Your DC-Only controversial opinions (part II)...

[byrd156]

It’s factual to me. There’s definitely some truth to continuity being overrated. All of you want to be slaves to it. Me? Give me compelling stories and great art. Everything else is irrelevant to me.

I want to read stories about heroes standing up for what's right while being fully realized and fleshed out. It's hard for that to happen if characterizations are swapped out issue to issue or arc to arc. If there's no continuity why would any character stay the same writer to writer? Just saying continuity doesn't matter makes me think that you like each panel or page to feature a different character or line of dialogue that doesn't make any sense to the initial conflict of whatever story. Continuity is the unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over a period of time. It isn't some end all be all prison for storytelling. You need a natural flow/progress for any form of story telling to work. Saying it isn't needed is basically saying the stories we read won't matter because it won't end up going anywhere or building off of what came before. A story arc about Batman learning to throw a batarang for the first time doesn't need to be brought up every time he pulls one out to throw it. A writer deciding to reference it through imagery/iconography or similar dialogue is nice and rewarding for readers who picked up that past story but isn't necessary. You see it homaged or referenced and it reminds you of the emotions, trials, and tribulations of that last adventure, it makes it mean something.

[kilderkin]

It’s factual to me. There’s definitely some truth to continuity being overrated. All of you want to be slaves to it. Me? Give me compelling stories and great art. Everything else is irrelevant to me.

Opinions can be based on fact, they themselves cannot a fact

It may be correct to say your opinion agrees with another one

That still does not make it a fact, a fact can be proven by external evidence ( or disproven)

Opinions cannot be as someone could simply be lying or speaking hyperbolically

Opinions can vary in validity and relevance

[DrNewGod]

YJ toon is the best of any and all other versions of Superboy.

[superduperman]

yeah, it seems DC is desperately needing an Ultimate style alternate universe. they keep pretending to try and sorta maybe go that route... but can't quite pull the trigger.

The biggest reason that nu52 sucked... was the timeline. Cramming 4+ robins into a 5 year window. Deciding on a whim as they went along what was still Canon and what was reinvented...

Ultimates did it well. They started over from the beginning and just ran onward. Ultimate Avengers is formed... FF is formed... Parker is bitten by the spider... X-Men were already established, but it still started out as a fresh updated take on the marvel universe.

The closest I've seen DC try that is either All-Star Batman... or maybe earth 2. But that one was a whole new characters and not just a 'reboot' or 'restart'.

That's what the Earth One franchise was supposed to be but the books came out so infrequently that it just never really got off the ground. Then New 52 happened and you had two 20 year old Supermen running around. And a lot of fans hated the creative liberties taken with some of the characters. DC has tried so many out of continuity efforts that just never panned out. People tend to forget that All Star Superman was originally supposed to be an anthology series where a creator takes over the book for a while. But Morrison's run ran so long they just let it be his thing. I kind of wish they would go back to something like that. Part of the problem with making New 52 an Ultimates line is there are a lot of characters that are more or less the same as they were during New 52. Does someone like Batwoman, for instance, need a New 52 book? Or even Batman himself? He still has his New 52 origin as far as I know. Characters like Superman or Wonder Woman for whom New 52 made dramatic changes would benefit from something like that than someone like Green Lantern who more or less got to keep his pre-Flashpoint history. Anyone else think DC history is a trainwreck?

[Stanlos]

It was bizarre to reboot everything with 52 only to retell the same stories a la DOOMSDAY. What was the point?

[Robanker]

It was bizarre to reboot everything with 52 only to retell the same stories a la DOOMSDAY. What was the point?

The point was "who cares, the money's still green."

It was a problem even back in '86. The reboot was a lie you could sell new fans that they could jump in and be on the same page as everyone else, but whenever something old sounded cool, it was brought back. Dick was still Nightwing in 86. Blackest Night still happened in 2011. DC didn't care. It was a cash grab and excuse for the powers that be to change things that they couldn't get away with otherwise (removing Wally West, divorcing Lois and Clark, making Batman the first and most important hero because he sells more, aging down and trimming sidekicks so-- God forbid-- Batman wouldn't be in his 30s, getting rid of the underpants for everyone, and so on).

[C_Miller]

That's what the Earth One franchise was supposed to be but the books came out so infrequently that it just never really got off the ground. Then New 52 happened and you had two 20 year old Supermen running around. And a lot of fans hated the creative liberties taken with some of the characters. DC has tried so many out of continuity efforts that just never panned out. People tend to forget that All Star Superman was originally supposed to be an anthology series where a creator takes over the book for a while. But Morrison's run ran so long they just let it be his thing. I kind of wish they would go back to something like that. Part of the problem with making New 52 an Ultimates line is there are a lot of characters that are more or less the same as they were during New 52. Does someone like Batwoman, for instance, need a New 52 book? Or even Batman himself? He still has his New 52 origin as far as I know. Characters like Superman or Wonder Woman for whom New 52 made dramatic changes would benefit from something like that than someone like Green Lantern who more or less got to keep his pre-Flashpoint history. Anyone else think DC history is a trainwreck?

I think the main issue with the Earth One universe is that there was never any consistency in story. You have a semi-traditional, modern updated Superman, a really strange paramilitary Batman, an AU take on Teen Titans that doesn't fit anywhere else with the rest of the stuff and a treatise on Wonder Woman that seems to have been shoehorned into the Earth One title line. I don't dislike the idea of doing regular OGNs to fulfill niche of the Ultimate Universe, but it should have been a universe and they should have come out more consistency. A new one four times a year would have been great.

[Agent Z]

I think the main issue with the Earth One universe is that there was never any consistency in story. You have a semi-traditional, modern updated Superman, a really strange paramilitary Batman, an AU take on Teen Titans that doesn't fit anywhere else with the rest of the stuff and a treatise on Wonder Woman that seems to have been shoehorned into the Earth One title line. I don't dislike the idea of doing regular OGNs to fulfill niche of the Ultimate Universe, but it should have been a universe and they should have come out more consistency. A new one four times a year would have been great.

Earth One was never marketed as a separate shared universe IIRC. Just a brand name for fresh continuity books.

[superduperman]

I think the main issue with the Earth One universe is that there was never any consistency in story. You have a semi-traditional, modern updated Superman, a really strange paramilitary Batman, an AU take on Teen Titans that doesn't fit anywhere else with the rest of the stuff and a treatise on Wonder Woman that seems to have been shoehorned into the Earth One title line. I don't dislike the idea of doing regular OGNs to fulfill niche of the Ultimate Universe, but it should have been a universe and they should have come out more consistency. A new one four times a year would have been great.

EO GL doesn't appear to even take place in the same universe. It looks like it's supposed to be some dystopian future. If they are all supposed to be under the same roof, it looks like it's already falling apart.

[C_Miller]

Earth One was never marketed as a separate shared universe IIRC. Just a brand name for fresh continuity books.

Which is confusing marketing to begin with. DC is a place that has traditionally numbered Earths as a way of grouping universes. They come out with a high profile line called Earth One, which turns out is just a name that means next to nothing and does not denote a singular Earth. Unlike Earth 2... Regardless of your feelings, DC dropped a lot of balls on this one.

[kingaliencracker]

I don't think an Ultimate line would work again.

What made the Ultimate line great initially was that it stripped away all the baggage and continuity of the Marvel Universe and brought things back to the basics, while also giving things a modern spin. But it very quickly got bogged down with its own continuity (some of which it would contradict), as well as going too far with a "anything goes" approach. There's a reason why the line was ultimately (no pun intended) canceled.

I'd rather go with a All Star or American Alien approach to "fresh/modern" take on characters.

[Frontier]

I think DC should do more all-ages stuff.

I'm not saying they don't do anything aimed at kids, far from it, I would give DC more credit then most on that front. This isn't even me complaining about their adult content, because I don't see Marvel delivering something like Young Justice or Reign of the Supermen, and the Arrowverse shows have certainly earned their place.

I'm just thinking of how important it is to engrain and introduce younger generations into comics and Superheroes and to a companies major properties, or even obscure ones, and how that enriches the properties.

When I see Marvel having success with marketing characters with Scholastic book deals or doing all-ages Superhero comics with IDW, and then I look at the success DC has with DC Super Hero Girls trades, I think to myself that DC could also be really successful in that market if they made a significant effort beyond producing Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo comics (which I think are important in their own right).

It reminds me of how, when I was a kid, before I got into the mainstream comics I would always pick up the all-ages cartoon tie-in comics like The Batman Adventures, Teen Titans Go!, etc., and I probably wasn't alone on that front. But aside from the current iteration of Teen Titans Go! DC doesn't seem to do that anymore, although the fact that WB can't keep a single DC cartoon not named TTG! on the air for more then a year probably doesn't help.

Having said that, I can imagine the DC Ink and DC Zoom books are meant to be a step in that direction, whenever they actually come out. I just would like to see DC doing more on that front.

[Robanker]

Year of the villains (and villains months in general) are proof that DC focuses on the wrong things. Emphasizing them so much just makes the heroes appear that much more ineffectual.

[Agent Z]

Year of the villains (and villains months in general) are proof that DC focuses on the wrong things. Emphasizing them so much just makes the heroes appear that much more ineffectual.

These are once in a lifetime events though. It isn't like they happen so often.

[Kon93]

These are once in a lifetime events though. It isn't like they happen so often.

Not really, it's been a ongoing thing.