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I miss them so much, they were such good friends...

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The Question: I’ve got some questions.

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tora :)

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J'onn and Ma'al as that "little aliens forever" pic.

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TOT'S BACK 🎉🎉🎉

I've been catching up on the news about the new Renee mini, and that meant catching up on her Brave and the Bold story (so far it's clunky, but it's reestablishing her and setting up a change in status quo). I wasn't expecting Tot! He's great! He's a good sign that the writer actually cares about Renee's history and the dynamics that ground her! His existence clears up some continuity! Also, I like seeing him!

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Daughter of Cain

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Batgirl Barbara Gordon based on jenn0wow's design! This is for DC Gotcha for Gaza, requests for prompts are now closed. This was a fun design! Very Tim Sale-esque, I especially loved drawing the hair.

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mildly tempted to start reading extreme justice in the hopes of finding The Team Which Is Perfect For Jean-Paul Valley

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Just wanted to say your question reading guide has helped me out a ton, and I commend you for such an indepth and has helped me immensely with the reading. I hope u have a good day

Thank you so much! I'm glad it helped!

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crisis on infinite earths part 3, unsurprisingly, sucks shit. just a spectacularly badly paced movie with like three different underwhelming climaxes and maybe two characters' worth of interesting emotions spread across the entire cast. i am not even annoyed about vic being on some rorschach bullshit because he is 100% right to choose dying over getting rebooted and having to deal with this universe again.

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omerta

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN! :DD

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the question

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I have a Question...

(sketch below the cut)

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torraaa

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Updating the sheet has me thinking about the cameo limbo Vic's currently in, and what DC should do with him.

Vic is in this weird position where I don't really think he should be alive. He's had one appearance that was at all meaningful to his arc and one goofy oneshot since his resurrection, and it doesn't seem like anyone wants to do anything with him other than put him in bullshit spy stuff, so it kinda just feels pointless. Unlike some other ex-dead-mentors, though, it's not like him being around is a *problem* for Renee's development. Killing him off again would just be cheap, and there's no reason not to use him now that he's around. So what do you do with that?

Well. Vic died with his heroic arc complete, having passed on his legacy and made peace with his unfinished business, and now he has to figure out what to do in a world where he doesn't have a history to ground him. As a reflection of both his time seeking a purpose after Hub City and his earliest relationship with Shiva, the answer could easily be "hang out and get into trouble".

See, my annoyance with his current position is because I feel like it's kind of a waste to leave him in a dropped (I think? I might've missed something, but I'm pretty sure the Lois Lane Checkmate stuff has been ditched) team/plotline that kinda sucked, not that I'm upset he's sidelined. As much as I want to see my beloved guy, I don't actually have a problem with him showing up once a year. My ideal status quo for him, short of manifesting my stupid knockoff Birds of Prey pitch into reality, would be something like the handful of appearances in the late 90s/early 2000s where he was wandering around playing poker. No team affiliation, no grand motive, just showing up in backups and cooldown issues between major arcs.

Vic has thrived as a side character in other people's books, and it would open up a lot of possibilities if he was set up in a place where writers can pull him for an issue or two without having to figure out whether any of the Checkmate stuff is still relevant or come up with a great idea for where to take him next. It's not that he couldn't develop further, but I'd much prefer him to stay static as a roaming weirdo than to rehash old arcs or go in a direction that cheapens his existing development. It's fine for him to be a supporting character in the communal toybox now that his story has ended, and he's a lot more likely to stay in people's minds and eventually be a part of something neat if he's hanging around.

That said, there are a few things about where he is as a person that I think would be worth expanding on if he's being set loose into canon to cause problems.

The first is that I want to know how he feels about being resurrected. I'm sure his reappearance would've felt weighty to someone who was a Vic fan when it happened, and focusing on Renee's reaction to him being back in Lois Lane was definitely the right choice, but looking at his appearances as a whole it ends up feeling... almost underwhelming? That might just be because making the spreadsheet broke my brain, but it's something any substantial appearance probably has to touch on. I don't even think it's weird that he's seemingly unfazed by waking up in an alternate universe, unlike some other characters who should probably have more feelings about being resurrected by continuity jank, but I do feel like there's a lot of room to look at *why* he's so chill. Even just as a contrast to a deeper exploration of someone else having a bad time about it, there are a lot of motifs to build from, and there's a lot you could do with how his self-perception has changed after yet another metamorphosis. (Based on the scraps of pagetime he's had, I'd point it somewhere in the direction of "he's been freed from old obligations, blurring the boundary between his Vic and Charlie personas.")

i also think there's a lot you could do with his old struggles with whether he was doing the right thing or just doing violence because he enjoyed it, and how he views himself now that he's stepped into a more Shiva-like role. This isn't a new development for him, but his initial shift into a wandering mentor wasn't something he planned - he initially left Hub City out of necessity, failed to start fresh, then latched onto Helena while seeking purpose. There's some interesting weight to him getting a chance to either have a fresh start somewhere else or return to Hub City without the weight of his history, and instead choosing to fuck around and intentionally get into trouble that has nothing to do with him, without even the excuse of mentorship.

There's also the problem of continuity housekeeping. It's not really necessary for tracking who remembers him since other heroes generally have their post-crisis continuity back, but the vibe of him roaming rather than returning home change a LOT depending on which version of Hub City exists (it tends to depend on Blue Beetle continuity, which is currently fucked), if Tot and/or Myra exist, and how long Vic was dead from their perspectives. Honestly there are a lot of good options here. I love Tot and want him to be a part of Renee's supporting cast, but the idea that Vic's civilian past literally does not exist is incredibly juicy.

Other than that... idk man. Just because I think he's underused doesn't mean I think he has to be important. Use him as a plot device for anyone who needs an annoying guy to make them introspect. Do more goofy oneoff mysteries. Let me write a teamup that sucks. Put That Guy In A Situation.

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He said "I've been to the year 3000,"

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Jonn doodles<333