What major event in DC Comics history caused the most damage?

[caj]

In your opinion, what major event in DC Comics history caused the most damage?

And if you'd like, provide some examples. What would you want to be put back in place?

[blunt_eastwood]

New 52? And only because it's made the post-Flashpoint/Doomsday Clock/Rebirth/Death Metal continuity messy and confusing to me.

[Hol]

Hands down the New 52...but I guess Flashpoint is the event that caused it.

[astro@work]

Hands down the New 52...but I guess Flashpoint is the event that caused it.

Agree, New 52 was the result of Flashpoint...so Flashpoint.
(Although I enjoyed reading Flashpoint...it was the nu52 I hated).

[Stanlos]

In your opinion, what major event in DC Comics history caused the most damage?

And if you'd like, provide some examples. What would you want to be put back in place?

Flashturd and New poopy-2. Easily.

Unless, hiring Dan DiDidiot is an option

[Kaijudo]

New 52 is an easy (and not incorrect) answer, but I'd argue that Identity Crisis changed the culture/tone of DC Comics that led to something like the New 52 being thought of as a good idea. And it's something it feels like it's only now really coming out of, unsurprisingly in the wake of Didio's ouster.

[king81992]

All of them.

[Cap808]

I'd say it was the last minute switcheroo of Hawk for Captain Atom as Monarch in Zero Hour. It ruined Hawk and Dove for decades.

I also think if they'd have left Captain Atom as Monarch, it would've been perceived as a bigger threat, and Monarch could have possibly been a villain to this day.

[superduperman]

COIE. DC is still cleaning up the mess it made to this day. When you're still trying to sort out your continuity 40 years after and event happened, it might be safe to say it was more trouble than it was worth.

[Zero Hunter]

COIE. DC is still cleaning up the mess it made to this day. When you're still trying to sort out your continuity 40 years after and event happened, it might be safe to say it was more trouble than it was worth.

The only problem with Crisis was they half assed it. They tried to do a a line wide reboot without rebooting everything at once. That and latter writers coming in and trying to shove stuff they loved in the Silver Age back into modern continuity if it fit or not.

[SuperCrab]

In your opinion, what major event in DC Comics history caused the most damage?

And if you'd like, provide some examples. What would you want to be put back in place?

Rebirth.

The chief damage it did was the death of, and eventual overwriting of, the New52 Superman. He was my Superman. Nothing since is very good in my opinion. The New52 hit peak Superman, finally settling on the right mix of stuff in 2011 after all those years, and just jettisoned it for almost the exact opposite in 2016 (Since then, things have settled down a little bit- Jon aging up helps a ton, but this Rebirth/Reborn guy still isn't my Superman.).

What do I want to see put back into place? Well, primarily, the New52 Superman.

Since the most I actually expect to see is for him to come back as some sort of villainous warped version of himself for a story arc in 2042 or so, I don't necessarily need a full restoration of him as the only Superman of the DC universe to have a presence in the line that exceeds my sadly low expectations.

A monthly alternate universe ongoing comic book about the Superman of Earth 52 (Keeping him a hero) on his native world (Established to be there, New52 Superman included, by a panel in Doomsday Clock), picking up from the end of his last full appearance in on our universe, except he somehow doesn't die, and taking it from there. Sure, it's been a few years, but comic time has always been funny like that- sliding timescales and so forth. You set the book in the present, even though maybe the last scene from comic it picks up from was set in 2016 and you just leave it as understood that old the comics are rewritten to have occurred more recently. Comic fans get it.

Actually, the fun of a monthly in an alternate universe where this Superman isn't the mainstream DC universe Superman anymore and might even just be the third most prominent Superman in the mix overall, is that you can really double down on his character attributes. I mean, if you want a brooding action oriented Superman in an MA rated book, you just do it without having to worry about, hey, this is everyone's Superman so we have to keep it in check for young and traditionally minded readers. Maybe this Superman goes to bars with his friend Jim Olson to pick up women after work, his Perry White is cussing while chomping cigars, and so on and so forth.

You want him to focus on social justice and be woke? He can be. He's already a Superman who joined protesters, took a whole bunch of hits with a nightstick without fighting back, and then eventually punched the cop who was beating him (Who turned out to be an alien). Once he's not the main Superman, you could have him support Occupy Wall-Street or Black Lives Matter or whatever you want instead of using generic stuff if you want- and when you get criticism from conservative readers, you just say this is a take on Superman for the select readers who are interested in a very different version of him than the main one they write about and that the character they know and love is the one in all the other books, still aiming to please a mainstream audience.

While I think New52 Superman would have eventually wound up with Lois Lane, Earth 52 Superman doesn't have to. An on again off again relationship with Wonder Woman taps into a whole vein of fandom that DC Comics hasn't really fed lately. And he's still young and free to date other characters periodically because of the tumultuous nature of the relationship. And, hey, sure, he has a crush on Lois and Lois has a crush on him, maybe there's a love triangle between Lois, Diana, Clark- you don't write that mutual attraction between Clark and Lois out- it's just that them eventually getting married is no longer necessarily the sort of end game of his love life written in ink on the internal timeline at DC Comics HQ- because, again, you've got another Superman who can fulfill those traditional expectations. Maybe someone will find where Lois has buried Jonathan Carroll's body (j/k. That was Lois' boyfriend New52 boyfriend who kind of disappeared from the New52 with no explanation at some point), bring him back to life, and the two of them will get married, prompting a very jealous reaction from Clark, but also meaning the Clark and Lois aren't going to be a thing for a while in this alternate universe.

The other thing is, you have the entire alternate Earth 52 to play with. So, you can go in whatever direction you want with the other heroes of that world, who would just be guest characters in our Superman's world, with continuity that is only what their New52 continuity was at the time of New52 Superman's death, without having to worry about it impacting all the books for those other characters. These would all be alternate universe character dopplegangers to the current main DC universe now, so it's whatever is good for Superman's storylines.

Maybe Superman could actually be portrayed as better than Batman. It's not the "real" Batman after all, right? But you could also do some things, again, because it isn't the mainstream Batman, like make him an even darker character who seems to be starting to kill bad guys without trials because he "knows" they're guilty, prompting confrontations with Clark, and people like Nightwing to walk away from Bruce. Or maybe you don't do much with the Batman character at all, but Superman flies into Gotham and has drinks with Bruce in Gotham now and again.

Those are just examples. The key thing is, they never had to eliminate the New52 Superman. When the first stills of Action Comics came out and we saw SuperDad on the cover, we thought it meant the two Supermans were going to exist side by side and that New52 Superman would keep the Superman book. One thing that I think almost everyone would agree with is that DC Comics tends to take these wild swings and make these huge changes in 180 degree turns every so often, and, even though, they could easily, with concepts like the multiverse or several versions of a hero in the same universe, provide an alternative to whatever direction they go with the two traditional books with an alternate universe or just alternate version of the hero monthly, they don't.

You feel like you've been reading along for years, buying their books, putting your time and money into one version of a character who is in 5 or 6 monthly ongoing comics at once, and then they just dump him entirely for a wildly different version without tossing the other version's fans a bone via something to read. I don't just mean that they could have provided a New52 Superman monthly after swapping him out for SuperDad, I also mean that the post-Crisis pre-Flashpoint Superman could have had an alternate universe monthly during the New52 era.

They say this stuff confuses readers, but I think that's always been bullshit, and I think it's especially bullshit in 2023, because the multiverse is a hot concept. People are seeing this as a theme in all kinds of movies and televisions. You don't even have to enjoy science fiction or comic books to be familiar with the concept anymore. So, if you want to do an Earth 52 book, you just stamp Earth 52 on the cover. The New52 Superman's high collar and body armor without trunks custom is fairly distinct from the current DC Comics Superman's look, and I feel like even the face and hair guidelines for illustrators were probably different- plus, they're different ages. Give your readers and potential returning readers a little credit.

Some of the off the cuff suggestions I made don't have to be the direction they would go. I just miss the character of the New52 Superman and would like to see him return as a hero in an ongoing role.

[Jackalope89]

Flashpoint/New52's effects are still being ironed out. Very few characters actually benefited from it (Jason Todd being one of those few).

[Robotman]

Flashpoint/New52's effects are still being ironed out. Very few characters actually benefited from it (Jason Todd being one of those few).

A lot of people forget that the New 52 was kind of a golden era for DC’s supernatural characters. That side of the universe had languished for decades but suddenly we had great books featuring Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Frankenstein, Deadman, and the formation of the Justice League Dark. It was a continuity disaster but there were good things that came out of the reboot too.

[BatmanJones]

COIE. DC is still cleaning up the mess it made to this day. When you're still trying to sort out your continuity 40 years after and event happened, it might be safe to say it was more trouble than it was worth.

This is what I opened this thread to post, almost word for word.

[Jon Clark]

The Dark Knight Returns- it is the prime cause of the darkening of Batman and through Batman the rest of the DCU. It set the stage for the Batman vs Superman (and the other JLAers) scenarios that have been done to death. And everytime they "correct" Batman since that story the character reverts to the "goddamn Batman" persona again.