Actual changes from IC?

[Messiah Complex]

Anyone else feel like the IC didn't really change anything and was basically just an excuse for launching and relaunching a bunch of titles that we've all seen before? I mean, not to compare Civil War and IC, because they are totally different beasts, but Civil War really seems to matter to the characters themselves and the shared universe. It actually is important. As opposed to IC, which just spent a lot of time telling us how important it is and then sort of fizzled out. What has IC really done other than give us the DC Universe that it was so necessary to retcon 20 years ago. Isn't just an extension of how little the continuity actually matters? "Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Superman, and the multiverse must die. Oh, people like them? Let's bring them back." I feel like the backups in 52 and the Cult of Conner subplot might be inching toward this point, but it's hard to tell. Basically, why did IC really matter?

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SATAN SAYS: Donna's hair is weird...

[Lorendiac]

Anyone else feel like the IC didn't really change anything and was basically just an excuse for launching and relaunching a bunch of titles that we've all seen before? I mean, not to compare Civil War and IC, because they are totally different beasts, but Civil War really seems to matter to the characters themselves and the shared universe. It actually is important. As opposed to IC, which just spent a lot of time telling us how important it is and then sort of fizzled out. What has IC really done other than give us the DC Universe that it was so necessary to retcon 20 years ago. Isn't just an extension of how little the continuity actually matters? "Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Superman, and the multiverse must die. Oh, people like them? Let's bring them back." I feel like the backups in 52 and the Cult of Conner subplot might be inching toward this point, but it's hard to tell. Basically, why did IC really matter?

A couple of points:

1. My expectations for IC were very low to begin with. Accordingly, I wasn't disappointed by it. If I'd been betting on what I expected after the first issue came out, I would have said that after #7 came out I would probably be giving the miniseries as a whole a rating of "2 stars out of 5," meaning Below Average But Not Hopeless. Now that I've read it, I think I'd actually give it a rating of "3 stars out of 5," Average. Neither great nor awful. I never expected it to make the sort of sweeping changes in the DCU that "Crisis on Infinite Earths" triggered 20 years ago (for better or for worse).

2. I'm a bit puzzled by the part where you say:
What has IC really done other than give us the DC Universe that it was so necessary to retcon 20 years ago.

To me, the biggest retcon from 20 years ago was getting rid of the Multiverse. It's still gone. For a couple of issues during IC, those once-and-former parallel worlds could be seen floating in the sky overhead, but now they're gone again. Likewise, COIE threw away all the old Superman continuity from before 1986, and as far as I know, it's still gone. Can you be a bit more specific about just which retcons from 20 years ago you think Infinte Crisis was designed to undo?

[david r]

I was disappointed by Infinite Crisis. Just consider all the huge build-up to this mini-series. Build-up that went on for many months. I at least was expecting a massive epic with (at least some) major changes to the status quo.

But in truth, the series seems like just an excuse to make "noise" and an attempt to relaunch/revamp/reboot nearly all of DC's books. What really irks me is they keep dragging this out. We buy "Countdown", DC tells us we HAVE to get all 4 mini-series to see the "Good stuff". Then we're told that the real "good stuff" is in this Infinite Crisis. Then they tell us the really "good stuff" is in 52. And I'm sure there'll be something following 52 that we all must buy to keep this "epic" story moving forward.

If you take a step back and look at all this, it's all just hooks to keep us buying more and more DC books. Promise much changes, deliver few, and keep promising that the NEXT series will be the Big One. And it never really is.

[shyguy]

From Countdown to the end of Infinite Crisis, the only things that really changed were that a bunch of characters that a few writers didn't like for whatever reason got gratuitously killed to make stories seem more "edgy" and a few changes were made to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman continuity that aren't really that important in the long run and definitely didn't justify a seven issue miniseries.

Oh, and the ending to Crisis on Infinite Earths was made retroactively really sucky for Earth 2 Superman & Co.

[david r]

Personally, I was hoping that the DC heroes would remember all the multiple earths, and the biggest guilt-trip of all time would follow. Especially with "secrets" and mindwipes being so popular after Identity Crisis. Isn't the aftermath of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" the biggest secret in all of comics??

I was hoping all the forgotten DC heroes from the Infinite Earths would return and be pissed all to hell. We would see a clash of worlds, with the DC heroes from 1986-present in a serious guilt situation over the discovery of all these "lost heroes". And the lost heroes want their existence back, one way or the other.

[DubipR]

Actual changes from IC?

Besides destroying most of the secondary and tiercery characters I happened to like, it didn't accomplish much.

But te biggest change from the outcome of IC?
It made me go from 7 monthly books to 2. How's that for change?

[Rich L]

I may not have been too happy but fall-out from IC is pretty widespread if not particularly huge.

1) Superboy's dead.

2) Nightwing's dead. No, wait, scratch that. They changed their mind. Sigh.

3) Superman's origin has been changed from Man of Steel to Birthright - which means a lot of post IC Lex Luthor stories are pretty much negated (with the older Luthor). Fallout from this that will never be explored includes who Richard White's father was.

4) Batman's parents were - once again - killed by Joe Chill. Which means, unfortunately, that Year Two is probably back in continuity. Damn.

5) Barry Allen now lived for over twenty years in the future instead of a few months or weeks. We know this because he apparently lived long enough to see his grandson - Bart - be born.

6) Barry Allen died twice. Once in Crisis and again in Zero Hour - possibly. By replacing Wally in Zero Hour, he also kind of negates the excellent Flash #0 issue - which is a shame because it was ace.

Any more for any more?

[Lorendiac]

2) Nightwing's dead. No, wait, scratch that. They changed their mind. Sigh.

Big deal. Dick Grayson, one way or another, has been fighting crime since 1940. If they had really killed him off in IC, we'd just be making side bets on how many months or years it would be before they reconsidered and brought him back.

3) Superman's origin has been changed from Man of Steel to Birthright - which means a lot of post IC Lex Luthor stories are pretty much negated (with the older Luthor). Fallout from this that will never be explored includes who Richard White's father was.

Do you mean Jerry White? I can't remember a "Richard White" at all.

4) Batman's parents were - once again - killed by Joe Chill. Which means, unfortunately, that Year Two is probably back in continuity. Damn.

Whoa! As the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says on the cover: Don't Panic! :)

Just because a different version of what happened to Batman's parents and their killer doesn't mean that the "Year Two" version has been retconned right back in again. I'm not going to worry about this one unless they hire Mike Barr to write some more Batman stories, set in the modern continuity, and he starts dropping in references to the specific events of "Year Two." (I strongly doubt that any other Batman writer would bother to take the trouble at this point!)

6) Barry Allen died twice. Once in Crisis and again in Zero Hour - possibly. By replacing Wally in Zero Hour, he also kind of negates the excellent Flash #0 issue - which is a shame because it was ace.

If I had ever read the Flash Zero Issue, I might actually care about that. But I didn't. So it just rolls off my back. I understand that fans of the Flash title in the 1990s will probably feel differently, but I can't get very upset about this myself.

Any more for any more?

You left out:

7) Wonder Woman now started her career roughly around the same time as Superman and Batman, perhaps as shown in Matt Wagner's "Trinity," which may now be in continuity. Even before IC concluded, I saw hopeful fans of "Trinity" arguing that it could very well end up as the new-and-improved, retconned version of how Wonder Woman first met Superman and Batman and fought alongside them, way back when.

Whether that becomes the Official Version or not, we've already been told that Wonder Woman was active early enough in the superhero business to be a Founding Member of the original Justice League of America after all, same as she was Pre-Crisis. Don't know how much difference that will make in her new stories from now on, but at least it's a change.

8) Matrix Supergirl, and/or Matrix-Merged-With-Linda Supergirl, and/or Linda-all-by-herself Supergirl, may or may not have been completely erased from continuity. We're still waiting for them to finish the recount in Florida on this one! :)

(Dan DiDio said Matrix was retconned out of existence. Geoff Johns said Linda Danvers was not retconned out of existence. A recent issue of 52, in its backup feature about the History of the DCU, allegedly shows what looks like the Matrix Supergirl participating in the events of Zero Hour, according to what I've heard. So who knows?)

If Matrix is retconned out, then it's been suggested that this could mean they were erasing the entire story arc in which the rest of the population of Earth (in her native pocket universe) died and she emigrated to DCU Earth. If so, that would mean the erasure of the story in which Superman killed that Pocket Universe's three Phantom Zone villains with a piece of kryptonite. Who knows if that's what DiDio meant when he said Matrix was retconned out? Who knows how much the "ripple effect" of this recton will change in Superman's other continuity that followed from that event? Did the Superman of the Post-Infinite Crisis timeline ever dress up as the new Gangbuster and go around beating people up while in a fugue state such that he himself didn't remember anything about it afterwards? If he never was in such a precarious mental condition, did he ever have sufficient incentive to give Batman a Kryptonite ring for a worst-case scenario? As with your comments about Richard White (Jerry White), I suspect the answer is that even if Matrix gets retconned out, these related questions will never be satisfactorily addressed. But I'm perfectly willing to let DC prove me wrong! :)

[Rich L]

Big deal. Dick Grayson, one way or another, has been fighting crime since 1940. If they had really killed him off in IC, we'd just be making side bets on how many months or years it would be before they reconsidered and brought him back.

True. But it would have been better than Bruce Jones' Nightwing.

Now if only someone remembered that he and Oracle got engaged just before IC hit...

Do you mean Jerry White? I can't remember a "Richard White" at all.

Yep. My mistake. Jerry White was Lex's illegitimate son. I guess as he's dead it doesn't really matter.

Whoa! As the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says on the cover: Don't Panic!

Just because a different version of what happened to Batman's parents and their killer doesn't mean that the "Year Two" version has been retconned right back in again. I'm not going to worry about this one unless they hire Mike Barr to write some more Batman stories, set in the modern continuity, and he starts dropping in references to the specific events of "Year Two." (I strongly doubt that any other Batman writer would bother to take the trouble at this point!)

You're right. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that Year Two was retcon-punched out of reality.

Yep, that's the ticket.

If you say anything else, I can't hear you - la la la la la...

If I had ever read the Flash Zero Issue, I might actually care about that. But I didn't. So it just rolls off my back. I understand that fans of the Flash title in the 1990s will probably feel differently, but I can't get very upset about this myself.

Fair enough. Although I'm still curious about how Barry managed to stop both Crisis and Zero Hour.

7) Wonder Woman now started her career roughly around the same time as Superman and Batman, perhaps as shown in Matt Wagner's "Trinity," which may now be in continuity. Even before IC concluded, I saw hopeful fans of "Trinity" arguing that it could very well end up as the new-and-improved, retconned version of how Wonder Woman first met Superman and Batman and fought alongside them, way back when.

True - and like you, that kind of just rolls off my back as I've never read the early-early JLA stuff. Although it does change Legends slightly, not that that's a bad thing.:)

8) Matrix Supergirl, and/or Matrix-Merged-With-Linda Supergirl, and/or Linda-all-by-herself Supergirl, may or may not have been completely erased from continuity. We're still waiting for them to finish the recount in Florida on this one! :)

(Dan DiDio said Matrix was retconned out of existence. Geoff Johns said Linda Danvers was not retconned out of existence. A recent issue of 52, in its backup feature about the History of the DCU, allegedly shows what looks like the Matrix Supergirl participating in the events of Zero Hour, according to what I've heard. So who knows?)

If Matrix is retconned out, then it's been suggested that this could mean they were erasing the entire story arc in which the rest of the population of Earth (in her native pocket universe) died and she emigrated to DCU Earth. If so, that would mean the erasure of the story in which Superman killed that Pocket Universe's three Phantom Zone villains with a piece of kryptonite. Who knows if that's what DiDio meant when he said Matrix was retconned out? Who knows how much the "ripple effect" of this recton will change in Superman's other continuity that followed from that event? Did the Superman of the Post-Infinite Crisis timeline ever dress up as the new Gangbuster and go around beating people up while in a fugue state such that he himself didn't remember anything about it afterwards? If he never was in such a precarious mental condition, did he ever have sufficient incentive to give Batman a Kryptonite ring for a worst-case scenario? As with your comments about Richard White (Jerry White), I suspect the answer is that even if Matrix gets retconned out, these related questions will never be satisfactorily addressed. But I'm perfectly willing to let DC prove me wrong! :)

Gah. The fallout from no Matrix is a difficult one. I suppose that every time she impersonated Clark to save his bacon (such as when he came back from the dead) you can always sub in J'onn.

And I choose to believe that PAD's Supergirl series continues to exist in every alternate world.

It's too good not to.:)

[kertap]

Anyone else feel like the IC didn't really change anything and was basically just an excuse for launching and relaunching a bunch of titles that we've all seen before?

I have to say I feel really sorry for who ever the above quote applies to. OYL was a great jumping on point. Sure it could have been a little better with some of the stories but I'm pretty happy that I can say that I am enjoying every One Year Later title that DC have put out. Including the ones that are getting slated online such as Nightwing and that one every one loves to hate Blood of the demon.

[Choppa]

Restoring Joe Chill as the Wayne's killer is totally pointless because it was hardly ever brought up. In fact, it wasn't even clear that Joe Chill wasn't the killer because Zero Hour was never clear on this point.

[Rich L]

Restoring Joe Chill as the Wayne's killer is totally pointless because it was hardly ever brought up. In fact, it wasn't even clear that Joe Chill wasn't the killer because Zero Hour was never clear on this point.

One of the Batman zero issues retelling the origin said something along the lines of his parents being "killed by a nameless killer who was never caught" and instead of showing a face to the killer, the focus was on the gun.

And you're right, it actually doesn't really make any difference - although personally I prefer the Zero Hour twist as it makes every criminal Bruce's parent's killer. But if you add a name and a face, and the guy's been punished, in my opinion it makes Batman a guy who likes to wear tights to stop anyone else being in a situation where they have to wear tights, as opposed to a relentless force of nature.

But that's just me.

[Sean Walsh]

5) Barry Allen now lived for over twenty years in the future instead of a few months or weeks. We know this because he apparently lived long enough to see his grandson - Bart - be born.

Interesting.

It's like they adopted Marv Wolfman's old idea of having Barry live a long life sometime along the "race to the past" that led to his COIE death and just put a long-ish life for him in that future...

[botch]

Isn't the aftermath of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" the biggest secret in all of comics??


What secret? that superboy prime and alex luthor were behind everything. that was a cool idea.

[buckeye9167]

From Countdown to the end of Infinite Crisis, the only things that really changed were that a bunch of characters that a few writers didn't like for whatever reason got gratuitously killed to make stories seem more "edgy"


Some of the killing was gratuitous, although the deaths of some of the Titans served to establish that Superboy Prime was (a) initially unable to really gague and control his powers, and (b) was dangerous enough to require an onslaught by the heroes. And the some characters who got whacked-- Jade, Atom Smasher, and Superboy-- don't strike me as "characters that a few writers didn't like." These were major deaths, in the case of Atom Smasher, it came naturally out of his arc, and Superboy's death is very much still a part of the Titans.

The only gratuitous death of a character that I'd like to see used was Hawkwoman-- it didn't make much of a point, and she was a character who still could have worked in some stories or teams.

and a few changes were made to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman continuity that aren't really that important in the long run and definitely didn't justify a seven issue miniseries.


And they shook up lineups of most of their team books pretty drastically.... without the ordinary conventions of 'let's take 7 people who show up for an emergency and make a team' (helloooo Brian Bendis) or 'let's pick just people with specific powers and ignore the fact that there are any numbers of heroes who could fill those slots'.

I do agree that the sustained buildup was in many cases, particularly the miniseries, histrionic and exaggerated -- Titans did the best job at building up to the crisis and making it seem like an organic part of the storyline.

[Rich L]

And the some characters who got whacked-- Jade, Atom Smasher, and Superboy-- don't strike me as "characters that a few writers didn't like." These were major deaths, in the case of Atom Smasher, it came naturally out of his arc, and Superboy's death is very much still a part of the Titans.

Wait, wait. Where was Atom Smasher killed?

Last I recall seeing him was sitting in his cell following his trial and getting a visit from Waller about a new Suicide Squad.

[buckeye9167]

Wait, wait. Where was Atom Smasher killed?

Last I recall seeing him was sitting in his cell following his trial and getting a visit from Waller about a new Suicide Squad.

My bad... he must have "gotten better" after I saw him. Anyhoo, it's definitely a real change coming out of the event.

Although I gotta say I'm a bit disappointed about how the JSA is being plundered for characters in other series...

[The Lucky One]

And you're right, it actually doesn't really make any difference - although personally I prefer the Zero Hour twist as it makes every criminal Bruce's parent's killer. But if you add a name and a face, and the guy's been punished, in my opinion it makes Batman a guy who likes to wear tights to stop anyone else being in a situation where they have to wear tights, as opposed to a relentless force of nature.

I don't disagree with you, but wasn't that one of the thought processes behind restoring Joe Chill to continuity? When he didn't know his parents' killer, Bruce never had any closure and thus became more and more obsessed and relentless, leading to Bat-Dick. With Chill back in continuity, Bruce has that closure and is thus a saner man who chooses to be Batman to help others, rather than someone who's forced to be Batman by his own inner demons.

I'm not saying either interpretation is inherently better, mind; I just think that may be one of the reasons behind the decision.

-D

[Rich L]

I don't disagree with you, but wasn't that one of the thought processes behind restoring Joe Chill to continuity? When he didn't know his parents' killer, Bruce never had any closure and thus became more and more obsessed and relentless, leading to Bat-Dick. With Chill back in continuity, Bruce has that closure and is thus a saner man who chooses to be Batman to help others, rather than someone who's forced to be Batman by his own inner demons.

I'm not saying either interpretation is inherently better, mind; I just think that may be one of the reasons behind the decision.

-D

Well that's true, too.

I guess its just down to personal preference - it doesn't really make much difference at the end of the day.

[Kid Kamikaze10]

After the 10 part "History of the DCU" story finishes, you will get to truly see what IC did to many characters of the DCU. Pretty much like a "Who's who" type of thing.

Personally, I loved IC, and loving OYL and 52. It turned this Marvel reader to a both DC and Marvel reader.

[saintsaucey]

Bruce not knowing who killed his parents was a big deal, and one of the main reasons I hated batman begins. plus in Superman/Batman Bruce and Clark both thought it might have been Metallo or pre Metallo anyways so yes this is a big deal.

[chriskenny]

If Metallo had, in fact, killed Batman's parents, I would have gone to the DC offices and puked on everyone involved with that direction in the books.