-
[QUOTE=Sacred Knight;5037264]No. Putting aside the New 52 as that's barely an influence anymore outside of a very few specific details, what they've done is gone back to a post-Crisis default. And that's a mistake. If they want to look back for inspiration they need to go further back, to pre-Crisis. Look to what made these properties great in the first place. It didn't just magically happen after 1986. Resting their laurels and defaulting to post-Crisis norms was never going to return them to prominence. Rebirth was never a long-term solution. And indeed sure enough its already fallen back down. Why? Because the post-Crisis default is played and tired. Sure, once upon a time the pre-Crisis norms were played too, hence why they changed things up in the first place so long ago. But I'm just talking a general inspiration to move forward to something that hopefully could be somewhat new in its own right. Not to mention that at least the pre-Crisis stuff has been on ice for nearly three decades anyway. The post-Crisis norms got a 5 year break then was thawed back out even though nothing had changed in regards to the fact it had still gone sour. There should be no surprise that the fanfare of its return in Rebirth didn't last; it was still a spoiled piece of meat they were throwing back on the burner.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Buried Alien;5037266]I would default to the way things were during the Pre-COIE Bronze Age. *Just* enough continuity to keep everything afloat, but not enough where it became a burden.
[COLOR=RED]Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)[/color][/QUOTE]
Yeah, pre-COIE would be good. More streamlined and the characters had less accumulated baggage. It would redeem a lot of them who've been pretty tainted by a lot of problematic stuff (Bruce wouldn't be an abusive asshole, Barry wouldn't have the "dead mom", Wally wouldn't have had to go through HiC, etc.).
Yeah there's a lot of good stuff that came after, but most of that has been ruined anyway and the actual comics are still available. I don't think defaulting back to pre-COIE would rule out later characters being worked back in either.
-
Personally, if they have no desire to start over from scratch again, and I'm assuming they do not, what I'd do is an event which put an end to this continuity as it stands now. Give it time first for the main titles to wrap up their stuff, then do the event. The end of which would see Earth-1985 become the main focus of the main line. Give it a new designation, maybe do a "One Year Later" type deal where you jump ahead a bit and give reason for updated costumes, tinker with some particular status quos just a taste and whatnot, and make it the main, modern day Earth. Don't worry about dates and stuff from that point forward, just do it the way Marvel does from then on out. I mean fat chance of any of that happening, but the way I see it, by the time the Crisis happened, although losing bad to Marvel (which they still are anyway), Earth-One was not nearly the rotting corpse that the post-Crisis verse is right now.
-
No, the first years of COIE were good, but by the 2000's it was bad.
-
[QUOTE=Pinsir;5037423]No, the first years of COIE were good, but by the 2000's it was bad.[/QUOTE]
I'm not arguing from a quality perspective as to why DC Universe should be restored more or less to how it was pre Flashpoint. There were a lot of great stories as well as bad, as is the case with pre Crisis and the New Fifty Two as well.
-
For the record, this is how I view DCU history in my head. It includes everything, but can ignore anything that sucks, which is what continuity should be--the stories we like without the stories that were either bad or forgettable. If explaining away the bad makes for an interesting story? Tell it. Otherwise, keep moving forward and keep spackling on more and more vaseline whenever looking back to the past ;)
[url]https://community.cbr.com/showthread.php?137083-History-of-the-DC-Universe-(Update-2020!)&highlight=History[/url]
-
[QUOTE=Bored at 3:00AM;5037573]For the record, this is how I view DCU history in my head. It includes everything, but can ignore anything that sucks, which is what continuity should be--the stories we like without the stories that were either bad or forgettable. If explaining away the bad makes for an interesting story? Tell it. Otherwise, keep moving forward and keep spackling on more and more vaseline whenever looking back to the past ;)
[url]https://community.cbr.com/showthread.php?137083-History-of-the-DC-Universe-(Update-2020!)&highlight=History[/url][/QUOTE]
Pretty much yup.
Why anyone wants to go back to a continuity that existed 30 years ago, I have no idea.
We have had endless incredible stories since then. Enjoy the good, and just don't reread or focus on the stories you don't like.
But lets keep moving forward.
Every era has piles of crap stories. And every era had amazing stories... if you cant connect with anything modern then its not the stories that are the problems, more likely your expectations are frozen in time...
And I can relate...
Not in comics...
But with say Batman films. B89 and BR are to this day my favourite... TDK was good cause of Heath, and BvS and JL had a cool Batman in Ben...
But it would be silly to just try to live in the Tim Burton era ... in that world... no you have to keep moving forward...
Let Robert deliver The Batman, and now let Flashpoint reimagine Keatons Batman ...
Comcis do the same... they keep moving forward... to constantly live in the past just cannot work unless you are just rereading the old greats, if you wanna read new stories you gotta accept new art styles, new writers voices, or at least more mature classic writer voices...
Its such a drag for this forum to constantly talking about preflashpoint as some golden era. It wasnt. It told great stories and shit stories...
Get with the times. Find writers and artists of today you dig. And go on a journey with them.
Wouldn't you get annoyed if every time dc annouced a new superman movie we only talked about how great donner's was. Or with every new Batman movie we only talked about Keaton. You can have old favourites... but you cant go recreating the same thing. New stuff... new stuff...
-
[QUOTE=Menacer;5037599]Pretty much yup.
Why anyone wants to go back to a continuity that existed 30 years ago, I have no idea.
We have had endless incredible stories since then. Enjoy the good, and just don't reread or focus on the stories you don't like.
But lets keep moving forward.
Every era has piles of crap stories. And every era had amazing stories... if you cant connect with anything modern then its not the stories that are the problems, more likely your expectations are frozen in time...
And I can relate...
Not in comics...
But with say Batman films. B89 and BR are to this day my favourite... TDK was good cause of Heath, and BvS and JL had a cool Batman in Ben...
But it would be silly to just try to live in the Tim Burton era ... in that world... no you have to keep moving forward...
Let Robert deliver The Batman, and now let Flashpoint reimagine Keatons Batman ...
Comcis do the same... they keep moving forward... to constantly live in the past just cannot work unless you are just rereading the old greats, if you wanna read new stories you gotta accept new art styles, new writers voices, or at least more mature classic writer voices...
Its such a drag for this forum to constantly talking about preflashpoint as some golden era. It wasnt. It told great stories and shit stories...
Get with the times. Find writers and artists of today you dig. And go on a journey with them.
Wouldn't you get annoyed if every time dc annouced a new superman movie we only talked about how great donner's was. Or with every new Batman movie we only talked about Keaton. You can have old favourites... but you cant go recreating the same thing. New stuff... new stuff...[/QUOTE]
The DC film analogy doesn't really work. I think comparing continuity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a more apt comparison. If you only see one you ideally won't be lost, but there is an attempt made to make a cohesive universe.
Rebirth's attempt to combine the New Fifty Two and pre Flashpoint is like trying to combine the continuities of the Toby Maguire and Andree Garfield Spiderman films.
-
Actually the best way would be to do this:
Use Pre-Flashpoint as basis and ALTER!!! certain events so that you can keep NEW52 and REBIRTH characters.
For example Superman:
start with DEATH OF SUPERMAN, use it to introduce CONNER KENT,CYBORG SUPERMAN,ERADICATOR and STEEL.
then say that one year after REIGN OF SUPERMEN JONATHAN SAMUEL KENT was born and SUPERGIRL arrived to Earth.
CONNER KENT was in YOUNG JUSTICE, but the team then disbanded and he joined the TT with Cassie,Tim and Bart and the three get the new Code-Names (Red Robin, Kid Flash and Conner also a new Code-Name)
Damian becomes new Robin,Jonathan new Superboy,Iris West II new Impulse and they are the new Young Justice together with other young Superheroes.
So you can keep Johns TT.....
-
Robin V and Impulse II only existed a couple of years before Flashpoint. They wouldn't be active yet (was Irey even born yet? She accelerated to teenage like Bart did, hence the adoption of his old codename) when the transition from YJ to Johns' TT happened.
-
[QUOTE=Masterff;5037743]Actually the best way would be to do this:
Use Pre-Flashpoint as basis and ALTER!!! certain events so that you can keep NEW52 and REBIRTH characters.
For example Superman:
start with DEATH OF SUPERMAN, use it to introduce CONNER KENT,CYBORG SUPERMAN,ERADICATOR and STEEL.
then say that one year after REIGN OF SUPERMEN JONATHAN SAMUEL KENT was born and SUPERGIRL arrived to Earth.
CONNER KENT was in YOUNG JUSTICE, but the team then disbanded and he joined the TT with Cassie,Tim and Bart and the three get the new Code-Names (Red Robin, Kid Flash and Conner also a new Code-Name)
Damian becomes new Robin,Jonathan new Superboy,Iris West II new Impulse and they are the new Young Justice together with other young Superheroes.
So you can keep Johns TT.....[/QUOTE]
That general idea is what they've been trying to do. Its not working because what you're trying to majorly alter has already been majorly altered numerous times beforehand. The foundation is already rotten, it can't stand anymore retcons on top of retcons.
I'm not saying any long term continuity is going to be perfect. Marvel's sure isn't either, you can easily poke holes there too, that's only natural the longer it lasts. But its in the way you implement your changes. Marvel in general practice does it on a gradual scale. It tends to be more subtle (not always, but again I'm talking in general). Since the first reboot with COIE, DC on the other hand generally does all-at-once, egregious shifts. At least four times now. That's the big difference and why this particular continuity has completely collapsed under its own weight of major retcons. DC justifies all these latest moves since Rebirth as "fans want their history". Okay. But at what point does that very movement become counter-productive when the history makes no freaking sense whatsoever? Where's the feeling of growth, where's the connection and investment when you can barely go back two years on some properties and make sense of the continuity?
-
Do people remember pre 52? It was literally a patch work of Pre Crisis, Post Crisis, Zero Hour changes etc
-
[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5037311]Yeah, pre-COIE would be good. More streamlined and the characters had less accumulated baggage. It would redeem a lot of them who've been pretty tainted by a lot of problematic stuff (Bruce wouldn't be an abusive asshole, Barry wouldn't have the "dead mom", Wally wouldn't have had to go through HiC, etc.).
Yeah there's a lot of good stuff that came after, but most of that has been ruined anyway and the actual comics are still available. I don't think defaulting back to pre-COIE would rule out later characters being worked back in either.[/QUOTE]
Wally also wouldn't have ever been The Flash and wouldn't even be Wally so I don't think you should be using Pre-COIE as a selling point for Wally. Or basically the entire Flash franchise which was essentially rebooted to Pre-COIE with the New 52, it just kept dead mom. Dead mom is never, ever going away.
The reason HiC sucks is because of Wally's entire post-COIE history. You ruin the character just as badly by your premise.
-
[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5037538]I'm not arguing from a quality perspective as to why DC Universe should be restored more or less to how it was pre Flashpoint. There were a lot of great stories as well as bad, as is the case with pre Crisis and the New Fifty Two as well.[/QUOTE]
A lot of Wonder Woman fans aren't going to like the idea of her no longer being a founding member of JL. Not to mention the initial Post-Crisis universe is over 30 years old at this point (it's older then I am).
I just want good stories and I've always found stories about fixing continuity inhibit that.
-
[QUOTE=Pinsir;5038582]A lot of Wonder Woman fans aren't going to like the idea of her no longer being a founding member of JL. Not to mention the initial Post-Crisis universe is over 30 years old at this point (it's older then I am).
I just want good stories and I've always found stories about fixing continuity inhibit that.[/QUOTE]
Wonder Woman is now back to being a Justice League founder after Infinite Crisis, which fixed the majority of the continuity problems that came from Crisis on Infinite Earths such as Superman's relationship with the Legion of Superheroes.
-
Honestly we need to stop rebooting and changing directions every other year, let’s just move forward and write quality stories.