Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

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Ares
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Ares »

Yeah, much as representation is something that should be considered, there are just certain things that should not be encouraged to be a superhero. It's one issue I have with Faith. A morbidly obese person should not be a superhero, body positivity be damned. Having HIV/AIDs is another one, especially how violent superhero lives can be and how much of an impact that should be on her own health. It was worse with someone like Shadowhawk, who lived in Image and regularly got into fights with bladed weapons.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Ares »

One thing that was kind of sad about Ollie's return was the amount of crap his son had dumped on him. Conner Hawke's big thing was that he was and amazing archer who was one of the best martial artists in the world (someone considered on par with Richard Dragon, Ben Turner and Lady Shiva), and used that to compensate for the fact that he never used trick arrows. After Ollie's return, he basically got Worfed a LOT, to the point where Ollie, Mia and Conner went to train on some island with some assassins and Ollie wound up getting presented as an even better fighter than Conner.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Ken »

Cissie should be the better archer than Mia. Cissie was, among other things, shown to be an Olympic level archer. Literally competing in the Olympics in the Olympic Games in Australia in 2000 (#23-#24).

I cannot believe that a teen with no prior skill archery skill who trained in Oliver Queen's basement for 6 months (or whatever 4 years of real time equates to in comic book time) could be a better shot. She may be more balanced over all, but Cissie should be the better archer.

But, admittedly I'm biased. As a classic Young Justice fan, including Arrowette, I found the let's-get-rid-of-one-blonde-teen-archer-and-replace-her-with-another rather insulting. And then the HIV-thing just made Mia-as-adventurer stupid.

Hell, anyone other than Mia ever cleaned Ollie's basement during the time Mia was training could be infected. Archers-in-training sometimes bleed. Fletching can cut fingers. Or a snapping bowstring across the arm.

(I did like Mia when she was introduced. As the "let's show that Ollie walks-the-walk as well as talks-the-talk" when it comes to helping with social issues, I thought she was a great character to have in the book. Too bad Winnick pissed that away.)
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by squirrelly-sama »

One thing that confused me as a kid was wondering why the the kid who shot arrows was named Speedy when there as a kid speedster.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Jabroniville »

squirrelly-sama wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 5:33 am One thing that confused me as a kid was wondering why the the kid who shot arrows was named Speedy when there as a kid speedster.
I always found that name really strange. Like, was he a particularly fast runner? Just a comment on him being fast on the draw with his arrows? It’s one of the more odd sidekick names, though most of the 40s ones were a bit wimpy or just plain bizarre: Bucky, Stuff, Wing, etc.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by KorokoMystia »

Was "Kid Arrow" just not good-sounding enough?
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Ares »

Mark Waid even poked a little fun at it in his Flash run, with Wally commenting how HE wanted to be called Speedy, but Roy already had the name.

Apparently the reason Roy was called Speedy was due to his upbringing on a Native American reserve. He was trained in archery by them, and at one point during a competition he was tied with the other best archer in the tribe. They decided to do a test based on how swiftly you could draw and fire accurately as the tie breaker. They would toss five small eggs through the air in an arc, and the goal was to hit as many as possible before they hit the ground. Not wanting to disappoint the man who had taught and raised him, Roy nailed all five eggs before they got even half way to the ground. Because of that display, they gave him a title of "One of Speed", and Green Arrow just took to calling him Speedy.

It actually kind of fit later, as Roy was suppose to be a master of a martial art called Moo Gi Gon which was meant to compliment other fighting styles by learning how to basically wield any object as an improvised weapon. His speed, reflexes and hand-eye coordination supposedly made him a natural for the art.

But yeah, he was called Speedy supposedly based on how fast he could draw, aim and accurately fire a bow, and might have been a good way to differentiate him from Ollie. Make Ollie more of a sniper, super precise at ridiculous ranges, but have Roy be better at the quick draw.

A lot of the other sidekick names at the time were weird. Bucky, Toro, hell, the Blue Beetle had a sidekick named Sparky who had nothing to do with electrical abilities.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 5:05 am Yeah, much as representation is something that should be considered, there are just certain things that should not be encouraged to be a superhero. It's one issue I have with Faith. A morbidly obese person should not be a superhero, body positivity be damned. Having HIV/AIDs is another one, especially how violent superhero lives can be and how much of an impact that should be on her own health. It was worse with someone like Shadowhawk, who lived in Image and regularly got into fights with bladed weapons.
As an activist-type with a lot of knowledge of AIDS, I'd think Winick is the FIRST PERSON who would know that, too.

It's a weird disconnect. Reminds me of a situation in Edmonton where an HIV-positive runaway was going around Western Canada, prostituting herself along the way. The police basically posted her image and were like "THIS GIRL IS KNOWINGLY SPREADING AROUND HIV- PLEASE DO NOT HAVE SEX WITH HER! LET US KNOW WHERE SHE IS!" and some AIDS groups were all "but you're ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuting her and that's WRONGGGGGGGGGGGGGG". Thankfully, the general public slapped down that bit of stupidity real quick.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ken wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 5:25 am Cissie should be the better archer than Mia. Cissie was, among other things, shown to be an Olympic level archer. Literally competing in the Olympics in the Olympic Games in Australia in 2000 (#23-#24).

I cannot believe that a teen with no prior skill archery skill who trained in Oliver Queen's basement for 6 months (or whatever 4 years of real time equates to in comic book time) could be a better shot. She may be more balanced over all, but Cissie should be the better archer.

But, admittedly I'm biased. As a classic Young Justice fan, including Arrowette, I found the let's-get-rid-of-one-blonde-teen-archer-and-replace-her-with-another rather insulting. And then the HIV-thing just made Mia-as-adventurer stupid.

Hell, anyone other than Mia ever cleaned Ollie's basement during the time Mia was training could be infected. Archers-in-training sometimes bleed. Fletching can cut fingers. Or a snapping bowstring across the arm.

(I did like Mia when she was introduced. As the "let's show that Ollie walks-the-walk as well as talks-the-talk" when it comes to helping with social issues, I thought she was a great character to have in the book. Too bad Winnick pissed that away.)
To be fair, in comics, most things are unrealistically easy to learn, and learn FAST. Batman learned more skills in his training to be Batman than is humanly possible. I mean, Ollie was lost on an island for however long and taught HIMSELF to be a world-class archer.

Being an Olympic-class archer is great, but those are standing targets at pre-established distances. Much different from comic book-style "shoot at multiple thugs who are actively trying to kill you" stuff. Never mind that comic book archery never even approaches the real-world stuff (ie. shooting multiple arrows at once, gimmick arrows, etc.).

I forget the "Tiers of Archers" one character pointed out. I believe they indicated that Ollie wasn't even the best overall, or something.

Arrowette & Mia being so similar is odd to me, but indicates that DC was WAY over-using the "Blonde Teen Heroine" thing over the past 20-25 years (as I said before), and that nobody at their offices cared about the Young Justice book. I've never read it, but I know a lot of BIG fans of that run. I don't know how it did, but the fact that it's never returned suggests to me that DC either found it disappointing, or just didn't care. The Teen Titans brand being much bigger.

The side-effects of that were weird. The Big Three- Robin, Superboy, and Impulse- debuted elsewhere and were under different editors. Geoff Johns coming on completely altered Superboy & Impulse, who both lost their solo books and so he was their sole "daddy". Tim was mostly a Bat-guy and fell under that umbrella. But anyone from YJ who DIDN'T make the jump over to the Titans basically fell off the face of the Earth. Like, they only make the BAREST of cameos elsewhere- as big of a DC fan as I became, I've never read a speaking appearance by either character. Hell, DC basically acts like Young Justice never existed.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sun Feb 10, 2019 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Talon (Earth-Three Robin)

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

TALON II
Created By:
Geoff Johns & Tony Daniel
First Appearance: The Teen Titans #38 (Sept. 2006)
Role: One-Off Character
Group Affiliations: The Teen Titans

-The former sidekick of Earth-Three's Owlman joined the Titans during the interim of "One Year Later". He never really did anything, but apparently dated Duela "Joker's Daughter" Dent, the daughter of that world's version of the Joker.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 9:47 amArrowette & Mia being so similar is odd to me, but indicates that DC was WAY over-using the "Blonde Teen Heroine" thing over the past 20-25 years (as I said before), and that nobody cared about the Young Justice book. I've never read it, but I know a lot of BIG fans of that run. I don't know how it did, but the fact that it's never returned suggests to me that DC either found it disappointing, or just didn't care. The Teen Titans brand being much bigger.
Young Justice #55 was dated 5/03; it was actually published 3/03. Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #1 & #2 were both cover dated 7/03; #3 08/03. Teen Titans vol. 3 #1 9/03. Mike Carlin was listed as the Executive Editor on Young Justice and Graduation Day. Dan DiDio was listed as Executive Editor on Teen Titans.

The Titans being the bigger brand, while probably true, was less of an issue. The Titans vol. 1 (the Devin Grayson, Jay Faeber written run) was concurrent with Young Justice. Its final issue came out a month before the final issue of YJ.

Young Justice was perceived to be a comedy book. It dealt with such 'comical' topics as racism aimed at Red Tornado's middle eastern foster daughter (introduced in JLA #152 back in '78), sororicide, a teen-aged hero accidentally killing a criminal, and corruption by Darkseid. But it was written by Peter David, which meant that there were times when they weren't dealing with heavy stuff, the book WAS written to be funny. Because teenagers, when they pal around together with their friends do like to laugh and kid. And because it was Peter David, there were pun names (Anita Fite, N. Dowd becoming the Mighty Endowed) and times when super hero tropes were played for laughs. Which meant that yes, it was often funny. No, it wasn't an outright comedy. It was a book about teenagers, so sometimes it was fun.

Dan DiDio is known for his distaste of 'fun' comics. Dan DiDio was named DC's executive editor in October of 2002, but there was a period of several months where the changeover from Carlin to DiDio was taking place. By the time Teen Titans vol. 3 hit the stands, the changeover was complete.

It wasn't that "DC found Young Justice disappointing". If they found it disappointing, its unlikely that the 2000 Event would have been the Sins of Youth. But that was when DC was headed by Mike Carlin. When DC was headed by Dan DiDio, then DC found it disappointing.

Now, both Titans and Young Justice had been running for 4 years, and, as you've described, Titans had received a lot of editorial interference. So, it is possible that their sales were slipping. But mostly the changeover occurred because Dan DiDio didn't like the books as they were, and because having the current Robin be in the book called "Teen Titans" with Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy was advantageous because of the Cartoon Network program that was being made at the time.
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Re: Talon (Earth-Three Robin)

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 11:44 am-The former sidekick of Earth-Three's Owlman joined the Titans during the interim of "One Year Later". He never really did anything, but apparently dated Duela "Joker's Daughter" Dent, the daughter of that world's version of the Joker.
Because, once upon a time, the Earth-One Dick Grayson dated the Earth-One Duela Dent.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by drkrash »

So far behind in reading...

For my votes, if they matter, I vote Power Instinct and JLU.

As for builds I missed, I wanted to say that I love most of Wonder Girl's costumes. I liked the black T-shirt of Young Justice and her Teen Titans outfit...except when she wore the red shirt and jeans. The New 52 was a pretty decent design but I hated the "bitching up" of the character.

Also, which series was Donna Troy's outfit the black costume with white stars (but not the star field)? It was a newer one. I want to read that one.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by greycrusader »

A few brief thoughts/notes:

The "One-Year-Gap failed membership-drive" bit REALLY end up tarnishing the Titans for what was supposed to be a little throw-away joke; it essentially resulted in numerous killed-off, fringe characters which pumped up the "dead Titans" count. And sadly, some of these guys seemed to have a bit of inherent potential, if they hadn't been introduced en masse and immediately seen as utterly disposable.

Young Justice is definitely treated as by current DC editorial as a better-forgotten embarrassment, likely because it was intended as a FUN comic-not a humor book, but just one that was mostly light-hearted and positive, even though it did tackle a few serious subjects. Given the main characters (Impulse, Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl) were subsequently TOTALLY remade in terms of personality and then had their backgrounds/origins altered radically by the failed nu-52, its no wonder the supporting heroes of the series (Arrowette, Empress, Secret, and Slobo) all entered comic book limbo.

Mia/Speedy III wasn't the first comic book hero to have HIV; aside from Shadowhawk, there was also a semi-infamous Iron Ager called Grips, one of Tim Vigil's earliest indie characters, the Shadowhawk from Image which Ares mentioned, and a couple of the obscure, failed New Guardians from DC. This was all 80s/90s stuff, when "grim and gritty" combined with "topical", so...yeah. I don't think anyone would really say these were GOOD attempts at portraying what dealing with the situation would actually be like. Mia came later. And while I don't think any particular condition or disability should automatically preclude a character from being used as a superhero (four-color comics allow for all sorts of accommodations), a hero who uses BLADED weapons in training and combat, and engages in loads of hand to hand melee is REALLY not a solid idea, even in a four-color world.

All my best.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Steel III! Blue Beetle! Impulse! Wendy & Marvin!)

Post by Ken »

Ares wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 7:55 am But yeah, he was called Speedy supposedly based on how fast he could draw, aim and accurately fire a bow, and might have been a good way to differentiate him from Ollie. Make Ollie more of a sniper, super precise at ridiculous ranges, but have Roy be better at the quick draw.

A lot of the other sidekick names at the time were weird. Bucky, Toro, hell, the Blue Beetle had a sidekick named Sparky who had nothing to do with electrical abilities.
Golden-age sidekicks, generally, weren't named after the senior hero: Robin, Speedy, Bucky, Toro, Sparky, Tim (Black Terror's sidekick), Davey (Ace Comics' Magno's partner), Dicky (Lone Warrior's aide), Buddy (the Eagle's aide), Spark (Captain Red Blazer), Meteor/Mercury (Silver Streak), Speedboy (Fighting American), etc.

Domino (Green Mask), Pinky (Mr. Scarlet), and Sandy (Sandman), Kitten (Catman) and Stampy (Air-Male) were kind of linked, thematically, to their senior partner's name. But even then Air-Male and Stampy's power was too fly.

Supergirl, Aqualad, Bat-Girl and Kid Flash all showed up in the early Silver Age. The naming conventions had changed.
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