1 I'm rebooting my campaign as well!

2 This is just their version of "Ultimate" comics like Marvel did a few years back.  I think their favorite thing to do in that line was that with the "Ultimate X-Men" half the characters were gay.

3 NOOOO!!! I WANTED TO DO THIS! I WANTED TO DO THIS!! I had a whole idea where they'd Reboot BEFORE the origin story, so we'd have like what they had BEFORE superhero comics, like Detective COmics (real detectives), war comics, even cowboy comics. ANd then over the course of a few issue they'd drop in some characters -- like a story about Jim Gordon in Chicago as a young detective, or a war story about Hal Jordan getting shot down behind enemy lines, or Barry Allen working on a criminal forensics case. Etc. And then reboot with the first issue, bringing each back in order (Supes, Bats, WW)... AAAAAGHHHH!! NOOOO! W WANTED TO BE A PART OF THIS!!!! This hurts. I'm not kidding, this hurts, this was my dream.

4 With comics seeming to turn left at every turn these days, I'm sure this reboot will give them the opportunity to scrub out any pro-American values previously held by the various superheroes and reboot them as wise to the evils of capitalist Amerika.  That and it has the potential to give them an influx of capital.

5 okay, this was a dream, and dreams are cheap, and I have ten of them a day. But this is one of the ones I was fond of.

6 And the Batman parents murder not as a comic book flashback, but as a cop story, told from the POV of a cop... no connection to Batman (none expressed), but everyone knows who these people are, but the story is told as if it's the cop's story, and just another murder in Gotham, etc...

7 damnit. Damnit damnit damnit.

8 Comics as a median has been done for decades.  

9

Will they reboot Weiner's career?

10 epic fail.

11 Shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic. You want to sell more comics? You know why the Japanese sell tens of millions per year and you sell shit? Japanese anime is funny. American "comics" aren't. They weren't called comics for nothing you know.

12 whatever.  They'll make it even worse than it is now. 

13 oh, it's not a real reboot. It's just setting the issue back to 1 to sell more of them. Total bullshit. Yeah, good. My real reboot dream is still alive.

14 6 And the Batman parents murder not as a comic book flashback, but as a cop story, told from the POV of a cop... no connection to Batman (none expressed), but everyone knows who these people are, but the story is told as if it's the cop's story, and just another murder in Gotham, etc...

Posted by: ace at June 02, 2011 12:53 AM (nj1bB)

That'd just be too intelligent and cool for them to do.

15 I agree with #4...this is a way to comb through the whole canon and commie-fy the whole thing...nobody should be enthusiastic about this...I hope they fail.

16 If everyone's getting new costumes and Supergirl makes the cut (they love to drop her from the universe...), will they fix her damned outfit?  It's horrible right now.

17

A perfect example of "We Shit On You" Rebranding:  DC = Dumbass Crapola

Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Rules!

18 13 oh, it's not a real reboot. It's just setting the issue back to 1 to sell more of them.

Total bullshit.

Yeah, good. My real reboot dream is still alive.

Posted by: ace at June 02, 2011 12:58 AM (nj1bB)

I don't know sounds like it might be.  That third link sort of indicate that this reboot comes at the end of a the current major story arc, so their typical "Crisis" level continuity reboot event.

19

Oh yeah, almost forgot.  Marvel sucks donkey balls, too...

Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman Rules!

20 Oh shit.

21 This is why I stopped collecting. They reboot every five minutes now. You have no time to enjoy the characters before the next damn crisis.

22 buzzion their crisis "reboots" adjusts the timeline retroactively, but the idea has been that the comics just continue with the same continuity, just some very far back issues are taken out of the canon, or oddball things they want rid of (they got rid of Krypto and Streaky and stuff that way, and also, inadvertently, Superboy, I think, or at least screwed up his whole continuity with the Legion of Superheroes)... but usually the storylines just keep going. Though they do take the opportunity to say "We take that back." Like, Clark married to Lois? "We take that back." In this new history, they didn't get married. But apart from the specific changes and the implications of those changes, the timeline continues. That has been the way they have done it. they have not ever really rebooted, not really. They retcon left and right but not systematically.

23

The new plot lines are going to be even more left wing than the previous. Easy prediction. Wanna take bets?

 

24 I mean a real reboot where Superman goes to metropolis for the first time, and Batman is just starting out, and has a .45, and hasn't met the Joker or Two-Face yet, and sort of isn't at the top of his game yet. I mean a real, start from the first issue, zero the timeline, real fucking reboot.

25 Marvel did this in the 1990s and it was a disaster. They wound up going back to the original numbering and the old story lines. The same will happen with DC. Movies are the future of comics. If DC wants to sell more comics, how about rolling back the price to $1! Comics are too expensive and that's why they don't sell.

26

  My God, there's an epidemic of rogue politican junk tweets going on!

http://tinyurl.com/4xsel29

   George Lapp, a Canadian conservative candidate (this is a bipartisan epidemic) for some "riding" around Niagra Falls, had a photo of his junk appear on his Twitter account, remaing there for 20 minutes before being "unzipped" as they say.

   His story is that he had his Blackberry in his front pocket indavertantly switched into camera mode and the darn thing just took a picture of his tackle through what had to be some very thin material.  Now that explains the innocent origin of the dick pic itself, but how did it get posted on Twitter?

    Well, someone stole the Blackberry and the dirty thief uploaded it to Twitter.

      Now, which story is more believable, Weiner's or Lapp's?

27 Is this the second or third time they've tried this? I was comic-book age when the Crisis on Infinite Earths we-can't-write-our-way-out-of-this-shit-anymore-so-BOOM thing happened. I think it's the last big-two series I ever bought. Sucked.

Marvel/DC-type hero-comic writers have...deep deficiencies...artistic ones, I mean...(also)...that make them fuck up characters and universes in exactly the same way every single time they're freed to do it. "Do it again"...does it again.

This hurts. I'm not kidding, this hurts, this was my dream.

Hey now. Your idea's interesting. So they're not doing it.

It's a good idea for a limited self-contained series, actually. A meta-Watchmen, about superheroes as written, being retconned (or re-universed) in real time—like it's really happening to them, right now. Because they have no existence outside what's written for them, in their present. No origin until the ORIGIN REVEALED! issue. No secret teenage marriage-ending-in-abortion with Volcano Bitch until a crossover demands it. Etc.

Send them back, as themselves, to a pre-superhero past that baffles them.

28

Sounds like a great chance to jump the shark and turn a bunch of 30 and 40 somethings off.

This will not end well. Iconic comic book characters that have been aroound for 30 plus years are still cool for a reason. Don't try to "modern" them up.

Luckily, DC pretty much blows anyway. Except for Batman. He rules.

29

But apart from the specific changes and the implications of those changes, the timeline continues.

That has been the way they have done it. they have not ever really rebooted, not really.

They retcon left and right but not systematically.

Posted by: ace at June 02, 2011 01:09 AM (nj1bB)

But isn't that also always done under a label of "Crisis?"  Apparently this current event is called Flashpoint.  So it does sound like actual reboot to me and not just Crisis type retcon.  And if they are doing this straight up to all issues that is going to piss a lot of fans off.  And they'll probably realize that though too late, and know they should follow the Marvel "Ultimate" universe reboot idea.

30 "20 Oh shit. "Posted by: palin steele at June 02, 2011 01:07 AM (BP6Z1)" Holy fuck! You just knocked me out of my chair.

31 I don't like boots.

32 24 I mean a real reboot where Superman goes to metropolis for the first time, and Batman is just starting out, and has a .45, and hasn't met the Joker or Two-Face yet, and sort of isn't at the top of his game yet.

I mean a real, start from the first issue, zero the timeline, real fucking reboot.

Posted by: ace at June 02, 2011 01:12 AM (nj1bB)

They'll never give Batman a gun, even on a full reboot.  And that may actually still be what they do.  But I can see them not altering the origin stories.  Still have a lot of new first time occurences for them.  Though who really knows.  We know how well they have succeeded with stuff like this before.

"I'm the God-damned Batman!" *punches Robin*

33 #19: Reid Fleming was... pardon my French... fucking magical.

34 They only have 52 titles? Geeez...Marvel has more than 52 titles just in the Spiderman line: Spectacular Spiderman Amazing Spiderman Spiderman Comics Spiderman on Mondays Spiderman on Tuesdays . . . Spiderman 2: Electric Boogaloo Debbie Does Spiderman

35 > 2 This is just their version of "Ultimate" comics like Marvel did a few years back. I think their favorite thing to do in that line was that with the "Ultimate X-Men" half the characters were gay. Posted by: buzzion But Marvel's Ultimate line was in addition to their regular comics. DC is starting over from scratch.

36 I'm wondering if maybe the new anti-American Superman, who hates Christians and renounced his US citizenship, saw a massive drop in sales. They could be looking to pretend all that never happened.

37

But Marvel's Ultimate line was in addition to their regular comics. DC is starting over from scratch.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at June 02, 2011 01:29 AM (B/FNw)

Yeah I realized that after posting that.  I kind of retconned myself in 29, saying they'll wish that they did go with that method.

38 Genetic Tunder: I'm wondering if maybe the new anti-American Superman, who hates Christians and renounced his US citizenship, saw a massive drop in sales. They could be looking to pretend all that never happened. –––––––––––––––––––– Or, it could be the Superman from the next issue, after Bin Laden had been killed, where he kept talking about how America was the greatest place ever!

39 I'm a "Make Mine Marvel" kind of guy but I appreciate some DC titles and scrapping everthing bums me out. For example, the DC series I enjoy the most are the Green Lantern titles. They recently wrapped up one of those GIANT cross-over events - a Zombie Apocalypse where the zombies had Lantern rings. That was a big deal and wrapped up stuff that had been set up decades ago. Now they're telling me they're going to start over with GL in year 2 or something? Screw that.

40 Will their finally be a superhero who golfs? Poorly?

41 (Oh, God. "there")

42

Sounds like a great chance to jump the shark and turn a bunch of 30 and 40 somethings off.

This will not end well. Iconic comic book characters that have been aroound for 30 plus years are still cool for a reason. Don't try to "modern" them up.

No you don't get it!!! Kids weren't buying Spider-Man because he was married! It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the only place you can find a comic book nowadays is in a specialty store!

43
But Marvel's Ultimate line was in addition to their regular comics. DC is starting over from scratch.

What's better than one swingin' single hipster Peter Parker?

ANSWER: TWO swingin' single hipster Peter Parkers, true believers! Living at home with Aunt May is the bomb diggity yo!

44 Hacked!

45

Are these things going to be actual physical books? Not online comics, not bits? That seems as though it might require an attention span of....

46 Does this reboot effectively end all the current storylines?

I would hope so, the DC Universe is such an unholy clusterfuck nothing makes sense anymore.  Seriously, another planet filled with Kryptonians that orbits the sun opposite Earth?  What in fuck hell?

47 It looks like a universal reboot every ten to twelve years or so is the new normal for DC. They had Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1987, and then Zero Hour in 1998, and now this. Part of it probably comes from writers not being able to help themselves regarding nostalgia for the old multiple timelines trope, and part from writers wanting to push the envelope of what's acceptable in superhero comics (with the naturally resulting backlash from a large portion of their readerbase).

48 If you are older than 17 and still "reading" comics, I'm in the wrong bussiness.

49 Tough business. The comics people keep thinking they are in the story business. But at this stage they are mainly in the nostalgia business.

Kids don't buy comics anymore. And why would they when they can play Halo and Call of Duty and watch superhero cartoons and movies all day.

But adults who grew up on comics will pay good money to feel like a kid again. And that's what Marvel and DC are selling. A couple bucks a pop to feel like you are 10 years old again.

Maybe this will help DC get kids to read comics. I doubt it. And I doubt it'll be that much of a reboot.

50 Notice, for example, that after Zero Hour the whole Hal Jordan and Arisia thing never happened. A middle-aged man schtupping a thirteen-year-old girl really is offensive to a lot of readers, even if she uses her cosmic powers to give herself an adult body. I imagine they'll try it again shortly before the next reboot in 2022, perhaps with Mary Marvel sleeping with half of the DC Universe, hoping that the public is more receptive to pederasty at that no doubt more "enlightened" time.

51 It looks like a universal reboot every ten to twelve years or so is the new normal for DC.

DC reboots about as often (and effectively) as Windows Vista.

52 My little nephew loves superheroes. But has zero interest in comics. He likes superhero cartoons and toys, though. So the superheroes will live on. Money will be made. Just not much in little weekly story snippets. If my nephew wants a Spider-man story he can watch any # of spider-man episodes from the various cartoon incarnations over the years. With tons of action and a beginning, middle, and end all in 22 minutes. My sister-in-law just finds them on youtube and plops him down in front of the laptop and he's happy.

53

Where are the tatas?

Damn it.

54 My work here is done.

55 I would be tempted to collect comics still, but once the price climbed above $1.25 they lost me. Sure the art is generally way better than back in the 40-70s, but $4.00 for 22 pages? I can by a real book for $8.00. Also, most of the comics I got as a kid, I got from the local Stop and Rob or liquor store. Having to drive to 45 miles to the nearest comic store just sucks any motivation out of me.

56 Yessiree, total bullshit.

DC has a thousad storylines going right now and...what...end them all?

Come on, I'm totally digging Dick Grayson as Batman.  That's cool beans.

Coincidentally, DC's new editor-in-chief is Bob Harras, the former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics.  His tenure their was mostly about pulling the same kind of shit.  "Hey, guys, how about new issue #1s?!?"

And sales were boosted ever so briefly.  And then people stopped giving a shit after that.  In only one case did a reboot ever modestly succeed, which was the whole Heroes Reborn fracas.  They "killed" the Fantastic Four and the Avengers and allowed them to be written by their comptetitors at Image Comics for a year.  After that, the characters were "resurrected" back to the mainstream Marvel continuity.  And from a creative and sales standpoint it kind of worked.  There was so much baggage that no one was reading anything that didn't have a giant X attached, but Marvel took the opportunity to sort of freshen the characters back up.  Iron Man had taken some ridiculous turns, FF sucked, Avengers sucked...they really got people interested in them again.  But they didn't exactly start new-new, they just took the characters back to their conceptual roots. 

What DC is doing sounds like a lamebrained attempt at being somehow socially relevent.  And it'll fail.  Comic writers have this idea that what they do is important.  They imagine themselves as being part of the cultural elite.  They think they have important and insightful things to say.  They're fucking morons that get paid too much.  Find a Twitter feed of a comic writer like Brian Michael Bendis.  Now, he's a purty good comic book writer, but holy shit the man is a fucking retard.  After that Congresscritter got shot, it was like someone flipped a switch in that assholes brain labeled, "Full Auto Fucktard."  Truly a thing to behold.  So imagine a whole company of these idiots tasked with being socially relevent.  Baby, I can hear sales plummet as we speak.  Dozens of writers and editors vomiting forth every fucking mindnumbinly idiotic idea that passes through their empty skulls, insulated from any notion deemed dangerous by their ideological masters.

I can see it now.

Wonder Woman, lesbian.

Superman, super socialist.

Batman, secret pedophile.

Aquaman, Marxist underwater philosopher king.

Bet on it.

Oh, and everyone gets raped.

Cause that's how comic writers roll these days.

Honest to God.  Every female in comics is a fucking rape victim these days.  Batgirl?  Rape victim.  Ms. Marvel? Rape victim. Elongated Man's wife? Raped in the Justice League's headquarters.  No shit.

Cause lefties all believe that 9/10 women have all been victims of rape, so 9/10 of every female DC hero will be a rape victim.  Rape 'em if ya got 'em!

Fuck this shit, make mine Archie.

57 As long as Power Girl keeps those gigantic cans I'm OK with whatever they have dreamed up.

DC has never been a favorite. Batman was the only real interest.

Unfortunately, DC will probably go full retard and make everyone 17 and sparkley-ghey-vampire-emo.

58 Comics have been absolute shit for a good 20 years now.  Every once in a blue moon I wander into the local comic book store, hoping to find some good Batman stuff that rekindles childhood nostalgia for The Killing Joke and The Cult and the great early Legends of the Dark Knight titles.  Stuff that puts the quality of the Christopher Nolan movies back on the page.  I always walk out empty-handed.

What I'd really love to be able to do is just read a well-written, non-ideological story that doesn't branch out into half a dozen different titles.  Ace's idea about starting at Ground Fucking Zero with Superman, Batman, everybody?  No tricks, no bullshit, no mega-crossovers and polybags and multiple covers and all that total horseshit that killed my interest back in the '90s; just committing to starting everything from absolute zero and progressing from there?  Shit, I'd read that, the Superman and Batman books anyway.  I imagine a lot of disaffected former fans would give these books a chance if they knew they didn't need a map to read a single story.

I'm kind of sad at the thought that Action Comics and Detective Comics, the titles that practically launched the whole industry and that still use the numbering started all the way back in the 1930s, won't exist as the same books anymore.  Oh well, comics themselves probably won't exist for much longer anyway.

59 I would be tempted to collect comics still, but once the price climbed above $1.25 they lost me. Sure the art is generally way better than back in the 40-70s, but $4.00 for 22 pages?

Yeah, that's another thing.  At some point the publishers decided they needed to trade in the cheap pulp that had kept comics affordable for half a century for quality, slick, glossy paper, as if that makes any difference when the stuff that gets printed on it sucks.  When I was a kid these things cost 75 cents a pop and it wasn't unreasonable to buy a number of different titles every month.

60 So they had the Golden Age, then Silver, Bronze, and Tin.

This must be the "Cheap-Ass Chinese Pot Metal Age."

Kind of knew it was coming.

61 More crossovers! Hulk vs. Hawkman Fonzie vs. Boba Fett Dr. Strange vs. George Will

62 This is an excellent post. It is very informative. Thank you so much. I'll be a regular viewer. wholesale lingerie Replica Handbags

63 Stupid. Like Marvel's lame "Heroes Reborn" screwup. Which they promptly retconned away. The problems with most of today's comics? The writers let their own fanboy fantasies get in the way of telling decent stories, and they have no respect for the history of the characters or the advantages of the complex and nuanced universe in which they reside. If you're a really talented modern writer, like Kurt Busiek or Alan Moore or Peter David, you might be able to pull off huge retcons, or even making up your own universe from scratch. If you're not that talented, then your best efforts will look like you cribbed them from the back of the box the action figure came in. Look at Marvel's Ultimates for an example of what happens when writers try to start from scratch. It's small universe syndrome: Every major character is related to, employed by, or having sex with every other major character. There are maybe three origin stories, with the Ultimate versions of formerly interesting characters just interchangeably pasted into them. It's just lazy. And, ultimately (ha!), a dead-end premise with no room for the twists, backstories, or independent storytelling that make for interesting serial fiction in a shared universe.

64 You've gotta remember that DC is owned by Time Warner and Marvel is owned by Disney. They're idea and character factories for movies and merchandising. It doesn't matter if the actual comics suck and/or don't sell, because in the big corporate picture, the comics are a teeny tiny drop in the bucket.

65

 Comics became so-called "relevant" (yuck) with the whole Green Lantern/Green Arrow drug issues back in the 70s....great art though. Personally, even then it was more fun to read National Lampoon Magazine.

From the UGO article...

DC promises a more modern look as well as more diversity, so you can definitely expect at least somebody besides Batwoman to be gay. It's about time, Wonder Woman. It's about time.

66 Oh, great. So they're going to 're-boot' so Superman CAN renounce his US citizenship and other political correct memes will be advanced. Perhaps Batman will become a champion of illegal aliens? Aquaman can do battle against the deep-water oil companies. Wonder Woman can out herself as a lesbian who also doesn't believe fire melts steel. Yep. LOTS of different directions they can take our once upon a time heros.

67 Dc reboot pranks ace

68 Okay, I expect most of the more radical ideas will get nixed by management. These aren't characters anymore, they're BRANDS, and BRANDS need to be protected.

So here are my fairly serious predictions about the All-NEW DC Universe:

1.  Everyone gets younger. I don't know why, maybe it's the progressive infantilizing of America, maybe it's the influence of Japanese comics, but all heroes have to be teenagers, or just out of college. So Batman will be in his early 20s, Superman ditto; Wonder Woman will be about 18 (or at least will be an immortal pretending to be 1 , Green Lantern ditto.

2.  Everyone gets a romance plot. There's this bizarre notion in the comics biz that if they could just attract female readers all their problems would be solved. The solution is always to insert a 1955 teenage boy's idea of what girls would like into the comic. Every character gets a tortured romance with someone.

3.  Race Lifts. This has been an obsession for years, but don't expect it to go away. They're going to "minoritize" as many characters as they can get away with. Especially the B-list heroes who aren't quite as iconic. I guaran-damn-tee you that the new DC lineup will include at least one gay superhero and at least one Muslim superhero.

4.  Depowering. This is actually the most understandable. Overpowered heroes aren't good for suspense. You know Superman's going to beat the bad guy. So they crank the powers back down to a level where this becomes an issue again. And then over the next decade lazy writers will pull new powers, upgrades, and "with an extreme effort . . . "-s out of their asses until the heroes are as overpowered as before.

5.  Lighter and Softer. This is my risky prediction, but I'm going for it anyway. The buzzword for the past couple of decades has been "darker and edgier" but I'm guessing even the writers are sick of that. Combined with the younger, more innocent-seeming characters and romance plots there will be more silly stuff and comedy. Not a bad thing, by the way.

6.  New costumes. Which will get changed back to how they were in about four issues.

69 I quit caring about anything DC did when Hal Jordan turned evil.

70 How about when they killed off superman while battling that doomsday wacko

71 Andrew Breitbart hacked my last post and put a smiley in it.

72 ... again?

73 My God. He's full of bats.