Your Guide To Understanding DC Comics' "Convergence" Timelines

[Dataweaver]

They haven't had "so many reboots". They've had two.

That depends on what you mean by “reboot”: certainly, Legion fans would quarrel with any claim that Zero Hour wasn’t a reboot; and Infinite Crisis’ changes to the main Earth’s continuity were arguably every bit as drastic as what Zero Hour did. The only real difference is that Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis didn’t make drastic alterations to the current state of affairs the way Flashpoint did; they primarily focused on changing the backstories that lead up to the current state of affairs.

But then, even Crisis on Infinite Earths didn’t go as far as Flashpoint did; to the extent that it was a reboot, the reboot was spread out over the subsequent decade. Justice League Detroit was still in continuity when Millenium forced them to disband and ushered in the JLI; the Green Lantern Corps started out featuring a team on Earth that clearly remembered the pre-Crisis Multiverse, which didn’t change until four or five years later with Emerald Dawn; Hawkworld lead to one of the messier aspects of the decade-long reboot process. And so on: in many cases, the titles continued on right from where they had been pre-Crisis, at least for a while — much like the way the changes brought about by Infinite Crisis tended to take hold over an eight-year period.

[Sacred Knight]

When I think reboot, I think the wholesale thing (minus DC's goofy insistences of not rebooting one or two properties and causing problems but I digress). When stuff changes, but we're essentially still in the same place, I just consider those various retcons.

[Dataweaver]

When I think reboot, I think the wholesale thing (minus DC's goofy insistences of not rebooting one or two properties and causing problems but I digress).

It’s an important digression, though.

When stuff changes, but we're essentially still in the same place, I just consider those various retcons.

Define “same place”. While the Multiverse had been compressed into a single world after the first Crisis, DC was still arguably “in the same place” right after it, in that titles were for the most part continuing from where they had left off. The actual reboots didn’t begin for nearly five months after the Crisis had ended (All-Star Squadron #60), and didn’t really start rolling until closer to nine months later: Superman didn’t reboot until October, and Batman and Wonder Woman got their reboots four months after that, nearly a year after the Crisis had finished. That’s nearly a year’s worth of post-Crisis stories that didn’t even have retcons, let alone reboots.

[theRedHood]

It's scary when someone who started reading DC comics in 1987 (such as myself) is confused!!!

I been reading DC since 90's & I don't get what everybody is so confused about ¿?
- Outside of "Where is Plastic-Man"
- What Earth/Realm our Mr.Mxyzptlkt from ?
Cause I don't believe the'MULTI-VERSSITY" guidebook even touched on that..

& What in the Hell or WHY DID DC STOP TRADING The (Awesome) LoSH. BAXTER SERIES.
After only 2 volumes.. The "Who is Sensor Girl Saga" was up next & im STILL WAITING.

[theRedHood]

I'm not reading any dc books during these 2 months. And with only 4 marvel titles it will be a couple lean months for me.

I GUARANTEE You pick-up A 2pt. Mini as soon as you see A #1 of whatever
you once had passion for.. Guaranteed.
Me, Im stoked about A pre-crisis (1985-86) EARTH3-
"Whatever Happened to the OG. ULTRAMAN".
An EARTH3 (pre-whiteout) 2ptr For $8.. How juicy!


Cause All this is, is basically Classic 2parter "Whatever Happened to--"
(see the classic original Superman editor's goodbye, love letter. By A.Moore).

Agreed!

There are so many good stories in new 52...they are just missing all of it because of their own personal bias.

For sure!
-SwampThang! Esp the Yanik Artwork at the beginning of New52 is Legendary!
-OMAC. was CrAzY Fun!
-Reis & Johns "Aquaman" // "Throne of Atlantis" (with that epilogue-- Dam!)
Their Aquaman stuff is The DEFINITION of DEFINITE. So good I don't even wanna
Watch the New JL Throne of Atlantis movie..
-If ya didn't read LARAFLEEZE #1 your missing out!
-The Zod origin in the Superman / Action #? .1 3D comic.
-Finally A Sinestro Origin in Detail via GL #? .1 the 3D comic & Sinestro#1!!
-Alot of the Phantom Stranger JLD stuff is DC noteworthy good.

& I could go on.

[Master X]

Based on surveys, my guess is lots or most of the customers of paper comics and digital comics are still old people which might explain titles like Batman 66 which is fondly remembered by some old people. I don't know if those who buy Batman 66 are mostly old people or new customers. The earth 0 main line is probably trying to find new customers and to make the comics easier to translate to tv & movies which maybe explains most of the peculiar rules of New 52 that many old people don't like. Even if the New 52 rules fail to find large numbers of new customers, dc probably expects to make more money from tv & movies based on the new 52 comics. Dc is probably expecting more profits from tv & movies so took a risk in the 2011 New 52 changes causing the lost of some of the old customers. Convergence is probably a thank you to the old customers but dc probably has to move on to the new profits from tv and movies based on the new comics and all the old baggage has to be left behind already. Dc moving its offices probably is a sign that tv and movies are now more important and the new 52 comics has to feed the more profitable tv and movies, and lots of old comic continuities are no longer needed.

Used to buy 66, but LCS went kaput... Low on money anyway so most of my pull list got junked (October 2014?). I'll admit, it's one of my favorite titles, but I paid for it myself; pretty much all the comics I'm buying now are shared buys with my brother. If he didn't want Convergence as well, it's unlikely I'd have bought more than Pre-Flashpoint and the main series. As such we're actually buying it all. Should be a fun two months of comics, reminding me of the huuuuuuuge pull lists I used to get pre-September 2011.

[Master X]

Originally Posted by Sacred Knight
So funny when fans are so full of themselves they think Didio had this personal vendetta against them.

He wanted to implement his own ideas, surely. Some got through, some did not. It was not however a concentrated effort to get rid of a certain section of the fanbase. In a business your hope is to always gain, not to lose. Of course, losses are going to be inevitable, but its never the main goal. I'm an old guard fan, and I stuck around. I just happened to be genuinely interested and enjoy the new direction. Some are not. But no one guy specifically woke up one day and said, I'm gonna pee in this guy's Corn Flakes. Get over yourselves just a little bit

This is easily the best comment I've seen on here....ever. Thank you.

Obviously he didn't DELIBERATELY target a specific demographic of buyers, but the end result was the same as if he did. He still peed in your cornflakes, it was just by ignorance of not knowing where the actual toilet was.

[GlennSimpson]

Originally Posted by Sacred Knight
So funny when fans are so full of themselves they think Didio had this personal vendetta against them.

He wanted to implement his own ideas, surely. Some got through, some did not. It was not however a concentrated effort to get rid of a certain section of the fanbase. In a business your hope is to always gain, not to lose. Of course, losses are going to be inevitable, but its never the main goal. I'm an old guard fan, and I stuck around. I just happened to be genuinely interested and enjoy the new direction. Some are not. But no one guy specifically woke up one day and said, I'm gonna pee in this guy's Corn Flakes. Get over yourselves just a little bit



Obviously he didn't DELIBERATELY target a specific demographic of buyers, but the end result was the same as if he did. He still peed in your cornflakes, it was just by ignorance of not knowing where the actual toilet was.

There seems to be some disconnect here between knowing that something is going to happen and doing it deliberately.

I would assume that Didio et al sat down and said, we need to do something to get sales up. They decided that a reboot/relaunch would be the best way. At some point in the discussion someone probably said "some of the hardcore fans are going to hate it" and they collectively made a decision that the pros outweighed the cons.

That's different from doing it with the *sole intent* of doing some sort of weird harm to the hardcore fans.

[solletaire]

I wonder how NEw 52 fans (who actually started there) feel about this. It's a lot of information to swallow, a lot of uknown characters, storylines and events.

If i had started with DC at the New 52 reboot, i'd be either uninterested or very very confused. For me it's the same when i think about Spider-man and some Marvel Characters. Trying to figure out who Ben Reilly is and stuff like that either gets me more confused or bored.

I started reading Batman and Justice League after the New 52. I haven't really read anything from the company before that.

I can tell you that I have no interest in this event what-so-ever. Obviously I don't have an attachment or understanding of these past iterations of DC characters. I also feel that I won't really see these characters in the New 52 after the event. So, for me, I will be skipping this event. Maybe I'll get Convergence 1-4, we'll see.

I understand where DC long-term fans are coming from and I respect DC for trying to give their disenfranchised readers a bit of what they want. BUT, for me, there really is no point in spending hours on wikipedia trying to figure out the rationale behind these stories and the background of the characters. Will be back to DC in June. In the meantime, I'll have some extra cash to spend on something else.

Oh, and I am kind of glad I skipped Futures End and World's End... I have a sinking suspicion that both worlds from these two weeklies will end up in Convergence... the Futures End future world would have never existed and Earth-2 will be retconned into being a different Earth-2 from the one in World's End...

[colonyofcells]

Futures End is not necessary since it is just an ad for the unpopular characters and some newer characters. Post convergence, we should see some relaunches based on whatever was popular in Futures End. Earth 2 title will probably be axed. Don't know when dc will have monthly titles set on alternate earths again, and it could take a while. Post convergence, Dc will probably concentrate on earth 0 as usual and whatever that can feed the more profitable tv and movies.

[Master X]

There seems to be some disconnect here between knowing that something is going to happen and doing it deliberately.

I would assume that Didio et al sat down and said, we need to do something to get sales up. They decided that a reboot/relaunch would be the best way. At some point in the discussion someone probably said "some of the hardcore fans are going to hate it" and they collectively made a decision that the pros outweighed the cons.

That's different from doing it with the *sole intent* of doing some sort of weird harm to the hardcore fans.

I can't help but feel you were meaning to respond to someone else here. I never claimed it was sole intent or deliberate.

[dimitrik]

As a fan of DC continuity, I've always considered Crisis on Infinite Earths as a superb story, but a really terrible idea.

Trying to streamline all that continuity was an impossible task, it required throwing away a ton of great stories (arguably better than what came after), many stories had to be retconned which was frankly rather boring and the end result was still a mess that countless re-boots haven't fixed.

By now I'm so tired of re-boots, I can hardly touch a DC comic.

The parallel earths idea was an elegant one that worked perfectly in my humble opinion. Not to mention the fun cross-overs.

I've been happy that we now have 52 earths and would be even happier of we could get the infinite number back (by the way, the multiverse concept only really works with an infinite number of universes anyway, FWIW)


On the other hand I quite liked Marvel's Ultimate Universe concept when it first came out. It seemed like a better reboot method, by being completely disconnected from the past. But even that eventually turned into a parallel earth.
Hopefully DC's about to follow suit...