Profile: Lian Harper

Lian Harper
First appearance: New Teen Titans #21, Vol. 2, June 1986

History: Lian was conceived by Arsenal/Roy Harper with mercenary Cheshire/Jade Nguyen, whom Roy had a brief affair with when he was working as a special government agent to investigate her. (He still went by the Speedy handle at the time.) Eventually, following a special Nightwing story written by Marv Wolfman in Action Comics Weekly, Roy took up custody of Lian.

Current status: died in a citywide explosion in Star City, as the result of a bomb planted by Prometheus in the widely panned Cry for Justice miniseries in February 2010, which even wiped out almost 100,000 other residents as well.

What's wrong with how this was done? As if it weren't enough that Cry for Justice contained some of the most awful characterization ever seen in a modern day DC comic, depicted Roy getting his right arm gored off, and even depicted the League in a pretty negative, incompetant light, Lian's own death was pointless and offensive, even if we don't see her body in a mangled state. It must also be made clear that, even if Green Arrow did slay Prometheus at the end, it does not justify Lian's death any more than Josh Jackam's death when the Rogues' killed Inertia in Rogues' Revenge.

The Cry for Justice miniseries even imitated some of the same grave errors made with Green Lantern at the time Zero Hour was published: Coast City, Hal Jordan's own residential burg, was leveled by Mongul, and Jordan subsequently descended into madness. Now, Green Arrow's own city has fallen, and one of the worst things about this is how he's being villified for seeking justice against the supervillain who committed the horrific crime. Those against him include the League, and even the recently resurrected Barry Allen, Silver Age Flash. Not that I'm surprised, though. They have pulled this nonsense for long enough, allegedly making GA the real hero here at the expense of his fellow crimefighters and their common sense, yet it's not like even GA comes off well here either. Thus, it fails even at that.

James Robinson, who penned this miniseries, has thrown away all his credibility as a writer, and like Geoff Johns, does not deserve to write any more DC or Marvel comics. As long as DC continues to adhere to this monstrosity, to say nothing of a lot of other elements they've been using for about a decade now, then their output must be shunned. Lian's own fate must be reversed, just like with a lot of other DC characters who've been victims of character death and destruction.

First, they came for the adults. Now, as stories like these show, they're coming for the children.