Should DC Continuity Be More Like Pre Flashpoint?

[Timothy Hunter]

The continuity of the post Rebirth/Metal/Doomsday Clock DC Universe wants to have it's cake and eat it too, combining parts of the post Crisis and New Fifty Two continuity in a slapdash manner.

It seems that DC wants to have the history of the pre Flashpoint DCU while simultaneously being able to continue a large amount of the plot threads of their post Flashpoint continuity such as Duke Thomas, The Court of Owls, and the aftermath of Darkseid War.

Many of the creative changes that sprung out of the New Fifty Two are inherently incompatible with the canon of the pre New Fifty Two DC Universe. For example, Duke Thomas' existence depends on Zero Year being canon, which negates Batman Year One.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

The continuity of the post Rebirth/Metal/Doomsday Clock DC Universe wants to have it's cake and eat it too, combining parts of the post Crisis and New Fifty Two continuity in a slapdash manner.

It seems that DC wants to have the history of the pre Flashpoint DCU while simultaneously being able to continue a large amount of the plot threads of their post Flashpoint continuity such as Duke Thomas, The Court of Owls, and the aftermath of Darkseid War.

Many of the creative changes that sprung out of the New Fifty Two are inherently incompatible with the canon of the pre New Fifty Two DC Universe. For example, Duke Thomas' existence depends on Zero Year being canon, which negates Batman Year One.

Aside from Duke Thomas, there's nothing big from New 52 that isn't compatible with the more classic history. All they'd need to do is tweak Duke's Zero Year debut into something different.

Darkseid War and The Court of Owls can also work fine. Those stories didn't hinge upon the idea that the DCU was only 5 years old

[sifighter]

I’m sorry to say but I think we are going to have to accept that parts of the new 52 will carry on from here on out, some plot points, character changes, and introductions have too big an impact to ignore. Some characters can walk away like it never happened but others can’t.

We have Barbara Gordon walking again, because of new 52
We have Ted Kord Alive, because of New 52
We have John Constantine in the universe now, because of new 52
Wildstorm characters like Midnighter and Apollo live here, because of New 52
Animal Man became popular again because of the new 52
Wallace West, Emiko Queen/Red Arrow, Khalid Nassour, Jessica Cruz, and Simon Baz now exist and have had long comic runs and in some cases outside media introductions because of New 52.

We are too far deep to ignore it and to get rid of it would remove half a decade of work and characters. Best bet is to work it in somehow while acknowledging past continuity existed at some point, like how Green Arrow in Rebirth has the new 52 costume be part of his earlier career and in connection with past stories. I would think it would probably be best to put out a guidebook to explain history and timelines

[Vakanai]

Hell, forget pre-Flashpoint, we've even seen elements of pre-Crisis show up. At least I remember hearing some of that happened in Batman.

Personally I don't care if it is more pre or post Flashpoint or something else entirely. I just want good stories that's easy to get into without having to read a bunch of other books to learn what the continuity is

[king81992]

DC should try moving forward instead of moving backwards or resorting to grimdark nonsense.

[Vakanai]

DC continuity should be more like Superman Smashes the Klan, Harleen, Batman: The White Knight, and Man and Superman.

[Timothy Hunter]

I’m sorry to say but I think we are going to have to accept that parts of the new 52 will carry on from here on out, some plot points, character changes, and introductions have too big an impact to ignore. Some characters can walk away like it never happened but others can’t.

We have Barbara Gordon walking again, because of new 52
We have Ted Kord Alive, because of New 52
We have John Constantine in the universe now, because of new 52
Wildstorm characters like Midnighter and Apollo live here, because of New 52
Animal Man became popular again because of the new 52
Wallace West, Emiko Queen/Red Arrow, Khalid Nassour, Jessica Cruz, and Simon Baz now exist and have had long comic runs and in some cases outside media introductions because of New 52.

We are too far deep to ignore it and to get rid of it would remove half a decade of work and characters. Best bet is to work it in somehow while acknowledging past continuity existed at some point, like how Green Arrow in Rebirth has the new 52 costume be part of his earlier career and in connection with past stories. I would think it would probably be best to put out a guidebook to explain history and timelines

I understand that mindset, but in my opinion, DC will never have a cohesive universe as they did Pre Flashpoint if they continue to haphazardly blend aspects of New Fifty Two and Pre New Fifty Two.

You can't just lackadaisically claim events such as Scott Snyder's Batman, Geoff Johns' Justice League, and Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow are natural continuations of the DC Universe that was established in the aftermath of Crisis of Infinite Earths because they were never meant to in the first place. It's like saying that Tim Burton's Batman and Christopher Nolan's Batman were part of the same universe. You can cherry pick details here and there in order for it to almost make sense, but it will never be organic.

Personally, I would return to the concept of Earth One and Earth Two. Earth One being Post Flashpoint, and Earth Two being Pre Flashpoint.

Earth One will fully embrace the groundwork laid by the New Fifty Two, while Earth Two will more or less return to the 2011 status quo - - and going forward from there.

[Vakanai]

I understand that mindset, but in my opinion, DC will never have a cohesive universe as they did Pre Flashpoint if they continue to haphazardly blend aspects of New Fifty Two and Pre New Fifty Two.

You can't just lackadaisically claim events such as Scott Snyder's Batman, Geoff Johns' Justice League, and Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow are natural continuations of the DC Universe that was established in the aftermath of Crisis of Infinite Earths because they were never meant to in the first place. It's like saying that Tim Burton's Batman and Christopher Nolan's Batman were part of the same universe. You can cherry pick details here and there in order for it to almost make sense, but it will never be organic.

Does it matter? Unless it is referenced or has an affect on the story at hand, it shouldn't get in the way of good stories going forward.

[Frontier]

DC continuity should be more like Superman Smashes the Klan, Harleen, Batman: The White Knight, and Man and Superman.

That's...kind of saying they shouldn't have any continuity at all .

[Timothy Hunter]

Does it matter? Unless it is referenced or has an affect on the story at hand, it shouldn't get in the way of good stories going forward.

I can understand the mindset of good stories trumping continuity. However one of the key ingredients to having a good story is for it have weight, and for it to have weight they have to have a sense of mythos. What makes stories such as the Death of Gwen Stacy, A Death in the Family, and Crisis in Infinite Earths so highly regarded is they felt like there were real ramifications involved, not simply because they were good stories.

Stories in universes such as DC and Marvel lose their impact because writers ignore the past whenever it's convenient to them.

[king81992]

That's...kind of saying they shouldn't have any continuity at all .

To be fair, when has DC had any continuity recently? May as well make it official.

[Frontier]

To be fair, when has DC had any continuity recently? May as well make it official.

Eh...I think we can harp on DC's problems with their continuity but at the same time there are still generally titles that are effected by or play off stuff in other books, so I don't think that's completely fair.

[Vakanai]

That's...kind of saying they shouldn't have any continuity at all .

Hey, if that's what it takes to get the good stories I'm all for it.

I can understand the mindset of good stories trumping continuity. However one of the key ingredients to having a good story is for it have weight, and for it to have weight they have to have a sense of mythos. What makes stories such as the Death of Gwen Stacy, A Death in the Family, and Crisis in Infinite Earths so highly regarded is they felt like there were real ramifications involved, not simply because they were good stories.

Stories in universes such as DC and Marvel lose their impact because writers can ignore the past whenever it's convenient to them.

When was the last time the long history of continuity had that weight to them? Since Crisis? Jason Todd, Barry Allen, Supergirl, Ted Kord, Superman all came back. Death doesn't stick, and if death can't stick, then the impact of death is ruined. And most of the stories you listed where continuity had weight was because someone died. And frankly death shouldn't stick. Do you think Alfred should stay buried? Hell no.

There are no ramifications on that level, which removes the bite out of continuity. So good storytelling has to be the focus to make up for it.

[Vordan]

No because a lot of the Pre-Flashpoint stuff is terrible, people have just forgotten or let nostalgia blind them.

Superfamily was suffering under the implosion of the New Krypton status quo.

WW had the godawful Amazons Attack! event and got a mini reboot with Odyssey

Flash was pretty weak for a while, Barry’s return didn’t help there

JL was awful, Robinson’s term was a disaster

Pretty much the only ones doing well were, surprise, surprise, Batman and GL, which is why those two didn’t reboot.

And it’s too late to go back at this point, it’s been almost 10 years since the reboot. Like it or not the only way is forward now.

[sifighter]

I think the problem overall with the mix whether you can accept it or not is that we just don’t know how past stories connect to the present or if they do connect if they still went down the way we the readers remember them as.

Let me set an example, the dc comic event infinite crisis. We referenced recently in Death Metal and probably some other events that Infinite Crisis did happen and that some characters remember it....but do we know if it still played out as they remember it? Ted Kord’s alive so it’s hard to say if he was murdered in it and what about Jaime Reyes origin, Superboy has been erased from existence so how do we know he died fighting Superboy prime, did the JSA and especially Powergirl play a role at all, Did Bart Allen become the Flash, what about Ray who had a redone origin in JLA but does he somehow still have something to do with Prime and Alex Luthor’s plan.

There is a lot of unanswered questions and it’s not the only event. What about Zero Hour, because Parallax/Hal existed and so do some of the characters who were in that story but they are fundamentally different now. What about Final Crisis or Blackest Night. Things just don’t perfectly align anymore, like the bent edges of a jigsaw. Honestly it’s why I wanted the generations mini-series, whether it was good or not didn’t matter but at least it would establish a timeline.