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Boot 'Em and Bring 'Em Back - DC Edition

Started by Nyte Dragon, January 24, 2021, 12:12:59 AM

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Nyte Dragon

 This is all a hypothetical exercise. YOU have the power to bring back (or push to the forefront) from obscurity, ONE character in the DC roster. Not a group, team, or book, just one specific character. Want to bring back G.I. Robot, you got it!

But there is a catch There's always a catch, isn't there? Like Sir Isaac said, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So to bring someone back, someone else has to go. And you choose who goes up on the chopping block. BUT, he says with a sinister smile, you can't bring back Dr. Thirteen and just toss Jay Schway to the chopping block. It has to be someone of some importance.

And to make it even more fun, although you don't have to do this  :rolleyes:, give us a little detail in how you would bring them back... and take the other one out.  :lou

For example :

I would bring back Starman (Will Payton). He was brought back in Justice League for a short while, before getting killed off again. Years ago, I had come up with an idea to bring him back, and it still would work with just a bit of readjusting. First off, Starman was a living star in human form (more or less). And energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so when Perpetua smished him, his energy was shunted into the Bleed (the barrier between dimensions). Time passes differently in the Bleed, and after a millennia, his energies reformed and Starman was born anew.

I like the idea of bringing him back into his old life. Justice League never had time for any of that to have occuried. But what would it be like to try to regain your old life after years of being dead. Plus, did the rest of the world know now that he was Starman? Would he need a new identity? Or how would he explain being gone for so long?

Now... BWHAHAHA, on to that sacrific... errr... uhmmmm....  awwww screw it, they are the SACRIFICE!!

I would toss out the Huntress. I just can't get into the modern day version of the character. I liked the 'Helena Wayne' version just fine, having a soft spot for legacy characters. I have two different ways to remove her. One would be for her to get caught by the police and face the various murder charges against her, leading to her getting a long prison sentence.

BUT I would actually have her go out 'Dinobot-style', saving a family from a LARGE mob hit, having to fight and fight tons of made men, until she comes face to face with some huge meta-human enforcer she has no chance of beating. But she holds her own, buying the family time to escape, even at the cost of her own life. It would be a redemption arc to her own origin and an actual heroic send-off to the character.

Soooo, what about the rest of you? You got the power to bring them back, but the responsibility to boot one of them.

WHAT'S YOUR CALL?

(A Marvel version will follow later on)
Hate is always foolish and love is always wise.
 ⁓Doctor Who

Silver Shocker

#1
Ooh, tantalizing!

QuoteBUT I would actually have her go out 'Dinobot-style',

Mah man. Rewatched it recently in preparation for the revival. Still 100% holds up.

*Checks to see if Roy Harper is still dead* Oh what do you know, he's back....as a heroic Black Lantern. That's certainly different.  :mellow:

But let's be honest, he was bound to come back in a year or two.

This one's super easy for me. Mys-Tech from The Ray and Justice League Task Force. For those who don't know, the character was a Korean woman with a mysterious past, a chip on her shoulder, an Iron Man-like suit of armor, and her writer, Preist, wanted her to have her own miniseries, and when he didn't get it, he flung her out an airlock.

I read that series during my formative years, and for whatever reason, there was something about that character that appealed to me, and I created a major character in one of my own works heavily influenced by her.

Mystech is 100% Pre-Flashpoint, so bringing her in is extremely easy, but since, as I understand it, the current comics DC Universe is pretty much the Pre-and-Post Flashback DCU smushed together like they're Hawkman, we'll go with the premise that her death happened somehow in some similar fashion.

How do I bring her back? The same way I'd bring anyone back, Pinky.

A character who's power is literally to bring someone back from the dead. Funny thing, the current villain of the Spider-Man comics right now literally has that power, so someone got to it before me.

And while we're at it, do at least one arc of mini of a JL Task Force revival with J'onn J'onnz, her, The Ray, and Gypsy. Not Triumph though, that guy was kinda tainted by the Morrison and Waid run (and as I understand it, he's ALSO dead)

Who goes? Ehhhhhh, I'm not a fan of killing off pre-established characters most of the time, especially beloved ones. And I sure wouldn't want to kill off a major favorite to bring back Mystech. Fortunately, I have a plan.

I don't know how major is major enough (feel free to veto this if you wish ND) but I have my answer.

Doctor Light (Arthur Light)

*checks DC wiki* oh look at that, he finally showed up again in Deathstroke, where he got the classic costume again - good for him - and they retconned this version to have been a bad guy to begin with - even better.

Doctor Light is a disgusting slimeball and a complete hate sink in the DC Universe for well over a decade, to the point that the other villains on The Injustice League, such as Cheetah, hated his guts and didn't want him on the team, and the culmination of several years of stories involving him in the comics was The Spectre killing him, Batman saying putting Kimoiyo Hoshi on the JL roster would "send a message", Kimiyo Hoshi harvesting his bodily remains to make new armor for her own Doctor Light costume to get her powers back, and then killing his Black Lantern zombie a bit later.

The guy's such a unlikable piece of work that even the grim and gritty live action Titans show brought him in, made him a complete loser with a terrible costume, and killed him off shortly after.

I feel confident that noone's going to miss this scumbag too much. Yes, there's dark comedy involved with the character, but you can get that elsewhere (Joker, for example). And he and Kimmie aren't even the only Doctor Light's out there, so if you must have a villainous one, you can bring in Jacob Finley from the 80's Secret Files and Suicide Squad and use him since he doesn't have the taint of Arthur.

Have him be in a good storyline where he and maybe some other villains cause trouble, sure, but give him a humiliating, self-righteous defeat, kill him off, bury him, and salt the Earth. 

Cannot WAIT for the Marvel version. I'm going to enjoy that.
"Now you know what you're worth? Then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers, saying you're not where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that, and THAT AIN'T YOU. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!"
~Rocky Balboa

Nyte Dragon

 Heh, of all people, I knew you'd get the Dinobot reference, Shocker.  :D

And nope, no veto on your post. If you notice, I said character, so it can be a hero or villain, which ever you wanna do.

Hate is always foolish and love is always wise.
 ⁓Doctor Who

HarryTrotter

For returning- Hitman,easy. I think there there is still potential in the character. For retiring- John Constantine. Bringing him into the main DCU was a mistake. Hellblazer ran for 300 issues,I think they got all they could outta him then.
''Even our origin stories have gone sour.''
Jon Farmer

Silver Shocker

Quote from: HarryTrotter on January 24, 2021, 09:30:55 PM
For returning- Hitman,easy. I think there there is still potential in the character. For retiring- John Constantine. Bringing him into the main DCU was a mistake. Hellblazer ran for 300 issues,I think they got all they could outta him then.

Well Bloody Hell.

Quote from: Night Dragon on January 24, 2021, 05:54:06 AM
Heh, of all people, I knew you'd get the Dinobot reference, Shocker.  :D

Yup. For Transformers, either Thunderblast or Tarantulas. Both are fun characters that have been severely underused since their respective shows.
As for who goes? Umm, let's say G1 Wheelie and move on.
"Now you know what you're worth? Then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers, saying you're not where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that, and THAT AIN'T YOU. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!"
~Rocky Balboa

HarryTrotter

Funny one,but OMAC (Buddy Blank). OMACs have been the robotic mooks of DCU since the 2000's but we haven't seen Buddy in a while. He was basically Captain America in the future,but I think we could reboot that today.
As for kicking out...Im kinda behind on DC events,so are they still doing Metal leftovers? All the evil-Batman/Dark Judges ripoffs from that,if thats still a thing.
''Even our origin stories have gone sour.''
Jon Farmer

Silver Shocker

As I mentioned recently, Dark Knight Metal is indeed still a thing, and is doing a crossover with real Death Metal bands including Ozzy Osborne.
"Now you know what you're worth? Then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers, saying you're not where you want to be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that, and THAT AIN'T YOU. YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!"
~Rocky Balboa

SuperPoweredYank

#7
A'ight, let me try!

Bring 'em back: Terra-Man (Pre-Crisis)

^I think this panel by Curt Swan (which didn't appear when I initially posted this  :banghead:) really says it all.
Terra-Man was a cowboy who was abducted by aliens and eventually returned to Earth with an alien Pegasus and a variety of alien weaponry to do battle with Superman. It's an inherently ridiculous concept that a group of excellent artists made seem awesome. In the Bronze Age he was depicted alongside the likes of Lex Luthor, Braniac, and Mr. Mxyzptlk as one of the Man of Steel's greatest foes. But, inexplicably, Post-Crisis he was reimagined as an eco-terrorist.
Of course, now that the DCU's been rebooted and altered repeatedly since then, bringing Terra-Man back in his original form wouldn't cause any continuity problems.

Boot 'em: Mr. Zsasz
I don't actually have that much against Zsasz, (his appearance in Batman: Arkham City was particularly memorable.) But, given that he's just a cold-blooded serial killer, there's not a huge amount of interesting stories you can tell with him. Perhaps he could encounter an opponent who's less forgiving than the Batman, such as Red Hood, who would finally do him in for good.

HarryTrotter

Quote from: Silver Shocker on February 15, 2021, 10:44:53 AM
As I mentioned recently, Dark Knight Metal is indeed still a thing, and is doing a crossover with real Death Metal bands including Ozzy Osborne.
Because...metal? That's just a weak pun,really.

Speaking of post-Crisis era (Iron age?) ,Superman villains from that era don't get enough mileage. I know Hellgrammite and Skyhook are not the coolest villains around,but at least they aren't Luthor and Doomsday.
I think Rampage was in Suicide Squad recently?
''Even our origin stories have gone sour.''
Jon Farmer