Did the New52 Reboot Go Far Enough?

[MajorHoy]

Put me in the camp that they should have restarted everything with a brand new Earth . . . some stuff might be the same, like Superman = Clark Kent, and Bruce Wayne becomes Batman after his parents were killed when he was a kid. But no "five year window" crap where they maybe / sorta keep some of the old adventures in new continuity. The old Earth / old continuity should have just been frozen and put in cold storage until somebody decides to revisit it (sort of like when they had Flash of Two Worlds in the Silver Age).

[cgynadu]

they didn't go far enough, imo.

i think all the titles at launch should've focused on the beginnings, ala action comics and justice league. and like justice league, go 5 years (or whatever) into the future starting issue 7 for all titles where arcs like court of the owls could start. like in batman for example, 1-6 could each be individual snapshots of the significant points in batman's career (like him recruiting the robins, his major foes, etc.).

that said, i kinda ascribe to the thinking that everything is in continuity, so i'm enjoying the new 52 as is.

[zryson]

Did it go far enough? No. It was a sell-out basically. A gimmick. They left over many things from the previous universe and then tried to make it sound like it was a brand new exciting universe where the unexpected happens but its all been pretty predictable to date.

[Mr. Holmes]

Did it go far enough? No. It was a sell-out basically. A gimmick .

New 52 was a gimmick? Why didn't anyone tell me?

[zryson]

The problem is that DC and Marvel are by default quite predictable. So they might shake things up (as they see it) but in the end the status quo looks pretty much the same. Unfortunately gimmicks grab people's attention in the short term but in the longterm dont really do anything to bolster sales so the next gimmick is applied. The silly thing about the DCNU is that we are supposed to believe all of this happened in 5 years. If DC was truly serious about a big reboot, they would have just started over but I guess they wanted to play it safe worried that if they did so it might alienate even more of their fanbase.

[S_Rhoades]

I still don't get the pick and choose what events happened/decompressed timeline. Especially when you have Snyder saying in his mind ALL of Batman happened. I'm a HUGE Bane fan, in my mind all his stories are gold, not everyone feels that way. I think if they wanted a solid reboot they should have started from square one as another poster said the Silver Age did. I also think that EVERYONE deciding 5 years ago was a great time to be a superhero is a bit lame. I am super excited at how well Aquaman is being treated though, so it's not like it was ll a huge waste. Vibe looks to finally have a place again, which is awesome. I would however drop all my issues with it if they would reage Ollie, he doesn't work as well as a younger hero. I am giving his new creative team a chance though.

[stk]

As in the Silver Age, had they kept the Trinity and changed everything else, it could have turned out to an awesome reading experience.

But I really don't think that would be do-able today, sadly.

You are probably right. I think what made it work back then was the fact they took a complete break from super-hero comics (other than the Trinity) for more than 5 full years, allowing for a complete new-reader turnover. So anyone who would have whined about the changes was long gone, with the majority of the current readers having little to no clue there even were previous versions of the characters.

[Rafa-Rivas-2099]

Okay, so there are people here who are still complaining about the relaunch and I can imagine what they will think.

But for everyone else.....did the New52 go far enough? Or is it merely the same old thing cleverly disguised with new underwear-less costumes and a shortened timeline?

The reboot worked out fairly well for DC. Their market share and dollars are finally competitive again, for the first time in a long time. Which is pretty solid when you consider they sell fewer titles then Marvel, and at a lower average price. It helped 2011 be the first year since 05 (I think it was 05) where the industry saw a overall gain. It broadened the genres the company works in and put some no-names on the map (Animal Man, Swamp Thing, ect) and got some of the tried and true selling well, again for the first time in several years (Wonder Woman, Superman.) Some titles are not selling very well, and some creative choices were obvious mistakes. But that should have been expected and all in all I assume DC is quite happy with the last year and a half.

But was it enough? The industry is still suffering and I dont think the New52 was ever meant to solve that single handedly. But has the relaunch gone far enough in their attempt to revitalize the DC line?

I think of the dawn of the Silver Age, with Barry Allen, and I think to myself that the people behind that whole movement were some brave bastards. They didnt just put a new costume on Jay and alter some minor details about his history, they re-invented his wheel almost completely. And it started a second generation of superhero comics, brought to life from the ashes of post-McCarthy-era quasi death. It expanded the genre and what it could do, experimented with new concepts and ways of doing things, and delved into cutting edge theory and science.

I wonder if DC should have tried for the same sort of bleeding edge thinking this time around. I think of titles like Planetary and Promethea and Watchmen, which were all cutting edge for their time and offered new ways to explore this medium. And then I look at the New52 titles. And while many of them are good, and some are amazing, none of them really push the boundaries. None of them are doing anything all that different from what DC was doing ten or twenty years ago.

So I gotta ask. If DC had done away with Barry and Hal and most of the rest, if they had said "Y'know, let's try to expand and do something truly different this time, something strange and new and brave, with new characters and new ways of looking at things...." would you have been interested? Would you have been willing to accept a new Flash and Green Lantern and whatever else, if it had brought truly new techniques and avenues of thought with it?

Or would you simply have bitched and moaned because it was different?

I understand that, as this didnt happen, the entire concept is subjective and totally dependent on a fictional what if type of result. But its more about if you would have been willing to give such a change a shot, or if you would have raged against the change simply for change's sake?

Not where it matters.

The New 52 is makeup. We have different versions, but the origin of the characters is far behind, this time actually unseen and the story keeps getting convoluted. They should have start small from the beginning, wrap the ending continuity, tell the stories from the start and design a simpler continuity, perhaps in groups of titles.

[MajorHoy]

You are probably right. I think what made it work back then was the fact they took a complete break from super-hero comics (other than the Trinity) for more than 5 full years, allowing for a complete new-reader turnover. So anyone who would have whined about the changes was long gone, with the majority of the current readers having little to no clue there even were previous versions of the characters.

Didn't Green Arrow and Aquaman also still have stories (but not their own titled comic book) during that break between Golden and Silver age as well?

[glennsim]

Didn't Green Arrow and Aquaman also still have stories (but not their own titled comic book) during that break between Golden and Silver age as well?

According to Wikipedia, they continued as backups in Superboy.

[manduck37]

If the idea truly was to relaunch and bring in new readers, no Nu52 didn't go far enough. I think that everything should have been given the hard reboot. Every title starts at the beginning and a new #1 and we move forward from there. Update and modernize some origins. Let everyone see the characters from the start and moving forward. Not that everything has to be an origin story, you can just blend in elements of the origin here and there and reveal the characters' pasts as the stories go along. That way new readers come in fresh and aren't confused by old continuity. Old readers are introduced to the new DCU and see how it works from the ground up. There were a lot of good ideas, though characters like Batman or GL still had too many ties to the old continuity. Start with a good foundation and build from there. Let everyone start off on the same page.

[ascended]

You are probably right. I think what made it work back then was the fact they took a complete break from super-hero comics (other than the Trinity) for more than 5 full years, allowing for a complete new-reader turnover. So anyone who would have whined about the changes was long gone, with the majority of the current readers having little to no clue there even were previous versions of the characters.

This is part of the problem with breaking free from the established characters and universe and doing something completely new. Fans freaked out over the smallest changes. I have a hard time seeing them accept a completely brand new Flash who has nothing at all to do with Barry, Wally, the Speed Force, ect. Not when these fans are in a rage because Superman lost the red underwear. (for example)

The other half of that problem is the marketing. DC and Marvel, being owned by large corporations, are ultimately nothing more than gears that keep the merchandise machine running. The biggest reason the status quo maintains like it does is because its the most recognizable and marketable version of the characters. I doubt WB would have allowed DC to do a full on Silver Age style new take, even if they had wanted to.

And the posters complaining about the execution of the reboot, you guys are missing the point. This thread isnt about that so much as whether DC went far enough into new territory. Not whether or not you think they pulled off what they did do.

[ascended]

You are probably right. I think what made it work back then was the fact they took a complete break from super-hero comics (other than the Trinity) for more than 5 full years, allowing for a complete new-reader turnover. So anyone who would have whined about the changes was long gone, with the majority of the current readers having little to no clue there even were previous versions of the characters.

This is part of the problem with breaking free from the established characters and universe and doing something completely new. Fans freaked out over the smallest changes. I have a hard time seeing them accept a completely brand new Flash who has nothing at all to do with Barry, Wally, the Speed Force, ect. Not when these fans are in a rage because Superman lost the red underwear. (for example)

The other half of that problem is the marketing. DC and Marvel, being owned by large corporations, are ultimately nothing more than gears that keep the merchandise machine running. The biggest reason the status quo maintains like it does is because its the most recognizable and marketable version of the characters. I doubt WB would have allowed DC to do a full on Silver Age style new take, even if they had wanted to.

And the posters complaining about the execution of the reboot, you guys are missing the point. This thread isnt about that so much as whether DC went far enough into new territory. Not whether or not you think they pulled off what they did do.

[sunofdarkchild]

And the posters complaining about the execution of the reboot, you guys are missing the point. This thread isnt about that so much as whether DC went far enough into new territory. Not whether or not you think they pulled off what they did do.

Until the bestselling comic can sell what a successful single sells then no. With the billions that fly around the other entertainment industries comics look like they're still extremely weak and unhealthy in comparison.

[SteveGus]

Perhaps at root, the basic problem with the New 52 reboot is that it indeed did not go far enough.

The DC universe may well have painted itself into a corner during the Permacrisis (Identity Crisis -> Flashpoint). Rebooting the universe to get out of that rut might have been a plausible idea. They do seem to have marched forward without a plan. Step one of the plan should have been to replace the editorial staff that painted themselves into a corner with the Permacrisis to begin with, and to have the new universe come out with a much more upbeat mood and theme.

Now the jerrybuilt new universe lumbers towards its first big Crisis-style crossover event, a habit that was not lost in the reboot. They suddenly find themselves in need of editorial supervision and story bibles that no one seems to have taken the trouble to produce at the outset. The result seems to be confusion and alienating the creative people, at least the ones who aren't insiders.