Tonight at midnight, many comic book stores across the country are opening up to do midnight sales in honor of two DC comic books. They are Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1. Flashpoint #5 features the end of the DC Universe as I've known it my entire life. Justice League #1 is the start of the brand new DC Universe (aka the DCnU.) I've been rather depressed about this since the announcement was first made a few months ago. DC Comics, in an attempt to remain relevant, is rebooting their entire line of comics. Everything that has come before is now thrown out the window (contrary to what Dan DiDio keeps harping) in favor of all new heroes, all new continuity, all new creators. Every single mainstream DC comic book has been cancelled and replaced with either a new #1 of the same title or just plain cancelled and replaced with something totally different. I've tried to remain positive about this, but it's been hard. Every time I start to feel a little better about the change, a new announcement comes out and takes the wind out of my sails. The last one was something that rather annoyed me. I'd come to accept that everything I love was gone. I was psyching myself up to try the new stuff and then Dan DiDio, one of the big wigs at DC, says that this isn't really a reboot, but more of a retooling. And then lists off a whole bunch of things from the past that he says still happened in the new continuity. This really doesn't work for me. They're trying to make a fresh start, retool or completely overhaul all the characters in their line, throw out everything that's come before, set a strict "superheroes never existed before five years ago" time frame and then tries to say that all these things, all these years of continuity still happened. There's no way you can take the old and shoehorn it in with the new. It doesn't work that way. DC is missing a giant opportunity by wiping the slate clean and starting completely fresh.
I'm still very skeptical about how this is all going to pan out. It's really taken my enthusiasm for comics away. The last few months of books have been hard to read knowing that by the end of the current storylines, the stories no longer matter.
Since DC is giving this a huge push, I was able to secure a huge discount for all the new #1s. Because of this, I've decided to try all 52 books. I have them all on order. The same discount was available for the second issues of these books, but I decided to only order the ones I had any sort of interest in and that would be 16 out of the 52 books. By the third issue, I'm sure I'll be ordering less. I really hope I'm wrong, though. I've been a lifelong fan of DC Comics. I started reading them back in 1976 when I was ten years old and I've never looked back. Thirty-five years of reading comics and for the first time, I'm questioning whether or not I still want to go on. I've NEVER EVER entertained that thought before. But this really is a great jumping off point. Everything I like has ended as of this week. There are always trade paperbacks of the stuff that I love, so I don't have to quit cold turkey. I can ease myself off.
It's just sad.
1 comment:
Huh?
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