Did anyone else stop loving the DCU after Flashpoint?

[Maxi]

I've been re-reading and reading for the first stuff from the Pre-Flashpoint universe and I think that not even with Rebirth I'm regaining the passion I used to feel for this universe.

I feel like the long history gave these characters a lot more depth and personality. Even though they're restoring legacy and the hero community, it's not the same without the real history. I liked when a writer came and built up upon decades of continuity to make something even bigger. Characters lost their development and nothing much of value was made up to replace what was lost. Sometimes I feel like they are empty hollow shells of their former selves. I think the DCU is a less wonderful place without all the history. It was something unique in comics, it was a shame to lose it.

Not to start a Marvel vs. DC thread, but people always say Marvel characters are a lot more interesting than DC's which I've always said it's a lie that people who don't really read DC say. But I think after Flashpoint, they're right.

[Lightning Rider]

Rebirth has fixed some of that but not all of that. A lot of the good stories I'm reading month to month don't depend a lot on past history, but some of them are still lacking certain classic relationships. Rebirth hasn't concluded yet so we have to wait and see on that point.

Some examples would help articulate your point a little better.

[SiegePerilous02]

The lack of history hurt some things, benefited others, and/or didn't matter all that much to what I was reading. I think I would have been sadder about the loss of history if it was a history that stretched from 1938 to 2011 uninterrupted, but that wasn't the case.

I think the Titans were seriously hurt and Batman's lore couldn't work make sense because they still wanted to keep everything while also squeezing it into a shorter timeline, but Superman, Aquaman and Wonder Woman (at least compared to the crap she'd been saddled with since Rucka left the first time) benefited from a fresh start without the baggage of stories not everyone had read, most of them containing soft contradictory retcons throughout.

I don't think there is an era that can completely satisfy everyone all at once. The New 52 had some great stuff mixed in with some utter crap and mediocre stuff, but that's not that different from the universe that came before it (which itself came at the expense of another continuity).

[Maxi]

Some examples would help articulate your point a little better.

For example, I feel like every time they try to fix something, they end up creating an even bigger mess. A REAL fresh start would have been good, but it wasn't fresh. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They carred away stuff from the previous continuity. They made that "5 years after" nonsense where we didn't know what stories happened and what others didn't, and now those nebulous 5 years seem to be 10-15 now, to accomodate Jon Kent being added now to the timeline. So we have a timeline where the heroes are already 10-15 years in activity (basically the entirety of the Pre-FP timeline) but for example, Hal and Ollie barely know each other, the Titans don't have that much history, etc. It's an entire decade plus worth of basically nothing having happened.

Another example of the things that bug me from this attempt at continuity for example, in this week's Flash issue, Barry says "In all my travels into the Multiverse", which is him referencing something that didn't really happen. We didn't have any info of Barry having traveled the multiverse in this continuity before. That simply didn't happen. If we were to believe this was a reboot, then that should have happened for the first time for new readers to discover for the first time. Where's exactly the fresh start for new readers? Instead they're referencing an old story that may or may not have happened, no one really knows for sure. The characters have this sort of non-existent history that we really didn't see anywhere. What I liked about the old universe is that when something was referenced, you could go and look for the issue where that happened, even though some details were retconned, you knew that everything that was being referenced happened.

They're reintroducing concepts and relationships for the first time as if they were new, even though at least 10 years have happened in universe, making the reader wonder what did really happened in those years. They're making this weird mix of old and new history that's making everything even more confusing to follow, since you can't really go back and read how those events happened, what they're referencing are just heavily modified alternate retellings of some similar events that we didn't really read.

DC continuity wasn't perfect before Flashpoint but at least you could feel they made an effort and there was a genuine sense of history. Post-Crisis had some glitches, but they were the exception and not the rule. Now pretty much the entire continuity is a glitch. They just don't care anymore.

[SiegePerilous02]

For example, I feel like every time they try to fix something, they end up creating an ever bigger mess. A REAL fresh start would have been good, but it wasn't. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They carred away stuff from the previous continuity. They made that "5 years after" nonsense where we didn't know what stories happened and what others didn't, and now those nebulous 5 years seem to be 10-15 now, to accomodate Jon Kent being added now to the timeline. So we have a timeline where the heroes are already 10-15 years in activity (basically the entirety of the Pre-FP timeline) but for example, Hal and Ollie barely know each other, the Titans don't have that much history, etc.

Agreed. They created a big mess back in 1986, and never learned from it. The in between approach just doesn't work, best to go with either/or.

[Assam]

You're definitely not alone. MANY people left DC comics with the Nu52, and tons of the people who still read books hated what was coming out.

Myself? With the erasure of 99% of the things I loved about the DCU, including my favorite character in all of fiction, and most of the books being garbage, for the bulk of the Nu52, I was completely tuned out to anything else going on in the DCU, and just reading Aquaman. The only times this changed were when Gail Simone did another Secret Six run, when The Others got their own book, and when Cass came back in Batman and Robin: Eternal; it was only at the point of the latter's release that I started caring about the greater DCU again.

Even now, a lot of the characters and elements which have come back are pale imitations of their Pre-FP counterparts, TONS of characters, relationships and history are still missing, and the Rebirth line still only has 5 books I'm regularly pulling at current time.

2011-onward, the DCU sucks. Frankly though, while still more salvageable since things weren't outright erased, I believe the DCU has been in a state of utter crap since Identity Crisis.

[MajorHoy]

On the one hand, it was sad to lose much of DC's history.

But, on the other hand, there was a ton of dreck that needed cleaning up from DC's history.
With the New52, there was a breath of fresh air for some characters who had been weighed down by too much bad writing over the years.

[Kaijudo]

My enthusiasm for DC was already on the decline since Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, etc., but Flashpoint and the resulting New 52 just cemented it. For the first time in years, I was buying no DC books at all. With Rebirth, I'm back to buying maybe eight or nine titles, not counting minis.

[Lucky]

It took me out of it. Before Flashpoint, my main GH titles were Superboy, Supergirl, Teen Titans and Green Lantern.

Superboy was my favorite comic character. I tried his book for a while, and I quickly realized this was not the Superboy I knew and loved. I felt no emotional connection to him. I am hopeful though that they might bring back at some point though.

Supergirl just started over too. I wasn't interested in watching her adjust to Earth again. I quit reading. But I recently checked out the first few issues her Rebirth series, so I think I will be getting back into her series.

Teen Titans lost all their history together. The characters seemed different. It was a pale imitation of the comic I loved, so I stopped reading.

Green Lantern is the only comic that I am still reading. It didn't suffer much fallout from Flashpoint, so it still felt like a continuation to me.

[Lee Stone]

My decline began in 1991 with the beginning of the end of the Post-Crisis DCU that reached its culmination in 1994.



Ever since, my interest has been scattered at best, with maybe two or three titles at any one time keeping me around.

Rebirth (and Hoopla, since comics are crazy expensive now) has started to pull me back in. But my peak DCU reading period is still the mid to late '80s. Probably because I started reading DC just a few years before Crisis.

As for Flashpoint/New52...
I thought the event was pretty good (and I loved the Secret Seven), but New52 had almost nothing for me. I've never really been a fan of Jim Lee's art so the adopted 'house style' didn't interest me and everything seemed edgy and dark for no reason other than 'edgy and dark are cool'.
Post-Flashpoint felt kinda like a '90s Image/WWE interpretation of the DCU. Flashy but a bit shallow.

[Flash Gordon]

Post-Flashpoint has been great for a lot of characters.

Aquaman has been fantastic.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Yup. Took me a while to finally realize why I had grown to care less about the material DC was publishing after Flashpoint, but when it finally did click, I was surprised I hadn't realized it sooner. The universe from before Flashpoint was just all around more appealing. It felt a lot larger, had a lot more depth, was more diverse, more well-rounded and everything.

The New 52 really did nothing to address the flaws that were there before Flashpoint. It basically gave everyone a new 90s-esque coat of paint and tried to pretend that everything was better because of it. In reality, I'd say that no character or franchise really benefitted at all from the New 52. The Flash, Aqua, and Bat families were decimated. Batman and Green Lantern felt out of step with the rest of the universe and a lot of their timeline didn't make sense given the erasure of key events. Wonder Woman lost a lot of what made her feel like her classic self and a lot of what I think make her unique and iconic. Superman's personality and aesthetic overhaul in the New 52 felt like something out of a bad else worlds. The Justice League lost its sense of wonder and legacy with the whole five-year thing. The Teen Titans franchise, while in a slump before Flashpoint, basically became downright unsalvageable in the New 52. All in all, most characters just didn't act like themselves and a lot of franchises were left wanting the things they'd had before Flashpoint.

While Rebirth has fixed a number of these problems, it still hasn't come close to addressing all of them. And it really is disheartening in some regards when some franchises from as recently as the 90s have more legacy and history and depth behind them than characters who debuted in the 1930s.

[BatmanJones]

I've been re-reading and reading for the first stuff from the Pre-Flashpoint universe and I think that not even with Rebirth I'm regaining the passion I used to feel for this universe.

I did with New 52 after a few months. But, for me, Rebirth has been a perfect course correction. I've never bought more new DC books than I am lately.

[HandofPrometheus]

I started reading comics because of new 52. It was easier to jump on and seemed noob friendly. However, after dipping into pre-Flashpoint stories I came to the conclusion that new 52 was a bad choice. So much was lost. Too many characters and teams lost alot of significance. Some characters did get lucky but for what it was worth wasn't necessary. I've been enjoying some stories from the middle 80's and up and dropping thsee stories was a mistake.

[Serddar]

New 52 got me into reading comics, when I saw those #1 I said now is the time, so I'll be forever grateful for that. Only when Rebirth started I understood what the fuss was all about and what people meant by history. Now I can say New 52 had its positives for sure, people try to present it really badly, but it was not. It had its flaws as well, many books did badly, many previously important characters, but others did very well... So it all balanced itself, Rebirth is just doing great at all fronts.