Thread 150865954

Geoff Johns said he went with Cyborg as a founding member because he wanted a black hero who represented technology and the future on the team. But thematically speaking, wouldn't Mr. Terrific have fit that role way better than Cyborg?

After Luthor, Terrific embodies cutting-edge science more than anyone in DC and his tone in JSA, the stoic intellectual & moral center, makes him a good fill in for Martian Manhunter as a founding JL member which Cyborg lacked.

>>150865954 (OP)
Agreed.

Maybe he just liked Cyborg more

>>150865954 (OP)
Because Johns isn't very good. He was using old logic and probably thought that Cyborg being part of Teen Titans the cartoon, along with his visual look being toy friendly, would mean younger kids might adopt him or be interested. Much like everything else, Johns was wrong.

>>150865954 (OP)
>>150865974
>>150865996
The issue with cyborg as a founding member of the Justice League is that cyborg starts as a confused high-school/college kid that was turned into an experiment by his father out of necessity or due to Cyborg's father being that much of an obssessive scientist. So he has to learn how to use his robot powers, make peace with his dad and also be super smart and technical, despite him only growing to become that tech smart after spending years dealing with his own body.

Terrific, as a superhero, already has the expertise and his shit together due to his backstory.

>>150865954 (OP)
Because Mr Terrific is a legacy character and JSA oriented. Cyborg being removed from Titans was a net positive to the character

>>150865954 (OP)
Nigga is just a fanfic OC.

That was all post hoc spin from John. The truth is John Stewart made the most sense for the token black spot since he was easily the most popular black char in DC at the time but John hated the idea of Stewart being the normies GL over Hal so he made up some bullshit why he had to go with Cyborg for the black rep.

>>150865954 (OP)
He's a JSA member and Cyborg has been hinted at joining the JLA before. There's also the cartoon series making him more popular. Cyborg also served as a junior member alongside Shazam. I know Johns wrote both characters in their team books before but I can see why he would pick Vic.

>>150866048
>Cyborg being removed from Titans was a net positive to the character
You're an absolute retard

>>150865954 (OP)
They were really pushing the idea at the time that Cyborg was made of Apokoliptan tech and used that to tie into both the New 52 and the DCEU's overarching narratives. Besides, they probably thought Mr. T is too similar to Batman.

Cyborg has some history being on the justice league thanks to Superfriends using him in the past few seasons

>>150865954 (OP)
Why didn't he go with Steel (I think he is call John Iron?)

>>150866076
By the time the N52 started, most people already have moved from the JL cartoon.

>>150866408
Not really, during the green lantern movie, people asked why he was white

>>150866086
Titans a shit, deal with it

>>150866354
Steel's a Superman supporting character, they probably didn't pick him either because they didn't want 2 Superman characters founding the League or that it didn't make sense timeline wise for him to exist at that point

>>150866668
That's just something jl fags hone in on the glaze Stewart. Only a handful of younger viewers asked that and anyone who did is a poser

In 2011 Mr terrific was a auraless giga d lister whereas Cyborg was arguably the most popular black character DC had.

>>150866076
This. John is a Halfag through and through.

>>150866076
It’s really this. The smartest thing to have done was just have Martian Manhunter’s civilian ID a black guy

>>150865954 (OP)
Because Batman was already the “smart human” of the team (even though Johns hated Batman and didn’t do shit with him on the New 52 JL) and DC probably thought Mr Terrific would overshadow Batman (especially since Johns hates Batman).

>>150865954 (OP)
Cyborg can do more visually impressive stuff and was pushed to JLA.

Terrific on JLA would bumble into batman's slot (which cyborg was also defaulted into) and he doesn't have anything unique going outside tech balls.

JSA itself seems to be a doomed team to market and don't think the fantastic four knock off team would have happened which is where he got some good writing.

>>150866048
Cyborg practically MAKES the Titans what it is, it functionally cannot work without him and vice versa.

>>150866076
And hilariously enough their Hal push was an objective failure in every conceivable way. They fucked up so bad Guy fucking Gardner is the new mainstream face of the GL now.

>>150865954 (OP)
Cereal Lord cares nothing about logic when he wants to get his way. Probably thought having worked on his questionable TT run meant with him having written Cyborg before, he could now push him somewhere else.

>>150866086
Better then being in the "Sidekick-not-really-important" Limbo

>>150867284
That's still John Guytard. He's not even the GL in Absolute

Vixen is the superior choice.
Adds another woman to the team for character dynamics
Animal aura effect is visually distinct
Powers are varied enough that she can play high or low depending on if they need Batman to look good.
Adheres to the classic superhero structure, thematically fitting in better with the rest of the roster and giving her an existence outside of superheroing for additional character hooks.

>>150865954 (OP)
Johns didn't grow up with Mr. Terrific while he probably read the Wolfman Perez run.

>>150867284
>>150867554
Hal still has some stocks left. The 2000s run was really good.

The real obvious solution would be to use a Milestone character and the blew the one chance they had when it was integrated in the main universe

>>150865996
>people liked this guy when he was in teen titans
>lets rip him away from all character relationships that made him endearing
logic

>>150865954 (OP)
Mister Terrific was a C-List hero known from Johns' JSA, Rucka's Checkmate, and a minor role in the later seasons of JLU.
Cyborg had been in the later versions of the Superfriends cartoon, had just come off the Teen Titans cartoon, and was solidly solid B-List.
Just going of marketability alone, Cyborg was the obvious pick.

But if you had a choice, any choice, they should have reworked Steel.

>>150866076
Trvth nvke

>>150866086
Cyborg was removed from the Titans because the Titans no longer existed. That was Didio's big brained idea. Completely delete the Titans because they justified the existence of Dick and Wally and Donna and Garth and Roy, and they all made the JLA older.

It's also worth noting that Mr. Terrific brings something unique to the screen powers-wise. Cyborg, when you really think about it, what is he? He's a super-strong guy with lasers. Functionally equivalent to a ton of other superheroes. Teriffic being a tech hero is something different and adds a different vibe to the action involving him.

Latinos are even more underrepresented despite being more numerous and more powerful than black people in America
Instead of Cyborg, Mr Terrific, Vixen, etc it should be Aztec. Everyone loves Aztec.

>>150868007
I feel like we need a Hispanic superhero whose powers and identity don't revolve around being Hispanic. Say what you want about black superheroes tending to have electricity powers, at least it doesn't feel directly tied into their being black.

We need some kind energy-weapon type of Hispanic superhero. A beam-shooter, something like that.

>>150867566
That costume is rad. Why don't we seet it more often?

>>150867566
This.
It should have been Vixen.
But Geoff had SuperFriends Galactic Guardians nostalgia for Cybirg.

>>150868189
Blue Beetle is right there

>>150868240
Jaime is good but he's technically a legacy hero, it'd be nice to have somebody original.

>>150868189
Hawkgirl is latina in some stories

>>150867566
Vixen is african, if a JL founder has to be black it should be a black American like Steel, Terrific, Cyborg, John Stewart, Black Lighting, or the miles characters like Static & Icon if they're allowed.

>>150868568
And Diana is greek

>>150868568
What is it about Static's rights that make him weird? It feels like sometimes he can appear and sometimes he can't.

>>150868189
The thing is that most Latin American countries don't even care much about each other. An Argentinean or Brazilian aren't gonna care if you create a Mexican or Puerto Rican superhero

Sasha Bordeaux in checkmate insinuated that Mr, Terrific is packing a big juicy one. That alone makes him more qualified for the JL than a dickless freak like Cyborg.

>>150865974
>Maybe he just liked Cyborg more
Basically this. Johns had already written a Titans run in the 2000s where he basically put Cyborg back into a position of prominence after he'd fallen into irrelevance in the 90s, even getting his name changed to 'Cyberion' so people wouldn't confuse him with Hank Henshaw, who was then 'The Cyborg', and a more important character at the time. Johns gave Cyborg his name back and had everyone start calling Henshaw "Cyborg Superman".

With the New 52 JLA lineup, whatever Johns says, everyone knows his real motives were that he needed to have a black guy on the team but he didn't want it to be black Green Lantern because he wanted Hal Jordan on the team. So Martian Manhunter got dropped from the 'big 7' and replaced by Cyborg just because was Johns' favorite black DC hero.

>>150865954 (OP)
it's because these faggots know nothing about the DC universe
they kept using cyborg because of the damn cartoon popularizing him too

>>150867219
In terms of how that would be received IRL that wouldn't work because it's a green guy pretending to be black. In story terms, if we presume even a fraction of the "it sucks to be black in America" stuff is true within the DCU, it would make no sense at all for an alien shapechanger who could look like anything to choose a human disguise that would make his life harder than it needs to be.

>>150867596
It's weird, from around Sinestro Corps War to Blackest Night, GL was one of the big must-read DC books, Hal was on top of the world, but he's never really recovered from how badly his movie was fumbled. That Warner don't see a big future for him outside of comics has sort of impacted how much the comics are willing to push him, plus DC's general mishandling of the entire line of GL books, and writers trying to push their own new human GLs.

>>150867363
>>150866687
>>150866048
>Cyborg being removed from Titans was a net positive to the character
You might be genuinely retarded if you believe that.

Puting Cyborg in the JL made the character associated with failure. DC tried almost everything in their power to make people think of Vic as a League on par with the other Founding Six and it just couldn't stick at all. That's a huge failure that's always always looming over the character these days.

Genuinely all DC had to do was make a N52 Teen Titans book that consisted of Robin (Tim or Dick, doesn't matter), Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg and it would have been extremely successful.

>>150869597
Still doesn't make it the better choice. Cyborg is better with the Teen Titans where his arc of accepting his humanity & his role among his peers made emotional sense. In 52 he was just the League’s computer guy which flattened a lot of his personality.

If Johns’s real goal was a black, tech-based hero on the team than from a lore and character standpoint(key strategist coordinating between the world's greatest heroes, the “human brain” among gods) Terrific would fit the spirit of that role better than Cyborg. Holt can also fill Martian Manhunter's shoes pretty well too since they have similar temperaments.

>>150869820
>Cyborg is better with the Teen Titans where his arc of accepting his humanity & his role among his peers made emotional sense.
Yeah,, that's the core of the issue. Cyborg on the Titans made sense because everybody is on a similar position as him. Robin is a sidekick in the shadow of Batman, Raven is a half-decent who endured abuse, Starfire is the fish out of water, Beast Boy had his appearance changed and a traumatic backstory. Donna struggles because she has no backstory. Jericho had his throat cut. And so on. They are all young as well, so it makes for food coming of age stories.

On the Justice League Cyborg never made sense because nobody can really relate to him all that much. Like what are Hal Jordan or Aquaman gonna tell to him? Or will Batman help him in any way or will he just device contingency plans to kill him? It just resulted in awkward scenes like this one where it's revealed Vic has been living alone in the Watchtower for five years and none of his teammates ever really noticed.

>>150865954 (OP)
People knew who Cyborg was from Teen Titans. That's it.

Best black representation characters for the Justice League

>John Stewart (for a big 7 lineup)
>Mr. Terrific (man in the chair for a satellite/Unlimited lineup)
>Vixen (for a big 7 lineup)
>Black Lightning (for a big 7 lineup)
>Make Martian Mahunter's "John Jones" persona black

>>150868568
Dianna is a diplomat.
Clark isn't even a green card holder except in one continuity.
J'ohnn isn't even an earthling.

Static needs to stay the fuck away least he get the Ms. Marvel treatment.
Icon would suck as he'd be another flying brick.

>>150865954 (OP)
Cyborg never had a good design outside of the Teen Titans cartoon
Mr.Terrific is pretty cool in JSA and he was best part of the Superman movie

>>150867566
Vixen should have been a semi regular in Superman comics since thats where she got her start.

>>150867569
Johns wrote Mr Terrific when he was writing JSA. He probably thinks of Terrific as a JSA character, and at the time of the New 52 despite him being a fan-favorite he still wouldn't have been as well-known as Cyborg or John Stewart

>>150866076
>>150867219
>>150867913

The actual truth is that WB announced Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan in July 2009 (which mean they had been in talks before and finalized it by then), years before the New 52 and months before Diane Nelson became Didio and Lee's bosses (and in turn before she demanded they do something to get interest up, leading to the New 52).

https://web.archive.org/web/20100104001536/http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2009/07/ryan-reynolds-is-the-green-lantern.html

Even if Johns was willing to go with John Stewart as Green Lantern it would be unlikely because they already locked in Hal Jordan as Green Lantern for the film. You could claim Johns had control over the DC movie/TV projects, but he wasn't Chief Creative Officer until 2010, way after the casting was announced. Hal was gonna be Green Lantern in the New 52 Justice League for sort-of synergy because WB were expecting Green Lantern to be their Iron Man.

>>150871081
That said I don't know how involved he was with the Green Lantern film since he was credited as producer and consultant, or when he was involved with the project

Do you guys ever reckon it makes black nerds feel a little insane to have every fucking conversation about a black cape character on any part of the political compass, official resources or fan communities revolve around the characters being black?

>>150871209
They do it to themselves honestly. Blacks in general. Although I did talk to a guy who's dressing up as Ichigo for a Halloween event so it's not impossible for them to like characters who aren't their self inserts.

>>150871081
New 52 planning started in March 2011, Green Lantern didn't bomb till later that year.

>>150868189
>We need some kind energy-weapon type of Hispanic superhero. A beam-shooter, something like that.
So we need a beamer.

>>150868007
DC: Best we can do for Aztek is a nacho stand at Six Flags. Take it or leave it.

How popular was Mr. Terrific as a character in the late 2000s and early 2010s?

>>150872016
Enough that he got his own comic in the Nu52.

>>150872170
That means less than you think. Grifter and Voodoo got titles too.

>>150872224
They were part of the windstorm push, Grifter was pushed a fair bit more

Cyborg was just in the Teen Titans cartoon, already has public awareness. Probably.

Just bump the Titans up to JL level, so Dickbats, Starfire, and Cyborg are your new trinity
Bump the JL to JSA old timers
And turn the JSA into the new Teen Titans
This would be unique and different and would probably please no one

>>150865954 (OP)
Because Cyborg was in the Super friends cartoon that Geoff Johns grew up with.

The perfect founding Justice League:
>Manhunter
>Mr Terrific
>Cyborg
>John Stewart
>Mal Duncan
>Static
>Black Canary

>>150865954 (OP)
cyborg was more famous
every team has the young and inexperienced guy on it

>>150872602
>Just bump the Titans up to JL level,
Again?

>>150865954 (OP)
I have another question. Why can't they do something interesting with Cyborg?

>>150872778
Ollie wouldn't mind watching that, he's a leftist after all.

>>150873189
They tried with the motherbox stuff, the issue was he just ended up being the league's tech guy in the end
He had a story involving the Metal Men in the New 52 which looked fun but I haven't read it admittedly

I miss when there were competing Justice League factions, briefly in the 90s there was the Justice League but also Captain Atom's Extreme Justice and Martian Manhunter led some Task Force thing as well and they didn't get along with each other

>>150872602
Older Nightwing doesn't have to change into Batman, he could just be an older Nightwing

It's crazy how Mr. Terrific went from a literal nobody c lister to DC most popular black character by far.

>>150873455
He ended up as a glorified vehicle.

Why not Black Lightning, is he a bad character or something
Truthfully I know nothing about him, he had a TV show for a bit though right
Maybe the name is a bit on the nose for a black superhero I guess

>>150873523
Problem with rights, similar to milestone.

>>150873561
Ah ok

>>150873494
Gee I wonder why that is. Could be the same reason Guardians went from D listers to much better known…

>>150873494
Same thing happened to Iron Man, civil war literally character assassinated him beyond repair, it was the movie that saved him.

>>150865954 (OP)
Cyborg is more well-known and well-liked than Mr. Terrific. Even if he's a better fit putting a D-lister on your flagship team isn't a good marketing strategy.
>>150867911
>But if you had a choice, any choice, they should have reworked Steel.
You have already Superman. Having one of his supporting cast a member of the JL as well is a bad idea, especially considering he isn't as popular or marketable as other characters associated with Superman.

>>150866668
Justice League cartoon *still* defines the League to me and I'm nearly 30. I think a lot of people feel similarly. John Stewart just *is* the Green Lantern to me, like Bruce Wayne being Batman. Its inherent. For a similar reason, I've always wanted to get more out of Hawkgirl than we usually get.

>>150873679
Zack Snyder did a better job of defining the JL than some cartoon

>>150873494
He's already forgotten and is back to being a literal nobody c lister.

>>150873572
The Guardians weren't D-listers. The Annihilation saga stuff put them on the map first. The problem is you can't judge popularity by a fucking movie appearance. Especially ones that aren't in any way accurate to what the characters are like for like half of them.

>>150873737
Oh the indians are awake.

>>150873606
Also false

>>150873737
No I do not think he did, those movies did not do well. Im not a fan of Zack Snyder, and you know god bless him for trying, but I simply do not care for the fruit of his efforts. You know whose sharp is that Scott Snyder guy. Talented family the Snyders, but I wish Zack had better taste and we'll leave it that. You know who was a great too was the guy who wrote that dream episode for Superman with the plant? I always wondered you know who the hell is his wife in that? Because its not Lois Lane, I can tell you that much. It always bothered me. Great, great episode from a really iconic show.

>>150873974
... Nigga. You think Superman, an alien from Krypton, having a fever dream x100, where he grew up on Krypton, with his parents, would dream Lois to be his wife?

>>150873974
>You know who was a great too was the guy who wrote that dream episode for Superman with the plant? I always wondered you know who the hell is his wife in that? Because its not Lois Lane, I can tell you that much. It always bothered me.

It was JM DeMatteis adapting an Alan Moore story. IIRC I think someone said that the wife in the animated version is supposed to be an amalgamation of Lois and Lana

>>150873679
And I hate the DCAU for that, genuinely a bad representation of characters like John Stewart and Shayera Hol, who had stopped going by Hawkgirl at that point, in Post-Crisis she went straight to Hawkwoman.

>>150873974
The movies were objectively more successful and had a much larger audience than the cartoon. They weren't cultural phenomena or anything but they were in the public consciousness for far longer than the cartoon ever was and had a much greater impact.

>>150871501
Blacks love anime

>>150866354
Because he's basically just Superman's sidekick in a metal Superman copy suit. JL rarely if ever has a sidekick on the team. It's be like having Robin or Nightwing there.

Mr. Terrific had fallen out of sight by then, while Cyborg was popular from Teen Titans and had the somewhat unique gimmick of heavy robot tech, especially when they reworked him to be based on Apocalips tech instead of just being a general cyborg. Yeah he was younger than the rest but that might have been the point to diversify the ages a little by having a younger kid brother type to some of the others. Terrific was just another 30 something like most of the rest of the team and he just has his gimmick weapons. Of course Terrific got a recent boost from the last Superman film while Cyborg's fallen out of prominence so things might change.

>>150865954 (OP)
Because Johns believes that black people should be guinea pigs for technology they dont understand rather than a smart black man who makes himself.

>>150874713
Makes himself what

>>150873831
Turns out you really can’t judge by movie popularity

>>150873831
>>150874895
Shills spotted

>>150875018
Shills are the ones saying he got a movie boost

>>150875024
He did though. If my dad somehow knows a character that's a pretty big boost

>>150875115
It's "recognition" solely from a movie

>>150875024
Youtuber/Marvel/Snyder shills are the ones saying he got a movie boost? News to me

>>150875288
>anything that says anything bad about a C lister must be Snyder/Marvel/Youtuber shills
Come on now

>>150875288
Gunn shills actually. Very rampant on the board.

>>150873871
>The Annihilation saga stuff put them on the map first.
I know that people pretend to care about those comics but damn.

>>150869000
>dickless freak like Cyborg
Despite what that ranting blog post said, I'm fairly certain Wolfman, degenerate that he is, confirmed Cyborg still has a functional dong somewhere in his Titans run.

>>150874096
So true shill.

>>150875338
There's a blog that ranted about a character's dick?

>>150871209
It might surprise you to learn that it depends on the individual.

>>150873670
The idea would be to make Steel a stand-alone hero. Remove him from Superman's origin. They'd gotten rid of Death of Superman, it's not like it mattered. He doesn't need to be a Superman supporting character, not every hero needs a black sidekick.

>>150875338
Cyborg fucks. There's a POV page of him getting a BJ somewhere in the Wolfman run.

>>150870507
Let me throw a curve ball here: Bumblebee.

>>150873494
He has been around every now and then. Injustice had him in the cartoon and comics, Brave and the Bold had a fun episode where he was the main focus, he had a small part in JLU. He was always around the spotlight if you were a DC fan.

>>150874055
>>150874063
Yes because he has no other point of reference for kryptonians and it was his "perfect" world. Also, it wasn't Lois. In the cartoon, it was a mix of Lois and Lana, with red hair.

>>150874427
I always saw Terrific as "practically prepared". You know how John Constantine is written in a way that he always has something up his sleeve and some trinket or spell that could allow him to wiggle out of a situation. That's how I used to see Terrific. He was tech-y, but in a less flashy way than Cyborg and such.

>>150865954 (OP)
cyBORING is a crybaby "OOOH WOE IS ME! OH NO! OH GOD! I'M A ROBOT BEEEPBOOP! I also like to hang out with little boys and girls but that's okay because batman also does it" fuck that guy! people want cool heroes doing cool stuff not crying about life and rent and rejecting to say their catchphrase because it's racist according to my grandma who once went to a Egyptian museum.

>>150877455
>Injustice had him in the cartoon and comics
I'm pretty sure Mr. Terrific wasn't in the injustice comics. He took Barry's role in the animated movie though.

>>150877486
Up through Flashpoint Mister Terrific was always the smart man if written by smart men. He wasn't pulling SCIENCE! out his ass, he wasn't even that tech heavy, he was just extremely competent.

>>150872778
Throw Barrack Obama Superman in there and we've got a deal.

Cyborg is a TEEN TITAN, not a Justice League member, and I'm glad we're finally starting to move away from that shit, and being being force fed it for years

If the decision was being made today I think they probably would've went with Mr. Terrific over Cyborg but in 2011 Mr. Terrific was a fucking nobody, there was just no marketability there.

>>150865954 (OP)
Cyborg was more popular at the time because of a TV show.

>>150875345
Might have focused on Cloak. It was a whole thing about the emasculation of Black Men in comics, but mostly it was about those two.

>Cyborg was more popular & marketable
Marketability? lol, what marketability did Cyborg ever have? Even in 2011 who do you think black boys would better identify with, or self insert and cosplay as, the robot freak with no dick or the cool and confident black man who is rocking a badass fro and a fire leather jacket.

>>150880296
Yeah, wasn't it a Tumblr or something? I can remember something like that.

>>150875338
I'm not the regular NTT dumping autist, but do know the lore with it too.
Cyborg did have his man bits there. After he got blown up in Russia and rebuilt even more, he was even more machine and basically a braindead automaton for a while (he was originally supposed to keep his mind though).
He went through the Cyberion shit, then I guess when he was a soul in the Omegadrome you could say he could shapeshift a cock.
When the Omegadrome merged with his mindless human clone, he was human again but could shift between that and "Cyborg" mode until Geoff Johns mode-locked him in his Flash run. After that, he became some weird cryptid who had the ability to take himself apart in the Titans Tower and would soak his human parts in protein baths. Maybe he still had his dick getting wet in there with the other organic bits, maybe not.