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A forever in-work compendium of Marvel and DC canon immigrants. What's a canon immigrant? Go here to find out!

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Well This Is Awkward...

It's come to my attention that Terry McGinnis - aka Batman Beyond - will be making his mainstream DC debut in the upcoming Futures End weekly series starting May 2014.

Now as you may have noticed, that means Terry McGinnis and his world have not previously been part of the DC Universe, which means that the several times I've written about it are wrong. And if the article I read this in is correct, it means that the various Batman Beyond series cannot even be retroactively added into the DCU, because this will be a Terry McGinnis for the New 52 (read: sucky) which does not mesh well with Batman Beyond 2.0 (because it doesn't suck).

But you know what? I don't care. Despite what they say, there was a time when they fully intended the various Batman Beyond series to be the future of the DC Universe. That's why he was referenced in the grown-up Damian stories, and that's why there was an arc about a new Hush; Hush doesn't exist in the DC Animated Universe so there can't very well be a "new" one unless those comics actually happen on New Earth. So for the purposes of this blog, a version of New Earth still exists out there as one of the 52 worlds, and people like Terry McGinnis and Chloe Sullivan and Samurai are still there, going on with their lives and being generally awesome.

Of course, if Batman Beyond characters appear in Futures End or other future DC stories, I'll make note of them - especially if they haven't yet appeared elsewhere. And if any new characters show up in Batman Beyond 2.0 or any future books, I'll write about them too, because I play by my own rules.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

A Birthday Wish List (Marvel's Most Wanted)

In Part 2 of my Holiday Wish List, we take a look at 5 characters that I would like to see appear in Marvel Comics. This list was in some ways harder to write than the DC one, because while Marvel has fewer canon immigrants overall, they also have fewer canon foreigners in the first place. And they mostly make the jump if they AT ALL deserve to. But I did come up with five, though I had to fudge one, and here they are.

1) Whistler
 
Whistler has appeared in both Spider-Man: The Animated Series and the Blade trilogy as Blade's human mentor/father figure/armorer. He's a pretty substantial character, and there's a whole generation of people who probably have no idea that he has no basis in the comics. What happened was that the Spider-Man episodes were made as a tie-in of sorts to a Blade movie that ultimately wasn't made until years later, and the Blade presented in said movie - and therefore said cartoon episode - has very little in common with the Blade of the comics. Yet those two disparate sources are where most people know Blade from, and since they're so similar, people assume they're an accurate depiction of the character.

In short, just put Whistler in the comics already. Everyone already assumes he's in there.

2) Jack McGee
 
Jack McGee is the "Red Lantern Razer" of Marvel Entertainment. He was a major and important character in The Incredible Hulk, which was arguably Marvel's most successful venture into live action tv: a tabloid reporter who was looking into the mystery of the Hulk and always hot on the heels of David Banner, yet he's never even been mentioned in the comics (as far as I know). He wasn't even name dropped in the 2008 movie, which was basically a love letter to the series. And I find that odd.

I'm not saying he needs to join the cast of a Hulk book long-term or anything like that, but he could at least show up for an arc or two.

3) Lightwave

Lightwave is a minor character from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, a mutant with light powers. And even though she only appeared in one or two episodes, she holds a very important role: she's Iceman's sister. His sister! If Aunt May's DOG can show up as one of the Pet Avengers, I think Iceman should finally be able to meet his sister. Plus, she's a SHIELD agent. So she can naturally appear in Spider-Man comics, X-Men comics, or Avengers comics, which isn't easy for most characters to pull off.

4) Agents of SHIELD

I know they're probably waiting to see if the show stays successful before bringing these characters over - after all, it took Coulson something like five years to show up and he was pretty much an overnight sensation - but I think that's a bad idea. If the show doesn't do well, they can always sweep the characters into the background or just never mention them again; but right now, one of the major problems with the show is that it doesn't feel like part of the Marvel Universe, and a major part of that is the fact that none of the main characters were created for the comics, and only one of them is currently appearing on the comics page. Marvel should fix that.

5) Buzz Lightyear and Star Command


I originally had The Incredibles in this spot, for obvious reasons, but then I decided that since there's no way that would happen in a million years - because The Incredibles already exist in the Marvel Universe under the name "Fantastic Four" - I'd give the slot to something that has a chance of happening. Only a slightly bigger chance than the Incredibles, but still a chance.

The way I see it, Buzz Lightyear and Emperor Zerg would be good additions to Marvel's space books, especially is Star Command was a rival organization to the Nova Corps. Imagine what a great story could come out of Buzz and Nova having to team up even though their groups butt heads at every turn.