Huh, I don't know, Kara's death seemd fairly important, she moved Kal out of danger in the weird anti matter universe, and a sacrifice for her cousin seemed enough...not being that experienced or enthusiastic about comics "death" and reading the tributes from Batgirl, etc, afterwards, as well as Superman's...it seemed enough for me...but then that's just an opinion of a Silver Ager...
Well, to be fair, as far as superhero sendoffs go, Supergirl could have done worse...just ask the New Warriors, who died because Mark Millar thought they were a bunch of losers. Thankfully, other (GOOD) people at the House that Stan Built were there to play Damage Control. Dan Slott in a recent SHE-HULK issue, had the New Warrior survivors declare.
"No! You're wrong! They're weren't just kids playing heroes! They...WERE heroes!"My point was that 1) Supergirl's death wasn't dramatic or worthy of a character like her, and 2) it wasn't entirely integrated into the Crisis story; Crisis's story would have been the same or not whether she died, which is a way of saying the death didn't really matter.
You have to take in all of the good with all of the bad. For every goofy moment that YJ and Superboy title had, you also had moments like the death of Tana Moon, the retirement of Arrowette, Slobo's end, the OWAW issue of SB, and the last arc with Secret. These characters laughed and cried together in those titles.
Good point, but bad example. The OWAW issue rubbed me the wrong way. There's a difference between having characters start to behave maturely (as Impulse and Conner did under Johns) and just having them come face to face with nasty events in order to scar them, like the trip to Apokalyps. Yeah, it's all fun and games until someone's sold into slavery!
A lot of YOUNG JUSTICE gags just fell flat. I'm almost positive that except for the talking crab advisor in AQUAMAN, Peter David has never done a single funny joke in his life. The absolute worst kind of joke (and this is what made Byrne's SHE-HULK so terminally unfunny, at least when he decided it would be a "humor" book - irony, thy name be Byrne) are fourth-wall breakers, where the humor comes from the fact the characters are talking directly to the audience. The flattest YOUNG JUSTICE gag was one where Conner, Impulse and the Ray are reading comics, saying "it looks like my comic is going to be canceled." "Oh! So's mine." And so on. Then, Robin (whose comic is not canceled) walks in the room. Everyone looks at him. "What?" He says.
:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
As for C-K not wearing, really, a costume...I like the compromise that was achieved by Johns and his artists whereby Conner wears everyday clothing with an S-Shield shirt. Spandex would have been unfair to the characters' personality. This reminds me of SKY HIGH - watch the movie again: NOBODY, except the adults, are wearing traditional costumes; they're all wearing ordinary clothes. But their clothes nonetheless FEEL superheroic because they have either primary colors, or at least a consistent color scheme.
I won't deny that Peter David has been able to accomplish some really astonishing things (his AQUAMAN run had many high points). And maybe there is something to the idea that, as David was writing for a young audience, he didn't feel it necessary to make Conner Kent entirely three-dimensional.
My biggest problem with Conner was that he just never really "wised up" until Johns. I issue this criticism a lot, but Conner Kent was in a state of permanent arrested development; the fact that at one point, he could never age past 16 can be taken as a metaphor for his entire existence.
The thing is, Conner Kent's characterization as a vain, rather irreverant and occasionally immature teen is one that, by definition, has a brief shelf life. There have been occasions where the writers had an opportunity to make Conner "wise up:" I thought at the time, during the Death of Superman, that "a-ha, this kid is going to snap out of it, and show everybody he's got the right stuff." Alas, it didn't happen that story: during his follow-up series, he became a glory hog in Hawaii. Then came the death of Tana Moon, which would be the moment he'd start acting with maturity, right? Nope - he wasn't going into showbiz, but at the same time he was still kind of a slacker.
IMO, "super" isn't about powers or Kryptonian heritage. It's about trying to do the right thing.
Don't get me wrong, there have been many great fellow heroes and support in the Superman Mythos that aren't Kryptonian or blood-relatives of Superman, and that shouldn't be a prerequisite: just look at Vartox, or Valdemar, or the Silver Age Superwoman.
However, the problem with Superboy's DNA Project origin is that previously, he was a straightforward character (Superman's teen clone) that was muddled to all hell. The origin is an important part of who a character is and it can't be wiped clean without the character being altered. This is why the Mantis was plunged into such despair with the knowledge that her origin was a lie; thankfully, we soon learned the whole truth and it was even more interesting.
This is why stories that a alter an origin, like Mopee or the Byrne SPIDER-MAN CHAPTER ONE, are so unwelcome: it DOES matter where the Flash's speed comes from (accident or magical elf), or whether Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus were created at the same time.
Though I do believe that characters are the sum of their history, not just bite-sized soundbytes, there is something to be said for origins that are "tight." A character like Batman with an origin that can be given in a sentence is stronger than a character like Cable or Spider-Woman.
John Henry Irons exemplifies this. He has no connection whatsoever with Krypton and at least as originally conceived has no powers. Yet even many people on this board who otherwise hate "post-Crisis" continuity see him as a worthy addition to the mythos.
Some may say that, but not me. Steel is phenomenally dull from start to finish.
Here's the thing about noble and heroic "protect and serve" Silver Age style characters: you have to be given a reason to care about them. The fact that Steel was a Silver Age throwback in terms of outlook is just not enough.
A character like the Roger Stern Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) was a character that was Silver Age in mentality, but she has other personality qualities that make her interesting: her feistiness, her devotion to family, her assertiveness; the way she was opinionated without being pushy, and the fact that occasionally she was given a great many cool things to do.
Steel, by contrast, has really no personality apart from serving and protecting.
Classic Superman is anything but bland; the best-kept secret of Superman is that he is in reality a very complicated character. Jim Shooter once said that it would take volumes to talk about Superman's personality. Superman has so many intriguing and contradictory character traits: his fundamental idealism and unwillingness to compromise his beliefs - but the fact that at the same time he is savvy and a realist, his sense of humor, his sense of law, his respect for humanity and his simultaneous detachment from humanity and loneliness and sense of exile, the way he was intellectual but simultaneously approachable, he was confident but also humble...and so on.
Not EVERY character can be the Fantastic Four, with all their idiosyncrasies. Captain Comet makes up for his lack of personality with the fact that he has an intriguing costume, origin, and suite of powers, and the fact the writers had him do neat things. But Steel has nothing this cool going for him.
His costume is GRAY. How appropriate - the most boring of all colors. What, they couldn't make his outfit a muddy, plain brown?
Steel has a terminally dull origin about being a weapons designer that wised up. Other characters have this origin, but there's not even a single other wrinkle in the formula to make Steel distinct.
He gets his powers from a suit of armor. Gee, how innovative. You'd think at least he'd have a few gadgets that someone else doesn't, right, like maybe those cool hammer-hands that Iron Man used in AVENGERS #2, or a finger that shoots freon, or a teleport matrix? Nope. He's got boot jets and super-strength, just like every other armor wearer in history, ever. Oh, and a hammer that he can kinda throw, but doesn't even have any other gizmos.
I can't even think of a single cool Steel moment, ever. Moments that make you say, "wow, what a great character," like the Black Panther cold-cocking Mephisto in one punch, or Hawkeye robbing the train in "Go West, Young Gods," or Batman discovering the true identity of the Hyperclan.
Steel is a boring failure of the imagination at every level, and is not worthy of the goodwill he receives because he kinda-sorta reminds people of other characters.
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