Friday, September 12, 2014

Top 5 Fridays: Top 5 Heroes That Would've Worked Better For Worlds' Finest


It's that time again for lists of the five variety that feature topics about DC Comics.  For this week's installment I figured we'd take a look at something that us at Weird Science have been talking about for awhile........  What the hell is up with Worlds' Finest?  We've got this great title that for some reason was determined to be the perfect spring board to bring Power Girl and Huntress into the New 52 and at first I was all about it.  But then after months and months of reading stories that involved how many guys Power Girl was going to bang and how her clothes were going to fall off, I had enough.  You know when sci-fi shows start out and you have that trope of the monster of the week?  It's was kind of like that but instead, Power Girl would just get naked.......... I don't know, it didn't make sense to me either.  Now you might say, "Hey Eric, at least we had Huntress kicking some ass", but the problem here is, she didn't.......... she just didn't.  I don't think I've ever seen a hero bumble around as much as her, especially with the added fact that she was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.  Bruce would see her and be like "You're out of the family".


A big problem here might have to do with the idea that DC put someone in charge of writing young independent superhero women, who was in fact a man in his late 50's.  Those two things just don't go together for me.  But lucky for us now that Power Girl and Huntress have returned to Earth 2 and will be featured in Earth 2's weekly book World's End, we can shift gears and have Paul Levitz in charge of writing a older Batman and Superman as a sort of prequel to the Worlds' Finest series we've come to know.  Yeah so that's a bit of a better idea then just continuously trying to show us Power Girl's boobs.  With this switch in the book's protagonists I figured we'd take a look at heroes that could of been the stars of a Worlds' Finest book, that might not have sucked so bad.  So let's take a look at this week's Top 5 Fridays with Top 5 Heroes That Would've Worked Better For Worlds' Finest.  Let's check it out.




#5.  Superman and........ Anyone



We've got Batman/Superman and Superman/Wonder Woman and I know when Worlds' Finest was originally announced to be a title we all thought that it would be the classic title Superman Batman, but we're just a big bunch of dopes.  Seriously though this title would be fine if you have Superman and any of the characters from The Justice League, or really just any character in the DC roster.  I was happy to see a bit of diversity when Power Girl and Huntress were the stars of the title, but how cool would it have been to have the Superman/Wonder Woman book with the title World's Finest?  So I just wanted to get any Superman and *Insert Name Here* out of the way so we didn't have to keep jumping back, because we all know that Superman is the world's finest superhero.  So let's get to the odd picks that could of worked and the ones that make us here at Weird Science happy and giggle like Japanese school girls.




#4.  Blue and Gold



This almost seemed like it was about to happen in Justice League International Annual #1, the only problem was that it was the final issue and someone decided that since both Blue Beetle and Justice League International were getting cancelled, Blue Beetle would serve better as a side character in Threshold.  You guys remember Threshold?  Of course you don't because nobody read it and it was cancelled real fast.  That's right boys and girls instead of giving us something that we would enjoy, DC rolled the dice and came up snake.... Threshold.  Booster Gold was lost in time, Blue Beetle was lost in space and I was forced to give Worlds' Finest a low rating month after month and watch reruns of Lost.  I DIDN'T WANT TO DO THAT!  Hopefully we'll have a Blue and Gold in the future even if it's not in Worlds' Finest.




#3.  Science and Magic



Ever since Shazam became a member of the Justice League, you know two issues ago, I have loved the idea of these two pairing up for wacky young high jinks.  Yeah that sounds awful, but I seriously would love to see more of these two and maybe give Cyborg a chance to shine..... Since........ You know DC apparently hates him.  I just don't get how a founding member of the Justice League could be screwed out of a solo title again and again and yet we still get Threshold.  I won't let this Threshold thing go and it doesn't take away from the fact that both Cyborg and Shazam have been terribly mistreated in the New 52.  Even if we're only talking about Shazam, he had these great backups in Justice League which led to him being the main story in Justice League #0 and #21 only to be put on the back burner again.  Where the hell is my Shazam book?  These two need a book and combining science and magic just sounds like a lot of fun.




#2.  Robins



Even though Damian eventually died and Nightwing became a secret agent for some reason.  A Robin book called World's Finest would have been so badass.  People outside of the obsessed comic fan demographic usually look at Robin as a joke or even worse Batman's sex toy, but us fans know that Robin is the backbone to the Caped Crusader machine.  Having all the iterations of this sidekick getting together to solve a problem or to actually save Batman would have been a great mini series, but to actually have a book telling all the stories where these former and current Boy Wonders get together to take down a baddie, would have just been comic book genius.  Definitely would have been one of DC top selling comics but instead...... Nope, not going to do Threshold again....... Not going to do it.  Instead we get Hawk and Dove.  See I told you I wasn't going to do it.  So DC get your act together and bring back Damian in a way that he isn't like a reject from Pet Semetary and have Dick put the mask back on so we can have these stories...... Or don't do any of these and just give me stories that have happened all ready, either way we both win.




#1.  The Speed Force of Will Power...That makes sense right?



Now we were given a brief glimpse of this in Flash Annual #2, where Barry and Hal were having fun and exciting adventures and it was just awesome.  It seriously made me want to see more of these two since Hal had exited the Justice League and wouldn't be playing with anyone that didn't have a ring.  I understand giving more responsibility to Hal and expanding his character, but did we have to do it so soon?  We had five years of stories we could of told with the Justice League and we just skipped over that to get to the present day stuff.  I'm getting off topic here, the point is that Hal and Barry are great together and we don't get to see that anymore and how great would it have been since DC wanted to change the Worlds' Finest title to have these two be the protagonists?  Hold on, I'll answer for you.  I would have been FREAKIN' AWESOME.  Maybe sometime in the future Hal will give up his leader duties and come back to Earth to have fun with his buddy Barry, but I doubt it.

That's our list for this week and man am I wanting to see these titles now.  With any luck the new direction of Worlds' Finest featuring the back stories to Earth 2's Batman and Superman will be a slam dunk or some other cool sports analogy and put the title back on course and sell a shit load of copies, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  The take away from this is if you want to write young strong female characters, maybe you shouldn't put a guy in charge who obviously knows nothing about the subject.  See you in seven for the next installment of Top 5 Fridays.

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