Has a full reboot ever been successfully accomplished in the DCU?

[Trey Strain]

Yeah, those damn creative people, always wanting to be so infuriatingly creative instead of just being good little Xerox machines.

Look at the track record. How many reinventions have been any good and have stuck?

If a guy thinks he's so creative, he should go to Image and create his own title.

[Carabas]

Look at the track record. How many reinventions have been any good and have stuck?

If a guy thinks he's so creative, he should go to Image and create his own title.

It's superhero comics. Nothing, no matter how good, sticks. Nostalgia rules over all.

[TruthAndJustice]

Perez WANTED to begin his Wonder Woman in the past, so as to include Justice League involvement and Donna Troys rescue. DC editorial demanded he begin her as he did, which created the two biggest flaws in the run.

DC needs a reboot where editors stay in thier lane.

This doesn't surprise me but I've never heard it before. Is there a source online where Perez says this?

[CRaymond]

This doesn't surprise me but I've never heard it before. Is there a source online where Perez says this?

I spent the last 10 minutes googling to no avail. I want to say it was in a expanded conversation with the author/artist about his work on Wonder Woman's reboot, specifically the War of the Gods debacle, and the fallout before, during, and after.

[Baseman]

It's superhero comics. Nothing, no matter how good, sticks. Nostalgia rules over all.

At the same time.Who gets to decide whether or not a particular change is good? Especially these days were readers seem to be piss off no matter what you do.

[Jon Clark]

The only ones that could be judged as success stories were John Byrne & George Perez's reboots of Superman and Wonder Woman, both of which brought in a lot of new readers and creativity, but neither really sustained themselves for very long before requiring another reboot, and caused countless headaches with other characters (Donna Troy & Legion of the Superheroes being prime examples). It didn't help that most of the stories following the departures of the reboot's creators were preoccupied with bringing back elements of the pre-reboot mythology.

They tried rebooting Warlord. That flopped.

They have just rebooted Ragman.

They rebooted Hawkman, twice.

Legion has been rebooted three times.

Virtually every character that was rebooted during the New 52 has since reverted to their former incarnation.

So, why does DC think that full reboots are the way to go when they have never proven to be a path to sustainable success?

This is not to say that retcons and revisions should not be regularly employed to get rid of the barnacles that build up around these decades old characters, but why does DC keep going back to the full-reboot well when it keeps failing to deliver results?

Part of the problem is that DC rarely wants a real reboot. It takes time and patience that the market won't support.

Superman never really got a full reboot. A full reboot is taking the character back to day one and staying there. In 1986 we were given Man of Steel and then dropped into Superman's "present" with a nebulous career consisting of some Pre-Crisis stories that occurred in between what was shown in the mini. In the New 52 Morrison spent 18 issues of Action Comics covering all of Superman's career from his debut to at least 5-years-later while over in Superman's name title we pick-up in the 5-years later period again with a nebulous idea of what came before.

A true full on reboot of Superman means showing us Superman's public debut and moving forward from there. If you want Zod then you need to introduce him as someone Superman has never met. If you want Lois and Clark to get married then show a relationship developing, not having the 1st date in issue #10 as part of a 6 issue arc, having him propose 3 arcs later in issue #25 and having them get married in issue #50 with maybe a combined 20 pages spent on the relationship. It's not trying to introduce every majoe foe (Metallo, Brainiac, Mxyzptlk, Lex, Bizarro) in the first year and aping their most classic appearances.

The same with the JLA. If you are rebooting the team then you start off with a core membership and slowly build from there. If you want to introduce a new member then allow them time to become part of the team and don't try to have the whole Satellite era join within 5 or 10 issues. Don't have your second story arc deal with someone with years of resentment against the team since you haven't shown us enough history to justify that. Don't assume we need to see cosmic menaces ever arc so you can establish a cosmic rogues gallery right off the bat. Give us on panel examples of how Superman and batman develop their working relationship (or Aquaman, Diana, Barry ...) with each arc.

And accept that you can't show us day one of the JLA alongside day one of the Titans, Giffen league, etc. To do a reboot right some concepts have to be built up to. Batman can't start out a brooding loner and also have Dick Grayson with a full history as Robin behind him. Green lantern can't just be meeting the Guardians for the 1st time this month but also have Oan tech as part of the JLA base at it's founding.

[SiegePerilous02]

This doesn't surprise me but I've never heard it before. Is there a source online where Perez says this?

It wouldn't surprise me either. As one half of the creative team behind "Who is Donna Troy?" and the wedding issue, I can't imagine Perez was thrilled with Donna's history and the stories he worked on being screwed with. Wolfman has also gone on record, I believe, as saying he hated everything that happened to Donna after the Crisis.

[phantom1592]

At the same time.Who gets to decide whether or not a particular change is good? Especially these days were readers seem to be piss off no matter what you do.

This. In the late 90's I didn't hear anyone complaining about nostalgia ruining things. Captain America in armor, Thor in his stripper gear, Teen Tony, armored daredevil, Peter was the spider-clone... These were all stories that were expanding and growing the characters in new and different ways.... and are universally reviled and mocked decades later. Rebooting and restoring the status quo was considered a godsend back then and led to some of the greatest and iconic runs on the lines.

Sometimes change works... sometimes it needs to be flushed.

[Somecrazyaussie]

It depends on your definition of successful.

But my answer would be "no." I don't think they plan out their follow-through to reboots very carefully. Or, if they do, they quickly derail the plan.

And with major retcons, it rarely seems that they think through the implications of the retcons. (Changing the history of a character in a shared narrative setting has ripple effects that affect the histories of other characters. If you care about this stuff, you need to work out what those ripples are, minimize them when possible, and somehow communicate them to the readers - and to the writers and editors!)

Out of some impulse - nostalgia or fan service or something - when they enter a new continuity after a reboot, they frequently try to mash as much as they can from previous continuities into the new continuity. And really, I understand the desire to include favorite "bits" from previous authors you admire. But not at the cost of coherence for the characters or the setting. Older aspects should only be added when they contribute to, or at least don't disrupt or overcomplicate, the new versions you're trying to create; and they should be added as organically as possible. (Relatively speaking. Perfection isn't possible, but a good-faith effort is always nice to see.)

It hasn't seemed to me that that has been much of a priority for DC after reboots or major retcons. Unless Roy Thomas is involved - and no Big-Time Editor overrules him.

Crisis was somewhat successful because they KNEW they would be rebooting. The New 52, on the other hand, reeked of last minute decisions. Most of which could have been avoided if they had just sat down and discussed it. For the most part, Flashpoint was only going to be a storyline in Flash. The timeline then would have snapped back in place with minor revisions. The logical place to have done such a thing would have been with Final Crisis. Which is what Didio originally wanted, but was blocked by Levitz.

On the whole though, a reboot only ever really works in the short-term. Then, once inconsistencies appear, DC spends most of the time and energy telling stories to "fix" those problems. Rebirth is mostly one big "fix." The past two years worth of Superman comics have revolved around getting him back to how he was Pre-Flashpoint. Just with the adding of a son in Jon. So, apart from certain parts of Crisis, I'd say "not really."

[phantom1592]

Crisis was somewhat successful because they KNEW they would be rebooting. The New 52, on the other hand, reeked of last minute decisions. Most of which could have been avoided if they had just sat down and discussed it. For the most part, Flashpoint was only going to be a storyline in Flash. The timeline then would have snapped back in place with minor revisions. The logical place to have done such a thing would have been with Final Crisis. Which is what Didio originally wanted, but was blocked by Levitz.

On the whole though, a reboot only ever really works in the short-term. Then, once inconsistencies appear, DC spends most of the time and energy telling stories to "fix" those problems. Rebirth is mostly one big "fix." The past two years worth of Superman comics have revolved around getting him back to how he was Pre-Flashpoint. Just with the adding of a son in Jon. So, apart from certain parts of Crisis, I'd say "not really."

Yeah, Crisis was pretty good. It's whole concept of combine earth 1 and 2 was pretty successful. There were a couple of hiccups, but unless you were reading the entirety of the DCU at the time... they weren't THAT bad. There was a pretty strong line between 'This was pre-crisis' and 'This is post crisis'... Some had almost no changes like Green Lantern... but on the whole the goal was achieved.

I think the most successful one was probably Zero Hour. In that it wasn't very disruptive at all. The universe was rebooted... there were a couple of small changes... but they didn't disrupt the flow of the stories much at all... and a lot of people didn't even realize it till much later. Like the way Joe Chill didn't kill the Waynes and Batman had never solved that case... was really only mentioned in interviews and not the actual stories. Little things like that.

Personally I still like the superboy prime continuity punch myself, but I'm not sure i'd call it 'successful'. Still there's just something gleefully meta about visualizing a giant editor's fist punching that fourth wall and the characters acknowledging all the continuity changes around them.

new 52... rebirth... anything that comes in and just says 'everything is different... except the things that aren't... and we'll figure it out which is which in time...' Yeah, I hate that.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Yeah, Crisis was pretty good. It's whole concept of combine earth 1 and 2 was pretty successful. There were a couple of hiccups, but unless you were reading the entirety of the DCU at the time... they weren't THAT bad. There was a pretty strong line between 'This was pre-crisis' and 'This is post crisis'... Some had almost no changes like Green Lantern... but on the whole the goal was achieved.

I think the most successful one was probably Zero Hour. In that it wasn't very disruptive at all. The universe was rebooted... there were a couple of small changes... but they didn't disrupt the flow of the stories much at all... and a lot of people didn't even realize it till much later. Like the way Joe Chill didn't kill the Waynes and Batman had never solved that case... was really only mentioned in interviews and not the actual stories. Little things like that.

Personally I still like the superboy prime continuity punch myself, but I'm not sure i'd call it 'successful'. Still there's just something gleefully meta about visualizing a giant editor's fist punching that fourth wall and the characters acknowledging all the continuity changes around them.

new 52... rebirth... anything that comes in and just says 'everything is different... except the things that aren't... and we'll figure it out which is which in time...' Yeah, I hate that.

Buried Allen also pointed out that the Silver Age Reboot was successful as well. Which is something that had escaped my mind when I made my first post. That was a deliberate effort to bring in a new Flash and new Green Lantern. It also revamped several others (Although Hawkman just added another ripple that muddied waters.) That was a major reboot that not only kickstarted a new era for comics, but also helped revitalize the entire medium after declining sales. Whereas COIE helped to bring in a new creative effort at DC after most series had fallen into a slump.

Despite the fact the conclusion depicted the heroes setting off another Big Bang to fix what Parallax did to the timeline, Zero Hour didn't reboot the entire DCU (only the LoSH.) However, it allowed for futher "patches" to be brought in to fix certain continuity issues e.g. Batman now never caught his parent's killer, Metropolis was restored after Lex Luthor blasted it to the ground, and Hawkman became so convoluted he made the X-Men franchise seem simple by comparison.

Zero Hour was a great little series. Yet it raised more questions than it answered. Hence why DC were forced to bring in the concept of Hypertime. More than that, the ripples it failed to solve lingered like a fart in an elevator. Necessitating Infinite Crisis to try and "fix" everything yet again. Which is one problem DC has had for years: they are too busy looking back when they should be looking forward.

[Black Manta]

Was the latest Warlord a reboot? It seemed pretty much like the old story.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Was the latest Warlord a reboot? It seemed pretty much like the old story.

I am talking about the Post-Infinite Crisis Warlord series.

The current Warlord reappearance in Trinity seems like the old Warlord, but its being retconned as Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman's first encounter with it.

[Elmo]

No backstory or origin will ever last, ever. There will always be some sort of reboot and then another reboot decades or so later and on and on.

[Sacred Knight]

Probably just Byrne Superman and Perez Wonder Woman. Those were pretty fully committed, or at least the closest DC has ever come to being fully committed. Thus problems in terms of confusion and contradiction were at a minimum. Those would seep back in only many creators later, as the original post-Crisis models and edicts began to wear away and slowly more classic ideas began to ebb back in.