It definitely wasn’t love. The original portrayal of Terra was a sociopathic girl who did things for kicks, including that one unfortunate incident. The second Terra was actually heroic, albeit sassy. The PE Terra started out sassy but heroic as well during New 52, but with Rebirth, she took on a more neutral alignment. She’s not evil, but she’s not exactly heroic either. At least she’s not a sociopath anymore, though. PE Terra has had genuine affections toward other people.
Anywho, the initial scene was definitely controversial, but being controversial helped boost comic sales at times. The Green Lantern/Green Arrow: Hard-Traveling Heroes run had some “whoa” moments, such as a crucifixion mirroring the death of Jesus of Christian folklore, if I’m not mistaken.
Either way, Slade definitely reformed and became an ally to the Titans for years, and he worked on behalf of the U.S. government. As a mercenary, he operated on a moral code, only accepting hits for people he determined were corrupt, people he thought the world would be better without. And he didn’t kill kids. So, he became an anti-villain / anti-hero for a while before being portrayed as a villain again in the 2000s, albeit one who cares for his children.
Unfortunately, Deathstroke during the New 52 period was awful. He just killed for the sake of it, mostly. Or for pride. Rebirth Slade made up for those bad portrayals, and his Infinite Frontier portrayal is mixed. He ends up taking over the Secret Society of Super-Villains so that he could stop them from doing deeds that were too evil, before he became possessed and died.
In the end, Slade is a complex character with both good and bad parts added and taken away from his history over the decades.
The sit-down to which Arise Etrigan is referring is in this issue.
Whether or not Slade and Tara were ever intimate was a nebulous question for more than a decade. The confirmation that they indeed had one, singular encounter came from Deathstroke’s solo series in the 1990s when Wintergreen confronts him. Slade expressed regret over doing it.
Now, let’s not forget that in many states within the U.S. and in many countries, the age of consent is 16, not 18. Terra was 16 at the time. So, whether or not a physical relationship was appropriate is culturally variable. Still, it’s questionable by many for an adult in their 40s to be with an 18-year-old since that’s the first year of consent in most places, so I can understand folks being yucked with the idea of a grown man being with a 16-year-old, even if it were legal, for similar “They only just became legal.” reasons.
Most importantly, though, in Prime Earth (the current universe) history, their relationship was never physical. In PE, Terra was smitten with Slade, but that never occurred.
Chances are, those comics aren’t flashing back into old continuities. They are more likely comics that flash back into the past of Prime Earth’s history as it stands at the version of PE you’re reading. So, if you’re reading a comic published between 2021-present, you’re reading comics from the Infinite Frontier era. If a comic from that era includes a flashback, the events of that flashback are now canon to the current version of Prime Earth’s past. So, if you see an older costume in comic published during the Infinite Frontier era, that costume has now been retroactively been “revealed” to have canonically been worn by that character.
5/10 for me. I was late to this party, sorry. I was out of commission on the 1st and was recovering (with company over) in the handful of days thereafter.
I could forgive OOC stories if the comic is more explicit about that status. One-Star Squadron could’ve have easily had an editor’s note close to the title/credits page that said it was OOC.
Generally, I’m annoyed by portrayals that are so notably in contrast with their usual mainstream selves.
But if you like him, OP, feel free to want to see him more often.
If I think of it as an OOC story (which I believed it must be), then I like it better.
The sliding time scale isn’t exact, but it helps at times if you need to do quick math. I use canonical age references from comics to give my best guesstimations.
From my perspective, approximately 2-3 years have passed. During Crisis on Infinite Earths, most members of the New Teen Titans were 19 years old going on 20. Superman’s death occurred the same month as New Titans #95. At that point, the Dick Grayson and company had reached around the 22-year-old mark. So, that would put the time difference at more than two years and maybe up to three.
I like that Heckler was brought back and used in a modern comic, as he was in One-Star Squadron. I just wish that book didn’t infuriate me by having details that absolutely do not match up with the history established in the current (admittedly slightly nebulous) continuity and by portraying beloved characters that do not match their portrayals elsewhere in current continuity (Power Girl and Red Tornado received the shortest ends of this particular stick in this regard).
I’ve read Worlds Funnest, and I’d like to read more appearances of Plastic Man in general.
Convergence showed that past universes existed somewhere in the grander DC cosmos, even if they don’t fit into the post-Flashpoint multiverse. One of the major points of Convergence was to show that even old versions of characters are accessible to writers if they have a good reason to use them. Though, we haven’t actually seen examples of characters outside the primary multiverse used in comics very often since Convergence.
The Metal event and later the Infinite Frontier comic reveals that DC has more than one multiverse. So while Prime Earth rests in the center of one multiverse (that was once finite with only 52 earths), these other realities exist somewhere in the grander Omniverse, as we learn in Dark Crisis and connected stories.
Right. Events first catalogued in DCU: Rebirth #1 kicked off an in-universe soft reboot for Prime Earth (similarly to how Infinite Crisis kicked off a soft reboot in New Earth in 2006). The result is that some aspects of New 52 canon were retconned out of the post-Rebirth PE continuity, while new elements (some resembling pre-Flashpoint lore) were restored.
If it helps, all stories that occurred during New 52 are canon to Earth 52 in the current DC multiverse. So, those five years are history are preserved somewhere in DC’s cosmology.
At the end of 2020, the event known as Dark Knights: Death Metal caused a second soft reboot. This soft reboot has altered Prime Earth history yet again. Some points of lore from the New 52 days survived to be true even in the post-Death Metal version of PE; some haven’t. Some points of lore from the Rebirth era of PE are still true; some aren’t. The new canon is unfolding even three years later, so we’re still learning what from the New 52 and Rebirth eras is still canon and what from pre-Flashpoint canon has been restored (at least in part).
Anthology titles or issues often tell stories set in other continuities. Stories published in today’s age are assumed to be set in Prime Earth unless we have evidence otherwise. Plenty of stories from these anthology titles provide context that make it clear which continuity they’re set in. Sometimes we’ll get a Batman story set in the universe that started with the 1989 Batman movie, for example. Sometimes these stories even say what universe they’re set in, such as one of the recent Milestone anthology one-shots. We’re not attributing characters to universes randomly. The stories themselves clue people in, especially those who are more well-read.
It doesn’t matter what’s simple. It matters what’s accurate. And just because a story or piece of lore isn’t canon to the current mainstream continuity anymore, that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. Past comics influence modern comics. New comics make callbacks to older comics that aren’t mainstream canon anymore. All comics matter. But that doesn’t mean they’re part of the same canon/continuity. You’re wanting something to be true that simply isn’t true, and you’re placing more significance into a misguided ideal than is necessary.
Conceptually, I like the peeling sticker logo from New 52, but I don’t find it all that attractive. The black bullet logo is one I feel the most sentimentality toward because many of my favorite titles bore that emblem, but I honestly like the Rebirth-present one the best. It’s simple but effective, in my opinion.
No, no. Most characters can’t have literally all of their NE history coexist with all of their PE history. So, no, we won’t be merging New Earth and Prime Earth articles for characters. As post-Death Metal comics are produced, we learn what PE lore has been retconned away, what NE lore has been restored, and what lore that mixes the two or is completely original now exists.
New Earth and Prime Earth have different histories, even if they have a lot of crossover nowadays. I’d argue it’s much simpler to keep them separate, as trying to merge the pages and determine “what’s canon to what period” is hard enough just within NE and just within PE, particularly when you consider the soft reboots that happened within those continuities.
Collections and anniversary one-shots are often intended to tell stories across characters’ portrayals as a way to reach out to readers who were fans of specific versions of said characters. They’re not usually intended to tell one cohesive story, so it’s fine if the books jump around continuities.
Meanwhile, Earth 2 Lois is Red Tornado of all things. That was unexpected at the time.
Reminds me of when Godfrey did that in the late 1980s, though I think Waller is doing an eerily successful job of it.
Your observation looks right to me.
I didn’t read it personally. I just recall the solicitations.