Anyway in case anyone was wondering why I do firmly aver I did not get to DPxDC from DC and am not a DC fan despite having consumed all of the Harley Quinn and Suicide Squad runs up to 2018
(And have an exciting grab bag of shows, movies, and assorted trivia under my belt besides
Batman vs Dracula was fucking great fight me)
It’s because DC as a whole is hostile as fuck to the concept of being a casual fan
(And about 90% of the main heroes annoy the hell out of me for the very tropes that DC is known and praised for in their heroes I am here for villains, antiheroes, and sidekicks exclusively)
There is no such thing as consistent characterization, especially as you consume more content or fall down a rabbit hole, and the rabbit holes are ENDLESS
Everyone cameos everywhere else, referential jokes are often dropped in as Easter eggs for people who have read every single other DC comic put out in the same decade and yet within the same comics you get glaringly inconsistent characterization and different retcons for the same events
Big stories are retold and retconned every couple years, we got 3 separate Spiderman origin movies and the exact same Batman origin in more than half the live action movies; DC PAYS PEOPLE to make up their own different versions of canon events
There is a REASON that the Marvel and DC cinematic universes are both officially divorced from comic canon; the sheer volume of canon content is inaccessible to most of the population, and DC and Marvel know it
That’s why the New 52 was a big divorce from all previous canon too - it’s an on ramp for new fans, because sorting through the web of old content is off putting as fuck
It’s the one thing not a single DC fan I’ve spoken to who complained about “canon characterization” has bothered defending or even acknowledging, and yet it has been the core of all of their arguments:
“Canon is what I want it to be, not what any of the sources say”
And listen, I was a Torchwood fan, we were the archetypal example of “canon only happened if I acknowledge it” (so sad that show ended after only two seasons and nothing else ever happened again Children of Earth who), you just gotta acknowledge that that’s what you’re doing
But you frankly cannot have a serious conversation about canon characterization with someone who does not acknowledge entire swaths of canon and cannot understand why that makes their argument completely invalid
Any kind of conversation about the “right” characterization for a DC character necessarily has to involve the acknowledgement that it’s your personal preferred characterization, not a One True Canon, because I guarantee there are canon incidents for every single big name and most of the small ones that directly counter the ones you like
You may note I share a bunch of posts with things like “My Batman would never do this”, as opposed to “canon Batman would never do this”
Hell, on Batman specifically there are hundreds of beautifully put together posts talking about how the different canon runs get him wrong; I too prefer a Bruce Wayne who does genuinely care about his family and tries to protect them, but isn’t perfect or always right over the massive asshole elitist who just grunts and treats them like soldiers
Canon Batman slaps his kids around, it’s the meme that broke containment and you don’t have to like it or accept it as something your Batman would do!
But it’s still canon
Both versions have a massive well of canon support, and exist simultaneously in the multiverse
Every single characterization of a character is true and exists in the multiverse
And that is why the idea of a “canon version” of any DC character is utterly meaningless
TL;DR: write DC characters however the fuck you want and do not worry about it for more than 10 minutes together, that is what the paid DC writing staff do
There will be at least two pieces of canon media to back up whatever interpretation of the character you pick
Not everyone will like that characterization or agree with how you see the character, and that is all fine and good! But “canon” is meaningless in this context, neatly encapsulated by the “multiverse” explanation
Everything is canon, which means that nothing is canon