For context:
there are rumours out in the wild about the future direction of the
DCU now that some of the mysteries of Rebirth are being revealed in
the like of Superman Reborn
and the upcoming Batman/Flash crossover The Button.
Amongst them are the tantalising concepts of Bart Allen returning as
part of a speedster themed team book and Tim Drake escaping his
current presumed death to lead the Outsiders. Whether this is true or
not we'll see. Also, the recent announcement that the Young
Justice cartoon would return for
its long-awaited third season leads me to ask:
Can
the Young Justice kids/third generation Titans get a little of that
Rebirth return to form, please?
Of
all the characters mangled by the New 52, that particular generation
were the worst maimed and for the most part they've just been ignored
since Rebirth. Tim Drake, being a Batman mainstay, got back on form
pretty quickly. He lost the showgirl wings and returned to being the
smartest and most independant Robin in the pages of Deective
Comics. Steph Brown and Cass
Cain, once written off by a DC editor as the “toxic” Batgirls,
have had a massive resurgence since turning up again in the Eternal
series. As for the rest of that generation, well...
Bart
Allen is now Barr Torr, a mass murderer and part-time amnesiac from
an aggressively anti-theist future; Cassie Sandsmark is trapped in a
suit of armour that literally tortures her; Superboy is destined to
go mad and kill everyone because apparently that's just what happenes
to Kryptonian clones now; Solstice was trapped on a horrible future
penal colony with Barr Torr but then he returned to the present and I
don't think anyone's too sure what happened to her; Mia Dearden, as
far as I can tell, no longer exists in any shape or form; nor do
Secret, Empress or Arrowette.
As
much as people complain about the sexual politics of Red
Hood And The Outlaws, to me the
absolute platonic example of the New 52 aestethetic is that Teen
Titans series. Everything about
it was miserable. Every character that survived was transformed into
something painful and edgy and somehow more Nineties than the way the
characters were written when they were actually created in the
Nineties.
I
admit, this offends me more than most of the New 52's acts of
butchery because that was “my” generation of teen heroes. Peter
David's Young Justice and
Chuck Dixon's Robin
were
the first DC comics I ever bought, Geoff Johns' Teen
Titans
is one of my favourite titles ever and no matter how many Robins DC
shoves my way Tim Drake will always be the greatest.
Rebirth is a nostalgia project, something I am usually
sceptical of and this is no exception. I am extremely dubious about
the idea of introducing the Watchmen characters into the
universe they were created to satirise and, as ever, the titles I
like the most are the ones that push in new and interesting
directions like Simon Baz finally getting his own GL title after six
sodding years. Still and all, it would be nice to get a little
nostalgia going for what is rapidly becoming DC's “lost
generation”.
In a way, I understand it, there isn't much real estate
for them to occupyright now. Wally West the younger is Kid Flash, Jon
Kent is Superboy and Donna Troy might not be using the Wonder Girl
name but she's only just recently returned and they're only just
getting into her latest origin story. The first generation of
sidekicks is having a hard enough time getting restablished without
the their latter day counterparts coming back. Also, as much as all
those twice monthly books obscure the fact, we're still very early on
in the Rebirth experiment. Its been less than a year and already
we've regained married Superman, the Titans are a legacy again, hints
have been dropped of the Legion Of Super-Heroes and Justice Society
coming back, amongst others.
The thing is, though, that I would like some assurance
that the Nineties and early-2000s aren't being left in the dust
because those were, at times, good years for DC creatively. Also, not
to be too mercenary, but there is a TV series to be marketed here.
And I just miss them. I miss Bart and Cassie and Kon as
I knew them, not as the ostentatiously tortured characters the New 52
relaunched them as. Rebirth and its predecessor DCYou brought the fun
back to a lot of characters and having this crew back together,
especially now the Dick Grayson generation are being treated as
experienced veterans again, would definitely fall in line with that.
Plus, pre-Flashpoint Bart is still running around
somewhere out there, one of that crossover's lingering plot points
that has never been referred to since. Maybe he could jump out of the
Speed Force and reawaken some memories.
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