At least "A Death in the Family" is not that good, and can think of many way better Batman stories that didn't had any ramifications.
Appart from that I think for a consistent classical DCU you had probably to go back to before Infinite Crisis (ot maybe even a few years further back), the last years pre flashpoint were also not terrible good in this regard.
Just reboot and tell new stories. Make a clean break, otherwise it gets confusing, as well as retell stories, Knightfall would be great to be remade again - but do this very, very rarely.
I think the problem is seeking an organic continuity in a vast fictional world that has lasted this long with decades of stories at this point.
A DC is long past an organic cohesive continuity.
I don't have a problem enjoying the stories right now.
Every time they try to go back and sort out continuity they make it worse while alienating a section of their readers.
Forward not backwards.
Stuff like Death in the family and Gwen's death landed the way they did due to the era and where the audience was at the time.
There can still be ramifications with the current continuity.
Last edited by dietrich; 07-06-2020 at 04:57 AM.
Yeah, because it's not like Jason's murder by Joker has had a big impact on his character development or on the Bat-family as a whole despite the fact that it's still referenced and alluded to over three decades later, right? I mean...seriously? Even you have to realize that what you've said here is a gross mischaracterization. Basically every example you mention here doesn't really prove your point when you apply scrutiny to the facts.
Barry Allen's death resonated for years afterwards and gave us Wally West as the Flash and Wally West as the Flash is something still relevant today. Not to mention that Barry Allen being dead set the stage for one of the best Flash stories of all time: the Return of Barry Allen.
For Supergirl and Ted Kord, the impact of their deaths were ruined because DC didn't take continuity seriously and rebooted/retconned them. But even in the case of Ted Kord, his death is what gave us Jaime Reyes, a fan-favorite character.
And Superman was never going to be permanently dead. But the impact of the Death of Superman arc is huge, even if it only gave us Doomsday. But, as we know, it gave us a lot more than Doomsday. If not for that arc, we wouldn't have Cyborg Superman, Hal wouldn't have become Parallax setting the stage for like the next twenty or so years of Green Lantern continuity, etc.
Yes. Maybe DC's finally realizing that the New 52 has alienated us older readers and some of the things between COIE and New 52 actually worked which is why you're seeing most of it slowly coming back as if Doomsday Clock were any indication. Hope they keep this coming and some older readers just might come back.
Batman mythos only works if Bruce is in his late 40s to mid 50s, it would easily explain how he has so many sidekicks and proteges.
Titans needs a complete overhaul.
WW is easy to fix, all of her problems come from a lack of consistency regarding the Amazon's and her supporting cast. Are the Amazon's an advanced, benevolent matriarchy or are they a society of barbarians who hate men? Something in between these two extremes? This changes between runs and story arcs within the same run.
Also, place more focus on her villains that aren't Greek gods and aren't Cheetah or Giganta.
How about DC just stops upending their own continuity every few years? use a sliding time scale like marvel does so we don't have to obsess about the JSA and did Wonder Woman inspire Wonder Girl, etc. and if DC decides they aren't happy with consequences of a particular event or story arc just quietly downplay them until folks have forgotten about them. And how about quit altering continuity for the whole universe just so you can come up with a convoluted in-universe explanation for why The LOSH or Krypto is back in existence. How about creating 'events' based on interesting story ideas, rather than as the comic equivalent of a rube goldberg device in order to accomplish editorial goals like bringing back Barry Allen.
Granted, marvel has gone down this road to frequently as well in recent years. I guess relaunching the line does give a short term sales boost but it only seems to alienate readers in the long run and from what i can tell, as older readers give up on comics there aren't enough new readers coming in to replace them.
Of course there is a little chicken-and-the-egg quality to all of this. Do DC fans tend to be more obsessive about continuity and thus the comics cater to that, or does DC's focus on correcting continuity tend to attract fans that prefer that, even if stories suffer as a result? I dunno.
You can still tell great accessible stories with decades of continuity behind them as long as the cart isn't leading the horse. The story comes first. It also helps that DC regularly freshens up their continuity, which also frees up creators from having to stick with outdated details from decades old stories.
Just stick with a vague broad strokes continuity that includes the greatest hits that everyone knows and loves and proceed from there.
And, from now on, spend less time focusing on the stories that are mostly about fixing continuity. Hopefully, Death Metal will reset DCU history in such a way that nobody has to worry about fixing it again for at least 10 years.
But I know that's highly unlikely
1. Your first paragraph really doesn't need to be dripping in sarcasm and condescension does it?
2. I never meant to imply that those stories didn't still get referenced or didn't still matter to continuity, just that the biggest ramification of death no longer mattered to today's audience - if iconic deaths can't stick in this new era, you can't expect death to impress anyone now. So I never once said that it was all undone and whatever you think I meant, I only meant that because of those decisions it won't leave an impact when death happens in new stories.
3. It doesn't matter that not respecting the characters ruined their deaths, them coming back to life was inevitable in modern comic books.
And a lot of the impact you're talking about now is the new characters that sprung up - that can happen in good stories without relying on the death gimmick.
That's what I was trying to suggest when I responded to you, because how you worded what came before did not sound like this. The earlier post gave the impression that continuity would be the big heavy convoluted focus.
Most people don't seem to be reading new stories that they like in continuity from the bulk of the posts talking about it...