The Four Color Media Monitor

I knew that even Dan DiDio and company were willing to let go of canonizing Identity Crisis and its direction, that didn't mean they were going to cut out their own obsession with "diversity" at all costs, much like Marvel's done until now. Screen Rant's got some information on the new Justice League America volume, where the Chinese Atom introduced at Ray Palmer's expense is again touted in the role, while Ray Terrill, the hero known as The Ray, is - you guessed it - gay! Let's see what it says here:

DC’s new take on the diminutive superhero Ray Palmer and his eventual successor, Ryan Choi actually began back in DC Universe: Rebirth #1 by Geoff Johns. The comic – which kicked off the start of the “Rebirth” entirely – introduced Ryan as Palmer’s teaching assistant, and one of the few to discover the real reason for the professor’s disappearance. Ryan discovers a video left behind by Palmer, instructing him to put on his remaining shrinking Bio-Belt and follow him into the Microverse. It leaves Ryan slack jawed and stunned, but in the pages of Justice League of America: Rebirth, he’s been putting the intervening months to good use.

Demonstrating the ability to shrink into digital devices and ride their connections to other systems, Ryan Choi returns to Palmer’s (vacant) lab to find not one, but two terrifying figures waiting for him. Batman, cloaked in darkness, and Lobo… being Lobo. The confusion is mutual, since Batman has arrived in search of Ray Palmer, The Atom, not his protege. Ryan reacts as you would expect a young man offered an invitation to a superhero team only to see it withdrawn, but it’s actually Lobo who speaks in his favor. Having spent their wait for Palmer observing the research and Bio-Belt updates Choi has done in the meantime, the kid’s smarts aren’t to be overlooked.

A hero who shrinks is a hero who shrinks in Lobo’s book, and recognizing his own youthful enthusiasm and willingness to leap into danger in the young man, he ‘ain’t asking Batman’s opinion.’

But a character of different race introduced as a forced replacement for one who's white is just that. And whether or not politics are as noticeable in this new rendition as they were before, it doesn't change the fact that this is nothing more than a rehash of DC's earlier attempt at what Marvel's been doing more recently. Nor does it change the fact that this isn't likely to be a very interesting script. Also, as noted, there's that little matter involving the Ray:

...The reason for Ray Terrill’s inclusion was stated to be his homosexuality (by Morrison, not the character himself), and the version introduced in Justice League of America: Rebirth keeps the character element intact. [...]

Yes, Grant Morrison apparently had some hand in that whole matter. If that's the way they're going to characterize him, and if that's all he's in there for, then it's not serious escapist fare they're interested in marketing. And the story of Ray Palmer going MIA was done before. To do it again at this point only makes it all more of a joke.

It's a shame they're doing this, because both Black Canary and Vixen are the most auspicuous choices as lady members of the JLA, and neither one's racial background appears to have been tampered with for the sake of political correctness. The really annoying thing here is that, if the diversity pandering wasn't given the same amount of mainstream coverage as Marvel's steps got, that could make it worse, because it suggests DC's attempting to go a more subtle route to hammer in their leftism. No one who recognized how distasteful it was when DC went about their approach in the past decade - humiliating the original protagonists before bringing in the PC replacements - should fall for what they're doing this time, if indeed they intend to marginalize Ray Palmer and degrade Ray Terrill for the sake of ultra-leftist pandering. Still, it's pretty clear nobody found their earlier steps from the mid-2000s appealing, so hopefully, no one will be fooled this time either.

Labels: Atom, bad editors, dc comics, dreadful writers, Justice League of America, msm propaganda, politics