"In any time, there will always be a need for heroes." - the Time Trapper, Legion of Superheroes #61(1994)
"What can I say? I guess I outgrew maturity.." - Bob Chipman
Ah "the version i like is the real version" mentality.
Seems like no one brought this up yet, so who or what exactly is that gigantic figure behind Brainiac? Is it just his ship or something (someone) else? Kind of got a Darkseid vibe from that center light piece but that wouldn't make sense.
Honestly I'm supporter of new 52 as in theory. But all of this, all this...just shows how bad planned this whole COMPANY is.
I'm someone who started around Brightest Day and I know that the universe back then was messed up. I was so happy when they announced a gigantic fresh start because now I didn't have to jump from stupid events onto another one.
However when it all came out, there was no REBOOT in the actual name of it. The time line was messed up and "what happened/what didn't" was so complicated. I still don't get Damian in a 5 years scale Batworld.
What they had to do back then was to reboot it all to moot. Both Batman and GL included. (Let them wrap their story -it took a one more year for Morrison and Johns, anyway) I would have read them from the beginning, Dick as Robin, Roy as Speedy... I am down with that. They'd time skip in a few years or in gimmicky events, anyway.
But they didn't. THEY MESSED IT UP.
From Nu52, I started with Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Teen Titans and The Flash. I think Batman is still pre-flashpoint, there is almost no change in it. I wasn't confused other than time line. WW was problematic at parts but I love mythology and the book delivered a very needed fresh take on the character.
I don't like new 52 Superman. That's it. Power scales mean little to me. I look at the characterization and I don't like the new Superfamily, sorry. Though I'm comfortable with SM/WW.
They dropped the ball on Teen Titans. It's bad. It needs a re-Flashpoint on its own. The characters are wrong. It's all wrong. New numbering doesn't change that.
The Flash was going on it's own way until they introduced Wests & TT gave away Bart's origin and the book went downhill from there. (it wasn't stellar prior either but it was readable at least) Now Flashfamily IS A MESS. I can't read the book without taking a pill. Hopefully I don't pay for it now, that's what I keep telling myself to calm down at least.
Besides Batman line what's so successful in new 52? Nothing. They are either same or worse.
I wish they just seriously stood down and decided where every important character fits at the beginning. Like say, if Wally was to be THIS abomination why did they torture his fans for nothing for 7 years? If he was to be Kid Flash in main time line, why Bart was introduced at all? It was more than fair to push Bart to limbo instead if were going to get this.
Now they are doing a Zero Hour to address all these...Why? These things, continuity stuff confuse me, I don't like following it, I don't care about it either. These stuff are what turns me away from the comic books. These are the reasons why it took me years to pick up one properly.
It really feels like DC is run by 12 years olds, not knowing what the f** they are doing and just acting on whim. This is so pathetic.
Did anyone else notice the three eyed entity just above brainiac ? any idea who he is?
Well, this pretty much confirms exactly what Bleeding Cool was saying about Brainiac. I guess the question now is how this will connect to the next Crisis.
Glad you got that out. No offense, but you started around Brightest Day and you are upset about the New 52? How did you even get a chance to really know the old DCU in that amount of time? Now I can see someone who has been reading since COIE being really mad as they had sunk 25 years and thousands of dollars into it, but Brightest Day? Hell, that's basically part of the New 52 (as is most of what Johns wrote in GL). The pre-Flashpoint universe was a bloody mess that made no sense whatsoever and had so many ret-cons, half-cons, re-do-cons that I'm not sure how any new reader could have approached it. And they didn't as DC's sales were terrible. A reboot was needed, and sales are up.
I'm not saying I want all of the post flashpoint universe vanish but I kinda suspected something like this from the start. As much as they say stuff like "reboot" if you just read the actual stories they aren't quite saying that happened. Yes stuff happened but it sprung out of the pre flashpoint multiverse. The New 52 has always been an anomaly but to label it as such takes away from the gravity of it. If they were to say “yeah, we’re doing this for some time and it will change things but this is part of time being broken” people would be much more lax to latch on to it. Comics are like boxing in a way, sometimes it's best to turn off the commentary and just pay attention to the action.
I didn't follow the titles from BD but it was my gateaway to DCU. I picked up Flash and completed the well known runs. It took a year or so to caught up, really.
Which puts me under even more of a neutral, as someone who knows both sides and is trying a way to settle down somewhere. The way DC treats it's own continuity effects me more than anyone else.
As more of a Flash and Teen Titans reader, pre-Flashpoint universe was much better for them. I think in TT's case, they needed a overhaul and Flash line needed to downplay Barry&Speed Force but they were really salvagable back in day. Now? Complete mess.
edit: I also don't think you got my post...at all. A reboot WAS needed BUT they didn't reboot. That's the issue.
Last edited by Waterfall; 09-24-2014 at 08:35 AM.
Why is this being treated as something special, aren't we all aware Multiversity is going on? Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe all of those pictures would seem to fit into a world already described in the lead-up. I'll be happy if we end up having titles set in the different universes (obviously not the main titles, but side titles) but I fully expect the current universe to remain intact with perhaps a few nips and tucks.
I am curious though, to those who so vehemently defend the New 52 as the gold standard: what exactly is worth defending that we didn't have pre-New 52? Other than enjoying Wonder Woman more than I did previously (though if the same creative team was on the book, I'd probably be enjoying it in a Post- or even Pre-Crisis DCU as the story relies very little on the extended universe) I see very little that stands out as being either better than it used to be or something we couldn't have had with any other continuity going on.
Is this just pushback from the overwhelming negative reaction to the New 52 (to the point where they had to segregate threads complaining about it into 1 thread because it dominated the DC boards)? I understand loving your comics and reflexively defending them, but I just can't see any logical reasons that the little bit of good we've gained couldn't have been gained without the reboot. I'm fine if they don't alter the New 52 in the slightest (though there are multiple decisions I'm sure they'd like to take back, and history that contradicts itself that they could clarify), but I see nothing special about it either. The concepts are basically the same, and writers/artists are far more important to my enjoyment of a book than what happened 7 years ago under a different creative team.
Well one thing that has clearly made improvements is DC attributes towards diversity. From Val Zod in Earth 2, to Cyborg being made a founding member of the Justice League, to Wally West, these events wouldn't be possible pre-52. That was one of the major problems of the pre-52, it was built during a world where racism and sexism were common practice and this entail infiltrated into it's comics. And while DC made slow strides on the forefront when it came to diversity, it still had it's hands tied due to the history of DC that was tailored made towards white male readers. The new 52 allows the world to be revamped based on modern society, not past relics that was filled with racism and sexism.
So yes, the new 52 definitely have some advantages, and one of it's key advantages is now with no continuity they can remake the world with how our society actually looks like, and not what it use to be from the 1940's.