Jack the Potato said:
Oh, THANK GOD for this. Trying to retcon all of the insane crap the DC universe has done since the silver age has caused a LOT of really stupid plotlines to develop. I tried to pick up a few DC comics at one point but couldn't get into it because of how convoluted everything had gotten. Maybe now with "#1" I can get into it. Hopefully this will mark a drastic improvement in the collective stories' consistency, creativity, and plots. Anyone who doesn't think this is the right way to go is either WAY too attached to their comics or just a really, REALLY cynical person.
For the record? Dan DiDio is BEHIND most of those idiotic plotlines you're talking about, and he's the primary advocate of this shift. I'm not that big of a comic reader or anything, I just thought I'd note that your faith in the man who gave us Countdown may be misplaced.
comadorcrack said:
Soooo..... this....
In all honesty, best thing for them. The ultimate series was the best idea Marvel have had in the last decade. Start it all from scratch get new people interesting in comics, so they don't have to go through all the bullshit continuity.
Yeah, but you know what happens?
Yes, we start from scratch, but then eventually the continuity just gets bloated and messy all over again. Because there's
so many different sets of books that they're rebooting
simultaneously, it gets bloated at an accelerated rate--just like the Ultimate universe. Starts out on a really strong note, yes, with things like Ultimate Spider Man, which asked some really fun questions about what would happen if a high-schooler suddenly had the responsibility that came with superpowers, and GREAT stories come out of it.
But it goes downhill fast in a couple of years with stuff like The Ultimates, where the story is more concerned with raunchy sex scandals and daytime soap drama than stories about superheroes. Concepts that seemed promising go awry. Then crossovers start happening, event comics crop up as they decide they have to fix "problems" and need a huge story arc to make it come together. In the case of Ultimatum, Marvel actually tried to reboot it AGAIN because they'd piled up so much continuity over the time the universe had been created and they wanted to start--AGAIN--from square 1 to bring in new readers.
I guess I'd fall under the header of "cynical." Based on DC's track record for reboots and what I've seen in these continuity shifts, I just don't expect that much good to come of this sort of thing. Marvel did start the Ultimate universe, yes, but they also kept the regular books and their continuing stories around, so whenever they screwed up with the Ultimate books you at least had that to fall back on. Comic continuity is crazy, yeah, but... then again we have Wikipedia, and in my experience most good stories are self-contained enough not to actually fall back on 40 years of continuity. I don't recall many times when I've had to actually
know about the different people who've been Robin over the years, or that Oracle used to be Batgirl until the Joker shot her in the spine in order to get at Commissioner Gordon, et cetera. I pop in Batman: Arkham Asylum, I see him talking with Oracle over radio, and I put it together that she's Batman's information support--which is just about all I need to know. Done. See? Not hard.
Then again what they did with Emerald Dawn was the best thing that ever happened to The Green Lantern, so who am I to argue it? Maybe that's what this'll be for Aquaman, and Superman. Maybe it
will inject new life into the characters and it won't be so bad after all. DiDio can screw this up six ways from south, but, heck, if Geoff Johns is at the top of this food chain to keep things under control, you could do a lot worse. Besides that, for the most part I don't know all that much about anything beyond the characters' origins
anyway, I'm not that interested in what's happening
now, so... not that sure what I'm complaining about or trying to defend in the old continuity. Certainly they could do with some spring cleaning to deal with some of the mess DiDio
did make, laughable concepts like all the other dimensions and the intergalactic, cosmic powers that keep poking their heads into things and blowing the books out of proportion...
A part of it, I guess, is that I don't really want to see these characters as "younger selves" all that much. I feel like I'm being pandered to, somehow, being in that early 20's range that they seem to want to shoot for. I'm actually really sick of seeing kids getting all the leading roles in movies these days, and pine for 30+ year old actors in major action films. Likewise, I prefer a Superman or Batman that's in their late 30's or older, and felt like some of the best stories I've read were the ones that saw them in their latter years--looking at Kingdom Come, here.
That's not to say that would be a smart approach for a reboot or anything, it's just that I kind of prefer the characters in their current state. I prefer to see them move forward and grow rather than backtrack and re-tread old issues, which is what I see DC doing with this if they do examine younger versions of their characters. Great, we get to re-live the death of Batman's parents for the
millionth time, as if we hadn't seen enough of that in the movies and as if they couldn't stop flashing back to that enough already. Great, Superman and Lois Lane are going to have
another stupid love triangle. Hal Jordan's about to get his own movie, where we're seeing his origin and everything--and they're going to inevitably release a comic book explaining it in the new universe too, not too long afterward. If it isn't
exactly the same, it'll confuse people, but if it is, it's a pointless waste of time that they have to get out of the way.
Eh. Whatever. Nothing to do about it but see how they turn out, grab some popcorn, and watch the show. I just figured I'd throw in my two cents.
