Anyone else annoyed at how DC treats its characters?

[The Batman]

Whenever DC wants to make a character popular....they kill or get rid of whoever's holding the mantle at the moment. Ray Palmer, Orin, Ronnie Raymond, Cassandra Cain, Ted Kord, and Ray Terill are current examples of this tactic. What was so wrong with these characters that they needed replacing? Most of the stories told with the new guys in the mantle could probably be told with the predecessors, and hell, these new guys arent setting the world on fire anyway. One thing I like about marvel is that, when they want to make a character more popular, they dont replace him, they actually stick with whoever's in the mantle and they try to build them. Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Ghost Rider, and Spider-Woman are good examples. Imagine Marvel saying they were gonna be more intergal to the Mu, and THEN they replace them with some newbie.

It feels like DC has only three first class heroes: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. With Marvel, you can actually feel an effort to make many of their characters top sellers. Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Daredevil, Captain America, etc. Have all had their profile raised in the past few years due to marvel giving those characters some good writers and hype. Only GL feels like hes grown more popular as a character.

 

[rigel7soldiers]

"The second secret. ...They twist us and torture us. They kill us in our billions. For what? For entertainment."

Animal Man is perhaps the most successful revamp of all time. And Buddy only had to die once for it to happen. That may make it a bad example, but it's still how it should be done

 

[Kitsune]

I'm not a big fan of the "Lets kill the character off so we can replace him with an ethnic minority version of the character" thing if that's what you mean.
You forgot Wally West... they even had to age Bart in order to make him old enough to be the Flash.

 

[Darthphere]

It angers me some. I still think Wally as The Flash hadnt "ran" his course and the way its been hadnled so far has been real ****ty. Ronnie Raymond was cool but I think Jason has really emerged as a very interesting and fun character. The new Blue Beetle is really mexican, like extreme. I like the book but I never will ofrgive DC for killing Ted Kord. We havent heard the last of Orin, we can be pretty sure of that. The asian Ray Palmer is annoying, but I hear the comic is good, but hes pretty much an asian Ray Palmer clone. Cassandra Cain, plain and simple, got ****ed over. Everything shes doing goes against 60 ****ing issues of her Batgirl series. Theres no excuse for this. Another character is Nightwing, people try to excuse that by saying "well they were going to kill him off so they werent ready." Bull****, at least Marv Wolfman is coming on, and the lack of any explanation over the Dick/Barbara thing is ****ing annoying.

 

[SouLeSS]

"He was the one that changed".

Guarentee you that's about all there every going to say on the matter for years.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

marvel basically does the same shnit.

 

[Darthphere]

Oh and another thing. Wonder Woman. Damn, I loves me some Heinberg (in a totally hetero way, sorry Allan) but its really messed up how late/bimonthly her title is. DC has been trying to push this Trinity being the most important group in the DCU. Really? Wonder Woman always seems like the odd woman out. Batman and Superman have how many titles? Compared to Wonder Woman's 1 title, which doesnt even show up on a regular basis. Heinberg is awesome, so ill wait, but looking towards the future: Picoult. Reading her thoughts, just make me worry about the status of the title and Wonder Woman. DC is kidding themselves at this point, the Trinity will never be as big as World's Finest until DC does a better job with Wonder Woman.

 

[Darthphere]

marvel basically does the same shnit.

Of course, that excuses everything. "But DC did it too, But Marvel does it all the time." Lame argument.

 

[GoldenAgeHero]

no i basically said marvel does the same thing also. im not disputing anything.

 

[rigel7soldiers]

Oh and another thing. Wonder Woman. Damn, I loves me some Heinberg (in a totally hetero way, sorry Allan) but its really messed up how late/bimonthly her title is. DC has been trying to push this Trinity being the most important group in the DCU. Really? Wonder Woman always seems like the odd woman out. Batman and Superman have how many titles? Compared to Wonder Woman's 1 title, which doesnt even show up on a regular basis. Heinberg is awesome, so ill wait, but looking towards the future: Picoult. Reading her thoughts, just make me worry about the status of the title and Wonder Woman. DC is kidding themselves at this point, the Trinity will never be as big as World's Finest until DC does a better job with Wonder Woman.

I've always liked Di a little more than Bats...
Of course, you realize that if they try to make WW popular, they'll just kill har and have someone who never existed before be Wonder woman.

 

[Darthphere]

I've always liked Di a little more than Bats...
Of course, you realize that if they try to make WW popular, they'll just kill har and have someone who never existed before be Wonder woman.

Yes, because thats how Batman and Superman became popular.

 

[The Question]

I've noticed this. It's probably my fault for being a big fan of second stringers, but my favorite characters list has been getting alot of "deceaced" markers lately.

 

[Darthphere]

The secret is, if they dont show up in more than one book, theyre cannon fodder.

 

[rigel7soldiers]

Yes, because thats how Batman and Superman became popular.

Jesus, I'm sorry. ... Wait, was that sarcasm, or seriousness?
Actually, they've done that to all three of them before though.

 

[Darthphere]

Jesus, I'm sorry. ... Wait, was that sarcasm, or seriousness?
Actually, they've done that to all three of them before though.

Last time I checked, Batman and SUperman were extremely popular when they "died". Theyre "deaths" didnt make them popular.

 

[Mee]

It angers me some. I still think Wally as The Flash hadnt "ran" his course and the way its been hadnled so far has been real ****ty. Ronnie Raymond was cool but I think Jason has really emerged as a very interesting and fun character. The new Blue Beetle is really mexican, like extreme. I like the book but I never will ofrgive DC for killing Ted Kord. We havent heard the last of Orin, we can be pretty sure of that. The asian Ray Palmer is annoying, but I hear the comic is good, but hes pretty much an asian Ray Palmer clone. Cassandra Cain, plain and simple, got ****ed over. Everything shes doing goes against 60 ****ing issues of her Batgirl series. Theres no excuse for this. Another character is Nightwing, people try to excuse that by saying "well they were going to kill him off so they werent ready." Bull****, at least Marv Wolfman is coming on, and the lack of any explanation over the Dick/Barbara thing is ****ing annoying.

But we got Jason Todd back man!! Jason Todd!!! OMG!!!11!!ONE! I've been waiting!!!!

Spoiler

Although, Jason Todd: Octopus monster, is probably the best part of OYL Nightwing so far.

 

[Darthphere]

But we got Jason Todd back man!! Jason Todd!!! OMG!!!11!!ONE! I've been waiting!!!!

Spoiler

Although, Jason Todd: Octopus monster, is probably the best part of OYL Nightwing so far.

I still buy the title hoping for more.

 

[rigel7soldiers]

Well,
I'm still sorry. YOu stipulated that that's what DC does whenever it wants to make a character popular, so I said that's what they'd do. I don't suport that, per se, but that's what you said. Make up your mind.

I could go on forever about why Batman was popular before Bane broke him, or why the Fleischer Brothers' Superman vulcanized the character in the minds of the people. If you want to make WW more popular, th eold fashioned way, it'll take years. Of course, A Wonder Woman movie could help things along... Look, I really don't want to argue about this. I'm really, super-sorry. Seriously, we're cool?

 

[Mee]

Last time I checked, Batman and SUperman were extremely popular when they "died". Theyre "deaths" didnt make them popular.

The death/back breaking were just gimmicks to boost sales anyway. I don't really care for either.

 

[Kitsune]

I'm just amazed that anyone actually likes to new Firestorm, according to my comic store guy it''s been on the edge of being cancled pretty much since it came out. I tried to read it, because I kinda liked the old Firestorm as a kid, but few issues it was "They killed Ronnie Raymond for this"

 

[SouLeSS]

Firestorm has a new series?

 

[Kitsune]

Well it's not new now. They killed of Ronnie Raymond in Identity Crisis and gave his powers to some new unlikable whiney kid. Sorta the same way they did with Blue Beetle.

 

[The Leaguer]

The only thing that pisses me off is the Batgirl thing. The other stuff is annoying at best, but I will never forgive them for what they did to Cassandra Cain.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Well it's not new now. They killed of Ronnie Raymond in Identity Crisis and gave his powers to some new unlikable whiney kid. Sorta the same way they did with Blue Beetle.

Jason's one of the few new heroes that I like, actually. His comic is heavily tied into established Firestorm lore, with Firehawk and Professor Stein helping him out as he tries to learn the ropes of superheroing. His personal life features some interesting and, surprisingly, unconventional family problems, too: his mother ran out on him and his dad, as opposed to 99.999999% of other stories, where the father is the deadbeat parent. Plus, Dwayne McDuffie, ruler of all he surveys and all-around badass mother****er, is going to start writing the Firestorm series in January.

 

[The Question]

McDuffie? Bloody wonderful.