Franchise Original Sin: Difference between revisions

* A lot of the criticisms of the current Kid Flash, Wallace West, are almost the exact same that Bart Allen got when he became Kid Flash during the 2000's [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]] run, primarily Wallace's constant complaining about his daddy issues, his frequent hitting on his female teammates, and his taking the place of '''the''' Flash, Wally West. However, Bart had several factors that made these flaws verya easylot toless missnoticeable. First, Bart's promotion to Kid Flash was due to [[Executive Meddling]], over the objections of writer Geoff Johns and Bart's creator, Mark Waid. Tellingly, Johns took a jab at the change in the run's seventhsixth issue and quietly demoted Bart down to being in the background, rarely giving Bart prominent roles. Second, Bart had expressed interest in Rose Wilson, and did have internal thoughts showing attraction to his female teammates, but the amount of times he did this was rare and he always treated the females with respect. Third, Bart did occasionally mention that he didn't have a father, but he often talked more about his abusive mother and the mentions were so rare that it would be extremely easy to miss. Wallace by contrast, was explicitly written as a biracial Wally West, had his daddy issues turned into a central focus of his character, and he often had a tumultuous love life, having a brief, but widely criticized romance with Raven, and later on, heavily sexualizing his female teammates in an audio diary, which was made into a major subplot. With all of these traits made a major part of Wallace's character, and none of the factors that made it more forgivable with Bart, Wallace fell severely into the [[Replacement Scrappy]] dump, to the point it was not until recently that he began to start getting more positive depictions.

* DC has recently fallen under harsh criticism for how the Batfamily treated Damian Wayne after Alfred Pennyworth's death, depicting the Bat family treating him as a villain in waiting, being highly neglectful and failing to comfort him after Alfred's death, which Damian blamed himself for which contributed to a time where Damian nearly became a villain. Many of these problems have their roots in the [[Injustice 2|Injustice]] franchise. In that franchise, Damian and the Bat family went through a similar arc, where Damian accidentally killed Dick Grayson and was pushed into becoming a villain. However, while it is still depicted negatively, there were several points that prevented the Injustice franchise from becoming too egregious. First the Injustice timeline was an alternate universe, not meant to be taken as canon. Second, Damian did accidentally kill Dick Grayson, meaning it was his fault and he afterward became a villain fully of his own will. Third, Damian in the Injustice franchise had hardly any interaction with any of the Batfamily outside of Bruce, which meant their own opinions on Damian were never shared and the issue was between Bruce and Damian, which meant that Bruce, who already had a history of bad behavior that readers were aware of, was often the issue, not the Batfamily as a whole. By very stark contrast, Alfred's death and the Batfamily's horrible mistreatment of Damian occurred in the main universe, meaning it was supposed to be canon. Second, Alfred was killed right in front of Damian when he was trying to rescue him, which meant it was not Damian's fault at all. Thirdly, when Damian runs out of the funeral for Alfred in tears telling everyone he knows they blame him for it, none of the Batfamily go after Damian and tell him otherwise, behavior that was predictable for Bruce {Dick Grayson does not count, as he was under an alternate personality at the time), but completely out of character for characters like Barbara, Jason, and Tim {Tim and Jason have rivalries with Damian, but Jason in particular would usually never let a child carry around that belief). Barbara is especially bad as she confronts Bruce for letting Damian run off and yells at him to go after Damian and tell him that he isn't at fault, but she makes no effort to do the same thing herself, making her come off as a massive hypocrite. Not surprisingly, the entire event has led even some of Damian's most harshest critics to have a strong [[Alassense Poorof Scrappy]]symapthy towards him considering many felt the Batfamily went way too far, with many even wanting a storyline where the Batfamily has to confront how badly they handled Damian's guilt and seeing him harshly call them out on how he treated them.