DC Comics Reboot

[Felon]

I so wanted to believe they were doing a real reboot. I mean, to me it just seems that comic books universes should do that every other generation. It worked wonders for DC's silver age.

But then they're faced with doing stuff like killing off Grant Morrison's Batman Inc, and they flinch. They can't really do it. So it's a reboot, but it's a cop-out reboot that's in media res. It's kind of a lousy way to do a reboot, because watching a hero learn the ropes and form relationships with allies and enemies is the most interesting part of a hero's mythos.

So, Wildstorm is going to be merged with mainstream DCU? Midnighter and Apollo will be running around bumping into their counterparts, Superman and Batman. "Hey, look, Apollo, there are those two icons that we're total knock-offs of!"

 

[Klaus]

Judging strictly by the cover, Apollo and Midnighter seem to be a bit different. Apollo looks more like a roman version of Black Adam (White Adam? ) and Midnighter looks more like a version of Shadowhawk (the armored Image character).

 

[Kobold Avenger]

But then they're faced with doing stuff like killing off Grant Morrison's Batman Inc, and they flinch. They can't really do it. So it's a reboot, but it's a cop-out reboot that's in media res. It's kind of a lousy way to do a reboot, because watching a hero learn the ropes and form relationships with allies and enemies is the most interesting part of a hero's mythos.

There were parts where they said, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and it was most of the Batman and Green Lantern titles.

There are things that still are being changed with Batman, after all Barbara Gordon isn't a paraplegic anymore, and Bruce is a little more patient with Damien who previously refused to have him as a sidekick.

 

[Felon]

There were parts where they said, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and it was most of the Batman and Green Lantern titles.

So they're trying to eat their cake and have it too, trying to create fresh starts while maintaining something like Batman inc, which is as postmodern, jaded, and convuluted as comics can get. There is no such thing as rebooting halfway. That's the entire point of appropriating the term "reboot" from its computer origins.

And "Daimon Wayne"? Is he going to grow up to be Blankman?

 

[Viking Bastard]

While I have some serious Crisis fatigue and I haven't been able to get excited about this*, I don't really care about continuity. While I am the kind of fanatic DC geek who can spout obscure trivia on command, I don't really care what the exact status quo of the DCU is at any given moment. Retcon aplenty, I don't care. In fact, I wish they'd stop worrying about it. Let each story be it's own thing and let the writers play with whatever version of the character they want. Let them reference whatever stories they want, as long the story is internally consistent and makes it apparent where it's going to stray from the norm.

So what if Aquaman's title doesn't sync up with the JLA title? It works for Donald Duck. It works for Spirou. It works just as well for Superman.

But I wish they'd stop merging their universes. The Fawcett characters have never fit into the DCU and it kinda ruined them. I don't really see Wildstorm fitting any better; it's a cynical universe, which the DCU ain't.

I may eat my words, of course... the Charlton characters did fit pretty snuggly, after all.


* Except for more of Grant Morrison's Superman, yay!

 

[Villano]

I so wanted to believe they were doing a real reboot. I mean, to me it just seems that comic books universes should do that every other generation. It worked wonders for DC's silver age.

But then they're faced with doing stuff like killing off Grant Morrison's Batman Inc, and they flinch. They can't really do it. So it's a reboot, but it's a cop-out reboot that's in media res. It's kind of a lousy way to do a reboot, because watching a hero learn the ropes and form relationships with allies and enemies is the most interesting part of a hero's mythos.

I don't think they ever intended to do a an actual reboot. The people running DC want the Siver Age (the comics they read as kids) and the things they're writing right now and nothing in between. Since DiDio's been in charge, they've been retconning the Post-Crisis stuff little by little. Now they can just chop out everything that's happen (and all characters that have been created) between 1985 and 2005.

I didn't want them to do a reboot at first, now I wish they had actually done one instead of this sort of confusing half step. They're not going to bring in new readers with the Red Lantern Corps or Batman having a son. Those aren't what I would call "jumping on points".

 

[Elodan]

I generally just pick up DC (and occasionally Marvel) trades about the heroes and authors who interest me. I thought this might be a nice way to start picking up individual issues but what I'm seeing and hearing has me more confused as to the point of this. Feels like a stunt.

 

[Jared Rascher]

Part of me actually thinks DC did need a reboot. I think that there is a lot of baggage from some stories like Identity Crisis that really weighs down the current DC Universe, and there is this strange disconnect between pushing the Silver Age versions of some characters while still doing stories like Cry for Justice that seem to try and out Iron Age the 90s.

However, there seems to be a threefold model that is very much working against a clean slate starting point for new fans, or old fans that want a new point to jump onto the books.

1. Green Lantern and Batman Incorporated are "sort of" not affected, in that everything that isn't changed in someone else's books still happened in these books. This is the most confusing issue in the whole endeavor.

On one had, they are popular books, on the other hands, Secret Six and Power Girl are as well, yet they get sacrificed on the reboot altar. I really don't want to say its obvious that Johns and Morrison get to dictate their own terms, but there it is.

2. Because Jim Lee is one of the head honchos, Wildstorm characters and concepts now exist in the DC Universe. Including characters that are pretty much meant to be versions of DC characters with a harder edge to examine similar themes from different angles.

Either those characters are going to change drastically to not be alternate versions of their inspirations, or they are going to be confusing to new readers. And if they do change so as to not be alternate versions of their inspired heroes, what's the point of introducing them.

Not to mention the weirdness of introducing some Wildcats characters and part of the Wildcats plot, in a universe that has a lot more established alien races.

3. Some characters are getting the massive reset buttons hit on them. Tim Drake didn't become Red Robin after having been Robin? He just spontaneously exists outside of the Batman family because people liked him on the Titans? But why did they like him? Because he was the Titans version of Batman! And how accessible is it to have Robin being Batman's son by Ra's al Ghul's daughter?

I'm not saying you can't tell that story, but it seems a bit more complicated then just having the standard, "touched by tragedy" adopted sidekick angle that people already "get" from various other versions of Batman over the years.

 

[Klaus]

Paul Cornell, who's writing the new Stormwatch, said that Apollo and Midnighter will be less comparable to SUperman and Batman. OTOH, they're still a proud gay couple.

It's impossible to predict if this is a reboot or relaunch or whatever, really. So many things are incompatible with each other (Dick was Batman, but Babs wasn't Oracle and Tim wasn't Robin? Bart is Kid Flash, but there's no mention of Wally).

 

[Dire Bare]

As I've stated upthread, I'm not much of a comic collector or reader, but . . .

Are you guys getting more info on character details from somewhere . . . or is there an awful lot of assumptions going on here? Seriously, I can't tell!

This is a soft reboot, most characters will still be recognizable, as will there backstories. They are not starting over from "Day One", at least not for most characters. It's more of a clean-up, a streamlining, rather than a reimagining. To worry about what plotlines "happened" in the new DCU seems silly to me as it is obvious . . . whichever plotlines serve the story as it is being written (or, in other terms, not even DC fully knows yet!).

Is the Titans "Robin" no longer "Red Robin", oddly divorced from the Bat Family? Or is he pretty much the same character as before, just with a new look? Is Barbara Gordon retconned out of a wheelchair, or within continuityish, is she healed, keeping her backstory as Oracle and retaking the mantle of Batgirl? Etc, etc.

Do we know yet? Do you guys have info I'm missing? Or are we assuming we already know the details that DC has not yet released? A curious mind wants to know!