Update: DCU To Be Rebooted

[Silver]

Jun 2, 2011 22:35:50 GMT -5 ckal said:

Would be a pretty big waste to renumbering ever series to #1, redesign all the characters, change the teams, remove some characters, etc. for it to be a few months. I'd say it is permanent. Maybe what Bob just means is that they will keep some events that happened in the past cannon, like how it was previously stated Blackest Night would remain cannon or something like that.

If that it was it means, then it is still a reboot. It may not be a COIE level reboot but a reboot all the same.

I really hope this is not permanent. Give it a few years, let it die, and go back to normal, please.

[Erik-El]

If it is something you will hate, why give it years? lol

[Silver]

Erik-El: Because I doubt they would go to this much trouble for it to last anything less than a few years, assuming it turns out not to be permanent.

[Erik-El]

Well sometimes fan backlash goes a long way. Anyone remember the WW television show debacle? First her costume caused fans to cry and wet their pants. Then even when the changes were made, fan bitching caused me to lose my WW show before it even aired. I wish I could find the pilot. I would like to know what DC fans (who probably do not even read WW) ruined for me.

[Supreme Marvel]

The Secret Origins Of The DC Relaunch

So, I was told recently that the original decision for DC to relaunch all their titles with 52 new issue ones was originally planned to follow the Final Crisis series, with emphasis on the 52 worlds therein. But, at the time, though pushed for by Dan DiDio and others, it was nixed by then-publisher Paul Levitz.

Which does seem to fit in with Joe Michael Straczynski’s account of a conversation with Dan DiDio about the relaunch this time – and JMS does stress later, he meant to say “relaunch” rather than “reboot”.

When Dan DiDio comes out to the West Coast, we tend to get a bite for dinner to discuss projects, ideas, books and just hang. Dan is a great guy and an energetic speaker, chockful of ideas and aspirations for DC. As part of that, he shared repeatedly on and off for really more than a year his dream of rebooting the DCU and starting over.

So I felt confident that it was coming soon (which is one reason why I felt there wouldn’t be a problem in the long run leaving the monthly books, since most of the things done in Superman and Wonder Woman would be erased by the reboot anyway, so ultimately it didn’t matter whether I stayed or left. I just couldn’t say anything at the time because I wanted to respect Dan’s privacy and his desire to do what he thought was right when he thought it was right to do it.

To a degree, I think the success of Superman: Earth One was very helpful in showing that you could reboot a major character in a very personal sort of book and have it become a real hit (27 straight weeks and counting on the New York Times Bestseller List for graphic novels).

That said: end to end, top to bottom, front to back, this is Dan’s dream, and he’s fought long and hard to make this happen. I think it’s absolutely the right move at the right moment in history. If you think about how well the Flash, Green Lantern and Atom were rebooted during the Silver Age, those books made the characters more contemporary, personal and relevant to the 70s. Imagine how much poorer the comics world would be without those reboots, if there had never been a Hal Jordan, or a Barry Allen.

Taking that approach to rebooting the majority of the DC line is a gutsy move on an unparalleled scale, and I think Dan deserves a massive round of applause for making it. The business part of the comics business has been languishing for the last several years, with decreasing sales and media attention. Something this big, this brave, is exactly the shot in the arm it needed. There’s a saying in some of the British special forces: “Who dares, wins.” I think this was and will be seen in future as a winning move.

Good on him for doing it.

- Bleeding Cool.

So, now we know the reason he left Superman.

[Morpheus]

That may be the case, but that implies that both he, and "Dan" treated readers as a bunch of morons who thought that reading Superman and Wonder Woman and payed money for it, was, you know, worth a damn, instead of being a "screw quality for two flagship characters for two separate storylines that - respectively - lasted 14 months in a row, we'll reboot them anyway and suckers will still pay for it" case.


So he may justify it that way, but it still doesn't mean squat. It actually makes it sound worse than before.

[Supreme Marvel]

Yeah, Grounded sucked. While Action, rocked!

[ckal]

Silver- why would DC make this massive of a change for it to only last a few years? Then let it die? That doesn't make any sense.

[Khaos King]

Jun 3, 2011 8:46:09 GMT -5 ckal said:

Silver- why would DC make this massive of a change for it to only last a few years? Then let it die? That doesn't make any sense.

money and business

[Erik-El]

Jun 3, 2011 10:13:20 GMT -5 Khaos King said:

Jun 3, 2011 8:46:09 GMT -5 ckal said:

Silver- why would DC make this massive of a change for it to only last a few years? Then let it die? That doesn't make any sense.

money and business

I highly doubt they will lose more readers than they will gain. So neither of those reasons explain why DC would only do this for a few years.

[Supreme Marvel]

I wonder if people thought Crisis would have been temporary?

[cm24]

The timing is just so wrong IMO. They want to relaunch everything? Ok, let's relaunch them (not that I like it but we'll see). WW was recently rebooted and got a new costume with all this publicity buzz, Superman got a Secret Origin, his books just hit milestones issues that were covered a lot in the media(we all remember the whole Superman is un-American thing), we had the recent events where a lot of characters had retcons in their origins, from minor to major ones, only to have everything relaunched or rebooted a few months later?

[Erik-El]

Un-American Superman is actually a pretty damn good reason for a major retcon.

[cm24]

Maybe it is but this is not what I am trying to say.

[Erik-El]

Jun 3, 2011 13:28:52 GMT -5 @cm24 said:

Maybe it is but this is not what I am trying to say.

I know. I just decided to zero in on one thing. I understand your entire message.

[cm24]

Ohh, ok then.

[Silver]

Jun 3, 2011 13:18:47 GMT -5 @cm24 said:

The timing is just so wrong IMO. They want to relaunch everything? Ok, let's relaunch them (not that I like it but we'll see). WW was recently rebooted and got a new costume with all this publicity buzz, Superman got a Secret Origin, his books just hit milestones issues that were covered a lot in the media(we all remember the whole Superman is un-American thing), we had the recent events where a lot of characters had retcons in their origins, from minor to major ones, only to have everything relaunched or rebooted a few months earlier?

And there is Batman, Inc.

I concur the timing is awful.

[cm24]

And not only that. What about Batman Beyond or Xombi? Both are relatively new series with very little issues out so far. Or what about recently created characters like Aqualad or what happened in Brightest Day? They just didn't happen or because they were done by Johns, thye are going to be spared by this?

[Erik-El]

I also do have questions about the Elseworlds. Batman Beyond is a big question mark for me because I have been getting the issues. I would think that an Elseworld would be immune but I would not be surprised to find that it is just ended abruptly.

[Erik-El]

I am operating under the belief that everything that is happening now until Post-Flashpoint is irrelevant to what the continuity will be in the future.