Is it time for DC to move away from "Everything is canon"

[Morgoth]

The only way to fix this is to make a complete reboot of the line. And there's no chance they're gonna do it, at least not anytime soon. The maximum you're gonna get is Absolute DC.
So it's pretty much an unsolvable problem, and quite frankly, it's not like they really want to solve it. Moreover, I doubt audience actually want it, considering New 52 and 5G experience.

[PurpleGlovez]

Would it really be hard to give everyone a streamlined sequence of events to remember?

This is what bewilders me to no end. Why is it so difficult to just lay out the basic sequence of events for each major franchise, anchor it to a broad timeline, and stick to it. A professional editor who is well-versed in DC lore should be able to do this easily. Why on earth does there have to be so much confusion and nonsense?

[Stick Figure]

I focus on current storylines and just don’t worry about anything older than a decade. I don’t think I could handle thinking about stories older than that. Just give me the basics & im good.

[phonogram12]

I focus on current storylines and just don’t worry about anything older than a decade. I don’t think I could handle thinking about stories older than that. Just give me the basics & im good.

Probably the smartest way to do it. But then there's a person or two wondering why some obscuro story from 40 years is no longer canon.

[scary harpy]

I don't see any way out of this outside of another hard reboot. Didio and company effed everything up for the last 20 years. The only way to fix it might be to just start all over. At this point they can't even blame a Crisis event for why they don't have a stable continuity.

I agree.

A hard reboot is the only thing DC has not tried...and, clearly, a hard reboot is what they do not want to do under any circumstances.

I gave up hope.

The only way to fix this is to make a complete reboot of the line. And there's no chance they're gonna do it, at least not anytime soon. The maximum you're gonna get is Absolute DC.
So it's pretty much an unsolvable problem, and quite frankly, it's not like they really want to solve it. Moreover, I doubt audience actually want it, considering New 52 and 5G experience.

Ditto.

[scary harpy]

I think something like Rebirth could also do it, they would just to put someone in charge of mapping out what is canon, what isn't, and how it fits together.

The current approach of mixing post crisis, with new 52, a bit of pre crisis and the personal head canons oh the writers and editors is just a mess.

I repeat...

If DC could have done this, I think they would have by now.

I don't think anyone is capable of doing this.

[skyvolt2000]

I repeat...

If DC could have done this, I think they would have by now.

I don't think anyone is capable of doing this.

It can be done however for it to happen DC has to STOP making new folks. At least for awhile.

You want to do the history of Bruce Wayne-everyone that plays apart in that has to be in place.

You would also have to deal with ages of the characters.

Then you would have to go through every single character.

You can't dismiss say Keith Roberts White-who is Perry White's son before New 52. He played some roles in Superman books and he would be one of MANY you would have to explain where is he. Since he had not been seen in now 24 years.

It can be done but nobody would want to do all that work and have to decide what is canon and what is not.

[Jcogginsa]

DC shouldn't make a big deal about "fixing continuity", and instead focus on just telling good stories.

At the end of the day, no matter what the official stance is, Continuity is a matter of opinion with no hard rules. Within the big 2 superhero comics, it's impossible for it to be anything else.

That was true in the post crisis era, just as much as it is now.

[marhawkman]

This is what bewilders me to no end. Why is it so difficult to just lay out the basic sequence of events for each major franchise, anchor it to a broad timeline, and stick to it. A professional editor who is well-versed in DC lore should be able to do this easily. Why on earth does there have to be so much confusion and nonsense?

the issue is.... editorial couldn't get their act together. the only continuity destruction with even half decent planning was the first one. New 52: had a full reboot of some lines... but not others.... hOW?!?!!?

Also New 52.... barely even talked about anything but Earth 1. Why??

[CaptCleghorn]

DC shouldn't make a big deal about "fixing continuity", and instead focus on just telling good stories.

At the end of the day, no matter what the official stance is, Continuity is a matter of opinion with no hard rules. Within the big 2 superhero comics, it's impossible for it to be anything else.

That was true in the post crisis era, just as much as it is now.

At this point, Superman and Batman are basically mythic characters like Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes who have certain events and adversaries in their lifetimes to content with but details get confused and expressed differently. Over eighty years for each and thousands of comic books. They don't all tie in. Set up rough outlines and major markers and let each creative team have fun.

[HsssH]

the issue is.... editorial couldn't get their act together. the only continuity destruction with even half decent planning was the first one. New 52: had a full reboot of some lines... but not others.... hOW?!?!!?

Also New 52.... barely even talked about anything but Earth 1. Why??

Earth 2 got like 100 issues in total.

[Stick Figure]

Probably the smartest way to do it. But then there's a person or two wondering why some obscuro story from 40 years is no longer canon.

I never get that. Then I see comments like “This story has been done over & over.” Or I’ve seen this before.” If you consume so many decades of comics, of course you’ve seen everything. I love the X-Men but I wouldn’t touch the stuff from the 80’s even though I know it’s a key period. I mean enjoy yourself but I just can’t deal with timelines that go back 30 or 40 years.

[Aahz]

DCU: Rebirth #1 is a major reason why we are in this mess.

Because of the way they did it, if they had done "secret history of the DCU" or "secret origins" clarifying what is canon and what isn't, there wouldn't be the mess we have now.

[marhawkman]

Because of the way they did it, if they had done "secret history of the DCU" or "secret origins" clarifying what is canon and what isn't, there wouldn't be the mess we have now.

Yeah, editorial couldn't publish such a book... since the editors hadn't made the decisions needed to establish such a thing. which was a massive problem.

[Aahz]

Yeah, editorial couldn't publish such a book... since the editors hadn't made the decisions needed to establish such a thing. which was a massive problem.

I mean there are characters where you can mostly can handwave it, but in some cases the histories of the characters in the new 52 are so different from pre crisis that it doesn't work (for example in case of Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain and lot of their characters from that era).

And with characters that were introduced in the new 52, it is even more awkward (I mean how makes Duke Thomas connection to Zero Year any sense, even if you somehow cram the events in the early days of the Pre Flashpoint timeline, Duke would have to be the age of Dick to make that work).

And what really annoys me is when they keep making references to pre flashpoint runs, while completely ignoring other events from that run (like in the current Nightwing series).