too)
> but, beyond that, I'm not a huge fan of Katar...I did like Shayera
> though.
>
But they could've gotten Katar's stories working with a relative
editorial handwave. Carter or the imposters "substituting" for him
didn't fit as well. And when they did the "Return of Hawkman" story
in JSA it seemed like little more than a continuation of the Hawk-
avatar arc with Carter driving now. Which is why I didn't mind
Starlin's "revelation" in the Rann-Thanagar Hawkman special that Katar
is still present - it just leaves an easy opening to separate the
characters.
grinningdemon
wrote:
I would have been happy if they just played up the single father super
hero dynamic...as far as I can recall, the only other character who
has something like that going for him is Roy Harper (and apparently
not anymore) so I think there would have been plenty of room for
another...there are a lot of interesting stories left to be told with
that character.
Hawkman's history was royally screwed...something drastic had to be
done and I thought Johns did a great job of it (Return of Hawkman was
my favorite JSA arc from his entire run)...and combining the two also
lead to some interesting stories involving Shayera that couldn't have
been told otherwise...Starlin's "revelation" was total crap and
absolutely pointless...if he really wanted to bring back Katar, he
should have just done so rather than trying to retroactively turn
Carter into Katar while destroying everything Johns had done with the
GA Hawks' origin (which is exactly what he was doing)...there was no
hint of seperating the two at all and I really hope he never gets to
continue that plotline.
In fact, all of Starlin's recent DC work has been lackluster...I liked
what he did with Comet in Mystery in Space but couldn't care less
about The Weird and Rann/Thanagar Holy War and Strange Adventures were
mediocre at best...I like seeing characters like Adam Strange and
Comet front and center but Starlin just isn't doing a good job of
it...REBELS is a good book and a good place for those characters but
it's more of a Vril Dox book than an ensemble so the other characters
just seem wasted there as things stand now.
YKW
news:nmnrp5d3kjbmnri4p...@4ax.com:
> On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:52:42 -0500, grinningdemon
><grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>and the JSA actually has several
>>non-powered members...Mr. T
>
> "Who be da foo' who says Mr. T ain't got no superpowahs? Mr. T is
> powah incarnate, and you won't like me when I'm angry! I'll clinch up
> my butt cheeks and rip yo' dick off!"
>
>
> OM
Heh... whaddaya know? Eddie was =right= about how that sounds coming from
someone else... 8^P
--
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"It's not that I want to punish your success. [...]I think
when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
-- The One, 14 Oct 08
MWG
Its a payoff thing, that we are so seldom given in modern fiction. I
didn't want Tim to quit at the time it was first presented, but I hate
the way the possibility of that happening has been utterly
obliterated. It was like there was a mad scramble at DC to make him a
typical Bat character. And it would be a nice way to see Tim thank
hypocrite Batman for blowing his ID to Steph (after all of Bats'
preaching about keeping IDs secure and his fussing about her being
unqualified to be a hero to start with). But walking away from it all
is an ending Bruce can never have, Barbara didn't get it, Dick
probably won't, and Jason just won't go away. So I would be satisfied
with Tim getting to retire at some point. I like happy endings.
How many superheroes do make even remotely decent parents though?
With DC, I think you have to go back to Earth-2 Huntress and her
parents for an child of heroes that seemed remotely well adjusted.
Clark wasn't a great dad, but he hit some of the big moments (Superboy
finding out he apparently wasn't a clone of Superman, how they handled
him finding out Superman's ID). And Lex even stated that was why he
"helped" in Conner's creation - to make something Superman would love
that Lex could take away or taint. As for Chris, hate may be too
strong a word - I prefer to try and forget the character's existence
altogether. It would be VERY interested to see Conner and Chris meet
though, pity Johns couldn't stay interested in either character long
enough to make it happen.
Its something you would have to as DC/WB about, because a lot of this
stuff doesn't make sense. My best guess is they didn't think it would
bring in enough new sales to be worth the time to promote it.
Didn't DiDio personally edit Teen Titans around the time Johns was
finishing his run? I seem to recall seeing his name in even bigger
than normal print on some Titans stuff and the books started their
long-running death-throes that still won't end. Maybe this publisher
promotion will keep him too busy to actually effect the books
direction. He is a decent person to do promotional stuff at cons and
media interviews though, he is good at PR stuff.
MWG
There is still stuff that could be done with Jack, but the Starman
corner of the DCU is now well packed enough that it can work without
him. I'm more interested in seeing what happens with Thom Kallor/
Danny Blaine, but he seems to be drifting so far from where Robinson
showed him winding up it may never happen. Seeing glimpses of Jack's
kids futures and other Knight descendants would be cool.
Johns' best improvement to the Hawk's origin was putting Adam and Nabu
at Khufu's side in Egypt. I agree it was stupid to attempt to mess
with Carter's history, but even laying the groundwork for someone else
to split the two (probably in an over-complicated story that doesn't
make sense, but this is comics) is nice. But like I said, Katar's
history is very fixable, and DC loves fix-it stories.
grinningdemon
wrote:
Generally speaking, the only ending characters ever get in the DCU is
death and, even then, only if no one cares enough to bring them
back...I did like that Tim was a little lighter than the rest of the
bat family I would have hated to see him actually retire.
When OYL kicked in, it seemed like there was a real push to get Batman
back to his classic status quo by bringing back Commissioner Gordon
and making Robin a permanent fixture with Batman again rather than
largely operating independently as Tim had done for most of his tenure
as Robin...as a result, I think they were trying hard to make Tim more
like the other Robins and that is unfortunate.
I always thought it would have been interesting if Tim ended up living
with his stepmom after his dad died since she wasn't much older than
him and didn't know his secret...but they just blew right past that by
sticking her in a sanitarium with a nervous breakdown and then
ditching her entirely...I don't think they ever even acknowledged
whether or not she died when Bludhaven was destroyed...and I also
would have liked to see more fallout from Batman revealing Tim's ID to
Steph...I thought that was handled much better in the cartoon when he
revealed Dick's ID to Barbara and Dick walked out over it.
Yes but you don't seem to understand that they never did play him as a
parent to Conner, regardless of what you might have liked them to
do...they never had that relationship at all...Superman was there for
some of the big milestones in Conner's life but he was never really a
father figure at all...even when they started playing up Luthor as a
father figure to him in Teen Titans, they still didn't play up
Superman in that capacity...it just never happened.
And Lex even stated that was why he
>"helped" in Conner's creation - to make something Superman would love
>that Lex could take away or taint. As for Chris, hate may be too
>strong a word - I prefer to try and forget the character's existence
>altogether. It would be VERY interested to see Conner and Chris meet
>though, pity Johns couldn't stay interested in either character long
>enough to make it happen.
I thought they did meet recently in one of the Superman books but I
could be wrong.
You are right that Johns seems to have lost interest in the character
just as he lost interest in Teen Titans...hell, he left in the middle
of a story arc...I would love to see him relaunch Teen Titans down the
line but it doesn't look like he'd be interested...he's too obssessed
with Green Lantern.
I find that hard to believe...they are constantly looking for event
fodder to create hype and draw in new readers...Batman's death could
have easily been as big as Cap's was for Marvel...and, since DC and
Marvel are pretty much mirroring each other in regards to these two
characters, it's surprising to me that they didn't make a bigger deal
out of it.
He was editing both Titans books for a while but I think it was after
Johns left...and both books really sucked at the time (and still do),
so I wouldn't exactly say that's a glowing endorsement...personally, I
think Didio is one of the most annoying people alive...everytime I see
interviews with him (on the DC direct to DVD animated films, for
instance), I just want to reach through the TV screen and slap the
shit out of him...and I feel the same way about Quesada.
GregoryD
>
>
> "Bill Steele" <ws...@cornell.edu> wrote in message
> news:ws21-177891.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
>> In article
>> <393e2944-b5fe-4ab7...@d27g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
>> Ken_from_Chicago <kwic...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> > After reading some of the more recent comics, I found myself
>>> > wondering about his speed, and how he perceives others.
>>> >
>>> > If the Flash can move about at these fantastic rates of speed, then
>>> > does he get extremely bored when forced to move about and interact
>>> with
>>> > those moving at a normal human rate of speed? I would think that it
>>> > would be incredibly frustrating to him, forcing himself to talk
>>> slowly,
>>> > and waiting what would seem forever for the beginning of an answer
>>> to a
>>> > question.
>>> >
>>> > I could see him going to do something in another room, then coming
>>> > back at about the time when the other person started answering him.
>>> >
>>> > I haven't seen them address this aspect of his ability.
>>>
>>> That's the speedsters' hidden power: To decouple their mental speed
>>> from their physical speed. Those who drive long daily commutes can
>>> attest to how their minds can decouple from their physical awareness
>>> and they drive mostly on reflex, until they come to major turns that
>>> require active attention, but then go back on mental cruise control.
>>> While speedsters may be moving at 100x normal their thinking might be
>>> 10x, otherwise yes, they would subjectively feel the same elapsed time
>>> as it would take them to accomplish their acts normally. Otherwise,
>>> even tho they may run around the planet in seconds, subjectively it
>>> would feel like it take years have elapsed.
>>>
>>> Wally West and Bart Allen have been depicted as so impatient that no
>>> way could they withstand the subjective elapsed time if they could NOT
>>> decouple and speed up mental speed from their physical speed.
>>
>> Bottom line here is that if there were a real way to achieve superspeed,
>> no sane person would want to use if for cross-country travel.
>
> Unless one could decouple your mental activity from your physical
> activity so that you run on reflex. Plus if you could fly then it would
> definitely be easier.
>
> Then again, considering the speed of speedsters in the DC universe, it's
> preposterous that they are depicted as not flying since they routinely
> break escape velocity and more than easily move fast enough to "swim"
> thru air.
Ahah! THAT'S what the wings on their heads are for! They're spoilers!
GregoryD
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> I would have been happy if they just played up the single father super
>> hero dynamic...as far as I can recall, the only other character who
>> has something like that going for him is Roy Harper (and apparently
>> not anymore) so I think there would have been plenty of room for
>> another...there are a lot of interesting stories left to be told with
>> that character.
>>
>
>There is still stuff that could be done with Jack, but the Starman
>corner of the DCU is now well packed enough that it can work without
>him. I'm more interested in seeing what happens with Thom Kallor/
>Danny Blaine, but he seems to be drifting so far from where Robinson
>showed him winding up it may never happen. Seeing glimpses of Jack's
>kids futures and other Knight descendants would be cool.
I'd rather it didn't...he's too interesting a character to let go
of...not that I don't like Thom Kallor but I think there's plenty of
room for both...and, as much as I loved the supporting cast in the
Starman series, I'm really not particularly interested in seeing any
of them step up to leading roles...the recent "Starman" #81 that was
basically a Shade one-shot was pretty disappointing to me, both
because I'm not all that interested in Shade as the lead and because
of the direction that Robinson chose to take with all the characters
that appeared.
Personally, I think Blackest Night could have been a great time to
bring back Jack for a while...Ted and David Knight as Black Lanterns
could have been the perfect motivation for him to suit up again...we
could have had a BN: Starman mini to bring him back and then put him
in Robinson's JLA for a while...I would have loved that (particularly
since Robinson's JLA roster leaves a lot to be desired, in my
opinion).
I think he made many improvements but that was definitely one of
them...on another note, I also liked how Robinson tried to apply his
"Times Past" premise to Hawkman when he was co-writing to flesh out
some of the past lives...it's too bad he only stayed on long enough to
do one of those.
I agree it was stupid to attempt to mess
>with Carter's history, but even laying the groundwork for someone else
>to split the two (probably in an over-complicated story that doesn't
>make sense, but this is comics) is nice. But like I said, Katar's
>history is very fixable, and DC loves fix-it stories.
But it didn't really lay any groundwork for them to be split...he just
tried to turn one into the other...there was nothing in there about it
being two different beings.
I have little doubt that the Thanagarian Hawks will be back somewhere
down the line...but I expect it will be another stupid reboot rather
than someone trying to fix existing continuity...otherwise they would
need two seperate resurrections and I really can't see them bringing
Katar back without Shayera.
MWG
I have no siblings, and neither of my parents do either. So maybe I
don't have the framework to understand Clark & Conner as brothers.
But helping kids through milestones is one of the things parents do,
at least in my experience. So maybe Clark wasn't there when Conner
was 'growing up' in his cloning cylinder, but Clark was 'dead' from
SB's conception until meeting him after recovering from said death.
Considering Conner had some of that knowledge programmed in and picked
up some wisdom from Steel and the Cadmus crew (Guardian and the
telepath), he was off to a decent start. Sure, Clark was absent for a
lot of stuff, and Conner didn't get to tie-in to a bunch of the
Superman stories in the late 90s, but he is no worse a dad than many
DC heroes. JSA even touched on this with the Obsidian stuff and Alan
specifically realizing how he had apparently failed Todd. And I think
he made a crack about some of the other original JSA guys being in the
same league. That story gives me most of my framework as to how
parents usually are in the DCU. And for what its worth, I only got
into DC with the Reign of the Supermen stuff.
MWG
wrote:
There are opportunities but I wonder if Robinson even sees them. I
think he even co-wrote the first issue of Stars & STRIPE so he seems
very reluctant to let anyone else even touch Jack. Given what I'm
hearing about "Cry For Justice", it may be just as well if Jack stays
in the background anyhow. I would like to see the bit about Jack
defending his fathers legacy and the "funeral in the east" which is
supposedly untold, but otherwise it would have to be somewhere he is
really needed, like the JSA dealing with a problem related to one he
did in his career.
The groundwork for them to be split has been there since Zero Hour.
Carter was a very influential part of the fused Hawk-avatar thing and
the JSA return just showed he was able to control it much better than
Katar had been. That may have had something to do with the idea that
many of the beings inside the Hawk-avatar were later revealed as Khufu
reincarnations. But the idea of characters getting fused together
often ends with them becoming separate again eventually. And while I
don't know exactly how the Blackest Night ending is going to shake
out, I'd be surprised if there isn't a set-up to split the two sets of
Hawks again. They appear to be purging a lot of stuff on Aquaman (the
missing hand is uncertain, but Superboy got his back without much
mention). And like I said earlier, Wonder Woman got a hand-wave to
declare her timeline fixed, and Clark's Superboy stint returned in a
very similar fashion (being mentioned long before being shown). I do
think DC could stand to do a bunch of one-shots about the various
characters recapping their origin and various big events in their
history that are currently valid. The 52 Origins were not very
helpful since they have so many status effecting stories that its hard
for a new reader to get into a franchise that is constantly mentioning
events that wouldn't immediately be noticed as important.
grinningdemon
wrote:
I just never saw him as a parental figure to Conner...he always seemed
more like a big brother...particularly once he had Conner move in with
the Kents in Smallville...THEY became his parents for all intents and
purposes and that was really the first time that he and Conner started
to get close at all.
JSA even touched on this with the Obsidian stuff and Alan
>specifically realizing how he had apparently failed Todd. And I think
>he made a crack about some of the other original JSA guys being in the
>same league.
The difference being that Alan actually IS Obsidian's father...and
literally was absent for most of his life because he didn't know about
him...some other original JSAers have similar stories and Green Arrow
would certainly fall into that bunch (Batman too, for that matter) but
it really doesn't compare to the Conner situation.
That story gives me most of my framework as to how
>parents usually are in the DCU. And for what its worth, I only got
>into DC with the Reign of the Supermen stuff.
Well, that really doesn't say how parents usually are in the DCU...as
many of the original JSA generation retired to raise their kids as
didn't...and very few of the later generations are really
parents...they may sidekicks or proteges but no actual children...and
even if you consider them as such then most of them have stuck by
their "kids" through most of their lives (at least from the point of
introduction)...Superman has always kept a fair distance from Conner.
grinningdemon
wrote:
There are tons of possibilities for a return of Jack Knight....that
said, the "funeral in the east" could possibly refer to Jack's minor,
unspoken cameo appearance at Sue Dibny's funeral in Identity
Crisis...to my knowledge, the only time he has appeared since his
series ended...and he could make the occasional appearance without
becoming Starman again...he has ties to a number of active heroes in
the DCU, after all.
That story also specifically stated that Katar sacrificed himself to
save Carter...that he was indeed dead.
That may have had something to do with the idea that
>many of the beings inside the Hawk-avatar were later revealed as Khufu
>reincarnations. But the idea of characters getting fused together
>often ends with them becoming separate again eventually.
Yes, but the merged idea has kind of fallen away at this point...like
I said before, if anything, they would just reveal that Carter was
actually Katar all along.
And while I
>don't know exactly how the Blackest Night ending is going to shake
>out, I'd be surprised if there isn't a set-up to split the two sets of
>Hawks again.
Except Shayera isn't involved in it at all...Carter and Kendra are
BLs...and even their original bodies Khufu and Chay-ara (thus undoing
Starlin's crap retcon)...but not Shayera or Katar...I expect the Hawks
to return at the end of BN but I don't think the Thanagarian version
will be returning as a result of this storyline anyway.
They appear to be purging a lot of stuff on Aquaman (the
>missing hand is uncertain, but Superboy got his back without much
>mention). And like I said earlier, Wonder Woman got a hand-wave to
>declare her timeline fixed
Except her timeline is anything but fixed since Perez's origin is all
in flux and Hyppolyta's time in the JSA is still up in the air...all
that handwave did was fix her place with the JLA...they should have
just left well enough alone at this point.
, and Clark's Superboy stint returned in a
>very similar fashion (being mentioned long before being shown).
And I really wish it hadn't.
I do
>think DC could stand to do a bunch of one-shots about the various
>characters recapping their origin and various big events in their
>history that are currently valid. The 52 Origins were not very
>helpful since they have so many status effecting stories that its hard
>for a new reader to get into a franchise that is constantly mentioning
>events that wouldn't immediately be noticed as important.
Those two page origins were worthless...they were so brief and vague
that they did nothing to establish any real continuity...A new history
of the DCU and Who's Who is about to start up but I bet they've
already retconned some of it out before they even finish releasing
it...they just don't care about continuity at all anymore.
MWG
But I think Conner DID kinda see Superman as a father. He was
literally created with the intention of being a replacement for
Superman (as much as was possible given Cadmus' resources) and to be
as close in ability and personality as they could make him. And when
Superman did show up he did as much as possible to impress (while
still dealing with a teenager's issues). Superboy got really upset
when Supergirl declared him unfit to wear the "S" (not really her
place to decide that). So there are definitely parental issues and it
works on Conner's side as much as Clark's. As for moving in with the
Kents, I viewed that more as getting sent to live with the
grandparents (not uncommon around here).
> JSA even touched on this with the Obsidian stuff and Alan
>
> >specifically realizing how he had apparently failed Todd. And I think
> >he made a crack about some of the other original JSA guys being in the
> >same league.
>
> The difference being that Alan actually IS Obsidian's father...and
> literally was absent for most of his life because he didn't know about
> him...some other original JSAers have similar stories and Green Arrow
> would certainly fall into that bunch (Batman too, for that matter) but
> it really doesn't compare to the Conner situation.
>
Most of the first-page descriptions of Conner describe him as the
clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, at 50% of each. That may
technically be a clone, but it is usually a more accurate description
of a child of two people. Now the question of which one is the mother
and which is the daddy might be subject to some arguing (and I wonder
how Lois feels about the present description of Conner which could be
a jokingly described as the result of a fling between Supes and Lex).
And suddenly discovered kids is a common gimmick, I agree. A few have
even been transplants from other earths, or made without their consent
(one of Jack Knight's kids, one of Green Arrow's).
> That story gives me most of my framework as to how
>
> >parents usually are in the DCU. And for what its worth, I only got
> >into DC with the Reign of the Supermen stuff.
>
> Well, that really doesn't say how parents usually are in the DCU...as
> many of the original JSA generation retired to raise their kids as
> didn't...and very few of the later generations are really
> parents...they may sidekicks or proteges but no actual children...and
> even if you consider them as such then most of them have stuck by
> their "kids" through most of their lives (at least from the point of
> introduction)...Superman has always kept a fair distance from Conner.
>
Some are good parents, or at least try. Donna, Roy, and Wally have
tried to be (though excluding Wally's still growing ones, none
apparently made it to teenage years). But a lot of sidekick
characters also tend to function as surrogate children even to the
point of sometimes being adopted or named wards. They were pushing
more distance between a lot of the Young Justice characters and their
parents (pushing hard on the rebellious youth thing), but even then
Impulse latched onto Max Mercury as a substitute father (especially
since Wally kept a fair distance from him). Tim definitely asserted
his independence from Bruce, partly resulting from Bruce being shelved
in Knightfall, but carrying on in his series.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> I just never saw him as a parental figure to Conner...he always seemed
>> more like a big brother...particularly once he had Conner move in with
>> the Kents in Smallville...THEY became his parents for all intents and
>> purposes and that was really the first time that he and Conner started
>> to get close at all.
>>
>
>But I think Conner DID kinda see Superman as a father. He was
>literally created with the intention of being a replacement for
>Superman (as much as was possible given Cadmus' resources) and to be
>as close in ability and personality as they could make him. And when
>Superman did show up he did as much as possible to impress (while
>still dealing with a teenager's issues). Superboy got really upset
>when Supergirl declared him unfit to wear the "S" (not really her
>place to decide that). So there are definitely parental issues and it
>works on Conner's side as much as Clark's. As for moving in with the
>Kents, I viewed that more as getting sent to live with the
>grandparents (not uncommon around here).
Maybe Conner did see himself as the successor to Superman...maybe he
even thought of Superman as a mentor (thus seeking to impress
him)...but that isn't necessarily the same thing as a father
figure...it certainly can be (as is usually the case with most of the
sidekicks and their mentors) but it's not a given...they have never
had a particularly close relationship (Superman is much closer to both
Supergirl and Nightwing/Chris) and haven't even spent a significant
amount of time together...it's certainly debatable whether or not they
SHOULD have a father/son relationship but, to me, that's just never
been the direction DC has taken it.
>> JSA even touched on this with the Obsidian stuff and Alan
>>
>> >specifically realizing how he had apparently failed Todd. And I think
>> >he made a crack about some of the other original JSA guys being in the
>> >same league.
>>
>> The difference being that Alan actually IS Obsidian's father...and
>> literally was absent for most of his life because he didn't know about
>> him...some other original JSAers have similar stories and Green Arrow
>> would certainly fall into that bunch (Batman too, for that matter) but
>> it really doesn't compare to the Conner situation.
>>
>
>Most of the first-page descriptions of Conner describe him as the
>clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, at 50% of each. That may
>technically be a clone, but it is usually a more accurate description
>of a child of two people. Now the question of which one is the mother
>and which is the daddy might be subject to some arguing (and I wonder
>how Lois feels about the present description of Conner which could be
>a jokingly described as the result of a fling between Supes and Lex).
He's a clone grown in a test tube (and I myself have even referred to
him as Superman's and Lex's love child) but he's not truly Superman's
child and Supes has NEVER treated him as such...as I've said, it's
always been more of a sibling relationship than anything (and I say
that having grown up with a significantly older brother).
>And suddenly discovered kids is a common gimmick, I agree. A few have
>even been transplants from other earths, or made without their consent
>(one of Jack Knight's kids, one of Green Arrow's).
All true...except for the part about one of GA's kids being made
without his consent...the latest issue of GA kind of throws that into
question.
>> That story gives me most of my framework as to how
>>
>> >parents usually are in the DCU. And for what its worth, I only got
>> >into DC with the Reign of the Supermen stuff.
>>
>> Well, that really doesn't say how parents usually are in the DCU...as
>> many of the original JSA generation retired to raise their kids as
>> didn't...and very few of the later generations are really
>> parents...they may sidekicks or proteges but no actual children...and
>> even if you consider them as such then most of them have stuck by
>> their "kids" through most of their lives (at least from the point of
>> introduction)...Superman has always kept a fair distance from Conner.
>>
>
>Some are good parents, or at least try. Donna, Roy, and Wally have
>tried to be (though excluding Wally's still growing ones, none
>apparently made it to teenage years).
Kids rarely last in comics...most often, they get killed off,
magically aged, or otherwise ditched...as is the case with two (and
almost all three) of your examples...even the kid sidekicks age to
maturity relatively quickly (they may still be relatively young but
they quickly grow old enough to take care of themselves)...the JSA old
timers got a free pass on this because they spent long years barely
appearing anywhere so most of those kids grew up off-panel and weren't
even introduced until they were adults.
But a lot of sidekick
>characters also tend to function as surrogate children even to the
>point of sometimes being adopted or named wards. They were pushing
>more distance between a lot of the Young Justice characters and their
>parents (pushing hard on the rebellious youth thing), but even then
>Impulse latched onto Max Mercury as a substitute father (especially
>since Wally kept a fair distance from him). Tim definitely asserted
>his independence from Bruce, partly resulting from Bruce being shelved
>in Knightfall, but carrying on in his series.
I agree that a lot of the sidekicks get treated as surrogate children
(as I basically said before)...and I agree that during the YJ time
period there was an effort on DC's part to have them operate more
independently...but, unlike Tim (or even Cassie), Conner was never a
sidekick to Superman...he was never trained by him...never recruited
by him...and never even fought by his side for any serious length of
time (I'll bet Tim Drake has spent as much time on-panel with Superman
over the years as Conner has)...the character was created during that
time period just as Bart was and, subsequently, he was never really a
sidekick either and never had a parental relationship with Wally...he
did develop that with Max but that was a story direction that the
writers actually chose to go with...they could easily have done the
same with Conner and Superman but they didn't...it just never
happened.
Writers have to choose to head in that direction...case in point, the
current version Huntress...she is not blood related to Batman in any
way and was never a sidekick or protege to him but writers still chose
to develop a father/daughter type relationship between them (at least
from her perspective)...early on especially, she was constantly
seeking his approval and looking to him for guidance...I'm sure this
was all done to mirror the actual father/daughter relationship they
had on E-2 but it was sitll a deliberate choice on their part...a
choice I don't think they ever made with Conner.
YKW
news:ipsvp5lv06eb1jk2g...@4ax.com:
> The difference being that Alan actually IS Obsidian's father...and
> literally was absent for most of his life because he didn't know about
> him...some other original JSAers have similar stories and Green Arrow
> would certainly fall into that bunch (Batman too, for that matter) but
> it really doesn't compare to the Conner situation.
Actually, Ollie was aware of Connor even before he was born -- to the
point of actually having paid his mother to have him aborted. Wildcat had
a similar story wrt his son Tommy. Arn Munro didn't do much better by his
kid with Sandra Knight. In fact, Alan was the only hero of that era known
thus far to have fathered kids yet actually not be =aware= of having done
so (if we ignore the Al Pratt situation owing to its even more unusual
circumstances).
However, a number of JSA/ASSQ-ers =did= do a decent job of raising kids:
the Hawks (for a kid born without a soul and cursed at conception to
being the vehicle for Earth's destruction, Hector did OK for an awfully
long time), the Quicks, Rex Tyler (Rick's problems surfaced well into
adulthood), Miss America and her hubby.
MWG
I really don't view Superman's relationship with any of the Supergirls
as remotely parental (maybe Cir-El, but her existence was brief. Of
course, Chris and the Kara Supergirls are fully Kryptonian to my
knowledge, and more completely "alien" to this world than Conner ever
was. Which might have made it a bit easier for Clark to bond with
them. Of course, Clark was just dead for the first few weeks of
Conner's existence, and with no way to know that the real Superman
would actually show up, Conner made a family out of the Leeches, Tana,
and a few Cadmus folk that were sympathetic. And it certainly seems
they are pushing the father/son angle a bit more now than they had in
the past, in the wake of Johns "adopting" Superboy. It kinda showed
with Kal-L realizing he'd picked the "wrong one (Superboy) to condone
and the wrong one to condemn" towards the end of Infinite Crisis, and
in the Blackest Night Superman mini, plus an issue or two of
Superman's regular books before Conner's death.
>
>
> >> JSA even touched on this with the Obsidian stuff and Alan
>
> >> >specifically realizing how he had apparently failed Todd. And I think
> >> >he made a crack about some of the other original JSA guys being in the
> >> >same league.
>
> >> The difference being that Alan actually IS Obsidian's father...and
> >> literally was absent for most of his life because he didn't know about
> >> him...some other original JSAers have similar stories and Green Arrow
> >> would certainly fall into that bunch (Batman too, for that matter) but
> >> it really doesn't compare to the Conner situation.
>
> >Most of the first-page descriptions of Conner describe him as the
> >clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, at 50% of each. That may
> >technically be a clone, but it is usually a more accurate description
> >of a child of two people. Now the question of which one is the mother
> >and which is the daddy might be subject to some arguing (and I wonder
> >how Lois feels about the present description of Conner which could be
> >a jokingly described as the result of a fling between Supes and Lex).
>
> He's a clone grown in a test tube (and I myself have even referred to
> him as Superman's and Lex's love child) but he's not truly Superman's
> child and Supes has NEVER treated him as such...as I've said, it's
> always been more of a sibling relationship than anything (and I say
> that having grown up with a significantly older brother).
>
To me, "clone" implies a pretty direct copy of something, and Conner
never really was that (the implication that he was a direct clone was
questionable in Reign of the Supermen and tossed out almost completely
soon after). He is, however a derivative creation meant to make
people think he was (and Cadmus apparently thought he'd be even more
convincing fully grown). Cadmus definitely had some plans of trying
to "influence" Superboy throughout his existence (even before the Lex
revelation) and I can see Superman being well aware of the possibility
of him going rogue (voluntary or not). And the fear of losing him
(like Batman went through after Jason's death and reluctance to take
Tim as the next sidekick) probably contributed as well. I've even
seen some speculation that the guilt/mourning over the deaths of
Conner and Kal-L is largely what caused Clark to go powerless for the
year of 52.
> >And suddenly discovered kids is a common gimmick, I agree. A few have
> >even been transplants from other earths, or made without their consent
> >(one of Jack Knight's kids, one of Green Arrow's).
>
> All true...except for the part about one of GA's kids being made
> without his consent...the latest issue of GA kind of throws that into
> question.
>
A very recent revelation, given by someone under the influence of a
controlling device, the main purpose of which is to antagonize and be
as cruel as possible to loved ones. But it does seem like they have
to increase Ollie's jerk rating a step every few years.
>
>
> >> That story gives me most of my framework as to how
>
> >> >parents usually are in the DCU. And for what its worth, I only got
> >> >into DC with the Reign of the Supermen stuff.
>
> >> Well, that really doesn't say how parents usually are in the DCU...as
> >> many of the original JSA generation retired to raise their kids as
> >> didn't...and very few of the later generations are really
> >> parents...they may sidekicks or proteges but no actual children...and
> >> even if you consider them as such then most of them have stuck by
> >> their "kids" through most of their lives (at least from the point of
> >> introduction)...Superman has always kept a fair distance from Conner.
>
> >Some are good parents, or at least try. Donna, Roy, and Wally have
> >tried to be (though excluding Wally's still growing ones, none
> >apparently made it to teenage years).
>
> Kids rarely last in comics...most often, they get killed off,
> magically aged, or otherwise ditched...as is the case with two (and
> almost all three) of your examples...even the kid sidekicks age to
> maturity relatively quickly (they may still be relatively young but
> they quickly grow old enough to take care of themselves)...the JSA old
> timers got a free pass on this because they spent long years barely
> appearing anywhere so most of those kids grew up off-panel and weren't
> even introduced until they were adults.
>
Sidekicks and kids do pose a bit of a problem for characters that have
to remain a certain age. The joys of the sliding time-scale origins.
But the JSA have to remain tied to World War II (and I question the
viability of the old guys when the survivors of the WWII generation in
the real world are gone).
> But a lot of sidekick
>
> >characters also tend to function as surrogate children even to the
> >point of sometimes being adopted or named wards. They were pushing
> >more distance between a lot of the Young Justice characters and their
> >parents (pushing hard on the rebellious youth thing), but even then
> >Impulse latched onto Max Mercury as a substitute father (especially
> >since Wally kept a fair distance from him). Tim definitely asserted
> >his independence from Bruce, partly resulting from Bruce being shelved
> >in Knightfall, but carrying on in his series.
>
> I agree that a lot of the sidekicks get treated as surrogate children
> (as I basically said before)...and I agree that during the YJ time
> period there was an effort on DC's part to have them operate more
> independently...but, unlike Tim (or even Cassie), Conner was never a
> sidekick to Superman...he was never trained by him...never recruited
> by him...and never even fought by his side for any serious length of
> time (I'll bet Tim Drake has spent as much time on-panel with Superman
> over the years as Conner has)...the character was created during that
> time period just as Bart was and, subsequently, he was never really a
> sidekick either and never had a parental relationship with Wally...he
> did develop that with Max but that was a story direction that the
> writers actually chose to go with...they could easily have done the
> same with Conner and Superman but they didn't...it just never
> happened.
>
Tim was vaguely independent from Batman even early on, discovering the
secret IDs, becoming one of Lady Shiva's prize pupils, and thrashing
the Joker without much help from Batman. But Robins were synonymous
with "sidekick" and Superboys were mainly "the present Superman as a
kid/teen". So there was some dynamic to create there. The Wally/Bart
beginning was a huge fumble and contributed to me hating Bart's
transition to Kid Flash (Wally seemed to treat Bart like crap at best,
so why Bart wanted to become like him didn't make sense).
> Writers have to choose to head in that direction...case in point, the
> current version Huntress...she is not blood related to Batman in any
> way and was never a sidekick or protege to him but writers still chose
> to develop a father/daughter type relationship between them (at least
> from her perspective)...early on especially, she was constantly
> seeking his approval and looking to him for guidance...I'm sure this
> was all done to mirror the actual father/daughter relationship they
> had on E-2 but it was sitll a deliberate choice on their part...a
> choice I don't think they ever made with Conner.
>
It is probably something that will be better handled next time they
push a revamp for a TV series or reboot (or whatever) if they use the
concept. Writers that do this typically try to "purify" the old
concept and it usually works because they do have the benefit of the
past to avoid some of its (the past) mistakes and wind up fitting it
together better.
grinningdemon
wrote:
Superman's relationship with Supergirl defintely had a parental
element to it early on when she was reintroduced though it has largely
fallen away since her parents were revealed to still be alive and
all...and, even since Johns "adopted" Conner, there hasn't been much
effort to make a father/son relationship between the two...Superman
only appeared once, maybe twice, during Johns' Titans...the emphasis
was always on Luthor and his relationship with Conner...and still is
now that he's back...writers could still choose to head in that
direction but it hasn't happened yet and the two characters really
aren't around each other much...they never have been really.
Conner has always been referred to as a clone...even since the
revelation about Luthor being his humn donor...and you may have seen
speculation that Superman lost his powers during 52 over guilt/grief
over Conner and Kal-L but that really has no basis in any story...to
my knowledge (and I've read pretty much all the books), Conner never
even came up again in the Superman books until he returned...or Kal-L
either, for that matter...the fallout from Conner's death was almost
exclusive to Teen Titans with a little bit in Robin.
>> >And suddenly discovered kids is a common gimmick, I agree. A few have
>> >even been transplants from other earths, or made without their consent
>> >(one of Jack Knight's kids, one of Green Arrow's).
>>
>> All true...except for the part about one of GA's kids being made
>> without his consent...the latest issue of GA kind of throws that into
>> question.
>>
>
>A very recent revelation, given by someone under the influence of a
>controlling device, the main purpose of which is to antagonize and be
>as cruel as possible to loved ones. But it does seem like they have
>to increase Ollie's jerk rating a step every few years.
It's not like it's out of character for Ollie to cheat on Dinah...even
without Shado, he's done it at least twice (so far...because you know
it's got to happen again)...a major reason why I think it was a
terrible idea for DC to marry them off at this point...it makes Dinah
look totally pathetic...and, even setting that aside, it was poorly
written all around.
They generally hand-wave the slowed aging away by saying they were all
exposed to tons of magic...and some of them have specific reasons why
they haven't aged as much...but it is definitely going to become a
problem with their kids as the timline continues to slide.
But they never did...they never made the slightest effort to make
Conner a sidekick.
The Wally/Bart
>beginning was a huge fumble and contributed to me hating Bart's
>transition to Kid Flash (Wally seemed to treat Bart like crap at best,
>so why Bart wanted to become like him didn't make sense).
I didn't see it as him wanting to be like Wally as much as him wanting
to grow up to take over the family business...if anything, it was
probably more about Barry (even if he wasn't mentioned at the
time)...I expect that will be developed more in the new Flash series.
OM
wrote:
>But it does seem like they have
>to increase Ollie's jerk rating a step every few years.
...Then this next year is *really* going to be pathetic for Ollie
fans.
MWG
But we have been over the idea that death can be undone in an instant,
or revealed as an illusion if need be. There are so many fake-out
deaths (usually involving villains that are needed again) that its not
funny. And some of the deaths that were intended to be unquestionable
when they happened are undone. It can happen in just about any form
of fictional story though, and a few really odd real world stories.
> That may have had something to do with the idea that
>
> >many of the beings inside the Hawk-avatar were later revealed as Khufu
> >reincarnations. But the idea of characters getting fused together
> >often ends with them becoming separate again eventually.
>
> Yes, but the merged idea has kind of fallen away at this point...like
> I said before, if anything, they would just reveal that Carter was
> actually Katar all along.
>
That seems to be the JLU cartoon-verse theory. And I guess it works
there. But in the comic-verse, Carter is very much tied to Earth and
its history and has a hard time being reborn on an alien world (within
the last fifty years especially) then suddenly "discovering" Earth and
being a stranger to it. Plus a lot of Carter's recent space
experiences have been helped by Katar's memories.
> And while I
>
> >don't know exactly how the Blackest Night ending is going to shake
> >out, I'd be surprised if there isn't a set-up to split the two sets of
> >Hawks again.
>
> Except Shayera isn't involved in it at all...Carter and Kendra are
> BLs...and even their original bodies Khufu and Chay-ara (thus undoing
> Starlin's crap retcon)...but not Shayera or Katar...I expect the Hawks
> to return at the end of BN but I don't think the Thanagarian version
> will be returning as a result of this storyline anyway.
>
This is a little odd also. Characters from other earths are appearing
as BLs (Kal-L - I know he died in IC, but the post-Crisis Earth seemed
to ignore him right up til that story) and fairly minor nobody
characters. Shayera very much should have appeared as a BL. But the
implication that Khufu/Chay-Ara are independent of Carter/Kendra-
Shiera is a bit odd. They have implied that the reincarnations have
caused their souls to become fragmented and give voices to the various
reincarnated personalities all at once.
> They appear to be purging a lot of stuff on Aquaman (the
>
> >missing hand is uncertain, but Superboy got his back without much
> >mention). And like I said earlier, Wonder Woman got a hand-wave to
> >declare her timeline fixed
>
> Except her timeline is anything but fixed since Perez's origin is all
> in flux and Hyppolyta's time in the JSA is still up in the air...all
> that handwave did was fix her place with the JLA...they should have
> just left well enough alone at this point.
>
It is a pity Simone didn't get to reboot Wonder Woman from the post-IC
start and had to deal with the mess left after Amazons Attack. I
think WW's history would've been fixed, or at least be in better shape
than it is. I think Hyppolyta's JSA service is still valid, it
doesn't seem important enough to bother tossing out. And the JSA
writers made it work decently.
> , and Clark's Superboy stint returned in a
>
> >very similar fashion (being mentioned long before being shown).
>
> And I really wish it hadn't.
>
> I do
>
> >think DC could stand to do a bunch of one-shots about the various
> >characters recapping their origin and various big events in their
> >history that are currently valid. The 52 Origins were not very
> >helpful since they have so many status effecting stories that its hard
> >for a new reader to get into a franchise that is constantly mentioning
> >events that wouldn't immediately be noticed as important.
>
> Those two page origins were worthless...they were so brief and vague
> that they did nothing to establish any real continuity...A new history
> of the DCU and Who's Who is about to start up but I bet they've
> already retconned some of it out before they even finish releasing
> it...they just don't care about continuity at all anymore.
I'm a bit surprised DC hasn't been able to get a decent counter to
Marvel's Ultimate line-up yet. The All-Star line may be close but
doesn't seem nearly as well supported. And DC doesn't need to worry
about continuity, they can take the basics of a character and put them
in a one-shot graphic novel or cartoon/tv that is as well received by
the non-comic fandom as any comic the character has had in twenty
years, so the comic-verse gets to flail in the wind. They do at least
tend to flush the crap out occasionally though.
MWG
I really got more of a sibling vibe between Superman & Supergirl.
That Kara should've been the older of the two helped that and they
were screwing her back-story up so much with what her true "mission"
was supposed to be, which helped nothing. Clark may not be a GOOD
father-figure to Conner, but he is still a father-figure. Lex only
cared because he was trying weaponize Conner. Which makes it even
odder that Lex would ignore Conner's clone Match, who was made by
Lex's ex-wife Contessa (whose files Lex should have total access to
and Match is far easier to manipulate),
Children are essentially clones of their contributing parents. And
"clone" is a quick easy descriptive term for what he is. And why did
Superman stay powerless for so long? The impression I got is he had
some sort of mental block keeping him from using them. It seemed like
Superboy couldn't be acknowledged for a time anywhere, probably
lawsuit related, and the Teen Titans bit slipped under the radar.
I think he would've found his way to the Flash costume regardless.
There is one story of Bart and the Ray I think in a mid-90s Justice
League book showing them grown (in a possible future) and Bart/Flash
still wearing a tweaked Impulse suit that covered his hair. Bart
always expected to eventually become the Flash and honor his family
name. And I don't think Barry had much to do with it - Johns wrote
both the book where Bart took the KF costume (and Barry's return was
very much just a dim twinkle in editorial's mind) and the bit in
Rebirth #1 where Bart outright declared he barely had any concept of
who Barry was or what he was about. I could see him doing it for Jay
though. Prior to Bart's undeath, I actually kinda hoped they would
introduce a new Kid Flash that was somehow related to Jay (maybe a kid
of that clone of Jay from Outsiders), so the Flash future isn't just
Wests and Allens, and the Garrick name is still important
MWG
> On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:05:25 -0700 (PDT), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >But it does seem like they have
> >to increase Ollie's jerk rating a step every few years.
>
> ...Then this next year is *really* going to be pathetic for Ollie
> fans.
>
From what I've been hearing, at least Ollie didn't have far to fall.
At least they remembered Connor Hawke exists, and he has nowhere to go
but up from where Winnick left him. If Connor benefits, it isn't a
total loss.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> That story also specifically stated that Katar sacrificed himself to
>> save Carter...that he was indeed dead.
>>
>
>But we have been over the idea that death can be undone in an instant,
>or revealed as an illusion if need be. There are so many fake-out
>deaths (usually involving villains that are needed again) that its not
>funny. And some of the deaths that were intended to be unquestionable
>when they happened are undone. It can happen in just about any form
>of fictional story though, and a few really odd real world stories.
But they could just as easily turn it around and say Carter and Katar
were never really merged, Katar was never dead, and he's been hangng
out with Elvis this whole time...anything is possible but, until they
retcon it, all we have to go by is the story as printed.
>> That may have had something to do with the idea that
>>
>> >many of the beings inside the Hawk-avatar were later revealed as Khufu
>> >reincarnations. But the idea of characters getting fused together
>> >often ends with them becoming separate again eventually.
>>
>> Yes, but the merged idea has kind of fallen away at this point...like
>> I said before, if anything, they would just reveal that Carter was
>> actually Katar all along.
>>
>
>That seems to be the JLU cartoon-verse theory. And I guess it works
>there. But in the comic-verse, Carter is very much tied to Earth and
>its history and has a hard time being reborn on an alien world (within
>the last fifty years especially) then suddenly "discovering" Earth and
>being a stranger to it. Plus a lot of Carter's recent space
>experiences have been helped by Katar's memories.
Actually, the JLU didn't really have a true Katar...yes, they
incorporated the Thanagarians into the GA Hawks origin (and John
Stewart too, in the worst creative choice of the entire series) but
they also had that other Thanagarian Hawkman show up as a world
conqueror with a name that was an anagram for Katar...they just didn't
really know what to do with the Hawks' history there.
The thing Starlin was trying to do, on the other hand, was eliminate
the GA origin all together by saying all the reincarnation stuff was a
lie and Khufu and Chay-era never even existed (which has since been
directly contradicted by Blackest Night)...this story of Starlin's is
actually the only one of Hawkman's recent space adventures that was in
any way dependent on the memories of Katar...and Starlin's explanation
totally leaves Hawkgirl out in the cold since she is in no way tied to
the Thanagar and is a totally seperate character from Shayera...it's
best forgotten.
>> And while I
>>
>> >don't know exactly how the Blackest Night ending is going to shake
>> >out, I'd be surprised if there isn't a set-up to split the two sets of
>> >Hawks again.
>>
>> Except Shayera isn't involved in it at all...Carter and Kendra are
>> BLs...and even their original bodies Khufu and Chay-ara (thus undoing
>> Starlin's crap retcon)...but not Shayera or Katar...I expect the Hawks
>> to return at the end of BN but I don't think the Thanagarian version
>> will be returning as a result of this storyline anyway.
>>
>
>This is a little odd also. Characters from other earths are appearing
>as BLs (Kal-L - I know he died in IC, but the post-Crisis Earth seemed
>to ignore him right up til that story) and fairly minor nobody
>characters. Shayera very much should have appeared as a BL. But the
>implication that Khufu/Chay-Ara are independent of Carter/Kendra-
>Shiera is a bit odd. They have implied that the reincarnations have
>caused their souls to become fragmented and give voices to the various
>reincarnated personalities all at once.
Actually, it just hammers home Johns' idea that the BLs are just husks
powered by the ring...the essence or soul is all gone...in theory,
every one of their previous lives could have returned as a a BL...and
Shayera certainly should have but I imagine Johns thought he had a
enough dead Hawks running around without further complicating things.
>> They appear to be purging a lot of stuff on Aquaman (the
>>
>> >missing hand is uncertain, but Superboy got his back without much
>> >mention). And like I said earlier, Wonder Woman got a hand-wave to
>> >declare her timeline fixed
>>
>> Except her timeline is anything but fixed since Perez's origin is all
>> in flux and Hyppolyta's time in the JSA is still up in the air...all
>> that handwave did was fix her place with the JLA...they should have
>> just left well enough alone at this point.
>>
>
>It is a pity Simone didn't get to reboot Wonder Woman from the post-IC
>start and had to deal with the mess left after Amazons Attack. I
>think WW's history would've been fixed, or at least be in better shape
>than it is. I think Hyppolyta's JSA service is still valid, it
>doesn't seem important enough to bother tossing out. And the JSA
>writers made it work decently.
I wouldn't have wanted Simone to REBOOT WW in the sense of throwing
out everything and starting from scratch...but a RELAUNCH free from
all the horrible trappings of the current series would have been nice
(I'm sure her run would have been much better without all the secret
identity/federal agent garbage)...I think Perez's origin was great and
see no reason to change it now...if only he had done as Byrne did with
Superman by having the origin set in the past and then flashing
forward to present day, so many timeline problems could have been
avoided.
As for Hyppolyta in the JSA, it does seem to still be in continuity
but it never really made any sense from the moment Byrne retconned it
in...and it has rarely ever been addressed in JSA itself...she
appeared in a couple of early story arcs and was then promptly
forgotten...Phil Jimenez did a much better job establishing her role
with the JSA in his WW run.
>> , and Clark's Superboy stint returned in a
>>
>> >very similar fashion (being mentioned long before being shown).
>>
>> And I really wish it hadn't.
>>
>> I do
>>
>> >think DC could stand to do a bunch of one-shots about the various
>> >characters recapping their origin and various big events in their
>> >history that are currently valid. The 52 Origins were not very
>> >helpful since they have so many status effecting stories that its hard
>> >for a new reader to get into a franchise that is constantly mentioning
>> >events that wouldn't immediately be noticed as important.
>>
>> Those two page origins were worthless...they were so brief and vague
>> that they did nothing to establish any real continuity...A new history
>> of the DCU and Who's Who is about to start up but I bet they've
>> already retconned some of it out before they even finish releasing
>> it...they just don't care about continuity at all anymore.
>
>I'm a bit surprised DC hasn't been able to get a decent counter to
>Marvel's Ultimate line-up yet. The All-Star line may be close but
>doesn't seem nearly as well supported. And DC doesn't need to worry
>about continuity, they can take the basics of a character and put them
>in a one-shot graphic novel or cartoon/tv that is as well received by
>the non-comic fandom as any comic the character has had in twenty
>years, so the comic-verse gets to flail in the wind. They do at least
>tend to flush the crap out occasionally though.
That seems to be exactly what they are doing with the upcoming Earth
One graphic novels...just as Marvel has all but ruined the Ultimate
line.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>> Superman's relationship with Supergirl defintely had a parental
>> element to it early on when she was reintroduced though it has largely
>> fallen away since her parents were revealed to still be alive and
>> all...and, even since Johns "adopted" Conner, there hasn't been much
>> effort to make a father/son relationship between the two...Superman
>> only appeared once, maybe twice, during Johns' Titans...the emphasis
>> was always on Luthor and his relationship with Conner...and still is
>> now that he's back...writers could still choose to head in that
>> direction but it hasn't happened yet and the two characters really
>> aren't around each other much...they never have been really.
>>
>
>I really got more of a sibling vibe between Superman & Supergirl.
>That Kara should've been the older of the two helped that and they
>were screwing her back-story up so much with what her true "mission"
>was supposed to be, which helped nothing.
That's not the vibe I got early on...certainly not from Superman's
perspective...maybe it was more of a sibling vibe from Supergirl's
side but Superman was clearly playing daddy.
Clark may not be a GOOD
>father-figure to Conner, but he is still a father-figure.
I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree here but I just
don't see it...the two have never been very close and they just never
had much of a relationship at all, much less a father/son thing.
Lex only
>cared because he was trying weaponize Conner.
That's true...but the fatherly connection has still been played up by
Johns all along (both in Teen Titans and currently in Adventure
Comics) in a way that it has never been done with Superman...evil
future Conner even called Lex Dad...none of that has ever come up with
regards to Superman.
Which makes it even
>odder that Lex would ignore Conner's clone Match, who was made by
>Lex's ex-wife Contessa (whose files Lex should have total access to
>and Match is far easier to manipulate),
Lex would probably view Match as an inferior copy and therefore
beneath his notice.
I don't know about you, but I don't generally consider my kids as
clones...nor do I know anyone else who does...Conner was originally
established as a clone and has always been known as such...they even
had that bit in Teen Titans where it talked about how he had to
develop a soul because, being a clone, he didn't have one to begin
with.
And
>"clone" is a quick easy descriptive term for what he is. And why did
>Superman stay powerless for so long? The impression I got is he had
>some sort of mental block keeping him from using them.
That may be true...but there was never any indication that it had
anything to do with Conner...as much as you'd like to think otherwise,
they were just never that close...another thing worth noting is that
story with Superman getting his powers back was co-written by Johns
(who had "adopted" Conner) and he still never came up at all.
It seemed like
>Superboy couldn't be acknowledged for a time anywhere, probably
>lawsuit related, and the Teen Titans bit slipped under the radar.
Conner was coming up all that time in Teen Titans so I don't think DC
wasn't allowed to bring him up...I just don't think they wanted to
call him Superboy at the time...which wouldn't have been necessary
for him to get a mention in the Superman books...hell, they still had
Superboy Prime running around.
Barry is the only reason he has any connection to the Flash legacy at
all...even if he didn't know much of Barry the person, he definitely
had to factor into Bart's idea of the Flash.
As for Jay, one of his major character traits is that he kind of
adopts all the kids because he doesn't have any descendants of his
own...suddenly retconning in a a new one would kind of ruin that.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Mar 17, 8:31 pm, OM <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:05:25 -0700 (PDT), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >But it does seem like they have
>> >to increase Ollie's jerk rating a step every few years.
>>
>> ...Then this next year is *really* going to be pathetic for Ollie
>> fans.
>>
>
>From what I've been hearing, at least Ollie didn't have far to fall.
>At least they remembered Connor Hawke exists, and he has nowhere to go
>but up from where Winnick left him. If Connor benefits, it isn't a
>total loss.
I really wish Robinson would just complete his replacement JLA roster
by putting Connor and Kyle on the team instead of Hal and Ollie...they
get more than enough focus already and I loved Kyle and Connor with
the JLA back in the Morrison days...Hal Jordan, especially, is too
over-exposed at the moment...he's becoming DC's answer to Wolverine.
Joe Sewell
<ee17e005-a90d-4478...@z11g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
MWG <mwg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And I'm glad
> Conner got "unkilled", dying was a punishment for crimes beyond his
> control. He didn't deserve to be thrown away like trash after earning
> the "redemption" he didn't need, he deserves to learn from it and
> become a stronger hero.
Umm ... Conner never committed any "crimes" (well, other than when he
was mind-controlled by Luthor) and was never granted any "redemption." I
think you're confusing Conner with Superboy-Prime, whom Superman wanted
to "redeem."
MWG
> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:58:05 -0700 (PDT), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> That story also specifically stated that Katar sacrificed himself to
> >> save Carter...that he was indeed dead.
>
> >But we have been over the idea that death can be undone in an instant,
> >or revealed as an illusion if need be. There are so many fake-out
> >deaths (usually involving villains that are needed again) that its not
> >funny. And some of the deaths that were intended to be unquestionable
> >when they happened are undone. It can happen in just about any form
> >of fictional story though, and a few really odd real world stories.
>
> But they could just as easily turn it around and say Carter and Katar
> were never really merged, Katar was never dead, and he's been hangng
> out with Elvis this whole time...anything is possible but, until they
> retcon it, all we have to go by is the story as printed.
>
But the only one really making the claim of Katar being gone was
Carter himself. Hawkman returned in the presence of Carter's friends
and family, who, frankly had a very vested interest in making sure it
was their loved one running the show. Second, the Hawks were in an
afterlife prior to this (remember Shiera was tied into the avatar
also) and in an afterlife, it could be very tricky to figure out what
is correct and what isn't. Hawkman could very simply be wrong about
who he is, or the situation could have changed since his return
(remember there have been reboots since his return).
I don't support the idea of tossing the GA Hawk origin, and am
surprised it could be read as that given Johns popularity and the
popularity of his Hawkman stories. But the first thing: The guy
telling Hawkman all this (Demimurge? I don't recall the name) didn't
seem very trustworthy to start with, so his story was never a lock.
And second, if it IS (was) Katar in control, not much of the GA Hawk
origin would be relevant to HIM. That doesn't mean they never
existed, but they wouldn't be (a major) part of Katar's history. And
it could presume the GA Hawk history was moved to another earth.
I wasn't proposing a full reboot to WW's history, but I think Simone
would've done a good job telling us how it fit together. The GA WW
Byrne retcon actually explained itself fairly decent with the bit
about the world not actually remembering Hyppolyta was the JSA WW
until she actually traveled back in time (or was it after she came
back?). Regardless it had a self-applied patch. And Donna actually
was fixed at the end of his run - Ms. Grayson botched that and kept
her identity crisis stumbling about.
All good things eventually end. But DC has done a few of these
already like the Superman Christmas oversized GN thing. I am curious
about how Johns' take on Batman goes, but the starting from day one
stuff might get boring quickly.
MWG
Superman is a notorious nice guy and newbie helper. By default, a lot
of characters could view him as a father figure, and he views them all
in a sort of parental way (even most of the civilian population). He
may be closer emotionally to Kara, but Conner is directly derived from
him and made to emulate him. There is an implied level of pride and
love there, even if its not shown often. And I don't mind disagreeing
with you on this - the world would be boring if everyone agreed on
everything.
> Lex only
>
> >cared because he was trying weaponize Conner.
>
> That's true...but the fatherly connection has still been played up by
> Johns all along (both in Teen Titans and currently in Adventure
> Comics) in a way that it has never been done with Superman...evil
> future Conner even called Lex Dad...none of that has ever come up with
> regards to Superman.
>
Conner had a checklist of what Luthor AND Superman would do. The
connection to Lex is uncomfortable to Conner and he is trying to
figure out a reconciliation to it. While still trying to hold on to
the Superman side as his good. Lex playing the daddy angle made
sense, it is probably easier to use. And Conner had several years of
experiences and influences before Lex triggered his trojan-horse
control, which could have made it harder to manipulate Conner
naturally. Heck, Lex tried that in Reign (getting Superboy under his
influence) only to be beaten to the punch by the Rex Leech (yes, a
scam artist, but one that should have been several levels below Lex's
abilities).
"Clone" means replica, and doesn't have to refer to living things.
Your kids are based on you and your partner, and are a continuation of
you (even if its not a genetic continuation, kids pick up some of the
behaviors and beliefs of the parents and carry that forward at
least). Real world cloning is currently based on biological
reproduction and comic book cloning isn't much ahead of that (ignoring
some of the more Star Trekkie-stuff like duplicates resulting from
transporter accidents or photo-copy type stories). As for the soul
bit, I've never seen a great explanation of how we get them, just that
we wind up with them.
> And
>
> >"clone" is a quick easy descriptive term for what he is. And why did
> >Superman stay powerless for so long? The impression I got is he had
> >some sort of mental block keeping him from using them.
>
> That may be true...but there was never any indication that it had
> anything to do with Conner...as much as you'd like to think otherwise,
> they were just never that close...another thing worth noting is that
> story with Superman getting his powers back was co-written by Johns
> (who had "adopted" Conner) and he still never came up at all.
>
> It seemed like
>
> >Superboy couldn't be acknowledged for a time anywhere, probably
> >lawsuit related, and the Teen Titans bit slipped under the radar.
>
> Conner was coming up all that time in Teen Titans so I don't think DC
> wasn't allowed to bring him up...I just don't think they wanted to
> call him Superboy at the time...which wouldn't have been necessary
> for him to get a mention in the Superman books...hell, they still had
> Superboy Prime running around.
>
There was the TT origin in 52 that could only show a shot of him with
his back turned (or he was mostly hidden) and the artist stated that
all he was allowed to do at the time. Mentioning the names Kon-El or
Conner in TT doesn't always draw a recognition to Superboy and non-
fans wouldn't have much reason to look there. As for Prime, they did
promote him to being a "man" for most of that time.
Barry was a foggy ideal to Bart. And basically a celebrity/legend in
the time and environment Bart matured in. The general concept was
unavoidable to him, and everyone assumed he'd follow the family
legacy. Plus there is the issue of Bart's mental maturity at this
point. He wasn't given much choice in whether to become a hero at
all, as soon as Wally fixed his aging he was put to work. So he is
just now figuring out Barry. I'm not sure how much spotlight he is
going to get in new Flash book, since they are supposedly focusing on
Barry. This stuff may have been planned for the now-delayed-
indefinitely Kid Flash book.
As for Jay, it doesn't even have to be a direct descendant. A niece/
nephew or younger cousin would work. My mother and I were fairly
close to her father's sister after his passing, and it is obvious she
looked with a strong level of affection. My dad was close to his
aunts and uncles growing up. But another Garrick Flash is vital IMO
(someday), DC owes the original that much.
MWG
I do want more Connor & Kyle adventures too. DC seems content to keep
them as minor background characters and they don't get to do much
important (Kyle's #@! half-issue long death was just a bridge to give
Guy a red ring for two issues) sadly. Maybe Connor & Kyle could make
their own team of Titans (since Kyle was briefly on a version of the
team) or have a uniquely named team (I want to think Saviors, but just
something that has relatively new history). Grab up a few other B/C
list newer characters (thinking Zauriel, Jason Todd or Azrael, maybe
Artemis & Supergirl) and you have a group as interesting to me as the
Justice Titans. And it could bump into the Justice Titans and
Deathstroke Titans and be just about as relevant as either.
MWG
> In article
> <ee17e005-a90d-4478-982e-8913f36d3...@z11g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
Like I said in my post, the acts he committed were out of his
control. He didn't NEED redemption, but he may have needed
salvation. The post was in response to the idea that the only way he
could make up for the acts (which he still felt guilty over) was by
sacrificing himself.
grinningdemon
wrote:
There have been no reboots of Hawkman since his return...as far as we
know, everything is exactly as Johns established in the Return of
Hawkman arc...yes, they could choose to retcon Katar back at any given
time in any given way...but they have not done so.
Go back and read Starlin's Hawkman special...it specifically states at
one point that Khufu and all the past lives are a lie...there is no
other way to read it...yes, Starlin did throw out a little tag at the
end of the story where Carter wasn't sure if Demiurge was telling the
truth or not...but, regardless, he was either lying or it was just
ignored because Blackest Night totally disproves all of it...this
doesn't mean Katar can't come back in some other way, but Starlin's
version clearly ain't it.
Hey, I actually appreciate Byrne's Hyppolyta retcon...I thought it was
a good way to throw some of those GA stories back into continuity
without fucking up Perez's reboot...but it was always one of those
things best not to think to much about unless you want a
headache...the only thing that Byrne did in his run that I absolutely
did not like was his Donna "fix"...he only screwed up the character
even more and every additional retcon since only digs the hole
deeper...that said, Byrne's WW was just about the last work he did
that I really liked (except for the first two Generations minis).
All I know about it is from the Gary Frank promo art...and I really do
NOT like his designs for Batman & company...I'm actually more
interested in the First Wave stuff.
grinningdemon
wrote:
I think you're reaching here is you want to just say Superman is the
blanket parental figure of the DCU...and I don't think there is any
implied level of pride and love when it comes to Conner...it's not
like Superman had a choice or even knowledge of his creation...there
can only be an implication of pride and love if we have something to
base that on...and we really don't...but, hey, different strokes for
different folks and all that.
>> Lex only
>>
>> >cared because he was trying weaponize Conner.
>>
>> That's true...but the fatherly connection has still been played up by
>> Johns all along (both in Teen Titans and currently in Adventure
>> Comics) in a way that it has never been done with Superman...evil
>> future Conner even called Lex Dad...none of that has ever come up with
>> regards to Superman.
>>
>
>Conner had a checklist of what Luthor AND Superman would do.
Yes, he did...which makes sense given that the whole basis was that he
was worried Lex's evil would overtake Superman's good within him...but
it wasn't really an indication of a relationship between the two and
the focus was most definintely on Lex...specifically whether or not he
was totally evil.
The
>connection to Lex is uncomfortable to Conner and he is trying to
>figure out a reconciliation to it. While still trying to hold on to
>the Superman side as his good.
I never said there was no connection or relationship between them...I
just don't see it as a parental relationship.
There is the technical definition of "clone" and the way the term is
generally applied (and specifically applied in Conner's case)...and I
think you know the difference.
As for the soul, the implication from that particular story was that
living beings born naturally all start off with souls (whatever the
source) but Conner, having been created artificially, did not start
out with one and had to develop it over time...we could debate the
philosophical and theological implications of this forever but all we
really have to go by is the story in question (which, as I recall, was
referrenced again when Conner was resurrected).
>> And
>>
>> >"clone" is a quick easy descriptive term for what he is. And why did
>> >Superman stay powerless for so long? The impression I got is he had
>> >some sort of mental block keeping him from using them.
>>
>> That may be true...but there was never any indication that it had
>> anything to do with Conner...as much as you'd like to think otherwise,
>> they were just never that close...another thing worth noting is that
>> story with Superman getting his powers back was co-written by Johns
>> (who had "adopted" Conner) and he still never came up at all.
>>
>> It seemed like
>>
>> >Superboy couldn't be acknowledged for a time anywhere, probably
>> >lawsuit related, and the Teen Titans bit slipped under the radar.
>>
>> Conner was coming up all that time in Teen Titans so I don't think DC
>> wasn't allowed to bring him up...I just don't think they wanted to
>> call him Superboy at the time...which wouldn't have been necessary
>> for him to get a mention in the Superman books...hell, they still had
>> Superboy Prime running around.
>>
>
>There was the TT origin in 52 that could only show a shot of him with
>his back turned (or he was mostly hidden) and the artist stated that
>all he was allowed to do at the time. Mentioning the names Kon-El or
>Conner in TT doesn't always draw a recognition to Superboy and non-
>fans wouldn't have much reason to look there. As for Prime, they did
>promote him to being a "man" for most of that time.
They didn't have to show him to mention him by the name Conner (which
I don't believe had any legal issues associated with it)...and, if
there was some legal issue preventing the mention of the character at
all, it would have applied to Teen Titans as well as Superman...and,
Johns has been working on one Superman project or other ever since
Conner died...he certainly could have brought him up later if he had
wanted to or thought it was important...but he never did...he never
even came up in the arc about Chris Kent which would have been
directly relevant if Superman and Conner had the kind of relationship
you think they do.
I think we're more or less in agreement on this...either in Kid Flash
or Flash proper, I do expect the relationship between Barry and Bart
will be further explored.
>As for Jay, it doesn't even have to be a direct descendant. A niece/
>nephew or younger cousin would work. My mother and I were fairly
>close to her father's sister after his passing, and it is obvious she
>looked with a strong level of affection. My dad was close to his
>aunts and uncles growing up. But another Garrick Flash is vital IMO
>(someday), DC owes the original that much.
I don't think it's any more necessary than another Scott GL (although
I suppose we kind of already had that with Jade)...there are plenty of
GA characters that have descendants and I think it actually makes Jay
a little more unique in that he's one of the few who doesn't and one
of the few to survive.
grinningdemon
wrote:
>On Mar 18, 5:55 pm, grinningdemon <grinningde...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:48:26 -0700 (PDT), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Mar 17, 8:31 pm, OM <om@all_trolls_must_DIE.com> wrote:
>> >> On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:05:25 -0700 (PDT), MWG <mwg...@gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>>
>> >> >But it does seem like they have
>> >> >to increase Ollie's jerk rating a step every few years.
>>
>> >> ...Then this next year is *really* going to be pathetic for Ollie
>> >> fans.
>>
>> >From what I've been hearing, at least Ollie didn't have far to fall.
>> >At least they remembered Connor Hawke exists, and he has nowhere to go
>> >but up from where Winnick left him. If Connor benefits, it isn't a
>> >total loss.
>>
>> I really wish Robinson would just complete his replacement JLA roster
>> by putting Connor and Kyle on the team instead of Hal and Ollie...they
>> get more than enough focus already and I loved Kyle and Connor with
>> the JLA back in the Morrison days...Hal Jordan, especially, is too
>> over-exposed at the moment...he's becoming DC's answer to Wolverine.
>>
>
>I do want more Connor & Kyle adventures too. DC seems content to keep
>them as minor background characters and they don't get to do much
>important (Kyle's #@! half-issue long death was just a bridge to give
>Guy a red ring for two issues) sadly.
Yeah, that was pretty lame...as is Guy Gardner getting the GLC
spin-off series...I like Guy but really only as part of a team...I've
never been particularly interested in him on his own.
Maybe Connor & Kyle could make
>their own team of Titans (since Kyle was briefly on a version of the
>team) or have a uniquely named team (I want to think Saviors, but just
>something that has relatively new history). Grab up a few other B/C
>list newer characters (thinking Zauriel, Jason Todd or Azrael, maybe
>Artemis & Supergirl) and you have a group as interesting to me as the
>Justice Titans. And it could bump into the Justice Titans and
>Deathstroke Titans and be just about as relevant as either.
I'd still rather have them on the team with the original Titans...they
derserve to be in the big leagues instead of cast down among the C
listers...they're roughly the same age...Kyle already has ties to some
of them (Donna in particular) and Conner would make an interesting
contrast to Roy...in fact, I think Conner being so different from
Ollie and Roy would made him a much more interesting addition to the
last incarnation of the JLA than Roy because Roy in the JLA might as
well be an Ollie-clone...they're just too much alike.
Lilith
<grinni...@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>As for Hyppolyta in the JSA, it does seem to still be in continuity
>but it never really made any sense from the moment Byrne retconned it
>in...and it has rarely ever been addressed in JSA itself...she
>appeared in a couple of early story arcs and was then promptly
>forgotten...Phil Jimenez did a much better job establishing her role
>with the JSA in his WW run.
And yet should not the fact that a Wonder Woman was a part of the JSA
during WWII raised a question when Diana made her first appearance as
to whether she was the same Wonder Woman, a relation or a wannabe?
--
Lilith
grinningdemon
wrote:
Right...which is why it never really made any sense...I think Byrne
did give some bullshit explanation about people not remembering her
with the JSA until after she made her trip back in time but it's not
like that makes sense either...it's just one of those things you can't
think too hard on or it all falls apart.
MWG
The problem is, it is possibly a deception on Demiurge's part. "The
truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth" phrase comes to mind.
Specifically, the "whole truth" part, because partial truths are often
used in manipulation ploys. And ignored or "disproved" means
nothing. In real life, people often forget things, ignore them, or
think them resolved only to see them pop right back up and bite them
in the ass. Comics typically remind us of the story thread right
before it becomes part of a huge plot point. And we both know there
are writers out there that are very willing to bring back unpopular
ideas and screw up characters just for the hell of it.
Daibhid Ceanaideach
The thing that always bugged me is that it was *originally* presented as
a predestination paradox - Hippolyta travelled back in time because Jay
Garrick recognised her as a mysterious woman who had *once* rescued him
from the Fiddler. And throughout that story she makes a big deal out of
doing exactly what Jay remembers, so as not to damage the time stream.
And then, at the end, she suddenly decides she's going to stay and join
the JSA because, hey, why not?
--
Dave
There's an old Earth saying. A phrase full of power and wisdom, and
consolation to the soul in times of need. Allons-y!