For those who don't know DC hit reset on all franchises and every super hero got a new look, back story, and name (even a new sexuality). Some haven't been happy, some like it, but a real source of hate as of late is the redesign of an old DC icon, Lobo. To put Lobo into a term you guys can understand, he's basically every comic book from the 90's, the character. Not joking: terrible jokes, brutal violence, chain smoking cigars, etc. He was even created for the purpose of being a joke or parody off the Wolverine or Spawn stereotype. Lobo was created to be every flaw of the 90's wrapped up into this oddly lovable character. If you still don't have a clue, please enjoy the following video from Superman: The Animated Series.
See? The embodiment of all that is wrong with the 90's made right with this guy, The Main Man. He is the 90's, Lobo's personality traits and character description is probably going to have a %20 similarity between any character made or written at that time.
Now here's the new Lobo.
Yeah, pretty big change right? No muscle (not as much), no mullet, no cigar, no beef, and a face that oozes seriousness as if he is on the hunt to find the man who killed his race, or family, or girlfriend.
But think about this for a minute; if Lobo in the old 52 was the embodiment of everything wrong with comics in the 90's, than isn't the new 52 Lobo supposed to be everything wrong with popular media in the '00s to '10's? I mean think about, the stereotypical action hero of the 90's was a beefy, muscular, sometimes not serious, wise cracking, bad ass who put murder as a thing on his to do list.
The heroic archetype of today however (THIS IS AN OBSERVATION, not a fact that I can prove), from 2000-2010, is roughly an athletic male (good enough shape to run from bullets, but no enough to bench-press a truck), usually very sarcastic or wisecracking and if not that, very brooding and serious. If they are brooding they probably don't enjoy anyone's company, are loners, and are more skilled in a fight than tough in it. That is essentially (FROM MY OBSERVATION) the archetype for the hero of our era in comics if not movies or games. And this kind of heroic archetype has also grown in popularity thanks to not only video games but movies, modern tv shows, and hell maybe even manga and anime.
From this it can be argued that as the old 52 Lobo (The Main Man) was the embodiment of all that was wrong with comics in the 90's, than new 52 Lobo is the embodiment of all that is wrong with comics in the '00's to '10's. Just look back at his design, it's the generic version of whatever hero is popular at the time, it's meant to look like some Twilight reject or some trashed version of Dante from DmC because it's meant to be generic. He looks like every other anti-hero, because he is every anti-hero
Lobo's design at the time of his creation was generic compared to every other '90's hero at the time because he was meant to be like every other 90's hero, just that he's the bastard child of all the faults of the era. So if Lobo were to be rebooted to fit a new era, than wouldn't he not only look but act like everything wrong with the era of his conception? If that's right than the character Lobo goes beyond just some amalgam of '90's anti-heroism traits in comics and is something along the lines of a generational fault carrier. Every time Lobo is rewritten or updated, its so that he can embody what's wrong with media at the time.
So in other words, DC didn't redesign Lobo because they wanted to appeal to more people, they redesigned Lobo to embody what they think is wrong with the new erA of comics, even the new 52 itself.
TL;DR What if new Lobo is meant to embody everything wrong with comics today, not just spitting on the old character?
See? The embodiment of all that is wrong with the 90's made right with this guy, The Main Man. He is the 90's, Lobo's personality traits and character description is probably going to have a %20 similarity between any character made or written at that time.
Now here's the new Lobo.
Yeah, pretty big change right? No muscle (not as much), no mullet, no cigar, no beef, and a face that oozes seriousness as if he is on the hunt to find the man who killed his race, or family, or girlfriend.
But think about this for a minute; if Lobo in the old 52 was the embodiment of everything wrong with comics in the 90's, than isn't the new 52 Lobo supposed to be everything wrong with popular media in the '00s to '10's? I mean think about, the stereotypical action hero of the 90's was a beefy, muscular, sometimes not serious, wise cracking, bad ass who put murder as a thing on his to do list.
The heroic archetype of today however (THIS IS AN OBSERVATION, not a fact that I can prove), from 2000-2010, is roughly an athletic male (good enough shape to run from bullets, but no enough to bench-press a truck), usually very sarcastic or wisecracking and if not that, very brooding and serious. If they are brooding they probably don't enjoy anyone's company, are loners, and are more skilled in a fight than tough in it. That is essentially (FROM MY OBSERVATION) the archetype for the hero of our era in comics if not movies or games. And this kind of heroic archetype has also grown in popularity thanks to not only video games but movies, modern tv shows, and hell maybe even manga and anime.
From this it can be argued that as the old 52 Lobo (The Main Man) was the embodiment of all that was wrong with comics in the 90's, than new 52 Lobo is the embodiment of all that is wrong with comics in the '00's to '10's. Just look back at his design, it's the generic version of whatever hero is popular at the time, it's meant to look like some Twilight reject or some trashed version of Dante from DmC because it's meant to be generic. He looks like every other anti-hero, because he is every anti-hero
Lobo's design at the time of his creation was generic compared to every other '90's hero at the time because he was meant to be like every other 90's hero, just that he's the bastard child of all the faults of the era. So if Lobo were to be rebooted to fit a new era, than wouldn't he not only look but act like everything wrong with the era of his conception? If that's right than the character Lobo goes beyond just some amalgam of '90's anti-heroism traits in comics and is something along the lines of a generational fault carrier. Every time Lobo is rewritten or updated, its so that he can embody what's wrong with media at the time.
So in other words, DC didn't redesign Lobo because they wanted to appeal to more people, they redesigned Lobo to embody what they think is wrong with the new erA of comics, even the new 52 itself.
TL;DR What if new Lobo is meant to embody everything wrong with comics today, not just spitting on the old character?
