What was the original rationale for moving Post-COIE Wonder Woman's public debut

[Scott Taylor]

From what I recall, DC was toying with some pretty significant changes to the character. Essentially it took them a while to figure out they wanted to do something more safe and traditional with Perez. And ... Donna just fell through the cracks so DC just threw it to Perez to try and fix.

Remember "History of the DC Universe" that happened shortly after COIE? The book that was supposed to answer all the questions left by the event but just ended up introducing a bunch of confusion? Good times.

[Doctor Bifrost]

From what I recall, DC was toying with some pretty significant changes to the character. Essentially it took them a while to figure out they wanted to do something more safe and traditional with Perez. And ... Donna just fell through the cracks so DC just threw it to Perez to try and fix.

Remember "History of the DC Universe" that happened shortly after COIE? The book that was supposed to answer all the questions left by the event but just ended up introducing a bunch of confusion? Good times.

Yeah, the problem with CoIE was never CoIE. It was the follow-through - not well thought out (or in some cases well thought out, but those thoughts not used), pivoting in different directions too often and too quickly, and in some cases reflecting a failure of nerve/courage.

But that's just my opinion.

[CRaymond]

But that's just my opinion.

Yeah I think a LOT of the praise for pre-Crisis "continuity" is actually frustration and distaste for post-crisis fumbles.

I don't want to go back to infinite Earths, and I feel 52 Earths will eventually become as stale and limiting as the Lanterns' emotional spectrum. As dear as WBDC finds their merchandising cash cows, I don't think they really care about the shared universe their superheroes inhabit.

[Doctor Bifrost]

As dear as WBDC finds their merchandising cash cows, I don't think they really care about the shared universe their superheroes inhabit.

I've been interested in worldbuilding as a part of science fiction and fantasy since my early days with The Lord of the Rings. (Not the most important part, not the least important part - rather, a key and possibly fascinating part that can combine with and improve other aspects of storytelling.) I quit DC and moved to Marvel because they were so much better at it - this was before I knew words like continuity, verisimilitude, and the like. (I had questions about the DCU. DC specifically said that in letter columns that they had no interest in answering them because, basically, "it's just comics." I could tell a longer story....)

DC before CoIE didn't really have much worldbuilding except as a side effect of the fact that the same writers kept writing for a long time, and sometimes remembered what came before. Nobody was really interested in continuity and consistency per se. But Marvel demonstrated that people could be as interested in a favorite world as they were in their favorite characters. And then DC got interested. (Also, when Roy Thomas is working for you, you get better at this stuff, 'cause that's the kind of writer he is.)

I came back to DC after CoIE because of the implicit promise that they were now, starting with a clean slate, going to try to get the worldlbuilding right (among other things). I mean, I was a big fan of the characters.

And there was some good work after that. But there was also carelessness, apathy, celebrity authors who got to do whatever they felt like, and just a general lack of follow-through. (I think there were a few writers and editors who really did wan to invest time and thought in that aspect of the property. But they got bulldozed.)

Since then, it's been messy and confusing. They keep going over the same retconning "solutions" repeatedly, faster and faster. Attentive, readers get whiplash. From what I've seen so far, the post-Rebirth DCU may have versions of characters that I like better than many of the versions in The New 52, but the way they're getting there is not organic or clean - it's a mass of deus ex machina tricks, and the resulting universe looks stitched together like Frankenstein's Monster. You can see the seams. I find this a less-than-ideal outcome, when I think of what it could have been.

But that's just me. A lot of readers simply don't care about this stuff. (And I suspect that many readers - paying customers! - who did are long gone.) And of course, they may surprise us by the time Rebirth is done. I but wouldn't bet the rent on it.

(As for Marvel - they didn't really follow through either, and I spend less time with them than I do with DC.)

[CRaymond]

And there was some good work after that. But there was also carelessness, apathy, celebrity authors who got to do whatever they felt like, and just a general lack of follow-through. (I think there were a few writers and editors who really did wan to invest time and thought in that aspect of the property. But they got bulldozed.)

Any significant sore thumbs in this regard?