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Post by K-Box on May 31, 2011 20:10:56 GMT -8
... And in the process, takes one step forward and two gigantic steps backward: Bleeding Cool Flashpost: DC Confirms Full Reboot: September Brings 52 First Issues and Day and Date DigitalThe good news? Day-and-date digital. It's about time one of the Big Two joined us here in the 21st century. This should have happened industry-wide at least a decade ago, but at least DC is making a respectable effort to catch up to the modern market. The bad news? This is going to be a Crisis On Infinite Earths-style half-assed partial reboot that desperately tries to cling to the most popular (or at least the most editorially mandated) aspects of the current continuity, while at the same time regressing the characters into more junior players, even though a great deal of the current DC continuity draws its greatest storytelling strengths from the age and experience that the characters have been allowed to gain (see also: Batman turning his brand into a franchise and the Green Lanterns being joined by an entire rainbow spectrum of equal peer corps). As much as I harbor mixed feelings about many of those new elements, they're topping the sales charts right now, and the simple fact of the matter is that you can't have Bruce Wayne as a biological and adoptive father to an entire Bat-family, or Hal Jordan as a seasoned veteran who's regarded as a god even among Green Lanterns, if you're dragging them back to their rookie status. The REALLY bad news? Jim Lee is an indefensibly shitty artist, and he always has been, so the fact that he's being allowed to redesign all these characters, when his art skills are even worse now than they were in the 1990s, is OBJECTIVELY terrible. Hey, let's give EVERY character the EXACT SAME plunging V-neckline, and stylize Superman's S-symbol with EXTREME ATTITUDE that would have been embarrassing even coming from the old-school Image crew, AND genericize the holy living fuck out of every other feature of their outfits. Jim Lee's costume design skills make even Bryan Hitch's blandly crap ripoffs of The Matrix in The Ultimates seem appealing and unpredictable by comparison. |
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Post by K-Box on May 31, 2011 20:16:40 GMT -8
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Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Jun 1, 2011 2:01:40 GMT -8
After an initial burst of nerdrage, I've reverted back to apathy. Seriously, rebooting or renumbering will not make the stories better. Only god storytelling will do that. And you don't NEED reboots or renumbering if you have good stories. Furthermore, I seriously doubt there's a massive number of readers out there holding off on buying Superman because they can't get into his continuity. This is Superman we are talking about here. Bedouins in the heart of the Sahara know who he is. People don't buy his comics, because they SUCK. I don't think youthening him, hooking him up with WW, and giving him a suit I saw in Wizard in 2002 will change that. This is ego and short-term thinking. In a year, they'll do something else. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 1, 2011 10:43:42 GMT -8
The Jim Lee redesigns that they've shown so far are painfully bad. And the idea of 52 #1 issues in one month makes my brain bleed.
But.
If they went through with this, a full reboot of the universe starting at ground zero, then I'd be all for it. The 40 year old virgins will drop all the books in protest?
Let them. Maybe they'll grow up.
But starting from scratch, starting all over again, that has potential.
There are, however, three things in the way of this being really exciting.
1) To make this really exciting, they would have to do the relaunch with completely new creative teams. Fresh minds, new ideas. Instead, however, they're just shuffling existing creators around.
2) To make this really exciting, they would need to really make a break, start over again. However, they plan to drag some old plotlines and developments into this reboot DCU. That means we're going to get the same kind of half-assed clusterfuck reboot that we had after CoIE. Which will lay the groundwork for so many problems down the line that ... Well, been there, done that.
3) Tying into that is the fact that neither creators nor fans are willing to really make a clean break. "But we want Batman Inc.!" "But we want the Rainbow Lanterns!" So they get what they want, which will eventually lead to the continuity nightmare that we already had and that DC attempts to fix every 15 years or so. This is just the latest of those fixes, and it will be as successful as the previous one.
That said, I don't know my financial situation in September. Right now, I read zero DC comics. Depending on my income in September, I might check out those that will sound interesting.
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jun 1, 2011 11:05:32 GMT -8
My only fanboy complaint is the high likelihood of the retconning of the Superman Marriage.
BUUUUTTT....
IF IF IF I had any faith what so ever in the people running this show (I don't - not that that's a surprise) it'd be a great idea to retell the courtship/marriage story in such a way that it was more self-contained and that it didn't involve Clark actually having to reveal his ID to Lois and letting her figure it out on her own.
That's the only hope I can carry out of this.
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Post by jkcarrier on Jun 1, 2011 16:37:19 GMT -8
And the idea of 52 #1 issues in one month makes my brain bleed. Seriously. That seems more likely to scare off potential new readers than to attract them. Maybe if it were 52 stand-alone books, each with their own unique tone and style -- i.e., something for everyone. But I suspect they will be just the opposite: more homogenized and interrelated than ever. |
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jun 1, 2011 20:13:26 GMT -8
Yeah, the more I read, the more two things become apparent:
1) "We're restarting everything! Except the Stuff Grand and Geoff did because they get to do whatever they want!"
2) "We're fixing everything! Except the trends that made this collapse inevitable in the first place."
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Post by Anders on Jun 1, 2011 20:27:03 GMT -8
What Jens said.
However, regarding fandom implosions, I don't see how anyone can bring up Sherlock Holmes as a negative example. He was the creation of one man, and now he's available to anyone. That's the way it should work.
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Post by lostphrack on Jun 1, 2011 21:40:04 GMT -8
I'm... interested in this. The cynic in me says this will go badly, but there's a part of me that got really excited when I see DC folks talking about minority characters and other genre's being represented with this launch.
I wouldn't mind seeing some horror material with the supernatural characters they've got. Admittedly it's not a shockingly new idea, it's pretty much what Vertigo was doing with them, but it's enough to make me curious about it.
The possibility of bringing back some Wildstorm or Milestone titles and having them integrated into the DCU also piques my interest a bit, though it's again tempered by my worry of them fucking it all up.
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 1, 2011 22:53:49 GMT -8
What Jens said. However, regarding fandom implosions, I don't see how anyone can bring up Sherlock Holmes as a negative example. He was the creation of one man, and now he's available to anyone. That's the way it should work. I disagree. Because if all those people who now fanwank their own Sherlock Holmes stories couldn't use the character, they'd be forced to come up with their own ideas. That is how it should work. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 1, 2011 23:27:03 GMT -8
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Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Jun 2, 2011 2:30:56 GMT -8
Doubtful. Even if DC didn't want to use the elements in question, it wouldn't be need a reboot of the entire line. And WB is more likely to pay to license the characters, since the Siegels couldn't actually DO anything with those rights without the trademarks. |
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Post by Anders on Jun 2, 2011 2:50:50 GMT -8
What Jens said. However, regarding fandom implosions, I don't see how anyone can bring up Sherlock Holmes as a negative example. He was the creation of one man, and now he's available to anyone. That's the way it should work. I disagree. Because if all those people who now fanwank their own Sherlock Holmes stories couldn't use the character, they'd be forced to come up with their own ideas. That is how it should work. Except they wouldn't come up with their own ideas anyway. There are hundreds of characters who are in the public domain, like all the ancient myths. People still come up with their own ideas instead of writing yet another Thor vs. Jesus fanfic. I don't care about those who want to write character X. I care about those who want to write, and for whose story character X would fit. For the Disney example in particular, I recommend Howard Waldrop's short story "Heirs of the Hemisphere" where he uses lightly disguised versions of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy (as robots after the End of the World): it's because it's them that the story is funny and interesting, but it's not fanwank. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 2, 2011 2:52:30 GMT -8
Doubtful. Even if DC didn't want to use the elements in question, it wouldn't be need a reboot of the entire line. And WB is more likely to pay to license the characters, since the Siegels couldn't actually DO anything with those rights without the trademarks. Depends on how far DC and WB are willing to go to completely cut off the Siegels. Considering how that lawsuit has turned into a never-ending story. Considering just how expensive it would be to maintain those aspects that the Siegels control. And can, potentially, veto. And if you can do a complete reset that will also take care of potential similar problems for the future, so that, say, Bob Kane's descendants or William Moulton's descendants or the Kirbys won't have the proverbial leg to stand on when they realize, Hey, we can do what the Siegels did*-- *I know, Bob Kane's contract back then is a completely different animal already. He already getss more money/control over Batman that the Siegels ever did. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jun 2, 2011 2:56:25 GMT -8
I don't care about those who want to write character X. I care about those who want to write, and for whose story character X would fit. Mike Hammer would fit perfectly as the PI in The Coldest Blood or Die Young. If I could have used Mike Hammer, I probably would have. Because, if an existing character with name recognition is a perfect fit, why create my own? It would still not be fanwank, but it would still be lazy. |
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