DC received some publicity a few months back with the newly rebooted Alan Scott Green Lantern in the pages of Earth 2 by making this version a gay man. I am all for diversity in comics, but this struck me as an odd move. In order to make it work, Alan Scott had to be de-aged and as a result his two children have been written out of continuity - his daughter Jade, and his son Obsidian... who just happened to already be a quite popular gay character! So diversity wasn't really served here because they just swapped one a gay hero for another... and also lost a perfectly good female hero in the transition as well. It was a strange decision in my eyes, all for the sake of a few headlines on a slow news day. Hopefully Jade and Obsidian will find their way back to the DCU one of these days.
Dave sez,
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving!
It strikes me as odd that DC's The New 52 has done a lot to eliminate certain legacies. Donna Troy, Wally West, Jade, Obsidian. It looks like the Teen Titans were taken in a completely different direction and Infinity, Inc. was erased.
Disappointing.
I haven't read The Amazing Spider-Man since the late '70's - and I didn't read much of it then, but when Bendis wrote "The End" on Peter Parker, I was good with it. I didn't follow up with where May and MJ went on, or this new series. Spider-Man is Peter Parker. Ultimate Spider-Man was a good run.
Maybe that's the best that can be said of the DCU that we all know. It was a good run. I'm probably going to stick with my old back issues rather than follow much of The New 52...
Cool, cool cover concept!
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, along with a whole slew of complaints about the reboot, making Alan Scott gay, and effectively erasing Jade and Obsidian is among them. Like you said, there's nothing wrong with diversity and having popular gay characters represented,just not at the expense of the legacies of those particular characters.
I'm sure it won't be that hard to bring the siblings back, they'll just have a different daddy, unless they're from another universe, where that Alan Scott's straight. Hmm.
It also erases diversity by getting rid of elderly characters. The JSA may have looked young, but were in their 80's-90's. The experience they brought was important, and they could see things differently. It is a shame that diversity of view is not counted. I'm all for the inclusion of more black, gay, Hispanic, and Asian characters, but let us not forget the diversity of mind and experience. The big 3 JSA were really something special because of what was going on behind the eyes.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall reading an interview w James Robinson where mentioned the idea of bringing back Infinity Inc. as an "Earh 2 Legion" kind of thing. Meant to ask him about it when I met him at a signing last month but it slipped my mind.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't sound like bad idea, and puts a totally new spin the name and concept.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who will be on that roster besides possibly the obvious founders?
Jade's gone? Fie. She was one of my favorite DC characters.
ReplyDeleteI'd been thinking of picking up comics again once my finances allowed, but all that's been going on with disposing of so many legacies just doesn't reflect what I'd consider "quality" storytelling.
If my "Realm Hunter" books continue, I'll eventually have a World with superheroes (well, likely more than one), and I'll want to address this somehow.
Still, this is an excellent cover, and it does address one issue that I don't think DC has ever covered: there does need to be an eventual legacy replacement for Alan Scott, to take the magical GL ring.
Spider-lantern, spider-lantern. Friendly neighborhood spider-lantern.
ReplyDelete@Mr. Morbid: they (Jade and Obsidian) could be ret-conned as the grandchildren of one-time interim GL Donna Parker. She's still canonical as far as I know.
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