Should DC Continuity Be More Like Pre Flashpoint?

[Vakanai]

But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a continuity. And honestly, I don't know if I buy that argument that continuity-enabled ramifications don't fit the way audiences work today. I mean, pretty much any franchise is made popular not because the characters are just "kewl" but because of the lore behind the characters. Batman isn't just a guy who dresses up in a bat-suit without a past. That's just an idea, not a character. The character has been through events and storylines that have defined who he is as a character and his world around him: Year One, Joker's Five-Way Revenge, Death in the Family, Knightfall, No Man's Land, Fugitive, etc., etc., etc. These are all the stories that contribute to a mythos that contribute to a franchise. That's as true today as it was 50/60/70 years ago.

Not exactly, no. Year One was an origin story that replaced an earlier story, throwing it out the window. I've never read it but isn't Joker's Five Way Revenge largely self contained and not particularly reliant on continuity? And it isn't just the comics that makes the character cool. Cartoons and movies are outside the 70+ years comic continuity and are more popular. Sure they take inspiration from and even loosely adapt some of the comic stories, but that just shows that it's the stories that are most important, not the continuity they are in.

Well, not really. Because, while Harley Quinn and Carrie Kelly may not have been created in the main DC continuity, they were still products of continuity. They were born out of the continuities of their respective worlds: the DCAU for Harley and the Dark Knight Returns continuity for Carrie. Carrie's story doesn't make sense without the set up of DKR. She doesn't make sense as a character without that world around her, where Batman has long retired and Gotham has turned into a cesspool. The same thing goes for Harley. And it should also say something how Harley's popularity spurred them to bring her into the main continuity, but at the same time, DCAU Harley is not the same as main DCU Harley. Those are two different characters and the realities of the DCU have made Harley evolve into who she is today.

I find that a pretty flimsy argument. Of course every story is it's own continuity, and of course every character in that story will fit in that continuity, that's just how stories are done. That's just the fact characters must work in their world, that plots have logical consistency or they fall apart. But that you can have so many popular characters come from other continuities, that a character like Batman can work in so many continuities shows that stories are the more important factor.

Plus, even if you don't think Bruce should be north of 50, that doesn't mean he should be in his 20s either. Like, honestly, I don't buy a Bruce Wayne in his 20s. The maturity, authority, and reputation the character demands requires him to be in his late 30s at least. You don't build up a reputation as "the goddamn Batman" when you're like 25. You have that reputation when you have some years under your belt.

I never said that he should be in his 20s. He should start there in his early career, but I would peg him to be in his 30s now. But outside of other continuities he should never grow old and retire. Batman Beyond is always set in the future, it should never become the default present.

[Vakanai]

I agree. A character's history transforms them into something more than intellectual property. It's the difference between Walter White and Hello Kitty.

The difference is Walter White isn't in a 70+ years old franchise based on him. He's in one series with a clear ending played by one actor. He doesn't have to still be around in 50 years. Hello Kitty probably still will be, and so too hopefully will Batman.

[SiegePerilous02]

The most obvious one is something you already stated, how they had to split a bunch of stories into multiple Earths (notably Earth 1 and Earth 2) and you had to sit there and partition which comics were canon to which version of Superman. Because all the Superboy stuff obviously greatly contradicted tons of Superman stories. The multiverse was great but, for Superman, it was an excuse to waive off contradictory storytelling. They certainly got rid of all of that, much of which was good and it is a terrible shame we lost it, but that's why they got rid of it. Because it was a confusing mess. And when they wanted to reintroduce it we get stuff like, well, Infinite Crisis. Itself a kind of convoluted mess of continuity reintroduction for the sake of valuing those older stories. Same with Wonder Woman, how they had to gloss over her JSA situation (which, amusingly, got an easy fix later but a lot of people don't like that fix).

I'm not overselling anything. I will admit that there was less interest or worry about the cohesiveness of one story to another so it wasn't as big a deal as the continuity mishaps we have today are. Most of the mishaps we have today are a function of trying to undo "continuity clearing" retcons in the first place, hilariously.

My attitude is that I value modern stories enough that I would not want a reboot that scales us back to the 80s, which would be antithetical to nearly all modern storytelling. You would prefer the opposite, which would erase all the modern storytelling to go to a much older starting point and, ostensibly, start telling modern stories from there. But it would horribly lack in modern characters, which you admitted. I was stating why I disagree with you. And when I say "awful foibles" of that era I was alluding to our earlier part of the conversation where we both acknowledged that a reboot to pre-COIE would horrifically strip the franchise of representation. Doubly so since if we did it it would only be a matter of time before we get another Infinite Crisis or Rebirth or whatever where people try to bring back beloved stories from the trash can the reboot put them in.

Flashpoint 2 Electric Boogaloo isn't my ideal. Doubly so because I have no clue how you'd introduce a reboot that keeps only this 40 years worth of stories canon. How do you even convey that to the audience? A reboot, starting decades into the careers of all the heroes you want to focus on.

They definitely did do a lot of stories, particular in the 50s and most of the 60s, that were one offs that frequently contradicted each other in varying ways (one example being Barry saying he read about the JSA as a kid which wouldn't be an issue with the setup...until he mentions he read about Wonder Woman, his very real friend he is on a team. Apparently there are comics out there blabbing about her secret ID). But by the late Silver Age/Bronze age in the 70s and 80s, it honestly seems like they worked it out. The audience for those older stories pretty much treated it as disposable entertainment and likely weren't around as much anyway to bring up the contradictions. Stuff like Maggin's Superman stories (and later Moore and Gerber), Englehart and O'Neil on Batman, NTT, Swamp Thing and Legion all referenced older stories that were easy to trace back. "For the Man Who has Everything" in particular includes a lot of references to Silver Age stories and even Bronze age ones, and Moore wouldn't have been able to tell that story post-COIE without radically altering it.

Continuing the Superman example, had COIE just condensed everything to one Earth with continuity and gotten rid of the Earth-1/2 divide for him, we'd probably be ok. The most that would do is screw up poor Power Girl a bit, but that was happening regardless. Going the extra mile and chucking out his entire lore and replacing him with a new version of himself was the most damaging. I think it actually undermined the attempts to naturally move him forward, because it wasn't him anymore. It's also kind of mean for him to grieve Kara and say he will never forget her and then immediately forget her as she is nuked from existence. Basically, it's how you (fairly) feel about Wally in a pre-Crisis revival: it's not him, or at least not the version everyone wants. Stuff like Infinite Crisis coming afterward was too little too late, post-COIE had developed its own continuity by that point that you couldn't seamlessly reintegrate stuff without creating a further mess, which they did. Same with Wonder Woman. Much like Supes, it may have been better to streamline it down to one continuity, but keep the broad strokes of important details. Set her debut around the same time the other JL members are debuting so she can be part of it and Donna's whole deal as Wonder Girl could make sense, etc. Basically it's the difference between a minor detail in a minor story contradicting each other, or the confusion surrounding the status and origin of a major supporting character like Supergirl.

That's fair on the modern storytelling. As a pre-COIE fan, it's the main issue I have with it. Even if I don't always like later characters, I can understand why they are important (and personally I wouldn't want to lose Renee, Batwoman and a lot of the Amazons, among others). That's why I said to reintroduce them as they would maybe be in a pre-COIE context. Cassanda Cain, for example, can live alongside a pre-COIE Batman pretty easily with the added benefit of him not being a horrible person. But that would take too long and I can see why that wouldn't go over well with everyone either. I also agree with the mentality that fans would only focus on one continuity, but it's a mentality that I wish we could break. Believing one set of imaginary stories is more "real" than another is terribly limiting, and inevitably leaves some folks out in the cold more so than the usual stuff we get. There is no way to really satisfy both Wally Flash fans and Barry Flash fans with only one continuity if people want to see new content for them. A "Post-COIE" Earth and "Pre-COIE" Earth could possibly do that, but it's a hurdle.

[Dred]

Then you just spend the first like 5 years of your reboot retelling the same old origin stories so your cast isn't just a bunch of straight white people again. Seems like a lot of wasted effort for a lateral move.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Not exactly, no. Year One was an origin story that replaced an earlier story, throwing it out the window. I've never read it but isn't Joker's Five Way Revenge largely self contained and not particularly reliant on continuity? And it isn't just the comics that makes the character cool. Cartoons and movies are outside the 70+ years comic continuity and are more popular. Sure they take inspiration from and even loosely adapt some of the comic stories, but that just shows that it's the stories that are most important, not the continuity they are in.

Year One retold and consolidated a lot of the same typical story beats that had defined Batman's origin from the very beginning. Even the most famous moment of the bat crashing through the window was taken directly from Golden Age Batman comics:



But what's important is that Year One had massive implications for the Batman mythos. That story and the fallout from it basically has helped to define the modern Batman and is still referenced and referred back to today. The most recent issue of Batman even is basically a 20-page reference to Year One. That is the point. Year One helped establish the mythos that makes Batman popular.

Joker's Five Way Revenge, while being self-contained, is still incredibly important to the Batman mythos because it was the story that re-established Joker as a homicidal maniac after he spent much of the Silver Age either being absent or, in his few appearances, as a harmless prankster clown. And even if JFWR seems like it might be tame by what we've come to expect from Joker, the character would not be the same without it.

And, you're right, the comics are not the only iterations of these character. The movies, TV shows, etc. all still exist. But that's the thing: those movies, TV shows, etc. all directly draw on the mythos that originates in the comics. The comics are called the souce material, after all. Look at the MCU. Basically every movie is based on some famous story or run from the Marvel Comics lore. Winter Soldier was based on Man Out of Time by Ed Brubaker, which is the story that famously brought back Bucky Barnes; Civil War is based on, well, Civil War; Infinity War/Endgame are based on the Infinity Gauntlet storyline; Black Panther is based largely on Christopher Priest's Black Panther run; Thor Ragnorok is basically a Planet Hulk movie; they're adapting Jason Aaron's Jane Foster Thor arc in Love and Thunder; etc.

And even just look at the Nolan Batman trilogy. There you literally have direct inspiration from stories like Year One, Long Halloween, Knightfall, No Man's Land, etc. to the extent that many of the most famous scenes are ripped directly from those stories. And the new Batman movie looks to be adapting Long Halloween again.

So, yeah, the outside media relies on the comics and the mythos and continuity established therein.

It's kind of like Classical Greek mythology. The story of Hercules's Twelve Labors has many different versions and many different retellings, but the basic story is still the same throughout all of them.

I find that a pretty flimsy argument. Of course every story is it's own continuity, and of course every character in that story will fit in that continuity, that's just how stories are done. That's just the fact characters must work in their world, that plots have logical consistency or they fall apart. But that you can have so many popular characters come from other continuities, that a character like Batman can work in so many continuities shows that stories are the more important factor.

Batman can work in multiple continuities, but there's always a set of factors that define Batman and who he is. After all, you can't have Batman without the death of his parents, the years spent training, etc. The concept of Carrie Kelly is that she is the Robin who is inspired by the "old stories" about Batman, who has long disappeared, and seeks him out after he comes back on the scene. Without that setup, she is not the same character. If they made a version for the main DCU, she would just be a red-haired girl with glasses who shares the same name.

When they imported Harley into the comics, they imported her entire arc from the animated series creators, that she was a psychiatrist corrupted by Joker. And now her recent emancipation from Joker, which took place in the comics, has been exported to the Harley Quinn animated series.

I never said that he should be in his 20s. He should start there in his early career, but I would peg him to be in his 30s now. But outside of other continuities he should never grow old and retire. Batman Beyond is always set in the future, it should never become the default present.

Nobody is saying he should be growing old and retiring. Like, I'm pretty sure nobody has advocated that. But the average retirement age is like 65, not 40 and not even 50. 40 and 50 in today's society are still relatively young, especially the former. And honestly, Bruce is probably like 40-45 in continuity and that's the perfect age for him.

[Vakanai]

Year One retold and consolidated a lot of the same typical story beats that had defined Batman's origin from the very beginning. Even the most famous moment of the bat crashing through the window was taken directly from Golden Age Batman comics:

It still replaced what came before. It still ditched older continuity

But what's important is that Year One had massive implications for the Batman mythos. That story and the fallout from it basically has helped to define the modern Batman and is still referenced and referred back to today. The most recent issue of Batman even is basically a 20-page reference to Year One. That is the point. Year One helped establish the mythos that makes Batman popular.

They still replaced it for a while, and it came back less because Zero Year was some insult to "continuity" and more just a general trend of dumping out the New 52. But either way, replacing it to begin with shows that continuity isn't that important - and reinstating it instead of building on the newer origin also shows that continuity isn't important. What is important is story and profitablity.

Joker's Five Way Revenge, while being self-contained, is still incredibly important to the Batman mythos because it was the story that re-established Joker as a homicidal maniac after he spent much of the Silver Age either being absent or, in his few appearances, as a harmless prankster clown. And even if JFWR seems like it might be tame by what we've come to expect from Joker, the character would not be the same without it.

Any story could have been made to re-establish Joker as a homicidal madman. But if continuity was important it would never have needed to be re-established, since he had started as such. The decades as harmless prankster kind of shows that continuity wasn't the big deal you claim.

And, you're right, the comics are not the only iterations of these character. The movies, TV shows, etc. all still exist. But that's the thing: those movies, TV shows, etc. all directly draw on the mythos that originates in the comics. The comics are called the souce material, after all. Look at the MCU. Basically every movie is based on some famous story or run from the Marvel Comics lore. Winter Soldier was based on Man Out of Time by Ed Brubaker, which is the story that famously brought back Bucky Barnes; Civil War is based on, well, Civil War; Infinity War/Endgame are based on the Infinity Gauntlet storyline; Black Panther is based largely on Christopher Priest's Black Panther run; Thor Ragnorok is basically a Planet Hulk movie; they're adapting Jason Aaron's Jane Foster Thor arc in Love and Thunder; etc.

And even just look at the Nolan Batman trilogy. There you literally have direct inspiration from stories like Year One, Long Halloween, Knightfall, No Man's Land, etc. to the extent that many of the most famous scenes are ripped directly from those stories. And the new Batman movie looks to be adapting Long Halloween again.

So, yeah, the outside media relies on the comics and the mythos and continuity established therein.

They don't draw inspiration from those stories because of the continuity, they draw from them because they are good stories. If the continuity was important the films would never draw even an ounce of inspiration from them - they would actually adapt them out right. We both agree that they draw from the source material, we just disagree on the why. I maintain the quality of the stories matter most, and for you it's some fixation on continuity rather than good storytelling (and yes I know that they are not exclusive).

It's kind of like Classical Greek mythology. The story of Hercules's Twelve Labors has many different versions and many different retellings, but the basic story is still the same throughout all of them.

And if the Greeks had cared about continuity there wouldn't be any different versions. But story was more important so the storytellers embellished and added their own flair to it and many different yet good versions came out of it.

Batman can work in multiple continuities, but there's always a set of factors that define Batman and who he is. After all, you can't have Batman without the death of his parents, the years spent training, etc. The concept of Carrie Kelly is that she is the Robin who is inspired by the "old stories" about Batman, who has long disappeared, and seeks him out after he comes back on the scene. Without that setup, she is not the same character. If they made a version for the main DCU, she would just be a red-haired girl with glasses who shares the same name.

That's not continuity - that's character. There has to be defining characteristics otherwise it would not be the character, but that's not the same thing as continuity. Robin Hood wouldn't be Robin Hood if he was a modern greedy shareholder of a mega corporation who made bank at others expense. But you can have him be a cartoon fox and he still works, but that's because it's a good film that gets the heart of the character, not some devotion to continuity.

Nobody is saying he should be growing old and retiring. Like, I'm pretty sure nobody has advocated that. But the average retirement age is like 65, not 40 and not even 50. 40 and 50 in today's society are still relatively young, especially the former. And honestly, Bruce is probably like 40-45 in continuity and that's the perfect age for him.

No, there are fans who do want him to get that old and dead/retired. And you only think 45 is the perfect age for him because you want all that continuity behind him - continuity that ages him. What happens when he has twice the continuity he has now and 45 or 50 can't contain it all? If you don't ditch continuity at some point he has to age. He wasn't 45 after Crisis ended and he only had two Robins behind him.

EDIT: This is my last post responding to this because frankly I don't think either of us will change our minds or actually say something new that's not just our previous arguments reworded, but mostly because our posts are just getting way, way too long for me.

[kcekada]

DC continuity is so messed up that I hardly see the point in continuity. Even though Marvel stories mostly suck these days, they will always have their mostly intact continuity as an advantage that DC will never have.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

It still replaced what came before. It still ditched older continuity

Okay, what was a mythos-defining Batman moment that Year One rewrote? Mind you that a lot of Silver and Bronze Age Batman stories actually remained canon after Year One came out.

They still replaced it for a while, and it came back less because Zero Year was some insult to "continuity" and more just a general trend of dumping out the New 52. But either way, replacing it to begin with shows that continuity isn't that important - and reinstating it instead of building on the newer origin also shows that continuity isn't important. What is important is story and profitablity.

...And quickly realized the mistake of replacing it. The trend of dumping out the New 52 was in part because DC recognized that fans liked the Pre-Flashpoint continuity more and that THAT was the Batman most people identified with. Dude, you can't really argue "oh well they threw it out" when that was a move that was rather quickly undone.

Any story could have been made to re-establish Joker as a homicidal madman. But if continuity was important it would never have needed to be re-established, since he had started as such. The decades as harmless prankster kind of shows that continuity wasn't the big deal you claim.

Dude, that is a flimsy argument. Yeah, a different story could have been used to reestablish Joker as a homicidal maniac, but that's like saying "you know, WWII could have just not happened." And I'm not saying that JFWR is anywhere near as important as real-world events, but it's just an illustrative example. Could it have been a different story that returned Joker to being a homicidal maniac? Yeah. Or could Joker have just stayed a silluy prankster? Yeah. But that's just how it happened and that's what makes JFWR important and defining to the Batman mythos.

Plus, they didn't make Joker into a silly prankster by tossing out the previous Joker. His previous murderous appearances were still canon. They just toned down his Silver Age appearances because they didn't want the CCA to come down on them. It's also worth noting that switching between characterizations was common when comics were still written for 10-year-olds. I'd say the average comic book reader is probably a bit older than that now, so consistency is much more important. So, sorry but that argument doesn't hold up.

They don't draw inspiration from those stories because of the continuity, they draw from them because they are good stories. If the continuity was important the films would never draw even an ounce of inspiration from them - they would actually adapt them out right. We both agree that they draw from the source material, we just disagree on the why. I maintain the quality of the stories matter most, and for you it's some fixation on continuity rather than good storytelling (and yes I know that they are not exclusive).

Uh, actually a few of those stories are controversial, including Civil War, which is a much-maligned story (even though I liked it). However, regardless of the response to it, Civil War was a very important story because of it's seminal impact on the continuity and therefore the lore of the larger Marvel Universe. The trajectory of the Marvel Universe would look very different if Civil War hadn't happened: Spider-Man would still be married to MJ, Steve Rogers would have never died, and a whole host of subsequent storylines would have never happened.

So the MCU drew on it because of the implications that that storyline had on the source material. Sorry, but THAT is continuity. THAT is lore.

And if the Greeks had cared about continuity there wouldn't be any different versions. But story was more important so the storytellers embellished and added their own flair to it and many different yet good versions came out of it.

In every version though, the stories are essentially the same. That's the point.

That's not continuity - that's character. There has to be defining characteristics otherwise it would not be the character, but that's not the same thing as continuity. Robin Hood wouldn't be Robin Hood if he was a modern greedy shareholder of a mega corporation who made bank at others expense. But you can have him be a cartoon fox and he still works, but that's because it's a good film that gets the heart of the character, not some devotion to continuity.

Dude, again, very flimsy argument. Character is defined by backstory and the person's history. In other words, a character is defined by continuity. That cartoon fox Robin Hood wouldn't be Robin Hood if he didn't have the same general experiences as his medieval counterpart.

No, there are fans who do want him to get that old and dead/retired. And you only think 45 is the perfect age for him because you want all that continuity behind him - continuity that ages him. What happens when he has twice the continuity he has now and 45 or 50 can't contain it all? If you don't ditch continuity at some point he has to age. He wasn't 45 after Crisis ended and he only had two Robins behind him.

Lol. Ask Iron Man or Captain America or pretty much any comic book character. With all that Peter Parker has been through, he should be 50 years old by now. But that's the implicit understanding that we as superhero fans have: that events that take years/decades of real-world time to tell only take up a few weeks or months at most of comic book time. So, no, I don't see Batman ever getting to a point where there's "too much story" than can be contained in about a 20-year superhero career.

[Restingvoice]

Okay, what was a mythos-defining Batman moment that Year One rewrote? Mind you that a lot of Silver and Bronze Age Batman stories actually remained canon after Year One came out.

...Alfred. I think. As far as I remember Alfred didn't become the butler from Bruce's childhood until post Crisis, which then affect how he becomes a father figure. Golden and Silver Age he came after Dick.

Selina. The boat and the street.

I don't remember if there are things more significant than that...

Setting that aside, I maintain that as long as they make stories reliant on continuity, stories that require you to read the books before the current one, or character development based on what happened before, then continuity will be important.

How much of it is important is another matter, but we shouldn't have to explain to anyone that "things didn't happen the way it was written"

[Mr.B]

I expect Zero Year to stay.

[SiegePerilous02]

Then you just spend the first like 5 years of your reboot retelling the same old origin stories so your cast isn't just a bunch of straight white people again. Seems like a lot of wasted effort for a lateral move.

Nothing in a Multiverse that allows for a Post-COIE Earth or Pre-COIE Earth to exist simultaneously requires origins to be retold. What makes you say that would be a necessity? It might have other potential problems, and the chances of it happening are slim to nil, but that's not one of them. Origin retelings would defeat the whole purpose of marketing some books that would be advertised as "Mark Waid's Flash Family lead by Wally West" in one book and "Silver Age Barry Allen" in another and the audiences they would be meant to grab.

[Vakanai]

Okay, what was a mythos-defining Batman moment that Year One rewrote? Mind you that a lot of Silver and Bronze Age Batman stories actually remained canon after Year One came out.



...And quickly realized the mistake of replacing it. The trend of dumping out the New 52 was in part because DC recognized that fans liked the Pre-Flashpoint continuity more and that THAT was the Batman most people identified with. Dude, you can't really argue "oh well they threw it out" when that was a move that was rather quickly undone.



Dude, that is a flimsy argument. Yeah, a different story could have been used to reestablish Joker as a homicidal maniac, but that's like saying "you know, WWII could have just not happened." And I'm not saying that JFWR is anywhere near as important as real-world events, but it's just an illustrative example. Could it have been a different story that returned Joker to being a homicidal maniac? Yeah. Or could Joker have just stayed a silluy prankster? Yeah. But that's just how it happened and that's what makes JFWR important and defining to the Batman mythos.

Plus, they didn't make Joker into a silly prankster by tossing out the previous Joker. His previous murderous appearances were still canon. They just toned down his Silver Age appearances because they didn't want the CCA to come down on them. It's also worth noting that switching between characterizations was common when comics were still written for 10-year-olds. I'd say the average comic book reader is probably a bit older than that now, so consistency is much more important. So, sorry but that argument doesn't hold up.



Uh, actually a few of those stories are controversial, including Civil War, which is a much-maligned story (even though I liked it). However, regardless of the response to it, Civil War was a very important story because of it's seminal impact on the continuity and therefore the lore of the larger Marvel Universe. The trajectory of the Marvel Universe would look very different if Civil War hadn't happened: Spider-Man would still be married to MJ, Steve Rogers would have never died, and a whole host of subsequent storylines would have never happened.

So the MCU drew on it because of the implications that that storyline had on the source material. Sorry, but THAT is continuity. THAT is lore.



In every version though, the stories are essentially the same. That's the point.



Dude, again, very flimsy argument. Character is defined by backstory and the person's history. In other words, a character is defined by continuity. That cartoon fox Robin Hood wouldn't be Robin Hood if he didn't have the same general experiences as his medieval counterpart.



Lol. Ask Iron Man or Captain America or pretty much any comic book character. With all that Peter Parker has been through, he should be 50 years old by now. But that's the implicit understanding that we as superhero fans have: that events that take years/decades of real-world time to tell only take up a few weeks or months at most of comic book time. So, no, I don't see Batman ever getting to a point where there's "too much story" than can be contained in about a 20-year superhero career.

Agree to disagree.

[Dred]

Nothing in a Multiverse that allows for a Post-COIE Earth or Pre-COIE Earth to exist simultaneously requires origins to be retold. What makes you say that would be a necessity? It might have other potential problems, and the chances of it happening are slim to nil, but that's not one of them. Origin retelings would defeat the whole purpose of marketing some books that would be advertised as "Mark Waid's Flash Family lead by Wally West" in one book and "Silver Age Barry Allen" in another and the audiences they would be meant to grab.

You said you'd reboot it to exactly Pre-COIE, but you would want to include characters who need/needed post-COIE modern stories to introduce them and establish them as...they weren't present pre-COIE. This isn't about Wally West, who certainly has nothing to do with our talk about non-straight, non-white character exclusion in a Pre-COIE reboot. Though the minority characters ushered in in his era would apply.

Mark Waid's Flash Family isn't part of a Pre-COIE reboot. Ostensibly, a Pre-COIE reboot has a retired Wally West with Barry at the lead.

[SiegePerilous02]

You said you'd reboot it to exactly Pre-COIE, but you would want to include characters who need/needed post-COIE modern stories to introduce them and establish them as...they weren't present pre-COIE. This isn't about Wally West, who certainly has nothing to do with our talk about non-straight, non-white character exclusion in a Pre-COIE reboot. Though the minority characters ushered in in his era would apply.

Mark Waid's Flash Family isn't part of a Pre-COIE reboot. Ostensibly, a Pre-COIE reboot has a retired Wally West with Barry at the lead.

I also said I understood why that wasn't very doable and had drawbacks. Taking too long and origin retelling was one of the reasons.

Utilizing the Multiverse to have a Post Crisis continuity and any other continuity was a separate suggestion on what they could do, so I thought you were speaking specifically about that.

[Dred]

I was speaking of the opposite, how splitting things into 'multiple' Earths just leads to one shriveling and dying because it's not the focus. Earth 2 from the New 52 as the obvious example. There'd be no sustained content and you'd just end up with the one pre-coie Earth and it's significant lack of, well, everything significantly lacking in the 80s and prior.