Dove or Nobo || She/Her || 20+ || Artist / Writer Side Blog -> Follows from: dementedspeedster
Header art from Dylan Dog Avatar: Ken from Tales of Alethrion (check it out on youtube) [This is a Side-Blog, so I am unable to follow you directly from this blog.]
Ok, something I love about Match and his run during the Suicide Squad (2021) comics is that he gets described as a “boy scout” repeatedly like Superman is commonly referred to by others.
Now if you like, ’Why should we care about this, Dove? Everyone knows that during the comic it was assumed that this Superboy was Kon. That’s why they called him a boy scout.’ And you’re right! Everyone assumed the Superboy seen above was Kon with amnesia, but in actuality was Match.
But! That descriptor of “boy scout” does not fit with Kon at all. If you know Kon’s personality in his original run, Superboy (1994) (and even in his appearances in Teen Titans 2003), he was anything but a boy scout. He was a kid who wanted to be Superman, to be a hero, to prove himself, and do good, but a boy scout he was not. He was very much a teenager.
So knowing that Suicide Squad (2021)’s Superboy is Match, that Kon is not a “boy scout” in character at the least, and that Match is repeatedly described as one while thinking he’s Kon, I think it would be more apt to say that Match’s personality at its basis is more similar to Clark’s than anything else.
His personality being more akin to Clark’s even shows after he remembers his true identity by how he still doesn’t want to kill others despite being part of the Suicide Squad, how he believes in others and the potential for good in them, and is true to his word. It also seems apt because Match, after his identity is revealed is repeatedly compared to Superman, and at times is attempted to be motivated by Waller (albeit for her own gain) by the idea he can become like Superman or a “real Superman”.
Panels from: Suicide Squad (2021)
So while I don’t think Match is 100% a “boy scout” within the terms of Midwestern upbringing and habits like Clark is, I do think his personality veers in a similar direction of being a “boy scout” with regard to his understanding of “doing good” and being a hero.
Which I think is adorable because it makes him kind of similar to Clark. It’s also a litle funny given that while his personality aligns a more closely with Clark’s than Kon’s, he also curses quite a bit over the course of Suicide Squad. Imagine Clark’s reaction to that if he, Match, and Kon all ever got to be in the same room together.
Saw someone online recently be genuinely annoyed that Achilles Achilles’ Heel was in fact his heel. They were like “what a cliché!” And it took 3 separate people to make them understand that this is where the term originated.
need people to know that this is exactly what happened with Shazam. it is Captain Marvel’s catchphrase and was (probably) coined in 1940. it’s now so embedded into the lexicon that Shazam (2019) has a joke about the wizard’s name being funny, even tho from an in universe perspective there’s no reason any of the characters would have heard the word ‘Shazam’ before.
I assume what happened here is that Captain Marvel fell out of pop culture during the 20 year period when no comics were being published due to the copyright infringement lawsuit with DC and never regained his previous level of popularity, and as a result the word 'shazam’ is now a lot more famous than the comic it spawned from.
in the 1940s this guy was more popular than Superman & was the first comic book superhero to appear on film. fallen titan of pop culture.
Shazam is & has always been the name of the wizard who gave him his powers & his magic transformation word.
The comic was called Captain Marvel prior to the lawsuit. In the years following the lawsuit Marvel decided to make their own Captain Marvel, I think largely for branding reasons? So when DC acquired OG Captain Marvel to avoid brand confusion they changed the name of the comic to Shazam, but the main character remained Captain Marvel until the New 52 reboot, I think in 2013?
They did a big reworking of the character which involved changing his name formally to Shazam. This was not popular and more recent Shazam comics have taken to calling him The Captain.
The third Superman story ever is about him screwing with a party of billionaires because the head one cut the safety budget that almost got his miners killed. I’m not kidding.
