Flashpoint Blues

I know this kind of stupid continuity crap shouldn't bother me, but it does for some reason. After Flashpoint, DC decided that Superman should be the first superhero. This requires every Golden Age character to be erased from continuity. There are some other people getting erased too. It's this weird mix of wanting the characters to be existing in modern times only, but actually favoring people who have been gone since the Modern age of comics started.

The people who have been nuked from orbit include:

Wesly Dodds and presumably his sidekick Sandy Hawkins

Jay Garrick, Golden Age Flash

Alan Scott, Golden Age Green Lantern, presumably his kids Jade and Obsidian

Ted Grant, Wildcat and his daughter presumably

Wally West, who started as a sidekick in the Teen Titans, became Flash, got married and had two kids. Probably the most growth for any character in mainstream comics

Helena Bertinelli- Modern age Huntress, to be replaced by her Earth 2 counterpart Helena Wayne

Quicksilver/Max Mercury I assume

Donna Troy- Former Wonder Girl

Not sure about the Spectre, another character I really like.

And probably a bunch of others. Most of these have probably been moved to Earth 2. As I am less than 40, I am thoroughly un-impressed with splitting all the characters into two seperate Earths, a solution that only came about because of the continuity problems with having Golden and Silver Age characters together. Now that they have solved that problem, what sense does it make to bring back Earth 2?

This renders any number of classic DC stories that have these people in them out of continuity, like Sandman, Grant Morrison's Justice League, Final Crisis, and Kingdom Come. Like I said, this shouldn't bother me, but it does. It seems silly for editorial to have favorite characters and toss out charracters who have been around for literally decades (like Wally) in favor of their Silver/Bronze age counterparts. The editors seem to conciously favor the characters that were around when they were younger, confounding people like me who grew up with the Modern Age versions. Why can't we have both, in one world, like we did before Flashpoint?

Batwoman!

A list of why Batwoman is awesome? Let's.

1. J.H. Williams III is an Artist God made flesh

He rocks something that most people take for granted: panel structure. By incorporating panel structure into the art itself, he makes works of splendor that are unique to comics. I don't know who J.H. Williams one through two were, but we can only pray for a J.H. Williams the fourth.

2. No bat purse

The old Batwoman, Kathy Kane, had a bat-purse. Those weren't very enlightened days. Even now most women characters are pretty shallow, or at least presented as such. (See: the cover for Catwoman #1 where Catwoman jizzes diamonds on her tits)

Batwoman, on the other hand, rocks. She has an interesting back story, a cover identity, tattoos, and a cool costume. I want her to be my friend.

3. She's different!

Instead of looking and being like every other woman super hero, she is in fact a pale ginger lesbian. She actually represents the kind of variance that exists among real people in the real world. She's plausible.

4. Has a mythos

Batwoman has quickly grown her own mythos, instead of just poaching characters and concepts off of Batman. She seems to normally fight weird cult animal creatures and creepy water ghost ladies. Her world is like a Goth superhero world.