What has happened to Metamorpho as a character?

[drwho]

I purchased the Metamorpho Showcase and it blew me away. So many elements when the book first came out that make for an interesting dynamic. Rex in love with Saphire whose rich father likes to blackmail Rex into doing things for him. Java the smart caveman always fawning over Saphire in hopes of being with her. Did anyone read the new one year later mini? How was it? Rex seemed a lot more funner than the current incarnation we have. Does anyone know what happened to Java, and Saphire? What happened to Rex's charm from what I've read recently he just comes off as a tough guy to me.

[Jack Zodiac]

As with a lot of characters who had amazing stories in the Sixties, he's been permanently branded "C-list," and instead of getting to have his own fun adventures, he's wasted by only appearing in team books or in cameos in big events. It happened to Adam Strange, though at least we get some decent space stories out of him these days, and his character's still very much the same. And it happened to Dead Man.

Rex used to be a funny, adventurous character with a great supporting cast and classic, almost "pulp" stories, and the dynamic between him, his girlfriend, and his boss and arch-nemesis, his girlfriend's father, was the perfect for a great Silver Age comics, much like the days when Clark and Superman both competed over Lois, despite them being the same person. You hardly see anything that involved happening in comics anymore.

Today, Metamorpho's a much different character. When he isn't a solemn monster, he's treated like another Plastic Man, or more accurately (since Winick had been writing him) another Morph from Exiles. He wound up either marrying or permanently living with Sapphire, even had a son together, and Simon had to get used to him, so the whole architecture around those characters' relationships collapsed; and instead of writing him as an adventuring family man (because it worked for Adam Strange, at least), you hardly ever see his supporting cast because you only ever see Rex anymore on a team book or getting killed in a hilariously unnecessary manner, since you know he'll be back inside of a year.

[The Xenos]

Today, Metamorpho's a much different character. When he isn't a solemn monster, he's treated like another Plastic Man, or more accurately (since Winick had been writing him) another Morph from Exiles. He wound up either marrying or permanently living with Sapphire, even had a son together, and Simon had to get used to him, so the whole architecture around those characters' relationships collapsed; and instead of writing him as an adventuring family man (because it worked for Adam Strange, at least), you hardly ever see his supporting cast because you only ever see Rex anymore on a team book or getting killed in a hilariously unnecessary manner, since you know he'll be back inside of a year.

Wow. As if I couldn't stand Winick on Outsiders already, now you point out how his take on one character was just a knockoff of another character he wrote.

Also, I remember opening one issue to see Rex having really weird morphing sex with another character. Was that his wife or was he having an affair? Or was that not Rex? Bah. Either way, it sounds like the trashy Real World crap Winick is known for. Does anyone else get the sense that Outsiders is like a superteam of Real World DCU? I'm a huge Nightwing fan and I refuse to read it. I can only imagine how Metamorpho fans feel.

[drwho]

Whatever happened to element girl?

[moonlight_night78]

Whatever happened to element girl?

Dead. I think she was killed off in one of the early issues of Sandman in the late 80s/early 90s. But I don't remember what issue off-hand

[Cayman]

I thought G. Willow Wilson did a great job with him in the Outsiders special.

[Jack Zodiac]

Also, I remember opening one issue to see Rex having really weird morphing sex with another character. Was that his wife or was he having an affair? Or was that not Rex? Bah. Either way, it sounds like the trashy Real World crap Winick is known for. Does anyone else get the sense that Outsiders is like a superteam of Real World DCU? I'm a huge Nightwing fan and I refuse to read it. I can only imagine how Metamorpho fans feel.

That was Shift. He was a piece of Rex that became sentient and independent, and he was having sex, for lack of a better word, with the android Indigo. It was, yeah, pure crap. And when he brought the actual Metamorpho back, he wrote him like crap, too.