Profile: Bat-Girl/Flamebird

Bat-Girl/Flamebird
Real name: Bette Kane (pre-crisis, her first name was spelled with a Y)
First appearance: as Bat-Girl in Batman #139, 1961, as Flamebird in Secret Origins Annual #3, 1989
Creators: Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff (pre-Crisis edition), George Perez (post-Crisis edition)

History: originally, this superheroine was created as part of the Batman family, along with original Batwoman Kathy Kane, and first took up the mantle of Bat-Girl, later making appearances in the Teen Titans as a member of Titans West. In the post-Crisis era, she was reinvented as Flamebird, a kooky fangirl-style protagonist who was a teen tennis player, and who wished for the kind of costumed career taken by original Robin Dick Grayson (who later became Nightwing), since she'd had a crush on him, and hoped to meet him in time, though when they finally did, it wasn't the fabulous dream Bette hoped it would be. Though not part of the Bat-family per se in this post-Crisis rendition, Bette similarly specialized in building gadgetry like Batman and his partners did, and practiced combat skills. And, her world view was of the more optimistic (and humorous) variety.

Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination: in a Beast Boy miniseries published around 2000, co-written by Geoff Johns and Ben Raab, and illustrated by Justiniano/Josue Rivera, she was made to look like a stupid idiot, as though her being hot was almost literally the problem, and the only way for her to be a "serious" superheroine was to dress in a more modest outfit and cut her hair shorter. The decidedly atrocious costume design Justiniano came up with as the artist was one of the biggest insults to the intellect, and when Bette was subsequently cast in the 2000 Titans Annual, the same writers even insulted her by having Arsenal and Nightwing talk about how they "love" her new outfit and attitude. The latter which included a panel with a bleeped expletive, as though being profane actually makes her more "serious" too.

What's wrong with how this was done? One of the most irritating things about these stories is that neither the writers, artists, nor the editors ever explain clearly why they believe how dressing or talking makes the character more "convincing" as a costumed crimefighter, if they even take the time to explain at all. And when you consider that Justiniano, as noted earlier, was arrested, convicted and jailed a decade later for possession of child porn, one can only wonder if he drew the more modest outfit for Flamebird as a form of virtue-signaling, and a way to conceal how evil and corrupt he actually was in real life.

Was there anything good to come out of this? Since then, the DCU's gone way downhill into a shoddy, sexless mess, and one can only wonder how much more awful Justiniano's costume design would be if he'd drawn it today, ditto Johns/Raab's writing. Like much of the rest of the DCU, even Bette's suffered bad writing since. Flamebird may be a minor character, but she's one of many who deserved far better than such an embarrassment, ditto her original creators, Finger, Moldoff and Perez, all of whom were insulted by Johns, Raab, Justiniano and even Eddie Berganza, who, if memory serves, was the editor on titles like the Titans at the time.

Record: Justiniano

There used to be an artist working in comicdom who went by the pen name of Justiniano, but whose real name was Josue Rivera. He was arrested around 2011 and convicted for possession of child pornography, similar to how the disgraced Gerard Jones was later arrested and jailed for the same offenses. And Justiniano also had at least a few stories and illustrations in his comics portfolio that were either demeaning to women, or they were forms of virtue-signaling that were likely drawn as virtue-signaling, in an attempt to conceal what a wolf in sheep's clothing he really was. Here's a few of the shoddy details from Justiniano's resume:

• In 2000, he drew a Beast Boy miniseries (written by Geoff Johns and Ben Raab) where Flamebird/Bette Kane was a co-star, and not only was she made to look like a bimbo, towards the end of the miniseries, she was depicted donning a more modest looking costume and sporting a shorter hairstyle in what was apparently the artist and writers' idea of how she should be a "serious" crimefighter, not to mention a form of virtue-signaling. If this had been done today, chances are high Justiniano would've taken a more woke path than what he did here in how to illustrate her. The loathsome design also appeared in the Titans Annual for 2000, also illustrated by Justiniano.
• In that same story, towards the end, Gar Logan noticeably hits a woman. It may have been a crook (supposedly a daughter of Madame Rouge from Doom Patrol, even though there's nothing in past DC history to make it plausible), but the way it was drawn was so alarming, it's clear it was meant to be some kind of reprehensible "justification" for wallowing in shock value.
• In 2005, Justiniano drew all 6 issues of Day of Vengeance, a miniseries written as a followup to Identity Crisis and a lead-in to Infinite Crisis, where Jean Loring becomes a female version of Eclipso, and the way it was written (by Bill Willingham) also made it look like one side of a conversation where a woman's being sexually harassed. This was easily one of the most loathsome moments from Justiniano's undeserved career.
• Towards the end of his worthless career, he drew some issues of a Spirit series (written by Michael Uslan), based on Will Eisner's famous Golden Age adventure series (1940-52), where a villainess insults Ellen Dolan by calling her a "fat ass".

At least a few stories illustrated by Justiniano at the time had traces of contempt for women, and one could wonder if that had anything to do with his taking the assignments. It's a good thing he was caught and jailed, and now his worthless career's been over for nearly 15 years. But who knows how many more artists like him will turn out to be terrible felons?

Profile: Jubilee

Jubilee

First appearance: Uncanny X-Men #244, May 1989
Real name: Jubilation Lee
Creators: Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri

History: Jubilee was a teenage girl of Chinese descent, daughter of wealthy immigrant parents who'd lived in Beverly Hills, California, who were both murdered by mafia hitmen, and lost her family fortune in the process. She wound up homeless after fleeing from an orphanage, and survived by hiding out an a shopping mall, where she even tried to make money panhandling, or more specifically, by using the mutant power she discovered she had (pyrotechnic light beams) to entertain the patrons, while simultaneously evading mall security that wanted to throw her out. Later, she wound up being teleported to Australia with the X-Men in the Siege Perilous affair, and befriended Wolverine, who made her into a team member and a protege of his. In 1994, she became a cast member of the Generation X spinoff series.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the House of M crossover of 2005, already notorious enough for its "no more mutants" alterations that were laughable, she loses her powers along with a number of other characters. Then, in Marvel's 2010 crossover Curse of the Mutants, in X-Men's third volume, she was affected with vampirism, and reduced to the sidelines for a time. It was only around 2018 that she was written being cured of vampirism and her mutant powers restored.

What's wrong with how this was done? The slew of crossovers that began with Avengers: Disassembled and spiraled into shoddiness was some of the most inorganic productions that could've gone on under Joe Quesada, whose staff really seemed to go out of control with such stuff after Bill Jemas left the publisher. And Jubilee was clearly one of the biggest victims of the pointless directions taken, right down to the repellent path with turning her into a vampire, something which also happened to Looker from Outsiders at least a decade prior.

Was there anything good to come of this? Of course when the writers finally reversed the vampire theme in a 2nd volume of Generation X in the past decade, that was a good thing. But it was far too late to care what would come next, since artistic quality had been ruined even long before. So if Jubilee was boosted to a more adult age by that time, even that was late in coming.

Regarding her original outfit with a trechcoat and shorts, I did think that was silly, even if it was meant as an allusion to Robin's costume in Batman comics. But aside from that Marvel's artists did change some of it a few years later and draw her with longer hair, it was still the least of the problems to come, which creator Chris Claremont clearly doesn't care about today, seeing how he'd never taken issue with the mistakes made with the characters he created in the years after he stopped writing X-Men.

Profile: Element Girl

Element Girl
Real name: Urania Blackwell
First appearance: Metamorpho #10, February 1967
Creators: Bob Haney, Sal Trapani

History: Urania Blackwell was a spy for the USA government who'd undergone an experiment that gave her powers similar to Rex Mason, aka Metamorpho. Her first major assignment was to infiltrate a European crime syndicate called Cyclops and investigate its leader, a man codenamed Stingaree. Blackwell soon falls in love with Stingaree and agrees to marry him, only to have him spurn her when his affections turn elsewhere. In turn, Blackwell manages to convince her agency that the romance had been a sham and asks for their help in finding some way to strike back at Stingaree. The agency obliged by offering her the chance to take part in a long-planned experiment to replicate the incident that led to Rex Mason being transformed into Metamorpho. Blackwell volunteers for the experiment and is molded by the sun god Ra into an elemental with superpowers identical to Mason's. Blackwell, now calling herself Element Girl, seeks out Metamorpho and recruited his help in her mission to destroy Stingaree. Together they destroy Cyclops, and the two allies found themselves in danger of becoming a romantic pair, much to the dismay of Metamorpho's fiancee Sapphire Stagg. Deciding it best to remain with "Sapph-baby", Rex severed his ties with Urania to salvage his relationship with Sapphire, to Urania's disappointment.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in the aforementioned Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, in the 20th issue, Death of the Endless, the sister of Morpheus, paid Urania a visit, and told her to look up to the sun and the pagan Ra, to have her powers removed so she can then die by turning to stone and falling apart. And when a phone call comes in at Urania's apartment, Death answers with a smirk on her face at how somebody's dying, as though it's something to celebrate.

What's wrong with how this was done? For one thing, it embodies the shoddy notion that specific characters are useless if they're minor and the writers supposedly don't know what to do with them. For another, it's yet another moment in the disgraced Neil Gaiman's resume that's simply repellent, and demonstrates how he practically used the autonomy he may have had in writing his own series for DC as a shield for bumping off a character who, if the editors/publishers wanted to, could've written decent stories around, and all without breaking up Rex and Sapphire's coupling. Put another way, if they'd wanted to, they could practically have given her personal agency and even created a boyfriend for Urania similar to Steve Trevor originally being Wonder Woman's. And that's an idea the Big Two have tragically faltered on considerably as time went by. When Gaiman was working in comicdom, what's irritating is how he could apparently influence what could occur in the DCU proper, but nobody else was allowed to make use of the characters from his comics? A total disgrace.

Was there anything good to come out of this? Nope. To date, Urania's still in graveyard limbo, and save for a recent 2024 Metamorpho miniseries set in the past written by Al Ewing, another bad modern writer, she's largely forgotten, mainly because that's what DC's management wants. It's utterly atrocious how some of the worst, most overrated writers have succeeded in bringing down the quality of mainstream entertainment, including Gerard Jones, and the damaging effects they were responsible for have lingered long after they fell from grace.

Record: Jonathan Peterson

There was once an editor who worked in comicdom from the mid-80s to the early 2000s by the name of Jonathan Peterson. And what I found out about this man, from an old interview reprinted from one of the history guides for DC's Titans, was hugely disappointing, based on his attitude towards Terry Long, once the husband of Donna Troy in the late 80s-early 90s, and even what Peterson thought of Jericho. Some points as follows, based on what's told in the interview:

• When it comes to Terry Long, Peterson said, 'I had plans for Nightwing. Donna Troy [was] another one I wanted to see stay, though I was mad Marv had married her off. I wanted Terry Long to go. Personally, I thought he was a whiner. He needed to be upgraded or tossed out, so he was always on the block. [laughs] Month to month we kept running a vote saying “Should we kill him now? He’s really annoying me this month!”' It's bad enough he thought killing off characters casually as though it's an inherently acceptable idea was somehow entertaining. But to think he'd fail to distinguish between real life and fiction, and act like fictional characters are literally real people, that was going much too far, angering and insulting to the intellect.
• Peterson's take on Jericho was no better. What Peterson said was, "Jericho we decided was sort of expendable. So if Jericho was to die, I think Marv was the one that decided to make it symmetrical. Let’s have Deathstroke be the one to do it; then we have the whole pathos of Deathstroke killing his own son. I mean, it was just too perfect. So by process of elimination, we all agreed he could go. Especially since, much like Terry Long, I thought Jericho was a bit too soft-edged. I mean, I know he has his fans and all, I just wasn’t one of them. [laughs]" So he actually even thought it was funny to insult fictional characters as though they're literally real people, and worse, to just chuck them into the grave like used tissue paper? Sick.

It may not have turned out the way Peterson wanted. Not with Terry, anyway. But no doubt, people like him precipitated the severe damage superhero comics went on to suffer for many years on end. Peterson's approach is exactly what led to Identity Crisis, and his contempt for DC fans speaks volumes. He may have long left comics publishing, but the scars he left on the industry still reverberate till this day.

Profile: Vanessa Marianna Fisk

Vanessa Mariana Fisk

First appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #70, March 1969

Original creators: Stan Lee, John Romita Sr.

History: Vanessa Fisk (Marianna was her maiden name) was the wife of the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, and figured notably in a number of stories involving the ruthless, towering crimelord over the years in both Spider-Man and Daredevil's series. Though she was married to Kingpin, she did not approve of his criminal activities, and was later written trying to convince him to abandon his criminal career.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: many years later, in the 2nd volume of Daredevil, around issue 31, she was depicted murdering her son Richard, because he'd tried to bump off his father Wilson. And that was just the beginning of storylines where she was portrayed as descending into contrived and forced madness. Later, in the 92nd issue, she tried to have Daredevil murdered, as she blamed him too for all the troubles she'd gone through with the Kingpin. Then, she was depicting dying.

What's wrong with how this was done? After being depicted as an imperfect but decent person years before, this 360 degree alteration was utterly atrocious, and another example of how characters developed by Stan the Man were being thrown under the bus long after he'd left Marvel management. It was also some of the worst writing Brian Michael Bendis had begun, and Ed Brubaker had concluded.

Was there anything good to come out of this? Nothing. Like practically all the rest of the Marvel universe, even Daredevil's storytelling collapsed after the original volume ended in 1998, and till this day, hasn't and won't recover under a corporate ownership. A character like Vanessa Fisk deserved much better.

Profile: Shvaughn Erin

Shvaughn Erin

First appearance: Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241, July 1978

Original creators: Paul Levitz, Jim Sherman

History: Shvaughn Erin was a member of the Science Police in the far-flung future era where the Legion of Super-Heroes is set (starting in the 30th century), who served as a liason for the team with local earth authorities. She helped them battle villains during "Earthwar" like Mordru, Dark Circle and the Khunds. She was subsequently written developing a love affair with Element Lad (Jan Arrah) during the Bronze Age period where she first appeared.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in 1992, during what's called the "5 Years Later" period, a curiously large team of writers/artists working on issue #31 of the Legion volume that began in 1989 (Keith Giffen, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, Curt Swan and Colleen Doran), penned a story where Shvaughn was retconned into a transsexual, or more precisely, based on the premise at the time, a man named Sean Erin who disguised himself as a woman by taking a drug called Profem. All that just to serve as an excuse for depicting Element Lad seemingly open to homosexuality, even as the relationship fell apart in the resulting story.

What's wrong with how this was done? Some of the worst things about this divisive story, in addition to how it was being used to promote LGBT ideology, are that an established character was retconned/exploited/abused for the sake of channeling the writers' purported goals, instead of creating a new character to serve the intentions, no matter how much in poor taste they may be. It was also a form of erasing women, and it's strange how there seems to be quite a few supposed advocates for more female representation in comicdom, mainstream or creator-owned, who're actually quite fine with erasing a woman for the sake of a man, in the most contrived ways possible. At its worst, the retcon also has the effect of making Shvaughn look creepy and icky, which is hardly what you'd think the creators' intentions were. But, that's exactly the result, and if an established male character were turned into a woman in such science-fiction stories for the sake of it, that too would be just as unacceptable. Science fiction and fantasy may be an okay place to explore such ideas as sex-switches. But that in no way justifies taking established characters and leading to divisive situations the audience can end up being revolted.

I'm very disappointed with the late artist Swan, who was one of the most well regarded Superman artists of his time, for willingly taking part in such an icky "project". Even if at the time, it wasn't intended as a political statement, it's certainly been hijacked since in some ways, and it had been done today, it's chilling to think the retcon would stick, no matter how badly it would tarnish the original stories.

I'm guessing the editors allowed this because the Zero Hour crossover was in the works around the corner, and so they intended to jettison it anyway along with quite a few other established characterizations up to that point. But regardless, that doesn't mean the relation between Element Lad and Shvaughn Erin should have to end on such a sour note, laced with creepiness and ickiness. That was a slap in the face to the fandom, and the worst part is how, in years since, only so many "woke" advocates want to refer to a character who'd never been depicted as transsexual in any way when she first debuted as though she were, and it'd make no difference to them if a whole bunch of established cast members had been retconned similar to how she was, because what we're talking about here is a generation where certain people are taught to believe everything's "their" property to determine what'll become of it, and if they want it changed to suit their beliefs instead of create their own ideas, so be it. I can only wonder what the original creators think, because if they refused to object, that was a huge mistake that's since enabled more woke abuse of this sort.

Was there anything good to come of this? Thankfully, in 1994, in one of the very few good things to occur during the Zero Hour period, when the Legion's continuity was rebooted, the female-to-male retcon was jettisoned and retconned away, and Shvaughn was restored to her original biological sex, though as depicted in the series going forward, Element Lad was younger again while Shvaughn was several years older, apparently because the writers decided to discard what had previously been written up in the Bronze Age.

In the end, it's wise to recognize that all these "developments", "establishments" and "retcons" are just pencil and paper, and what some pretentious modern writer concocts doesn't literally "prove" an established creation is this or that in their original incarnations from the time they originally debuted. Let us be perfectly clear: Shvaughn Erin was created as a biological woman, and bizarre subsequent retcons alone don't prove otherwise. What matters is whether writing - and artwork - are in good taste, to say nothing of organic, and the 31st issue of the 1989-2000 Legion series wasn't any of those things. It was just an embarrassingly bad wrapup to an era in writing prior to a crossover event (and one that came several years after Crisis on Infinite Earths) - apparently the only way DC is capable of reworking continuities, and Marvel today has also gotten to that point - that SJWs since have sought to hijack for their own selfish purposes, the real fandoms be damned. It also symbolizes a lot of the problems with corporate-owned franchises, and how they're much more vulnerable to "social justice pandering" than creator-owned products are. Legion fans who really care about the creations shouldn't let such reprehensible abuse of fictional creations go unaddressed, though in an era where much of mainstream comics fandom has since abandoned DC/Marvel, it's admittedly a moot point.

And it's also shameful how more creative concepts like emphasizing ethnic/national backgrounds, like being of Irish/Scottish descent (Shvaughn Erin's name sounds like it draws from such backgrounds), are repeatedly thrown out the window for the sake of this woke humilation. If the writers had wanted to, they could've developed a story about Shvaughn studying her Irish heritage and cultural traditions, including dining on colcannon salad and even playing bagpipes. Instead, they degraded her for the sake of modern PC. Seriously, I think all involved in that 31st issue of the 1989-2000 Legion series owe an apology for their creative bankruptcy.