So I guess focusing on developing the new status quo and moving the stories forward rather than looking back is totally out of the question? It's only been a year and they have been revealing bits and pieces here and there about the history as the stories are progressing.
They should have "developed" this before they published it. The impression that most people have is that DC put zero planning in to this. Both the Batman and Superman books have seen some retcons *after* being published. The only reason for that sort of thing is a lack of planning.
Why the fuck this hasn't happened yet is beyond me.
Oh, right, because comic book writers and editors are shitting retarded and can't even figure out what shit from RIGHT NOW they want to keep; let alone continuity from years ago.
This is the single biggest problem with the new 52.
DC does not have to publish a timeline for the readers. But, they should have had one editorially.
"Flashpoint" feels impulsive. More than a few people around the 'net and the comic shops have said that "Flashpoint" felt like a "Flash" arc that somehow turned in to a "Crisis" event at the last minute.
I wonder if maybe DC went this route with no planning out of frustration. During the "Crisis Trilogy", DC's tagline was something like "you will not believe what happens next". At the time, my reaction to that was actually "yeah sure, bringing back Hal and making this like they were 20+ years ago". But, it seems like DC's goal was to recapture the sense of anything being possible that existed for a bit less than 10 years after the original "Crisis".
I missed "Crisis on Infinite Earths". (I was 8 when it resolved, and was reading most "Transformers" and "GI Joe" in 1986. Comics had not yet supplanted TV as my primary entertainment.) But, I "discovered" DC in 1989, not long after Burton's "Batman". I remember there being a sense of "newness" to the comics. Some of it was the fact that I had little familiarity with DC. But, there was also a sense that "things had changed" in the stories that I generally did not get from the Marvel books that I had started reading at the time.
In Marvel, I knew that things were stay more or less the same. The X-books and (to a much lesser extent) Avengers books were an exception this. But, for the most part, Marvel was "stable".
In DC....holy crap. Robin was dead? Later finding out that it was a different Robin only added to DC's cred in my eyes. (On the other hand, I knew that Bucky's death was a back-write the first time that I read about it.) Byrne's Superman? Oh my lord. And, apparently the Flash people had been reading about for years was dead.
I read "Armageddon: 2001" wondering what was going to happen. There were people speculating about who Monarch was. Would Marvel have thrown even a tertiary character like Hawk or Captain Atom in to the furnace? The answer, and I knew it even then, was "no". At most, we would get an alternate future version that we knew would never see in the main book. (I knew that Cable would never turn in to Ahab in the x-books.)
Then, in 1992, the guy at the local comic shop lent me his first run "Crisis on Infinite Earths". And, holy shit. He told me it was big. He told me that it changed everything. And, it did. When Superman died, there was a sense that maybe, just maybe, he would stay dead. If "Emerald Twilight" were a Marvel book, I would not have cared because I would have known that Hal was going to be okay. (Coast City would not have been wiped out to begin with.) When DC promised big and crazy changes, they usually delivered....for a time.
Then, in the late 90s, that eroded. Mark Waid lost his spine...and just brought back the Flash's Rogues Gallery. Why? Just...because. Kevin Smith was a fucking diva and had to bring back Oliver Queen. Why? Just because.
By 2005 or so, I had no confidence in anything DC published having any sticking power. But, their marketing seemed like they were trying to capture the "anything can happen" feeling of the late 80s and early 90s.
"Infinite Crisis" was too stable, and it was ultimately a return to how things were.
But, with "Flash Point", we are in truly uncharted territory. The problem is that DC does not seem to have appreciably more of an idea of where things are going than we the readers do.
And, some more comics. (I did not pick up the "Ultimates" comics this weekend. Maybe next week.)
Hawkman #0:
There are a few sentences that Liefeld could have gone over once or twice. But, to be fair. Liefeld writing a comic kind of obligates people to look for problems that they would normally let slide. The description of the Czarnians is a change from the Giffen/Bisley take on the species. Hawkman's memories are spotty. But, there is no sign of him being some kind of universal constant. Liefeld borrows elements of "Hawkworld", the alien policeman and Egyption royalty by making Katar somebody who married in to alien royalty in a statified empire. My only real complaint about new 52 Hawkman is that it is drawing on my least favourite character model. (I would have preferred the full uniform of "Hawkworld" or the post "Zero Hour" model.)
Grade: C
Justice League Dark #0:
This is mostly "the secret origin of new 52 Constantine". There are a few things that I recognized as Easter Eggs, likely from Vertigo, even if I did not recognize their exact source. The main thing to take away from this is "a good chunk of Vertigo stuff happened in the new 52".
Grade: C
AvX #6:
I flipped through the previous five issues of this book. It did not add anything to the main AvX book or their cross-overs. But, it delivered on what it promised. It billed itself as a big stupid fight book that did not require the readers to know or think about anything other than the fights. And, it delivered. This issue is played mostly for laughs, consisting of short-subject fights that read like a "Mad Magazine" parody of AvX. Bendis gives us a page of Cyclops and Captain America hitting each other *really* low. Loeb offers a one page "bad girl fights" dream sequence. At least the guy admits he is a hack. This series was not great. But, it never set out to be.
Grade: B/C
Age of Apocalypse #8:
It is fast becoming apparent that I like this book more in concept than execution. Stuff happens. And, because it is an alternate universe, stuff sticks. But, aside form that, I am not really in to this comic. Unless it wows me in the next few months, I will probably drop this book.
Grade: C
Dom
-still has a pile of unread comics at home and in the store's pull file.....
