DC's New 52: Reviews and Discussion (Spoilers welcolme and likely)

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

I read Justice League. Barely any story here. If they're going to write for the trade then I don't want to hear any kvetching from fans if I wait for the trade.

That aside the GL/Batman interaction was fun, it felt fresh... Which brings up the obvious question.... Why jump 5 years into the superhero era at all? Start the entire line at this time period. Make it a complete reboot and lets get a fresh take on all these heroes' first stories.

[Mr Light]

I was pretty damn shocked when the issue ended just when Superman appeared. That was a full issue?!

My one big pleasant surprise was that the bad guy will be Darkseid, though. My fav.

As for Flashpoint #5, wow, that was anticlimactic. They spend like 60 issues of worthless tie-ins building up this huge Aquaman / Wonder Woman confrontation.... and in the final issue it happens off-screen and doesn't even get finished!!! All those characters set up for the final battle... and they just make one panel cameos doing nothing. What was the point of it all? If the story in the end was only about Flash and Reverse-Flash, why did we get 60 issues of tie-ins about everything BUT that?

Like Final Crisis, this feels like something that should only have been a single arc in a single book and not in a million other books. And like Final Crisis, in the end I didn't like it

[Admiral_Young]

I'm guessing that the overall point of Flashpoint was to serve as one giant plot device to create the new continuity. If this was in the works since October (or whenever one wishes to believe) then it makes perfect sense. I'm personally wondering what the original plan was post-Flashpoint before they came up with the relaunch idea.

[Myasishchev]

Mr Light wrote:

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Like Final Crisis, this feels like something that should only have been a single arc in a single book and not in a million other books. And like Final Crisis, in the end I didn't like it

I dunno, Final Crisis at least felt very big, even if it was a total clusterfuck (Mandrakk? who the hell is Mandrakk?).

[Admiral_Young]

^ Evil vampire like demon monster...thing. IIRC he was a corrupted monitor.

[C_Miller]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I'm guessing that the overall point of Flashpoint was to serve as one giant plot device to create the new continuity. If this was in the works since October (or whenever one wishes to believe) then it makes perfect sense. I'm personally wondering what the original plan was post-Flashpoint before they came up with the relaunch idea.

Or to keep readers once the announcement for the new 52 was made... There was an inevitable drop off by continuity obsessed fans who weren't going to read books that didn't matter. So they created a self-contained event with a million tie-in minis with a promise that it would be relavent. But that's rather jaded of me.

[JoeZhang]

There is nothing really in flashpoint that connects the two - the coda at the end could have existed all the time with the costumes simply redrawn and the two page spread drawn or redrawn for that purpose.

I get the feeling that Flashpoint was written or decided and then the revamp came along.

[Admiral_Young]

^ That's my impression. Geoff Johns had been talking about Flashpoint for a good year or so before it actually happened. We know that it had been hinted and teased since he started on his run. I just get the feeling they came up with the idea for the relaunch relatively recently and implemented the changes into the book to reflect it.

[TemporalFlux]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Also the Legion of Superheroes books are not the only books from the previous books, the Bat-Family books also are intact, as is Batman, Inc when it returns. Also the present time Green Lantern books have characters and elements that have carried over.

Not exactly what I meant. The Batman and Green Lantern books have generally kept a version of their history, but they're still now in the new DC relaunch continuity. The new continuity has been merged into the Batman and Green Lantern books. Batman and Green Lantern will not notice that anything has changed.

From what I understand, the Legion of Super-Heroes book is still literally in the old continuity; they're not going to recognize the new past history. They will realize everything has changed.

Back onto the Time Trapper angle, one other thing has occurred to me. Who is one of the characters most changed in this relaunch? Superman. Time Trapper has been targeting Superman for awhile now because Superman is the inspiration for the Legion of Super-Heroes. If Superman was not as legendary, then the Legion may never be born.

The new relaunch Superman has had his support structure stripped from him. Both of his parents are dead. His marriage is gone. His ties to humanity are weakened. And with the time stream "closed" as Didio has put, Superman may have never had the Legion in his life.

Trapper has never had the ability to make drastic changes to past time (and in this case, the Trapper only took advantage of the can of worms Barry opened), but these nudges could be designed with the hope of Superman not finding his way to being such a grand hero and inspiration; thus the Legion would never form in the new continuity, and the Trapper would finally be free of its greatest adversary.

[JoeZhang]

I thought that Didio said that one of the reasons for this was to make Superman the top-tier superhero he is suppose to be - but then Didio said the same thing about Infinite crisis and Final Crisis...

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I just get the feeling they came up with the idea for the relaunch relatively recently and implemented the changes into the book to reflect it.

At a retreat about two years ago, apparently.

[Admiral_Young]

^ Or last October as established in the relaunch thread. DiDio at the SDCC stated "October". He didn't state exactly when Oct.

[JoeZhang]

Dennis wrote:

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At a retreat about two years ago, apparently.

Interesting to know whom was at that retreat - Morrison says he found out in March of this year and other creators such as Ken Lashley seem to have started much later.

[Admiral_Young]

Apparently there were 24 writers who attended the retreat and who knew about the idea initially.

[JoeZhang]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Apparently there were 24 writers who attended the retreat and who knew about the idea initially.

Well it's a bit of a puzzle who those 24 writers are - most of the writers who have just had titles dropped say that knew nothing about it, and the story amongst those coming in is pretty consistent that they found out what was going on when offered titles - and then there are those who thought they were writing a title only to find out at the last minute they weren't.