Comics are Awesome II

[Onslaught Six]

Well now wait, I was under the impression Justice League is supposed to take place "now?" Or is it just this first arc that's in the past?

This is a mess. When DC said they were doing this, right then and there they should have produced a fucking bible on it. This is what happened. This is what didn't. This is the timeline.

[Sparky Prime]

Well now wait, I was under the impression Justice League is supposed to take place "now?" Or is it just this first arc that's in the past?

I think it'll just be the first story arc that will place in the past. It's showing the teams origin, which was 5 years ago compared to where most(?) of the DC universe is.

[Shockwave]

Well for the hell of it I went ahead and googled Anti-Venom comics. The images search yielded this:
http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/3b/74/0010743b_medium.jpeg
Note the title on the covers: Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live. This ends the argument. It's a comic. The title reads Anti-Venom. Case closed. Neither O6 or I were making a distinction between ongoing vs. miniseries.

[andersonh1]

Yeah, it's my understanding that it's just the Justice League that formed 5 years ago and is when many heroes became more publicly known. Batman in-particular has been said to have been operating for some time before the 5 year mark, but he's known only as an urban legend before that. Superman is indicated to have been around a while before as well, long enough to be considered the first superhero known to the public. And others would seem to have been around a while, considering a kid asks Victor about his dad studying super humans for a living.

Yeah, as far as I can tell, Action Comics #1 is set six years ago, with Justice League #1 set five years ago. Everything else is present day.

[Sparky Prime]

Well for the hell of it I went ahead and googled Anti-Venom comics. The images search yielded this:
http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/3b/74/0010743b_medium.jpeg
Note the title on the covers: Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live. This ends the argument. It's a comic. The title reads Anti-Venom. Case closed. Neither O6 or I were making a distinction between ongoing vs. miniseries.

Note, above where it says Anti-Venom it says "The Amazing Spider-Man Presents:". And if you look at the listings for it on any official website like Marvel and Amazon, it lists it as such with the full title, not simply as Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live. It's a mini-series under the Amazing Spider-Man banner, which is not the same thing as Anti-Venom getting his own title at all.

[Shockwave]

Well for the hell of it I went ahead and googled Anti-Venom comics. The images search yielded this:
http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/3b/74/0010743b_medium.jpeg
Note the title on the covers: Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live. This ends the argument. It's a comic. The title reads Anti-Venom. Case closed. Neither O6 or I were making a distinction between ongoing vs. miniseries.

Note, above where it says Anti-Venom it says "The Amazing Spider-Man Presents:". And if you look at the listings for it on any official website like Marvel and Amazon, it lists it as such with the full title, not simply as Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live. It's a mini-series under the Amazing Spider-Man banner, which is not the same thing as Anti-Venom getting his own title at all.

I'd say it is since it's the biggest print on the page. A bit like when I tried to track down MODOK'S 11. The actual official full title is "Marvel Supervillain Team Up: MODOK'S 11" But do you think that's what I asked for and subsequently what I looked for when I went to the comic shop? No. I asked for MODOK'S 11. And if someone were to go looking for the Anti-Venom book they wouldn't start off with "Amazing Spiderman Presents" they're just gonna ask for Anti-Venom. Conversationally (which is what these forums are) one doesn't usually refer to the... what the hell do you call that... um... "overtitle" for lack of a better word.

[BWprowl]

Well now wait, I was under the impression Justice League is supposed to take place "now?" Or is it just this first arc that's in the past?

This is a mess. When DC said they were doing this, right then and there they should have produced a fucking bible on it. This is what happened. This is what didn't. This is the timeline.

Tell me about it, it's enough of a headache to keep a comic universe straight when it's all happening at the same time, but now the DCU's gone all Tarantino on us, but without any of the surprising coherence or narrative skill. The least they could do is mark the cover/title page of every book with a 199X, 200X, or 20XX or whatever date stamp to let everyone know what's going on at the same time as whatever else.

Never mind that these things are going to be a nightmare for anyone picking up back-issues when they get into DC way later.

I'm glad I got out of DC back during Brightest Day, when I sensed things were going downhill. At least Young Justice is finally back on TV; this universe just seems to work far better in cartoon form.

[Dominic]

Okay, specific responses in a second. But, I have a question.....

If the post "Flash Point" universe is based on what Barry Allen remembers.....

Does it affect the multiverse? He remembers far more than 51 alternates.

And....why the hell is Damien Wayne still around if Wally's kids ain't? Seriously, Allen has better memories of Bat-stard than his own grand kids?

don't read comics) to be "about 30" which realistically paints him as having been Batman for, at best, ten years at this point. (A more fair number is six or seven years.) That's the only way we can have the various Robins work out with a decent enough time for all of them having Been Robin, plus adding in Dick's time as Batman.

Actually, Damien would put it at the 11 year mark, if not longer. The kid is at least 10, meaning Batman knocked up his mother close to 11 years ago. Unless somebody is going to come out and say that "Son of the Demon" did not happen, Batman is aged considerably by the presence of Damien Wayne.

Damien is the new Power Girl in that he is a character who *realy* should have been wiped out in "Flash Point", but got a pass for one reason or another. This sort of reboot really needs to be "all or nothing".

And, with everything rebooted, DC can bring back everybody who has died during and after "Blackest Night"....because they arguably never died in the first place.

As I already said, it's not difficult to figure it out at all. Marvel's monthly solicitations, Wiki pages, google searches, various comic and fan sites and message boards, the absence of any Anti-Venom comics at the store... and so on. All of those could show you there is no Anti-Venom title.

Of course. That is all there is to it. So simple.......

Actually, no. When the hell did it become okay to assume readers knew/cared/were going to do research about convoluted comics? Seriously.

I don't think Dan Didio knows what he's talking about.

Quoted for truth. Awesome truth.

Seriously now. Truth.

This is a mess. When DC said they were doing this, right then and there they should have produced a fucking bible on it. This is what happened. This is what didn't. This is the timeline.

That requires planning and discipline, which are rare in modern comics.

Never mind that these things are going to be a nightmare for anyone picking up back-issues when they get into DC way later.

Actually, it might make it easier because readers will know to start with re-numbered books, and just to "assume" those count in some way. Look at "Year One".


Dom
-tempted to start reading DC again....almost.

[Sparky Prime]

I'd say it is since it's the biggest print on the page.

So what? "Avengers: The Children's Crusade" is actually a Young Avengers title, but "Young" isn't even part of the title. Readers would be disappointed if they bought it thinking it was about the adult Avengers simply because "Avengers" is the biggest word printed on the page.

A bit like when I tried to track down MODOK'S 11. The actual official full title is "Marvel Supervillain Team Up: MODOK'S 11" But do you think that's what I asked for and subsequently what I looked for when I went to the comic shop? No. I asked for MODOK'S 11. And if someone were to go looking for the Anti-Venom book they wouldn't start off with "Amazing Spiderman Presents" they're just gonna ask for Anti-Venom. Conversationally (which is what these forums are) one doesn't usually refer to the... what the hell do you call that... um... "overtitle" for lack of a better word.

Someone at a comic book store is going to be knowledgeable about such things that they wouldn't necessarily need the full title. Would the same be true of someone at the help desk in Barnes and Noble? Not in my experience. Back when I was looking for one of the Sinestro Corps War volumes, a guy I asked couldn't find it in the system, even after I spelled it for him and I already knew they had other volumes of it in the store. It only came up with the full title. Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War.

If the post "Flash Point" universe is based on what Barry Allen remembers.....

The post "Flashpoint" universe isn't based on Barry's memories... From what Reverse Flash explained, Barry's attempt to change the timeline by saving his mother was so poorly done that it "broke" the timeline. Which is why the "Flashpoint" timeline was so very different because of only the one change, and as a result, even by stopping himself from changing the timeline in the first place, things still didn't go back to exactly the way they were. That and some mysterious woman explained the DC, Vertigo and WildStorm timelines got (re)merged together somehow...

Actually, no. When the hell did it become okay to assume readers knew/cared/were going to do research about convoluted comics? Seriously.

Why wouldn't a reader who was interested by a story they might want to find for themselves do a little research to figure out which title it was in exactly? Maybe not in O6's case, but it's not reasonable to assume every reader would be so indifferent as you suggest here.

[Onslaught Six]

Tell me about it, it's enough of a headache to keep a comic universe straight when it's all happening at the same time, but now the DCU's gone all Tarantino on us, but without any of the surprising coherence or narrative skill. The least they could do is mark the cover/title page of every book with a 199X, 200X, or 20XX or whatever date stamp to let everyone know what's going on at the same time as whatever else.

This is my other problem, everything has to be perpetually "Five years ago!" Just give me a fucking date! If it was five years ago, write "2006" at the beginning! It's like movies that start with "Present Day." What if I'm watching this twenty or thirty years later? It's not the present day anymore, it's obviously dated to the era it was made in. Even a movie like Transformers, with the loosest continuity ever, is pretty perpetually dated to taking place in 2006 due to when it was filmed, when it was released, and its depiction of the then-current President, among other things.

This is why I liked the Valiant universe, and why it subsequently still holds up today (up until like 1994 or so with the Image crossover, and even then some individual books were still good). Every book had an explicit time it was taking place in (the majority of them taking place in the then-present but always explicitly defined, but several of them took place in 2049 or something), with a date and usually even a 'time.' There's a bunch of Shadowman issues that open up with "September 24th, 1993" or something similar. And that, to me, is awesome, because it doesn't force you to suspend your belief 'at all.' This is happening on that date. And if the series was still running, then Jack Boniface would have gotten a lot older and had to deal with a lot of different things. (Of course, he was scheduled to die in 1999, but that didn't end up happening. I never did get to the end of the series before switching over to the Acclaim Shadowman book.)

If the post "Flash Point" universe is based on what Barry Allen remembers.....

Does it affect the multiverse? He remembers far more than 51 alternates.

And....why the hell is Damien Wayne still around if Wally's kids ain't? Seriously, Allen has better memories of Bat-stard than his own grand kids?

I don't think it's based on his memories. There was that weird unexplained mystic lady who said something about "three universes merging" which implies Vertigo was ever a seperate universe (it really wasn't, I don't give a damn what anyone says) and includes Wildstorm (who cares?) and that's...about all the explanation we get for it.

The Wildstorm bit reminds me heavily of how Charlston was assimilated into the mainstream DC universe in the 80s. Frankly, given its success, I'm surprised DC didn't try to shoehorn fucking Watchmen into it. We could have gotten WatchmeX!

Actually, Damien would put it at the 11 year mark, if not longer. The kid is at least 10, meaning Batman knocked up his mother close to 11 years ago. Unless somebody is going to come out and say that "Son of the Demon" did not happen, Batman is aged considerably by the presence of Damien Wayne.

At this point I think it's best to assume that Batman sired Damien in some unexplained way not involving being Batman. It's the only thing that makes any sense.

Damien is the new Power Girl in that he is a character who *realy* should have been wiped out in "Flash Point", but got a pass for one reason or another. This sort of reboot really needs to be "all or nothing".

He got retained because, surprise, Batman books sell. From what I'm told, GL #1 is fucking incomprehensible to someone who hasn't already been reading GL books. (I know this because my friend hasn't been reading GL books, picked it up, and was just fucking lost.) And not just that, but after all the swishing around, how long could all the other GLs have possibly had time to have a decent reign? Is Kyle Rayner even a GL? John Stewart?

Of course. That is all there is to it. So simple.......

Actually, no. When the hell did it become okay to assume readers knew/cared/were going to do research about convoluted comics? Seriously.

This! I mean, that's what bringing newcomers to comics is supposed to be about, right? Accessability. I shouldn't have to go do research on what book a character I kind of like is appearing in so I can go track down those and see what week they're coming in. Fuck it, my pull list right now is two books 'a month' (Mega Man and TMNT) and I go pick it up once a month because I can't be assed to go out there twice on the right weeks.

This is a mess. When DC said they were doing this, right then and there they should have produced a fucking bible on it. This is what happened. This is what didn't. This is the timeline.

That requires planning and discipline, which are rare in modern comics.

Then that is the problem. I can guaran-fucking-tee you that if Brian Clevinger were in charge of the DC reboot, he would have a detailed--extremely detailed!--timeline of events in the universe. And he probably would have made it stretch out over more than a vague "five years." (This is why I love Atomic Robo.)

-tempted to start reading DC again....almost.

The 'only' book I'm at all interested in is Animal Man and I think I might just wait for the trade. (Hell, I still haven't read Morrison's run.)