Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Drew's Infinite Reboot


Okay, so DC in their wisdom has decided that it's about time to reboot their entire universe. I guess this is something that happens to comicbook companies of a Certain Age, like buying a Porsche or getting really, really into freeform jazz, but whatever. DC needed it.

One of the main reasons DC says they are doing this for is that as they currently stand, DC Comics are nigh-on unreadable. Wait. No. They don't actually say that, but the implication is pretty strong. Basically, they've embraced their role as a content development factory for Hollywood and therefore feel like they need to start everything afresh, wipe away eighty years of continuity, and re-introduce their characters and setting in a form that's more palatable to the modern reader/production company.

Again, this is totally fine. I admit that I don't read DC comics very much because they are simply too hard to follow. Every other month there seems to be yet another countdown to yet another crisis promising that nothing will ever be the same again. I guess this works well tactically if your goal is to sell comics, but as an ongoing strategy, it totally blows. Think about it. In the DC Universe during the past decade, we've had cities destroyed by exploding chemical men, people turned into blue punk rock cyclopses, and America invaded by a semi-mythological race of warrior women. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people had to have died because of these events.

Just how the hell are writers supposed to top that? "Hurry, Superman, this is the biggest threat we've ever faced! You'll need all the strength you can muster!" "Really? More strength than the time I BLEW UP PLUTO?" "Er. Maybe not that much." 

So yeah, once you have main characters messing up horoscopes for everyone ("Ah, you were born as Virgo entered the House of Floating Debris. No wonder you suck."), you've gone too far and you need to dial it back a bit. But, according to Comic Logic, you can't just do a Skinner Gambit and have everyone agree never to mention Certain Events again under Pain of Torture, you need to do a reboot.

So the people who spent the past ten years getting the DC Universe into another fine mess, are going to restart things, presumably to get the universe into still yet more messes.

Well, if they can blow up, restart, and blow up the multiverse again, then so can I.

Welcome to Drew's Infinite Reboot, the likely sporadically updated blog where I pitch a revised DC Universe.

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