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Is the purpose of the reboot solely to bring in more readers?
Or is the reboot a chance to realign the superheroes and bring them to the modern age of comics as well as the other media. If DC never removed Superman's trunks would hardcore fans be less likely to accept man of steel outfit? If DC never removed Superman's trunks and let MOS's outfit also have trunks, would the general audience be ready to accept it?
Not to mention WW's pants.
I think the reboot in general wasn't just about the costume, but to reinvigorate the whole line, make stories fresh, make the superheroes young, align them with how the media would likely portray them. Face it, comics doesn't earn as much as before, the real cash cows are the TV shows, movies, videos games and etc. If DC did not reboot the line and forced it into our throats, how would the general media be able to successfully adapt and update the characters? We can't expect Green Arrow to be wearing trunks on tv now can we.
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[QUOTE=nightrider;1183292]Is the purpose of the reboot solely to bring in more readers?
Or is the reboot a chance to realign the superheroes and bring them to the modern age of comics as well as the other media. If DC never removed Superman's trunks would hardcore fans be less likely to accept man of steel outfit? If DC never removed Superman's trunks and let MOS's outfit also have trunks, would the general audience be ready to accept it?
Not to mention WW's pants.
I think the reboot in general wasn't just about the costume, but to reinvigorate the whole line, make stories fresh, make the superheroes young, align them with how the media would likely portray them. Face it, comics doesn't earn as much as before, the real cash cows are the TV shows, movies, videos games and etc. If DC did not reboot the line and forced it into our throats, how would the general media be able to successfully adapt and update the characters? We can't expect Green Arrow to be wearing trunks on tv now can we.[/QUOTE]
I was wondering how young were the superheroes made because some of them have jobs and positions that they wouldn't reach until their late twenties early thirties.
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[QUOTE='The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n;1182553']They're doing stuff with Mickey [B][U][I]right now[/I][/U][/B].
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mouse_(TV_series)[/url]
[url]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC6qIbU1olyXQe1WOKt8UJ4hErx3D7qt8[/url]
Probably the most awesome Mickey-related thing in decades.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for that.
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[QUOTE=nightrider;1183292]Is the purpose of the reboot solely to bring in more readers?
Or is the reboot a chance to realign the superheroes and bring them to the modern age of comics as well as the other media. If DC never removed Superman's trunks would hardcore fans be less likely to accept man of steel outfit? If DC never removed Superman's trunks and let MOS's outfit also have trunks, would the general audience be ready to accept it?
Not to mention WW's pants.
I think the reboot in general wasn't just about the costume, but to reinvigorate the whole line, make stories fresh, make the superheroes young, align them with how the media would likely portray them. Face it, comics doesn't earn as much as before, the real cash cows are the TV shows, movies, videos games and etc. If DC did not reboot the line and forced it into our throats, how would the general media be able to successfully adapt and update the characters? We can't expect Green Arrow to be wearing trunks on tv now can we.[/QUOTE]
i see very little influence from new 52, mostly harley on suicide squad.
i think that showrunners are pretty good and better in updating characters and.concepts
smallville was years.before reboot and green arrow didnt wore trunks
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[QUOTE=nightrider;1183292]Is the purpose of the reboot solely to bring in more readers?
Or is the reboot a chance to realign the superheroes and bring them to the modern age of comics as well as the other media. If DC never removed Superman's trunks would hardcore fans be less likely to accept man of steel outfit? If DC never removed Superman's trunks and let MOS's outfit also have trunks, would the general audience be ready to accept it?
Not to mention WW's pants.
I think the reboot in general wasn't just about the costume, but to reinvigorate the whole line, make stories fresh, make the superheroes young, align them with how the media would likely portray them. Face it, comics doesn't earn as much as before, the real cash cows are the TV shows, movies, videos games and etc. If DC did not reboot the line and forced it into our throats, how would the general media be able to successfully adapt and update the characters? We can't expect Green Arrow to be wearing trunks on tv now can we.[/QUOTE]
I don't think there was any one sole reason for it - there were a number of different things.
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[QUOTE=Sandy Hausler;1183206]No reboot is necessary. There had been no reboots at all until the Crisis and while the Crisis caused certain continuity problems, there was no NECESSITY of another reboot. At bottom, reboots are for comic book fans, who buy them. It does not, to the best of my knowledge, increase sales from people who did not previously buy comics.
Sandy Hausler[/QUOTE]
No, but it does increase sales from people who did not previously buy DC comics (or hadn't in a while), as it provides a clear jumping-on point.
We've had many many people comment on these boards that the reboot was what brought them to DC.
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[QUOTE=Blacksun;1183340]i see very little influence from new 52, mostly harley on suicide squad.
i think that showrunners are pretty good and better in updating characters and.concepts
smallville was years.before reboot and green arrow didnt wore trunks[/QUOTE]
I think the new 52 influenced Arrow and Flash quite a bit. Same goes to constantine. Even Suicide Squad took lots of references from new 52.
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If they were to reboot once a year, they'd have a zillion new readers!
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[QUOTE=Lee Stone;1183371]If they were to reboot once a year, they'd have a zillion new readers![/QUOTE]
No, but once a decade or so wouldn't hurt.
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[QUOTE=The Darknight Detective;1182923]As was the case with [I]COIE[/I], [I]Flashpoint[/I] could have been avoided if DC sales had been comparable to Marvel's.[/QUOTE]
But the thing is, Marvel has [B]ALWAYS[/B] had higher numbers than DC the exception of things like [I]Watchmen[/I] or [I]Dark Knight[/I]. I kind of wonder if DC doesn't have an image problem that simply making the characters more realistic isn't going to fix. The whole point of the [I]COIE[/I] was to streamline the universe and make it more believable. But Marvel was still beating them in terms of numbers. It's sort of like with Microsoft. They became the standard and everybody just kind of took them for granted. To some degree, DC never got over the SA. Even after removing a lot of those elements. They put them back in an effort to appease the old school fans (in all fairness, myself being one of them) and it didn't take. Marvel gets a realism pass by default. Whether or not they did anything to earn it. I think shows like [I]Arrow [/I]and [I]Flash [/I]help. So did the Nolan Batman movies. But it's not a long term fix. I think DC needs to pull in the same kind of numbers for their movies, especially for the harder to believe characters like Superman, in order for things to really turn around. I don't know if the current DCCU can do that.
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[QUOTE=superduperman;1183484]But the thing is, Marvel has [B]ALWAYS[/B] had higher numbers than DC the exception of things like [I]Watchmen[/I] or [I]Dark Knight[/I]. I kind of wonder if DC doesn't have an image problem that simply making the characters more realistic isn't going to fix. The whole point of the [I]COIE[/I] was to streamline the universe and make it more believable. But Marvel was still beating them in terms of numbers. It's sort of like with Microsoft. They became the standard and everybody just kind of took them for granted. To some degree, DC never got over the SA. Even after removing a lot of those elements. They put them back in an effort to appease the old school fans (in all fairness, myself being one of them) and it didn't take. Marvel gets a realism pass by default. Whether or not they did anything to earn it. I think shows like [I]Arrow [/I]and [I]Flash [/I]help. So did the Nolan Batman movies. But it's not a long term fix. I think DC needs to pull in the same kind of numbers for their movies, especially for the harder to believe characters like Superman, in order for things to really turn around. I don't know if the current DCCU can do that.[/QUOTE]
I think Marvel's sales are a point of reference, but I doubt specifically beating or meeting Marvel's sales is the specific goal. Rather some level of profit that involves high sales and lower costs.
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[QUOTE=manofsteel1979;1183116]As for if it could have been avoided...yes...it could have...had the people in charge had made smarter choices after INFINITE CRISIS. When your flagship character-namely Superman- who was starting to have a muddled continuity before IC-has an even more muddled one afterwards...well you have a problem.The powers that be thought the answer was taking Pre-Crisis/Post-Crisis and Donner-verse, smushing them all together, saying it all counts, essentially creating a multiple choice origin for Superman with no attempt for clarification...among other issues. At the time I thought it was a good idea...but looking back, Superman either needed the type of reboot he got with the New 52, or DC picking either the Pre-Crisis Superman or the Post-Crisis template and continuity for Superman and go from there. In fact for all the criticism DiDio has gotten for "not listening to fans" or "ignoring this fanbase or that" well...post IC, DiDio and co tried in a way to please both fans of the Pre and Post COIE eras across the whole line continuity wise...and well, it became a huge, ungodly, sloppy top heavy mess that was collapsing under it's own weight, basically pleasing no one ultimately and driving away readers.
By 2011, it was too late and something drastic needed to be done. Could a mere renumbering, with all star creative teams and a digital push combined with a softer reboot (like maybe a little tweaking to Superman that uncluttered his history) worked the same? I used to think It would have, but given the facts that have come out since, I'm not so sure. Heck for all we know, that could have been the original plan, but WB could have demanded more of a clean slate at the 11th hour. Remember the confusion for the status of the Titans ,and the early interviews by Lobdell for the SUPERBOY series where he said that his series would continue from the previous continuity for Kon-El .Bob Wayne was going around to retailers stressing that the New 52 was a relaunch and NOT a reboot.
That all seemed to suddenly change just before the books hit the stands. The narrative from Wayne started to suggest a Semi-reboot at the very least. Not to mention the stories that some creators who were working on those books didn't know they were necessarily working on a line wide reboot until it was announced, and many were having their scripts rewritten by editorial without notice, and even artwork being redone at the last minute to reflect the newer looks. The early previews of SUPERMAN #1 showing a more traditional Clark Kent with neater hair and an older physical appearance than what was printed, and the obvious art changes to Superman's costume in the first issue of SWAMP THING (one panel showing Supes from the distance very obviously shows him in the classic suit, but was recolored in the hopes no one would notice) stick out in my mind. Very curious indeed.[/QUOTE]
I think in terms of Superman, one of the biggest influences on the constant origin problems was [I]Smallville[/I]. The show did a good job combining elements of the pre-and post-Crisis universes and DC wanted to do the same thing. So we got [I]Birthright[/I], which I loved and to this day wish they'd kept. But a lot of post-Crisis fans didn't like the fact that their version had been taken away and you can't just shoehorn a new origin into a continuity that was too ingrained into the old one. Too many elements of already established continuity were built around the post-Crisis origin. Clark being a jock in high school, the cyborg building his body out of the birthing matrix and Lois figuring out he was a fake by pointing out how Clark didn't have most of his powers growing up. Most of [I]Return of Superman[/I] would have to have been thrown out for [I]Birthright[/I] to work. Then there was the timeline issues surrounding his first appearance. Which was hinted to be after 9/11. Not really workable when you're trying to establish that he's been around for a decade and it only happened two years earlier.
Plus, [I]Smallville [/I]wasn't exactly universally loved by all Superman fans. A lot of people didn't like what they saw as essentially a soap opera being the basis for their favorite comic. I loved [I]Smallville;[/I] I loved [I]Birthright[/I]. But you don't get to come in after the fact and say the last fifteen years no longer count because you want to do this now. It was handled poorly and DC paid the price for it. Keep in mind, we didn't even know what his origin was for like four years after [I]IC[/I]. And I think part of that was because DC didn't either. So when [I]Secret Origin[/I] came out in 2009 it tried too hard to be all things to all fans and fell on their faces because pre-and post-Crisis fans want polar opposite things. I also think that by the mid-nineties, a lot of people at DC suddenly realized that stripping away all the SA stuff from Superman took away a lot of the toys they had to play with. So they started to try to find ways to put some of them back in the sandbox. We got Kandor back as early as 1996. And the electrical powers and Brainiac 13 are clearly the results of people who were out of ideas. The [I]Return to Krypton[/I] storyline where they tried to put the SA Krypton into the post-Crisis universe was sort of the straw that broke the camels back at that point. They wanted to use the SA again and they were determined to find an excuse to do so.
This is why I support the New52 origin. It's simple and clean enough to follow yet open enough you can put some of the older elements into it without being campy. I'm just sorry everyone else had to get rebooted as well to get it. It almost seems like Superman is sort of holding everyone else back to some degree, much as I hate to say that. I think most of what came after [I]COIE[/I] was just to fix him too.
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[QUOTE=Darrin Kelley;1181200]What they should have done was not the easy route. It would have taken abandoning the destructive business practices of the 90's and focused on quality stories as their main selling points. Instead of sales tricks like reboots, events, and mega-crossovers.
The comic book buying public wants simple honesty in what they intend to buy. And it's more than time that was catered to.[/QUOTE]
Comics buyers do not reward that behavior. They reward mega events, reboots and cross-overs.
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[QUOTE=Xon-Ur;1181892]From what I've read here and there over the years, this reboot was not even planned until higher ups (WB) ordered it to be done.
It was at that point that Flashpoint was re-written to reboot the entire DCU as opposed to the summer storyline it was originally planned to be.
It's also been revealed that a number of titles were planned with the teams used post-Flashpoint before there was ever talk of a reboot. Those titles are:
Justice League (Johns and Lee)
[B]Batman (Snyder/Capullo)[/B]
Aquaman (Johns/Reis)
Green Lantern (was to remain unchanged)
Red Lanterns
Swamp Thing (Snyder)
The Flash (Johns)
[/QUOTE]
Snyder maybe(on Tec though) but not Capullo. It was on the Fatman on Batman podcast where Greg said that it was down to drawing AvX or Batman. He only picked Batman because DC told him about their plans for the NU52 reboot.
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[QUOTE=GlennSimpson;1181713]It's just that the stories themselves aren't necessarily well-written stories. But by golly they've got the continuity right![/QUOTE]
Hi Glen,
I get what you are saying, but I have to respectfully disagree with you. It seems to me that you are championing the cause that a long and storied continuity can weigh a potentially good story down, perhaps even ruining it. I submit that this all depends on the writer and editor. A great example of a writer making DECADES of continuity work for him would be James Robinson. Along with the much missed Archie Goodwin, Robinson made STARMAN one of the finest examples of comic book literature ever. This was done without disregarding good and bad stories from DC continuity, but rather by using old stories as building blocks to what their vision ultimately was in creating the character and world of Jack Knight (Gads, I miss Jack!). Or what about Waid on FLASH? Goyer and Johns on JSA? Thomas on All Star Squadron? Brubaker on Captain America? As a reader, I appreciate characters that exist in a four colored world that has HISTORY. There is something quite generic and uninspired about total reboots every three-five years because editorial or a star writer can't be bothered with adding to an intricate and beautiful tapestry.
The above now said, I do acknowledge that I am now in a seeming minority with my opinion on this matter, at least on this board.