The Great Girlfriend Debate
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This comment exchange happened when we made some changes in the timeline, which meant the romantic relationship we had set up for Scandal Savage, one of the most prominent queer characters of her era and one half of one of the earliest queer relationships, no longer worked. It was obvious we needed to build an original relationship, but with who?
I am always HOPEFUL that we can have this much of a back and forth in the comments, but just by virtue of the way it's set up, with me manually putting comments on the page and responding, it's hard to maintain a conversation. For whatever reason, this topic really had people coming out of the woodwork! I've saved it here, just because I wanted everyone to enjoy the process we all went through. It started with a vaguely unrelated comment that brought up the topic... |
~ "I had my fair share of guesses as to what the new team would be (the one I was most confident in being the addition of the Secret Six and Knockout to the timeline, since Scandal's not dating Grace anymore), but the Outlaws was not on my radar at all.
I'm certainly not going to complain though; it's great to see Vibe and Cindy get some much-needed love and attention."
I'm certainly not going to complain though; it's great to see Vibe and Cindy get some much-needed love and attention."
It's really cool that you're familiar enough with the particulars of the timeline that you spotted that change! You're right, we did lose that relationship. Grace and Jennifer together was just too important for us to not include. I just don't really know that Knockout is a compelling enough character on her own, given that including her actually means we're letting more New Gods run around unchecked. I would really like Scandal to be part of a relevant relationship, but it might be worth spending a little time working out just who that person should be.
In the meantime, I'm glad you liked our take on the Outlaws! That was a really fun new idea, it came together really organically.
In the meantime, I'm glad you liked our take on the Outlaws! That was a really fun new idea, it came together really organically.
~ "An interesting potential replacement for Knockout is Crush, who was definitely the standout new character of the Rebirth Teen Titans run. She'd have to be aged up like a decade and there is of course the issue of Lobo's age in this universe there, but as far as DC's queer female physical powerhouses go she's the best fit I can think of that isn't already spoken for or tied to another team.
Alternatively, If you wanted to ignore the 'physical' aspect of it and instead went for contrasting power sets, there is Rainmaker from Wildstorm, which on top of providing some more Indigenous representation would give you the closest thing you can get to a Wolverine/Storm relationship in the DCU, which is pretty cool.
There is also the option of keeping Knockout but changing her into something like an Almeracian or a Daxamite, but honestly I'm more sold on the other two options i brought up."
Alternatively, If you wanted to ignore the 'physical' aspect of it and instead went for contrasting power sets, there is Rainmaker from Wildstorm, which on top of providing some more Indigenous representation would give you the closest thing you can get to a Wolverine/Storm relationship in the DCU, which is pretty cool.
There is also the option of keeping Knockout but changing her into something like an Almeracian or a Daxamite, but honestly I'm more sold on the other two options i brought up."
Wow, this is the level of interactivity I strive for, but it's never something I can MAKE happen, I can only invite people to be this engaged and hope to get responses this well concieved. I love all your suggestions. Like most of the ideas I wind up positing around here, they each have their own challenges, which would just be what we'd need to work around in order to make them happen, so let me just describe what those challenges are first so we know what we're dealing with.
Crush is obviously a great character, and I reread most of her appearances trying to figure out how I could go about using her, but I kept coming back to the same problem; Lobo as I know him, the mid 90's parody character, simply isn't a character that would have a daughter that would be this much of a copy of him. if Lobo had a daughter she would be an adorable little petunia... that's just the only way that parody would work. Lobo isn't who he is because that's how Czarians are; he's unique. So Crush's whole existance undermines what makes Lobo cool. Similar to your suggestions for other origins for Knockout, we could arguably come up with other origins for Crush, but once you take away her connection to Lobo you basically lose most of what made her interesting in the first place? This sort of thing actually happens quite a bit, but it's usually a less likeable character, so it's less of a problem.
Meanwhile, on a whole other wavelength, we're back to the idea of bringing in more Wildstorm characters. I'm certainly in favor of this, Rainmaker is a great suggestion, it's just never quite happened in a way that felt organic. We actually went and built a whole team designed to give Wildstorm a place to exist, and wound up with only one authentic Wildstorm character on it. As innovative as those comics are within their own world, once you start meshing them in with the OG comic universes, they just start to feel remarkably derivative. I was a young teenager when Gen13 was the biggest comic in the world; I distinctly remember the month when the comic and all it's alternate covers held EVERY spot on Wizard's top ten. So I'm excitedly in favor of finding some way to put them into the timeline, if it can be done. In practice, however, they tend not to adapt very well. We could add Rainmaker to the world, but... what about her would make her a character to include?
If I could add another basic idea... our version of Scandal is actually in the Doom Patrol, so if we're going to come up with a teammate, it might help if she's actually a little more monsterous than you might think otherwise. The team already has a weather-manipulating powerhouse in Major Disaster, and it has an alien weirdo in Starman... I think it's right to be looking for a female tank to add to the team, but you can see how narrow the window we're looking at becomes.
Crush is obviously a great character, and I reread most of her appearances trying to figure out how I could go about using her, but I kept coming back to the same problem; Lobo as I know him, the mid 90's parody character, simply isn't a character that would have a daughter that would be this much of a copy of him. if Lobo had a daughter she would be an adorable little petunia... that's just the only way that parody would work. Lobo isn't who he is because that's how Czarians are; he's unique. So Crush's whole existance undermines what makes Lobo cool. Similar to your suggestions for other origins for Knockout, we could arguably come up with other origins for Crush, but once you take away her connection to Lobo you basically lose most of what made her interesting in the first place? This sort of thing actually happens quite a bit, but it's usually a less likeable character, so it's less of a problem.
Meanwhile, on a whole other wavelength, we're back to the idea of bringing in more Wildstorm characters. I'm certainly in favor of this, Rainmaker is a great suggestion, it's just never quite happened in a way that felt organic. We actually went and built a whole team designed to give Wildstorm a place to exist, and wound up with only one authentic Wildstorm character on it. As innovative as those comics are within their own world, once you start meshing them in with the OG comic universes, they just start to feel remarkably derivative. I was a young teenager when Gen13 was the biggest comic in the world; I distinctly remember the month when the comic and all it's alternate covers held EVERY spot on Wizard's top ten. So I'm excitedly in favor of finding some way to put them into the timeline, if it can be done. In practice, however, they tend not to adapt very well. We could add Rainmaker to the world, but... what about her would make her a character to include?
If I could add another basic idea... our version of Scandal is actually in the Doom Patrol, so if we're going to come up with a teammate, it might help if she's actually a little more monsterous than you might think otherwise. The team already has a weather-manipulating powerhouse in Major Disaster, and it has an alien weirdo in Starman... I think it's right to be looking for a female tank to add to the team, but you can see how narrow the window we're looking at becomes.
~ "I'm trying to think of some truly weird of monstrous heroines at DC (as well as opening it up to any female character since at this point sticking to canonically queer women is too limiting and a minor sexuality change from being straight to Bi isn't that big of a deal) and every time I think I'm getting somewhere with an idea some big issues stick out to me.
Pantha? Sure werecats are kinda weird and it would not be hard to tie her origins to either Niles or The Brain but if I'm being honest with myself most of her weirdness comes with being the mother to the far more bizarre Baby Wildebeest and even if you add in the wrestling gimmick and burning touch from the 2003 cartoon her power-set is too similar to Scandal's for her to feel like much more than an extension of her.
Fever? She's been on the Doom Patrol before, she was originally going to be included in the DCCP as a Doom Patrol member and her power-set's very distinct from the rest of the team... but she feels a bit too much like a traditional hero character to really fit the "weird" vibe you're going for. Solstice and Witchfire also fall into these same pit-falls, though they don't even have the additional benefit of being canonically affiliated with the team.
Bulleteer? Another cut DCCP character who does feel appropriately weird for the Doom Patrol and her powers don't overlap too much with anybody else on the team, but her personality type is the exact opposite of Knockout's and I just can't see her and Scandal meshing together all that well romantically.
Dreamer? She's a big breakout star and a really fun character but having DC's most high-profile trans character on a team that's explicitly framed as the resident freaks of the DCU and already has two genderqueer characters in Kate and kinda-sorta Larry, plus I think she's a more natural fit for the Justice League anyway if she's not just an ally to Kara.
Out of everybody listed there I have the least issues with Bulleteer, and she best fits the "flying tank" description you provided, but they all have clear issues that you just don't get with Knockout. Still, I figured they were worth bringing up as options."
Pantha? Sure werecats are kinda weird and it would not be hard to tie her origins to either Niles or The Brain but if I'm being honest with myself most of her weirdness comes with being the mother to the far more bizarre Baby Wildebeest and even if you add in the wrestling gimmick and burning touch from the 2003 cartoon her power-set is too similar to Scandal's for her to feel like much more than an extension of her.
Fever? She's been on the Doom Patrol before, she was originally going to be included in the DCCP as a Doom Patrol member and her power-set's very distinct from the rest of the team... but she feels a bit too much like a traditional hero character to really fit the "weird" vibe you're going for. Solstice and Witchfire also fall into these same pit-falls, though they don't even have the additional benefit of being canonically affiliated with the team.
Bulleteer? Another cut DCCP character who does feel appropriately weird for the Doom Patrol and her powers don't overlap too much with anybody else on the team, but her personality type is the exact opposite of Knockout's and I just can't see her and Scandal meshing together all that well romantically.
Dreamer? She's a big breakout star and a really fun character but having DC's most high-profile trans character on a team that's explicitly framed as the resident freaks of the DCU and already has two genderqueer characters in Kate and kinda-sorta Larry, plus I think she's a more natural fit for the Justice League anyway if she's not just an ally to Kara.
Out of everybody listed there I have the least issues with Bulleteer, and she best fits the "flying tank" description you provided, but they all have clear issues that you just don't get with Knockout. Still, I figured they were worth bringing up as options."
Ok, this is officially the topic we've gotten the most comprehensive feedback on, and that's pretty wild.
I think I agree with most of your points here... it helps that you were basically going through characters that already existed on our old rejected character pages. Dreamer is a new suggestion; believe it or not, we actually really thought about adding her to the Doom Patrol at one point, and chose not to for exactly the reason you suggested. Also, our lineup currently has a sexy space-person.
I kind of would like to add Dreamer to the timeline, honestly, but they really have done a poor job of giving her any actual usable structure. What are her powers, exactly? Origins? Anything?
In any case, we had a suggestion for a character to use as Scandal's girlfriend that I really liked, so you might see that soon. It'll likely be part of an update to the current Doom Patrol that you might be seeing in the poll soon.
I think I agree with most of your points here... it helps that you were basically going through characters that already existed on our old rejected character pages. Dreamer is a new suggestion; believe it or not, we actually really thought about adding her to the Doom Patrol at one point, and chose not to for exactly the reason you suggested. Also, our lineup currently has a sexy space-person.
I kind of would like to add Dreamer to the timeline, honestly, but they really have done a poor job of giving her any actual usable structure. What are her powers, exactly? Origins? Anything?
In any case, we had a suggestion for a character to use as Scandal's girlfriend that I really liked, so you might see that soon. It'll likely be part of an update to the current Doom Patrol that you might be seeing in the poll soon.
~"I never made the connection of Rampage to She-Hulk before. The connection of Rampage to the Hulk is obvious. It's interesting how similar concepts can evolve so differently."
I think my awareness of Rampage was just as a big monster, since that was how she's been depicted since the animated series. From that perspective, yes, the Hulk parallels are pretty obvious, but once you look at the character as drawn by John Byrne... If you're even a LITTLE bit familiar with his work on She-Hulk, Kitty is clearly proto-She-Hulk. The fact that Byrne took what amounts to the exact same character and made her the star of one of my favorite series is just nuts.
~"Man, I wish I had thought of Kitty because I really do like her and wish she was treated better. Kudos to the fan who suggested her!"
I really loved the whole back and forth we all managed to have with this character, both in the comments and in the discord. I would love to find a way to make that happen more often.