Lord Zarak

I wasn't against the idea of another DC mass reboot, but I still don't understand the way they went about it. As Rex pointed out, the first mistake was DC saying that only certain titles retain continuity from the prior universe. Really? So Green Lantern retains its backstory where Cyborg Superman blew up Coast City? But Cyborg's existance is a result of Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday who ... oh no, I've gone cross-eyed. You can't do reboots that way because the universe is instantly tainted with confusion and that defeats the whole point of a reboot.

My bigger problem with the reboot was the event itself. If DC decides to do a company-wide reboot and launch a new era, great! Make it a big deal! Every title should have been given a year to not only wrap up dangling plotlines, but do something that has never been done before: write a happy ending to these charactersI Give the superhoeros a proper send off! Think "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" only for every title. We don't even need a Crisis miniseries to launch a new line. All we need is an epic "The End" followed by an epic "The Beginning" to mark the birth of the new timeline. Instead, it was a total afterthough tagged on to the Flashpoint event. Really?

Lastdaysofrain

The thing that bothers me about the 52 reboot was that instead of making it a good starting point for some interesting experiments and new blood, it really just brought everything into a boring "house style"

taffer

Yeah, that's my main peeve with the whole reboot. I wish we had actually gotten a proper ending to the pre-Flashpoint universe.

"Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" and Batman #400 were basically swan songs to pre-COIE Superman and Batman respectively that gave them both proper endings.

How does pre-Flashpoint Superman end? Walking around the country like Forrest Gump...


What? DC has experimented with the New 52.

Dial H
Sword of Sorcery
I, Vampire
Demon Knights
All Star Western
Animal Man
Swamp Thing
Justice League Dark

Those are all experimental titles different from the typical superhero norm, and most of them are pretty good. Justice League Dark is better than the main Justice League title (well it was before the forced Trinity War crossover). Its not DC's fault if most of them sell poorly and end up canceled. That's the consumer's fault.

The Valeyard

After the whole Reign of Doomsday crap, Action Comics ended with Lois asking Clark to take her home for a roll in the hay. Not a bad way to end a 904 issue run, no?

JasonF

I was always a big fan of Marvel, so that's the universe where I tend to get hung up on continuity. And for me, the "end of history" is some time in the late 80s or early 90s -- where the X-Men split into blue and gold squads, the New Warriors were a brand new upstart team, and Spider-Man's clone was just a one-shot character from a single 1970s story.

I've drifted in and out of Marvel several times since then, and I really like a lot of what they are putting out now, but it never sits quite right. I mean, Hickman is absolutely killing it on Avengers, but there's a voice in the back of my head saying "Those aren't the Avengers. Shang Chi and Spider-Man and Wolverine simply are not Avengers!" And the X-Universe is completely unrecognizable to me. And I recognize that these are some outstanding comics, and I really enjoy them, but mentally, I can't connect it up to the Marvel Universe I knew and loved 25 years ago.

PhantomStranger

I don't think the pre-52 DC universe is coming back, but it's ignoring history to believe that large elements of the new 52 won't be retconned or reverted back. The minute Jim Lee loses power at DC, his costume designs for the Justice League characters will almost certainly get abandoned by the next regime.

taffer

Probably, but costumes are always getting updated.

Nightwing had that disco looking costume in the 80s and early 90s, then the blue striped costume in the late 90s and 2000s, and now the red striped costume. Robin hasn't worn pixie boots and short shorts since 1988. Batman even changes throughout the years from black to gray to blue/gray back to black and so on. The yellow oval on his chest Bat-symbol comes and goes frequently.

While I don't believe the New 52 costumes are any more permanent than that, I honestly can't see them ever going back to the old spandex costumes now. It just wouldn't make sense. Also, the trunks won't come back. Its not just comics, but the trunks are gone in other mediums too like the movies. Spandex and trunks are outdated concepts and won't come back any more than Nightwing's disco costume or Robin's pixie boots and short shorts will ever come back.

brayzie

I'm not saying they're going to bring back everything from the 60s but to say things wont be going back is ignoring history. You say they didn't bring back the Silver Age completely, but nor did they reboot everything like Green Lantern. What is successful will stay, what isn't will go back.

In 2 years or 20 who knows? But remember these are the same people who sent off Wally West, made Bart Allen the new Flash, killed him off in less than a year because of sales, brought back Wally West as the Flash, that didn't sell, then brought back Barry Allen.

The tweaks you describe are pretty big changes. "Forget it, Barry Allen won't be coming back." It's also funny you mention how the golden age didn't come back because they created NEW versions of GL and Flash for the late 50s but they don't that anymore. Instead of creating a new Flash or Green Lantern they just brought back the old ones.

fujishig

Well, that's part of the whole question of accepting change. DC did replace a bunch of their heroes: Kyle Rayner, Wally West, Artemis and Donna Troy, Azrael and Dick Grayson, the "other" Arthur Curry, Hawkworld, Conner Hawke, Jason Rusch, Ryan Choi; heck, Mon-el filled in for Supes for a while there with that terrible costume. Of course, none of these stuck... the ones that did stick for longer were only because of editorial mandate or the editorial pull of the writers. And as soon as someone like Geoff Johns decided he wanted Hal and then Barry Allen back, they came back. And all things being fair, some of these were horrendous choices for long term stories and were most likely intended for short term anyway (Azrael and Artemis, for example).

As a side note, that horrible James Robinson JLA run before Flashpoint actually started off with a revamped roster and an interesting premise: basically, the Teen Titans all grown up, with Dick as Batman, Donna, Cyborg, Starfire, etc. all in the big leagues with Hal, Mon-el replacing Superman, and a whole bunch of other characters. Then the editorial machine slowly but surely took away almost the entire roster within the span of a few months. That wasn't the only problem with the JLA, of course; Robinson's writing didn't seem up to par (lots of telling, not showing), and Bagley's art was ill-suited to the book. That's why pre-Flashpoint DC was something of a mess; Morrison's Batman and Johns on GL were doing well, but JMS on Superman and Wonder Woman were duds, Robinson on JLA was terrible, Brightest Day didn't seem to be going anywhere (and there was fatigue after they copied Marvel's endless event leading into event leading into event format), but there were a handful of smaller books (Teen Titans, Batgirl, Superboy) that were doing their own thing and were great, but not doing great numbers sales wise, I'm sure.

I don't think the fans were demanding Barry Allen back, and a lot of people had accepted Wally as Flash (though his time away did turn him into somewhat of a saint). So in some cases it's not fans who are resistant to change.

Rex Power Colt-Robot Man

I would disagree here. They aren't experimental. Most of them are softened versions of Vertigo titles that got sucked into Brightest Day.

Lastdaysofrain

I'd tend to agree with that. I did like some of them, but they were still Vertigo books done in the New 52 DC "House Style". I think they were good despite the New 52, not because of it.

And for the record I read all of them (and for the most part they were the only New 52 titles I read consistently and stuck with, all the others I read the first two issues and ditched). I also really liked OMAC

brayzie

I think it was more because Kyle Rayner and Wally West/Bart Allen weren't selling. DC was even shopping the idea of bringing back Hal Jordan before Geoff Johns got around to doing it. Alan Davis did some sketches of a returned GL Corps with Hal Jordan being the star again but DC rejected it.


In regards to Azrael Batman, once he started starring in the book I quit reading it. I didn't get back into reading Batman until Doug Moench and Kelley Jones were on the title. Those were awesome Batman comics. Creepy just like the original Detective Comics stories before the introduction of Robin.

Xiroteus

I tend to be okay with many changes over the years. I was fine with the Clone saga, Kyle being Green Lantern, Wally as the Flash etc.. likely because that was a time when I was reading comics, I started around 1990 and took until 1994 to get buying monthly.

There have been others changes I have liked yet I KNEW they would remove them like giving Peter more spider powers like organic webbing that he should have always had! (Spider powers, the first thing I think of is webbing) Along with some other abilities and for whatever reason they have to always reset everything back to as they were.

I also wonder if they will reset the DC universe back to the way it was at some point, it would not surprise me. A lot of the changes are perfectly fine while some eraser a characters entire history which is too much.

Now that was a change I liked because it was not too drastic and I can take it more seriously depending on the artist.

resinrats

While I don't read DC, I would hate the fact they brought back multiple Earths. Try reading the wiki pages of some heroes. All the multiple Earth interactions they've had over time would drive me insane trying to keep it all straight. Even more confusing when they start going between universes.

slop101

For me, I never really followed characters like I did writers/artists. Sure some of my favorites worked on a lot of the same characters, but I didn't care what they DID to the characters, as long as the stories and the art was great.

Actually, it's the instances where they twist themselves to retain a status-quo that hurts stories. It's the instance when a book is in a constant state of flux (Alan Moore's Swam Thing, X-Men from about 220-280, Brubaker's Cpt.Am.), where characters are driving the stories rather than the other way around, which is when the more interesting things happen.

mrhan

I started reading all the multiverse stories in the 70's when I was eight. Never confused me once. Same with my friends who were into comics. It was not confusing at all. Everything after Crisis confused me. They should have left well enough alone and just stop writing about the various worlds. I'm sure no one would have noticed. It really wasn't a really big deal. Besides, it was pretty much contained in the JLA/JSA annual team ups and the golden age heroes rarely showed up in the current books at the time.

Timber

It's too bad we'll never see anything like that again. The team was in such a state of flux through that period and they came out at the end completely different then they went in. The period between the Mutant Massacre and the Moir Island Saga how change should be handled in comics, not the annual big event "nothing will ever be the same" nonsense that comics have turned into. By the time X-Men #1 rolled around the team was shinny and new but it took nearly 5 years for them to reach that point.

ivelostr2

I know there are a few of us on this board who consider this "their" x-men...during that transition I was age 10-15 and I always take that into account when considering that period as my favorite, but your argument is sound...I could read that span of x-men over and over. It really is good and when something bad happened to the team, it lasted.

fujishig

I was never a huge fan of the post-Siege Perilous lineup (and hey, I like Longshot), but the advantage that Uncanny had at the time was it's popularity and the fact that Claremont stayed on for so long and he had a bevy of decent artists to work with. While crossovers started up midway through the series, it wasn't until X-men #1 that there were multiple teams of X-men crossing over from team to team.

Marvel still does long creator-driven runs. Love him or hate him, Bendis directed New Avengers for a long time, and it was a singular vision; the crossovers definitely got in the way but the team changed and evolved and minor characters became major ones. Brubaker on Captain America (and before that, Daredevil) is another great example. Heck, look at the omnibus's that Marvel has put out of their more recent work, they're pretty much all creator driven collections. DC has a few: mainly Morrison on Batman and Johns on GL, but I think Marvel has been more creator-driven the past decade or two. If you look at something like Meltzer's run on JLA after Identity Crisis, or JMS on Superman or Wonder Woman, those runs are largely forgettable.

I did think the X-men crossover Second Coming was like a return to an old-school X-men crossover, but by the time I read it in collected form the X-titles had long since moved onto something entirely different...

Timber

It wasn't a great lineup, I was never a big fan of Storm leading the team but the way they got to that lineup was the part that I like. The Maurauders beating them down followed by the Reavers finishing the job. Yeah, it's my golden age of Uncanny X-Men.

slop101

Yeah, actually, Bendis' run on New Avengers (up to Civil War) was pretty good, and in the sort of constant flux that kept things interesting. But after Civil War, and it's sales success, even the issues between the events feel like they're just building towards the upcoming summer events rather than telling their own stories.