Did Anything Important Happen Between New 52 and Rebirth?

[syvo]

I'm genuinely asking. As far as New 52 goes, what are the major takeaways?

Briefly: I was pretty hardcore into DC comics from the lead-up to Infinite Crisis (circa the Geoff Johns Green Lantern: Rebirth) up until New 52. I stopped reading monthly titles when New 52 hit because I hated the whole concept (plus, I was in law school and didn't have a lot of time).

Now that the New 52 era has come to a close, I want to jump back in for all the Rebirth stuff. I've already read some of it, but I'm just wondering if there are a few major things to know about from the New 52 era that are relevant to Rebirth (for instance, why is Superman missing?) and some brief background on what I need to know.

I'm well-versed in general DCU continuity and history, so you can assume I speak the language. I've just been a little out of the loop for a few years! Any help would be much appreciated.

[vasir12]

I'm gonna assume you read the Rebirth one shot, but still:

-Wally West is back.

-New 52 Superman died and Pre-flashpoint Superman took his place. This Superman also brought the Lois from his world and their son, Jon.

-Darkseid died and got reborn into a baby

I think that's it, really. Honestly, you can just jump on. Everything is explained anyway.

[syvo]

Haha nice. Is that really it?? Makes me glad I skipped all that New 52 stuff.

I mean, was any of it any good? I read and enjoyed the first 10 issues of GL (but mostly because it was a direct continuation of everything Johns had been doing on GL up until the "relaunch"). I remember Animal Man being really good, did not like the Scott Snyder Batman stuff...

About Superman, that's pretty cool. So was that pre-Flashpoint Superman that I saw in the Superman: Rebirth one shot? Also, about Darkseid and Superman dying...were their deaths somehow coincident? Like, did they both die as part of the same storyline? I feel like I saw some JLA storyline called the Darkseid Wars...or something?

[Adekis]

I mean, was any of it any good? I read and enjoyed the first 10 issues of GL (but mostly because it was a direct continuation of everything Johns had been doing on GL up until the "relaunch"). I remember Animal Man being really good, did not like the Scott Snyder Batman stuff...

About Superman, that's pretty cool. So was that pre-Flashpoint Superman that I saw in the Superman: Rebirth one shot? Also, about Darkseid and Superman dying...were their deaths somehow coincident? Like, did they both die as part of the same storyline? I feel like I saw some JLA storyline called the Darkseid Wars...or something?

Superman died in an arc called The Final Days of Superman that's widely considered to be pretty good. Darkseid was not in it. I assume Superman was there when Darkseid died, but I don't actually know. It definitely happened before Final Days.

Personally, I really liked Action Comics in general, and issues 0-18 in particular are probably my favorite run on Superman- but not everyone feels the same way.
A lot of people thought the Truth arc of Action preceding Final Days was really bad and the prior issues by the same writer were really good, but I thought they were exactly the same in terms of quality- good, but questionable in terms of how often Superman loses his battles.

Azzarello's run on Wonder Woman is highly divisive. I thought it was excellent, some others thought it was very bad.

I really like the current Doctor Fate series, but you'll probably be able to tell just by looking at it whether you'll like it. I really like the Cyborg ongoing as well, but you need to take his status as founding member of the Justice League in stride- if it bugs you, I could imagine you being thrown off the whole character, even though there's only one or two issues with members of the League in his series. The first couple volumes of Flash are good, I can vouch for that, but not beyond them.

Haha, I guess I mostly read Superman books, so that's what I can talk about with authority!

[Sacred Knight]

At some point I hope to add "New 52 Superman died, but got better" to the list, but other than that Glenn was spot on.

As for Superman and Darkseid dying, there is actually one connection to both stories. It was at the end of Darkseid War that saw Superman receive his first diagnosis that he was dying (he initially got sick as a result of successive genetic-altering events, one of them the "godhood" he achieved in this story, and then the power loss and Kryptonite-infused chemotherapy he got in Truth).

[Dataweaver]

So Time Drake was never Robin? That's lame. So who was Batman's Robin? Or rather, what is the canon succession of Robins at this point (Dick, Jason...)?

Tim Drake was still Batman's third partner, after Dick and Jason; it's just that he started out calling himself Red Robin rather than Robin.

[brandnewfan]

Haha nice. Is that really it?? Makes me glad I skipped all that New 52 stuff.

I mean, was any of it any good?

Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman is literally an epic story.

There were actually several great books, and a few bad. The bad sometimes overshadows the great because they were just SOOOOO bad. (Honestly, who decided to give Liefeld so much work?)

But anyway, the continuity in Rebirth is the same continuity from the New 52. This isn't a continuation at all of the pre-Flashpoint universe. So everything in the New 52 still counts.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

That pretty much covers the in-continuity stuff, the meta answer is Dan Didio saw the sales plummet and panicked. He used this as an excuse to do what he'd wanted to do since Final Crisis and rebooted everything while telling everyone it was only a soft reboot like Post-Crisis, but was actually a hard reboot of the DCU if it was happening in 1992. He then allowed editorial mismanagement of various kinds drive away so many readers and creators, he had no choice but to reverse course while also keeping the reboot and hoping it all works out before he gets fired.

[GlennSimpson]

That pretty much covers the in-continuity stuff, the meta answer is Dan Didio saw the sales plummet and panicked. He used this as an excuse to do what he'd wanted to do since Final Crisis and rebooted everything while telling everyone it was only a soft reboot like Post-Crisis, but was actually a hard reboot of the DCU if it was happening in 1992. He then allowed editorial mismanagement of various kinds drive away so many readers and creators, he had no choice but to reverse course while also keeping the reboot and hoping it all works out before he gets fired.

Or to put it another way....

Warner Brothers saw DC's sales continuing to slowly plunge over 5-6 years, and passed down an edict that DC had to get sales up by the end of 2011. So DC considered their options and eventually settled on it being a reboot. Since they didn't have a lot of time to get it together, they used some materials that were already being produced for the post-Brightest Day storylines and various new pitches that had recently come in. They also knew that a certain percentage of their fanbase might not like it, so like any big company they put a certain kind of spin on things at the beginning. Because of the short time frame, some communication errors crept in, but overall it gained DC tremendous sales and was a great success for them, keeping sales above 2010 levels until such time as they felt they needed to do another push.

[RobinFan4880]

That pretty much covers the in-continuity stuff, the meta answer is Dan Didio saw the sales plummet and panicked. He used this as an excuse to do what he'd wanted to do since Final Crisis and rebooted everything while telling everyone it was only a soft reboot like Post-Crisis, but was actually a hard reboot of the DCU if it was happening in 1992. He then allowed editorial mismanagement of various kinds drive away so many readers and creators, he had no choice but to reverse course while also keeping the reboot and hoping it all works out before he gets fired.

We know the WB told DC to reboot. It was an order from on high.

They were forced to radically change course mid-stream, which is why many of the older plot elements were carried over across the reboot.

DC did not have a strong plan for the New 52 because they had no time to plan for it. This is why Jim Lee is quoted as saying Batman had been active for 10 years. it is why some said it was a hard reboot and other a soft.

Also, you act like Dan Dido is the head of DC when he isn't. Jim Lee has the same position as Dan. There are other higher ups within DC, one of who even outranks Dan.

True. I'd still prefer Tim be called Robin Red or Redwing.

I'm sure the DCU has green arrows and red arrows as traffic signals. I don't think that is a big deal.

Redwing is the name of Falcon's bird. That is a no go from the get go.

[GlennSimpson]

I'm genuinely asking. As far as New 52 goes, what are the major takeaways?

Briefly: I was pretty hardcore into DC comics from the lead-up to Infinite Crisis (circa the Geoff Johns Green Lantern: Rebirth) up until New 52. I stopped reading monthly titles when New 52 hit because I hated the whole concept (plus, I was in law school and didn't have a lot of time).

Now that the New 52 era has come to a close, I want to jump back in for all the Rebirth stuff. I've already read some of it, but I'm just wondering if there are a few major things to know about from the New 52 era that are relevant to Rebirth (for instance, why is Superman missing?) and some brief background on what I need to know.

I'm well-versed in general DCU continuity and history, so you can assume I speak the language. I've just been a little out of the loop for a few years! Any help would be much appreciated.

Well, let's see.

The current Superman is actually the one from before the new52, thrown into the new52. The new52 version died. But there are hints that the current Superman isn't who he thinks he is.

Early in Batman's career, he met and was aided by a young man named Duke. The older-now Duke is apparently going to be helping Batman out now.

Tim Drake was briefly Batman's sidekick like the rest, but he has always called himself "Red Robin".

Wonder Woman found out that she was the daughter of Zeus rather than made of clay. And she became God of War to stop the previous one. And the Amazons used to raid ships and have sex with sailors and kill the sailors and give the male children to Hephestus to work in his factory. But now WW is learning that maybe some of that might not have been true...

Aquaman thought Black Manta killed Aquaman's father, so Aquaman killed Black Manta's father. Or something like that.

There was an original Titans group of Robin, Speedy, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, Lilith, Kid Flash, etc. They had a big battle with a demon and the result was that everybody forgot that the group had existed as a group. Everybody forgot Wally West completely, as he was thrown into the Speed Force. He has returned, and everybody is now remembering Wally and the Titans.

Something obviously happened to Donna Troy when she was forgotten too, because a witch acted like she was creating Donna just recently. Donna was brainwashed and killed all the male Amazon children. But clearly she existed earlier but we don't know where she went.

Flash is Flash, although he never died and Wally was never Flash. But there's a much younger Wally West (the two cousins were both named after the same grandfather or some such) who just recently got speed powers.

There was a recent Teen Titans group (that thought it was the first, but now we know not really) but the teen heroes really didn't have strong connections to the older ones so it was kinda bland and didn't work. But this Wonder Girl is the niece of Wonder Woman (assuming she is still the daughter of Zeus).

The most recent Superboy was still a clone but he wasn't very nice and nobody really liked him He has kinda disappeared.

Green Lantern hasn't changed much. Most recently, the Guardians all died, Hal became the leader of the Corps, but then everybody but him disappeared, but they are scheduled to return soon....

Martian Manhunter learned he was some kind of weapon created by the Martian race when they thought they were being attacked, something like that.

Firestorm was Ronnie and Jason for a while, but looks like they are changing it back to Ronnie and Martin.

Green Arrow found out he has a little sister, whose mother is Shado. So rather than Shado being with Ollie, she was with Ollie's father.

Black Canary was a mercenary, then she joined a rock band.

There was a fight between the Justice League, some members of the Crime Syndicate, another girl born on Paradise Island, the Anti-Monitor, and Darkseid, and Darkseid was killed, but now he's a baby. Meanwhile, a girl possessed by the evil ring of Power Ring from the Crime Syndicate overcame her fear and helped save the day, and was awarded a regular Green Lantern ring.

Damian Wayne was killed, but he got better. Still a little jerk.

All i can think of at the moment.

[DragonPiece]

Yeah, Glenn covered a lot. If you are confused about anything else, just ask though.

[syvo]

Wow! Incredibly helpful rundown, Glenn. Much appreciated.

Some of that is pretty crazy stuff. Hal is running the GLC now?? That's insane lol.

So Time Drake was never Robin? That's lame. So who was Batman's Robin? Or rather, what is the canon succession of Robins at this point (Dick, Jason...)?

And do we know what the deal with the JSA is? The fact that they got rid of them in New 52 was a huge reason I stopped reading. I heard that the JSA is coming back, or being folded back into continuity, but do we know how that's going to work yet? Like, is it going back to the way it was, where the JSA preceded the JLA and formed the original generation of spandex? I absolutely loved back when Geoff Johns was writing it, both before and after Infinite Crisis. I want that team and all those characters back!

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself...

[upgrayedd]

Cyborg is a founding member of the Justice League

[BFF]

Glenn, that was an awesome summary. Thanks!