Dork Age/Comic Books/The DCU


 * The 1980s "Justice League Detroit" incarnation of the Justice League of America. It got rid of almost all of the previous Justice Leaguers and replaced them with hip, angsty teenagers in an attempt to rip off DC's own Teen Titans. The run ended with the team being destroyed by one of the "real" Justice League's more powerful foes, with some of the cast dying. Years later, when it became "safe" to talk about the period again, the team was sometimes cast as "lovable losers". For example, a flashback showed that during Crisis on Infinite Earths (an event that changed the DC Universe on a grand scale and destroyed entire planets of characters), one of the Detroit Leaguers was too busy admiring the breasts of a superheroine to listen when the plot was being explained, and subsequently went through the entire event clueless.
 * The '80s version of the Doom Patrol was another attempt to profit off Teen Titans and X-Men-style angst. Probably the only reason people know it exists now is that the surreal and successful Grant Morrison run is known to have started with issue #19, so there must have been something in the previous 18 issues.
 * Pictured on the main page is Superman Blue. For those who missed this (or who have it nicely repressed): for a thankfully short time in the comics, Superman was given a major overhaul, and turned into a bright blue Energy Being -- and later split off into another energy being, Superman Red -- and comics covers said "he would be different forever." Massive protest resulted in an Author's Saving Throw and he was changed back.

The whole idea came from a one-shot Silver Age "imaginary" (read, non-canon) story published in 1963. In the story, Superman is accidentally split into two Supermen with a hundred times the intelligence of the original. The twin Supermen successfully enlarge Kandor, recreate Krypton, produce an "anti-evil" ray which cures not only comic book villains, but Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev as well, and finally, the existence of two of them means that one can marry Lana and one Lois, ending the love triangle. Why they thought it would be a good idea to re-visit this in the freakin' '90s is anyone's guess.
 * Here's a guess: in the late '80s and '90s, that "imaginary tale" from the '60s was cited in virtually every single interview with a comics professional in any capacity, to the point that Wizard Magazine must have had a "The Strange Case of Superman Red/Superman Blue" macro programmed into every computer in their employ. That story was getting almost as much press as "The Death of Superman" (which sparked a lot of those interviews in the first place), and DC had been looking for some time to milk that particular cow.
 * Of course to some, Superman Blue was an improvement over Superman's hideous mullet hairstyle he wore from 1993-1996.
 * Pretty much every single time Chuck Austen gets his claws on a mainstream comic, one of these results (skip to the Marvel section for what he did to Uncanny X-Men). A particularly egregious one, though, was probably his run on Action Comics, where he seemed to really want Superman to be a violent asshole somewhat like the Golden Age Batman. And he was loudly adamant that Clark Kent should dump Lois Lane because she was a gold-digging, power-hungry whore who was only sleeping with him because he was Superman... even though Lois fell in love with and became engaged to Clark long before she ever found out he was Superman. This led to loads of Derailing Love Interests in favor of Lana Lang, who came off as a pathetic sociopathic Stalker with a Crush and made the elder Kents into Jerkass Meddling Parents. Needless to say, the entire run was hustled into Canon Discontinuity faster than a speeding bullet when Austen got booted off the title.
 * This article argues that Superman Grounded was a thankfully short-lived Dork Age. It's generally considered to have been salvaged when Chris Roberson took over and shifted the story from Superman Walking the Earth and lecturing people to Walking the Earth and saving lives.
 * Black Canary's infamous late-80s "Jumpsuit and Headband" costume, complete with bizarre wing epaulets and pirate boots. A later run of the character in Action Comics Weekly even featured her back in the original costume, burning the jumpsuit and grinning wickedly. Another issue of Birds of Prey featured her horror at seeing scores of action figures of herself in this costume... and then emphasized the point by saying the reason the toyshop had so many was that they couldn't get rid of them.
 * Dinah entered a second Dork Age when she married Green Arrow, left the Birds of Prey and was reduced to a Faux Action Girl and Damsel in Distress of the Green Arrow books. Ironically, she was the leader of the Justice League at this time.
 * Wonder Woman has gone up and down over the years. In the 1970s, DC tried having Wonder Woman depowered and make her a feminist hero like Emma Peel of The Avengers. This move backfired completely, considering it angered real feminists like Gloria Steinem, who denounced it as a profoundly sexist move to remove the power of one of the greatest female superheroes. As a result, DC scrambled to repower Wonder Woman as fast as possible, although it took the Post-Crisis Re Boot by George Perez years later to get the spirit of the character right (despite what he did to the other Amazons to get her there).
 * Superhero Tim Drake (Robin to Batman) and his girlfriend Stephanie Brown have suffered this to some degree. Tim was the only Robin who didn't have both parents dead, and tended to be more well-adjusted with a complex personal life. Of course, this had to be fixed, so Tim's father and best friends were killed to make him Darker and Edgier, and so he lost his entire supporting cast. This led to a very boring and angsty run by Bill Willingham, and him becoming a huge wangster in all DC Books. In addition, Tim's Badass Normal, fun and lighthearted girlfriend Stephanie Brown (the Spoiler) replaced him as Robin briefly, which looked like it could be interesting; however, it only lasted for three issues and she was then written to cause a gang war, be tortured by a villain called Black Mask in sexualized positions, get shot, blamed for everything and then die... all to make sure Tim got angst and Batman remained a loner. Tim promptly forgot Stephanie ever existed, but the fans didn't, and raised a big stink about her treatment.

Original Robin writer and creator of Stephanie, Chuck Dixon, started writing the title thanks to this and revealed Steph had never really died and is now back and kicking ass as her usual lighthearted self. Tim was brought in a less self-destructive direction as well, admitting he'd been in a bad place, apologizing for his behavior, and reconciling with Steph, leading to much rejoicing. Dixon also brought back Tim's geeky best friend Ives, albeit with a bit more Wangst himself than he had originally.
 * And then Steph became Batgirl. There was, um, more rejoicing. (Except among some Cass fans.)
 * Speaking of Cass, due to an editorial mandate, Batgirl Cassandra Cain turned evil after her series was canceled. During this time, she became significantly more articulate (the character was supposed to be illiterate, dyslexic, and almost mute) and wangsty. Even worse, DC then went and handed her miniseries to the same writer who turned her evil. He not only failed to fix the problems he created, but added even more. Fans are still skeptical about her future.

Since she's been replaced as Batgirl by Stephanie, it's pretty safe to say that this one's going to be a fairly lengthy Dork Age until the smoke clears. Although to clarify, Stephanie's turn as Batgirl is not itself a Dork Age, being relatively well written -- the mechanism of Cassandra's sidelining is the dork part. Usually when one of the Bat-identities changes hands, it's with the implication that the previous holder is graduating or being promoted to a more important role, not being discarded like garbage. However, since then, Cass was eventually appointed Batman's representative in Hong Kong, under the name "Blackbat". Not the starring role she had before, but at least there's a place for her.

As of the New 52 reboot, Stephanie has lost the title of Batgirl to the original, Barbara Gordon. It's a toss-up whether this will be a Dork Age or not (the new series is by well-respected writer Gail Simone, but Steph got the shaft and uncrippling Babs has Unfortunate Implications), but it's definitely not helping the Broken Base that's developed. Reviews so far have been "average to good, just not as good as what it replaced". Make of that what you will.
 * The Flash's revamps in the past few years have been very poorly received, and for good reason. The first problem was Fun Personified Kid Hero Kid Flash being hit with forced aging and, worst of all, increasing amounts of Wangst, finally resulting in the decidedly Not-Fun adult that starred in the first The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive revamp. Both series and character proved to be short-lived, as both were unexpectedly killed off in issue #13. This resulted in the return of not only the previous, popular Flash, Wally West, but the return of popular '90s Flash writer Mark Waid. The Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, would be revamped by the return of popular '00s Flash writer Geoff Johns. This has met with mixed results, with the book being frequently late and complaints of slow pacing. Johns has since departed the relaunched Flash comic. The new, re-re-re-booted Flash book is focusing exclusively on Barry (Wally? Never heard of him.) Oh yeah, and Barry and Iris West aren't married in the reboot. Meanwhile, Kid Flash has come back to life and is in Teen Titans, which means at least he's been spared this nonsense.
 * During The Silver Age of Comic Books, "helpful alien"-type characters were becoming popular with writers, with Superman battling Mr. Mxyzptlk and Batman putting up with Bat-Mite. So the decision was made to Retcon the lightning bolt that gave Barry Allen his powers, revealing that the imp-like "heavenly help-mate" Mopee had been its true source. Cue massive backlash in the "letters to the editor" page. So hated was this development that it has never been mentioned since, at least in-continuity. However, once enough time passed, it became a curious bit of nostalgia, and has shown up several times in out-of-continuity works like Ambush Bug.
 * The year-long, weekly book Countdown was originally promoted as "the spine of the DCU", for its pivotal importance to the DC Universe. About halfway through, it was even renamed Countdown to Final Crisis, in order to promote the Crisis Crossover that would follow. However, Countdown became increasingly unpopular with fans thanks to its wide-sweeping character changes. One of the most glaring examples is the sweet, innocent Mary Marvel, who inexplicably finds herself abandoned by her usually caring family. She asks for power from constant adversary Black Adam, and he actually gives it to her, the power turning her usual white costume black. Then she decides to go evil, partnering with the villainous Eclipso. (Note that we've been told that it's not Adam's power that makes her go evil. Bad Powers, Bad People is averted, but at the price of logic or proper characterization.)

Having learned the heavy price of her Face Heel Turn, she eventually reverts to good... only to almost immediately accept Big Bad Darkseid's offer of power and thus go evil again. (And if you liked that, look into the group of heroes who doomed an entire alternate Earth to the ravages of a major disease and merely walked away, among other unlikable things...)

Then there is also the related mini-series, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew: Final Ark, where the senior editors order the furry heroes to be exiled from their world and horrifically trapped as regular animals on the primary Earth. In response to fan outcry, DC has recently downplayed this story's importance, even disconnecting it from Final Crisis by making the true lead-in a comic called DC Universe #0. Thus "the spine of the DCU" became "the appendix"...
 * The brief period at DC Comics where the Blackhawks became superheroes. The writer hung a lampshade on this in JLA: Year One; all of the Blackhawks put on their old, proper costumes with a general feeling of relief and an attitude of "What were we thinking?"
 * A Supergirl writer tried to make her Darker and Edgier, but just gave 75% of the readers a giant headache. Another writer tries to do a Author's Saving Throw, but that gets the other 25% of the readers angry at this because they like the Darker and Edgier Supergirl -- creating an Unpleasable Fanbase.
 * Supergirl's Post-Crisis life is basically defined by her Dork Ages, due to DC Comics wanting to leave Superman as the true last son of Krypton... there's been maybe a good half-dozen different versions of the character, with increasingly convoluted designs and backstories (let alone trying to fit in where Power Girl went), eventually leading to the reintroduction of the essentially Pre-Crisis "Superman's Cousin" version of the character... for now.
 * When Batman's back was broken by Bane, Azrael replaced him, essentially becoming a Darker and Edgier version of Batman who ended up using lethal force. Very few people liked him, although arguably they weren't supposed to, a la John Walker as Captain America. Word of God confirmed that AzBats was a giant Take That to readers who were crying for The Punisher-As-Batman. It needs to be pointed out that AzBats, the Darker and Edgier Dark Knight(!!), was ultimately defeated by blinding light -- a surprisingly subtle Take That on the part of the writers, that. AzBats was immediately followed by an even more gritty, but awesome, version of Bruce Wayne (the Kelley Jones/Doug Moench run).
 * AzBats was introduced in issue #500, too. People will be remembering him for a while as a cautionary tale.
 * Batman suffered a massive Dork Age during most of The Silver Age of Comic Books. The campy '60s Batman TV show starring Adam West was actually an Adaptation Distillation of the stories published during this period, and was far superior to its source material because it didn't take itself seriously. This was the ONLY period when Batman wasn't the "dark creature of the night" most know him as. His first appearances in The Golden Age of Comic Books had him as a gothic figure; he was brought back to this in The Bronze Age of Comic Books, became really dark in The Dark Age of Comic Books, and flip-flopped between "mellowed-out" and "hardly any better than Azrael" during The Modern Age of Comic Books.
 * Firestorm, under the watch of John Ostrander in the late '80s, became Darker and Edgier, leading up to the big revelation... that the character was meant to be Earth's fire elemental. Oh, and the power plant sabotage that brought Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein together in the first place? Not an accident. In an attempt to make Firestorm's origin more deep or something (see also: the first of the JMS/Quesada Spider-Man offenses listed in the Marvel section), it was later explained that Martin Stein was always meant to be Firestorm/the fire elemental. Ronnie just got in the way (which was "rectified" in Firestorm (vol. 2) #100, when Stein replaces Ronnie and Mikhail "Pozhar" Arkadin in the Firestorm Matrix).

This was likely an attempt to tie Firestorm into the Swamp Thing mythos, with a similar revelation having happened to that character -- rather than a brilliant scientist turned into a plant-monster by a Freak Lab Accident, he was actually a mystical plant elemental, who as a result of said Freak Lab Accident, ended up thinking he was said brilliant scientist. DC went on to incorporate a number of characters into similar roles (for example, in addition to Firestorm, Red Tornado was revealed to be a mystical air elemental, rather than a robot who could manipulate air via superscience). Sadly, what worked for a horror-based Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore lead to mass-dorkageness in Lighter and Softer works written by anyone slightly less talented than Alan Moore.
 * In the '90s, Guy Gardner had his own solo series. After losing two separate rings to a Parallax-influenced Hal Jordan, he rechristened himself "Warrior" and somehow became the last descendant of an alien race, which gave him the power to turn his arms into guns... for some reason. Writers ignore this era at their peril, though: despite the gawdaful concept (apparently submitted as a joke), and equally bad '90s art, Beau Smith's run on Warrior is responsible for much of Guy's development from Jerkass to Boisterous Bruiser.
 * The Spectre had a storyline about Uncle Sam, starting with the basis that, as he was the Anthropomorphic Personification of America, he hadn't always been Uncle Sam, instead being the Minuteman, or Brother Jonathan, or split in two as Billy Yank and Johnny Reb, depending on the era. All very reasonable. Somehow, that led to him being reinvented as The Patriot, who wore a white bodysuit with red stripes on one shoulder and a blue patch with stars on the other, and a golden space helmet with an eagle on top. Eventually somebody realized that, by their own rules, he should keep being Uncle Sam until a new "Spirit of America" image took root naturally, and he reverted to his old look.
 * Captain Marvel and the rest of the Marvel Family underwent one not too long ago. Essentially, Dan DiDio has systematically destroyed everything related to the actual heroes of the Marvel Family, while letting their villains like Black Adam, Dr. Sivana, Mr. Mind and Captain Nazi prosper. Shazam was killed off, Captain Marvel had to assume the mantle of Wizard (which effectively removed him from the DCU, trapping him in the Rock of Eternity), and every Marvel not named Black Adam (because the DC writing staff has a massive mancrush on him) was depowered. Then Freddy Freeman, the former Captain Marvel Junior, then undergoes a series of trials that involves him saying that he blames Captain Marvel for ruining his life, taking the name Shazam as a code name, and dedicating himself to fighting only mystical threats, because why would a person with the powers of the gods fight crime and save people from mundane threats? (Answer: Because it's the right, heroic thing to do, YOU MORON.)

Then, poor Mary Marvel gets turned evil, redeems herself, but then willingly chooses evil again. Then Captain Marvel gets de-powered, he gets turned evil along with Mary, the Wizard Shazam comes back and depowers EVERYBODY, turning them good again; however, he then claims that Billy had failed him, turns Black Adam to stone, and leaves in a huff. Meanwhile, Freddy Freeman hasn't done anything even remotely relevant in over a year, suffice to say, and fans of the characters are NOT happy with the situation.
 * Ironically, while the last few years have been horrible for the characters in the comics, they've been doing very well in other media, with the classic Captain Marvel appearing in video games (Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe) and cartoons (Batman the Brave And The Bold, DC Showcase - Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam, Young Justice).
 * Currently, the New 52 reboot is providing some hope, as it's restarting from scratch and includes some well-received Canon Immigrants from the Flashpoint event. But fans are still wary of some Darker and Edgier elements that have come up, so we'll see if the Dork Age is truly over yet.
 * During the DC Universe's One Year Later event, someone on the editing staff decided that the Catwoman comic series needed to be Younger and Hipper -- and the best way to do that, they decided, was to replace the main character entirely. Selina Kyle had a daughter with Sam Bradley Jr. (much to the upset of many Selina/Bruce shippers), and retired to motherhood before passing on the Catwoman mantle to sidekick Holly. The fans were not pleased, and it wasn't long before DC sent in Zatanna to magically retcon it all away -- and it wasn't fully retconned until the New 52, where it was confirmed that Catwoman's daughter had been wiped from existence.