#The trend of dc writers back in the new 52 and rebirth days

[aingeal98]

The funny thing about the canon Tim fans is that they will do all this . . . then blame Jason and his fans for like Didio's stuff because Jason was reintroduced around the time Didio took over. Like, Jason fans not focusing more on Helena, who hasn't really interacted with Jason, is misogyny but their centering Helena's relationship with Tim over her actual character and their treatment of stuff isn't. The misogynistic writing around Jason is on Jason but misogynistic writing around Tim is on the women around him. This fandom is a kingdom of misogynistic glass houses.

"This fandom is a kingdom of misogynistic glass houses." is so real like every fanon batman and batboy fan will end up accidentally taking from female comic book characters in an attempt to make their 1 dimensional fanon faves more interesting 😭 happens with Jason, with Tim, with Bruce, with every fandom focused on male characters to be quite honest. I don't think fanon stans deliberately steal these traits they just think "wouldn't it be cool if my fave did this" and don't realise that there's a story out there of a female character doing exactly that, which they're of course never going to read because it's a female character.

In terms of canon I'd say the two female characters most harmed by Jason are Starfire in rhato which thankfully didn't stick the way Roy's flanderisation did, and Mia because while her initial confrontation with Jason was very much centered around her, with Jason acting as her villain/narrative foil, batfandom took it and ran with it to the point that there were way too many accounts referencing Mia for the first and only time just to use her own suffering for Jason angst. Which was very nauseating to witness I can't lie! You only care about this female character and her arc about living with HIV because of the headcanons it let's you project onto your male fave? Yeah never mention her again thanks.

(note I'm specifically talking about the general batfam/dc fandom and not Jason fans who've read the comics and have interesting thoughts and analysis on the two of them. The former is more frequent than the latter the same way fanon content is more frequent overall than canon in this fandom.)

And then meanwhile with Tim there's Cass there's Steph there's Cassie there's his treatment of Prue and his girlfriends and just generally pre New 52 if you were writing a story involving Tim and women and it didn't have any sexist bullshit designed to prop him up at the expense of female characters then it was a small miracle. And he's not even the worst offender by a long shot when Bruce exists!

I think the only batboy who's genuinely exempt from this is Duke and in my opinion that's largely because he is not only black but also too visibly Not White to work as the white male power fantasy some writers project on Bruce, Tim, Jason, Dick and even Damian. With Dick they can ignore his Romani heritage with Damian they can vilify his Asian side of the family and throw a bunch of misogynistic writing at Talia but with Duke any bigoted writer who gets to write him isn't going to be able to ignore how visibly black he is in order to project their misogynistic and racist power fantasies on him. And so he gets ignored instead the same way the girls do, because far too many people can't imagine characters having rich internal lives and personalities worth exploring if they don't already fit the pale skinned male character mold.

[zahri-melitor]

i mean identity crisis was 2004 but I'm not certain i follow the rebirth thing...

then again I haven't read much new 52

and also I feel like there's always grey areas (legion of superheroes is less episodic than the main superfam titles in the later pre-bronze silver age for example. Like it's the first resurrection of a character in Superhero comics and they dealt with the death for at least a few issues IIRC, "the atomic age's" whole existence, plus some crises affect other franchises more than others (looking at you superman...)

but then again i like talking about those weird grey areas

Honestly my 2004 pins are actually:

Parallax Yellow Space Bug Retcon

War Games sweeping the girls out of Gotham

Didio’s promotion in November 2004

It’s about the particularly Didio and Johns-led push to roll back a bunch of story progression that eventually culminated in n52.

(I can also talk about how Spider-Man: One More Day relates similarly to this trend over in Marvel, but I’m not particularly across wider Marvel to give you more detailed pointers and they had their own separate incoming problems, like MCU synergy)

New 52 is interesting to talk about! Seventh Wave (that is, issues #31-34 of n52) is marked by NINETEEN title launches. Ninth Wave (issues #41-46, just after Convergence, and the rebrand as DC You) had TWENTY TWO title launches. This is significantly more than the cancellation/relaunch cycle for any preceding wave since First Wave and the establishment of n52.

That period marks an inversion point in what DC was trying to accomplish with n52 and is when you see the editorial mandates starting to disappear. Big changes in direction for titles are allowed (Grayson. Burnside. Jim Gordon!Batman. Gotham Academy. I haven’t touched many non - Bat n52 books but I know Superman equally was grappling with a strong redirection around Convergence).

Basically, it was the point when n52 seriously started unravelling and the push towards progressed storytelling and writers trying to return to pre-Flashpoint characterisation picked up. It was also a period when DC started throwing everything and anything against the wall to see what stuck and a lot of what was sticking was both newer more diverse characters and stories, but also a lot of the characters who got swept away by Flashpoint.

[dorizardthewizard]

Misconception: Hal Jordan is an idiot

Okay this might be part of a series of Green Lantern posts I’ve been writing when bored, because hey you read some youtube comments and suddenly you’re an essay writer. It’s just gonna be me rambling about Hal’s character lol

So we’ve all made dumbass jokes, me included, but honestly? Hal’s not stupid, he can’t be. It takes a lot to be a test pilot, including a degree in the engineering/physics field, and most likely military service. He wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did if he wasn’t smart enough.

It might not always seem that way though, but that’s because he excels in thinking on the fly, which is so important when you’re dealing with intergalactic crises springing up every Tuesday. He’s the guy who will jump right into danger and trust that he can get himself out afterwards. We’ve seen him think his way out of tricky situations before, even if in his own crazy style like jumping out of a plane to recharge his ring from the head of a Manhunter. In some circles he’s kind of gotten the reputation of being the lame one in the Justice League, which can’t possibly be true when he has a ton of amazing feats to him like defeating Sinestro multiple times, killing Krona despite the fact that a GL ring shouldn’t be able to kill a Guardian, controlling the death entity Nekron to defeat the reality-bending First Lantern, making a ring out of his own willpower… etc.

So if he isn’t actually an idiot, where did this reputation come from? The ring chooses according to willpower and technically, not being bright shouldn’t make anyone less worthy, but this trait has kind of been blown up over the years to the point where some people are getting “dumbass energy” mixed with “actual dumbass”. Going back to the silver age, Hal definitely had a clumsy streak – we’ve all laughed at the panels like him slipping over in the shower and knocking himself out. It was pretty endearing though, watching this walking disaster still manage to save the day.

I feel like some of that was lost in later comics as he grew up, and when Johns brought him back even later, he was more like the cool, cocky pilot type (although still a disaster in other areas lol). The thing is, because of his nature of jumping into danger it sometimes seems like he really can’t think for himself, but that’s not the case. It’s just his style to go in guns blazing, shining bright and attracting all the attention away from whoever’s he’s saving and onto him. It’s true that it doesn’t always work out as well as he hopes, and that makes for some fun stories, but other times his quick instincts are lifesaving.

It wasn’t until the New 52 where this really got blown up though – while the GL comics continued mostly the same as before, other characters got rebooted so we got a whole new Justice League dynamic. A lot of people unfamiliar with GL know his New 52 version through the animated movies, and booooy…. this guy is basically Guy Gardner but less lovable, more insufferable and way less competent.

Of course this isn’t just limited to him, a lot of the Justice League members seem to be caricatures of themselves in this movie but I feel like he’s gotten it the worst. The Batman Syndrome doesn’t help either, where everyone’s dumbed down and nerfed to make him look like the biggest BAMF on the League. You have a guy who literally works with aliens everyday but of course only Batman’s tech can identify an alien device as a bomb! There’s also the ring-stealing gimmick, which is stupid because a Green Lantern is always bound to their ring through concentration – to remove it they literally have to disengage their minds from it first. I don’t know, maybe there’s a retcon or something but it’s still dumb. He even does this to John Stewart in JL Dark – that’s crossing the line :’P

Of course you could say JL War was early days and he hadn’t been a GL that long, but it doesn’t get much better in the other films and it’s no excuse for crossing into annoying asshole territory. It’s a difficult balance to strike and boy can you tell when a writer only has surface-level knowledge of his character...

Yikes. Sure he can be a cocky flirt – so was Han Solo – but he was actually likable!!

Sadly this trend of making Hal more and more of a comic relief man-child outside of comics continues, you’ve got kids watching him in DC Superhero Girls thinking that’s the definitive take on him, and we’re not getting a new GL movie any time soon to really delve into the character, whether animated or live action. Thankfully the animated series portrays him in a more positive light (although maybe they went a bit too far in flattening out his flaws, but that’s a post for another time) but that got cancelled so :/ Again I’m not well-versed in New 52 and Rebirth comics outside of GL yet but I have seen snippets of Justice League comics where it seems like he’s grown more into his old self, my favourite being his Darkseid War tie-in, which I really hope to see animated someday. Speaking of movies, the 2011 one certainly didn’t do him any favours – I actually think Reynolds did okay as Hal but when people look back on it, all they see is the Deadpool guy.

Anyway this is kind of going off on a tangent but still, it’s sad seeing so many comments joking about him being dumb and incompetent and that they should have used another lantern instead (I agree we need more of the other lanterns but not because Hal sucks), just because bad writing made him a caricature of his worst traits. When this happens to characters like Batman, tons of fans complain and come to his defence by calling out the writing, yet for Hal many just assume this is how he always is. In a world where Aquaman is actually getting some love, I really hope we can get a good adaptation for Hal soon.

TLDR;

Me: Oh Hal you dumbass

Someone: Ikr he’s such an idiot and a jerk I hate him

Me:

Me: What the fuck did you just say

[aspiecrow]

All the DC asks :P

1. “Duet” from the Flash or “Mayheim of the Music Meister” from Batman the Brave and the Bold?

“Mayhem of the Music Meister”. “Duet” pissed me off so much on so many different levels. The fact that they think making an original character whose powers aren’t even music-based and just slapping the name “Music Meister” on him is enough to make fans of him happy, as well as the fact that it has Kara and her abusive dickhead boyfriend Mon-El get back together after a day of being broken up (for VERY good reasons) just made me furious enough that I couldn’t enjoy one single part of it.

2. Do you like the arrowverse? If so what’s your favorite show?

Nope. I loved the first season of Supergirl (in spite of a few problems), but then the CW got its hands on the show and completely destroyed what it was.

3. First comic read?

A UK reprint of Batman. It was already about halfway through “Hush”, but I followed along relatively easily and really enjoyed it.

4. What introduced you to the DC universe? Was it a show, comic or movie?

I think it was the New Batman Adventures cartoon, but it might have also been the 60s show (which got repeated a lot on TV over here).

5. Favorite character?

A three-part tie between Batman, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown.

6. Favorite cannon ship?

Tim/Steph.

7. Favorite non-cannon ship?

Raven/Cassandra Cain.

8. Pre-N52 or N52?

Pre-N52, of course. Anything good in the N52 (of which there were very few) could have happened without the N52 (and, in some cases, like the basic story of the Court of Owls, would have been better if they had).

9. Rebirth or N52?

Rebirth. There’s still a lot wrong (the treatment of Cass and Steph, for one), but overall, it’s most definitely a step in the right direction.

10.  Death in the Family or Death of Superman?

Hmmmm, both have their good and bad points. “Family” paved the way for Tim, but “Superman” paved the way for Steel and Superboy. I think I’ll go with Death of Superman, though, purely because Death in the Family had the whole “vote to kill or save Jason” thing, which was quite the hot mess.

11. Favorite live action movie?

Batman (1989)

12. Favorite animated movie?

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (also my favourite DC movie overall)

13. DCEU or DCAU?

DCAU, definitely. However, while I hated Man of Steel and Suicide Squad and really didn’t like Dawn of Justice, I loved Wonder Woman, so I’m hoping we’re on track with the DCEU (though I still refer to it as the DCCU, because I’m pedantic).

14. Favorite member of the trinity?

I love them all, but Batman has a slight edge.

15. Dark trinity or trinity?

Trinity.

16. Outsiders or Titans?

Titans.

17. Teen Titans or Young Justice?

Young Justice.

18. Favorite animated show?

A tie between “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Justice League/Justice League Unlimited”.

19. Favorite superhero family?

Batman Family

20. Young justice(show) or Teen Titans(show)?

Teen Titans.

21. Do you watch Teen Titans Go?

Hoo, boy, that’s a can of worms. Initially, yes. I actually didn’t mind it. It was a goofy show that wasn’t meant to be anything other than that. It sucked that it was on and Young Justice (which had gotten a lot better with Season 2) was constantly sidelined and then cancelled, but I tried not to let that affect how I watched the show. Then they started insulting fans of the old Teen Titans show and getting progressively more mean-spirited. I dropped it like a hot potato the second that happened.

22. Favorite Robin?

Tim Drake.

23. So you prefer Superman and Wonder Woman, Batman and Wonder Woman, steve Trevor and Wonder Woman or does it even matter?

I’m okay with Batman and Wonder Woman, but honestly, I’ve never been a particularly big fan of any of them. The Superman and Wonder Woman pairing needs to die in a fire, though.

24. If you had total control what would you change?

Oh, God, what WOULDN’T I change? This’ll probably have to be its own post, honestly.

25. Batgirl or Oracle?

I’m assuming this is which mantle I prefer Barbara Gordon as? In that case, Oracle, no question.

26. Whos your favorite Batgirl?

Cassandra Cain. I love Steph, but she REALLY shouldn’t have been Batgirl.

27. Batgirl and the birds of Prey or Red Hood and the Outlaws?

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, because as far as I’m aware, it’s not written by a disgusting human being.

28.  Favorite comic run?

Scott Peterson, Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott's run on Batgirl.

29. Favorite comic artist?

Alex Ross or J.H. Williams III. I really like Jim Lee too, but just as an artist.

30. Favorite comic writer?

Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, Paul Dini or Dan Jurgens

31. Do you like The Joker?

When he’s written well, yep! Of course, that goes for more or less every character.

32. Who do you think is the most overused or overrated characters?

Harper Row. In her first few appearances, I really liked her and she definitely has a lot of potential. However, throughout “Batman Eternal” and “Batman and Robin Eternal”, she was shilled constantly, especially at the expense of Stephanie and Cassandra, and it’s infuriating.

33. Batman the animated series or Superman the animated series?

I love Superman: The Animated Series, but Batman: The Animated Series is just amazing.

34. Legion of Superheros or Batman Beyond?

Batman Beyond. I never really watched Legion of Superheroes.

36. Justice league or Justice league Unlimited?

Both.

37. The Batman or beware the Bat?

Neither. I hated both of them.

38. Who do you think is the most overlooked or underused character?

Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain.

39. Do you watch Gotham?

Yep, but it’s awful and like watching a trainwreck. Season 4 is marginally better (props for actually getting someone who isn’t white to play Ra’s al Ghul, even if they’re still butchering the pronounciation), but it’s still a dumpster fire.

40. Do you like marvel?

Mostly. I’ve hated what they’ve done with Spider-Man ever since One More Day (which turned Peter into a villain, because only villains makes deals with the devil, especially once that erase a child from existence), and the whole “Jubilee’s a vampire thing” is crap (Jubilee is my favourite character, and the fact that she lost her powers but freakin’ Peepers got to keep his is atrocious), and let’s not even get started on Nick Spencer and his bullshit. But there’s still a lot I do like.

41.  Jon kent or Damian Wayne?

Jon Kent. Damian has grown on me (even if there’s been this disturbing “Damian is Bruce’s one true son” trend in the comics lately), but Jon is just adorable.

42. Renee Montoya or Vic Sage

Both!

43. Kate Kane and Renee Montoya or Apollo and Midnighter?

I’m a firm Kate/Maggie shipper, so Apollo/Midnighter.

44. Barry Allen or Wally West?

Wally West. Barry Allen has two modes: mind-numbingly dull or “Let’s steal Wally’s personality”.

45.  Kara Zor-El, Stephanie Brown or Cassie sandsmark?

Stephanie Brown

46. Kord Industrues, Wayne Tech or Lex Corp?

Wayne Tech

47. If you could have any characters powers who’s would you have?

Superman’s

48. Favorite villain?

Constantly changes, but as of me writing this, The Riddler.

49. DC Bombshells, Injustice or Kingdom Come?

Haven’t read DC Bombshells yet, and I hate Injustice, so Kingdom Come.

50. Injustice or the Arkham games?

The Arkham games.

51. Justice League or League of Assassins?

Justice League.

52. Are you excited about the upcoming Titans show? What about Young Justice?

Sort of. I’m cautiously optimistice. Definitely happy that Steph’s finally getting to appear in an adaptation (just worried that she’ll not be handled well, especially since Young Justice Season 2 ended with Tim and Cassie getting together for literally no reason). With Titans, I’m quite bitter that we’re probably not getting Cyborg, and I’m worried about the age difference between Raven’s actress and the rest of the cast (they should all be the same age).

[davidmann95]

So. Secret Empire. I read it and it's just a sickening mess. Everything happening is just in service of making the Big Event Happen (like civil war 2, bluh) and the only reason I'm really excited for this is so that we can just purge nazi-cap from our collective consciousness once this is over. I don't even have a question! I'm just venting about this shitty event! Fuck nick spencer, that guy is a moron with no respect for where cap CAME from. "Oh he was a nazi the whole time" eat SHIT SPENCER

poorsimon said:Do you think there is a slight possibility that we’ll get a fantastic four book in 2017 to celebrate jack kirbys centenary? Marvel is a hot mess right now with that boring fascist captain America and every series that I was enjoying is either ending in the next couple of months or crossover events are ruining them, looks like marvel is in the same place dc was during the new 52 era

Anonymous said:Thoughts on Dark Matter/Generations/Secret Empire? Specifically for secret Empire, Cap is on of my favorite heroes and I feel like this fundamentally breaks him in a really shitty way. Not to say we won’t get good stories with him in the future, but it��s sort of like Dr. Light where every time he shows up you can’t help but think of identity crisis.

There’s been a bit of a theme to my asks the last couple days.

So yeah. Spoilers ahead, obviously: in the midst of an all-out assault on the nation and world, just as it seemed everyone would make it through like always to see another day, America was betrayed by its systems and subverted from within, culminating in an overt fascist seizing of the White House. Don’t worry though, this week Marvel’s saying it isn’t political.

The cake-topper being that as it turns out via flashback, Nazi Cap (and in response to the inevitable um, actually’s: Hydra’s seminal story under Steranko showed their leader as a character created by Stan and Jack as a Nazi, pretty much all explicit Hydra-isn’t-Nazis material are retcons by Spencer for this arc, “Hail Hydra” is an obvious analogue for another fascist chant, the ‘real Hydra’ inner circle includes Nazis and Neo-Nazis, and this Cap’s vision for America includes white children hunting black children in the street. He’s a fuckin’ Nazi) isn’t a construct of the cosmic cube, but in fact the real Steve Rogers: the Axis won World War II, but the Allies used a cosmic cube to create a fake history where Rogers was on their side and they won the war - gotta ask why they didn’t deal with the Holocaust too - with the real guy now reactivated and fulfilling his true mission. Obviously, this not only delegitimizes every story of a character created by a pair of Jewish-Americans specifically to punch Hitler right in the fucking face, but does it by stating that in the natural course of things, the Master Race of course overtakes the Earth with their sheer superiority, with the very concept of the people they would annihilate having a chance at hope or justice or freedom being a lie currently in the process of getting torn down.

This is a little bit touchy.

There’s obvious franchising reasons for this: Chris Evans has made clear he isn’t sticking around for long if at all after Avengers 4, while as of that movie Anthony Mackie will still have at least 3 films in his contract, so it’s in their interests to set Sam Wilson up in the comics as Captain America to match. Problem is, they started the process before a movie about Steve Rogers, so they had to bring him back, and now have to figure out a way to get him out of the picture for a longer period than simply old age or death. And if you want to get him out of the running for the title of One True Captain America, not only making him a Nazi, and retroactively always a Nazi at that, but classifying literally every non-Nazi Captain America story essentially in-universe fanfic? That’ll get him off the board for awhile. It’s ruinously terrible, but also quick and easy, same as it was quick and easy to move Captain Marvel and once upon a time Iron Man into the spotlight in time for their movies by making them fascists. You’ll have to ask Marvel why fascism is their go-to shocking character twist, though.

I think the source point of the issues here stems from something simple I mentioned recently: I don’t think either of the Big Two necessarily believe there’s going to be a comic book industry in 20 years, or even necessarily 10, so there’s no realreason to attempt anything other than drawing as much blood from the stone asthey possibly can. Clearly the creators are trying their best,middle-management I’m sure have long-term plans, and I doubt the powers-that-bewant it to fail. But sales have beendropping for years, and neither of them have demonstrated any plan of substancewhatsoever to reverse that trend. They both had their moments of attempting toright the ship, and both fell through – the original Marvel NOW! and itsimmediate follow-ups were major successes, but half their biggest writers leftin the wake of Secret Wars and sothey reverted to type with endless editorial interference and bullshitcrossovers, while DC’s attempt at innovation with DCYou was scattershot at best,clearly born less of a philosophy of “let’s let our best talents try bold newthings!” nearly so much as “let’s do weird new things that might grab headlines”. 

Viewed in that light, many of their recent decisions startto make sense; after the New 52 trying to draw in 90s fanboys and maybe a couple teenagers fell through, DC’s explicitly banking on rolling back the clock and appealingto the core fanbase with Rebirthwhile simultaneously betting everything on the shock value of incorporating Watchmen, while Marvel has fallen backon its regular event-and-relaunch tactics, and if the “Make Mine Marvel” rumorsare true, they’ll soon be returning to a predominately white and male cast of headlinerswith a handful of exceptions (hence why escape hatches were built into almostall of their recent successor characters – Mjolner was prophesied to return tothe Odinson before the first issue of Jane Foster’s book, Tony Stark is only instasis, the Ultimate Universe may or may not be waiting out there for Miles andhis cast to return, etc.) They don’t think there’s a new audience to be won, orat minimum they clearly haven’t given any thought to the kind of formatting,publication, narrative or marketing breakthroughs that might let them reachthat wider audience (probably part of why they’re so petrified of staying inretailers’ good graces – digital of the way of the future, but they don’tbelieve they’re going to see that future, therefore they’re sticking toappealing to the base while they can), and so naturally they’re going to thetried-and-true methods of drawing cash out of the existing audience until itall falls apart, by which time everyone currently at the top will have new jobsor be retired.

So that Marvel in particular has been overly contemptuous ofprogressive elements of their fanbase isn’t shocking. I doubt their leadershipof middle-aged guys have any particular sympathy for their viewpoint, and if they don’tsee them as a potential pathway to saving the industry either, then it’s not asurprise they clearly see them as a gaggle of mercurial, industry-ignorantwhiners, to be discarded once the half-hearted measures at winning them overaren’t enough. And if they’ve decided they don’t give a shit about progressiveideals in the slightest beyond what’s necessary to avoid mainstream attentionon their fuck-ups, and they don’t seem to be trying to bring about a workablemodel for the industry – especially given that they’re at this pointunquestionably the secondary caretakers of these characters compared to TV andmovies, so these franchises can go on without them – and they’re convinced shock value stunts andevents are the only way to draw in dollars while they can, then yeah. Sure. Whywouldn’t they make Captain America a Nazi? To think that’s a bad idea wouldrequire meaningfully giving a shit about their own product, or at least thinking thatanyone else will in a few years.

As for the Fantastic Four, that’s probably still in Fox’s hands, but I really do hope Al Ewing gets a crack at them someday.

[aion-rsa]

Emiko Queen Returns, Becomes [SPOILER] in Green Arrow #15

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for “Green Arrow” #15, on sale now.

Star City is positively crawling with archers, especially now that the Dark Archer Merlyn has returned in order to frame Oliver Queen for a series of murders and attacks. Luckily for Green Arrow, he’s got at least one bowslinger watching his back — or at least, he usually does; his history with sister Emi is a bit complicated, after all. In “Green Arrow” #15 by Benjamin Percy and Juan Ferreyra, Emiko Queen takes an important step toward becoming Ollie’s official partner, whether he likes it or not: declaring herself the Red Arrow.

Who is Emiko Queen?

Introduced during Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s New 52 run, Emiko Queen is the daughter of Robert Queen (Oliver’s father) and the assassin Shado, though she was raised by yet another villain, Komodo. By the time Rebirth launched, she had seemingly come over to the side of angels and was living with her brother in Star City. However, she betrayed him by the second issue as part of a long-game strategy to save her mother from the Ninth Circle. This plan eventually worked out for everyone, more or less, but still — trust is going to be hard to rebuild.

EXCLUSIVE: Green Arrow Writer Ben Percy on Oliver’s Potential New Recruits

Emi might have earned a few points toward reconciliation this issue, though, by saving Ollie from Sergeant Notting, a disgraced police officer who now leads a squad of vigilantes called the Vice Squad serving as judge, jury, and executioner — but mostly just executioner — to the city’s criminals.

Shot through the hand, and you’re to blame

The story of Emiko Queen blends elements of many previous Green Arrow partners, and adopting the role of Red Arrow, a nom de guerre last held by original sidekick Roy Harper during his Justice League days, would continue that trend. In addition to bringing Roy’s “troubled youth” aspect to the partnership, there are also similarities to Connor Hawke, Oliver’s son in pre-“Flashpoint” continuity who eventually took on the mantle of Green Arrow himself.

Like Connor, Emi is a long-lost relative, though this time a sister rather than a son; she also once tried to claim the Green Arrow name, but was shot down. And, if the hero-sidekick dynamic can be viewed in terms of family — Roy was Ollie’s “ward” but was very much a father figure, while Oliver was literally Connor’s dad, though an absent one — his relationship with Emi may track more closely to that his pre-Flashpoint self held with Mia Dearden, who took up the mantle of Speedy. As he did with Mia, with Emiko Green Arrow will likely see himself as big brother, mentor and protector, a father figure to a strong young woman who isn’t necessarily looking for such.

If the newly-dubbed Red Arrow is following in Roy Harper’s footsteps — let’s hope not too closely — she could find herself a place on the new Teen Titans. Roy was a Titan during his Speedy days, and now as Arsenal serves on the grown-up team of Titans led by Wally West. Of course, if Emiko does join the Teen Titans, she could pose a threat to Damian Wayne’s leadership, matching him in wits, fighting skills, and ruthlessness. But if that group could work together, they could become DC’s most formidable team.

The post Emiko Queen Returns, Becomes [SPOILER] in Green Arrow #15 appeared first on CBR.com.

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