Dreading Seeing DC Characters That You Like

Remember when you were happy when you saw a character that you like show up in a DC comic book for the first time in awhile?

Wasn't that nice?

For instance, let's say that you like Adam Strange...it was cool seeing him show up in Justice League of America for a storyline.



Or if you liked the Fawcett heroes, it was cool seeing them have an appearance in a JLA story. Later on, when Byrne did Action Comics as a team-up book, you could say, "Hey, it's the Demon! Haven't seen the Demon in awhile! Cool!"



or "Ooooh...the Metal Men! Nifty!"



Don't get me wrong, even then, there was always the CHANCE that you would not be pleased at seeing the character show up. Batwoman, Kathy Kane, showed up for the first time in a long while just to be in a late 70s issue of Detective Comics. That was unfortunate. And I do not believe that any fans of the Atomic Knight were pleased at seeing them show up in an early 80s DC Comics Presents, as writers Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn decided (why, I do not know) to update them for the 80s in a real serious manner, which really seemed to mishandle the fun adventures that the Atomic Knights had.



They rode around giant dalmations with radiation-proof suits of old fashioned armor! That does not need to be reconciled with the 1983 DC Universe!!!

However, still, for the most part, if a character that you liked showed up, it was a good thing. You got to see a character who hasn't showed up in awhile, the writer got to use a character that they liked, and maybe you got to see a test case for an expanded role for that character. Even up to the late 80s/early 90s, we would be treated to stories like Looker showing up in the pages of Detective Comics to help Batman out (yes, Batman actually asked his superhero friend from the Outsiders for a favor...POST BATMAN movie!!!) or Rex the Wonder Dog show up to help out the Flash.

By the mid-90s, the "happy" aspect of seeing these characters began to be tempered by the "unhappy" aspect. Classic Brave and the Bold and Suicide Squad character Nemesis showed up in Catwoman just to get killed off so DC could use the name on another character (who never showed up, by the way).



Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Flemind collected a bunch of interesting characters and had them slaughtered to make Eclipso look tougher (didn't help Eclipso much, as the book lasted only six more issues).



James Robinson asked for one available character to off to make Starman's nemesis, the Mist, look really bad. Dan Raspler told him, "Why stop there?" and gave him three former Justice Leaguers to kill off.



However, at the same time, this movement was tempered by writers like Karl Kesel, who would have the Challengers of the Unknown show up for fun,



or writers like Peter David and Tom Peyer, who would use the history of DC to spotlight various characters that they were interested in.



Heck, past the opening "killathon," JSA served this purpose as well.

But not anymore.

Now, if you are a fan of a non-famous DC character, you really, really, really, REALLY do NOT want that character showing up in a comic book right now. It is now to the point where, when a lesser-known character shows up, all you are doing is just crossing your fingers that they survive the issue. You know they will be maimed at least, but maybe...just MAYbe, they can survive the issue.

When Rocket Red showed up in OMAC, did anyone think he was making it out of the comic alive? The moment Dr. Light II showed up in last week's Green Arrow, I was just spending time thinking of HOW they would maim her, and whether they would actually KILL her or not (SPOILER: They didn't. They DID kill off Spoiler in War Games, as well as Orpheus, by the way, now that I mention "spoiler"...hehe).

So if there's anything that has really stuck in my mind with DC's recent comics is this: Please do not let any of my remaining favorite characters appear in Infinite Crisis!! I will not even tell you who they are, for fear that will jinx it! By the way, I see that the Freedom Fighters show up in the first issue...

Here's the question - which one of the Freedom Fighters WON'T die?