Comics are Awesome II

[Dominic]

You've boiled it down nicely. The degree of change has been far greater than anything since Crisis, and I would argue that in many ways it's been a greater degree of change than Crisis made.

You are under-selling Crisis. Books like "Legion of Superheroes", "All Star Squadron" and "Infinity Incorporated" along with all of the "Superman" books were changed as severely as anything you could name as an example of books changed with the new 52.

You just happen to find the current changes more offensive.

Removed from the main DC Earth being the key phrase there. He is no longer part of that universe here. He is a part of a brand new Earth 2 universe now. The changes of the main DC universe does not apply to him being a part of a totally different universe now.

Yes, and Alan Scott (along with a number of other characters) was excised from the main DCU and essentially replaced with a wholly different character in a seperate setting. That is a pretty severe change. The new 52 DCU does not have Alan Scott or Jay Garrick or.... None of the events that they were a part of happened as originally shown if they happened at all.

I am not saying that the changes DC has made ended up ruining their books. But, both in context and in real terms, has made severe changes to long running books. They are essentially different books, with different characters in wholly different settings.

I get that. But I don't agree, which is what I've been saying here.

Because the books you like were largely unchanged?


Captain Atom #0:
Say what one will about the new 52, it has removed the stain of "Countdown" and A2001 (which simply could not have happened in the new 52). Ironically, this issue was good enough to sell me on the series....right as the series was being cancelled. I plan to get the compilation when it comes out. Grade: B


Team 7 #0:
Despite being "90s awesome", I am picking up this book. The concept is that the Feds assembled a team of soldiers to deal with the superhuman. CSN billed this series as being about how the DCU adjusted to the appearance of superhumans and how the characters's views on the subject changed over time. This book is on my pull-list.


Nightwing #0 and Red Hood #0:
Oh my, the changes. Robin's old costume is gone. No more "little boy in green panties". Gone. Done. Grayson's origin is updated a bit. I am guessing that he was maybe 15 or so when he first became Robin. DeFalco did a good job of keeping the essential parts of Nightwing intact while updating the character. Ironically, Jason Todd's origin reads like a bad 90s Marvel book despite not being written by a 90s mainstay. He was Robin for about 2 minutes before getting killed by the Joker. "A Death in the Family" is pretty much out, and has been replaced with a much more condensced story that replaced one fairly offensive contrivancy with another contrivancy that is less offensive but more likely to be troublesome later. (Apparently, the Joker has been lurking in the shadows of Todd's life for years....and he likely knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne.)


Dom
-likely taking a break from zero issues next week.

[andersonh1]

You are under-selling Crisis. Books like "Legion of Superheroes", "All Star Squadron" and "Infinity Incorporated" along with all of the "Superman" books were changed as severely as anything you could name as an example of books changed with the new 52.

You just happen to find the current changes more offensive.

You've made my point. You've named three books that changed in a major way, and I'd add Wonder Woman and Hawkman to the list. Even if I was reading then and found those changes just as unlikeable as the changes Flashpoint has wrought, I had all the other books to fall back on. With Flashpoint and the New 52, there's nowhere to go. Only Green Lantern and Batman started out more or less on the same status quo, but as time has gone on it's become clear that they've both changed quite a bit, just like the rest of the universe.

And it's a moot point anyway. I wasn't reading comics at the time, so I don't care what changes were made during Crisis, just as a comic book fan years down the road won't care if there was a fuss over Flashpoint. It's the here and now that matters to me when it comes to monthly reading, and waxing philosophical about how major changes have been made before is largely irrelevant. The fact that some large scale changes were made during Crisis doesn't make the changes of the New 52 any more palatable to me, so it doesn't really matter.

[Dominic]

Whenever you got in to comics, the books you liked and their status quo likely displaced and over-wrote somebody else's favourites.

The changes to the Robin legacy are drastic. But, why does that make those changes bad? Tim Drake is more "his own man" now for not being Robin. Jason Todd's new origin does kind of suck. But, his old origin was ot his first origin. (He was originally a Grayson knock-off.) Dick Grayson's origin is a bit smoother now than it was before, and it makes more sense.

Yes, we lost the JSA. I liked the old JSA and All Star Squadron books. Hell, can you imagine how much it stung for me to discover "Infinity Incorporated" years after its original concept had been nullified by CoIE? (I *really* liked the idea of "the old heroes are dead/retired and have been replaced".) But, I did not say that CoIE ruined DC by butchering its history. It was a trade off. CoIE also cleared some crap from Superman's history. (Pre-CoIE "Superman" books had some interesting ideas ruined by terrible execution.)

With the new 52, we have "Earth 2", a main-stream superhero book with a credible author that is based on a changed status quo. I get the feeling that Earth 2 is not going "back to normal", and will probably change even more drastically. You cannot tell me that seeing a mainstream book try that gimmick is not worth some curiosity. The new "Captain Atom" book established that there are 11 universes in the current DC multiverse. (This is based on a line of dialogue in the zero issue.) Is this going to stick, or will Morrison's "Multiversity" over-write it. We know that there will likely be an Earth 3. Morrison has a known fixation on Earth 10/X. And, he had an Earth 4 established in "Final Crisis".

Yeah, I wanted to see the post-52 multiverse uses for more than stupid cross-overs and gimmicked one-shots. But, hey, that got trashed. But, we are getting something new out of it. I cannot recall the last time that I read comics and was honestly not sure what was going to happen. Even when I was heavily in to Bendis' "Avengers" books, I knew that things were going to back to the way they were in side of a couple of years. But, with the new 52, comics have the ability to suprise again.

Even if I was reading then and found those changes just as unlikeable as the changes Flashpoint has wrought, I had all the other books to fall back on.

Just about everything changed after CoIE. Every. Single. Book.



Dom
-bought 3 zero issues this week. Reviews coming soon.

[andersonh1]

Just about everything changed after CoIE. Every. Single. Book.

And even if I agree (I don't), it comes back to a matter of degrees of change. And also the fact that it changes nothing now, and doesn't mitigate the New 52.

Let's approach this from another angle. The changes you enjoy seeing stick have largely been rolled back. Where's Wally West, who went from kid sidekick to The Flash and held that title for over 20 years? Where are Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain? What about Barbara Gordon's miracle overcoming of her paralysis? What happened to the new Aqualad? We've had decades of character growth and change erased or rolled back. The JSA had a lifetime of change and growth and children and grandchildren... all gone now. They've been completely reset. DC's moves seem like they'd be the opposite of what you're usually looking for, change that sticks. We've gone back to the status quo from the 70s or 60s for some of these characters, even if it is done with a modern twist. That bothers me. How do you see it?

[Sparky Prime]

Yes, and Alan Scott (along with a number of other characters) was excised from the main DCU and essentially replaced with a wholly different character in a seperate setting. That is a pretty severe change. The new 52 DCU does not have Alan Scott or Jay Garrick or.... None of the events that they were a part of happened as originally shown if they happened at all.

Way to totally miss the point. How those characters have been changed in Earth 2 has zero baring on the main DC universe. That is now their history in a totally new and separate universe. It does not count towards the main DCU. Being removed from it does, but that doesn't necessarily mean events couldn't have still happened similarly to how we'd seen it before, even with out their presence.

They are essentially different books, with different characters in wholly different settings.

Except the events we have seen that have carried over post-Flashpoint and that most of these characters have ended up in the same places, that you keep ignoring here, would disprove that notion.

Because the books you like were largely unchanged?

I swear you're not even reading my posts when you make comments like this. I actually do happen to like some of the storylines of several titles that have seen some pretty drastic changes. Do I like all of the changes they have made? No. I'm not a fan of the idea Bruce has only been Batman for 6 years and has somehow crammed 4 Robins into that time frame for example. I'm just looking at this more objectively than others on this board appear to be.

[Onslaught Six]

Yes, and Alan Scott (along with a number of other characters) was excised from the main DCU and essentially replaced with a wholly different character in a seperate setting. That is a pretty severe change. The new 52 DCU does not have Alan Scott or Jay Garrick or.... None of the events that they were a part of happened as originally shown if they happened at all.

Way to totally miss the point. How those characters have been changed in Earth 2 has zero baring on the main DC universe. That is now their history in a totally new and separate universe. It does not count towards the main DCU. Being removed from it does, but that doesn't necessarily mean events couldn't have still happened similarly to how we'd seen it before, even with out their presence.

This is the stupidest piece of shit meta argument I've ever fucking heard. (Sorry, it's 5am and I'm depressed.)

For all intents and purposes, there is one guy named Alan Scott being published right now, and he's not the same character as the "old" Alan Scott.

The main DC universe is not the same universe as it was before. It simply is not. The characters may have similar backgrounds, and certain events may have taken place in a way that creates an overall similar individual, but that doesn't mean they're the same.
You can go and watch The Avengers without having seen either the 2003 Bana or 2008 Ed Norton Hulk movies and be pretty well-off. You may even be able to get away with only having seen the 70s Hulk TV show. (If this is your only knowledge of the Hulk, the discrepency between "Bruce" and "David" probably won't bother you, if you're even aware of it.) This doesn't change the fact that the Marvel Movie universe Bruce Banner (and Hulk) have led a very different life than his comics or his television counterparts. (An argument could be made that even the 2003 film is no longer canon. The 2008 film tries to play it both ways.) Events that happened to the TV Hulk simply did not happen to the Movie Hulk, even though they might have ended up in idiomatically the same place.

The same principles apply to the new DC universe. Batman's history is not the same as it was before. Neither is Alan Scott's. Alan Scott, instead of being the first Green Lantern from Earth-1 (is that what they use? I don't know) is the first Green Lantern from Earth-2. It's a change. Earth-2 is still emphatically "part" of the current DC "universe," and that term is being used by me (and I assume Dom as well) to mean "the entire metafictional grouping of comic book titles currently being published by DC comics," and not "literal universe, dimension, timeline, or other such nonsense," because that's fucking semantics and who gives a shit.

Of course, the fact that they even had to erect Earth-2 and say, "This is the subsection of our books where things will stick," is a major problem with the industry that cannot be ignored, and I have to say, I prefer the film industry's take on it. They don't worry about having to "de-age" Spiderman; they just say, "Welp, okay, that's the end of that Spiderman book. Here's an entirely new one that starts over from scratch." They don't worry that the current Batman franchise is too goofy and they have to come up with metafictional MacGuffins and cosmic gibberwank plot devices to fix it; they just stop making Batman movies until people forget for a while, and then they make a new one that starts everything over.

Comic books shouldn't have all this stupid shit. You kill a character, that character stays dead. If a writer wants to use them in a modern setting, then you have two options: Write a story that takes place in the past, or write the story as an alternate universe and leave it there. Which is exactly what Earth-2 is doing, but it's doing it for all the wrong reasons.

I dunno, I'm rambling now, because it's 5am, so. Point is: Comic books are dumb. If DC was going to reboot everything in a new universe, they shouldn't have cheaped out and been pussies about it. They should have erased everything. Set Batman back to the beginning. There have been no Robins, ever. Fuck it. What are they gonna do? Not buy it? They aren't doing that now!

[Dominic]

And even if I agree (I don't), it comes back to a matter of degrees of change. And also the fact that it changes nothing now, and doesn't mitigate the New 52.

This is not open to debate. In 1986, CoIE changed every book that DC published. Many of those changes were significant. (Ironically, "Batman" was one of the titles with fewer changes, then as now.) There was no getting away from CoIE. And, the changes resulting from CoIE were more reductive, stripping away more history and paring down the settings far more than "Flashpoint" did.

Most of the complaints about "Flashpoint" and the new 52 are due to a combination of two things:

-this is a huge event that was not written to please the fans, (in contrast to "Infinite Crisis" or Marvel's "Heroic Age").
-unlike 1986, the internet is more of a thing now, so the fandom has a place to publicly vent their rage.

Subjectively, the difference between "Flashpoint" and "Crisis on Infinite Earths" is that you had no attachment to pre-CoIE DC while you had attachment to pre-"Flashpoint" DC. Barry came back during the Crisis Trilogy, and DC was side-lining Wally then. At this point, DC has done a full re-set. The old stuff is gone.

Where are Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain?

They are gone. Get over it.

What happened to the new Aqualad?

See above.

What about Barbara Gordon's miracle overcoming of her paralysis?

There are going to be trade-offs. This also goes back to CoIE. I am not going to like every change. But, I am not going to hate every change either.

We've gone back to the status quo from the 70s or 60s for some of these characters, even if it is done with a modern twist. That bothers me. How do you see it?

That is the thing though, DC has not gone back to the 70s. Put aside froo-froo in-story reasons. What DC really did here is a massive rebranding. DC did not set the characters *back* to anything.

If I cannot get a long-form story told over years, then I will take periodic re-sets.


Aside: The "Nightwing" zero issue had a "change is constant" theme to it. I gotta wonder if that was aimed at that fans.....

This is the stupidest piece of shit meta argument I've ever fucking heard. (Sorry, it's 5am and I'm depressed.)

For all intents and purposes, there is one guy named Alan Scott being published right now, and he's not the same character as the "old" Alan Scott.

Exactly. And, it ties in with my comment about "creative misunderstanding" above.

This needed to be said about a week ago.

Earth-2 is still emphatically "part" of the current DC "universe," and that term is being used by me (and I assume Dom as well) to mean "the entire metafictional grouping of comic book titles currently being published by DC comics," and not "literal universe, dimension, timeline, or other such nonsense," because that's fucking semantics and who gives a shit.

Thank you. I know of comic shops where people would be driven out by the need to get in to that kind of semantic bull-shittery.

Point is: Comic books are dumb.

And, most of the fans are even dumber.

Set Batman back to the beginning. There have been no Robins, ever. Fuck it. What are they gonna do? Not buy it?

There is nothing wrong with startingin progress. (When do you say things began? Did it all start in Crime Alley?) Back-written origins are fine in principle.

Somebody is buying the new 52, because the books are selling.


Dom
-plans to wrap up the bat books, and then take a break from the new 52.

[Sparky Prime]

This is the stupidest piece of shit meta argument I've ever fucking heard. (Sorry, it's 5am and I'm depressed.)

For all intents and purposes, there is one guy named Alan Scott being published right now, and he's not the same character as the "old" Alan Scott.

Whether or not you like the argument doesn't make it any less true. This Earth 2 is a totally new universe, the same principals do not apply to it as they do the main DCU.

The main DC universe is not the same universe as it was before. It simply is not. The characters may have similar backgrounds, and certain events may have taken place in a way that creates an overall similar individual, but that doesn't mean they're the same.

Some of the events in that universe have altered but it is still the same universe.

You can go and watch The Avengers without having seen either the 2003 Bana or 2008 Ed Norton Hulk movies and be pretty well-off.

With good reason... Those films are supposed to be in the same continuity, with the Norton film being a soft reboot of the Bana film.

You may even be able to get away with only having seen the 70s Hulk TV show. (If this is your only knowledge of the Hulk, the discrepency between "Bruce" and "David" probably won't bother you, if you're even aware of it.) This doesn't change the fact that the Marvel Movie universe Bruce Banner (and Hulk) have led a very different life than his comics or his television counterparts. (An argument could be made that even the 2003 film is no longer canon. The 2008 film tries to play it both ways.) Events that happened to the TV Hulk simply did not happen to the Movie Hulk, even though they might have ended up in idiomatically the same place.

And this is where you're argument falls apart. Now you are comparing separate universes. Of course the Hulk on the tv, movies and comics are different. They're supposed to be, because those are different continuities, different universes from one another, not the same universe that has been altered by some event.

The same principles apply to the new DC universe.

No it doesn't. It's the same universe that has been altered by an event, not different continuities/universes from one another.

Earth-2 is still emphatically "part" of the current DC "universe," and that term is being used by me (and I assume Dom as well) to mean "the entire metafictional grouping of comic book titles currently being published by DC comics," and not "literal universe, dimension, timeline, or other such nonsense," because that's fucking semantics and who gives a shit.

It's not semantics. You can't just ignore the context of the stories themselves here. Sure they are published by the same company but that doesn't make them the same DC "universe". In the context of the stories, they are two separate universes. Not unlike the Ultimate universe is to the 616 Marvel Universe. That's not semantics at all, it's a clear distinction within the context of the story itself.

Now could they ave just rebooted anything and started from scratch, not unlike the Batman films? Sure. But they didn't. It's still the same continuity that they made some changes to. Get over it.

They are gone. Get over it.

Again, just because we haven't seen some characters appear since the New 52 began doesn't mean they are gone. We simply don't know what happened to them.

[Dominic]

Okay, last zero issue posting for a while. (I just realized how many "Ultimates" books are in my file at the comic shop, and want to catch up on those in the next week.)

The Dark Knight #0:
I am reviewing this apart from the other bat-books because, well, it warrants its own review. Buzz at the comic shop is that the upcoming "Legends of the Dark Knight" series is going to be set in context with the rest of the books. But, the series will be largely self contained with rotating groups of talent working on shorter arcs. In other words, this series is going to be a good option for people who just want one bat-book that is not going to cross-over with other books. But, it will not have harder to reconcile stories like "Engine". The zero issues details Batman's (very) early years and shows Wayne's learning curve on his road to vigilantism. In the new 52, Wayne eventually tracks down Joe Chill, and finds out that his parents really only died in a robbery gone wrong. (Ironically, this is one of the only non-contrived bits of new 52 Batman's history. See below.) If the writing and art are consistently this good, I will be reading this book for as long as it is published.
Grade: A

DC Universe Presnets #0:
Uh, I think that is the name. It is something like that. In any case, this is an anthology book. I bought it for the "Blackhawks" content, which turned out to not be written by Costa. Deadman's origin is more or less retold with no substantial changes or suprises. The OMAC story, ("Origins Matter After Cancellation"), ties OMAC in with the "big fight with Darkseid" that kicked off the new 52. An "OMAC virus" is mentioned, which arguably ties this series in with the Rucka penned tie-in to the Crisis Trilogy. But, Kevin Cho is clearly supposed to be the first/only OMAC. (Tuftan/Tuffy showing up in the cancelled "OMAC" series is likely to be ignored by Morrison next year. But, it looks like the official line at DC is that the Trilogy never happend.) Mister Terrific's story tied in with "Earth 2" and "Worlds' Finest", and is notable for being written by Robinson. Liefeld does a not-horrible job on "Hawk and Dove". The biggest problems with this story may be more due to editors that Liefeld. The backstory is significantly changed. There is a mention of CoIE in reference to Dove's death. But, vague mentions of the events of CoIE predate "Zero Hour", so it is hard to use this as a bench-mark for any sort of context, even if the original CoIE did not retcon so much of itself out.


Misc Batman:
Morrison references Batman's role in "Final Crisis" in "Batman Incorporated". There are attemtps to smooth over some of the logical flaws of "Batman Incorporated" as part of a unified setting where even Morrison can only go so far. But, they really do not account for some of the core problems that this book has. "Batwoman" mentions Renee Montoya, but gives no indication that she was ever the Question. Given the re-write of the Question shown in the "Phantom Stranger", and the rumours that Morrison is planning to use the Charlton characters in "Multiversity", it seems likely that Montoya's time as the Question has been over-written. "Teen Titans" is the origin of Tim Drake. Besides the changes to Drake's origin, (which are mostly for the better), this issue really seems to be a slap in the fact to Titans fans. "Talon" largely ties in with my biggest problem with the rebooted "Batman" books as a whole. Everything is contrived. It all comes down to the Court of Owls being behind just about everything.

No it doesn't. It's the same universe that has been altered by an event, not different continuities/universes from one another.

Uh.... You do realize what really happened, right? DC wanted to revise and rebrand their books, leaving a good deal of old baggage behind. "Flashpoint" and the time travelling jibber-wankery was the in-story reason for everything changing. In the 1970s or any decade before that, DC just would have changed the books and ignored previous issues without an explanation.

The end result would have been the same: Comics that are markedly different in tone and content from the comics that came before. The characters and settings were changed.


Dom
-is pretty sure that the Fun Publications books are due this week.

[Sparky Prime]

Uh.... You do realize what really happened, right? DC wanted to revise and rebrand their books, leaving a good deal of old baggage behind. "Flashpoint" and the time travelling jibber-wankery was the in-story reason for everything changing. In the 1970s or any decade before that, DC just would have changed the books and ignored previous issues without an explanation.

The end result would have been the same: Comics that are markedly different in tone and content from the comics that came before. The characters and settings were changed.

And...? None of that changes the fact that DC has not created a new DC universe here. As I keep pointing out, while you seem to continually gloss it over, some of the 'old baggage' has indeed carried over. What DC did back in the 70's and before in regards to continuity doesn't apply here. They are maintaining the ongoing continuity they've established since the 80's in one regard here while refreshing many of the characters in another. The result is that there are big changes to be sure, but it is supposed to still be the same DC universe in context.

While on the subject of DC universes.... DC has finally announced Multiversity is happening.