DC Comics: Rebirth and Reboot

[JustHereForFood]

On 11/13/2021 at 1:21 AM, starri said:

So the Robins miniseries that won the fan vote (totally rigged) has started dropping.  It opened with Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, and Damian talking about their feelings about being Robin.

Now, I appreciate them acknowledging Stephanie, but she talked about how she wondered if her brief tenure as Robin was her being an athlete who peaked in High School.  But like, doesn't she remember that time she was Batgirl and was really good at it?

I loved Steph's time as Batgirl. One of my favorite runs ever.

[Captain Carrot]

https://www.avclub.com/brian-michael-bendis-is-working-on-a-legion-of-superher-1848254915

I've really soured on Bendis, and am not a fan of an 'Adult' Legion show done by him.

[millennium]

I was looking at screenrant.com today and there were articles about "Who will be the next Batman?" (they were pushing Cassandra Cain) and "Who will be the next Joker? (they were pushing Commissioner Gordon's psycho son).   The thread running through these articles is that Batman, Joker, etc. are aging and won't be around forever ... and I'm thinking, "Um, they're comic book characters.  They don't have to age."  I don't understand the modern rush to impose mortality upon comic book characters.   Is it because Marvel is doing it?  (Captain America, Iron Man, etc.)   Batman has been in his thirties or so for fifty or more years, why the sudden pressure to age him out of the job now?   I would argue that no one, not Cassandra Cain, Dick Grayson, Azrael, etc. is even half as interesting as Bruce Wayne, and certainly nowhere near as iconic.

[JustHereForFood]

11 hours ago, millennium said:

I was looking at screenrant.com today and there were articles about "Who will be the next Batman?" (they were pushing Cassandra Cain) and "Who will be the next Joker? (they were pushing Commissioner Gordon's psycho son).   The thread running through these articles is that Batman, Joker, etc. are aging and won't be around forever ... and I'm thinking, "Um, they're comic book characters.  They don't have to age."  I don't understand the modern rush to impose mortality upon comic book characters.   Is it because Marvel is doing it?  (Captain America, Iron Man, etc.)   Batman has been in his thirties or so for fifty or more years, why the sudden pressure to age him out of the job now?   I would argue that no one, not Cassandra Cain, Dick Grayson, Azrael, etc. is even half as interesting as Bruce Wayne, and certainly nowhere near as iconic.

If it was up to me, Dick would have replaced him permanently years ago. I loved his brief time as Batman. But we know that DC will never do that, apart from all their potential futures. Bruce will stay in his late 30's, while his kids slowly age.

[Tenshinhan]

You don't replace big characters like Batman unless it's temporary.  Temporary replacements can be enjoyable, but at some point the original character should return.

All of them age slowly.  I don't think that the aging thing will become a problem anytime soon, if ever.

[millennium]

On 8/19/2020 at 11:24 PM, BK1978 said:

As a DC fan I hate to say this but what do you expect?  If nothing but Batman is selling then of course they are going to cancel low selling books, it is not a charity.  This is coming from someone who loved the new Hellblazer and Justice Leauge Odyssey, both of which were cancelled.

IMO, they've priced out a large portion of the potential audience.   When I got into comic books -- strictly DC -- I would spend $2-$4/week (10/20 titles).   That meant I could follow all the Batman titles, all the Superman titles, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc., but also Swamp Thing, House of Secrets, Weird War ... jeez, even Plop! on a slow week.

What does it cost to buy 10-20 titles a week now?  $50, $100?  How many kids have that kind of money to throw around?  Some, sure.   But I would guess a larger percentage doesn't.  Comics in my day were often an impulse buy -- .20 cents per book wasn't a big deal, so you didn't think twice about trying different titles or following multiple characters.   Today?   I would be hard-pressed to fork over $5 for a comic book.  Are comic books even targeted to kids anymore or just adults like us?  DC seems to have whittled down the market to an ever-shrinking niche with scant possibility of growth because the grups still interested in comics are generally those of us who grew up with them when comic books were still affordable.  If fewer of today's kids can afford to buy, read and collect comic books now, it stands to reason that even fewer adults will in the future.

[starri]

I realize that Jon Kent sucked up all the bisexual oxygen in the DCU, but they did exactly that I was afraid they were going to do to Tim Drake.  We end one story on an upbeat note, where it looks like we're going to get an arc where we get to see Tim explore a new facet of himself.  And next thing....we skip past all of that, Tim and Bernard are boyfriends, Bernard is a perfect supportive cardboard cutout who doesn't know Tim is Robin (despite them hinting that he did), and we have a story that has nothing to do with Tim figuring himself out.

I don't know what I was expecting, but after DC handled the stuff with Jon so beautifully, Tim deserved better than he got. 

[Rushmoras]

Hello, there. I have a question regarding Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman/Flash/Green Arrow/Justice League reading order post the first crisis. Which issues start their stories from scracth? Id est, from which titles I should read them? I tried reading their golden age respective omnibuses, but apart from Wonder Woman (which has its own eyebrow raising quirks, *cough slavery and bdsm themes *cough cough*), I found them... yeah. So, I'll give them one final shot, but can anyone recommend me the titles to read? :)

[starri]

That's a lot of a lot, but for Superman, it was John Byrne's The Man of Steel that rebooted the series.  The actual regular comics (Action and Superman) were in the new continuity following of my absolute favorite comics, Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? which were Superman #423 and Action #583, respectfully.

Green Arrow's was the maxiseries The Longbow Hunters, which lead into a new series with a new #1.

Batman's was Year One in Batman (starts in #404, I think) and Year Two in Detective (maybe #575).

Wonder Woman and Flash had new #1s.  

Green Lantern was retitled Green Lantern Corps, but I don't remember the issue number when it happened.

Justice League also had a new #1, and that would eventually become Justice League International.

[Rushmoras]

Thanks

[Rushmoras]

On 4/4/2022 at 3:14 AM, starri said:

That's a lot of a lot, but for Superman, it was John Byrne's The Man of Steel that rebooted the series.  The actual regular comics (Action and Superman) were in the new continuity following of my absolute favorite comics, Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? which were Superman #423 and Action #583, respectfully.

Green Arrow's was the maxiseries The Longbow Hunters, which lead into a new series with a new #1.

Batman's was Year One in Batman (starts in #404, I think) and Year Two in Detective (maybe #575).

Wonder Woman and Flash had new #1s.  

Green Lantern was retitled Green Lantern Corps, but I don't remember the issue number when it happened.

Justice League also had a new #1, and that would eventually become Justice League International.

So far, really thanks for John Byrne "Man of Steel". Its whole lot more in line to what I was thinking these comics should be when I started reading golden age omnibuses. :)

[starri]

2 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

So far, really thanks for John Byrne "Man of Steel". Its whole lot more in line to what I was thinking these comics should be when I started reading golden age omnibuses. :)

Honestly, to me, it's the definitive take on Superman.  Like, I understand why people have so much affection for Silver Age Superman, but so much of it is just too damned silly for me, and for good or ill, that does include Superboy.

But honestly, Byrne's take, where Clark is technically "born" on Earth is exactly the right thing, which means he gets to be both Kryptonian and, in effect, human.  I think that gets to the core of who Superman is in a way that the more traditional take just doesn't.

I love Silver Age inspired stories, like the aforementioned Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow (one of the few comics to ever make me cry) and All-Star Superman, but the concept doesn't speak to me in the same way.

[starri]

For completeness' sake, the other major reboot following COIE was Hawkman's, in a miniseries called Hawkworld that led to an ongoing.

Also, they really fucked it up.

It came quite a few years later than the other reboots, after the Hawks had already appeared in the new continuity.  Suddenly, Katar and Shayera weren't married, but were two cops from a Thanagar that was a fascist police state.  And then that version, Carter Hall, and actual hawk god merged, before being sent packing, never to be heard from again.  That version of Shayera was eventually killed in the pre-Infinite Crisis Series Rann-Thanagar War.  

They have NEVER been able to un-fuck the character.  Hawkwoman has faired a little better, with the introducing of the new version, Kendra Saunders in the late-90s JSA and with Shayera now back as well.  But Katar/Carter is just still a mess.

[Tenshinhan]

On 4/3/2022 at 10:43 AM, Rushmoras said:

Hello, there. I have a question regarding Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman/Flash/Green Arrow/Justice League reading order post the first crisis. Which issues start their stories from scracth? Id est, from which titles I should read them? I tried reading their golden age respective omnibuses, but apart from Wonder Woman (which has its own eyebrow raising quirks, *cough slavery and bdsm themes *cough cough*), I found them... yeah. So, I'll give them one final shot, but can anyone recommend me the titles to read? :)

Batman doesn't really start over from scratch, as much as the backstories and characterization is revised.  The early post-Crisis stories will only mean but so much without having read the pre-Crisis stories.

I understand that you may not enjoy reading the earliest Golden Age versions of these characters, but you are skipping over decades worth of meaningful content in the DC Universe.  My suggestion is that you consider going back at some point and exploring the stories from previous eras in order to truly appreciate these characters.  Don't become overly concerned with reading everything there is from the very beginning.  There are ways where you can get just enough of what you need without absolute completion or without carving out huge chunks of content.

[Rushmoras]

On 4/9/2022 at 6:24 AM, Tenshinhan said:

I understand that you may not enjoy reading the earliest Golden Age versions of these characters, but you are skipping over decades worth of meaningful content in the DC Universe. 

I read Golden Age Omnibuses up to vol. 5, I think of Batman and Superman, and up to vol. 3 of Wonder Woman. Only Wonder Woman stood out for me, but it had its own eyebrow raising quirks, not to mention BDSM themes (I think that there was even a passage where Diana was talking to a (sex)slave girl about that she should find herself a master, who is more lenient...). The rest of the stories in Sups and Batman, well, while in Batman I could see a glimpse of archetypes of rogue gallery that I am familiar with, but their motivations... uh... let's rob a bank (okey, Clayface motivation was revenge, I'll give it that). The same could be said about Superman: in between Luthor and some magical shenanigans he was rounding up mobsters, who robbed banks and/or extorted people. I don't really think I'm missing much of anything.

[starri]

14 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

Only Wonder Woman stood out for me, but it had its own eyebrow raising quirks, not to mention BDSM themes (I think that there was even a passage where Diana was talking to a (sex)slave girl about that she should find herself a master, who is more lenient...).

It's really remarkable both what they were able to hide in plain sight in the 40s, and also that it took until the last ten years or so for the books to deal with it head on.

[Tenshinhan]

14 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

 I don't really think I'm missing much of anything.

I wasn't just referring to Golden Age material.  The content you read only goes into the early 1940s.  There's still decades worth of material between that and the post-Crisis stories of the late 80s.  The stories evolve and change significantly over time.  It's not all random mobsters and BDSM.  Far from it.

There are other options besides the Golden Age Omnibuses.

[starri]

DC is doing another anthology for Pride this year, and while there are stories about the characters you'd expect, there's an unexpectedly delightful surprise.  In part for the 30th anniversary (sigh) of Batman: The Animated Series, they're including an autobiographical story called "Finding Batman," written by Kevin Conroy.

And here I thought the coolest thing I would read today would be Jon Kent coming out to his mother, who once again proves herself to be an utter badass.

[Anduin]

Way back in the late 80s, I had the first issue of a Superman story. It's stayed with me ever since, because I never read the rest. Here's what I think I remember. Vandal Savage causes some kind of golden temples to appear all over Earth. Somehow, one of them seemingly kills Superman.

That's all. I always wondered what happens next. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Or at least, can anyone direct me to where I could find out? I don't know if this was pre or post crisis, but I'm sure it was before 1990. And no, neither Wikipedia or the DC wiki have anything about this. Not even just a google search for Vandal Savage kills Superman. I suspect I'm misremembering it, but surely there must be something close.

[Tenshinhan]

On 6/11/2022 at 7:52 AM, Anduin said:

Way back in the late 80s, I had the first issue of a Superman story. It's stayed with me ever since, because I never read the rest. Here's what I think I remember. Vandal Savage causes some kind of golden temples to appear all over Earth. Somehow, one of them seemingly kills Superman.

That's all. I always wondered what happens next. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Or at least, can anyone direct me to where I could find out? I don't know if this was pre or post crisis, but I'm sure it was before 1990. And no, neither Wikipedia or the DC wiki have anything about this. Not even just a google search for Vandal Savage kills Superman. I suspect I'm misremembering it, but surely there must be something close.

Sounds like Action Comics 552-553, a Marv Wolfman/Gil Kane story featuring the Forgotten Heroes.  It's a pre-Crisis story.

A resource that I tend to use for this sort of thing is the Grand Comics Database, particularly the Advanced Query function.  I also like Mike's Amazing World of Comics.

[Anduin]

2 hours ago, Tenshinhan said:

Sounds like Action Comics 552-553, a Marv Wolfman/Gil Kane story featuring the Forgotten Heroes.  It's a pre-Crisis story.

A resource that I tend to use for this sort of thing is the Grand Comics Database, particularly the Advanced Query function.  I also like Mike's Amazing World of Comics.

Thanks, I'll give those a look!

[Anduin]

So, that's the one. Odd story. A three-parter, with the third part venturing into metafiction. The temples were planted by aliens in the distant past. They knew that people would eventually find them and sooner or later, destroy one. Which would cause all of them to explode. Which would retroactively erase the concept of heroism, rendering people docile and easy to conquer. Only a couple of kids, Jerry and Joey, kind of dream Superman into existence. He thumps the aliens around and somehow the timeline fixes itself.

Yeah.

Of all the ways the story could have resolved, that would be pretty low on the list. Can't say I particularly liked it, but it's a loose end that's been bothering me for 30 years or so. Worth it if only for piece of mind. :) Anyway, @Tenshinhan, thanks again!

[starri]

After a bunch of fun, celebratory stories in the Pride anthology, closing with Conroy's own story about his struggles as a gay actor who had to wear a mask, and how that helped him relate to Batman, was heartbreaking.

Amazingly strong dude.

[starri]

Time for another reboot.

[Anduin]

A reinvention is on the way. How much can you change about a character before they're fundamentally something different?

"Bruce is 6’2, 250-pound 20-something taking a stab at crimefighting. And instead of pretending to be a rich socialite, he’ll be a city engineer for Gotham. Also a French bulldog owner!"

"this Alfred (or rather, “Penny”) is absolutely not, and never has been, a butler. Instead he’s a former MI-6 spy and “old guard of empire” who’s not so tired that he can’t partner with Batman out in the field."

"This new Superman lacks his classic support system of the Kent family, the Fortress of Solitude, and he’s basically homeless."

"she’s got the most interesting look with her arm tattoos and big-ass sword. In addition to being a warrior, she’s also a witch literally raised in hell who’s “armed to the teeth. […] She is fire underneath.” If that weren’t metal enough, her black skeletal horse with wings may seal the deal."

Seriously? I mean, I'm not opposed to a fresh take on an old concept, but this is getting close to Ship of Theseus territory.

[Palimelon]

Is this DC's version of Marvel's Ultimate line?

It seems less like a reinvention, and more a new superhero line with DC names and costumes tacked on.

[Anduin]

26 minutes ago, Palimelon said:

Is this DC's version of Marvel's Ultimate line?

It seems less like a reinvention, and more a new superhero line with DC names and costumes tacked on.

Yes, it does.

[Tenshinhan]

It's not the mainline DC universe, but an offshoot universe.

I don't see anything wrong with it.  It's an opportunity for writers and artists to explore with their imaginations and have some creative freedom.

[Anduin]

39 minutes ago, Tenshinhan said:

It's not the mainline DC universe, but an offshoot universe.

I don't see anything wrong with it.  It's an opportunity for writers and artists to explore with their imaginations and have some creative freedom.

I must have missed that bit! Yeah, I don't mind a good side project or alternate universe.

[Palimelon]

So it is DC’s Ultimate line, in a way.