Adam Tyner

My plan was to give all the relaunched titles 6 issues -- a trade's worth -- to decide what I'm going to drop and what I'm going to stick with. The mildly annoying thing is that some of those books are swapping creative teams, so that kind of muddies the waters.

I think this is where I am now:

Definitely Keeping: Wonder Woman; Flash; Birds of Prey; Batman

Will Read In Some Form But Might Move to Trades: Swamp Thing; Animal Man; Demon Knights; Batwoman
(I really like the first three -- especially Animal Man -- but just think they'd read better for me in collections. Animal Man aside, I generally don't remember what happened in the previous issue whenever I pick up the current one anyway. I'm not engaged with Batwoman on a story level at all, but that art...! Well, when it's that art at least.)

Probably Keeping But Could Go Either Way: Aquaman; Batgirl

Probably Dumping: Superman; Action Comics; Supergirl
(I might give both Supes books a couple more issues, especially since Perez isn't writing the pretty-thoroughly-God-awful Superman anymore. Supergirl is a perfectly competent book, but I just do. not. care about anything that's going on in it.)

Definitely Dumping: Justice League; Batman and Robin
(Justice League is kind of a disaster. I walk away from Batman and Robin with complete indifference after every issue, and after six issues straight of that, it's gone.)

PhantomStranger

I'm back! I knew I would have to come in and save the DC universe at some point.

Josh-da-man

Is Pandora

fujishig

I was going to ask the same thing when I saw that pic...

LorenzoL

That was my first guess too when I saw that panel.

reubs82

So, if Pandora/Zealot (who I have no idea about, since I'm brand new to all of this) is responsible for the collision/combining of the universes, then this wasn't a reboot at all. Instead, it's a marketing driven story (like they all are, I guess), without all the geekery/infinite earths/crisis talk around it meant to lure in new readers instead of making new readers go, "WTF is supposed to be happening in comics, anyway?!"

kgrogers1979

How is it not a reboot when things are completely different? Almost everything about Superman has changed. Batman and Green Lantern are the only two that weren't drastically changed, and even they have been changed at least a little. Flashpoint is the biggest reboot DC has ever done. Its much bigger than even Crisis on Infinite Earths was.

We saw Pandora for the first time at the end of Flashpoint, and it was suspected even then that she had a big part in the changes. Its just this is the first official confirmation of it.

Even though Phantom Stranger knows things have changed and remembers the old DCU, its not like DC is going to revert back to the old DC. I wish it would happen, but as much as I wish it, it won't happen. The best we can hope for is a few tweaks and fixes similar to Zero Hour. So don't kid yourself, it is a permanent reboot that isn't going to be reversed.

Adam Tyner

The cynical part of me thinks that if they keep a character who's directly responsible for the reboot around after that story is over and done with, and if they make it a point to emphasize that she's wrong for doing what she did...well, it seems obvious to me that they're leaving themselves an out, at least. Not saying they will, definitively, revert, but it sure does look to me that they want to have that option.

kgrogers1979

Anti-Monitor was around long after COIE ended. They never changed back, despite many characters knowing COIE happened They just made a few tweaks and fixes here and there with events like Zero Hour.

DC has already shown off the new post-Flashpoint Earth 2 JSA type of characters, so I would say that means they aren't planning to change back to the old DCU anytime soon.

So if anything, I think Pandora will just be involved in another Zero Hour kind of thing. Phantom Stranger may try to restore the old DCU but fail and realize that it can't be done. The best he can do is fix a few things.

Adam Tyner

Sure, although I'd argue that's not a completely apples-to-apples thing since the Anti-Monitor was a focal part of CoIE, whereas Pandora has just kinda been lurking in the background.

I don't think there are any immediate plans to revert (or necessarily any less-immediate plans, for that matter). I just think they wanted to be able to say "oh, we planned this all along" if sales weren't where they wanted and they felt like reverting.

I definitely believe the point of that teaser is to indicate that reversion is a threat/possibility, even if that ultimately doesn't happen.

kgrogers1979

I believe the point of the backup was just to tease the next storyarc, nothing as sinister as saying they are going back to the old DCU or anything, just that Pandora is going to be dealt with soon.

Adam Tyner

Well, there's that too. (When I said "teaser", I meant "teaser for the next arc", not "teaser for the reversion of an entire universe".)

madcougar

It would have been foolish not to leave themselves an out. What if the entire thing had been a disaster? I'm sure since they probably laid out the scenario in case they had to revert back to what was, they want to use some of those story elements at some point.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.

kgrogers1979

Why would they need an out? If the DCNU was a completely failure, they could have just gone back to the old DCU and pretended it never happened. Its not like most people would have cared if the DCNU had been that bad. Retcons without explanation happen all the time in comics. Things happen and then are ignored by later comics as if they never happened at all. For example, its been over a decade and we still don't know what Norman Osborn did with Peter and MJ's baby...

Adam Tyner

To pretend it's motivated by story and not by sales. To give themselves an excuse to launch a miniseries with 18,000 spinoffs leading up to it. It wouldn't be any different than having Flashpoint as a gateway to this new universe in the first place. Your argument that they could've just relaunched everything in this current universe without any explanation would hold there too, right? (Personally, I just want comics I like, and continuity and stuff is pretty low on the totem pole for me.)

kgrogers1979

I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to believe that going back to the old DCU would be motivated by anything other than sales. After all the hype they gave DCNU last year, nobody would believe they would want to get rid of it that quickly unless sales were just completely dismal.

An excuse to launch a miniseries with countless spinoffs? Since when do they need an excuse to do that? They do it on an annual basis regardless.

COIE was a gateway bridging the Pre and Post Crisis universes much like Flashpoint is now. So that isn't really any different. They didn't have a Pandora type of character back then to use as an excuse to go back, so I doubt Pandora is an excuse now. They planned when they were writing Flashpoint that the annual crossover event with a billion spinoffs for 2012 would be Pandora. Just the typical annual event, not a reversion or anything.

Adam Tyner

I think this is kind of past the not-worth-the-argument end of things. Maybe I'm not expressing my points as well as I should have, and I don't believe I said anywhere that things were going to revert back as part of the big event for 2012. I don't care enough to keep going.

PhantomStranger

People are going to whine and moan about it, but I think DC is eventually going to head back into the multiple universes approach of storytelling. The reboot DCU is just going to be one of many DC universes, like Marvel did with the Ultimate line.

I think older fans will get at least some comics back from the post-Crisis era in the long run in their own contained universe.

Travis McClain

Re: Continuity - As long as I keep liking what they roll out, I don't really care at this point. I'm far less concerned about whether this universe remains the primary one and more concerned with whether or not they slip right back into the lazy habits that chased me out of reading 10 years ago.

madcougar

Wait... wait... are you telling me that DC Comics a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which is in itself a subsidiary of Time Warner, a publically traded media conglomerate is ONLY interested in profits!? No… no… please…. Stop. You’re…. killing… me.

There... is... no... god.

*Click*

Preterite

Oh, hell yeah. Of course. I'm not even reading the new DCU, and this was my first thought when I read about the Pandora character somewhere.

In a couple of years, when all the New 52 hype has died and sales have declined, there's going to be another big marketing splash about "the return of the original universe", and things will flip back again. And just as the new universe kept top-sellers Batman and GL completely intact, the return will retain those aspects of the new continuity that were really popular.

Travis McClain

Maybe I'm just in a mood, but my reaction is..."Yeah. So?" I just can't see why this is a revelation to anyone who's followed comics for very long.

stingermck

Thread needs more Gary Frank.

Variant for Action #8



And his Shazam re-design:



Which I think is pretty awesome

Timber

That Shazam picture is bad ass.

kgrogers1979

If you have followed comics for very long, then you would know that DC has never reverted back from a relaunch. So there is no logical reason to assume they will ever revert back from Flashpoint.

Flashpoint is pretty much identical to COIE. COIE rebooted the characters that weren't selling well (i.e. John Byrne's heavy reboot of Superman) while characters that were selling well remained pretty much the same (about the only thing that changed regarding Batman was Jason Todd's origin). Its exactly the same. DC never reverted back from COIE, so there is no reason to assume they will with Flashpoint. The only thing that is going to happen is a few tweaks similar to Zero Hour, and heck I bet that is exactly what the whole Pandora thing will be is another Zero Hour.