DC have announced that the new Lobo will be seriously grimslim, a logical infiltrator of high-society. Which is like announcing that the new Darth Vader will be a sympathetic flower arranger, famed for his tender fingers and honeyed voice.

Logically infiltrating high society

Lobo was loved as a brutal overparody of the super-tough-mega-badasses. The new version looks he’s modeling GQ’s Interstellar Assassin accessory range.

Here’s the thing: that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with creating an attractive athlete  to round out a cast of heroes who usually look like they’re smuggling steaks under their latex. The only problem is that after seventy years of making Super-money DC are psychotically centophobic. If you marry into a DC editor’s family, you’re invisible until your spouse introduces you as a reboot of a recently deceased existing relative.

“Wow, Uncle Vanya! Good to see you again! I see your legs have grown back, you’ve forgotten Russian, and you’re a woman now – excellent, we need more representation in the female market! I don’t suppose you could turn black? No worries. Well, wait there while I get the scissors to cut holes in your clothes.”

You want a well-groomed killer with a moral code? Fantastic! Create one! Adapt one! Do anything except humorlessly gut a one-joke character who’s the exact opposite of that, removing the one joke so that’s all that’s left is a hyphen, which becomes a minus, because you’ve done even less than create zero, you’ve actively destroyed something someone else created.

You want some reasons for a coiffed killer? Come up with one! At the bare minimum all you need is two new words: their name and their planet and that’s it, you’re done, you’ve brought in a new character without revealing your inability to even conceive of things which don’t already have copyright. Here, take some:

• The prince of a planet which has known peace and perfect hair care for millennia becomes bored, and enters an interplanetary gladiator tournament. His adapted hairstyling blades are undefeatable. His victory spurs him to tackle more challenging prey throughout the galaxy.
• P’heh-ritty Bhoy from the Twilight-sure-is-popular-these-days nebula.
• Outcast-effete from a world of savage high technology, where the progress of technology has not displaced the tribal dominance of the alpha, Silven Jemme finds that his hideously smooth skin, deficiently unprotruding abs and weakly straight hair is attractive in the outside universe. He embarks on an odyssey of overcompensation.
• John Smith from planet M3-blueseas. Note how this is still more original than what they did.
• Get the Final Fantasy license. It certainly wouldn’t be the worst storyline you or they have ever done, and you could chop the entire internet in half by pitting Superman against Sephiroth.
• Reveal the new Lobo to be a blatant parody of the urge to re-reinvent established characters for the latest fads, in the same way Lobo was reinventetd as a parody of overmuscled super-toughs.

YOU CAN STILL DO THAT LAST ONE, DC. THE IDEA IS YOURS!

For more rebooted rage, read The Worst Supermen Ever and The Most Amazing(ly Stupid) Spider-Man Reboots.