Booster Gold and Martian Manhunter are both back in action in the coming weeks and months at DC, which makes the post-Rebirth DC Universe feel even more like home for longtime fans.
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For many DC characters, the last couple of years have been a salvation: after five years of The New 52, during which the DC Univers struggled to find a sense of direction and lots of characters did not even exist, Rebirth has provided a clean slate and a fresh start for a lot of characters and creators.
And most of those titles have really taken advantage of the opportunity, revitalizing even some of DC’s most damaged properties.
Still, there are some characters and concepts which have not yet had their Rebirth — and it’s time.
Who are we still waiting on…?
The Justice Society of America
Geoff Johns is the head honcho at DC in many ways, but some of the things that he cut his teeth on — including Hawkman and JSA — have been out of circulation in any meaningful way for years.
The post-Flashpoint version of Earth-2 is fine, and has turned out some pretty good stories, but it’s simply not anything like the one that came before it, and when you talk about “legacy,” as Johns, DiDio and Lee have been doing, the JSA — and in particular Johns’s time with the team, when they became a farm club for young heroes — is the first thing that springs to mind.
Now, of course, we get Johnny Thunder appearing in Doomsday Clock and Jay Garrick showing up in “The Button.” It seems that Johns himself might be the one who has designs on DC’s first superhero team.
Legacy Heroes
Along with the “classic” JSA members, generations of fans grew up with titles like the All-Star Squadron, which introduced the next generation of heroes from those families.
Whether the literal children (or grandchildren, or whatever) of the Justice Society members or the former sidekicks, imitators, and the like, there are too many great characters to name who have not appeared recently — in many cases since 2011’s Flashpoint.
A sampling? Jack Knight, Starman; Obsidian; Jade; Atom Smasher; Wildcat II — and the list goes on.
The Legion of Super-Heroes
With the Legion showing up on Supergirl this season, and probably the longest comics sabbatical since they first got a series, the Legion has to be something that’s hanging heavy over DC Editorial.
Legion Lost, which wasn’t a bad book but never caught fire, represented the publisher trying to find a way to integrate the Legion characters into the DCU proper. A guest spot in Justice League United didn’t really do much to pave the way for more appearances, since by then United was a dead comic walking.
But..yeah. This is one of DC’s most historically-successful franchises, with a small but incredibly vocal and rabid fan base, and they haven’t had a real “shot” since the start of the New 52.
(And yes, of course, there’s the extra added layer of Saturn Girl having been camped out in Arkham Asylum since the start of Rebirth.)
Gen 13
Before Jim Lee sold WildStorm to DC, one of his last great successes as a creator was Gen 13, another book about teen superheroes, but these heroes a lot less pristine than the Legion or even the JSA kids.
Gen 13 was a book full of misfits, who argued and felt out of place. It was like a Marvel title that had fewer restrictions on it (becuase it was at Image), and after Lee sold to DC, the property never fully felt at home in the DC Universe, despite multiple attempts and a few genuinely good stories along the way.
After Flashpoint, Gen 13 disappeared and its members would only occasionally show up in odd places. Recently, longtime artist J. Scott Campbell did a short story that aligned the team’s military handler John Lynch with the alt-right.
The team could easily be a success with the right approach; hell, look at how other ’90s Image properties like Savage Dragon, Youngblood, and Prophet have recently experienced renaissances.
Kate Spencer, Manhunter
This is a character who could be essentially saved from oblivion by the new DC Universe, given the fact that Kate Spencer’s backstory leans so heavily on the history of the (pre-Flashpoint) DC Universe…
…but since then, we’ve seen that elements of that backstory still exist–or at least, they can when needed. Cameron Chase’s parental backstory doesn’t make a ton of sense in the timeline of the post-Flashpoint DC Universe, but it’s there because it makes sense for the character.
And of course, as we have seen in the Superman titles, more or less anything goes in the Rebirth timeline; it seems to be a greatest hits collage of timelines and stories that people don’t want to let go of.
Given that no previous version of Manhunter has taken hold with fans anytime recently in the way that Marc Andreyko’s take did, it’s arguable that she, like Jaime Reyes, can be inserted into the world of Rebirth as the first/only Manhunter without breaking too many hearts…but if not? Well, that’s what that whole “legacy” word is about, isn’t it?
The Question
Long one of the favorite non-powered characters at DC, The Question got a popular reset in 52, becoming a bigger part of the Gotham community, and then…nothing.
When relaunched following Flashpoint, The Question was turned into part of a mystical trinity, which didn’t really suit his character, and then he kind of vanished into the background when the whole Trinity of Sin thing amounted to very little in terms of fan interest.
The latest move by DC to clear up their line and make sure “everything counts” gives them a great opportunity to reintroduce the second Question, or at least retool the original so that he’s got more of what made him great.
Adam Strange
Give this book to somebody like Jeff Lemire or Gerard Way, get out of their way, and watch the cool, weird, sci-fi stuff come rolling in.
Sure, that could be said of basically any disused DC cosmic property, but in particular Adam Strange is worth trying to rehab because he is appearing on Krypton this March.
Time Masters
In what could be the Legends of Tomorrow of the DC Comics Universe, a Booster Gold/Rip Hunter-led super-team that traveled through time and had to retain their anonymity could be a ton of fun.
The fact that the groundwork for Booster resuming his time cop job has been laid in Dan Jurgens’s Action Comics run only makes us more excited at the thought of it.
Bringing together an all-star team of “forgotten heroes” who can’t support their own title but work well together for stand-alone arcs, Booster and Rip could create the same kind of weird, dysfunctional family dynamic that frequently makes Legends the most fun of the DC/CW series.
Black Lightning and The Outsiders
It has been a while since we had a team of Outsiders — and we know they existed in the DC timeline now as a result of Doomsday Clock.
With Black Lightning on TV, and Grace Choi hanging out with Thunder, it seems like a no-brainer to give the property a chance in the comics.
This would be a great opportunity for DC to give Black Lightning a chance to shine — and to give a character of color a starring role in a title that is not Earth-M.
Lois Lane
One of the things that modern comics have lost is the supporting cast, which is a shame. They lend the larger-than-life protagonists of superhero adventure comics a kind of grounding in reality that makes them seem more vulnerable and relatable, and so heightens the drama when those characters are in trouble.
The Superman titles have done a great job of fixing that since the re-establishment of the married Lois and Clark.
Combine that with Gotham Central–one of the best books of the last 20 years at DC, which followed the impact of superheroes on everyday cops trying to do their job in the worst, most violent city in the world, and you have a possibility for a genre-bending look at journalism, sensationalism and superheroics in the DC Universe. Imagine a Daily Planet-centric book starring Lois Lane…maybe even one that doesn’t have to have “Superman’s Girl Friend” in the title!
Dealing with the never-ending press of super-science, magic and of a job where the globe could be knocked off the top of your building at any given moment by a rampaging monster has to be a fascinating and terrifying job. Why not let the readers in on that?
A little genre diversity doesn’t hurt, either…
