Retconned Stories That You Still Wish Were In Continuity.

[Flash Gordon]

All of Batman and Talia's relationship. All of that should matter, hell Son of the Demon too.

I also never much liked Damian being grown in a test tube Post-Flashpoint. Just let Batman be around a while.

[Vakanai]

I can concede that its opinion. We're all talking about opinions. But, again, assuming I was correct and it is the superior origin story, then that's reason enough. And, dude, seriously? Year One takes place in whatever year DC says it takes place. There are so many stories from both DC and Marvel that are undeniably set in the year they were originally published. That doesn't stop them from being readable in the present day. They are still in canon and those anachronisms are just ignored. Indoor smoking is not a reason to knock what is basically one of the best Batman stories ever told out of continuity.



But that's the thing though: Year One isn't really in need of an update. It's still regarded as one of the best comic book stories of all time. And Superman is a completely different situation for many reasons. For one, Secret Origin was actually bringing back a lot of the things from Silver Age Superman lore that Crisis on Infinite Earths (and then later the New 52) erased. Another thing is that, actually, many people would probably tell you that Superman and Wonder Woman have suffered as a result of multiple reboots and constant retooling of their continuity. Any Superman or Wonder Woman fan would probably tell you that that was the case. The most successful franchises in DC's (and Marvel's) library are those ones that have avoided being frequently rebooted: Batman, Green Lantern, Spider-Man, etc. That's not a coincidence.

I never knocked the story. Why does it only matter if it's in continuity? It must remain in continuity if it is the better story because...? Superman's better origin stories aren't in continuity, Wonder Woman's better origins aren't in continuity (my personal opinions obviously). But why does it matter if your favorite story remains in continuity? Does it become less readable? Is it less enjoyable? It shouldn't be.

As for bringing Marvel into it - you realize if DC did it the Marvel way Year One wouldn't exist right? The only Batman origin would be the one from the 1930s. Rebooting the origin is why Year One exists. Heck, it's probably why The Untold Legend of the Batman was written before it. I never said Year One wasn't still readable, I never made a knock against it, I just said that it should no longer remain the defacto in canon origin.

And the Superman/Wonder Woman argument also doesn't hold true either - even if we were to assume that reboots have hurt them, which I disagree with but am not in the mood to argue - that would be because they've had multiple reboots over a relatively shorter period of time. Year One is about 30 years old. Is a reboot every 30 years really going to hurt the most successful DC character today? I just don't think so. Because he was rebooted, and Zero Year didn't seem to knock him down. He was rebooted, everything was fine, and now he's being rebooted back to an older origin because...I don't even know why.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I never knocked the story. Why does it only matter if it's in continuity? It must remain in continuity if it is the better story because...? Superman's better origin stories aren't in continuity, Wonder Woman's better origins aren't in continuity (my personal opinions obviously). But why does it matter if your favorite story remains in continuity? Does it become less readable? Is it less enjoyable? It shouldn't be.

Because what's in continuity sets the tone for the line. The story itself doesn't lose anything by being out of continuity, but the Batman franchise does. Like I said before, Year One is the ideal origin story for Batman because it's realistic and grounded and deeply rooted in noir elements. Not only is that true to how Batman started, but it's also part of what made Batman so popular and what a lot of the fans like about the franchise.

Zero Year, on the other hand, is a Mad Max-style, out-there absurdist action romp that makes Batman and his world out to be, well, absurd. And while Batman can be featured in those types of stories, his roots are in gritty crime noir. However, again, Zero Year just...tries too hard. It tries way too hard to make Batman badass and tries to spruce up what is beautifully simple with all sorts of fancy bells and whistles that are just unnecessary and immediately come off as such. In other words, it tries to make Batman's origin gaudy and loud and ridiculous. Batman, however, is popular because of his groundedness.

As for bringing Marvel into it - you realize if DC did it the Marvel way Year One wouldn't exist right? The only Batman origin would be the one from the 1930s. Rebooting the origin is why Year One exists. Heck, it's probably why The Untold Legend of the Batman was written before it.

Dude, just because Marvel doesn't reboot doesn't mean they don't revisit origins or other pieces of past continuity. The Season One graphic novels, Hulk: Gray, Captain America: Man Out of Time, Books of Doom, Daredevil: Man Without Fear, Captain America: White, etc. are just a few examples of them doing exactly that. They just don't toss huge parts of a character's past out of continuity the way DC has done.

I never said Year One wasn't still readable, I never made a knock against it, I just said that it should no longer remain the defacto in canon origin.

And I'm saying it should remain as the canon origin.

And the Superman/Wonder Woman argument also doesn't hold true either - even if we were to assume that reboots have hurt them, which I disagree with but am not in the mood to argue - that would be because they've had multiple reboots over a relatively shorter period of time. Year One is about 30 years old. Is a reboot every 30 years really going to hurt the most successful DC character today? I just don't think so. Because he was rebooted, and Zero Year didn't seem to knock him down. He was rebooted, everything was fine, and now he's being rebooted back to an older origin because...I don't even know why.

It will if, again, the new origin story is not as fitting for that character as the one that it replaced. The reason why DC's reverted back to Year One is that Year One defined a Batman mythos that most people gravitated towards while Zero Year didn't.

And I don't know if many people will tell you that Batman being rebooted was "fine." A lot of people were rightfully upset with a lot of the things that came with the reboot. Ask Cassandra Cain fans.

[blunt_eastwood]

That's how it was presented in the initiative's very earliest days. When the current Superman was still the pre-FP Superman legitimately living on an Earth not his own and taking over for the native Superman who died. But when the Superman Reborn storyline quasi-merged things to the point that the Rebirth Superman was legitimately from the main Earth and the one and only Superman ever on it again, it signaled a largely change where the main Earth began acting far more like the opposite of the original statement, i.e. the pre-FP Earth with very few New 52 things peppered in where they could fit. That tends to be where we're at today. Things have ebbed to the point where its a real shortlist of New 52 stuff that remains at all.

Thanks for the explanation. I got the sense that with Rebirth, we had the New 52 continuity with some pre-Flashpoint elements added in, rather than the other way around.

I know that the current DCU looks far more like the pre-Flashpoint continuity than the New 52, but is it safe to assume that everything from the New 52 for the most part didn't happen?

I really wish they hadn't doe the New 52 honestly, because even though the timeline was a little confusing before that, it was still much simpler to follow and understand than it is now.

[SiegePerilous02]

Barbara should have been about 14 when Batman got started. Instead we get Gordon and his new wife and baby son and no daughter at all. Miller didn't like Robin, Batgirl or any 'batfamily' in his idea of Batman... so he actively tried to erase them. They jumped through a LOT of hoops to try to get her back in.... She wasn't his daughter, she was his niece... He may have had an affair with her mother... so maybe she WAS his daughter.. Lot of retcons to try to fix a retcon.

I also didn't like Miller changing the names of Gordon's wife and son. Pre-COIE, I think they were named Themla and Anthony respectively, and Tony was the older brother to Babs. Now it was...James, Barbara, James Jr. and Barbara. Comic writers sure are an imaginative bunch, aren't they? Was changing the wife's name to Barbara Miller's attempt to get rid of Batgirl by getting her out of the way in another form? It was such a stupid retcon and the subsequent retcons to work around it were also stupid. Just straight up making Babs Gordon's daughter again without all the extra bullshit was long overdue.

year One holds up overall as a story, but I cant say I like Alfred raising Bruce or Gordon not being a Gotham cop from the beginning either.

But that's the thing though: Year One isn't really in need of an update. It's still regarded as one of the best comic book stories of all time. And Superman is a completely different situation for many reasons. For one, Secret Origin was actually bringing back a lot of the things from Silver Age Superman lore that Crisis on Infinite Earths (and then later the New 52) erased. Another thing is that, actually, many people would probably tell you that Superman and Wonder Woman have suffered as a result of multiple reboots and constant retooling of their continuity. Any Superman or Wonder Woman fan would probably tell you that that was the case. The most successful franchises in DC's (and Marvel's) library are those ones that have avoided being frequently rebooted: Batman, Green Lantern, Spider-Man, etc. That's not a coincidence.

A lot of Golden and silver age lore was present in New 52 Superman from the beginning. Since it was a new version, putting in stuff like Krypto, the Legion, Kandor etc. in from the beginning is better than trying to awkwardly shoe-horn it into the post-Crisis version like SO did.

I do agree that reboots aren't helping either character, but we have to look at COIE as the main culprit for screwing them up. The new 52 certainly didn't help, but they were a mess before that and COIE was the root cause of it. Still it's not a completely black/white situation: Wonder Woman needed something around the time of COIE and overall Perez's run was better than a lot of stuff that came before, and New 52 Superman had stronger ideas in its foundation that the previous big reboot even though the poor direction for the era overall drowned it out.

Nope. She had always been his daughter. And the Adam West show was pretty much her beginning. There had been some debate about whether they included her in the show to promote the comic or if she showed up in comics to promote the show... but her origin was pretty tightly bound in that 1967 'area'. But she was always 'the commissioner's daughter'.

I think it was a cross promotional thing. She was developed to appear in both simultaneously.

[Vakanai]

Because what's in continuity sets the tone for the line. The story itself doesn't lose anything by being out of continuity, but the Batman franchise does. Like I said before, Year One is the ideal origin story for Batman because it's realistic and grounded and deeply rooted in noir elements. Not only is that true to how Batman started, but it's also part of what made Batman so popular and what a lot of the fans like about the franchise.

I can't help but disagree on a couple points here. For starters, it doesn't "set the tone" for the line. The grounded, very human origin of Year One feels at odds with a billionaire funding a whole Batman Inc, or Batman using various super suits and mecha suits, or time travel, or fighting supernatural threats, or a hundred other things that has been in the line and then some since Year One. I'm not saying you have to like any of those things, I'm just saying they have been part of the line. The origin doesn't set the tone for the line, the current writers do.

The franchise loses nothing by having a different origin story. Year One still exists as a book, you can still read it, it will remain on must watch lists for a century. The franchise didn't have that as an origin for a few years, and it didn't seem lessened at all - it just kept on trucking.

And finally, it is not the "ideal" origin story, it's the ideal Gordon story. Batman was a supporting character. In Batman's origin story, he was relegated to supporting cast. We really can't insert an origin story for Batman where he's the protagonist? You can do another "realistic" and grounded story suited in noir elements outside of Year One that focuses more on Batman - In fact it was done. The first half of Zero Year before the Riddler plot was that, Earth One is that (only even more realistic and grounded).

Zero Year, on the other hand, is a Mad Max-style, out-there absurdist action romp that makes Batman and his world out to be, well, absurd. And while Batman can be featured in those types of stories, his roots are in gritty crime noir. However, again, Zero Year just...tries too hard. It tries way too hard to make Batman badass and tries to spruce up what is beautifully simple with all sorts of fancy bells and whistles that are just unnecessary and immediately come off as such. In other words, it tries to make Batman's origin gaudy and loud and ridiculous. Batman, however, is popular because of his groundedness.

While I agree with you on the Mad Max styled last half of Zero Year, the first half with the Red Hood wasn't absurdist. But I disagree that Batman's roots have to be grounded. Batman's roots in any given era or run needs to be what works. Adam West's Batman probably didn't have grounded or gritty works, Nolan basically made him a ninja (how grounded that is may be up for debate), but each respected the core - an orphan trying to prevent anyone else from going what he went through. The roots can change over the decades, but the core can not. If campy Batman and ninja Batman works as well as grounded Batman, that should say something about his flexibility as a character - a flexibility I would extend to his origin.

Again, not arguing to change it willy nilly on a whim - but once every 30 years does no harm.

Dude, just because Marvel doesn't reboot doesn't mean they don't revisit origins or other pieces of past continuity. The Season One graphic novels, Hulk: Gray, Captain America: Man Out of Time, Books of Doom, Daredevil: Man Without Fear, Captain America: White, etc. are just a few examples of them doing exactly that. They just don't toss huge parts of a character's past out of continuity the way DC has done.

But Year One wasn't a revisit like those Marvel books, it was a reboot, DC did toss out a huge portion of Batman's past when they made that story. That was kind of the point with Crisis on Infinite Earths. If DC did what Marvel does, Year One wouldn't exist in the form it does, that's a fact.

And I'm saying it should remain as the canon origin.

And I'm saying it shouldn't. We disagree, it happens.

It will if, again, the new origin story is not as fitting for that character as the one that it replaced. The reason why DC's reverted back to Year One is that Year One defined a Batman mythos that most people gravitated towards while Zero Year didn't.

And I don't know if many people will tell you that Batman being rebooted was "fine." A lot of people were rightfully upset with a lot of the things that came with the reboot. Ask Cassandra Cain fans.

As you said, "fitting". Not better, not superior, just more fitting. Also, there's an argument that the reason Zero Year was replaced had nothing to do because more readers gravitated to Year One, but because 1) DC is rebooting almost all of New 52 continuity in general and 2) King and whoever just replaced him are fans with a preference for that story similar to your own.

Also, we're not talking about all reboots in general or Cassandra Cain.


Also, I'm probably not going to respond to your response to this. This debate has grown to the size where it requires too much out of me to properly respond. These posts feel huge now and I feel dread at the prospect of writing another of this size.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I can't help but disagree on a couple points here. For starters, it doesn't "set the tone" for the line. The grounded, very human origin of Year One feels at odds with a billionaire funding a whole Batman Inc, or Batman using various super suits and mecha suits, or time travel, or fighting supernatural threats, or a hundred other things that has been in the line and then some since Year One. I'm not saying you have to like any of those things, I'm just saying they have been part of the line. The origin doesn't set the tone for the line, the current writers do.

The franchise loses nothing by having a different origin story. Year One still exists as a book, you can still read it, it will remain on must watch lists for a century. The franchise didn't have that as an origin for a few years, and it didn't seem lessened at all - it just kept on trucking.

And finally, it is not the "ideal" origin story, it's the ideal Gordon story. Batman was a supporting character. In Batman's origin story, he was relegated to supporting cast. We really can't insert an origin story for Batman where he's the protagonist? You can do another "realistic" and grounded story suited in noir elements outside of Year One that focuses more on Batman - In fact it was done. The first half of Zero Year before the Riddler plot was that, Earth One is that (only even more realistic and grounded).

What are you talking about? Of course, it does. Stories like The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Prey, Knightfall, No Man's Land, etc. (i.e. some of the most popular Batman stories ever told) very much followed in the vein of Year One. And while Year One is grounded, this is still comics we're talking about. Bruce was still portrayed as someone with access to advanced tech, which he used to fight crime. Like when he summoned a whole flock of bats using advanced sonics technology. So, funding an organization like Batman, Inc., or having suits is certainly not out of the question. At the same time, Batman is not Iron Man, nor should he be. Furthermore, the supernatural elements introduced in later stories naturally fit into the noir horror environment that Year One set the tone for, ala Solomon Grundy in Long Halloween.

And yes, it does, because as I explained, when you remove the story that sets the tone for the line, then it loses that tone. That tone is what helped make Batman popular in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.

Also, it's not a "Gordon origin story" since Bruce is the focus for at least half of the story and it delves a lot into his motivations and his crusade against the gangs of Gotham. Also, Gordan is one of Batman's most enduring supporting characters and an ally who's been with him since the beginning. That partnership proved a critical element in several popular Batman stories. Is it really hard to think that Gordan would factor heavily into a Batman origin?

While I agree with you on the Mad Max styled last half of Zero Year, the first half with the Red Hood wasn't absurdist. But I disagree that Batman's roots have to be grounded. Batman's roots in any given era or run needs to be what works. Adam West's Batman probably didn't have grounded or gritty works, Nolan basically made him a ninja (how grounded that is may be up for debate), but each respected the core - an orphan trying to prevent anyone else from going what he went through. The roots can change over the decades, but the core can not. If campy Batman and ninja Batman works as well as grounded Batman, that should say something about his flexibility as a character - a flexibility I would extend to his origin.

Batman started as a pulp-style vigilante. That is the core of the character. Even the campiness of the Adam West years was eventually discarded when O'Neil and Adams came on board and returned the character to his roots as a grounded vigilante. Because that is the core of the character. Furthermore, you do know that Nolan was heavily inspired by Year One (as well as the O'Neil/Adams stuff), right? So, it wasn't really so much that Nolan invented a new aspect of the character as he just drew on what was there.

Again, not arguing to change it willy nilly on a whim - but once every 30 years does no harm.

Except, again, why fix what's not broken?

But Year One wasn't a revisit like those Marvel books, it was a reboot, DC did toss out a huge portion of Batman's past when they made that story. That was kind of the point with Crisis on Infinite Earths. If DC did what Marvel does, Year One wouldn't exist in the form it does, that's a fact.

Was it? Because Batman comics actually largely continued on with their status quo pre-Crisis. It's not like Dick Grayson was reverted back to Robin in the aftermath of COIE. Jason Todd still occupied that role. It also wasn't like Barbara Gordon's time as Batgirl was wiped from canon either.

As you said, "fitting". Not better, not superior, just more fitting. Also, there's an argument that the reason Zero Year was replaced had nothing to do because more readers gravitated to Year One, but because 1) DC is rebooting almost all of New 52 continuity in general and 2) King and whoever just replaced him are fans with a preference for that story similar to your own.

Except again, why do you think DC threw out a lot of the New 52 continuity in favor of something that more so resembled Pre-FP?

Also, we're not talking about all reboots in general or Cassandra Cain.

You brought up that the reboot was going "just fine." I was simply rebutting that assumption because, again, for a lot of people it wasn't. Again, I'm pretty sure any Cassandra Cain or Stephanie Brown fan would tell you otherwise.

[Vakanai]

Yep, I'm out of energy or motivation to even read that much text. We are just not going to agree on this, at all, ever. But at least we both love Batman stories.

[SiegePerilous02]

Except, again, why fix what's not broken?

It wasn't broken around the time of COIE, they just needed new writers. But the canon wasn't broken, and it was actually broken the in the process of trying to "fix" it. Revisiting the origins Marvel style would have benefited the characters more in the long run (especially Superman and Wonder Woman) than rebooting entirely.

But I also see Vakanai's point as well about rebooting every 30 years or so...because there was already precedent for them doing long before the new 52. What else do you think COIE is? And even before that, they overhauled things with the divide between Earth-1 and Earth-2, which was actually the most effective "reboot" they've ever done because it preserved more than the subsequent ones.

Was it? Because Batman comics actually largely continued on with their status quo pre-Crisis. It's not like Dick Grayson was reverted back to Robin in the aftermath of COIE. Jason Todd still occupied that role. It also wasn't like Barbara Gordon's time as Batgirl was wiped from canon either.

Batman got away broadly unscathed compared to the other two Trinity members, but there were a lot of details that got tweaked or erased.

- Alfred raised Bruce after the Waynes were killed, whereas he didn't meet Bruce until Robin debuted beforehand, thus changing their dynamic
- Gordon was a Gotham cop, not from Chicago
- Barbara's career as Batgirl was preserved, but the simple connection to Gordon (just being his daughter) had several unnecessary complications thrown onto it to accommodate Year One not featuring her. Whereas they probably just should have had an editor tell Frank Miller to get over himself and write in a 10 year old Barbara or whatever into the story as a side character.
- The split with Dick and the transition to Nightwing was altered and was less amicable
- Jason's backstory and personality were changed
- Kathy Kane was erased, and Betty lost her identity as "Bat-Girl" as a consequence
- I think Barbara's time in congress got wiped out as well, along with her team ups with Supergirl (who wasn't allowed to exist anymore)

Overall Batman got away with a lot of tweaks, but it's still clearly a different universe than what came before. Turn about is fair play, Year One came about at the expense of some earlier stories, there was no guarantee that it would be preserved forever and ever.

Except again, why do you think DC threw out a lot of the New 52 continuity in favor of something that more so resembled Pre-FP?

Cuz they needed another shake up and it was the turn of creators and like minded fans who preferred pre-New 52 to get their stuff back. And it was a success for a little bit, but much like the New 52 it eventually fizzled out.

And they were poised to do something else (5G) for another shake up before DiDio's firing and the Covid stuff happened.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

It wasn't broken around the time of COIE, they just needed new writers. But the canon wasn't broken, and it was actually broken the in the process of trying to "fix" it. Revisiting the origins Marvel style would have benefited the characters more in the long run (especially Superman and Wonder Woman) than rebooting entirely.

I'm not saying it was, but the difference between Post-Crisis and Post-Flashpoint is that Post-Crisis was much better just from a critical and planning standpoint. Post-Flashpoint was a mess in comparison to Post-Crisis. And I'm not saying that Post-Crisis didn't have its issues or that it was entirely right in the moves it made. There are some moves that I definitely disagreed with. However, there's no comparison as to which "reboot" was better handled and better planned.

But I also see Vakanai's point as well about rebooting every 30 years or so...because there was already precedent for them doing long before the new 52. What else do you think COIE is? And even before that, they overhauled things with the divide between Earth-1 and Earth-2, which was actually the most effective "reboot" they've ever done because it preserved more than the subsequent ones.

Except, again, the New 52 was rushed and critically divisive to say the very least. Marv Wolfman spent at least 4 years plotting out Crisis and its impact on the DCU. From what I've heard about the planning of the New 52, it seems that writers and artists were given 6 months at most to plot out everything. I mean, it's well-known that Geoff Johns never intended for Flashpoint to be a reboot. That says...everything you need to know. But furthermore, I don't think Crisis was ever really intended to be repeated. In other words, COIE was meant to be the one and only reboot that DC would ever need to do. And even then, a lot of the stuff that was changed by Crisis was silently changed back in subsequent storylines because it was obvious fans wanted that stuff back. So, why reboot again with Flashpoint?

Batman got away broadly unscathed compared to the other two Trinity members, but there were a lot of details that got tweaked or erased.

- Alfred raised Bruce after the Waynes were killed, whereas he didn't meet Bruce until Robin debuted beforehand, thus changing their dynamic
- Gordon was a Gotham cop, not from Chicago
- Barbara's career as Batgirl was preserved, but the simple connection to Gordon (just being his daughter) had several unnecessary complications thrown onto it to accommodate Year One not featuring her. Whereas they probably just should have had an editor tell Frank Miller to get over himself and write in a 10 year old Barbara or whatever into the story as a side character.
- The split with Dick and the transition to Nightwing was altered and was less amicable
- Jason's backstory and personality were changed
- Kathy Kane was erased, and Betty lost her identity as "Bat-Girl" as a consequence
- I think Barbara's time in congress got wiped out as well, along with her team ups with Supergirl (who wasn't allowed to exist anymore)

A lot of those changes are probably looked at today as beneficial to the franchise. For example, Alfred raising Bruce is much more compelling than their dynamic from pre-Crisis and it's helped make Alfred into one of the most enduring characters in the Batman mythos.

Jason Todd's Post-Crisis origin was also much better than his Pre-Crisis origin since his Pre-Crisis origin was basically "what if Dick Grayson had red hair?" His Post-Crisis personality also ensured his place as a distinct member of the Bat-family. As with a lot of things, Kathy Kane was also reintroduced in the post-Crisis DCU at some point down the line as if Crisis never even happened. And the animosity between Dick and Bruce in Dick's transition to Nightwing was actually there Pre-Crisis. I mean, it was a huge part of the NTT series. As for Barbara's team-ups with Supergirl, that was more an issue with the Superman line than the Batman line.

Overall Batman got away with a lot of tweaks, but it's still clearly a different universe than what came before. Turn about is fair play, Year One came about at the expense of some earlier stories, there was no guarantee that it would be preserved forever and ever.

Except, as I sort of alluded to, the New 52 didn't really contribute as much as Post-Crisis did to better the Batman franchise and deleted sooooo much, more than Crisis did at least in terms of Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, and most other DC franchises. And I don't know why it wouldn't be fair to assume that Year One could be preserved since other superheroes have more or less had the same origins since their debuts and then adding on the fact that Year One kind of defined the most popular iteration of Batman ever.

Cuz they needed another shake up and it was the turn of creators and like minded fans who preferred pre-New 52 to get their stuff back. And it was a success for a little bit, but much like the New 52 it eventually fizzled out.

And they were poised to do something else (5G) for another shake up before DiDio's firing and the Covid stuff happened.

Dude, Rebirth didn't come about because it was simply some fans' "turn." You have to realize that, don't you? I mean, the New 52 was controversial at best. However, if DC felt it was profitable to continue with that continuity, they would have. Obviously, they didn't feel that way.

And I can't really opine on the goings-on behind the scenes at DC. However, if some creators are to be believed, then plans for the 5G relaunch were not necessarily the most popular of ideas. So much so that, now with the chief person advocating for it at DC having left the company, there's a lot of talk of it being quietly swept under the rug or at least massively changed.

[Sacred Knight]

Thanks for the explanation. I got the sense that with Rebirth, we had the New 52 continuity with some pre-Flashpoint elements added in, rather than the other way around.

I know that the current DCU looks far more like the pre-Flashpoint continuity than the New 52, but is it safe to assume that everything from the New 52 for the most part didn't happen?

I really wish they hadn't doe the New 52 honestly, because even though the timeline was a little confusing before that, it was still much simpler to follow and understand than it is now.

No problem, and yeah you're right the early Rebirth stuff was definitely presented that way, so you're not imagining things there. It was kinda a gradual reversal, again to me Superman Reborn really signaling the major turning point. As far as whether or not most New 52 things happened or not, a lot of times its hard to tell. Maybe I shouldn't have stated that a lot of it was outright out definitively. Rather a lot of it just isn't referenced much anymore. If something from that era is applicable I think writers are allowed to reference it without going into real detail as to where it all fits. But therein being the rub as it leads to confusing history like you said. But that's DC for you. They're always trying to fix continuity but always just make it worse. Even with teh New 52 reboot they screwed up and didn't reboot everything clean so there was some confusion there too. Now with reboot stuff being merged with old continuity stuff...its just wild and chaotic. Supposedly Snyder's Death Metal is supposed to take a crack at fixing things again but I'm not holding my breath for success.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'm not saying it was, but the difference between Post-Crisis and Post-Flashpoint is that Post-Crisis was much better just from a critical and planning standpoint. Post-Flashpoint was a mess in comparison to Post-Crisis. And I'm not saying that Post-Crisis didn't have its issues or that it was entirely right in the moves it made. There are some moves that I definitely disagreed with. However, there's no comparison as to which "reboot" was better handled and better planned.

It definitely was better planned, but I'd still say that's damning with faint praise. It's not hard to be better planned than the rush job of the New 52, but we still got the convoluted stuff surrounding stuff like Supergirl (which had the domino effect of impacting the Legion), Donna Troy and the Hawks, all of which are more infamously bad than a lot of the stuff from the New 52. Since that era didn't last as long before getting overhauled yet again, it didn't have the chance to compound the convoluted the way the longer lasting post-Crisis era did.

Except, again, the New 52 was rushed and critically divisive to say the very least. Marv Wolfman spent at least 4 years plotting out Crisis and its impact on the DCU. From what I've heard about the planning of the New 52, it seems that writers and artists were given 6 months at most to plot out everything. I mean, it's well-known that Geoff Johns never intended for Flashpoint to be a reboot. That says...everything you need to know. But furthermore, I don't think Crisis was ever really intended to be repeated. In other words, COIE was meant to be the one and only reboot that DC would ever need to do. And even then, a lot of the stuff that was changed by Crisis was silently changed back in subsequent storylines because it was obvious fans wanted that stuff back. So, why reboot again with Flashpoint?

Intentions don't matter much compared to the final result. Frankly, it was naive and short sighted of them to think something like COIE would never happen again. The people in charge then and the trends that prompted the creative decisions at the time were not going to be around forever, and they pretty much just rudely tossed out a lot of work of previous creators and made things much more difficult for new creators to use that stuff if they ever wanted to. Or even just reference it. You can't do something like that and then declare nobody else ever should. it's hypocritical to the max.

Changing stuff back doesn't always work. The longer the post-COIE era went on and built storylines, the more difficult it was to work stuff back in. By the time a lot of it came back, it was too little, too late. You can't put the cat back in the bag. Just look at the Superman franchise pre-Flashpoint. If you can't look at things too closely without them unraveling, it's not coherently put back together. It's just yet another rebooted version, of which we'd already had 3-4 by that point.

A lot of those changes are probably looked at today as beneficial to the franchise. For example, Alfred raising Bruce is much more compelling than their dynamic from pre-Crisis and it's helped make Alfred into one of the most enduring characters in the Batman mythos.

Jason Todd's Post-Crisis origin was also much better than his Pre-Crisis origin since his Pre-Crisis origin was basically "what if Dick Grayson had red hair?" His Post-Crisis personality also ensured his place as a distinct member of the Bat-family. As with a lot of things, Kathy Kane was also reintroduced in the post-Crisis DCU at some point down the line as if Crisis never even happened. And the animosity between Dick and Bruce in Dick's transition to Nightwing was actually there Pre-Crisis. I mean, it was a huge part of the NTT series. As for Barbara's team-ups with Supergirl, that was more an issue with the Superman line than the Batman line.

The animosity between Bruce and Dick played out different pre-COIE. It didn't involve Dick being fired after being shot by the Joker, and they buried the hatchet at Donna's wedding like actual adults. Post-COIE just undid all of that.

Agree to disagree on Alfred. I think it's more interesting when he's a friend and a peer; looking at how better adjusted Bruce was pre-COIE, I can't say being raised by Alfred "World's biggest enabler" Pennyworth really resulted in anything good for him.

Jason benefited from being more distinct (i'd rather the little shit not be in the Bat-verse period, but that's a whole other discussion), but that still reinforces my point that we were on the third or fourth incarnation of the Bat-mythos by then. Year One came about by ditching some stories that had fallen out of favor, but were at one point popular enough to keep Batman selling. I don't think the New 52 replaced it with anything better, but that doesn't mean it (or any post-crisis story) should be "safe" from every being rebooted away. Considering it only existed due to a reboot itself.

Stuff like Kathy coming back as if Crisis never happened is still messy. Because we know the stories both with and without her were published. It's basically DC lying to us. What is so hard about just keeping stories in canon and just not referencing the stuff you don't need? Leave it alone.

Dude, Rebirth didn't come about because it was simply some fans' "turn." You have to realize that, don't you? I mean, the New 52 was controversial at best. However, if DC felt it was profitable to continue with that continuity, they would have. Obviously, they didn't feel that way.

yes, I know it was controversial. You'd have to be living under a rock to not be aware of that.

But you'd also have to be living under a rock to think Rebirth wasn't controversial as well. At one point, DC didn't think the pre-Flashpoint era was profitable anymore so they did the New 52. And it did really well initially, then they did Rebirth when New 52 was no longer protifable. When Rebirth wasn't sustaining itself anymore, they planned to do 5G.

Basically, this just tells us that people will rush out and buy comics that interest them when DC does a big attention getting move, and that DC themselves didn't care about being consistent when they thought a big attention grabbing stunt like either the New 52 or Rebirth would give them a boost. Any lip service they paid to either initiative about why it was necessary is just that.

[Sandy Hausler]

I know I'm in the minority here, but I always liked the first version of Jason Todd.

[Vakanai]

I know I'm in the minority here, but I always liked the first version of Jason Todd.

You mean Dick if he had been a redhead?

[charliehustle415]

All of Batman and Talia's relationship. All of that should matter, hell Son of the Demon too.

I also never much liked Damian being grown in a test tube Post-Flashpoint. Just let Batman be around a while.

Wait when was all of this retconned?