DC Celebrates Black History Month by Whitewashing Black Characters
DC Celebrates Black History Month by Whitewashing Black Characters:
Ugh, DC has just been destroying their characters now. Connor Hawke (not to mention the entire Kevin Smith-era-and-after Green Arrow family) were easily one of the most interesting of DC’s lineup. Connor Hawke and Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern) did an excellent job of bringing forth and introducing a whole new generation of readers to DC’s 3rd tier heroes. Not only that, but both were built from the ground up to be fuller deeper characters. Despite some unfortunate origin problems (especially Rayner), they got built out really well.
Both got seriously screwed over in the reboot. Hawke appears to have basically been destroyed, his entire character burned down for something new. Rayner was even worse, his entire timeline was totally wiped out in a single page.
What isn’t really noted, as people consider the reboot, is that DC’s changes have also wiped out some of their most significant storylines. “Hard-traveling heroes” was a major footnote to comics’ treatment of civil rights issues. But the very base elements of the involved characters that would have made it possible are gone. Rayner’s storyline used to contain one of the most significant treatments of LGBTQ issues in a mainstream comic. Gone. There’s also a significant storyline dealing with drug use from Green Arrow’s history that has been eliminated.
By removing these items from the continuity, they discourage readers from ever going back and reading these. Which is an enormous shame, because while Superman was fighting Kryptonian hyper-intelligent cancer cells named Kancer (seriously…), DC’s 3rd and 2nd tier heroes had some serious and damn fine storylines, some of the most significant in mainstream comics. Future comics readers have little incentive to go back to them now, which is a tragedy considering the current era of stories don’t even come close.
That doesn’t even count the WildStorm universe’s complete elimination by the DC merge. Something which erased some of the most interesting characters and stories of any imprint.
