Part of the problem is that DC rarely wants a real reboot. It takes time and patience that the market won't support.
Superman never really got a full reboot. A full reboot is taking the character back to day one and staying there. In 1986 we were given Man of Steel and then dropped into Superman's "present" with a nebulous career consisting of some Pre-Crisis stories that occurred in between what was shown in the mini. In the New 52 Morrison spent 18 issues of Action Comics covering all of Superman's career from his debut to at least 5-years-later while over in Superman's name title we pick-up in the 5-years later period again with a nebulous idea of what came before.
A true full on reboot of Superman means showing us Superman's public debut and moving forward from there. If you want Zod then you need to introduce him as someone Superman has never met. If you want Lois and Clark to get married then show a relationship developing, not having the 1st date in issue #10 as part of a 6 issue arc, having him propose 3 arcs later in issue #25 and having them get married in issue #50 with maybe a combined 20 pages spent on the relationship. It's not trying to introduce every majoe foe (Metallo, Brainiac, Mxyzptlk, Lex, Bizarro) in the first year and aping their most classic appearances.
The same with the JLA. If you are rebooting the team then you start off with a core membership and slowly build from there. If you want to introduce a new member then allow them time to become part of the team and don't try to have the whole Satellite era join within 5 or 10 issues. Don't have your second story arc deal with someone with years of resentment against the team since you haven't shown us enough history to justify that. Don't assume we need to see cosmic menaces ever arc so you can establish a cosmic rogues gallery right off the bat. Give us on panel examples of how Superman and batman develop their working relationship (or Aquaman, Diana, Barry ...) with each arc.
And accept that you can't show us day one of the JLA alongside day one of the Titans, Giffen league, etc. To do a reboot right some concepts have to be built up to. Batman can't start out a brooding loner and also have Dick Grayson with a full history as Robin behind him. Green lantern can't just be meeting the Guardians for the 1st time this month but also have Oan tech as part of the JLA base at it's founding.
It wouldn't surprise me either. As one half of the creative team behind "Who is Donna Troy?" and the wedding issue, I can't imagine Perez was thrilled with Donna's history and the stories he worked on being screwed with. Wolfman has also gone on record, I believe, as saying he hated everything that happened to Donna after the Crisis.
This. In the late 90's I didn't hear anyone complaining about nostalgia ruining things. Captain America in armor, Thor in his stripper gear, Teen Tony, armored daredevil, Peter was the spider-clone... These were all stories that were expanding and growing the characters in new and different ways.... and are universally reviled and mocked decades later. Rebooting and restoring the status quo was considered a godsend back then and led to some of the greatest and iconic runs on the lines.
Sometimes change works... sometimes it needs to be flushed.
Crisis was somewhat successful because they KNEW they would be rebooting. The New 52, on the other hand, reeked of last minute decisions. Most of which could have been avoided if they had just sat down and discussed it. For the most part, Flashpoint was only going to be a storyline in Flash. The timeline then would have snapped back in place with minor revisions. The logical place to have done such a thing would have been with Final Crisis. Which is what Didio originally wanted, but was blocked by Levitz.
On the whole though, a reboot only ever really works in the short-term. Then, once inconsistencies appear, DC spends most of the time and energy telling stories to "fix" those problems. Rebirth is mostly one big "fix." The past two years worth of Superman comics have revolved around getting him back to how he was Pre-Flashpoint. Just with the adding of a son in Jon. So, apart from certain parts of Crisis, I'd say "not really."
Last edited by Somecrazyaussie; 02-09-2018 at 01:17 AM.
Yeah, Crisis was pretty good. It's whole concept of combine earth 1 and 2 was pretty successful. There were a couple of hiccups, but unless you were reading the entirety of the DCU at the time... they weren't THAT bad. There was a pretty strong line between 'This was pre-crisis' and 'This is post crisis'... Some had almost no changes like Green Lantern... but on the whole the goal was achieved.
I think the most successful one was probably Zero Hour. In that it wasn't very disruptive at all. The universe was rebooted... there were a couple of small changes... but they didn't disrupt the flow of the stories much at all... and a lot of people didn't even realize it till much later. Like the way Joe Chill didn't kill the Waynes and Batman had never solved that case... was really only mentioned in interviews and not the actual stories. Little things like that.
Personally I still like the superboy prime continuity punch myself, but I'm not sure i'd call it 'successful'. Still there's just something gleefully meta about visualizing a giant editor's fist punching that fourth wall and the characters acknowledging all the continuity changes around them.
new 52... rebirth... anything that comes in and just says 'everything is different... except the things that aren't... and we'll figure it out which is which in time...' Yeah, I hate that.
Buried Allen also pointed out that the Silver Age Reboot was successful as well. Which is something that had escaped my mind when I made my first post. That was a deliberate effort to bring in a new Flash and new Green Lantern. It also revamped several others (Although Hawkman just added another ripple that muddied waters.) That was a major reboot that not only kickstarted a new era for comics, but also helped revitalize the entire medium after declining sales. Whereas COIE helped to bring in a new creative effort at DC after most series had fallen into a slump.
Despite the fact the conclusion depicted the heroes setting off another Big Bang to fix what Parallax did to the timeline, Zero Hour didn't reboot the entire DCU (only the LoSH.) However, it allowed for futher "patches" to be brought in to fix certain continuity issues e.g. Batman now never caught his parent's killer, Metropolis was restored after Lex Luthor blasted it to the ground, and Hawkman became so convoluted he made the X-Men franchise seem simple by comparison.
Zero Hour was a great little series. Yet it raised more questions than it answered. Hence why DC were forced to bring in the concept of Hypertime. More than that, the ripples it failed to solve lingered like a fart in an elevator. Necessitating Infinite Crisis to try and "fix" everything yet again. Which is one problem DC has had for years: they are too busy looking back when they should be looking forward.
Was the latest Warlord a reboot? It seemed pretty much like the old story.
No backstory or origin will ever last, ever. There will always be some sort of reboot and then another reboot decades or so later and on and on.
Probably just Byrne Superman and Perez Wonder Woman. Those were pretty fully committed, or at least the closest DC has ever come to being fully committed. Thus problems in terms of confusion and contradiction were at a minimum. Those would seep back in only many creators later, as the original post-Crisis models and edicts began to wear away and slowly more classic ideas began to ebb back in.
Last edited by Sacred Knight; 02-09-2018 at 05:26 PM.
"They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El