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And I'm Joel. Today we're going to talk about newish breakout characters. I hesitate to use the term new, but I also want to stay away from the last 25 years. It's true.
It's true. In the past 10, if we can. Right. But these are breakout characters that were created recently that found themselves with some measure of popularity, surprisingly popular breakout characters.
Obviously, if you've watched the pre-show, you saw the title and card for this episode, we got Kamala Khan because, dude, Kevin Feige came out recently saying that they are working on a Ms. Marvel movie, and she is the subject of set movie, and so they're working forward. We're moving forward on that. Which is exciting.
I mean, why not? She's like, she's money is what she has. She's become a pop culture icon in a very short amount of time. I mean, it's one of the things that even when Marvel has been making a lot of boneheaded editorial decisions, they've kind of just let G.
Willow Wilson be. They kind of know not to disturb that. It's true. It's interesting how many new characters over the last 10 to 15 years were created who stuck.
Growing up reading comics in the 90s, I can tell you that they made new characters every other day. And every time I think of one of those characters, I always am, it's always accompanied by a whatever happened to that character, you know, like whatever happened to Dark Hawk, whatever happened to Speedball. Now, some of them got straight up endings or new beginnings like Speedball. Some of them got obscure.
Like whatever happened to Marvel's rage. Oh, yeah, rage. The Billy Bats, the African American Billy Batsen, who was in the body of a giant like Luchador pro-wessler. Oh, I do remember what happened to him.
He was in Nick Spencer, Sam Wilson, and he died. Right. So he's dead. But like before Nick Spencer remembered to take him out of the cookie jar, nothing.
You know what I mean? Like, so, but when it comes to more recent characters like Jessica Jones, Kamala Khan, Ben Poole, I'm just thinking of like just the Bendis bunch, like Daisy Johnson, Jessica Jones, Maria Hill, the century, you know, they worked for a while. Now that being said, almost all the characters we mentioned have gone away in some major capacity. It's true.
Again, when we talk about breakout characters, especially in comics, I've noticed them. Sure, you've noticed it too. Certain characters break out and then break out every five years or so. Booster Gold is breaking out again right now.
Yes. All those booster goals have been around for good 25 years. Like, dude has had a long history. And when he was kind of like on the scene, people loved him.
Like there are hardcore booster gold fans. They're like, I know I like him from like the booster gold mini or not mini, but series in the 80s or I remembered him from Justice League. I liked him from that. The Supertime reminds me of course of like Spider Gwen and Mizmarble are the breakout characters.
DBK, a LEED GO, sorry. Miles Morales even before them was the biggest thing to come out of Ultimate Spider-Man since the last thing to come out of Ultimate Spider-Man. No, it's true. There are a bunch of breakout characters.
We're going to try and give some of them their due, but we do have to keep it a little short this week. So we do apologize in advance. If that happens, I have noticed that whenever we say that, we usually go over time. So hopefully that's not the case this time because you will notice because that's when like Ethan and Ben will be behind me getting ready to shoot.
What the hell are you doing? Chase. I think Scott Snyder thought he was a breakout character. I remember when I remember Bluebird and how much of an important character she turned out to be.
Which was James Tynan's pet project which he still brought back a little bit in Detective Comics which is hilarious that he was more willing to talk about Bluebird than he was to talk about Duke which I think draws the line. No, no, Scott, that's your thing. Bluebird is my thing. Exactly.
And neither of them are important and only bogged down the bat family further. But Duke was the light, Sal, in Dark Knight's metal. But wasn't he the light and then they never did anything with that ever again? Well his power is the light and he is the signal.
Whatever. Taylor Pecher also reminding us that Renee Montoya had a big push by Ruka in the mid 2000s thanks to the movie. But that said there was a big venom push around the time that the trailer dropped for Venom. So maybe there's some kind of requirement to help out with the Sony properties in Extruder again.
Who knows. They're not talking. I'll tell you that. And Taylor Pecher also reminding us about Cassandra Cain, great character.
Again, I want to say she was created even longer ago than we think. I think she was too. I think at least 18 years ago. Did you read the last issue of Detective Comics?
Have you seen what they were doing with? I guess I did. With Stephanie Brown and Cassie and how like, oh, what's weird is like, again, if they're smart and we talked about this on the weekly poll, another show that's very similar to ours that we do on the side on Tuesday every other week, check it out. We talked about Flash War and how it's going to be about time travel and stuff.
I tossed out that theory. Like what if Flash War is Flash Point 2.0 and they wind up kind of restoring the original DC continuity as a result. They changed things up with the New 52 as a result of Flash Point. The nice bookend, kind of finally put the nail in the coffin when it comes to New 52 and wrapping up that continuity because clearly the best most successful stuff from Rebirth was either brand new shit or ship people remember and enjoyed from before New 52.
It was literally just either innovation or nostalgia. Either one of those things worked and New 52 was neither of those things. And hats off to James Tynan for even bringing that up in his run like he did because he created the new Orphan status quo. He created the new Stephanie Brown status quo in Batman, Eternal and Batman and Robert Eternal.
I like that he can kind of check himself and even be like, yeah, this is good. But it could also be the way we all remember it. Yeah, because at the end of the day, more people are on board for this thing that I can't and won't do. And maybe I might want that because they'll sell more books.
Who knows? Even if it does get slightly confusing where it's like, wait, but I thought the DC Rebirth timeline was the same universe with just some years missing and some Dr. Manhattan shenanigans. But now you're telling me that the Titans of tomorrow universe does exist and these old costumes did exist.
I'm telling you, man, they don't know. Like they're just doing and there was never a thing. That's the problem with DC and that's the problem with like with having the editorial plan being what we'll just keep putting up books and who cares without having any kind of definitive thing, which seems to be what they had been enjoying doing for the last couple of years. You need to have an event that says what's continuity, what isn't continuity.
If only to keep it straight for your creative staff. Yeah, really. Which happened? What happened?
What didn't happen? For real. So Louise, Edricken, sorry, Louise. Gone gone the flesh of Louise.
Yeah, Louise, as again, says Cassandra Cain was the best Batgirl. I think I agree with you. A lot of people would agree. But let's jump into it.
So yeah, there are a bunch of breakout characters. I guess we should give some of them their moment in the sun. Obviously, let's start with the one that was on the cover of this episode. Kamala Khan, normal.
I got to tell you, when the first issue hit the stands, I was like, oh, they're even off of the Peter David Supergirl cover. That's weird. Why? Because not only did they throw away that Supergirl, but it's not DC.
No, I don't get it. But I didn't need to. In fact, I went on record. I think I know the episode off the rack and we first reviewed it.
I was like, this book will not last. There's no way. The art's too weird. The character's too quirky.
It's too specific. And it's too specific. And I was wrong on three counts. I was much the same and never was I more happy to be wrong.
I pulled that book from the review pile over at comic book cast when they're like, I don't know if anyone's going to like this. And like, no guys, it's important. They talked about this in the fucking Times in a Newsweek. This was a big and fine.
I'll take it then. Exactly. And thank goodness we were wrong. Because you know what it turns out like?
The Mollicon is important. Representation, as you would imagine, is important. It all boils down to representation and seeing yourself as it was pointed out earlier in the show. Seeing yourself in the comics, seeing yourself in the media that you're consuming.
At the end of the day, the reason why some of the people liked Spider-Man when he first came on the scene, and that's like a blanket kind of thing. It was seeing a teenager being asleep. Exactly. Probably one of the most accurate versions of a teenager to be written in a comic, G, since like Lee Ditko right in Spider-Man back in the 60s.
I would say Ms. True to what it is to be a teen in modern ages as those books were back in like the 60s. That's the best part is that Kamala Khan doesn't have to be a story where it's like, if you are a Muslim teenager who lives on the East Coast, this is the book for you. Now that being said, this is definitely the book for you.
But if you're a teenager, if you're a dude or a girl, if you're a Muslim or not, this book might be for you. Because Willa Wilson is a talented person who has found a way to gain foot holds for Kamala to the point where she's elevated beyond her origins. I definitely were like, okay, so this character is kind of popular. We are trying to shoehorn the humans.
Let's take her human because they were very careful to not establish where her powers came from until later. So they're like, let's make her a human. She'll be the most popular one. And she really is.
And we'll dovetail our humans billions off of her. And as it turns out, she manages to transcend the popularity or lack thereof of the humans. She really does. And I knew we made this case before, at least I think being a human actually helped her in the long run because she got to be a big fish in a very small pond.
Yes, everybody's a mutant. At least everybody who has created over the last 30 years. Unless they got radiation splashing their eyes. And the fact is, it's easy to get lost in the X universe.
Yes, it is. Cool. Your original, your new, we've seen a thousand versions of you if you show up with a duffel bag on the footsteps of Charles Xavier's man. Happens all the time.
Yes, but if you just make her an human and in fact not even really care about being a human and not making that part of your identity, this is my identity. Being this person, not being a goblin from the crappy city. It really helped her manage to toe the line between helping humans gain some kind of prevalence and also being her own character. I'm glad she wasn't bogged down by them.
Absolutely. Because you know, if that was the case, you'd be like, okay, now you got to come join all these X-Men events now and you got to have tie ins to this, that and the other thing. She also probably would have been killed off sooner. That's also the shame.
Which hilariously, they're doing the whole death of an human thing now. Death of an human's. Echmall, you're fine though. Yeah.
Oh, actually, if Kamala had been a mutant, she might have been, they might have been like screw up summers. She's the Phoenix. You know that would have happened. And will it have been like, I don't want to do that.
I really do. Okay. See, that's nothing to the fact that they've given her such freedom and such carte blanche to just write a story and write a book without interruption and without having to tie into a bunch that they're having tie ins and they have been pretty good. That's the thing.
I think one of the staples of a breakout character who manages to stand at best of time is by giving them their own universe and making them grounded and relevant to the reader. Yeah. Kamala is that way. Or Kamala is that way.
You know, to a lesser extent, the century is kind of that way. Even though he has a however million exploding sons or whatever the hell his expression is. He also is just like a dude is afraid of his own ability. And for a time was married and like had a life and tried to make that work.
And of course, that he became like split in half by Ares and then was directed by Donny Cates and everything. So, you know, he got to kind of got away from himself a little bit. But any character Daisy Johnson was, I think, hamstrung by the fact that like she was too specific. She came from a really weird place.
It was an event that not a lot of people really read or enjoyed. Secret War, by the way, this or David? But she broke through later on TV in a very fascinating way to have a second life. And I think that the reason why it worked was because Daisy Johnson on the show is straight up not Daisy Johnson from the comic.
She's very different. Not. Just, no, they would develop the sky character and then they went like, and wouldn't it be neat if we made her into a character in the comics that we were actually quick. No one is planning on making a movie out of.
So they did that and it worked out fine. Give her power. That's also invisible. So it costs very little to make.
Yep. Really quick. I just want to jump into the super chat because my mommy said the female cyborg and then ran away laughing. Just, there was a female cyborg.
It didn't work out. It was not a breakout character. Chase Eichler saying was cyborg's breakout on the Teen Titans TV show or earlier. Cyborg, I mean, Cyborg debuted on the Titans, but not the show, but in the comics.
But I think people liked him when the show came out. Like, and that's because the show got him right. And I don't even mean that they got the character right that Marv Wolfman and George Perez popularized. I mean, they created their own character with cyborg and he was relevant and interesting.
And people liked him. All the stuff we talked about that makes it work on the show. It's true. It's really true.
And it's something I feel they missed in his Justice League run when they're like, okay, you're getting promoted now. Well, because it's not like, because that's what happens when you try to shoehorn a character into something that they don't fit into just for the sake of fulfilling a quota. Like, it's really weird that they can. Very.
And the fact that they stuck with it for so long. Well, and they made such a big deal out of it like there's nothing you can do about it now. And that's because it'll look like a emotion. Unless Wally touches him and be like, boom, remember, you're a Titan now.
Right as long as it's his decision. And the Titans, or and the just like sad and like lesser as a result. And immediately replace him with another black guy. That's why I liked the Justice League vs Teen Titans animated movie so much because those writers actually tried to tackle that.
Oh, that's a good idea. That's something they need to do. They should probably just do a book called just leave yourself tight and just get it over with just deal with it. And basically cyborg coming to be kind of sad realization, but I'll take a sad realization over none where he goes, yeah, I do like you.
Children Titans, more I probably could hang out with you, but I'd rather be benched in the major league than a star player in the minor. Right, that's, that makes me sad. I don't care for that. It does, but at least it's something.
Right. Uh, Kane's world style. I don't care for her, which is not true. I do like Gabby, but I enjoy Gabby and Jonathan from the all new Wolverine.
Stay for us, you guys. Um, yeah, Gabby is wound up finding her own audience. I very, I didn't even read a book that she was in. I literally just saw like pictures of her on like R slash comic books.
And I'm like, wow, like who is the honey badger? This is like, what a meme name? I didn't like that. But the way it worked to her character after I went back and like checked her out, I'm like, yeah, I kind of dig her.
She's kind of fun. It's very fun. Hats off to Tom Taylor that again, writing a good young character, which is hard to do. Yes.
Although I will say off of that, another breakout character, X 23 slash Wolverine. Yes. Yeah. Another candidate in the great from the X and evolution TV show.
It's true. She, uh, she's a great breakout character in that they tried to make her work for a while and they couldn't and eventually they figured it out. Yep. And I really dig her.
I dig her so much. I don't want to see her lose that Wolverine's index. I think she needed it. Um, that's the thing.
Like call her X 23 if you must, but for the love of God, let her keep the costume. It is so good. Exactly. I completely agree with that.
And to kind of say, Aqualad, Kaldor from Young Justice. Yeah. What a weird history he's had from getting created for brightest day, but kind of like they didn't know what to do with him yet. They didn't know what his character was to getting adapted into young justice to having his longest run there to have people really love him and care about him and be like, why isn't he in the comics?
And then they ran into the problems that Benjamin Percy tried to deal with. That is a but comic aqualad and TV show, Aqualad are very different, but they have the same name, but they're not really the same guy, but they are in one inspired. The other must fuse together somehow. Well, they're running into a welly way situation.
They really are to the point where so many fans who only ever watched the show. They're like, who the hell is this guy? Who only watched the show to actually kind of get upset and be like, what Aqualad in the comics is game? Like what Jackson Hyde is gay?
Because he was created before young justice. They kind of did their own thing, but he is the same guy because he shaved his head and died at blonde to look like the TV show guy, but his powers come from different places because Damien gives him the water swords. They're not magic because he's never been to Atlantis and oh God, my head. We're getting into a Hawkman situation with the sport character.
Yes, he really, he really isn't. Even more so. Well, how did his mom meet Black Manta? Who is his dad?
Well, they explained that in the comic, but they never explained it in the show. Right. So, yeah, so there's a lot of crossover, but not a lot. It's weird.
It's very weird. Pierre Davis, how do you think this Marvel be introduced in the MCU without the humans? Talk question. Easily.
She's going to show up and have powers and not bother. It's true. Heck, if they wanted to throw agents to shield a bone, say she was one of those people who ate like the, what is it? Fish oil pellets that he's interested in it.
Nathan Berg, look at Sharp Joel. Thank you, sir. It was summer. I was due for a haircut.
Southson, I'm particularly fan of Robbie Reyes and Kate Bishop. Excellent. I like Robbie a whole lot. I think Robbie is one of those characters who deserved a breakthrough, but didn't.
I think that, yeah, I agree that he didn't get it. Like, I like Kate Bishop more than more people do. She's a pretty good success story when she eventually comes to a movie and I'm sure she will. I hope so.
And I think only just because Jeremy Renner is aging hard. And so as a result, like wouldn't it be nice to have like a pretty athletic female Hawkeye join the team, especially one who's really cool. In fact, maybe you should make a Hawkeye movie with Kate Bishop as well. That would be fun to at least establish that they have a connection.
But I agree. And I think we're going to see. Robbie Reyes is going to be in a sinker situation with this Avengers run. Yes, which big props to Jason Aaron for wanting to include him and be like, no, I'm going to have a ghost rider.
I want it to be the young car driving ghost rider, even though Jason Aaron, I don't think actually read the lead based miss run. And doesn't actually know how he gets his powers because he keeps getting it wrong. He does say it. He does say it's not Zarathos in issue two.
Good because it is like I have my my car is possessed by an evil spirit. And I'm like, I thought you were possessed with evil spirit. Yeah, his car isn't possessed. It's his uncle Eli Morov.
It's inside him. No, in the Avengers two, his car is so just getting closer. He's wrong, but he's trying slowly but surely, which is a shame to because I love that Felipe Smith run again, much like Miss Marvel. I thought it was the perfect symbiosis of creator and book where the dude was basically like, well, here's you know, here's some stories from my life through the superhero lens, but it just it just didn't pick up for one reason or another.
Exactly. Let's go. No, it's right. Ethan's here.
We're going to wrap up pretty soon, but I want to get through the super chancellor quick. No, but tell him when pull is quickly become a character I didn't want to read about to one of my all time favorite characters after I gave her a shot. Yes. What a surprise.
Who would have thought that a very undercover became a really cool character and a meta like textual comic about comics and it wound up being like an animal man meets Deadpool comic and yeah, where else are you going to find that shit? Comic Goblin Kamala being from Jersey and not from a huge city like New York or LA, I thought was always cool about her. I love her love of a good sandwich is so Jersey agreed. Super nice touch.
That last arc was all about sandwiches and I love that it played a major part. Yeah. DBK, LA head go sorry. Spider Gwen is the reason I started reading comics.
Spider Gwen is another huge breakout character that like holy crap who would have thought that would be a thing and I think she's going to be relegated to being like a 90s flash in the fan character. I think that she's certainly lasted longer than some other characters sleepwalker him. Yeah, but I don't know if she's going to make it because she's not like as it turns out they draw they drilled the bottom. There's nothing left.
Echo we could easily do a sequel show to this characters who didn't break through. Right. Yes. Yeah.
Dead on arrival or failed. There you go. Remember Alpha? Remember Alpha big time?
Yeah. I remember how no one gave a shit. Louis Ezzarigin or Ezzagin says okay I got this theory that we were Williams was been just looking at what she wrote what Wilson was doing with Kamala and said that I could do that. Yeah.
In a lot of ways it seemed like that. Well honestly I think it was been just looking at his own work and being like I bet I can make the Miles lightning strike twice. Right. I think that's really what it was and it doesn't.
It's like hey man don't get greedy you did it once. Yeah. Just be happy with what you got man. You created a bunch of characters.
You don't need to well anyway. MT Kai's always saying does Grant Morrison count as a comic book character? Yeah. He's appeared in comic books.
He's put himself in them many times. It's if you smoke it does John AK Super Boy Counts breakout character. Oh yeah. And big time too.
Will I am holding Kite Man and Speedball? Kite Man has been a character since I was in the 60s. Yeah. Yes his relevancy has only started to bubble up to the surface ever since Tom King made him into the best damn meme in all the comics.
I wouldn't have guessed it. I really wouldn't know. No. But Speedball yeah no didn't break out just blew up and then he came like a SM finish joke.
Yep. And Daryl Jones Jr. Damien Wayne and Jonathan Kent you hit it right on the head there man. Love Super Suns.
Also an unrelated note D.C. really needs to get there stuff together with their African American characters as one it's weird. I don't relate. I agree man and here's the thing I'm not speaking from experience as an African American giving that I am obviously not one.
What? I can say that as like even though I'm not I don't resonate with those characters either and I think that is not and I think they should resonate regardless of ethnicity. Like I think that I should want to read about Cyborg. Yeah because he's a cool character and not because it was raised.
The fact he doesn't resonate with you may just be because Cyborg's kind of boring. That's that's so true. Again you know I think I think D.C. was trying to do something like that by getting milestone 2.0 going but then they're like oh shit we don't know the rights to that.
Oops. Yeah don't make those announcements until you know what you're doing. Don't read. Until you have it in the bag.
Yeah get that shit on lockdown. But yeah John Kent I think may be one of the biggest breakout characters of the last five years. He's definitely the biggest breakout character of D.C. Rebirth.
I can't think of anyone who's doing better than him. No I've got my D.C. Rebirth lithium and I'm looking at all the characters that they were like look what we're doing like Superman's back and he's got like a new costume and look at like Nuffity Wally West and he's sticking around even though D.C. Rebirth and also I guess you can look at these uh Damien and uh and and John but look at Jessica Cruz and it's like no one cares it's just about John.
John is definitely the big and the thing about John too is they so easily could have with John they could be so easily have made Super Boy sock and we would could have all been like oh god Superman Brides fucking kid again. Oh they could have Alfred him up. Yes they really could have the fact that he's a genuinely sweet genuinely relatable kid. Yeah without being like too saccharin or too full.
Absolutely. It's hard to balance that making a good character without making them seem like like a like a chump and he's not just a Superman clone in fact even he has all kids do or like dad you know you're so corny sometimes. It's true. Empty Kajos are reminding us of kid Omega or Fantimax.
Oh yeah. For Remorsons X-Men. Yeah Fantimax turned out to be cool but again I think I don't think he broke anywhere. I think he's a fan favorite.
I think Fantimax is a cool character. I don't think I think the fact that he's not in Deadpool is like indicative of his lack of popularity. Yeah he should have been in Deadpool 2 as a member of the X-Force and he really should have been. But yeah so I guess we gotta wrap it up.
I'm sorry it's a little short but I don't want to thank you all for hanging out with us. We have only half the list so we're gonna have to do like part two. We definitely will. Joel is anybody that it's just a crime you didn't talk about that you want to be able to talk to?
Well it's fine I know again because we were talking about Miles Stone there the chat said Stag it's funny. Stag kind of breakout in comics and he had breakout on television in the cartoons and I think people are just waiting for him to break out again but he hasn't. Well just being given the opportunity to freaking come out anywhere. Yeah yeah no there was a time when I think Static could have become a thing.
Again he could have been DC Spider-Man he could have been their answer to it. Cause it's a thing like it's all about timing and really like Static hit during the very very small window of time that he was created and yet because it wasn't like the infancy of the internet he wasn't able to kind of reach the audience he could have and he didn't have their spread they were like number two kind of number three in comics around that time and of course because he wasn't originally DC creation at all. He didn't get to reach out to the audience that he could have and I think that if they could have had like a renaissance or a rebirth for Static in 2008 who knows how. Well it could have been really different it's funny they had that art there for Young Justice season three and it's funny because he joined the team at the end of season two and I'm sitting there looking at this art and like why isn't Static here anymore guys.
Yeah he didn't join the team he died or disappeared or we just forgot and we didn't give him the new address. It's the outsider so Black Lightning is featured quite prominently because he's on TV now and everything and all I can think is like boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop boop right man remember when Virgil got that really awesome cameo in that Justice League on the mid episode where there was a future that was pretty great yeah old man static that was cool yeah he becomes like an elemental dog in the future and grows a sick ass beard. He got those sweet dreads he looks awesome looking really good that's a great design like why is there no Static Shock Beyond I read that book. Yeah 60s new 30 yeah just a geriatric electric man already right but thank you all so much for hanging out and we'll see you guys next time with another episode else was exchanged stay tuned for the latest episode of back issues which of course is gonna be a Deadpool episode nice is Deadpool Deadpool 2 is coming out like tomorrow go see it like I need to tell you you're gonna go see catch the episode is Deadpool versus the Punisher for Fred Van Linty.
So yeah intrinsically connecting Deadpool with Marvel because he's not in the movies so we'll see you guys next time. There's time for watching I'm Sal. I'm Joel.