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DC Universe Surgery

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17:05 / 09.02.07

Actually, I think there was an Ace in continuity a couple of years ago... showed up shortly before NML.

17:42 / 09.02.07

And apparently he's gonna be in Mozzer's run.

The yay.

03:02 / 12.02.07

the starfish was called proty.

martian manhunter had zook, who was kind of an orange naked chimp with antennae.

and...

aquaman had TOPO THE OCTOPUS!

(also storm and imp, the giant seahorses)

Gleek the supermonkey probably counts too. And wonderdog.

But here's the question - does Rex the Wonder Dog count his master as a pet?

And wouldn't beppo make an excellent pet?

i'll get me coat

10:48 / 12.02.07

Actually Mario, post-crisis Ace has been around a lot longer than that. He first appeared in a Penguin three parter in Detective comics (I think) by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, around the time that Tim Drake's Robin was bought into the book. Ace kicked around the cave for a while, got scared off when Azbats took over and was found with Harold hiding in the cave around the time of the earthquake.

13:03 / 12.02.07

I thought he was linked to Harold somehow, but I wasn't sure.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:09 / 12.02.07

the starfish was called proty.

Actually, the starfish alien was called Itty, and has since mature into a giant alien cluster, met his mate, and reproduced.

Proty on the other hand was a blob of protoplasm from Antares, who gave up its life to revive Lightning Lad when he died. Proty II was also a blob, but stopped being considered a pet during the Giffen/Levitz years when the definition of sentience in the United Planets changed. He ended up as a holo-cameraman and worked with RJ Brande to free the Antarean people. Bit of a metaphor for the change in DC's opinion of having "super-pets," actually.

14:42 / 12.02.07

Didn't he replace Lightning Lad at some point?

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

14:59 / 12.02.07

Depending on which continuity you follow, when Proty died to save Lightning Lad, it was actually Proty replacing the deceased LL. If my memory is right, this was confirmed during the 5 year-later period, and was retroactively reversed during one of the timestream switches prior to Zero Hour.

18:48 / 12.02.07

There was an Aqua-girl who was blonde? That's not Aqualad's girfriend (whose name I forget now), is it? I didn't know there was ever an Aquagirl prior to the current sort-of-Aquagirl from 'Sub Diego'.

"Itty"....yikes. Sidekick soon to debut: "Bitty." [insert collective groan]

20:11 / 12.02.07

There was an Aqua-girl who was blonde? That's not Aqualad's girfriend (whose name I forget now), is it? I didn't know there was ever an Aquagirl prior to the current sort-of-Aquagirl from 'Sub Diego'.

So many Aquagirls, so little time.

First, there was Lisa (the blonde in the picture above), who wore virtually the same costume as Aquaman and only appeared once.

Then there was Selena, who became Aquagirl to impress her boyfriend, but was also short lived.

Then came Tula. Or as I like to call her: the Aquagirl who stuck around. She's been around since the late 60s and is the one you remember palling around with Aqualad.

And lately there's Lorena, the San Diego cop, who--it is suggested--may soon make the jump from Aquagirl to Aquawoman.

18:07 / 13.02.07

cool, thanks for the info. I now fully expect some writer to pluck Lisa or Selena out of comics obscurity and have a huge Aquagirl vs. Aquagirl storyline...to claim the mantle of AQUAGIRL!!!!!!!!! Or something.

18:54 / 13.02.07

How did you get my scripts? Damn it.

New story: I'll just imagine a grim and gritty future....

22:11 / 13.02.07

there's a nice bit in the mike allred SOLO book where zook, proty and bat-mite all crash the teen titans' party downstairs from the doom patrol's apartment. it's cute.

yeah, sorry. i knew the itty thing. just tired and wasting time at work.

NO REALLY! I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROTY AND ITTY! DO YOU STILL LOVE ME?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:14 / 13.02.07

Check out the Bizarro Comics Anthologies, I'm pretty sure Zook and all the comedy pet sidekicks feature in one of the stories, if not more than one. Plus, there's a great one about Kal-El's rocket being a Kryptonian Ark.

09:03 / 20.02.07

Has Bruce Wayne ever started his own police force?

It seems he has the money to do it - and would make sense to cut out the corruption of the GCPD - why not have a tierd police force that had beat cops taking care of muggings and street crime, and then move up to organised crime and at the top a special task force to take care of the 'super' villians?

09:48 / 20.02.07

No, but his Earth-2 counterpart DID eventually become commissioner.

14:22 / 20.02.07

And the Batman of Kingdom Come had an Army of Bat-Robots patrolling Gotham, protecting the citizens

14:23 / 20.02.07

Isn't that essentially what all the side-heroes are, though? For a while, Huntress was, semi unauthorized, but the rest? They're Batman's deputies. They're the Bat-funded G-Force, from Robin to Batgirl and y'know, that Harold guy.

Oh, and to clarify on superpets: Whose got'em right now? Ace was with Batman post-Crisis from the time he fought an old magicky Indian cult thingy to... NML? Somebody told me Supergirl slept with the new Super-Horse, but she's not Supergirl no more. GL's all "I know how to wear a jacket like a man!" at the moment and clearly cannot be bothered by little Itty. But he should be. Just like how Batmite is best when pitted against Bat-Asshole and not the smiley, lounging at the pool with three supermodels and then jetting off to throw a batarang three feet wide at the Riddler hairychested lovegod with pointy ears.

Hal: I wear a jacket like my daddy! I am truly a man!

Kyle: Dude, you're psychotic! I was there! You killed stuff and then we had coffee!

Star Sapphire: (Specter was sexier. He looked kinda like Dream from 'Sandman' but naked in a green cape. That was the sexy.)

Guy: Hal. Bitty's following you.

Hal: I am a man! I'm the goddammed Green Lantern MAN! I can fly plane and wear a jacket! Chicks dig me!

SS: I'm pining for the Specter.

Guy: Hal. Feed Bitty. Some of us have bars to run.

Right, then. Who in the DCU can provide me that?

14:50 / 20.02.07

The only super-pets extant in the DCU at this point are Krypto (of course) and Zook... technically.

14:50 / 20.02.07

Over in Birds of Prey, Gail Simone is setting up a new team for the BoP, with Big Barda, the obscure 70s heroine Judomaster, Gypsy, the new female Manhunter, Zinda, the leftover Blackhawk pilot, and Misfit, the silly wanna-be Batgirl. (there are a few sophomoric but still funny jokes about Barda's weapon, the "Mega-Rod.") It is an odd mix of characters, and I think Simone is still finding the vibe of this new BoP group.

The 'villain' of this arc, among others, is the new Spy Smasher, who is supposed to be a woman named Katarina who Babs was friends with long ago, either in college and/or during Barbara's Suicide Squad tenure (under writer Jon Ostrander, who first created Barbara-Gordon-as-Oracle). Spy Smasher is formerly a 1950/early 60s character who hung out with Captain Marvel, Bulletman and Bulletwoman, etc. in the Fawcett Comics days. This new Spy Smasher works in the anti-terrorism dept. of the US Gov't and is after Oracle since Oracle breaks many laws, hacks into gov't programs/satellites, and generally bends the rule of law for her own brand of vigilantism (a plotline which has showed up before in the pages of BoP).

There was a great subplot in this where Spy Smasher tipped off Lois Lane to the fact that Barbara Gordon might be hijacking gov't computers & satellite networks for her own uses, and Lois goes to interview Babs (apparently having no idea that Babs is Oracle and on the side of the angels). The conversational brinksmanship that ensures is yet another example of why Gail Simone rocks. That's in issue 102, by the way, if you want to check it out.

My question is: is there any actual precedent for this Katarina woman (for those who read the John Ostrander Suicide Squad, which I never did read)? Or is this someone Gail Simone has created and retroactively introduced as an old friend/colleague of Babs?

01:59 / 21.02.07

chubby the choona is a super-pet...

03:00 / 21.02.07

Has Bruce Wayne ever started his own police force?

Batwoman (a driven Barbara Gordon) of the super-rocking Elseworld's Finest turned Gotham into a walled police state and kept tabs on everything via her own O.R.A.C.L.E. system. It was ace.

07:17 / 21.02.07

chubby the choona is a super-pet...

A super-context pet.

09:56 / 21.02.07

Katarina is new. But her last name suggests a connection to the original.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

05:48 / 22.02.07

Was 'The Killing Joke' ever cannon? 'The Death of Jason Todd' was the Joker's first appearance after crippling Barbara, as a gangster handily reminds Joker. Was 'aKJ' written specially to cover that event or did Moore simply use an event that had already happened?

And what happened to Gordon's baby son? Did Superboy punch the universe until he was forgotten about?

06:26 / 22.02.07

Killing Joke is definitely canon, it's definitely been referenced in Birds of Prey somewhere, and also there's a flashback in the original Hush series showing the shooting.

However...the origin story for Joker may not necessarily be true.

09:26 / 22.02.07

i wonder if alan moores 'if i do have to have a past i prefer it to be multiple choice' was having fun at continuity's expense as well as a fair characterisation of the jokers personality?

definitely canon and definitely should have been published as part of the run of batbooks rather than as a 1 shot as it is good but not 'prestige graffic novel' great.

12:11 / 22.02.07

Gordon's son is living with his ex-wife (also named Barbara) in Chicago, as of the last reports.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:00 / 22.02.07

But was Babs shot in an issue of the comic that is what is being referred to in 'Death of Robin' or at the time did they have an asterisk and say "Batwoman no more?! See 'The Killing Joke' to see what happened true believers!"?

13:46 / 24.02.07

Re: Hypertime. I think some of the geekier members of our community may be interested in this. It's an old interview with Mark Waid talking about inventing Hypertime with none other than the God of all comics hisself. It's fun to think that this concept is finally clawing its way back into the DCU mainstream after some 9 years of being forgotten about by editorial (though not by me, I love this story, and am geeked out by how well it syncs in with infinite crisis - but enough with my fatbeard continuity wanking). Also, does anyone know anything about this Superboy hypertime story that Karl Kesel was supposed to have written?

14:28 / 24.02.07

Kesel's Hypertime Superboy story was in issues 51 - 54, as I recall. It had Superboy strap himself to some huge particle/wave generation that would shake a normal human into pieces - for some reason, he had to ride the waves of Hypertime to achieve something/find something (I don't recall what), and he ended up encountering various times and realities in the DCU, mostly Superboy-related obviously. He came face to face with an evil future alternate version of himself (don'cha hate when that happens?) called Black Zero, who was used as a villain in many Kesel-written Superboy issues and may have even been used by subsequent writers. (Kesel himself created Black Zero, who I think took his name from an ancient Kryptonian terrorist faction.)

It was a fun story - too bad Kesel's run isn't collected in paperback because they were some seriously damn fun comics. Kesel is a huge Kirby fan and also made sure to fit in lots of Kamandi references/stuff/homages in his run. Well-illustrated by Tom Grummett and inked by Kesel, when Grummett was in his prime IMHO.

10:55 / 25.02.07

Is anyone reading Superman Confidential? And if yes, is it worth getting? I love Cooke's stuff, and Tim Sale, although a little hit and miss for me, can do very pure and beautiful artwork - I haven't heard anything about this book, which is on about issue 3 or 4 now. Has anyone followed it?

12:25 / 28.02.07

Vampires.

DC Universe.

Vampires.

DC Universe.

Whassupwidat?

ahem

By which I mean; are there vampires in the DC Universe? Is there a Dracula/Dracula surrogate?

13:31 / 28.02.07

There was a mediocre vampire story in a Dan Jurgens-written Superman issue in the early 90s...(illustrated by Ian Churchill, as I recall, where Lois was almost bitten by the Dracula-analog and such). To my knowledge, in general, there doesn't seem to be much vamp. activity in the DCU.

Or does someone have additional info. on this...?

13:38 / 28.02.07

Oh, and I only bought Superman Confidential #1, and was not further inspired to pick up the rest. Sale's art is fine - it's the usual work from him, pretty good and in some places great, but the weird anatomy/faces of Sale bugs me every once in a while.

The writing? It's ok, nothing too great. I found it to be far below Darwyn Cooke's usual excellence. Pretty standard stuff, with few clever touches. However, Cooke's device of having Kryptonite be 'sentient' or at least have a narrative voice (while not literally seeming to say that the rock is REALLY sentient, just more of a literary device for us, the reader, to experience life from the perspective of Kryptonite) seems very wonky to me and I'm surprised anyone at DC editorial ever approved it.

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