Why REBIRTH failed and how it may ultimately lead to the end of DC as we know it

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Rebirth itself didn't fail. It was the revitalization that DC needed.

The problems started when it ended with Johns stepping down.

Pretty much this. Rebirth was needed after the New 52. Sorry, but Dan Didio’s vision for the DC Universe just didn’t work. At all.

It’s one thing to say “we want to bring in more new and diverse readers and reflect that diversity in the actual slate of heroes we publish.” That’s something that should always be strived for. However, it’s another thing entirely to turn around and say “and we’re going to do that by wiping away almost 80 years of established lore and/or continuity.” That...rightfully gave people some pause. Even if the end goal was admirable, the execution really wasn’t. A lot of the stuff that came with the New 52 was either not reflective of diversity or just wasn’t particularly smart in how they chose to incorporate more people of color into the DC Universe. I think we’re all well aware of how their attempt at introducing a black Kid Flash was a train-wreck in that not only did it irrevocably alter a fan-favorite character but also turned that fan-favorite character into a stereotypical “street kid” who needed Barry “White Savior” Allen to put him on the right path.

On top of that, it ERASED a lot of the POC characters that existed in the DCU prior to Flashpoint. It’s also of note that Marvel accomplished what DC sought to accomplish WITHOUT rebooting their universe. But, all of that’s been said before.

And while Rebirth itself was a much needed breath of life back into DC, it still fell prey to a lot of the things the New 52 did: behind the scenes drama. Lee is right. For too long, DC has been subject to editorial mismanagement. No offense to the guy personally, but Dan Didio was not a good publisher. He constantly interfered with and alienated creative talent and pushed storylines and events that were questionable at best in terms of quality.

[HsssH]

It is not that hard to start a story in an exciting way, but what matters is finishing it. So while Rebirth one-shot was exciting nothing that came out of it was actually good. If you factor in delays then it became mediocre and pointless.

I don't think that the problem is some power struggle going on behind the scenes, but that nobody (including Johns) had any idea what they were actually trying to achieve with Rebirth. You can spend 15 minutes reading forums/twitter/reddit and figure out that people want Legion, Wally, JSA back and more focus on classical characters, but what do you actually do when you bring them back? To me it doesn't look like anyone at DC had any ideas about that.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

DC should not rely on reboots to fix sales. The end. If they want to relaunch everything at number 1 as part of rebranding fine.

But every reboot just leads to years of events to reboot more and fix everything. By the end of Post Crisis we had the Legion back, the multiverse was back, the JSA was just mixed into Earth 1 with a near identical history, Barry was back, Barry Allen and Supergirk we’re back etc.

[Morgoth]

To be honest, I have never understood the logic according to which "reboot = fixing sales". Reboots are the reason for the broken continuity, this is the reason why their comics are very difficult to approach for new readers who want to get a little deeper into what is happening. One friend of mine just couldn't go deeper because he got confused about it.
And speaking of Rebirth, if they had one direction in which they clearly followed, then everything would be fine. But we had Dan "I hate everyone what you like" DiDio, who considers himself a genius, who knows what people need better than themselves, we had Jones with his own concept, which he himself did not fully know how to implement, and later Snyder also was added with his Metal. So this is such a mess and it's awful.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

To be honest, I have never understood the logic according to which "reboot = fixing sales". Reboots are the reason for the broken continuity, this is the reason why their comics are very difficult to approach for new readers who want to get a little deeper into what is happening. One friend of mine just couldn't go deeper because he got confused about it.
And speaking of Rebirth, if they had one direction in which they clearly followed, then everything would be fine. But we had Dan "I hate everyone what you like" DiDio, who considers himself a genius, who knows what people need better than themselves, we had Jones with his own concept, which he himself did not fully know how to implement, and later Snyder also was added with his Metal. So this is such a mess and it's awful.

Because if you do a hard reboot.... then yes you start over and simplify everything and it makes it easy. DC is just never retconning 80 years of history. So it’s a moot point. When you reboot your entire line and Batman went through 4 Robins, the Death of Jason, the paralyzing if Batgirl, Knightfall, etc it’s never going to be a clean jumping on point. But having history is what makes it popular.

So in theory it works, but DC won’t compromise history so they view reboots as “cleaning up”

[Myskin]

It is not that hard to start a story in an exciting way, but what matters is finishing it. So while Rebirth one-shot was exciting nothing that came out of it was actually good. If you factor in delays then it became mediocre and pointless.

I don't think that the problem is some power struggle going on behind the scenes, but that nobody (including Johns) had any idea what they were actually trying to achieve with Rebirth. You can spend 15 minutes reading forums/twitter/reddit and figure out that people want Legion, Wally, JSA back and more focus on classical characters, but what do you actually do when you bring them back? To me it doesn't look like anyone at DC had any ideas about that.

This.
We are on a fan forum, so I've come to expect it, but I am always somehow astonished at how easily people theorize about the supposed groups at struggle with each other BTS even if it's the type of info nobody ever comes to know for certain.
It's quite likely that both Didio and Johns share an entrepreneurial vision of what DC should be, rather than a creative one. It's a product that they have to sell. Their mindset has little in common with what the fans think or want to think. The main problem with Rebirth - as with New52 - was that no one had a longtime plan for what to do with it.
I'd also say that yes, Doomsday Clock's problematic delays created a lot of problems in terms of what was in continuity and what not. However, even if every single issue had been released as planned, I doubt that the situation would have changed. There is nothing in Doomsday Clock which gives the readers a strong, clear, definitive direction for the DCU.

[Zero Hunter]

It failed because the over arching story was reliant on Johns being able to stay on schedule. DC had to stall for over a year and a half because Doomsday Clock kept getting pushed back. It was a bad plan as Johns has a million other (more lucrative) projects he was working on in Hollywood. By the time Doomsday Clock was finished, the outcome no longer had the same relevance it was supposed to. The JSA had already returned in underwhelming fashion in Snyder's Justice League and the plans for Legion of Superheroes were scrapped in favor of Bendis' reboot.

Anyone who thinks this was Johns and Franks fault is just wrong. Both have proven over the years to be able to keep a schedule just fine until this event. The main problem was with Didio constantly changing the plan Johns had to keep trying to adjust his big story to fit the mess they were creating. It is hard to write a huge universe effected event when everything around you is changing ever few months. Didio let the other writers just run wild like Snyder, King, and Bendis letting them do whatever they wanted regardless of it fit in the long term plan they had previously mapped out which is was torpedoed Doomsday Clock before it even got of the ground. You can just look at the way Wally West was used to tell just how much Didio was changing the plan from what Johns had going to see this was not Johns fault.

[Sacred Knight]

Its the same as every initiative. Big splashy hype, renumbered books, all that gimmicky stuff that guarantees an influx. And it works, I can't take that away. It works, just only for a while. After a certain period the quality has to stand on its own, and that's where things fall back to DC's second-place mean.

[Holt]

On paper the idea of a reboot probably sounds appealing and like a good solution to stagnant sales. A major reason the industry is in the state it's in is the failure to bring in a significant new audience.

But it doesn't address enough of the other problems keeping new readers away from the Big 2 (insane prices, stagnant direct market system) and the New 52 in particular squandered a number of good cross promotional chances. To this day, I'll never understand the decision to let Scott Lobdell turn the Teen Titans into something absolutely fucking unrecognizable when you had Young Justice on the air at the time and the extremely popular Teen Titans cartoon in recent memory.

Also not helping was that a lot of DC's heroes got radical redesigns that were ostensibly meant to make them look "modern," yet were often done with a distinct 90s aesthetic that made them look even more dated (Superman and Cyborg immediately come to mind).

[Jack The Tripper]

The continuity issues that have been raised in this thread is exactly why I was curious about 5G. It seemed like DC finally had a plan to make everything make sense since New 52 began nearly a decade ago. I know that a lot of fans would have been upset due to certain characters being aged up/replaced, but as a very very VERY casual DC fan, this interested me. If it was as thought out as it seemed to be from hints/interviews, i think it could have been interesting. Whether it would have successfully bought in new readers is hard to say!

[cranger]

The continuity issues that have been raised in this thread is exactly why I was curious about 5G. It seemed like DC finally had a plan to make everything make sense since New 52 began nearly a decade ago. I know that a lot of fans would have been upset due to certain characters being aged up/replaced, but as a very very VERY casual DC fan, this interested me. If it was as thought out as it seemed to be from hints/interviews, i think it could have been interesting. Whether it would have successfully bought in new readers is hard to say!

I still think that was always going to be an event. Not only did Rebirth point out tampering by Dr Manhattan, but even Flashpoint eluded to previous tampering. And between Convergence and Doomsday Clock there are all these ways of looking at a DC reality that is always folding in on itself. What the event would have do is essentially remove "comic book time" and told the story of "what if the DC universe took place over real time". So whereas Rebirth talked about stolen time, and instead of 10 years being added back in, what if 80 years or whatever were added back in.

[Jack The Tripper]

I still think that was always going to be an event. Not only did Rebirth point out tampering by Dr Manhattan, but even Flashpoint eluded to previous tampering. And between Convergence and Doomsday Clock there are all these ways of looking at a DC reality that is always folding in on itself. What the event would have do is essentially remove "comic book time" and told the story of "what if the DC universe took place over real time". So whereas Rebirth talked about stolen time, and instead of 10 years being added back in, what if 80 years or whatever were added back in.

Yeah that's a good point!

[skyvolt2000]

By DiDio's own admission DC was failing to get new readers interested in the New 52 stuff and they were just reading older stories.

That happens when you take what was good away.

Did Cyborg really need to be in Justice League to be Batman's bus and Internet? Or could an effort to make him more than Daddy hates me and man vs machine stories work better?

Did Static need to go to Harlem and get a clone sister?

Did Green Arrow and Black Lightning really need to lose their kids-so Batman and Superman could looker OLDER with tweeners?

Hawkman is still a mess.

Did we need 4 more Green Lanterns?

Who was messed up so bad that New 52 was needed? So messed up NOT because of guys like Dan but other reasons.

Wonder Twins nor Mr Miracle needed Rebirth.

[Robanker]

That happens when you take what was good away.

Did Cyborg really need to be in Justice League to be Batman's bus and Internet? Or could an effort to make him more than Daddy hates me and man vs machine stories work better?

Did Static need to go to Harlem and get a clone sister?

Did Green Arrow and Black Lightning really need to lose their kids-so Batman and Superman could looker OLDER with tweeners?

Hawkman is still a mess.

Did we need 4 more Green Lanterns?

Who was messed up so bad that New 52 was needed? So messed up NOT because of guys like Dan but other reasons.

Wonder Twins nor Mr Miracle needed Rebirth.

Hey man, Venditti has done great work with the Hawks and reconciled their history as well as can be done! Pistols at dawn, sir!

[Sacred Knight]

Who was messed up so bad that New 52 was needed?

Superman was. I'm not saying the New 52 as it was constructed was the only way to do it, indeed I'm quite sure it could have been constructed better (outside of Morrison's starting point, which was close to perfect). But the general idea of a full revamp? Superman needed it.

And now, only four years after bringing it all back, he needs it again already. What was lost in the reboot as far as Superman is concerned was always wildly overstated. Nothing paramount was lost as Superman only needs a few basic, non-interchangeable ideas to work. He's being bogged down under the weight of a continuity and history that makes no sense. I mean if it at least made sense okay. Nothing wrong with history in of itself of course. But nothing about Superman's lore does anymore though. That's why they got rid of all his history in the first place. Its no surprise that the same thing happened so shortly after bringing it all back, especially considered they actually *added* more confusing baggage to it.