On the latest DC Reboot

[dewline]

I think I'm done for the foreseeable future with Action and Superman, owing to the announced plan to retcon away Lois and Clark's marriage.

Not sure about the rest of the DC Universe line right now either. And I know that dropping those books will hurt friends and friendly acquaintances currently under contract. The whole reboot, Superman-related matters aside...?

More on this anon.

Opinions?

Comments

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

I'm... pretty much DONE with DC at the moment. They might surprise me with how incredibly good a book turns out and draw me back, but other than that no.

[jkahane.livejournal.com]

I can't say I'm surprised they're going to retcon the marriage of Clark and Lois out of the series, but figured it would alienate all sorts of Superman fans of old.

Other than a couple of titles involving the LSH, I'm pretty done with DC Comics because of this retcon and all. They may want the younger fans' business, but they're alienating the old-timers with the money because of it. Stupid DC! :(

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

I think that the reboot will hurt retailers badly, regardless. They either have to stock 52 titles all being released at the same time, and take losses on some of them (since they feature characters that couldn't support their own titles before), or not stock all of them and potentially lose sales to same-day electronic publication, which completely by coincidence *cough cough* DC is starting at the same time. DC gets to bypass the distributors and retailers and not have to worry about producing a physical product (sure, they'll keep producing a physical product... for a while... then there will be a highly-publicized e-pub-only title, or one that's published ahead of print... then more). If you're a comics shop proprietor who has helped promote their product decades, well, too damn bad.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

The two books that stand the best chance of that right now will likely be Batwoman and Batman Inc.. Seeing that the Legion characters look to be undergoing the least changes so far as I know, they'll be a close third and fourth place with their two books.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

My fear has long been that we long-timers are - in the eyes of upper management at DC - the root of the sales problem. I know a number of industry-watchers who don't work for DC but are in full agreement with them on this point. It's almost an article of faith at this point in these specific circles.

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

Three Legion books. They're doing a Legion: SEcret Origin book.

Yay! Yet another revised Legion origin!

[dewline.livejournal.com]

A fair concern, especially for those of us who've had very good relations with our respective retailers.

In Ottawa, for examples, those people who deserve a bit more respect than "market forces" and "technological convenience" might otherwise allow include Kin Jee at Silver Snail Ottawa, Rob Spittall at Comic Book Shoppe Bank Street and Murray Sudletsky at Entertainment Ink. I want to see guys and gals like this survive and prosper in the coming years. They and the people they hire onto their businesses do good work.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I get the sense that Levitz is looking to fill gaps in the story that never got dealt with before. Like the United Planets' own backstory...?

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope so. But with the 'soft reboot' coming, who knows what'll happen? They certainly reboot Legion a lot anyway....

[jennawaterford.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify, they aren't all being released at the same time, and DC currently has more than 52 monthly titles.

[liabrown]

I'm certainly not getting much after the reboot. And I'm open to dropping the stuff I plan to get.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Yeah. 1990, 1994, 2005...

[pauliatchy.livejournal.com]

Is the marriage of Superman to Lois Lane SERIOUSLY everybody's favourite aspect of the Superman books?!? To me all that did was pretty much marginalize Lois as a character. This reboot saves us from endless scenes of Lois and Clark looking out of their apartment window as she says "you belong to the world."

The marriage removed a good chunk of conflict from the title as well, mostly due to the insistence that their marriage be a happy one, in which all fights ended with the above described scene. No thanks, vanilla's not my flavor. Hands down, the best Superman story of the last 20-some odd years is Morrison's All Star Superman (in which Lois and Clark were without benefit of clergy). If we can get anything even close to approaching that, the reboot will have been worth it IMHO.

Regarding Legion, the first news releases after the reboot announcement talked about how much the Legion was going to be unaffected by the reboot. Remember, they referenced Flashpoint in the first issue of the current Levitz run. It's already history to them. Save for a tweak to the Superboy connection (for which the Superman Secret Origin gave them a bit of a loophole), the current run will continue unscathed.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

You're certainly welcome to bring the dissenting opinion on Lois and Clark, but I've few complaints about these last two decades myself. What I'm seeing planned for post-Flashpoint developments strikes me as devolution, not evolution.

[pauliatchy.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, you DID ask for opinions in the OP. I just think it's hard to judge whether or not it's evolution or devolution sight unseen.

As I say, I don't think married Lois had any more dimension than 50s "I'm gonna prove Superman is Clark Kent" Lois. Despite the efforts of guys like Cary Bates, John Byrne and Marv Wolfman to add layers to her character, she's been little more than a damsel in distress that just happens to know Clark is Superman.

Either way, they've got a couple of very talented writers on the Superman books, as well as some solid artists, so I'm just looking forward to some interesting stories, whether or not they're beholden to a patchwork continuity is secondary to me.

There was an interesting exchange on the New 52 panel at SDCC. Someone complained about DC discarding years of continuity (quotes are paraphrased, but accurate in what they mean):

Fan: You're getting rid of 70 years of history.
Other Fan: 75!
Fan: Yeah, 75
Didio: So you want us to keep ALL of it?
Fan: Well, not ALL of it...
Didio: so which years would you keep?
Fan: Uhhhhhhh.

I'll bet folks posting on this thread may have some different opinions on which years they'd keep as well. DC kept the old continuity going for many years, and how did we old timers repay that? By dropping out until Superman sells less than 15000 copies a month.

I'd be looking for new customers too!

[pauliatchy.livejournal.com]

BTW, There was meant to be a winky face after the "you DID ask for opinions" but it got autocorrected on me. Just wanted to clarify the tone of my message.

In the spirit of it, what would you keep, and what would you discard?