Crisis on Infinite Continuity Lockout?

[axilog14]

Just thought I'd get some xkcdians' thoughts on this. I just got word that DC is planning to reboot their main universe real soon. (Yeah, I know. Again.)

I don't know why, but between this and the deal with Ultimate Marvel a few years back I felt oddly... well, let me just copy-paste a lengthy post on the topic I made on another message board I frequent:

Pardon the mild rant mode, but the way I see it both Marvel and DC these days are really reaching for a comics audience (kids in particular) outside of their longtime fan base. This has been going on for a while now, and until now I still haven't actually seen it work. As someone who frequents book stores, toy stores and LCSs, I have yet to actually see a little kid pick up any official Marvel/DC merchandise outside of maybe the odd Spider-Man/Superman T-shirt their parents got for them or something. And even the graphic novels and comic omnibuses don't really seem to attract anyone outside of comic completists and the odd mildly curious new reader who got a glowing recommendation from said comic completists.

Obviously the years and years of continuity both companies have going is a double-edged sword. On the one hand the rich history of both universes is fascinating to watch unfold from a narrative standpoint, on the other hand the whole thing also both takes massive commitment and is prone to its share of glaring facepalm moments. The only good way I can really think of for Marvel/DC to get the new audience they really want is to really put their backs into an animated series and pray it becomes a wild runaway success like Ben 10 or My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic ( )... which is confusing because both companies already have their own animated shows out right now and I still can't tell if they're all that successful.

Your mileage may vary, I'm just sharing my own observations from a Philippines-based milieu.

Admittedly I speak not as a particular longtime comic reader but as someone who sort of inadvertently got roped into dabbling in Marvel/DC after I started dedicating myself to collecting a toy line I liked. Prior to my taking up "real comics" I was mostly a casual follower of comic-based movies and webcomics and stuff. Since then I mostly maintain a fondness for the DC Animated Universe on the one hand, and for Cosmic Marvel stories a la War of Kings on the other. I guess this puts me personally in a unique mindset as the sort of audience the comic companies want to attract these days, then again I could just be reading waaaaaaay too much into this whole thing.

Prerequisite TV Tropes link that could potentially kill your productivity for the day.

[SecondTalon]

You know, people keep saying that DC has this long continuality going back decades that's daunting to newcomers.... I just don't see it.

Partially because they don't actually allow anything to fucking change, ever*. But mostly because... frankly, with the writing teams changing so often, with characters appearing in other people's books, with all the general comic Wackiness that goes on... you really don't need to know shit about shit to read comics. At least mainstream Superhero ones.


*

Spoiler:

By which I mean the constant fucking reboots since Crisis on Infinite Earths. Zero Hour, Identity Crisis being major ones, and every character having minor ones every now and again when a new writer comes on board. And, of course, every couple of years the crop of writers shifts slightly and the new writers coming on board have such raging sexual arousal for whatever character they grew up with, they have to resurrect the dead or shoehorn the living into roles that fit. I'm looking at you Barry Allen, Hal Jordan and Wally West I mean, Bart Allen. Bart used to be cool, now he's young Wally West.

Here, let's look at DC's lineup and pick something.
First, we've got the Supermans and the Batmans. They've got four or five books each, but most people are kinda familiar with the characters anyway, especially since the movies starting in the late 70s to the latest ones. Also, it's fucking Superman. Dude's iconic. We're going to ignore those. Why? They're not strange, unusual, and won't help me illustrate my point.

Let's go with something that's been rolling for a bit so there's some back history, but not something that's on 700 whatever (ie Superman, Batman). The Outsiders, Doom Patrol, or Secret Six (one I actually read). All three of which are team books, so there's a lot of characters floating around in each one.

If you pick up an issue of it today and read it, I assure you that you'll not know what's going on in the greater story. You're going to have a lot of "Wait, who is that? Are they friends? They're talking like friends, but she totally just stabbed him, so.. what?" No way around that. But you should be able to get a general idea as to what's going on - who's friends with who, who's on the namesake team and so on. Read four or five issues, and you'll hit a Jumping On Point.

As a side effect of the Trade Paperback being what it is, Superhero Comics are generally written in 4-8 issue chunks, with maybe a stand-alone in between. While they don't reintroduce you to the characters at the start of these arcs, they do ease you into it - the characters are generally relaxing somewhere or otherwise in a "business as usual" state, and by the end of the issue something's going on that has the character's attention. By the end of #2 in the arc, Shit Gets Real and the major antagonists are introduced (if they haven't been already) and .. again, while you don't get a "Oh no, it's Doc Fantasmo, Master of Illusions who uses a magical thimble to conjure demons from the Ninth Plane!" introduction, someone says their name, someone's going to off-handedly mention what their schtick is (assuming the villain doesn't monolog it themselves) and you get a general idea as to what's going on.

Now, if you start reading at issue #48 and just go from there, are you missing stuff? Yup. Does it matter? Not really, no. Your enjoyment may not be as high as someone who's been reading since before #1 and is already familiar with the characters, but the major things are going to get mentioned often enough that you'll catch on.

To be blunt, they're written like soap operas.


No, what I think is keeping people out of comics are comic fans. Yes, there's a horrible stereotype associated with comic fans and yes, most comic fans don't fit it. But the ones that do? Holy fuck do they make being a comic fan uncomfortable for you if you're also a comic fan. I followed a comic podcast, it ended and I saw that one of the guys from it did another one so I started following it. The main guy of that podcast makes me not want to read comics anymore. Dude's a creep, plain and simple. And it doesn't help that I can't really find fault with anything he's saying, he just revels in pretty much all the horrible shit that comes along with comics - Most Common Superpower for example. I mean.. fuck, dude's description of the Necronomicon comic by Alan Moore made me not want to read it.

So yeah, that's what I think the problem is - pandering to a certain fanbase for so long and so hard, backtracking on things that should be permanent (that is, Death) and a gripping fear of change doesn't help much either.

[axilog14]

Thanks for the brave first reply, ST! (Normally threads I start don't turn out all that well so I appreciate contributing to a discussion that actually goes somewhere.)

Yeah, I guess I will second your remark on the comic fans at least making things a little uncomfortable for a newbie. I'm mostly a Marvel fan myself, and when I first jumped into following the main Earth-616 universe it was well into the closing throes of Secret Invasion, which means a lot of stuff like Avengers Dissassembled, Steve Rogers' (most recent) death and One More Day had already long since happened. May not seem like a big deal, except that these were events that longtime comic fans famously sneered at, but have now become the reality/norm for later readers like I had been. This sort of made things awkward for me whenever I liked/enjoyed a certain thing that happened in a book, but it feels like I shouldn't because of the stuff that happened before which ironically discredits it which I didn't know beforehand just because I wasn't one of those people reading since Issue #1.

(spoilered for potentially superfluous examples of me drawing from personal experience)

Spoiler:

One short example is James Buchanan Barnes a.k.a. Bucky becoming the current Captain America. I personally found the gist of his character arc (especially the symbolic contrast to him as the Winter Soldier) moving, as did a surprising number of Steve Rogers loyalists. However this whole thing wouldn't have happened without Bucky being "brought back from the dead" in the first place, and Bucky's supposed death had previously been a pivotal part of Steve Rogers' own survival guilt character arc when he was de-iced many years ago. So in a sense it feels like one can't appreciate Bucky-Cap without ultimately reconciling how it diminished the impact of him "dying" way back in WWII (the sort of thing longtime fans would've still felt butthurt over).

Another example for me was Hank Pym taking on the Wasp identity in the last Mighty Avengers series after Janet died in Secret Invasion. I actually kind of liked the way he was written in Mighty Avengers, but at the same time I felt "dirty" for doing so since older fans would've found him irredeemable after he beat up his wife way back when. I would have chalked my defense up to character development on Hank's part, except that some savvier reader would surely find evidence to the contrary in some long-forgotten issue of West Coast Avengers or something.

In a sense it feels like my viewpoint on certain issues doesn't mean a thing precisely because I'm a newbie. Longtime fans have practically seen it all before, and some of them do have a legitimate excuse they can dig up whenever they complain a character is underused/stagnating/not being handled properly/whatever. But I guess this is inevitable and just goes with the territory when you're barging into a continuity-driven fandom.

Now, if you start reading at issue #48 and just go from there, are you missing stuff? Yup. Does it matter? Not really, no. Your enjoyment may not be as high as someone who's been reading since before #1 and is already familiar with the characters, but the major things are going to get mentioned often enough that you'll catch on.

I do get what you're saying here, my small niggle just comes from some people following certain stories because of the lure of the little "insider details" in the first place. To some newbies the stuff you miss because you haven't been reading the series from the beginning doesn't matter, but for me it does. I do long for the satisfaction of being able to appreciate War of Kings on a much deeper level after having previously read Annihilation or X-Men: Deadly Genesis. The upside at least is that newbies like me have the luxury of being able to buy the trades to figure out all the stuff that happened before, thus giving the comic companies more business.

(Sorry if it seems like I'm not articulating my thoughts properly enough. I guess I'm trying to draw a parallel from the "exclusivity is cool" mentality here.)

[Jesse]

You're basically agreeing with ST, you're not worried about the comics, so much as the reactions of other fans that make it less enjoyable for you. And I get that. I used to own a bookshop and sold comics in it, and there was this guy that used to come in and he was the worst fanboy ever. He'd hang about for hours at a time, telling me how things would be more awesome if they had giant robots that had sex with women.

The comic industry is in a tough place, having pandered to those kind of fans forever, what they need to do is stop caring about them, and try to hit a wider appeal. However, doing so is massively risky, as there's a big chance that you get rid of your current fanbase without gaining anyone new. Reboots won't help with this at all. What helps is having a good 'introductory' series every so often, like the Year One series that ran a while back. It's so easy to say "Oh, you want to get into Batman? Read Year One first, then just jump onto a story arc."

Trust us, there are good parts of the fanbase out there, some of whom exist on this forum. I love a lot of the new stuff. I actually thought Civil War was really fun until Quesada lost his nerve and started retconning almost immediately that it was finished.

[El Spark]

No, what I think is keeping people out of comics are comic fans. Yes, there's a horrible stereotype associated with comic fans and yes, most comic fans don't fit it. But the ones that do? Holy fuck do they make being a comic fan uncomfortable for you if you're also a comic fan.

Yeah, but that's true of lots of things, isn't it? There's often one guy who makes it uncomfortable for everyone else by dint of fanaticism. Replace "comic fan/s" with "Christian/s" and "comics" with "Christianity" and you get how I feel on the boards here a lot of the time.

But to get back on topic. I work in a library, and I see a LOT of little kids who desperately want any-damn-thing to do with Iron Man, Spider-Man, or Wolverine. Green Lantern and Thor, too, thanks to the movies. We bought more of Marvel's kids imprint (Marvel Age, which makes great single-shot comics aimed at ages 8-12 or so) and they all vanished too; we can't keep 'em on the shelves.

I try not the be That Guy, the one that annoys others, and I think it works because I don't know the comics chapter and verse. I know the stories and the characters, and I love the whole huge sprawling ridiculous pile of silliness that makes up the DC universe in particular. Announcement of a reboot at this point (to me) is no bigger a deal than the announcement that a character will be brought back from the dead.

I agree, though, Talon, the ressurrection of Barry Allen annoyed the fire outta me. Still does.

[SecondTalon]

Trust us, there are good parts of the fanbase out there, some of whom exist on this forum. I love a lot of the new stuff. I actually thought Civil War was really fun until Quesada lost his nerve and started retconning almost immediately that it was finished.

That right there. I can accept a character dying. Batman dead? Sucks a lot, but okay. Superman dead? Same thing. The Fantastic Four recently killed off Johnny Storm, which is terrible for the group as Johnny brought blah blah blah it's a terrible thing for people to go through, the death of a friend/family member/whatever.

Or you have big events like the whole Brother Eye thing Batman had going on, which was the conclusion of his plans of how to take out every superpowered being - good, evil or otherwise - and keeping close tabs on them blah blah robot soldiers blah blah Batman's a dick, we don't trust him anymore. And that's okay.

My problem is the shit not sticking. You have all of these monumental changes, turning points of a character's morality, pivotal moments where one character realizes just how far another is willing to go and finally understands that they've never understood their "Friend" and now can't even be in the same room as them and so on......


But fast forward four or five years from now and it's going to be exactly the same as it is today, only maybe someone is wearing a different outfit. Maybe.


The Superhero industry keeps making these huge changes, things that should be huge huge huge world-shattering events for most of the participants, but... nothing ever comes of it. These days it's doing good to even be remembered by the characters a few issues later, much less years later.

So yeah, there's supposedly this huge bulk of continuality, but after reading comics for a bit it seems to be complete bullshit. Nothing is permanent. Nothing ever changes. Maybe the base moves from a satellite to the moon, maybe someone's outfit changes, and maybe at this exact moment someone's personality seems a bit different - like they've been through a lot and are trying to cope. But no worries, in 12-18 months they'll be exactly as they were 10 years ago.

[Endless Mike]

Trust us, there are good parts of the fanbase out there, some of whom exist on this forum. I love a lot of the new stuff. I actually thought Civil War was really fun until Quesada lost his nerve and started retconning almost immediately that it was finished.

You just really like to blame things on Quesada, don't you?

Anyway, as for DC, it's a marketing stunt that won't have any long-term effects. They're re/launching 52 series, and even assuming four books per writer (and one artist per book), they don't have anywhere near enough good creators to cover that, so all that's going to happen is that they'll all get a sales bump, then they'll settle back to whatever level they were at before provided the quality is at the same level, and books that aren't related to whatever the next event is will end up getting canceled after six issues. Meanwhile, they'll release their comics via digital means for the same price as physical books complete with ads, they won't sell particularly well as a result ("Why buy digital when I can have the real thing for the same price?"), and they'll declare digital comics a failure while they watch their sales continue to slowly dwindle.

I do hope I'm wrong.

EDIT: On a positive note, it appears that female characters will now wear pants!

[SecondTalon]

Thank fucking whoever I have to thank.

[Jesse]

Trust us, there are good parts of the fanbase out there, some of whom exist on this forum. I love a lot of the new stuff. I actually thought Civil War was really fun until Quesada lost his nerve and started retconning almost immediately that it was finished.

You just really like to blame things on Quesada, don't you?

He was editor in chief and he personally fucked up Spider-Man. Now, I don't hate him, I think his involvement in the films has done wonders for Marvel, but I have not found his personal involvement in comic books that rewarding. Also, being the guy who decides what happens in the comics, by greenlighting writer projects, then yeah I'm gonna hold him responsible when they are shit. Thankfully he's no longer the Editor, so now I have someone else to blame.

[Endless Mike]

Fucked up Spider-Man? That's weird because the year or so following his direct involvement had some of the best Spidey stories in years. Certainly better than the garbage that JMS was peddling.

[Jesse]

Really? See, I enjoyed what JMS was doing until his run ended with Quesada's involvement in One More Day, which was awful as all hell and what finally stopped me from buying Spider-Man.

[axilog14]

Touching on the "Quesada ruined Spider-Man!" tangent for just a nanosecond: I will give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the better stories that have come post-OMD. Heck, I very recently had to contend with the possibility that "Sins Past" may not be the complete abomination I always thought it was after an impromptu lesson on how Gwen Stacy's characterization had evolved over the years. I guess the big bone of contention here is just the fact that Quesada had to break up Peter and MJ for us to get to this point: besides the absurd/facepalm-y way it was carried out and the well-circulated belief that he thought a married Spider-Man would never sell ( ), there was also the fact that comics in general are sorely lacking in well-adjusted, happily married couples and he just had to go and break them up anyway. I dunno, I still get surprised at the sorts of little canonical things that can tick whole fandoms/writing staffs off.

Reboots won't help with this at all. What helps is having a good 'introductory' series every so often, like the Year One series that ran a while back. It's so easy to say "Oh, you want to get into Batman? Read Year One first, then just jump onto a story arc."

It's all about striking a balance between attracting new readers while still making respectful nods to the "old guard". I've heard people state though that the Big Two have just flat-out fallen out of touch with... the times? Their target audience, whoever the hell that's supposed to be? In any case it appears people are definitely getting a "groping around in the dark" vibe from them. The more I hear about DC's upcoming film/TV projects the more apprehensive I get, and Marvel seems to be running out of ideas on how to keep the three-ring circus we call the X-Men relevant. (Though turning Cyclops into a fascist jerk sounds like an interesting wrinkle.)

[Jesse]

I think what One More Day did for me was it was the point where I realised Spider-Man wasn't being written for me anymore. That it wasn't going to give me what I wanted to get out of it. And that's actually okay, when I feel like being mature about it, because you can't please evryone all the time, but it's sad that I'd read every Amazing Spider-Man up until then and all of a sudden I didn't feel like doing so anymore. It's quite possible I'm insane, btw.

[Endless Mike]

Back on topic, DC has been releasing some of the titles and their creative teams and they're hilariously awful.

EDIT: Here it is (covers on the page):

Spoiler:

On Tuesday, we made the announcement in USA Today that DC was undertaking a historic renumbering of 52 superhero titles across the line, starting with JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 by our superstar creators Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. The cover to issue #1 is by Jim Lee and Scott Williams.

We’re announcing today that several of DC’s most iconic heroes will receive historic new first issues spinning out of the pages of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s JUSTICE LEAGUE:

New York Times bestselling writer Brian Azzarello, author of The Joker and 100 Bullets, teams up with the immensely talented artist Cliff Chiang (Neil Young’s Greendale) for WONDER WOMAN #1, an exciting new series starring the DC Universe’s greatest superheroine. The cover to issue #1 is by Cliff Chiang.

Geoff Johns, one of comics’ greatest storytellers, reunites with GREEN LANTERN and BRIGHTEST DAY collaborator Ivan Reis to bring you a thrilling new take on the fan-favorite hero of the sea in AQUAMAN #1. The cover to issue #1 is by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado.

Rising superstar Francis Manapul, fresh off his acclaimed run on THE FLASH with Geoff Johns, makes his comics writing debut in THE FLASH #1, sharing both scripting and art duties with Brian Buccellato. The Flash knows he can’t be everywhere at once, but what happens when he faces an all-new villain who can? The cover to issue #1 is by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato.

BRIGHTER DAYS

Welcome to a major new vision of the Nuclear Man as writers Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone team up with artist Yildiray Cinar to deliver THE FURY OF FIRESTORM #1. Jason Rusch and Ronnie Raymond are two high school students, worlds apart – and now they’re drawn into a conspiracy of super science that bonds them forever in a way they can’t explain or control. The cover to issue #1 is by Ethan Van Sciver.

Batman writer Tony Daniel will team up with artist Philip Tan (GREEN LANTERN: AGENT ORANGE, THE OUTSIDERS) for THE SAVAGE HAWKMAN #1. Carter Hall’s skill at deciphering lost languages has led him to a job with an archeologist who specializes in alien ruins – but will the doctor’s latest discovery spread an alien plague through New York City? No matter the personal cost, Carter Hall must don his cowl and wings and become the new, savage Hawkman to survive. The cover to issue #1 is by Philip Tan.

Oliver Queen is an orphan who grew up to fight crime as the Green Arrow, a billionaire playboy who uses his fortune to become a superhero – able to fight the most powerful super-villains in the universe with nothing but a bow and arrow. JT Krul will write GREEN ARROW #1 with art by superstar artist Dan Jurgens. The cover to issue #1 is by Brett Booth.

GLOBAL JUSTICE

A team of internationally-drafted superheroes fight each other and their bureaucratic supervisors as much as they do global crime in JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #1 from writer Dan Jurgens and artist Aaron Lopresti. The cover to issue #1 is by Aaron Lopresti.

The world’s third-smartest man – and one of its most eligible bachelors – uses his brains and fists against science gone mad in MISTER TERRIFIC #1, the new series from writer Eric Wallace and artist Roger Robinson. The cover to issue #1 is by J.G. Jones.

Captain Atom has all the power in the world, but no hope of saving himself. Charged by nuclear energy, possessing vast molecular powers, he has the potential to be a god among men – a hero without limits. But the question is this: Will he lose himself in the process? JT Krul and artist Freddie Williams II take the character in a bold new direction in CAPTAIN ATOM #1. The cover to issue #1 is by Stanley “Artgem” Lau.

BRAVER AND BOLDER

The anthology series gets a new look in DC Universe Presents, a new series that will focus on multi-issue story arcs each featuring a different superhero from the DC Universe’s rich cast of characters, told by some of comics’ most exciting writers and artitsts. DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #1 kicks off the first arc of the series: a Deadman story by Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang. The cover to issue #1 is by Ryan Sook.

http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/06/02 ... w-justice/

[SecondTalon]

Man, should have also mentioned stores. Comic shops in America, at least, range from Bright, Cheerful, Everything arranged semi-sensibly to a newcomer to dank and dark caves where you're glared at when you step in the door.

Nothing will turn you off of comics faster than being treated like shit by the staff of a comic shop. It's ... well, I don't want to say it's rare as I've only hit shops in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee, but I've hit enough horrible places that I know they still exist. That, or even in the nice shops the person running the register making a reaction to what you're buying in the "You're buying this? Seriously?" because it's not their thing.

But that just goes back to basic customer service. Only bad shops that still seem to be around are the ones where the surrounding population doesn't really have a choice, outside of driving two or three hours to the next nearest one.

[Belial]

Man, not to stereotype, but I never see retail stores that are as dirty as most of the comic and gaming shops I've been in. I dunno if it's because they're run by particularly dirty people or if they're just like "we're selling to geeks, we don't need your goddamn housekeeping" but just...blech.

[Plasma Man]

It's the lack of semi-sensible arranging in my local comic shop that keeps me reading TPBs instead of trying to make the jump to the regularly published comics. TPBs are arranged by company, then by author or series. Pretty much all the ones I own can be traced back to ones that I've tried & liked from the public library, then followed either the author or the series, then getting into related series. I can't do that with the the regularly published ones. Even if I knew what I was looking for, it's hard to find anything specific. Even if I could find things easily, I'd know that whatever I'd read in the TPBs would be out of date, and trying to jump in to the middle of something instead of buying a self-contained story arc just doesn't seem that appealing.
The only answer I can come up with is for comics companies to make it clearer whether a particular issue is the start of a story arc, part way through or what, and to do a better job of advertising in advance when they're going to launch another beginners series that will make it easier for a novice to pick up what's going on.

[SecondTalon]

...man, I could have sworn I had a post in the How To Start Reading Funnybooks thread that talked about how to figure out where shit is in a comic shop, but... I don't.

Maybe I should do one, since comic shops can be complicated if you have no idea what's going on when you walk in.

[Endless Mike]

There's a really cool store in Orlando, FL with possibly the best customer service I've seen in a comic store called A Comic Shop. It's not a particularly big store, but they seem really interested in getting people excited about comics, as well as offering services I haven't seen elsewhere like a TPB rental service and zombie training. It's also clean and nicely-arranged.

[Jesse]

really wish Diamond hadn't fucked me over when I was running my bookshop, because I was doing a brisk trade in comics, on account of being the only comics store for about ten/twenty miles. And I only had the one stereotypical nerd customer, all the rest were cool.

[Endless Mike]

I think Diamond kind of fucks everyone over. A guy on SA who manages a comic shop recently bought enough of some comic (Hulk, maybe?) where they would send you a special variant cover with the character destroying your shop. He was supposed to have a new crew over for a quick piece on his shop and the book. Guess what Diamond forgot to include in that week's shipment!

EDIT: The more books they announce, the more I'm convinced they were literally drawing titles and teams out of hats.

[Endless Mike]

Yesterday's reveals were rather interesting. The ones out so far today are kind of strange. Good news is that Tim Drake is still around although it sounds like they're completely divorcing him from the Batman family.

Here's a complete listing of all announced titles, complete with creative teams and covers:
http://www.ifanboy.com/content/articles ... ics_Reboot

[Jesse]

I'm worried at the complete lack of Cassandra Cain, I've really enjoyed her since she appeared.

[Endless Mike]

She might still be around as Black Bat when Batman, Inc. returns, but there's no confirmation. Barbara Gordon is Batgirl again. I'm more concerned that Wally West and Jaime Reyes don't seem to be around, nor much of the JSA.

[Belial]

I'm worried at the complete lack of Cassandra Cain, I've really enjoyed her since she appeared.

I think we need to cut down on bat-themed female characters with the last name "cain/cane/kain/kane/kaen"

And if we're only going to have one, I vote Kate Kane.

[Endless Mike]

I'm worried at the complete lack of Cassandra Cain, I've really enjoyed her since she appeared.

I think we need to cut down on bat-themed female characters with the last name "cain/cane/kain/kane/kaen"

And if we're only going to have one, I vote Kate Kane.

I can get behind this. Batwoman is a confirmed book, which is good

[Belial]

Yeah, that was the first thing I checked on. Batwoman is the only DC line I'm even passingly interested in, so if they scuttled that one I was going to take my ball and go home.

[Endless Mike]

Yeah, I think it would have been an incredibly bad mistake to have canceled that since it's been in production for a good six months at this point, I think.

[Jesse]

I'm also super not interested in Barbara Gordon as Batgirl again, since not only have I really enjoyed her as Oracle, I've liked that holy shit there is a woman in a wheelchair in comics who is not useless or in constant need of rescue.

[Virtual_Aardvark]

I'm also super not interested in Barbara Gordon as Batgirl again, since not only have I really enjoyed her as Oracle, I've liked that holy shit there is a woman in a wheelchair in comics who is not useless or in constant need of rescue.

This. So much this.

[Endless Mike]

I'm also super not interested in Barbara Gordon as Batgirl again, since not only have I really enjoyed her as Oracle, I've liked that holy shit there is a woman in a wheelchair in comics who is not useless or in constant need of rescue.

Totally agree. Not only was she not useless as Oracle, she was simply way more awesome and useful than yet-another-Batperson ever was. And yay, Blue Beetle is coming back! And a new Suicide Squad, which is kind of cool, I guess.

[axilog14]

A long-overdue update for some, er, interesting developments.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dcnu-me ... 10609.html
http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/06/09 ... -the-edge/

I guess the reboot giving Harley Quinn a makeover was going to be a given (and here I thought the DC Universe games would be the end of it), but I was sorta not expecting the makeover to extend to Blackhawk and the Authority too.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about this "Reboots and makeovers for everybody!" phase is bugging me. It feels like we're reliving the last comics Dark Age, only with fewer pouches and Liefeld feet.

[Jesse]

Ellis' was spot on with his "DC are fucking everyone under the guise of a group hug."

[Jesse]

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/oracle- ... 10606.html is a really good op-ed about Oracle becomign Batgirl again.

[SecondTalon]

A long-overdue update for some, er, interesting developments.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dcnu-me ... 10609.html
http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/06/09 ... -the-edge/

I guess the reboot giving Harley Quinn a makeover was going to be a given (and here I thought the DC Universe games would be the end of it), but I was sorta not expecting the makeover to extend to Blackhawk and the Authority too.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about this "Reboots and makeovers for everybody!" phase is bugging me. It feels like we're reliving the last comics Dark Age, only with fewer pouches and Liefeld feet.

Talon Though Process Go! "Oh, hey, Image and DC are doing a wierd crossover with Hack/Slash and the Suicide Squad, right? Some fanservice demon thing possessed someone and now they're on the cover in .. wait.. a black and red..... this is a crossover, right? Right?"

"Gah, fucking hell."

Meanwhile, in looking for some sort of verification that the cover has Harley on it, I find someone making a Chris Nolan gritty SRS version of the costume. Which looks way the fuck better.

[Endless Mike]

Meanwhile, in looking for some sort of verification that the cover has Harley on it, I find someone making a Chris Nolan gritty SRS version of the costume. Which looks way the fuck better.

I can't imagine who else it might be, but I suppose it could be a new character who wears the same colors as Harley and carries a big hammer like her! I'm curious to see how Sgt. Rock does, since they're basically pitching it as "MODERN WARFARE: THE COMIC."

[Endless Mike]

This keeps getting more and more confusing. It's ALL NEW ALL DIFFERENT! But everything you remember is still in-continuity! Batman is like 25! But is still on his fifth Robin! Ugh. Also, CBR polled its readers on how likely they are to buy each of the 52 books. A whopping six have ranks above "Not at all" as their highest vote (granted of those 46, "Not at all" ranges from 29.3% of the vote to 68.5% depending on book).

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=32809