Dear DC, we want Scandal back.

[Hugin]

Also, I think it's an exaggeration to suggest that the Secret Six were the only morally ambiguous heroes in the old DCU... which ignores Checkmate, the Suicide Squad, Agent Chase, Catwoman, and plenty of other folks on the DCU moral continuum.

The Secret Six was a terrific book... but they weren't completely unique on that count.

But how many of those had their own ongoing when SS was being published? Some of them were recurring antagonists, but Gotham City Sirens is the only one I can think of that had a character you named as the protagonist.

[Morrison_Lad]

But how many of those had their own ongoing when SS was being published? Some of them were recurring antagonists, but Gotham City Sirens is the only one I can think of that had a character you named as the protagonist.

OK, I'm sober, so I have no excuse, but I'm fairly sure that "Catwoman" was being published while SS was. Also, wasn't there a "Checkmate" mini? (I know, you were asking about on-goings.)

[RobStaeger]

But how many of those had their own ongoing when SS was being published? Some of them were recurring antagonists, but Gotham City Sirens is the only one I can think of that had a character you named as the protagonist.

I think Catwoman had been canceled at the time, but there was Gotham City Sirens, Titans (led by Deathstroke), Action Comics (starring Luthor), and THUNDER Agents and Freedom Fighters as sometimes-shady government ops agents. Green Arrow was an outlaw, I believe (on the run for murdering Prometheus, right?), Ray Palmer was a torturer (again, Prometheus), and Arsenal was killing junkies with cats.

Plenty of moral ambiguity to go around.

In my opinion, Secret Six handled it best, and most entertainingly. But there were certainly other books on that side of the fence.

[Hugin]

OK, I'm sober, so I have no excuse, but I'm fairly sure that "Catwoman" was being published while SS was. Also, wasn't there a "Checkmate" mini? (I know, you were asking about on-goings.)

Could have been, I was reading Catwoman in GCS so I didn't care about other books with her. As for Checkmate, I think I heard something about that, but I focused on ongoings because it's a guaranteed source for whatever you're looking for. Minis come and go.

[Morrison_Lad]

Could have been, I was reading Catwoman in GCS so I didn't care about other books with her. As for Checkmate, I think I heard something about that, but I focused on ongoings because it's a guaranteed source for whatever you're looking for. Minis come and go.

Yeah, just checked:

The last of vol. 3 of "Catwoman" was in August 2008.

The first "Secret Six" book debuted in September 2008.

The first "GCS" issue debuted in June 2009.

So, you were right. I could have sworn that "Catwoman" was still going on. See? This is the problem with being sober!

[Little Scandal]

Scandal is a character that Gail knows and has invested time in pre-FP, for that reason alone I would trust her to stay true to the core of the character in a DCnU re-design.

She should be the only one to write a Scandal story/mini. Like you said, Gail is the only one that knows Scandal inside out. A part of me is afraid that if Scandal does come back and another writer takes a go at it, they will inevitably ruin who Scandal is. And I really don't want that.

[Kingsmythe]

The thing with "Secret Six" though was that they were villains with their own sort of skewed moral code. They did bad things for sometimes bad reasons but also sometimes good reasons.


But have you SEEN the current DCU?!

Holy gods a big chunk of the HEROES now fit the bill for what the Six WERE!!

Gail's writing was and remains brilliant but what made the Six stand out before was that they were a different kind of animal than the rest of DC's output. The only character who was similar was Jonah Hex.

That isn't the case anymore and so, despite Gail's deft handling, from DC's point of view I can see them asking what they get with the Six that they don't get with any of their other teams and outside of a potential polyamorous relationship I can't see anything unique anymore.

Which saddens me.

Because I LIKED the fact that the Six were all warped, twisted, weird anti-heroes amidst an ocean of either outright skull-fucking villains on one side and heroes on the other side.

But when almost all your heroes become anti-heroes where is there left for your true anti-heroes to go?

I agree with a lot of this. The DCNU is a much darker, harsher place, with body counts and massive destruction everywhere. I don't think they are all antiheroes now, but between some horrid writing choices, ugly costume redesigns, bizarre new takes on characters, plus a LOT of the heroes acting like much darker versions of themselves, I see exactly what Stress means.

Personally, any world where Superman bullies confessions out of people and grabs normals by the throat saying "Talk before I won't let you," is not a world I hold out a lot of hope for heroism in.

And before someone starts the song and dance about either "those were early issues" or "it was like that in the Golden Age," I wasn't reading comics in the Golden Age (I bet about no one here was), and the problem with billing something as both a fresh start and a jumping on point is that YES, some people will hold you accountable for how you start out presenting your characters. I got all the #1's, returned most of them, and did something I thought I would never do: this dark twisted world got me to drop Birds of Prey, a long time favorite. I gave it 8 issues and couldn't it anymore.

[Morrison_Lad]

Yeah, but you can see where Morrison is going with "Action," right?

[Kingsmythe]

Yeah, but you can see where Morrison is going with "Action," right?

No, I can't. When you bill something as a "jumping on point," that is what I expect the book to be like. Super-Bully from Action 1 isn't someone I wanted to read about, so I dropped it, along with most of the DCNU. My DC pull list just post reboot was roughly half of what it was before hand, and now it's less with the cancellation of Static and the inconsistency of Birds of Prey which led me to drop it, too.

[Slewo.O]

No, I can't. When you bill something as a "jumping on point," that is what I expect the book to be like. Super-Bully from Action 1 isn't someone I wanted to read about, so I dropped it, along with most of the DCNU. My DC pull list just post reboot was roughly half of what it was before hand, and now it's less with the cancellation of Static and the inconsistency of Birds of Prey which led me to drop it, too.

The entire point of the first issue was to show that threatening people and scaring the shit out of them doesn't change anything. It wasn't intended to be a permanent demeanor for Supes.