Stop Killing All The Ryan Choi's

To start off, the first comic I had read with Ryan Choi as the Atom was Titans: Villains for Hire under the Brightest Day label. Besides being one of the worst comics I had read in a while, the issue was also responsible for showing the death of Ryan Choi, the newest Atom. Actually, "death" makes it sounds more okay than it was. When reading it, without any prior knowledge of Ryan Choi, I was extremely taken aback when he was murdered. Even then, I felt like the only point of his death was to make Deathstroke look like a bad-ass.



I apologize for posting such a gruesome image, but this is what DC comics felt was necessary to make reader takes the "Evil Titans," or whatever they were, seriously. COMIC WRITERS TAKE NOTE: Killing a "B-list" hero isn't the only way to make your villain seem super duper scary and evil. I honestly feel like it's the laziest way to build a character.

I could continue to talk about how Ryan Choi was one of the few Asian-American superheroes around, and his death just supported claims of racial inequality in comics. I could talk about how killing a woman and stuffing her in a fridge won't make your hero seem more interesting. But instead, I want to recommend examples of how building a villain can be done right, and fairly.

Check out Gail's Secret Six: Unhinged TPB and the recent Birds of Prey #12. I don't want to spoil the newest Birds of Prey issue, but read it and you'll understand. In the Secret Six arc, Gail introduced the new character Junior, and sets the villain to be so frightening and evil, that you'll have pee your pants. And guess what, she does so without killing a fan-favorite character. IT IS POSSIBLE.

I don't want every person a character knows to be killed or sexually assaulted, just to make him/her seem engaging. I want great writing to prove that a character is interesting.

If your interested in Ryan Choi, I definitely recommend picking up Book One of the All-New Atom, My Life in Miniature. I without a doubt like Choi more than Ray Palmer.




Also, Barry Allen and Hal Jordan are kind of boring. I want more Wally West, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner please.