If DC offered to restore its "damaged" characters by...

[Buried Alien]

...sorry. Didn't mean to create overly dramatic suspense, but the title line allows you only so many characters.

Anyway, the topic is this: if DC offered to restore its "damaged" characters (looking mainly at Wally West here, but it's any character who has been damaged by dubious storytelling choices over the years) to something sensible, but by rebooting them to their bare bones, original Golden/Silver/Bronze Age selves (e.g. Wally would start over as Kid Flash), would you accept it, or would you prefer to move on, even in the current, damaged state?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Lee]

I think DC have shown how messy selective reboots become. They'd have to reboot everything from scratch. Even then though, I wouldn't want the previous iterations to get depressing endings, so fixing what's broken (ala Green Lantern: Rebirth) would still be desirable.

[Lee Stone]

...sorry. Didn't mean to create overly dramatic suspense, but the title line allows you only so many characters.

Suuuurrrre.

I voted 'yes'.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to reset back to a more familiar setting if the current direction proves to be less favorable.
Just bring out a new book set during the original tales and continue from there.

I had no problem with Johns and Levitz doing it with the Legion, especially since by the time they did it almost all their history was available in trades.

The question would be, 'where to reset back to?' or rather 'when?'

The Silver Age incarnations of the Trinity are the ones that bring home the bacon, so you can't reset from before them.
Certain trades are considered 'Evergreen' and would do well to stay in canon (and may even benefit in a boost of sales in the main universe was to connect to them).
So, I'd say 'Batman: Year One' would definitely need to stay.
And possibly 'Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper' by association.

[Robanker]

I don't trust this regime to do a proper reboot, so I'll say I'd rather they just tread water and get new blood up top who are more focused on growing the IP rather than trimming branches off an already wilting brand.

[Restingvoice]

I accept restoration by kicking out people who cause the damage because no reboot can stop it happening again in the future if the people in charge are still there

...or show me evidence that the attitude change by not causing damage for at least 5 years because apparently my previous 1-year limit is not enough

[Bored at 3:00AM]

No character is so badly damaged that a little good writing can't course correct. That said, in a lot of cases, it's not a bad idea to explain away vast chunks of a character's history if it is preventing them from achieving the success they once had.

With Hal Jordan, there was no way forward for him as a Green Lantern without giving an explanation for his actions during Emerald Twilight and his time as Parallax. For Wally West, they've got to figure out how his actions during Heroes in Crisis make any kind of sense. For Donna Troy, they've got to stop trying to overly complicate her origin and stick with the simplest, easiest, and most popular one--that she's Wonder Woman's adopted sister, and stop worrying about how that affects whatever Wonder Woman's history may be at the moment.

Rebooting a character back to square one only causes problems for the larger history, as we saw when they decided to reboot Wonder Woman, and Hawkman & Hawkwoman. These characters are too interconnected now. Unless you are rebooting everyone, you can't reboot just one or two, unless they are extremely minor characters with no real footprint in the larger narrative.

[lemonpeace]

look, I'm just not in a place where I want to watch DC build their universe, only to likely make the same mistakes again. There are no "bad" or "broken" characters, any character can be fixed with the right story, the right creative team, and the right amount of interest from those producing their content to facilitate good storytelling (since they are in the storytelling business) and strengthening their brand. yes, reboots bring in new readers (myself included) and clean the slate for a less complicated continuity, but they have been used so frequently that they are losing their novelty, and it only gets messier because they never stick to just the new continuity, things here and there start getting pulled back into continuity and eventually we are back to square one. Marvel has shown that you can let it all be more or less canon and just tell better stories or shift focus to new or simply different characters. I don't want Wally as Kid Flash, I like Wallace as Kid Flash, I don't want to see Dick Grayson as robin again, I like the wider Bat-family members, I don't care to watch Clark meet Lois for the first time again, I don't care about Hal Jordan getting his ring for the first time again. I just don't care to consume these stories you've told multiple times "but with a fun new twist whAAoOOoouuHH"; just tell compelling stories I actually can care about with characters I actually want to see. If I have to wait another 5-10 years for DC to feel they've set up the universe to appease whomever enough to tell the stories I want to see with the characters I want to see, I'd just drop the line entirely and stick with the stories I'm reading at Marvel. For all Marvel's flaws, at least they are willing to make legitimately bold moves or changes that actually matter and continue to in perpetuity; and will stick to their guns in most cases or at a minimum address it without breaking space and time.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Seriously??? Reboots are what ruined some of these characters in the first place!!

[manwhohaseverything]

Seriously??? Reboots are what ruined some of these characters in the first place!!

Would you say the same about crisis on infinite earths? I mean, both goldenage superman and the silverage superman got erased.

[Jackalope89]

Maybe something like a semi-reboot. Say, basically ignoring an event/series of events that served to really derail the character, or use some sort of deus ex machina to undo said event(s). We have a number of 5th Dimensional Imps, and one already did a reboot of sorts in Superman Reborn. We have speedsters that screw around with time travel, and a number of other characters that have access to time travel.

[Desmark]

Stopping publishing of comics? Suuuure.... otherwise they will keep on breaking the character and fixing them then doing the same all over again ad infinitum

[Jon Clark]

I'd love a total, no holds barred reboot. But short of that trying to reboot a single character or franchise is not a good idea. And in some cases is basically throwing out the baby with the bath water.

If you hate what was done to Wally, how is it made better by returning him to a young teen-ager who wasn't old enough to join the original Titans and may never reach adulthood again with the way comic book time works?

If you hate Ric Grayson how would the reboot work? Are we removing Jason, Tim and Damian when Grayson gets rebooted? Is Batman now supposed to have had no previous Robins for his whole career and suddenly decide on the idea after years of operating solo? Or is Dick now supposed to be a rival to Damian for the Robin mantle making Dick the successor to Jason and Tim rather than their inspiration?

And if there is one thing Wonder Woman needs it is yet another story where she is setting up her life in a new place. It's worked so well every time it happened from the 1960s-today.

[married guy]

Nope.
Hire the best writers, artists and editors and let them do their jobs.

[Güicho]

I'd rather "fans" stop buying the obvious garbage shock and awe events sold on the backs of crippling, replacing, killing and obvious character assassination driven stories.
When the solicitations say in this issue ...so & so will never be the same again, that's your cue to not buy it!
As far as reboots they suck, DC has also pandered to fans who endlessly buy these reboot 'fixing" events. So much so their whole line has been built on these stupid reboot events you buy, rather then the character's actual stories. Stop buying them!
Even worse would be reboot event just to "fix" one character. Anyone voting or suggesting the reboot here to fix one character is the problem with DC, not the solution.
When you stop telling DC this is what you want (by not buying it), they will stop doing it.
If you hadn't bought the first, the next, etc... one, you wouldn't need the "new" one to "fix" it!

[Blue22]

It honestly depends on the characters and the writers. The Titans history is so incredibly broken right now that some kind of reboot may do them good. But characters like Wally West, Jon Kent, and the Batfamily can be salvaged without having to be reset back to factory settings (though in some cases I wouldn't particularly object to that).