How many reboots is too many?

[Grim Ghost]

One was too many. Why not just downplay or ignore elements that you don't care to focus on instead of twisting yourself up in knots over it?

Here is a great example. Say you are a writer who hates Krypto and doesn't want him anywhere near Superman. Just don't mention Krypto then. You don't have to retroactively remove him from continuity through complex space time weirdness to get there.

That way when a day comes when a new writer DOES want to use Krypto in a story they won't have to do even more complex BS to get him back.

You can pretty much use that example for anything Superman related. Don't like the idea of say Superman operating as Superboy in Smallville for a time? Don't mention it in your story. Every time they try and take stuff away from the Superman mythos it leaves it a bit poorer. Leave EVERYTHING intact for future writers to play with.

Superman is approaching Hawkman like levels of weirdness with all of his many origins and reboots at this point.

Superman has a wonderful and fairly simple origin. But it's what happens after he becomes Superman on Earth that the story really begins. Let's just focus on that ok DC?

[manofsteel1979]

One was too many. Why not just downplay or ignore elements that you don't care to focus on instead of twisting yourself up in knots over it?

Here is a great example. Say you are a writer who hates Krypto and doesn't want him anywhere near Superman. Just don't mention Krypto then. You don't have to retroactively remove him from continuity through complex space time weirdness to get there.

That way when a day comes when a new writer DOES want to use Krypto in a story they won't have to do even more complex BS to get him back.

You can pretty much use that example for anything Superman related. Don't like the idea of say Superman operating as Superboy in Smallville for a time? Don't mention it in your story. Every time they try and take stuff away from the Superman mythos it leaves it a bit poorer. Leave EVERYTHING intact for future writers to play with.

Superman is approaching Hawkman like levels of weirdness with all of his many origins and reboots at this point.

Superman has a wonderful and fairly simple origin. But it's what happens after he becomes Superman on Earth that the story really begins. Let's just focus on that ok DC?

QFT

It's not REALLY that tough. Yet, for some reason it seems like DC makes it harder than what it needs to be.

[TheCape]

One was too many. Why not just downplay or ignore elements that you don't care to focus on instead of twisting yourself up in knots over it?

This is something that every writer should know by this point.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

This is something that every writer should know by this point.

Writers? Yes, they know. Whether or not Dan Didio knows this is a whole other matter.

[TheCape]

Writers? Yes, they know. Whether or not Dan Didio knows this is a whole other matter.

I had seen a fair share of writers that don't seen to know that, but yeah, i should have include editors in my comment too. I don't know if Didio is the only guilty of this

[Tony]

Reboots only bother me if the stories stay bad. I read pre-crisis, post-crisis, a very few attempts here and there in the 2000s, new 52 till Truth, now Rebirth/Reborn. For me the worst era of Superman is the Didio run era 2003-rebirth.

I actually miss the Convergence Superdad and Lois. I liked that they came from a different Earth. That said I'll keep reading as long as the stories stay good. When the fun stops I'll dip out until I feel like giving a new direction a try.

[Doctor Know]

Well, Donna Troy is getting her sixth origin story on Wednesday. I think Supes and Wondy will be fine .

Is she really? I heard that Jean Grey was coming back as well. Temporarily of course. Marvel can't stop themselves from killing her. Or possessing her with the phoenix. Perhaps they can go out for tea with Raven. Who doesn't have a story that doesn't involve being possessed, turning evil and her demon father showing up.

I don't mind extraneous origin stories if they're obviously outside regular canon, so stuff like Earth One is in-bounds for me.

On the other hand, I think one origin story every twenty years is plenty. Superman has gone way beyond that.

I reiterate my opinion that DC and WB only is comfortable telling two Superman stories: his origin and his death.

OMG

That is brilliant. I'll have to remember that.

Just a side note: For All Seasons isn't a retooled origin. It's more a deepening or fleshing out of John Byrne's Man of Steel.

As far as reboots go, I didn't feel disappointed with any of them except the New 52, which divorced Superman from so many essential concepts (the Clark and Lois romance being the most obvious).

The only real problem with the other resets you've mentioned is that DC always chickened out at the last moment. They were trying to re-incorporate the Silver Age charm and grandeur which had been lost post-Crisis, while still keeping Clark grounded. I've never understood why they backed out of Birthright so quickly.

At any rate, I think Rebirth has accomplished what they've been trying to do for years: giving DC a post-Crisis foundation to layer Silver-Age elements into with a modern sensibility.

Idk why DC never got behind Birthright either. I really liked that origin a lot. At the time, it would've been appropriate to update Supes' mythos for the 21st century. However, DC never got behind it and never followed up on the events that transpired in it. In 2005, during Infinite Crisis, they ostensibly hedged their bets and declared both MOS and Birthright were canon. Then One Year Later (2006) happened, and they started to incorporate more Silver Age aspects back into the canon. Which made the previous year's attempts pointless in hindsight.

[superduperman]

I posted something on the multiverse thread on the mainstream DC message board that might make everyone feel better. If the 52 universes are just part of a larger infinite multiverse, then theoretically every universe that has ever been rebooted would be out there somewhere. This is one of the reasons I'm sorry they got rid of Hypertime. It opened the door to all these possibilities. So there could still be a pre-Crisis Earth 1 or Earth 2 or Earth eleventeebillion where Superman is a chimpanzee or something. This makes those of us who miss the New 52 feel a little better.

[sakuyamons]

Is she really? I heard that Jean Grey was coming back as well. Temporarily of course. Marvel can't stop themselves from killing her. Or possessing her with the phoenix. Perhaps they can go out for tea with Raven. Who doesn't have a story that doesn't involve being possessed, turning evil and her demon father showing up.

Yeah! If I'm not mistaken, there is the first one (a younger, time displaced Diana who hung out with the Teen Titans on the Silver Age), the second one (Human girl raised by Amazons), the third one (Titans of Myth), the fourth one (Young clone of Diana created as a playmate who was cursed on her place to live a life of suffering), the fifth one (a mix of all the backstories), the sixth one (the n52 origin)...which makes this the seventh origin, my bad

I posted something on the multiverse thread on the mainstream DC message board that might make everyone feel better. If the 52 universes are just part of a larger infinite multiverse, then theoretically every universe that has ever been rebooted would be out there somewhere. This is one of the reasons I'm sorry they got rid of Hypertime. It opened the door to all these possibilities. So there could still be a pre-Crisis Earth 1 or Earth 2 or Earth eleventeebillion where Superman is a chimpanzee or something. This makes those of us who miss the New 52 feel a little better.

I think that if you miss the n52 (I don't, but I respect you guys that do) the most intelligent thing would be moving you guys to an Ultimate-esque verse. I don't know why DC didn't thought of the idea.

[Doctor Know]

Yeah! If I'm not mistaken, there is the first one (a younger, time displaced Diana who hung out with the Teen Titans on the Silver Age), the second one (Human girl raised by Amazons), the third one (Titans of Myth), the fourth one (Young clone of Diana created as a playmate who was cursed on her place to live a life of suffering), the fifth one (a mix of all the backstories), the sixth one (the n52 origin)...which makes this the seventh origin, my bad

I think she's at her 8th. Remember, they did a clay Donna Troy during the Finches' run, but then Donna shows up on Titan's Hunt after the Finches killed her off, and she'd traveled from Themyscrica to "man's world" 5 years prior to her clay counterpart's debut. I've given uyp trying to make sense of Donna's origins.

The artist Nebeizel sums up my thoughts on it perfectly.



http://nebezial.deviantart.com/art/a...t-XD-451598230

[DochaDocha]

OMG

That is brilliant. I'll have to remember that.

Turns out I might've been wrong. Option 3 is EEEEVIIIILLL Supermanm starting most notably with Superman III. I guess you have to do something in between his origin and death.

[GlennSimpson]

Here is a great example. Say you are a writer who hates Krypto and doesn't want him anywhere near Superman. Just don't mention Krypto then. You don't have to retroactively remove him from continuity through complex space time weirdness to get there.

To be fair, then what happens when a writer wants to tell a story that revolves around Superman being the only Kryptonian on Earth? Or when Superman gets into a fix and one just has to wonder why he doesn't call on Krypto for help? Or any other number of possibilities where as long as the character is in continuity, current stories won't make sense.

Now, I'm the first one to say that you shouldn't read a story based on elements that are not there. Whether Dick Grayson was leader of the Titans has no bearing on a story where he's fighting a super-villain in Bludhaven. But in that situation, nothing is actually contradicting it, it's just neither here nor there. But when you just ignore continuity that SHOULD apply, that's different.

[Sacred Knight]

I've peddled this more times than I can count, but I still want my idea to come to fruition that New Earth is Earth-One and Earth-Two is hidden within it due to the damage it sustained in the new ending to Crisis; a ghost world currently occupying the same space just on an alternate plane, kinda like the Phantom Zone. Just instead of my old idea that this is who New 52 Superman and Lois were, plucked from that ghost world by Manhattan, the split New 52 versions were just just kinda based on what the Earth-Two versions would have been. That Manhattan was using the other disembodied world as kind of a template for his changes to New Earth.

I'll do this for free if you want, DC!

[Chris24601]

To be fair, then what happens when a writer wants to tell a story that revolves around Superman being the only Kryptonian on Earth? Or when Superman gets into a fix and one just has to wonder why he doesn't call on Krypto for help? Or any other number of possibilities where as long as the character is in continuity, current stories won't make sense.

Set the story before Supergirl and/or Krypto turned up.

Krypto isn't around because he's on Mars digging up old Martian bones and calls for help don't propagate through the vacuum of space.

Both of those took me less than 30 seconds to come up with. Its NOT hard... you just need to be arsed enough to actually think about it. DC's historical problem has been not bothering to require their writers to actually think about it and just write whatever lazy idea pops into their heads.

[GlennSimpson]

Set the story before Supergirl and/or Krypto turned up.

Krypto isn't around because he's on Mars digging up old Martian bones and calls for help don't propagate through the vacuum of space.

Both of those took me less than 30 seconds to come up with. Its NOT hard... you just need to be arsed enough to actually think about it. DC's historical problem has been not bothering to require their writers to actually think about it and just write whatever lazy idea pops into their heads.

But if you have to explain where they are, you aren't ignoring them.