Can definitely be said he’s not a member of the Legion of Super-Pets. Maybe.
Gonna keep it relatively light tonight, you know, what with everything goin’ on…but I got a copy of this book, the DC Comics Ultimate Character Guide (2024), in at the shop:
…and, just flippin’ through it to take a look at the “Swamp Thing” entry (note: still just the Alec Holland version, not the new guy from the recent mini-series), I came across the Metron listing.
Now, if you remember this post from a couple of years back, I discussed the categorization of Jack Kirby’s Metron within his larger Fourth World milieu of the New Gods and related comics. Specifically, whether the intellectually-aloof and somewhat morally ambiguous Metron was in fact a member of the New Gods, or something apart.
I go into the arguments for and against in that linked post, noting that DC’s Who’s Who handbook series explicitly says Metron is a New God. But in this newer book pictured above, the character’s description is as follows:
This returns a little ambiguity to Metron’s nature, as established by Kirby way back in the 1970s:
…or as had been suggested, reflecting Metron’s own self-invention separating himself from the New Gods, inserting an unreliable narrator element to the character’s nature.
Anyway, thought that was neat. Also, the Joker’s entry still gives his real name as “unknown,” despite, well, this.
So, everyone be well as you can, and I’ll see you back here on Friday.
What I’d give for a powerful morally *ambiguous* character today.
— MrJM
A question I’ll throw out there because I don’t know where else to throw it. Is Simon Baz no longer part of the new continuity? What other characters haven’t been seen that don’t look like they’ll be back (except as cameos in a Grant Morrison comic)?
Maybe each one of the three Jokers has a different given name?
@Wayne Allen Sallee
Simon Baz has actually shown up in the current volume of Green Lantern, as part of the Resistance on Oa (together with Jo Mullein, Kyle Rayner, Salaak… Jessica Cruz is also working with them undercover, and “Teen Lantern” Keli Quintela is a major plot point/macguffin).
Another example — a GOOD one!! — of why reading a Kirby-written comic — otherwise GREAT! — gives me — a HEADACHE!!
Man, Dan Mora really can draw the crap out of Superman, can’t he?
JD: Thanks.Much appreciated.
ScienceGiant: I sent an email to Mike awhile back, I found the Booster Gold trade cheap at the Salvation Army (4.99) and there was a multi-issue sequence where Booster keeps trying to keep Barbara Gordon from getting shot. Near the end of the series, Batman tells BG he puts up with him by throwing a stack of photos at him, pretty rude in general. He says he knows how BG tried to help Babs.
You can see three different photos of three different Jokers on a two page spread. So Geoff Johns had that idea in his head since 2009.