Why doesn’t Hazard see more use?
I mean, she’s a legacy villain, for starters. The granddaughter of the Gambler. Why hasn’t Geoff Johns put her in a comic yet? (People may read these bits I do each week and think that I have some mad hatred for Geoff Johns, but come on – it’s Who’s Who, the old-school encyclopedia of DC Comics. The Geoff Johns references are natural. Like, for example, if I was doing Thursday Anatomical Mishaps instead, I would make Rob Liefeld jokes.) DC Comics is so about “legacy” these days that you’d expect Hazard to show up all over the place. Or get killed, possibly. DC is somewhat all over the place at times when it comes to legacy-ness.
But on top of that she’s a good legacy villain. The powers and concept (the granddaughter of the Gambler having probability manipulation powers) work. The character notes (she dislikes violence and really only became a supervillain to avenge her grandfather – plus, the only people she really knew in the powers club were all villains) are interesting. The costume is cool. She wears a visor! She has poofy blouse sleeves on her costume and it works!
I mean, come on! She throws dice and alters luck! That is goddamned cool. There is a reason people like Gambit – it is because he throws playing cards and a gambling motif is a good thing for a superhero (or villain), particularly when said character tends to walk the middle ground of super-morality more often than not.
So obviously this is why Hazard has shown up precisely once since her debut in Infinity Inc. (where she was drawn by Todd McFarlane before he became a big-shot comics dude and eventual luxury baseball collector). In that one issue of Wonder Woman where all the female superheroes and supervillains fought each other. She got a panel.
There ain’t no justice, folks!
Also, the Injustice Society in general is cool. Icicle II: cool. The Wizard: cool. Artemis: cool (although her first costume was terrible). The Shade: so cool it is off the charts, even if he would not be particularly inclined to join Injustice-themed leagues, societies, clubs, or social teas. The Fiddler: cool in his way and it’s a shame Gail Simone offed him, but there’s no reason Deadshot couldn’t have felt generous that day and simply shot him in such a way to knock him out and not kill him. (All right, so it’s not likely Deadshot would feel generous. Maybe the Fiddler paid him up front.) That whole Injustice Society story in JSA Unlimited right before Infinite Crisis: way cool. And so forth.
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For a minute I thought she was Roulette, what with the whole gambling thing. Would have been a cool way to “update” her character, except for the “no killing” part.
Plus, she has fishnet stockings. Is there such a thing as a bad character with fishnet stockings? (Setting aside the whole Frank N. Furter thing.)
Eh, the costume would be better with a decent pair of pants.
It seems Roulette has taken Hazard’s place, especially with the two appearances in JLU. And I don’t think anybody really cares that much about Gambler.
(checking Wikipedia…)
Huh. Still alive. Oh, and Shade pre-Robinson probably would’ve merited a 60 on your scale at best. That Shade can be summed up by his last portrayal in the Injustice Gang episode of JL, yelling, “I KNEW THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!!!!” before one of the Leaguers took him out. As for Fiddler…Gail did bring in a lady named Virtuoso in Villains United, so you have a potential legacy case right there.
She should become a Zatanna villain. Why? Well, before I read the little tiny letters, I thought she looked like an evil Zatanna knock-off. No better reason than that, but that’s cool by association right there.
Also, mucking with probability could work quite well against a hero whose power is, basically, “make whatever the fuck I want happen”. Insane good luck is about the only way to deal with that kind of power.
Of course, Zatanna would beat her by being incredibly precise in her spells, but in the meantime we’d get a fishnet-on-fishnet fight. Which would be nice.
After you run out of Who’s Who pages, you should start doing Thursday Anatomical Mishaps.
After offing the Fiddler, Gail created a female version towards the end of Villains United named Virtuoso. She’s currently one of the plethora of villains looking to take out the Six in Secret Six.
Vs. System card or it didn’t happen.
The story where they try to bust out Johnny Sorrow? That was *fantastic*. I love what they’ve done with those characters – they really need to show up again after Black Adam’s arc in the new Justice Society – maybe with a bigger roster to accommodate the ginormous JSA.
I miss Johnny Sorrow. 🙁
I’m glad someone else remembers that awesome JSA: Classified arc. Icicle’s narration was really strong in that one, as I recall. That was one of the reasons I swore by that book for a long time – they’d throw out a lot of random stories that were so different from what JSA was doing that it felt like a completely necessary spin-off. I loved that Dr. Mid-Nite arc playing off the old kidney thieves urban legend, too. (And if there was any team character that you could build a solo book around, it’s Dr. Mid-Nite. They haven’t nearly figured out how many stories you can derive from his powers and character.)
Gail’s legacy replacement for Fiddler, Virtuoso, seemed potentially really interesting. She had about two lines of dialogue in all of Villains United and that scene still stands out to me. I just keep thinking of that Tolstoy quote, “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.” I could see her adopting that as a mantra.
Just a couple of points:
1. Hazard also appeared in Infinity Inc. # 51-53, the final story arc, and in Young Justice #23 and 24 with a new costume.
2. The Fiddler actually died twice. The first time was in Hawkworld Annual #1, which also had an updated origin for him.
According to the text, Hazard is the old-fashioned name for craps.
Well, there’s your secret to a successful revival; bring her back, and change her name to Craps!
I don’t like luck and/or reality bending powers because they inevitably and ultimately lead to crappy storylines.
UberGeek: Yeah, PAD had her in YJ in the Olympics story helping Artimis win in Archery. It was a horrible appearance for Hazard fans (all one of me), completely out of character.
I always felt she’d make a great reformed but bad girl hero.
You can have the fishnets or the puffy sleeves, but not both at the same time.
Other than that, I can dig it.