DC Comics faces total reboot- 75 years of history to be scrapped

[MrShears]

I am... so angry about this.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/DC-U...nt-110531.html

I had a sinking feeling when I heard that the final issue of Flashpoint would be the only single-issue title released in the last week of august.

I'm used to these crossover events; I've come to expect 'bold new directions' for the major characters, costume make-over's, loudly trumpeted creative teams and being expected to purchase 20 or 30 tie-in books, lest I miss vital chunks of the story (yeah, right). And, like any DC or Marvel fan, I'm no stranger to Crisis-style plots designed to give the (supposedly) stagnant fictional universe a clean slate. This, though, is different.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was constructed with the aim of streamlining the DC mythology, crammed as it was with parallel universes, alternate timelines, multiple versions of every major character, and plenty of regrettable kitch. Readers of the 1980's, reasoned the Powers That Be, might just be put off by continuity references dating back to the war, and certainly wouldn't be as impressed by the likes of Beppo the Super-Monkey as their parents were, as kids. A scorched earth policy would eliminate these issues; one timeline, one universe, one Earth, with modernised versions of all the iconic heroes and villains, keeping what worked, binning what didn't.

The trouble was of course that the DC U was just too damn vast. The A-, B- and C-list heroes alone comprised dozens upon dozens of superheroes, each with their own backstory, supporting cast, villains, sidekicks and so on. Not every one of them had their own comic book, but the majority made regular appearances, often in several titles per month. When you factor in characters from other, defunct comics companies acquired by DC (the Charlton Comics heroes, the Captain Marvel family, et al), the volume of new ones being introduced every year, plus minor figures still being used here and there- for the sake of maintaining the ownership rights, for instance- and you're obviously facing the same problem. The universe was never going to stop expanding.

Since that time, we've had two further Crises, cake-and-eat-it plot mechanics such as Hypertime, or the revival of the multiverse (now restricted to 52 parallel worlds), and smaller event stories designed to untangle new continuity problems, as in Zero Hour, or generally give the DC catalogue a healthy shaking-up (Identity Crisis, and so on). In each case, the classic DC heritage seemed to win out, one way or the other. Fragments of deleted histories found their way back into the panels, often via revivals from high profile writers, like with Grant Morrison's brilliant take on a unified Batman mythology.

While all this was going on, Marvel came up with the Ultimates. While the regular Marvel books carried on as usual, this flashy new line showcased Spider-Man, the X-Men, et al as if brand new, with ruthlessly retooled origins and artwork. People who knew nothing about the characters could embrace these boiled-down versions, and they were a huge success from the outset. DC should have capitalised on this, and seemed to have made a half-assed attempt with the All-Star Batman and Robin/ All-Star Superman series', also very big sellers, but a long way from something like Ultimate Avengers.
In the past year, the Twilight-influenced Superman: Earth One was released, promising to be the first of several all new, youthful, continuity-free graphic novels, clearly in the Ultimate vein.

Now DC and its parent company want to be the first to step into same day digital publishing, and they want as many new people drawn to the books as possible. The upshot of which is closing the book on DC's 75 year history, all titles cancelled and relaunched at issue #1. Instead of building their own Ultimate line, DC is simply becoming Ultimate DC. It is a shameful move, one motivated entirely by greed. Stories and character building that have unfolded over years, decades, are to be swept away. Genuine icons are being broken down and rebuilt, to accomodate new audiences expected, it seems, to hold them in contempt. I notice from the Jim Lee promotional art that Wonder Woman's most recent and much-loathed costume is now the 'official' look. And oh yes, Superman's red trunks have been done away with. Because they looked so dumb, right?

How utterly pathetic. How is it the people who actually own these heroes can have so little respect for them, such lack of apreciation of the very fundamentals of this mythology?

I love DC Comics. I love the universe, the characters, the heritage. I love that when you read Superman or Batman, you're reading popular fiction that has been in continuous publication since the end of the Depression, weathering every storm, every war, surviving every shift in politics and fashion, and always remaining relevent, popular and able to ignite the imagination. Superhero mythology is like nothing else, and DC is its ancestral home. I am one of countless individuals whose lives have been touched by it in some way, and am among legions of passionate, devoted followers who look forward to new stories every month, year after year.
As of September 2011, all those feelings and memories we have invested in these stories are effectively null and void. I am a fanboy, and this breaks my heart.

[Knappos]

-sigh-

This (and parenthood economics) is why I buy less (almost none) comics these days.

The Big Two just seem, every few years or so, just seem to convince themselves that a big stunt is the only way forward.

We're only a couple of years removed from Ultimatum, which reset/rebooted the 5-6 year old Ultimate continuity.

I remember too when Heroes Reborn happened and in it's wake you had a new Thor issue 1, and new Ironman, Capt America, Fantastic Four & Avengers issue ones. Then Spider-man had 4 new issue ones.

Then a few years later, Thor's issuing returned to be in line with the original run, adjusted for inflation I called it.

Then so did Spider-man's.

I won't be surprised at all in 5-10 years if a big ultimate crisis of ultimately final blackest apocolyptic protportions rocks the DC universe and brings back the old continuity to merge it with the new in a new a relevant way.

[Balbinder Mann]

Re: the change to the mythology - it's like water off a duck's back to me - i've seen so many reboots to DC history since 1984's Crisis stuff - I'm used to it, it will probably be temporary anyway - cos somebody eventually will come along and want to change whatever plans Jim Lee and Geoff Johns have - maybe not now, but in a few years time. Swings and roundabouts.

In truth, if the story's are good enough who cares about fifty odd years of continuity?

I'm more interested in all the digital same day publishing. I suppose with the rise of the iphone and ipad it was only a matter of time. The threat to the comic stores we've all got used to seems to be real and palpable but to honest I'm all for it - I enjoy the digital format (in the past i've subscribed to Marvel's site), I'm used to reading comics that way, and if the result is to get the younger generation interested in traditional comics again (to publish them in for media they prefer) that can only benefit the industry. And it might even get the cost of comics down!

[Midnighter]

I'm sure it'll pick 'em up a few new readers but, as a reader of DC comics for over 20 years, this sounds like the perfect jumping off point to me.

Originally Posted by MrShears

Now DC and its parent company want to be the first to step into same day digital publishing, and they want as many new people drawn to the books as possible. The upshot of which is closing the book on DC's 75 year history, all titles cancelled and relaunched at issue #1.

I suppose it's not all bad if it sees 'em publishing a few less Bat-titles a month. Not that that'll last if it is the case. I remember Marvel dramatically culling the X-line back when Joe Quesada took over as EIC and they seem to be back upto, even above, the amount of X-titles they were pushing before he took over. No doubt the same would happen with DC.

Originally Posted by MrShears

....All-Star Batman and Robin....

Whatever happened to that? Weren't there supposed to be a few more issues? I assume Jim Lee's involvment with this relaunch pushes the concluding issue of ASB even further back. That's assuming DC don't just use this as an excuse to sweep the series under the carpet.

[roddersj04]

A pic of the new Justice League

A few things i've noticed:
1) Superman has no red briefs outside his trousers
2) Where's Green Lanterns Power Ring?
3) Instead of Martian Manhunter, there's Cyborg
4) Batman appears to be wearing armour

Also, IGN has some more rumoured details about this big reboot

[Son of Solo]

Even Ultimate Spider-Man went shit. I used to read that all the time untill they felt the need to reboot the reboot.

[Happy-Hangman]

To be honest, I'm in two minds about this.

I can see the need to escape from an increasingly ageing audience. I was chatting to a Glasgow comic dealer the other week, and he was complaining that the bulk of his regular sales were to people over thirty. Manga was selling well to the late teens and early twenties, but there was no emerging comic culture for traditional titles, and many of the events we've witnessed (Morrison's bat books, Johns' Green Lantern, and suchlike) are Silver Age (and middle-aged) fan-wank, with precious little indication of permanence to them).

A new start - and if Crisis and the numerous other major re-boots we've witnessed in recent years are anything to go by, I can see a lot of fan-favourite titles and mythologies surviving comparatively unscathed and largely unaltered - might not be a bad thing, in that regard, combined with a more determined embrace of digital technologies. Trying to reboot mythologies by stealth - a bit at a time - is difficult. All-or-nothing might be brutal, but it is also practical. Crisis was brutal. Crisis was flawed - and left characters like the Hawks and Power Girl rudderless for the better part of twenty years - but it was, when viewed in broad terms, A Good Thing.

If a more mature, consistent, coherent continuity emerges, written well, then I'm sure I'll adapt - and I say that as someone who came back to comics a decade or more after Crisis, to a largely unrecognisable DCU, and as one of those Silver Age fanboys they need to shake off. I may dislike a lot of what is to come, and ditch a few titles because they have departed too much from the characters I loved (I can't see myself following a Strczinski'd Wonder Woman). If so, I have 70 years of material to console me.

The gamble, of course, is that they lose a dedicated older readership by aiming at an influx of new trade. I suppose in business terms the 'you gotta speculate to accumulate'. If it doesn't work, the back-pedalling could be interesting. The hastily re-written jingoistic last page of Straczinski's last 'Superman' - a response to the flak DC received over Superman 'renouncing his US citizenship' - shows that retreat and re-reboot is always an option.

On the other hand, relying too much on the 'vision' of one already overstretched writer - as we saw with the ebb and tide of many Marvel events in recent years - is always risky. Johns can be excellent, as could Bendis, but one can have too much of a good thing, and the risk of one great integrated universe-wide tweak is that the whole thing might collapse under its own weight.

[Veela Magnet]

I'm not sure what to make of this. Personally I've always been a Marvelite, but to be fair, I never really started reading comics properly until the turn of the millenium, and that was when I discovered Ultimate Marvel anyway, so I quickly got on board with it for the very reason it existed, so I didn't have to have 40+ years of backstory looming over me like Damacles's Sword. Since then, and very recently, i've slowly slowly started to ease myself into the surprisingly accomodating waters of the 616 universe, mostly via Spider-Man.

The difference here seems to be that they're essentially going to "end" everything that's gone before, right? One of the main reasons I never got into DC was that the mulitple universes seem so much harder to get my head around than that of the main Marvel universe (616), but if every one of those is coming to an end, is there going to be a natural narrative endpoint for all the various Batmans and Supermans out there, say?

One of the things I've never really fathomed in the main superheroes (Spidey / X-Men / Superman), is where the story would actually end. I know they brought out the Earth X series, but weren't they rendered as "alternate futures" somewhere down the line, and not official canon?

Ordinarily I would say that this would be a perfect time for me to get into the DC universe, but I've already got enough to be getting on with...

Originally Posted by Son of Solo

Even Ultimate Spider-Man went shit. I used to read that all the time untill they felt the need to reboot the reboot.

And from what I've read, they're rebooting THAT reboot now as well! I wouldn't say it went shit, but it's certainly not as good as it used to be -- possibly because they got to the point where they "took over" the general events of the 616 universe and had to figure out how to go it on their own. Some of the later artwork has been phenomenally good, but the stories haven't gripped me nearly as much as they used to. I still dig it though...

And in reference to my previous post, this is one of the reasons I got back into 616 Spidey -- since Big Time it's been amazing! Humberto Ramos's artwork is awesome!