Some Thoughts on DC’s New World Order
In 1986, as the Crisis on Infinite Earths was winding down, Marv Wolfman made the radical suggestion that DC indicate the universe had truly changed by altering the numbering on all the titles and restart everything with a #1. For a number of reasons, it was a great idea but the timing couldn’t allow the move. Years later, Dick Giordano indicated it as one of his greatest editorial regrets. However, he can’t be blamed since the Crisis was wrapping up while DC was still negotiating to relaunch its flagship heroes. At that time, only Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli had been lined up for Batman: Year One while John Byrne was still being wooed for Superman, and very late in the process, Greg Potter and George Perez were circling Wonder Woman.
Had the stars aligned, it could have avoided two decades of constant revisions to the reality.
It now seems DC’s executive team has spent the last year moving the stars around. Today’s bombshell announcement indicates the rebooted line will kick off in September, with Justice League #1 previewing the new order on August 31.
I can only hope that DC has its house in order and can avoid embarrassing fill-ins and radical creative team changes early in a title’s run – problems which have plagued the core titles for the last few years. The worst example may well be Batman: The Dark Knight, written and drawn by David Finch. After debuting in November, the fifth issue of this monthly series is not coming out until August and only then with a fill-in artist.
That aforementioned new Justice League book is coming from DC’s two busiest executives: Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. Sure, it’ll read well and look great, but will it be a monthly and for how long will the talent remain intact? At minimum, these new titles, all 50 of them, need consistent talent on board for at least the first six issues and fill-ins need to be carefully integrated.
Purists will cry about venerable titles such as Action Comics and Detective Comics returning to #1, but once the newness wears off, at some point in the next decade, as both books near their 1000th issue, I will bet good money right now that the numbering reverts. (Count on Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, and Adventure Comics to follow suit.)
A new number on a title has to mean something other than a digit. It should also promise readers clear, coherent, entertaining stories set in a shared universe. The shared part means characters need to be consistently written and drawn across the line, something that also has been missing for some time now. One can presume the post-Flashpoint reality may give DC yet another opportunity to restart the continuity and again, we need consistency (I’d prefer fidelity but recognize I’m outvoted here). Editors, writers, and artists need to do their homework and make certain the use of the characters makes sense against the context of what has come before. Head-hurting storylines such as the current mess in Detective Comics should never be seen again.
New number ones offer lots of promise and opportunity and we can just hope that the publishers, creative staff, editorial staff and freelance community are ready to deliver.
One of the things that really irritates me about shared universes is how little editors and writers on various books coordinate characters’ appearances the last couple years.
Look at Wolverine, Spider-Man and Deadpool for example. There’s no logical way to account for all of their cross-overs and guest appearances while maintaining any sort of integrity concerning their appearances in their own books.
Even more minor characters that there shouldn’t be concern over are experiencing it. Last month, Mr. Hyde was the villain in the first issue of the new, terrible, Moon Knight series out in California…while simultaneously operating as a member of the Thunderbolts B team somewhere in the Middle East.
If some people don’t read all the Avengers and X-Men books, plus Wolverine’s solo book(s) continuity between those three environments doesn’t really matter, it is only when you start looking at them all at the same time you pick up things like Mr. Hyde being in two places at once ( I had no idea he was on Thunderbolts so it didn’t raise a red flag for me).
Wolverine even jokes in one of the recent Avengers books that “multitasking is my true mutant power” when someone asks how he can be on so many teams at the same time, so the publishing and creative side know full well what they are doing. It is partially our (the buyers) fault for supporting every book Spiderman or Wolverine get put in to, but at some point something’s gotta give…
Personally, after 25 years of buying comics I am at a breaking point with the excessive multiple books for the same characters, as well as the constant relaunch / re-title / repackage that Marvel is doing.
The launch of a new book used to be an event in and of itself, but how many #1 issues can you push out before you completely devalue the bold type “#1 collector’s issue” on the cover? Why would you go through the trouble of re-aligning the numbering on Daredevil, Man without Fear and Thor, just to sub in the Black Panther and change the title to Journey into Mystery.. and THEN launch new books for both the main characters? If you think I’m going to keep buying books about characters I don’t care about, you’ve got another thing coming. If I wanted to read about the panther, I would have bought his title when he had one.
Their idiotic marketing scheme is going to start costing them business, and for me personally I’m cutting close to half of what I buy on a monthly basis, with the strong possibility of more to come.
That would be the one upside I’d see to this – the opportunity to make sure that somebody is keeping track of these characters, and avoiding glaring continuity errors.
I really don’t mind a lack of “fidelity”, at least to (in some cases) seventy years of continuity – rebooting some of these characters from the word “go” could be the best thing that’s ever happened to them, cutting them loose from restrictive and ridiculous bits of lore inserted back in the Bad Old Days of the Seventies and Eighties. Of course, it could also be the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, as whole new chunks of restrictive and ridiculous lore are inserted anew by writers more concerned with leaving a “legacy” on a title than just telling a good story…
I’ve always said that that was what made Batman TAS (and the “Adventures” books spun off from it) some of the best and freshest Batman material i’d ever read (and i’ve been reading it since the 50s), precisely because they were able to pick and choose what to use and what to ignore from all that back story, and did it well.