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

[Mr Light]

I just realized something. The New 52 Superboy is just like the "Young Justice" cartoon version, alien and aloof.

[Broccoli]

^ Yup. Something tells me that's intentional.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yeah, as long as they're rebooting the character, pushing him a little closer to a popular incarnation in a mass medium has some logic to it.

[JD]

Isn't it pretty common for a reboot of a character to line up more with the latest TV or movie version?

[Mr Light]

I just read Teen Titans #4. So... Superboy is a few weeks old... and he's never met Wonder Girl...

So, basically, doesn't that mean that "Death and Return of Superman" didn't happen? Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run *definitely* didn't happen. Wouldn't it also mean that Infinite Crisis didn't happen? And thusly that Brother Eye / OMAC didn't happen... that 52 didn't happen...

Also, Bart mentions he has no memory of who he is he was dropped off at an orphanage. So, the entire Impulse character doesn't exist anymore either, then?

[Nerys Myk]

Mr Light wrote:

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I just read Teen Titans #4. So... Superboy is a few weeks old... and he's never met Wonder Girl...

So, basically, doesn't that mean that "Death and Return of Superman" didn't happen? Geoff Johns' Teen Titans run *definitely* didn't happen. Wouldn't it also mean that Infinite Crisis didn't happen? And thusly that Brother Eye / OMAC didn't happen... that 52 didn't happen...

Also, Bart mentions he has no memory of who he is he was dropped off at an orphanage. So, the entire Impulse character doesn't exist anymore either, then?

Those are all reasonable conclusions to draw from the material presented.

[Admiral_Young]

Death of Superman is supposed to have happened in the New 52 according to DiDio. The Teen Titans have never met each other before. It's safe to conclude that the majority of events from the DCU didn't happen. The only things that we really know which have carried on from before are Batman's continuity along with Green Lantern's and the Legion future.

[Mr Light]

Well, we also saw a different origin of Steel (John Henry Irons) in Action Comics. So I guess if Death & Return of Superman happened.... then there weren't any Replacement Supermen? Or maybe it was only Cyborg Superman and the Eradicator? I gotta assume Cyborg-S still exists since he figures prominently in the Green Lantern franchise now and that golden calf was left untouched...

Next thing you'll tell me Supergirl wasn't a protoplasmic shapeshifting blob called Matrix who was schtupping Lex Luthor, who was really a redheaded clone of his original body but nobody knew it. Madness, I tells ya!

[Icemizer]

I miss the red headed clone of Lex Luthor.

[Broccoli]

Here is an interesting analysis about the sales of the New 52 centering around November.

Icemizer wrote:

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I miss the red headed clone of Lex Luthor.

That was a pretty epic storyline considering how long it lasted and it never really got convoluted.

[the G-man]

Broccoli wrote:

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Here is an interesting analysis about the sales of the New 52 centering around November...

From that analysyis:

• One of the two notable things the “New 52″ hasn’t done, though, is to flush new audiences into the direct market — or if it has, it hasn’t been in the kind of quantity required to grow noticeably beyond the pre-existing comics audience. DC gave it their best shot, but the ceiling of the market, in terms of units, is still broadly the same as it was five years ago, when the big DC Comics publishing events of the year were called 52 and “One Year Later.” Given the unprecedented promotional push, large-scale returnability incentives and lip service paid to the idea of attracting new readers this time around, this failure to expand beyond the existing direct-market readership is well worth mentioning.
  
  
  The other thing the “New 52″ push lacks, to date, is the kind of sustainability needed to extend beyond the initial 52 relaunch titles.

Yeah, I figured this would happen. Beyond a few cosmetic changes, there was nothing there to bring in new readers (ie, kids or women).

[Admiral_Young]

^ Which is hilarious in my opinion because this is supposed to be exactly the reason behind the relaunch in the first place. DiDio countless times during the summer and at SDCC stated the main reason they were doing the relaunch was to draw in a "new" readership.

I really do think that their sales will start to wane as the months progress and Marvel continues to grow stronger with their offerings this year. DC will struggle to keep afloat what they have.

52 'Verse Captain Cold and others...

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/01/02/52/

[davejames]

Well to be fair, no matter how "fresh and new" they made this New 52, it was never going to bring in THAT many new readers. We're still talking about the rather dated medium of comic books, after all.

Even if they completely reinvented their way of telling stories, as some wanted, it wouldn't have been long before that simply became the "new normal", and people lost interest again.

[Admiral_Young]

Exactly. My point though is that their reason or justification behind the New 52 was flawed or just bullshit lol...sure maybe it helped bring a few hundred new readers into the fray or drew back some old fans but I don't think it drastically altered the market. As has been mentioned a number of times, the relaunch was just a large sales push to dominate the market. It has worked for the first few months for DC we'll see if it continues throughout the year.

[davejames]

Yeah obviously marketing was a big reason behind all this, but I still get the sense it came from a rather genuine place. Creatively they felt it was time to reinvent and reintroduce these characters to some degree, and the continuity really DID need to be cleaned up and simplified at some point. Otherwise they would have been stuck with the same aging readership forever.