Death Metal #7 *Spoilers*

[Restingvoice]

They cancelled Didio's version of 5G. But its becoming increasingly obvious that they're indeed carrying out some of the base ideas. Why? I couldn't answer that for sure, but maybe they liked the end result but not Didio's idea to jump right into it? Just a thought but at the end of the day I don't know for sure. But things we do know is that Future State is not just a filler event, its more meaningful than that. We know that Jon is going to become a Superman in main canon. We know Diana is in Valhalla and that Yara is going to be introduced to main canon. We know Tim Fox is indeed going to eventually don a Batman costume in main canon. So signs are there.

I think... I forget who said this... it's because some of the writers and artists are already hired, some of the works are already done, so they just use it rather than erase it completely

[Myskin]

Ok, let's put this straight.
Basically, according to what the final issue implies, that's more or less the way things will work from now on.
We - the readers - are supposed to assume that what goes on in Superman's mind (even when he doesn't openly talk about it) sounds more or less like this:
"I remember when my parents died when I was young, and my father told me that I should become a Superman to protect people. But then my parents were alive again, and they resembled something from a Norman Rockwell painting. And they were actually alive for a pretty long time, until Brainiac indirectly killed my father. But then they were dead again, both of them, when I was very young, this time in a car accident. Until I fought a big blue naked guy and they were alive again, both of them, and they actually helped me raise my son".
Ok, I get it, it's superheroes so they don't have to be 100% realistic, but at least they are supposed to be relatable. Does anyone really find what I have just described relatable? Or even better - how could anyone find it interesting? I mean, as far as I am concerned it completely destroys any possible sense anyone could give to poignant or meaningful moments in Superman's life. I mean, how could revisiting Pa Kent's death in the Brainiac saga be interesting, or moving, if we should somehow keep in mind that he went through other deaths and he is still alive in today's continuity anyway?
This is the type of idea which could work just for short, standalone episodes, along the lines of The Adventures of Superman series which came out some years ago. Very short stories, each one in their own continuity. And we actually didn't need this "rule" to be introduced in the main universe. We already had The Adventures of Superman, and we are about to get Superman Red and Blue.

Actually... No. Now that I think about it, this rule didn't work in The Adventures of Superman, either. Because it wasn't about Superman remembering all of his past lives: each story worked in its continuity, and it was coherent with that specific continuity. So there was a Superman story in which he debuted in the 1930s and then his life took a certain direction from that moment on. It wasn't about Superman also remembering that he had debuted in a different period other than the 1930s.

I can't imagine how anyone could think that this could be a good idea when we had already had in-continuity stories and out-of-continuity stories way before Snyder wrote Death Metal. "Everything counts" is not an opportunity. It basically reduces the heroes to cardboard characters whose pivotal moments become basically non-existing, because they can be replaced at any moment with other, completely different pivotal moments. "Everything counts" equals to "Nothing counts". And it actually makes the past of the characters so difficult to deal with that I doubt anyone will ever revisit it again. I guess that they will simply ignore that the heroes HAVE a past from this moment on (which is more or less what has already happened in the Rebirth era for several characters).

[wonder39]

Ok, let's put this straight.
Basically, according to what the final issue implies, that's more or less the way things will work from now on.
We - the readers - are supposed to assume that what goes on in Superman's mind (even when he doesn't openly talk about it) sounds more or less like this:
"I remember when my parents died when I was young, and my father told me that I should become a Superman to protect people. But then my parents were alive again, and they resembled something from a Norman Rockwell painting. And they were actually alive for a pretty long time, until Brainiac indirectly killed my father. But then they were dead again, both of them, when I was very young, this time in a car accident. Until I fought a big blue naked guy and they were alive again, both of them, and they actually helped me raise my son".
Ok, I get it, it's superheroes so they don't have to be 100% realistic, but at least they are supposed to be relatable. Does anyone really find what I have just described relatable? Or even better - how could anyone find it interesting? I mean, as far as I am concerned it completely destroys any possible sense anyone could give to poignant or meaningful moments in Superman's life. I mean, how could revisiting Pa Kent's death in the Brainiac saga be interesting, or moving, if we should somehow keep in mind that he went through other deaths and he is still alive in today's continuity anyway?
This is the type of idea which could work just for short, standalone episodes, along the lines of The Adventures of Superman series which came out some years ago. Very short stories, each one in their own continuity. And we actually didn't need this "rule" to be introduced in the main universe. We already had The Adventures of Superman, and we are about to get Superman Red and Blue.

Actually... No. Now that I think about it, this rule didn't work in The Adventures of Superman, either. Because it wasn't about Superman remembering all of his past lives: each story worked in its continuity, and it was coherent with that specific continuity. So there was a Superman story in which he debuted in the 1930s and then his life took a certain direction from that moment on. It wasn't about Superman also remembering that he had debuted in a different period other than the 1930s.

I can't imagine how anyone could think that this could be a good idea when he had already had in-continuity stories and out-of-continuity stories way before Snyder wrote Death Metal. "Everything counts" is not an opportunity. It basically reduces the heroes to cardboard characters whose pivotal moments become basically non-existing, because they can be replaced at any moment with other, completely different pivotal moments. "Everything counts" equals to "Nothing counts". And it actually makes the past of the characters so difficult to deal with that I doubt anyone will ever revisit it again. I guess that they will simply ignore that the heroes HAVE a past from this moment on (which is more or less what has already happened in the Rebirth era for several characters).

So this is why the results of this crud story are so infuriating.... its just even more confusing than before.

...and this is why DDC made more sense. That events didn't destroy what came before, but splintered off a new Earth with it's new reality, leaving the Earth that came before alive. That way you get everything, in every continuity, and can just visit those realities while having main continuity on the current Earth.

I don't know why DC continues to plonk forward and negate things they just put into place. I wonder why new readers continue to need " jumping on points"? 9_9

Didn't we already do the " main heroes replaced by new versions" thing during the One Year gap?

[Hcmarvel]

Ok, let's put this straight.
Basically, according to what the final issue implies, that's more or less the way things will work from now on.
We - the readers - are supposed to assume that what goes on in Superman's mind (even when he doesn't openly talk about it) sounds more or less like this:
"I remember when my parents died when I was young, and my father told me that I should become a Superman to protect people. But then my parents were alive again, and they resembled something from a Norman Rockwell painting. And they were actually alive for a pretty long time, until Brainiac indirectly killed my father. But then they were dead again, both of them, when I was very young, this time in a car accident. Until I fought a big blue naked guy and they were alive again, both of them, and they actually helped me raise my son".
Ok, I get it, it's superheroes so they don't have to be 100% realistic, but at least they are supposed to be relatable. Does anyone really find what I have just described relatable? Or even better - how could anyone find it interesting? I mean, as far as I am concerned it completely destroys any possible sense anyone could give to poignant or meaningful moments in Superman's life. I mean, how could revisiting Pa Kent's death in the Brainiac saga be interesting, or moving, if we should somehow keep in mind that he went through other deaths and he is still alive in today's continuity anyway?
This is the type of idea which could work just for short, standalone episodes, along the lines of The Adventures of Superman series which came out some years ago. Very short stories, each one in their own continuity. And we actually didn't need this "rule" to be introduced in the main universe. We already had The Adventures of Superman, and we are about to get Superman Red and Blue.

Actually... No. Now that I think about it, this rule didn't work in The Adventures of Superman, either. Because it wasn't about Superman remembering all of his past lives: each story worked in its continuity, and it was coherent with that specific continuity. So there was a Superman story in which he debuted in the 1930s and then his life took a certain direction from that moment on. It wasn't about Superman also remembering that he had debuted in a different period other than the 1930s.

I can't imagine how anyone could think that this could be a good idea when he had already had in-continuity stories and out-of-continuity stories way before Snyder wrote Death Metal. "Everything counts" is not an opportunity. It basically reduces the heroes to cardboard characters whose pivotal moments become basically non-existing, because they can be replaced at any moment with other, completely different pivotal moments. "Everything counts" equals to "Nothing counts". And it actually makes the past of the characters so difficult to deal with that I doubt anyone will ever revisit it again. I guess that they will simply ignore that the heroes HAVE a past from this moment on (which is more or less what has already happened in the Rebirth era for several characters).

I agree with all of this and I also don't see what is different about this approach than what DC has been doing since the New 52 started. Even the New 52, which was a reboot if there ever was one, basically took this approach to things. Doomsday had maybe killed Superman at some point in the past, Batman had somehow had every Robin in just 6 years or whatever insane timeline the New 52 started with, Wonder Woman had like 5 origins within 4 years. Rebirth only doubled down on this and Death Metal just makes this concept text.

I also think it makes characters and lore just fundamentally uninteresting. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was read guide books about the history of the Marvel and DC universe and even though I couldn't read every story, I could get the gist of character's history through research and such. Now...it's fundamentally impossible to tell the character history of any DC character. If it "all" happened, then what exactly is Superman's biography right now? Can anyone actually explain it?

[Myskin]

By the way, DC continuity has never worked like this until very recent times. It was just a bit more straightforward and in some cases looser than the approach to continuity Marvel started to have in the 1970s, but it was always coherent.
When the Silver Age replaced the Golden Age, DC created Earth-2, so it was basically as if the readers had always unknowingly read Earth-2 stories up to a certain moment. The Silver Age retold many moments in the characters' lives, but there were always some fixed points. If a story ended with Luthor in prison and the next story started with him on the loose again, readers didn't necessarily have to know HOW Luthor had escaped. At one point they could simply assume that he had created some incredible plan and he had successfully put it into motion before the story started. But when it was revealed that Brainiac was not organic but a robot, all of the subsequent stories depicted him as a robot and they retroactively made him a robot all along, trying to find some kind of coherence with the Legion stories in which Brainiac 5 is told to be Brainiac's descendant. It's straightforward and simple, maybe even too simple for today's standards, but it was coherent too. Basically it was a situation similar to the one of Batman: The Animated Series in which we know more or less where the characters are at the beginning of each episode and there is an internal continuity, but the story mostly focuses on the single plot.
I mean, even after Crisis on the Infinite Earths stories were relatively coherent. There were some confusing points, but the foundation was solid. That's why it worked so well for decades (heck, to a degree you could say that it is still working today, since what we have in current stories is based on that specific version of the characters). It's just in the latest 10, 15 years that things derailed completely.
It's not that Death Metal really suggests that we should embrace all of the characters' past lives. In reality, what they are saying is that Luthor was Superman's friend when they were young, and at the same time he wasn't. What kind of stories can you build on such Schroedingerian foundations? This is not DC respecting its glorious past. This is DC basically giving up.

[Rise]

You people tend to over think and make an issue out of nothing.

How supeheroes emembering everything is going to work? Pretty easy, they know remember that several crisis happened that changed their lives multiple times. By doing so, they made it easy for writers to refer to whatever story they want without some fanboy now screaming about "IS THIS CANON???" or crying about continuity.

That being said, I don't have much hope for DC future as I said before because they stil repeating the same mistakes and have the sane problems.

[Myskin]

You people tend to over think and make an issue out of nothing.

How supeheroes emembering everything is going to work? Pretty easy, they know remember that several crisis happened that changed their lives multiple times. By doing so, they made it easy for writers to refer to whatever story they want without some fanboy now screaming about "IS THIS CANON???" or crying about continuity.

That's not how it is going to work. Fanboys will scream even more, and it's not that asking for a basic coherence among stories is a symptom of fanboyism. It's just a reasonable request for basic storytelling.

Just wait and see: the writers will not respect the rule in the first place.

[Robotman]

In Death Metal #7, it says "the timeline was unknotted once and for all and all our memories returned", but I'm not sure what this means. Does this mean that the inhabitants of the DC Universe remember all of history starting with the Golden Age as something they "experienced"? Or does it mean that the inhabitants of the DC Universe have only "knowledge" of the history that began in the Golden Age, but have not experienced it?

Sorry if my English is not clear.

Yes

10char

[kalai]

So on the "it all matters" part, I'm actually not a big fan.
I'm okay with "it's all canon", but it acknowledge the fact that there is Golden Age, Silver Age, Post-Crisis.
Now this everyone remembers everything model is weird going forward.

I see it as a reconciliation between those who love Silver Age and those who love Post-Crisis, and maybe those who love N52?
For me, I think that if you get a new iteration of characters with Crisis, it's actually pretty cool.
We can always get updated, modernized versions of your beloved characters,
but I guess the lore is important so who knows.

[robotgarden]

your english is fine bro, no worries. as for their memories, I think it's somewhere in the middle. I interpreted the ending as basically saying it's like reincarnation; they remember the major events all the way back to the silver age (golden age was a different earth) as something akin to "past" lives, largely through hypertime flashbacks.

Thank you very much.
So my question is, where is the identity of DC residents now? For example, are they aware that their pre-COIE selves and their post-flashpoint selves are all the same person? Or are they only vaguely aware of their pre-flashpoint selves as a kind of previous life?

If all their memories were of the same person, wouldn't it drive them crazy? Especially Mr. and Mrs. Kent, who have to start their lives over every time Superman comes around. I think it would be a crazy state of mind to remember all those things so vividly. So I'm guessing that the inhabitants and heroes of the DC Universe don't have a strong and clear memory of what happened before Flashpoint. I'm guessing that they don't have "actual experiences" of it, but rather a state of "having it as knowledge" that happened to them in some sort of previous existence.

[Rise]

That's not how it is going to work. Fanboys will scream even more, and it's not that asking for a basic coherence among stories is a symptom of fanboyism. It's just a reasonable request for basic storytelling.

Just wait and see: the writers will not respect the rule in the first place.

It would be cool if fans were actually asking about this instead of crying about muh continuity every chance they got and how things don't make sense about a universe that has been around for over 80 years now. Of course the universe will be convoluted and not make sense no matter how hard they try. Instead of accepting this as an inevitable consequence , DC spent the last decade trying to fix the unfixable until they finally give up and decided to go with the "everything happened, nothing else matter" approach which I don't think it's necessary a bad thing.

The problem though is that they are still making the same mistakes they did before. They wanted to push Barry? Suddnly they erased Wally unnecessarily and now they are trying to fix it by pushing his stupid drama and everyone (whether they like his character or not) will just have to pay and deal with the consequences. They want to push Jessica and Baz? Kyle doesn't show up in the rebirth cover (and he is the only lantern who didn't) and slowly become completely relevent. DC want to push John now? Hal doesn't show up on the cover that celebrates JL 50th anniversary while every other original founder does and let's not have him on the cover of DC new era because having gazillion bat characters is ok, but having more than three lanterns? It's too much and might take the foucs from John!! I have no love for Wally or Kyle nor I mind retiring Hal, but the way DC choose to push a character is by trying to bury another which they refuse to accept that it doesn't work.

And don't let me start with DC creating so many new characters in short period just because the writers hope they can benfit and get money out of them if by miracle they become successful. So now we have so many characters competing with each other and DC having no idea what to do with them. I also want to point here that I'm one few people who weren't aganist FS or 5G and I like the idea of moving the universe forward, but it's another good idea that end up being executed badly. Flash once again is about Wally stupid drama. Jon is a failure which it speaks more about Superman and Lois failing to raise him well. They spend the entire issue showing me Yara's thigh, standing like she is posing for a camera and showing me her annoying smug face while barely telling me anything of value about her. I'm still not sure what's the deal with Tim/Luke and what's even the point of doing this.

Like I said, I have no more hope for DC because everytime they take a step forward, they take several steps back and they don't learn from their mistakes. I haven't been posting lately here because I'm not interested what they have been doing lately and I have hoped that FS would be at least interesting, but of course it isn't. Does anyone bother to address these issues? No, because some fans are more obsessed with continuity and whether there is a conspiracy aganist their favourites or not. There's also the social warriors who care more about fictional world social issues than real world issues. It's a huge mess that fans are also part of it.

[HsssH]

Fans are absolutely a part of this, but it doesn't excuse DC for making situation worse every time they try to fix it.

[Myskin]

It would be cool if fans were actually asking about this instead of crying about muh continuity every chance they got and how things don't make sense about a universe that has been around for over 80 years now. Of course the universe will be convoluted and not make sense no matter how hard they try. Instead of accepting this as an inevitable consequence , DC spent the last decade trying fix the unfixable until they finally give up and decided to go with the "everything happened, nothing else matter" approach which I don't think it's necessary a bad thing.

(cut)

I understand some of these feelings, but again - to me it is completely impossible to see the "everything counts" thing as an improvement in comparison to the already messy situation we were in.
By the way, no one has ever asked for each and every single story to be put in continuity, so technically the "EVERYTHING counts" is basically the answer to a question no one ever really posed. What the vast majority of people have asked for is some discernible, clear fundamentals to be considered as the basis for the stories. It's a relatively short list of requests: was Superman ever Superboy? Was he ever friend with Lex Luthor? What is the definitive look and the main philosophy of Krypton? Etc.
What DC should have done for two-three characters (mostly Superman and Wonder Woman, because all of the other ones are in a relatively clearer situation) was creating a single, possibly interesting weekly maxiseries for each of them - along the lines of 52, but even a shorter, 26-issue run similar to Batman Eternal would have been enough - which could retell the life of the characters up to present days, and could serve as a bible for every single story from that moment on. Keeping in continuity most of what made sense, and throwing into the woodchipper what didn't. Coherence and straightforwardness should have been the keywords. For God's sake, Byrne's run lasted for just three years and created the basis for 20+ years of stories. What was the problem with one friggin' weekly maxiseries?

This is not a "Chris Claremont's X-men saga has so many loose threads that we can't understand the plots anymore" situation. This is just a situation in which it has become barely impossible to understand what the basic past of the characters is; since they seem to have contradictory memories of what their life has been like, and since no one in real life has had multiple lives they have memories of, it has become impossible to understand what goes through the characters' mind too. It's a situation which maybe only extreme fanboys may read and find interesting, and completely incomprehensible for anyone else. It's as if the characters themselves had become fanboys with a collection of different comic books they read and remember just for nerdish pleasure.

By the way, no matter what they think - fans DO NOT KNOW what they really want. DC's task should have just been telling good, interesting, comprehensible and possibly daring stories and fans should have read them, enjoyed them and even criticized them. The moment when DC starts to chase fans' most bizarre fanfiction-y opinions and try to make ALL of them happy is nothing but a failure.

[Triniking1234]

#7 hints that certain people who died before Death Metal came back so I'm hoping Red Arrow and Alfred Pennyworth come back.

[Factor]

#7 hints that certain people who died before Death Metal came back so I'm hoping Red Arrow and Alfred Pennyworth come back.

I love how there's no reason given for the resurrections lol.
I hope Heroes in Crisis is ignored from now on