>>130162780>Titans characters have been cannibalized into other franchises such as Cyborg into the Justice League to shore up diversity in the roster, because Geoff got rid of the one black man in the roster because he's a Hal fagThat's a slightly more complicated situation... y'see, the JLA has usually had its roster split into two modes: The Original Seven or Some Of The Original Seven, Plus Some B-Listers/Original Characters. If the Justice League is in Mode 2, then they usually have at least one non-white member, at least from the 70s onwards; DC Comics had a real problem in the 60s where they were seen as way too whitebread, while Marvel was breaking new ground with heroes like The Falcon and Black Panther. It culminated in pic related, a fascinating snapshot into just how The Big Two operated at that time.
Anyway, back to the token members. Basically everyone else BUT Cyborg had had their turn by the time The New 52 rolled around; Black Lightning, Vixen, John Stewart and Bronze Tiger all had their turn as reserve/full members before, and newer characters like Steel, Aztek, Vibe, Amazing Man, Bloodwynd and the Jason Rusch version of Firestorm were on some iteration of the League.
That left Cyborg, who had only been a member of The Super Friends during the 80s, when they decided to call it the slightly less goofy Super Powers, where he was voiced by Ernie Hudson. No, really.
Yes, they COULD have chosen to swap Hal out for John instead of J'onn for Vic, but the whole point of the reboot was to go back to everyone's comfort zone so that DC could shoot fish in a barrel (Dan Didio straight-up admitted that The New 52 was aimed at males in their teens to mid-30s) so Hal was kind of a shoe-in. J'onn was chosen to be part of the new Stormwatch to foster more mainstream appeal in the WildStorm part of The New 52.
Was it stupid? Yes, obviously. But it made sense at the time... presumably.
