Don't forget Stan Lee was also simultaneously writing, like, fifteen other titles that month alone.

I agree with everything except the 3-issue restriction. Being the Legends of the Dark Knight fan I am, I readily accept that some stories are worth more than three issues. If they asked me--and they didn't--I'd tell them the most important thing they could do for this new continuity is not co-mingle the various characters any more than is necessary. Let Justice League and Teen Titans tell their own stories without really affecting the standalone characters or their worlds. It can be done.

As for the TPB culture, that bell can't be un-rung. This thread is full of posts from people saying they'll wait for the trades rather than buy any single issues. It's part of the norm now and the publishers have only themselves to blame. They could at least wait longer to offer the TPBs, but that would come at great risk and expense to them by now.

On an entirely different note, I was browsing DC's website and looking at the forthcoming publications before the relaunch and they've got an interesting assortment called DC Retroactive. They take a creative team that worked on a specific character in a specific decade and tell a new "untold" story set during that era by that team, and include a reprint of one of that team's original stories from that era. Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Justice League of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Dennis O'Neil wrote the GL in the 70s story. Ron Mars wrote the GL in the 90s.

I'm also looking forward to Batman in the 90s by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle. Their new story apparently spins directly out of Detective Comics #613, which is also included. I really liked their work on Batman: Shadow of the Bat. Loved Breyfogle's capes. The Superman in the 90s story is by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove. I liked their work on Superman: The Man of Steel. Bogdanove's work is very distinctive. Took me a while to come around on it, but I really dig it now. These should be fun.

Oh yeah, I definitely am looking forward to the Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle retroactive book. They were by far my favorite Batman creative team of all time. I would love it if they actually returned full-time instead of just a one-shot, but that probably will never happen.

On the other hand, the 80s Batman retroactive is bringing back the Year Two story with the Reaper. Of all the awesome 80s Batman stories available, and they chose to use Year Two? Major WTF.

Get this. Batman and Green Lantern's continuity is remaining intact. So they were around before Superman, even though Superman is the first public superhero. If Superman is getting the heavy reboot and starting only five years ago, that likely means Doomsday never killed him. So Cyborg Superman should not exist. Yet Cyborg Superman is part of Green Lantern's canon which is remaining intact. Therefore not only should he not exist, but there was a cyborg Superman before there was an actual Superman.

Actually, I believe somewhere in this thread is a link to something where it's stated that "The Death of Superman" still happened. As I understand it, Action Comics is effectively ground zero for the new DCU, as it spotlights the emergence of Superman. It's set five years behind everything else. That means, in theory, that all the continuity that is retained from the previous stories takes place between Action and the rest of the books.

Now, the weird part is that if you still account for "The Death of Superman" story being canon, that means that Lois Lane knew Clark Kent was Superman--and was engaged to him--and then, within five years, didn't and wasn't. It gets even screwier when you figure that Superman's presence in "A Death in the Family"--which clearly still happened, as witness Jason Todd running around as Red Hood--means that story also took place during the last five years. By extension, then, Batman is on his fourth Robin in five years since Tim is also out there and Damian is now at his side.

A complete reboot would have been much cleaner. Basically, at this point we're better off assuming nothing is valid unless it's clearly specified in one of the forthcoming issues. Otherwise, we'll just run ourselves into a continuity nightmare trying to reconcile what contradictions exist through this cherry-picking.

I think people are getting too caught up in what's kept and what's thrown out. I think the general idea is that the general concept of a story did take place but the specifics do not matter. So while A Death in the Family did in theory actually happen sometime in the last 5 years it doesn't matter is Superman was there or not.

And I thought Supes was a complete reboot meaning "Death" never happened? It's so confusing to people like me that like continuity but I'm not the type of person this reboot is aimed at.

In spirit, that's all fine. But what is DC going to do if new readers become curious and want to read "A Death in the Family" or "The Death of Superman" to better understand Jason Todd or the origins of Superboy and see all this contradictory content?

I believe somewhere in this sprawling thread is either a link to, or excerpt from, an article in which someone specifically states that Superman still died. I'll look later.

The current model is based on heavy intermingling in order to entice fans to buy more books. If you don't need to pick up Unpopular Character #3 in order to understand what's going on in Everybody's Favorite #542, then the odds are you are never going to pick up a copy of Unpopular Character. It's the impetus behind the constant "events" going on at both companies, and it is another bell that can't be unrung.

Agreed. A completely new universe would have been easier for new readers, would have freed creators from the shackles of what had gone before, and would have provided an easier "out" when the whole experiment goes down in flames in under a year. This way, new fans are turned off by the convoluted continuity mess, old fans are turned off by the convoluted continuity mess, and there'll be no clear sign indicating when things get reset back to the way they were.

Broken record time: we are heading right back to the mess that was the Post-Crisis universe.

If it's popular, it happened. It doesn't matter how or if it makes sense. If it sold, it's in.

Oh, I've always understood why they do it and I readily (though wearily) concede that you're absolutely right it's a convention that's here to stay. I'm not even against outright segregation of characters; I enjoy crossovers and team-ups in general. I just wish they would confine the scope of those kinds of crossovers to more benign stories that don't leave a permanent mark on continuity.

There was a three-part crossover in the 90s with Green Lantern, Green Arrow and The Flash. The essence was throwing the newbies (GL and GA) into the history of those three identities. It was fun to read, sold well enough and yet no one's world was turned upside down during the events. No one was murdered or resurrected. They just explored the dynamics of those three characters.

I also think that too many writers these days are more interested in conflict between heroes than in developing interesting antagonists. Batman writers have more than enough great villains to work with and while Sinestro is really the only major Green Lantern villain, there are enough worthwhile adversaries for the Corps. Still, I'm looking at the cover of Supergirl #2 and she's punching...Superman. Seriously, the second issue of the relaunch and the only conflict to be found is with another hero?

It reminds me of the pre-story in Kingdom Come, where the superheroes had all vanquished the supervillains and only really had one another to antagonize.

That's what they're going for, though. Didio (or was it Lee) mentioned that they want more cinematic art, and not 12 panels and dialogue, in order to replicate the movies that are (were?) doing so well. Of course, then you get a comic with a lot of pretty pictures but which can be "read" in a minute or so, with a month long wait in between, which is not exactly like a movie...

On the other hand we could have super convoluted, verbose storytelling a la Chris Claremont... I'm sure there's a happy medium somewhere.

There's actually more non-consistency than just Lois and Clark.

In the Action reboot, Jonathon and Martha are dead before Clark moves to Metropolis much like they were in the Silver Age days. Also Superman now wears armor.

So basically by reading Action, Death/Funeral/Reign, then the new Superman title, you will have the following:

Kents = dead, alive, dead
Lois and Clark = never engaged, engaged, never engaged
Superman = armor, no armor, armor

Its a freaking mess.


Actually that could possibly work. A rough timeline of events:

Bruce becomes Batman at age 25 in Year One.

Bruce takes Dick as his ward three years later. Bruce is 28 and Dick is 13.

Dick is Robin for five years. Bruce is 33 and Dick is 18. Dick then becomes Nightwing. Jason is also introduced as the new Robin at age 13.

Jason is around for a year approximately before being crowbarred by Joker. Bruce is 34 and Dick is 19. Superman is also introduced as the first public superhero during this time.

Shortly after Tim is introduced and becomes Robin at age 13.

Five more years have passed. Bruce is 39, Dick is 24, and Tim is 18. Tim is now Red Robin, and Damian is Robin.

So if Superman is introduced only shortly before Jason gets crowbarred, it still works out to five years from then to present day.

The bigger question is how Batman operated as an urban legend for so long beforehand. He doesn't have superspeed to blur himself like Superman or Flash, so how did he stay hidden from cameras for so long. That also directly contradicts Tim's origin since Tim had seen Batman and Robin on the news and saw Robin do the same triple somersault he once saw Dick do at the circus, and that's how Tim figured out their identities.

I have one response to this perspective: G.I. Joe #21. "The silent issue" as it's known, where there's not one word balloon to be found, yet a clear narrative is conveyed. They can have comics reliant on art that do still actually tell us something.

I figure by now a lot, maybe even most, of the readers know the events that happened but haven't actually read them. They accept that Jason Todd was killed by The Joker, but probably few have made a big deal out of the fact Superman was part of that story, or bring up the fact that the Kents clearly were alive and watching coverage of Superman's fight with Doomsday. And I suspect that most of the readers who either stay with DC for this relaunch or come to it fresh will simply discard any incongruities as trivial to the continuity they'll claim as theirs the way we feel about the stories we read.

In all honesty, I couldn't have cared less about pre-Crisis DC continuity. Huntress was Batman's daughter? Yeah, whatever. My Huntress was Helena Bertinelli. If you asked me who my Green Lantern is, I'd tell you Kyle Rayner. I suspect 2011 relaunch readers will feel largely the same way about these things that vex many of us in this thread. These things will be met with a "So what?" dismissal. And, really, I suppose that's how it should be. As long as someone actually cares enough to claim this era as his or hers, I guess I can live with knowing my era is now inconvenient baggage.

Also Batman #433 was a silent issue that still managed to tell much more story than a single issue does today.




I am the same way. I was born in '79 and started reading comics in the late 80s. So for me the late 80s/early 90s is the heyday of comics. I don't really care about anything Pre-COIE. I have read some of it, like Denny O'neil's Batman, but didn't particularly care for it as much as the comics I actually grew up reading in the late 80s/early 90s.

It just means one thing... we are getting old. We are now the grumpy old men sitting on our porches and shaking our old man canes at all the kids walking by.

I was born 1 December 1978. Don't mock canes. I use mine frequently! But yeah, I think it's time our generation began to accept that we've aged out of being the target demographic for a lot of the things we've enjoyed most of our lives. I realized this with music recently when I was browsing iTunes and had no idea who the hell most of the featured artists even were.

Take it from a 41-year-old my friend... you're too young to be so damn old. Can't believe someone 32 is talking about his "generation" like they're baby boomers or something. You're at best the tale end of Gen X!

9 year difference between 41 and 32. Also a 9 year difference between 32 and 23.

I have more in common with a 41 year old than I do with a 23 year old who is barely out of college and just getting started with real life.

Edit: You talk like you are part of the baby boomer generation, but if you are 41 you would have been born in 1970. The baby boomer generation was from mid 40s to early 60s. Generation X was mid 60s to early 80s. You and I are both Generation X. Booyah.

That was a great issue. And self-contained... you didn't plunk down 4 bucks to read a comic for a minute and then wait a month for the next one.

Not that it can't be done well. I'm sure there have also been monthlies that have spanned multiple issues with few words that have been great as well, but in the age of the tpb, why collect it monthly when it reads better collected? I love manga, and some manga have very few words and a lot of action, but they come out in weekly chunks in anthologies and also read better collected.

But people are right, there is a balance. Despite all my negative posts here, I do hope the relaunch does well and brings out some strong stories (which I can then buy in collected editions).

DC has always had this weird obsession with its own continuity, so much to the point that they're constantly re-writing it.

I remember a few years ago that I read "Identity Crisis," and looked it up on wikipedia -or some other similar site- and discovered that Wonder Woman had been retconned out of it (or back into it? See I'm confused) and then back into it.

While Crisis on Infinite Earths was meant to fix these things twenty-five years ago, it just ended up making everything more confused because it was a half-assed reboot, so you had all of this stupid shit like the Justice League was still around, and all of those things still happened, but Superman was pulled retconned out. And then you had characters like Hawkman that nobody knew how to deal with.

It's quite ridiculous, actually, that this company that is so obsessed with its own history, is constantly re-writing it. Generally, I think Marvel has the right idea in that they don't really too much with it. Everything that ever happened in every Marvel comic is still the basic history, though the further in the past it was, the more "vague" it sort of becomes. Whereas DC keeps shuffling around its characters like pieces on a chess board.

Sounds like this soft reboot is going to be just another confused mess ala COIE.

DC has not out and out stated this publicly, but most people are interpreting their actions in the reboot for the books to emulate the early years of Image Comics. Words are mostly out, big spread images are back with a vengeance. Notice how many artists are getting shots at writing comics in the reboot, just like the glory years of Image. DiDio thinks there is some huge untapped market of Image fans, from the boom years of the early 90's, that will come back to buying comic books in some form if you cater to them. Supposedly DC/Warner has done some market research about the demographics of potential new comic book buyers, and that is what they came up with.

It does make some kind of limited sense, though I strongly disagree with it and mostly think it is a Hail Mary type of gamble.

This is the first I've read of this particular conjecture- but I admit it makes sense given what we are seeing.

This certainly isn't a gambit to try to lure people like me back in. The Image era, and all the fan-hyped artists who sucked at storytelling but could dash off a few flashy full page pin-ups with word balloons every issue, and the oodles of mean-spirited drivel they produced, are what initially drove people like me away from comics altogether. They don't want me back. But the kids that were buying multiple poly-bagged, variant covered crap? I sure that 20 year nostalgia thing is just about right to try to fleece this pack once more. This generation of fans always seemed to value sensation and sizzle more than actually stories and the art of storytelling. Alex Toth wouldn't have stood a chance against Liefeld in that market and since that market is swinging around again, any artist that emulates someone like Toth over some stylistic Jim Lee clone is going to get shown the door real quick. Yeah, this is just no country for old men.

Smells like the dawn of a new implosion. Can't wait.

Actually that issue contained three words I believe (haven't reread it in years but like you said... it made an impact): That's not him.

This is what the 4th half assed reboot? Original crisis, Zero Hour, Identity Crisis. When are they going to learn? While trying to simplify they're making their shit way to complicated.

In fairness, the original Crisis on Infinite Earths was almost necessary after 50 years of escalating stories. Writers had grown tired of trying to act like these characters weren't aging as time passed and in their admirable efforts to infuse some realism they ended up with cumbersome stuff, like Batman being old enough that The Huntress was his daughter.

Zero Hour really wasn't much of a reboot, though that's how it was presented. Other than some important stuff with Hal Jordan, I don't really recall a lot of major, permanent effects from that series to the DCU at large (though I may have overlooked or forgotten some things). I remember the prelude to Zero Hour involving a lot of time-warp stories (like Barbara Gordon as Batgirl in an issue of either Batman or Detective Comics), but those were basically just one-off little indulgences that were erased by the end of the whole thing. Then every series had its #0 issue after the mini-series that basically told an "at the beginning" story and then it was pretty much back to business as usual for most series.

Regardless of the semantics of that, though, Identity Crisis wasn't a reboot. It was a murder mystery that encompassed most of the DCU in various ways, added some retroactive stuff (like an incident with Batman during a previous incarnation of the Justice League) but never set out to reset DC continuity.

Still, I get what you mean. It does feel like every time there's a public announcement it's either a succession of "This changes everything!" or a periodic, "We're starting all over again!" declarations and it's not just DC.

By the way, my personal favorite bit of DC continuity changing is that The Joker murders Mr. Freeze in Robin II: Joker's Wild! #1, but then Mr. Freeze became popular and important on Batman: The Animated Series so they basically acted as though that murder never happened and brought him back into the mainstream stories later.

Wow, what happened to the big exciting art, with few words? It looks like a Claremont X-men issue.

Superman is written by George Perez, who is also doing the art breakdowns. This actually looks a lot more like what I want out of a comic than the six pages of nothing that we saw of Justice League #1. Superman might just make my Check It Out list yet.