Thursday, June 30, 2011

DC Comics Pushes the NEW 52 ...HARD

If this were the 90's, I'd say this move from DC Comics is XTREEEEEEME!!! I had to go there. A new video was just posted by the fanatical folks at BleedingCool and one thing seems abundantly clear.. DC Comics is hot for your cash and they are setting out to revamp their whole universe to get it. SO DEEP is their love for your hard won sawbucks, they will rewrite history to get you on board. Of course this raises several questions.

1. If you make the past of a character irrelevant, is he still that character? In my opinion..No. I love Batman as much as the next slightly more than casual fan, but when Dick Grayson put on the suit, they wrote him differently. Why? Because he isn't the same Batman. He is impetuous, tends to let his fists do the talking and isn't quite as quick on the uptake as Bruce Wayne was. This is not the "World's Greatest Detective." Call it what you will, but it isn't the Batman I enjoyed reading in Hush and even The Dark Knight, so I jumped ship. Now you tell me you are going to rewrite the entire universe, making everything "fresh and young and relevant to the modern world." This says to me that anything I liked about the DCU is going to be wiped clean, making any pre-revamp comic buying somewhat pointless and causing me to wait and see what is said about the post comicpocalypse world. Odd strategy. This leads right into question 2.

2. I was pretty much clear of buying of all but a couple of DC titles (Hellblazer among them). I collected Justice league until they suddenly made Green Arrow a killer. I collected Nightwing until he became Batman. You might say violent shifts in a story were not for me. Now DC is making it fully public that they are after a new breed of comic reader. Actually they have said they are after people that don't read comics at all. Where does that leave me?

3. With the not-so-hot box office of Green Lantern, the pre-cancelation of the Wonderwoman TV show, the horrific ending to Smallville and what seems to be great difficulty in getting further DC Comics related media projects up and running, it looks as if Warner Brothers has mandated that their comic universe be similar to a more successful universe that keeps churning out hit movies. A universe more like ours. Less Fantastic. Maybe more gritty. Perhaps a little younger to score that expendable tween pocket change. One might say they want to create something to Marvel at, hmm?



So what's next? Do we find out Metropolis and Gotham City are no more because that is purely fantasy? I'm open to new ideas and a fresh perspective, and God knows the way things were being done weren't working spectacularly, but to have the DC Execs step forward and say the world you know and loved is not for you anymore is saddening. Have we all forgotten the Heroes Reborn fiasco? In the scheme of things, this earth shaking revamp business happens all the time. In this case, my gut is saying DC have made a huge mistake. Do I want them to fail? Not even a little. If they can get kids buying comics again, that is good for everyone. I just don't think they had to tear apart my old comics to do so.

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