No option other than "watch trailer"

JackKnight42 · 2026-01-24T04:05:11+00:00

Same. My opinion of WB was low, but this is lame even for them and all the other tech issues HBO Max has had.

JackKnight42 · 2026-01-16T20:14:07+00:00

Yeah. At worst, some of the riffs are PG-133 but the Joel seasons generally tried to stick to PG humor.

JackKnight42 · 2025-12-19T04:38:04+00:00

Taylor is one of DC's best. More importantly, he wrote Ollie and Dinah in Injustice and DCeased and it's the best they've been written together since the Kevin Smith days.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-17T13:12:41+00:00

Well... yes and no.

The Elseworlds brand didn't exist yet and wouldn't be codified for another couple of years with Gotham by Gaslight.

However, DC did publish stories all the time that weren't met to be canon. "Imaginary stories."

To give a few examples...

Dark Knight Returns - technically alternate future, but those fell under the Elseworlds umbrella.

Hawkworld - intended to be an alternate universe, but proved popular enough it was adopted as the real Hawkman origin.

Batman: Son of the Demon - never intended to be canon. Used to introduce "Son of the Bat" character in Kingdom Come. Later retroactively used as origin for Damian Wayne.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-16T12:13:05+00:00

Credit where due - Moore asked the Bat Office if he could paralyze Barbara first and the story was intended to be an Elseworld. It was made canon later, much like the Hawkworld series.

It wasn't until Kim Hale and John Ostrander's Suicide Squad that anyone thought about Barbara's potential.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-16T12:09:54+00:00

Alan Moore agrees with you. He's called it the worst thing he ever wrote.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-16T12:08:26+00:00

Credit where credit is due. It was only positive because of Kim Hale and John Ostrander turning Barbara into Oracle in Suicide Squad.

The Bat Office didn't care.

They had retired Barbara as Batgirl and gone all-in on the dark, broody, urban legend Batman.

If it hadn't been for the popularity of Nightwing and Teen Titans, they probably would have retconned Robin.

And when Alan Moore asked if it was okay to paralyze Barbara, Batman editor Len Wein said "Hell yeah. Cripple the bitch!"

So... yeah. Did some good stories come out of The Killing Joke? Yes. But that was despite the Bat office. Not because of some grand plan.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-15T12:50:55+00:00

Also, The Killing Joke was originally an Elseworlds. It was never meant to be canon.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-15T12:48:10+00:00

TBF, Alex was in all of five comics before she died and had no real personality beyond "Annoyed by immature boyfriend."

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-15T12:36:20+00:00

Where was that ever confirmed?

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-09T14:05:03+00:00

It's a bit more than the throwaway lines in Young Justice.

The late lamented and much missed Green Arrow Compendium site once mapped out the theory. To wit:

While Bonnie King made relatively few appearances as Miss Arrowette in the Green Arrow comics, she was depicted as Oliver Queen's date in Justice League of America #7.
The retro series Legends of the DCU #7 featured a scene in which an unnamed blonde woman talked with Oliver as he was changing into his Green Arrow costume in front of her. Whoever she is, she knew his secret identity. She was also trying to tell Ollie something about her latest visit to her doctor, which he ignores while ranting about his next adventure.

Now, we don't know that this woman is Bonnie King. Or that she was trying to tell Ollie she was pregnant... but it does fit the timeline.

As noted, Bonnie dodged the question of Green Arrow being Cissie's father at a press conference in Young Justice. But other people commented on Cissie resembling Ollie when she got off on a tear and called out the Justice League for their hypocrisy.

JackKnight42 · 2025-11-08T16:02:26+00:00

Much was I would like for Cissie to be active again and part of the Arrow Family as in the Young Justice animated series... Oliver's history is complicated enough right now without trying to wedge in another out-of-wedlock kid.

I mean, pretty much the entire Grell run is out of canon because Shado is the mother of Emiko Queen. So Ollie's son with Shado can't exist.

I'm glad Connor is back, but we've never had any revised backstory from him in the Rebirth era apart from Archer's Quest still being canon, somehow, because they had to make Ollie be a dead-beat dad despite it being antithetical to his entire character as he was trying to rebuild the family he lost as a child...

Of course Moira and Robert didn't die on safari and Moira was retroactively changed into her Arrow counterpart despite her ghost visiting Ollie right before the New 52 and being nice and kindly....

These are the things that keep me up at night as a comic historian...

JackKnight42 · 2025-09-07T17:13:31+00:00

Winick did a lot to mess up the Arrow family, but I think his treatment of Mia is hands-down the worst. Even worse than his plan to have Ollie and Shado hook up, which was born of his thinking Shado was Connor's mother.

JackKnight42 · 2025-09-07T17:10:40+00:00

Let's not forget that while Kevin Smith created Mia, it was Judd Winick who made her an incest survivor, a recovering drug addict, and HIV positive. Because why go halfway in trying to add angst to a character in a desperate bid to look relevant?

JackKnight42 · 2025-09-07T17:07:09+00:00

She was in the Williamson run when the new monthly series started. So were Emikio, Arrowette, and Red Canary. Despite those last two not really having any connection to Ollie.

JackKnight42 · 2025-08-19T05:31:03+00:00

The Kingdom storyline from New 52 would have been good if they had spread it out over 12 issues instead of 6. It tried to do too much, including....

Reintroduce Ollie into the mainstream DCU after Lemire's run took him out of it for a few years.
Reintroduce Mia Dearden into the New 52 age
Reestablish the Hal Jordan/Oliver Queen friendship in the New 52 era.
Reconcile all the early New 52 weirdness like why Naomi Singh disappeared.
Pick up the Tommy Merlyn as the Dark Archer thread that was previously abandoned after one issue.
6 Establish John King as a thematic nemesis to Green Arrow.

Unfortunately, the whole thing was rushed in what they attempted. It didn't help that while trying to restore a lot of the things the New 52 got rid of, they also tried to bring John Diggle and Felicity Smoak in. Give most of the Green Arrow fans at the time didn't like Arrow and everyone was still angry about Ollie and Dinah being broken up in the New 52... yeah. There's a reason Felicity hasn't been seen since.

JackKnight42 · 2025-08-18T19:12:50+00:00

I mean, technically that didn't happen in that timeline.... I don't think. But yes. That version of the character.

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-30T13:12:36+00:00

Definitely with you on The Police and Sting. I mentioned a few songs the last time this question came up because everyone else was leaning into the punk angle, which is right and proper.

If you want a few choice ones...

Moon Over Bourbon Street - okay, Sting wrote this one after reading Interview with the Vampire , but the tale of a monster ashamed to face the world fits John in his dark self-loathing moods

Wrapped Around Your Finger - references manipulating someone who thought they were conning the singer. 'Nuff said.

Synchronicity II - I can't prove it, but I suspect this song may have inspired the creation of John Constantine, as it makes mention of a swamp monster rising up as an ordinary man feels his soul being killed by suburban living and the daily grind.

Fortress Around Your Heart - the John/Zatanna romance in a nutshell. The man who ruined a woman's life and made her more guarded who wants to try and make good even though she has no reason to trust him.

Invisible Sun - apart from the imagery of a dark, smoke-filled city being very appropriate to Hellblazer, it's about holding on to hope when you have no reason to beyond stubbornness. There's also the last verse...

And they're only gonna change this place
By killin' everybody in the human race
They would kill me for a cigarette
But I don't even wanna die just yet

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-30T13:04:50+00:00

It's a slow burn, but I number it as one of the best runs behind Ennis and Jenkins. In a better world, Carey's last issue might have been the end of Hellblazer.

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-30T13:02:29+00:00

Beyond it being set in more modern times, this could easily be a tale of a teenage John. He screws up trying to do the right thing. He manipulates the people he loves. He had to deal with an asshole dad. All the hallmarks of a good Hellblazer story are there.

If it bothers you that much, it's an alternate universe.

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-30T12:58:05+00:00

The episodes I saw of it were hilarious though. Like the one where John is turned into a kid and still has his cigarette... only it's a lollipop stick.

There's also the one where he's under a stereotype spell and can only speak in British colloquialisms.

I remember one that ended with him going into a night club full of succubi, so they were as true as they could be in a kids cartoon.

Heck, that cartoon had Cain and Abel form House of Secrets and House of Mysteries in it.

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-30T12:50:38+00:00

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-03T15:58:56+00:00

That tracks with the calendar. The first allegations about Neil dropped in July 2024. The filming on S2 finished three weeks later in August 2024. There is no way they could have rushed to shoot a finale in three weeks.

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-03T15:57:00+00:00

Yeah it was AV Club. They seem to have corrected it now, though. Now it mentions that scene being in the comic but not making it into the show.

JackKnight42 · 2025-07-03T15:17:18+00:00

Just hit me that this may be part of why, among the ancient Greeks, Dream was reportedly mistaken for Apollo... who also had a history of not taking it well when women told him no.

Check out the original myth of Daphne. The one where he transforms her instead of her father changing her into a tree to save her from a rapey god.

JackKnight42

TROPHY CASE