The Big Picture: Continanity: Rebooted

[WolfThomas]

Me too, but they have Paul Cornell writing it and I have the utmost faith in him. He wrote the Doctor Who episodes "Fathers Day" and "Human Nature/Family of Blood" two parter. Also Captain Britain and MI13 and Knight and Squire. Loved those books, very smart writing, good characters and just fun stories. If anyone can do those teams justice, it's him.

I'm well aware of his writing credential "Captain Britain and MI13" is one of my favourite books written and was cut short way too soon.

I wouldn't be annoyed if they'd inserted the Authority and/or Stormwatch right into the DCnU but this new Stormwatch is strange, it's basically replacing JSA (so annyoing two seperate groups of fans) in the history. While at least Midnighter and Apollo are still gay, they're not the adopted parents of Jenny Quantum (it appears the Engineer is), which is kind of a step back. They're weren't just gay characters they were also fully functional parents, which is an exceptionally rare combination in comics.

Spoiler: Also they've given them terrible new costumes, Apollo hass lost his iconic hair and halo and Midnighter looks so...meh. What was wrong did they think someone would mistake him for Batman?

I'm more pissed with what they've done with the Authority/Stormwatch.

Strangely enough as a fan who dropped out after some 50 issues into The Authority, I'm rather interested in picking up the new Stormwatch.

Heh, I never said I wouldn't read it. Just worried about the above stuff. I do find the idea of Stormwatch pre-dating the Justice League awesome, but it's got to piss of some hardcore DC fans.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Just a couple of ocmments -

1) Comics will probably never come back to the grocery store or corner shop. They're just not efficient use of space for volume or purchase. But that's okay, because Bob is right - you should get your weekly/monthly fix via digital and then if you really want a paper copy, buy a trade.

2) After years of living in Australia, hearing an American accent is strange to me. Hearing a Boston accent has now become practically incomprehensible to me. It did my head in.

 

[Stalydan]

Wondered when he was going to start talking about the 52. Good episode.

BTW, for those of you are are interesting in DC comics a bunch of stuff is being release TOMORROW including Batgirl, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Stormwatch and Grant Morrison's new Golden Age, champion of the oppressed take on Superman in Action Comics (among other things). Justice League came out last week and the best of the new #1s are going to be released over the next 3 weeks. And like said the whole thing is being release digitally, via Comixology.com mainly I think.

Moviebob said people always ask if they want to get into comics where do they start? Well folks, you start NOW!

Will need to read the Batman stuff because it's not "continuity madness" that puts me off but the damn cross-overs with the other comics I have no interest in reading. I dislike about half the Justice League members, never got into Wonder Woman, Green Lantern is just a character that makes me a bit bored from time to time and Superman I can't get into because of Kryptonite overuse :/

NOW THEN. I will be reading the Batman stuff and checking out Young Justice and The Flash. But if I hear good things about the rest of the series, I will have to find them because I really do want to get into it D:

 

[Craazhy]

Bob's brain was apparently raped the previous night by The Fighter, The Departed and the Red Sox's Green Monster mascot.

 

[Something Amyss]

I agree with the whole thing about Reboot problems, but the thing is, you don't need to get into old characters and concepts to bring up continuity.

If you're doing your job right, the reboot will have continuity by itself. And after a couple of years, there comes an entry barrier. As time goes on, you will have a larger and larger entry barrier. This means that the simplicity can only be maintained for a finite period, anyway. So unless you want to do reboots every five years or so, you have problems.

Comics are bound to create continuity unless they're really bad or one-shots. You can't avoid it.

Also, HELL YES to making them more available. There's no comic shop around here anymore, period.

 

[Brandchan]

I wholeheartedly agree with all your points. I read comics in middle/high school then stopped for about 10 years. I got a job at the local comic shop at one point (for my knowledge of manga) and was pretty intimidated by comics at this point. But I was curious enough that I started to pick some stuff up. I started with easy stuff like The Walking Dead and Invincible and moved on to other independent comics. But I was still having a hard time with DC and Marvel there was just so much.

Until on day one of the guys at work talked about this comic coming out soon called Nextwave: Agents of Hate. And I was like OMG, I need to read this, it sounds so cracktastic! So, I did and it was. Then I jumped into some other Marvel titles like the Avengers, and Daredevil. These were actually pretty easy for me to get into because from my teen love of X-men I had read a lot of Marvel.

DC was the tricky one. I had never really read any DC titles, but working at a comic shop I felt I was missing out on what people were talking about. So I just jumped into 52. I guess 30 or so issues of it were out at that point so I just read them all. Just like you said when there was stuff I was interested in (ex: Black Adam) I just went on Wikipedia and looked it up (which got me to read some JSA) and some of the stuff I cared less about (ex: Adam Strange) I just glossed over it. It didn?t make a big difference in my enjoyment of the book.

 

[atomicmrpelly]

Woah, where did the ridiculously thick Boston accent come from? lol

Dr Who sort of does reset the continuity every time he regenerates, everything that happened still happened it just becomes mostly irrelevant. Kinda the same thing.

 

[atomicmrpelly]

Woah, where did the ridiculously thick Boston accent come from? lol

Dr Who sort of does reset the continuity every time he regenerates, everything that happened still happened it just becomes mostly irrelevant. Kinda the same thing.

 

[team star pug]

The deadpan ending really made me chuckle.

 

[DiMono]

Why are there more comments about his accent than there are comments about the content of the video? Yes, he spoke with an accent. Move along please.

I was hoping he'd cover the constant reboot hardon Hollywood as right now as well. Spiderman is getting a reboot after only 3 movies (well, 2 movies and a bowel movement). You know Batman's going to get rebooted once Christopher Nolan finishes up his trilogy. Superman's getting rebooted after 1 movie an a lot of time off. Reboots for a reason are good; reboots for the sake of milking the public for further profits are not.

 

[runnerbelow]

Woo! Bob's letting us hear his accent again, for the first time since the 20th episode of the Game Overthinker.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Bob is rebooting The Big Picture.
He has now always used this accent.

Great comment. I shall now protest this change to the continuity... ON THE INTERNET!

I just can't hear what he's talking about past the urge to ask if he wants to take a waak in the paak.

XD

 

[MovieBob]

But yeah, did Power Girl get cancelled or is she outside the reboot thing or what?
Universes die around her and she just keeps on living.

They only JUST started talking about it, but DC is actually keeping "Earth 2" around as part of the reboot, only now it'll be exclusively (so far) used as an alt-universe book where James Robinson's "Justice Society" book takes place. Power Girl, and apparently most of the 'main' popular JSA characters are going there. No idea how that works out.

 

[uberhippy]

Great Episode Bob, I like how you addressed people 'wanting to get into comics' It's always been an issue that's a bit of a pet Peeve with me..
I got into comics by going to my local library, and reading almost every comic in stock, I liked some, didnt like others, found out what was interesting, what I liked etc..
I then went to another library and did the same thing, and am currently making my way through sections from a third.
I've started buying my own comics now that I know, I actually enjoy them!
I never got why people 'wanted to get into comics'. It's just a literary medium, the goal of which is enjoyment, not a from-memory continuity web. People should just read what they find enjoyable & continue with it. Just like any medium, you simply have to start and follow what you find of interest
(oh, and realise that is 99.999% Impossible to start from the start on each comic, there's just too much. Wiki EVERYTHING!! It helped me out & all pages are brilliant!!)

ps. Gotta love the good ol' Broklyn accent

 

[uberhippy]

heh, speaking of DW and continuity...
look up 'River Song'
Not everyone is pleased with that fairly unusual time travel idea

I adore River Song! I think she's a fresh new twist on the sires
I honestly think that she's one of the most interesting, inventive & smart charichters in the whole DW universe

and now that the show is properly popular, they can 98% gaurentee the next season will happen (as distingt from origional which was touch & go for most of its life, aka cancelled 3 times!!) it means they can have a full charichter arc for her spanning multiple doctors (hopefully)

 

[EternalFacepalm]

That's what you doin'?

I think this episode was unintentionally hilarious to me.

 

[joeman098]

WOOOOOO hold on the phone i this reboot of big picture sucks! bring back the old story with the guy with the normal voice!1!@!#2131klashdsad


internet shows
Are
WEeerrid!


lol bob i love you

 

[Abedeus]

Problem is, reading about a comic is not fun. Reading them is fun. Having to jump from comic to Wiki then comic then wiki is a chore deprived of all the fun.

 

[Urh]

Digital download

As opposed to analogue download? It wasn't until my second viewing of this episode that I caught that silly little phrase.

 

[Reveras]

Bob I would like to have sex with your accent and I am a man. Ty.