DC Rebooting Universe

Umm.

Reboot thoughts aside, this seems like a really weird time to do this. Many series, Batman and Green Lantern especially, are in the middle of a brand new status quo created after years and years of build up. I understand the desire to bring in new fans, but not at the cost of invalidating a ton of stories.

I'm not excited, but I won't start complaining until the new issues come out and I see where things are.

<eyetwitch>

I hope they mean something along the lines of what Marvel does occasionally (but DC rarely ever does): completely rerevamping the beginning while not exactly invalidating the present as much as redoing the way the present happened.

Completely wiping away DC's ridiculously long history and doing everything over again is just moronic, and if that's what they're doing I'm... honestly... just disappointed.

I'm really afraid that this'll be a Crisis on Infinite Earths-style one, ie EVERYTHING changes. And newer, younger designs ala Wonder Woman's jacket and pants thing? UM NO.

...Oh for the love of God...

Yeah, I'm thinking it'll be a Marvel style one. Because, well, all these events recently have changed stuff and it's nice for the DC universe to feel like it's going somewhere.

What, again? How many is that now?

I'd find that almost worse. At least a full reboot would mean Ted Kord and Vic Sage would be alive and usable for stories again, and Max Lord was never derailed into full-blown evil. Though I admit that's rather like wanting to weed the yard by dropping a bomb on it for the lovely explosion.

edited 31st May '11 4:25:25 PM by Ronnie

Y'know, as long as they keep the current story lines/ideas going (ie, The Rainbow Corps Wars, Batman Inc, etc.), I'm perfectly fine with this. Let's be honest; comics NEED new readers. A simplification isn't exactly a bad thing. And besides, JIM LEE. Johns may have a problem with Geoffcons, but I have faith in this. Best of luck to ya, DC.

edited 31st May '11 4:47:56 PM by 11Numb

Calling Ultimate Universe now.

...How's Judge Dredd nowadays?

Releveant◊

This could be the result of the rather confusing "Brightest Day". For some reason, I have the feeling this didn't quite worked out as they planned and the whole event feels like a bad reboot anyway.

For some characters, I think this will turn out rather well - I am not particular happy with the direction of the Batbooks at the moment- but for others, I have the feeling this will delete a lot the newer continuity - the Green Lantern mythos just got massively extended. Though they did hint that not everything will be reseted.

Whee. Yet another reason for me to stop caring about the superhero universes that refuse to go anywhere. *shrug* This really does sound like a terrible idea, and I'm willing to bet that 'modernizing' the most iconic heroes on the planet is going to backfire so very fast and so very badly that it will go the way of the electric Superman before we have time to turn around.

Bleah. Colour me pessimistic on this one.

Highly-Visible Ninja EDIT- Wait, what's up with Green Lantern suddenly sprouting More Dakka? If that's Hal... I remember him being openly contemptuous of that one GL that used his ring to pop guns out all over the place to try and stop him while he was busy going crazy. And why's Cyborg there, anyways? Much love for Vic Stone, but he's hardly what one thinks of when you think 'founding League member' :/

edited 31st May '11 7:06:23 PM by TeChameleon

Two interesting articles, one about the reboot itself, and another about how the real important news here is the same day digital distribution, a point I believe has merit.

I think this is going to alienate a lot of paying customers. As long as Secret Six isn't messed with tooo much though I'll keep paying for it.

If this does turn out to completely wipe out everything that's gone on the last few years, then I know that my pull list will severely dwindle. I don't want to get involved with too much that may very well get rebooted back when DC realizes how stupid this is.

Its One More Day all over again.

^*7

Is it bad that the first thing I thought was: "hey, it's the cast from Challenge Of The Superfriends minus Firestorm?"

Actually, that was the second thing. The first thing was looking at Batman and thinking: "yup, that's definitely Jim Lee."

edited 31st May '11 7:58:17 PM by KnownUnknown

Green Lantern in specific has had it clarified that nothing from the last three years or so will be out of continuity (because Geoff Johns is in charge of the reboot)...so I'm thinking soft reboot for most of the characters, updating the origins, slightly deaging some characters, eliding certain stories that the current creative teams don't much like, that sort of thing.

Cyborg, I hate to say it, is in the Justice League for the token black person thing. J'onn is non-white, technically, but "we have green people!" doesn't fly as a diversity thing any more. Besides, Vic Stone's been in the DCU for nearly thirty years, it's about time he had an extended shot at the big league. (Note that Flashpoint has him being pretty much Earth's big hero.)

Martian Manhunter is probably going to be slotted in as one of the JLI characters for the nostalgia fest.

While the announcement says fifty-two #1 comics, it doesn't say anything about #2 issues. I'd expect most of the ongoings to revert to their usual numbering with the new status quo as of the month after.

I'm cool with it as long as it doesn't affect Morrison's Batman. That thing is seriously the best comics run since Walt Simonson on Thor.

I have my fingers crossed for an Ultimate Universe....

I raged like hell when I read about this yesterday. Didn't calm down until I finally got some sleep. And I hate it mostly for the reason that Alec mentioned in the OP. And not only those events, but I mean, when the last couple of issues of Brightest Day came out, there was this big deal about Swamp Thing and Constantine being brought back into the main DCU. I noticed Shade in the Flashpoint image thingy. Death was in Action Comics. I can't really speak for fans in general, but I personally was excited to see these Vertigo characters I love, who had been exiled, brought back into main continuity, but now it's like they were just dangling these characters in front of us just in time to reboot the whole mess.

Someone above said that GL would be largely left alone, and that doesn't surprise me, considering it's Johns's work, but that says nothing about Morrison's work on the Batman Verse.

There's probably more I could say about this topic, but I feel like I'm rambling now, so I'll just stop here.

@Steampowered: Agreed. Maybe they'll reset the main verse and let Morrison's Batman verse be its own thing? *skeptical*

edited 1st Jun '11 2:20:54 AM by LuckyRevenant

i would reaaaallly hate to see Booster Gold reduced back to his Gloryhound days :/

Lets hope for the best......*shudders*

my blogpost on the subject.

I don't know if this is good or bad. What I DO know is that it's confusing as fuck.

I'd been looking for an excuse to get out of superhero comics for a while now, and this may be it.

ETA: I do think the move to digital distribution is a very good idea, though.

edited 1st Jun '11 5:08:16 AM by Filby