The return of the Mighty Mighty New 52 Discussion thread

[mortymantis]

I know this may be a bit of a firestorm. But I like the new 52. I was a marvel reader that got to lost in the complicated story lines. You had to read 5 books to understand the story (ie avengers dissemble, civil war, house of m, planet hulk, secret invasion, dark avengers, Thor, just to understand seige). It was crazy

New 52 allowed me to start fresh and pick it up at number 1s. I bought back issues of justice league, omac, justice leage of America, all on ebay. I'm current and I like it.

Glad dc did the new 52

[SamuelbelievesinCyclops]

Understandable.

Some NEW 52 series have been pretty good too. E.g. Batgirl, Animal Man, Batman etc...

[Mahzian]

You aren't alone mortymantis, I've been reading comics since the late 80's and although I miss certain aspects of the DCU I still like the New 52. It cops a lot of flak but from my experience most of it has been from people who never gave it a chance. It's great to see new readers, online as well as in person at my local comic store.

[mortymantis]

I've read justice league, justice league America, forever evil, earth 2, and now justice league united and probably futures end.

I also loved Omac. The old school Kirby appreciation is great!

[mortymantis]

You aren't alone mortymantis, I've been reading comics since the late 80's and although I miss certain aspects of the DCU I still like the New 52. It cops a lot of flak but from my experience most of it has been from people who never gave it a chance. It's great to see new readers, online as well as in person at my local comic store.

Did you see a rise in sales?

[friendly-fire-press]

Good on you, mortymantis. I'm a big fan of the New 52 as well ... It got me back into DC

There's been a couple of hiccups but that goes with the territory and overall it was a much needed reboot and has several top quality titles

[RobinFan4880]

Completely agree. I like the New 52 as well. I think we can all admit DC could have done a better job with certain characters and properties but, on the whole, the New 52 has been pretty great.

[PyroSikTh]

I wouldn't have gotten into monthly titles if it wasn't for the New52 allowing me to start from #1. I also like most the changes that were made to characters, against everyone else's opinions; Mr. Freeze, Superman's costume etc.

[Joe-el]

Same here. I wasn't a reader of comics at all until the New 52, now I'm dropping $100+ a month on DC, Marvel, and Image. I love the New 52 and I'm thankful for it.

[Mahzian]

Did you see a rise in sales?

At my local comic store most certainly, I think worldwide the New 52 boosted sales when it initially hit, I think it might have sagged a bit now although I don't really follow that stuff (some of the other guys here are much more knowledgeable on that topic).

I see a lot more people at my local buying more DC books than Marvel these days though, before New 52 it was mostly a Marvel audience.

[exile001]

I'm with you. I loved the old DCU, but am enjoying a lot of the New52 very much.

A lot of new things got a chance that I don't think would have happened before, and beloved older concepts got a second chance.

I never, ever thought I'd buy a book about vampires, but I, Vampire is one of my favorite books from the (not a) re-boot. And Diah H was superb.

I admit a lot of these have disappeared but DC does at least gives them chances now.

I do wish the old universe had a better send off, though.

[MajorHoy]

Just before Flashpoint, many DC titles were a mess. So, yeah, they needed a good kick in the pants.

But, unfortunately, DC did too much of a "have our cake and eat it too", doing this confusing "soft-reboot" and initially making it seem like many of the big stories from the past were still included, but then backing away from that when they realized it wouldn't really work. They even had to retcon out things from the initial months of stories when they did the collected versions (like whether there still had been previous groups of "Teen Titans").

There was a lot of good that could have come from the New 52. But unfortunately, DC rushed into it without proper planning.

To me, the ideal solution would have been to do a complete reboot with NOTHING from the past still in play until it was established in a New 52 story. All of the pre-Flashpoint stories and stuff should have been shunted off to a separate Earth, and maybe in five or ten years could be re-introduced in a crossover between the Earths.

[AlexanderLuthor]

Just before Flashpoint
To me, the ideal solution would have been to do a complete reboot with NOTHING from the past still in play until it was established in a New 52 story. All of the pre-Flashpoint stories and stuff should have been shunted off to a separate Earth, and maybe in five or ten years could be re-introduced in a crossover between the Earths.

I hear this line of thinking a lot, and it does appear attractive. Believe me when I say a lot of thought was given to doing just that. It was the ideal solution for many of the "lesser" characters for sure. The big problem is that DCs most marketable character (by a factor of a thousand) does not lend itself to a complete reboot. Reintroducing Batman w/o 75 years of the mythos would be an almost impossible task - how exactly do you write a Joker story and act like they've never faced each other before? A brand new threat - the Joker! We would have also gone through 5-10 years of re-introducing Robins starting with a Dick Grayson that was 14-16 years old and retold 1000's of pages of story. Superman has the same problem to a lesser degree (and that's why they split a new telling of his start in Action, while doing "current" stories in Superman), but protecting the Batman brand is (and probably should be) DC's #1 priority. The whole thing makes a lot more sense if you just say they completely rebooted everyone except the Bat family and GL (so Johns could finish telling his almost 10 year epic that revitalized the character) and Morrison changes Superman's beginnings a bit. Messy sure, but the best of many less than ideal options.

* And to the original poster - I like the New 52 a lot, as well. There have definitely been bumps in the road, but having seen everything from COIE, to Zero Hour, to Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis - I think they did an admirable job under the circumstances. And now, a few years later I think the universe has found it's footing a little and they are putting out as many quality books as they have in a long, long time. Outside of Morrison and Johns the DCU was a complete dumpster fire prior to Flashpoint. Did they reboot it perfectly? No, but there was no perfect way to do it

[Chris Lang]

There was a lot of good that could have come from the New 52. But unfortunately, DC rushed into it without proper planning.

To me, the ideal solution would have been to do a complete reboot with NOTHING from the past still in play until it was established in a New 52 story. All of the pre-Flashpoint stories and stuff should have been shunted off to a separate Earth, and maybe in five or ten years could be re-introduced in a crossover between the Earths.

That's how I would have done it. All in all, it sounds like a FAR better means of doing it than they way DC did it. The whole 'shunted off to a seperate Earth' thing would allow the writers of the individual books to give proper wrapups to ongoing story threads before the old world gets de-emphasized in favor of the new.

And yes, really the ideal way of handing the New 52 was to not use anything from the past in it until it was established in a New 52 story. The Sinestro Corps Wars? Unless you're willing to show just when it, and the events leading up to it, happened in the New 52, don't mention it. Ditto for any other events (No Man's Land, Battle for the Cowl, etcetera) of the individual titles.

Really, if you're going to re-boot a comic book universe, you have to put in as much effort into it as possible. You can't half-donkey it. You have to know who everyone is in the new reality, their relations with the other characters, and their status quo. You have to have ALL that straight before you begin in earnest.

In short, you can't just make it up as you go along. And while I haven't been reading much of the new 52, everything I've seen and heard indicates that 'making it up as they go along' is precisely what they're doing. And that's the WRONG way to go about it.

[thetrellan]

I know this may be a bit of a firestorm. But I like the new 52. I was a marvel reader that got to lost in the complicated story lines. You had to read 5 books to understand the story (ie avengers dissemble, civil war, house of m, planet hulk, secret invasion, dark avengers, Thor, just to understand seige). It was crazy

Even for those who had no trouble following, that entire period was awful from start to finish. Planet Hulk was good, but stretched the whole "strongest one there is" deal too far, and what followed with WWH was just Hulk porn. We all get it. No one is stronger. Was it really necessary to demonstrate it so blatantly? Plus the AD stuff and everything stemming from it was terrible. Marvel has two universes on one Earth: the world of mutants, driven by hate and fear; and the more respected superheroes. If you were into mutant mania, odds are the other titles didn't quite do it for you. But if you enjoyed something more light hearted, as I do? No way did I want to see the entire MU become the kind of paranoid fare that served the X-heroes so well. Civil War was a terrible move, just awful. I read every series you mentioned, and by 2011 I'd had my fill. Marvel had finally managed the unthinkable. They made me leave.

They were my mainstay. Quitting them after 40 years of loyalty left me seriously considering giving up comics altogether.

And if it weren't for the New 52, I would have. Then the nay sayers refused to leave it alone. DC should have stuck to their guns. Really. If fans wanted old lore reestablished, new takes on that lore could and should have been written. It would have been great. Just like having a Zod based on Byrne's vision of Krypton would have been fantastic. All these die-hard fans who couldn't stand change really screwed things up. They refused to see it as a chance to fall in love all over again. Not just for fans with their heroes, but also for Lois and Clark, for Iris and Barry.

Now we were stuck with Superdad and life lessons for his stupid kid.

And though he's trying, I don't think Bendis is the one to fix that. He was a huge part of everything that messed up the MU. Superheroes aren't his forte at all. Let him make sweeping changes to the status quo and watch it all fall apart. Hey, I liked the pre-Flashpoint universe too. But there was real value what the New 52 was doing. There was no need to retcon just for Wally's comeback or for Clark and Lois to get together again. You have to know it was going to happen anyway, and would have been all the better for the super-affair having run its course. Now the WW/SM romance is pointless and led nowhere.

Rant concluded. Letting go now.