From Morrison's Mind: Shining Knight and many Camelots

Camelot is an iconic setting so it is not surprising that it is often used to establish a quick origin or background information for various characters, events or magical artifacts. Problem is that it can get confusing and messy when various different characters reference it in very different ways. Morrison obviously had the solution for that.

Sure, it doesn't start with Morrison, Barr wrote (with Bolland on art) Camelot 3000 for example. Basic idea is that there have been many Camelots over the ages. You find some inconsistencies or contradictions in Camelot related stories? Well maybe thats because they happened in different Camelots. Morrison's most significant contribution here is that Seven Soldiers mini-event placed this idea firmly in DC's continuity and focused on it in one of its minis - Shining Knight.

Alongside explanation that there have been multiple Camelots over the ages we also get a new Shining Knight in the series - Ystina. As with some other characters in Seven soldiers story she is an update version of an older DC character, Sir Justin in this case. It shows that different versions of Camelot tend to have have somewhat different yet similar characters.

Anyway, at the end of Seven Soldiers Ystina is left in 21th century and is basically set-up as a teen hero. This led to few cameo appearances in Teen Titans (#52-54; #66), but nothing was really done with her till new 52 relaunch.

Demon Knights featured a team of immortals doing various things in the middle ages. One of them was Ystina. Obviously this doesn't fit well with Seven Soldiers, but new continuity is new continuity. Anyway, in opening issue there is a scene with Etrigan and Xanadu referencing Camelot and Ystina making a point about how she never saw or heard about them. So New 52 went fully with multiple Camelots idea. Towards the end of the series they even float the idea that maybe Camelot is simply a title for a city that Merlin associates with. During New 52 there was also Justice League 3001 series that featured Barr's Camelot 3000 and connected it closer to regular DC's continuity. Most recently Morrison mentioned multiple Arthurs and Camelots in Superman and Authority.

Anyway, should you read Demon Knights? Paul Cornell wrote first two thirds (#0-15) of the series and those are definitely worth picking up, Remaining issues? I'd say skip them, but unfortunately DC has not collected separately last Cronell's issues, so you have to buy Venditti;s issues as well and those ain't good. After that Ystina also appears in Ragman mini by Fawkes and Inaki Miranda. I'm no expert on Ragman, but I found it okay and Ystina was done well I think.

In Morrison's work big twist was that Ystina was a girl who dressed like a man so that she could be a knight. In Demon Knights she was presented as non-binary character. On one hand it is a big change, on the other hand, from what I understand, crossdressing is sometimes seen as initial step towards discovering your sexuality so it kinda fits, I think.

This change has lead to Ystina getting some cameos/pin-ups in Pride month publications. Unfortunately this is double edged sword. On one hand Ystina is not forgotten, but on the other hand it often feels like DC uses these "specials months" just to pretend that they are very progressive and inclusive. But once the month ends many of these characters are nowhere to be seen... till next year.

And that was that till a minor thing happened in Waid's New History of DC Universe series. Waid keeps Demon Knights in new continuity, but provides an important detail - Ystina is a second Shining Knight, anointed by Merlin when Sir Justin got trapped in ice. Small change that throws out many Camelots, makes Ystina's best story non-canon and certain important bits from Demon Knights as well. Just so that we could have another legacy character.

Frustrating, but what else can you expect from Waid?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From the Batcave: Batwing of Africa

Image
Batwing, David Zavimbe, was basically African Batman that Morrison created during Batman Inc. Not much was done with him there, but as is usual with Morrison's work there were enough bits and pieces that could be explored and built upon to something interesting. So New 52 happens in the middle of the Batman Inc. run and DC felt like it was a good opportunity to try him out as a solo hero. Did it work? First red flag for me was that Winnick got to write this ongoing. I know that he has his fans and some of his stuff like Red Hood turned out to be big commercial hits, but his work really never clicked for me. On the positive he got Ben Oliver on the art who I tend to enjoy. So yeah, I wasn't very thrilled with the creative team, but I was interested enough to try it. Unfortunately, while he still has the same name and is based in Africa it does feel like this is entirely different character. Maybe editors wanted this, maybe Winnick wanted it. Who knows, who cares. At the end of t...
Read more

From the Batcave: Spyral

Image
Morrison's Batman run ends with Talia getting shot by Kathy Kane and delivering a warning to defeated Batman. No surprise that DC decided to follow up this Kane (and her organization, Spyral) plot thread left by Morrison. But did it work? History of how we got Grayson ongoing is rather weird. After Forever Evil and Dick Grayson's "death" DC was looking for new direction. Supposedly someone hired Seeley to write it and someone else hired King to write it. So people in charge figured what the hell, let them both write it. As a result we got one of the best Dick Grayson runs that heavily focused on Spyral and Kathy Kane to lesser extent. Now, New 52 was funny time and King is a writer who likes to do things his own way so Spyral obviously does not map 1:1 with Morrison's version. But on the other hand I think that, in spirit, it does feel like a continuation of what Morrison started. Creative team of Grayson really fleshed out the organization and it was "hot...
Read more

JLA Presents: Hourman

Image
Morrison's JLA run was a big deal back in the day. So it is not surprising that we got a number of spin-offs that were connected in some way to what Morrison was doing. Many of them were bad like JLA: Paradise Lost that focused on Zauriel. Even Aztek, despite Morrison's direct involvement, never really became a must-read for me. So I was not in a rush to try Hourman's ongoing when many shorter stories weren't any good. And on top of that it was written by this Peyer guy. What was my problem with Peyer? I tried his JLA: Tomorrow Woman and thought that it was terrible. He did write some DC One Million tie-ins and I wasn't impressed by them either. Then there was this interview about the time he was editing Morrison's Doom Patrol where he basically says that he didn't understand it. And he is going to write an ongoing using Morrison's character? Thanks, but no. On the other hand it was drawn by Rags Morales and some people with decent comics opinions kept ...
Read more