Monday, April 19, 2010

(manic) Brightest (mon)Day #5--(De)Generational Heroes

Speaking of Ray Palmer...

He's featured in the house ads for Brightest Day (that's him on Firestorm's shoulder)...

He's getting his own Brightest Day special in July...

And then he's getting the "co-feature" spot in Adventure Comics.

Gee, that's all swell. But I can't feel that there's someone we're forgetting somebody...someone who hasn't been mentioned at all...

Oh, yeah, that's right, Ryan Choi. The Atom. The one Ray Palmer told explicitly told to keep using the Atom name and identity in JLA: Cry For Boredom #1. That Ryan Choi!!

Sorry, Ryan, but you weren't in the DC Universe in 1983, and therefore you don't get to keep your identity.

DC likes to talk up the "generational heroes" aspect of their universe, but the past several years have proven they don't really give a rat's ass about that. The only generation that counts is the one that was active when certain persons were reading comics as a youth.

Perhaps Ryan Choi, Wally West, Connor Hawke, Kyle Rayner, and Kendra Saunders can get together in the "We've Been Demoted To Second String" League of America...

1 comment:

Diabolu Frank said...

I'm not crying about this one. Replacing Ray Palmer never worked for me, especially giving an Asian shrinking powers and a ugly costume variation. For once, can we get an Asian strongman? A teleporter? Anything unrelated to technology or the martial arts?

That said, Connor Hawke ruled, and I'll never forgive Hal Jordan his crimes, so there's definitely generational roles to be played in my book for the right replacements.