Menu

Seriously, DC, What the @#$%


jla_cv12.jpg

?I’ve been quiet on the Crisis on Infinite Reboots front, mainly because at a certain point I just had to shake my head and shrug. DC’s been talking, though, stressing this isn’t a reboot of the DC universe but merely a relaunch, although both of those imply there was some kind of “plan” behind them, and I very much have my doubts about this. So let’s go over some of the news:

? Contrary to former reports, the shit that happened in Batman Inc. still happened. So there’s a Batman Inc. Although why Bruce Wayne is suddenly Batman again and not running Batman Inc. is unknown.

? In fact, all the big shit Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns wrote over the past few years are still canon, including the Skittle Lantern saga and Final Crisis. Funny how that works, eh?

? Big shit like The Killing Joke also happened. So Barbara Gordon was shot and paralyzed and is now suddenly fixed, I guess. Somehow.

? Suddenly gone: Superman and Lois Lane’s marriage. It’s erased. Never happened. Mephisto was unavailable for questioning.

? Action Comics, the one starring Blue Collar Superman, is apparently set at the dawn of DC’s superheroic age, which, in this new re-whatever, started five years ago. Superman was the first superhero in the DC universe, and Action Comics will tell his early stories.

? Which means Batman has been operating for 4.5 years, max.

? Which is a very short amount of time to mentor Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake, although all of them still exist. Oh, also, it was a good idea that Bruce Wayne knocked up Talia Al’Ghul five years before he apparently became Batman, so that 10-year-old Damian Wayne could exist and be his current Robin.

Ignoring the stupidity of adding hard dates to something as ridiculously nebulous as comic book timelines — there’s a reason no one does that, and that’s so shit like Batman fathering Damian before he becomes Batman doesn’t happen –you cannot tell me this is a plan. For DC’s sake, I almost hope it isn’t — because if some said “We need to make our comics more accessible to new readers, Let’s get rid of Superman’s marriage and let Batgirl walk again, AND KEEP EVERYTHING ELSE. THERE, PROBLEM SOLVED” that’s actually worse than if they just didn’t know what they were doing. I will say that DC is right about one thing: This isn’t a reboot or a relaunch. It’s just a mess.