SpaceGypsies

We’ve looked at the past of the DCU and we’ve seen the road map planned for the Relaunch and how it has been perceived.  Now we look to the future of the DCU, and the manner and method this relaunch has taken. It turns out the heritage of the characters was something the creative teams on the various books have certainly honored, as well as the scope, which is truly massive.

The New 52 spans across the whole universe. With titles like The New Guardians and the various Green Lantern books taking you across the reaches of space, to the earth-bound tales of the heroes and villains of the world we live in. What excited me the most is than MANY of the books depart from superheroes. The New 52 has honored the long standing 75-year legacy of their heritage with supernatural, war, science-fiction, and western comics coming back on the stands.

The New 52 books span throughout not only space but time, as the books tell stories from the New 52’s past, present, and future. Books such as Demon Knights tell of the Medieval world, whereas All Star Western shows you Jonah Hex in the frontier town of Gotham City, long before the Bat took to the belfry. And DC’s favorite heroes from the 31^st Century continue on their tales of the future in Legion of Superheroes and Legion Lost.

But the core of the New 52 is putting a new, modern spin to superheroes. Its flagship title, Justice League, was the first to hit the stands and takes place five years before “present day” and tells of the dawn of the superheroes. As I am reading them now, I am curious as to how these new heroes have continued from their heritage, but have become public in a world of terrorist attacks, 24-news cycle, and the massive interconnection of the internet age. My hope is these characters whose origins are rooted in the mindset of the 30s or 40s, strike a similar cord for today’s youth and attract a whole new readership.

I had the great privilege to talk with one of the current comic industry’s greats – Jimmy Palmiotti. With his work on titles such as Jonah Hex leading up to, and now entering into, the brave new world of the New 52 with All-Star Western – I just had to ask him about his work with this project.

“Readers can expect the same quality storytelling we bring to each project and an array of amazing artists as well. Moritat is the regular artist and the back-stories have a revolving door of super talent as well, they feature some new characters and reintroduce some classic DCU western characters. You can also expect to see us dealing with the history of Gotham within the title and having a blast doing it. The new series has a lot going for it.”

I’m sold. But then again, you can’t go wrong selling the weird west to a steampunk comic nerd. However, as a fan of playing around with timelines, I simply had to ask if there was any information we could glean from the New 52’s time-spanning collection of books, to which he responded:

“I don’t want to give away too much , but we really are experimenting with the format , which means there will be things you have never seen before in that time period.”

Could this mean more of the old Jonah Hex through time again? Good lord I hope not, but I have the utmost faith that with the creative team DC has put in place, this title is sure to really bring back the western to DC’s lineup in a big way. The simple recasting of Hex within Gotham was a brilliant decision, and all those rabid Bat-fans should be picking this book up to get a feel for the New 52’s history of the character that is Gotham City.

While I had the man’s ear for a bit, I asked him about the new day-to-date publishing format DC has in store for their line. His response surprised me.

“Anything that will get comics in people’s hands is great by me. Take a look at this page alone (Linked) this is super exciting to me that people can now get comics of mine from every publisher and get them the same day as they come out. I was on a panel at Baltimore Con and asked the room how many people didn’t have a comic shop within 40 miles of where they live and half the room raised their hands…I was shocked, but I was told by the people there that a lot download their favorite books now and they love it. I have to think something that helps people get the product is a great thing. I think DC is doing a great job with everything going on.”

Shocked is right. I often forget, living in a large city as I do, and being no more than 10 miles from everything you could possibly need, that others have embraced the internet age much more quickly because of their locale. Perhaps history will look back on this time as the Digital Age of Comics? I mean we have the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the “Modern” Age. I’d say this Relaunch could very well be the start of the next big thing.

“My hope is that people continue to embrace some of the new directions, and they spread the word that comics are as fun and exciting as ever,” said Jimmy as a closing thought. And I couldn’t agree more.

I am thrilled to see one of the biggest names in comics take such a huge step in the format, content, and method of one of my most beloved mediums of art. With comics crossing over into cartoons, television, and movies more and more each year – and those other genres have been keeping completely up-to-date with the internet age, it is wonderful to see DC really bring some fresh air into their lineup and make an earnest attempt to attract people into the world of comics that would otherwise have passed it up.

As for its success or failure, time will tell. In the meantime, all 52 of the #1s are now on the newsstands, online, and ready to be purchased, read, and loved. I suggest you check out DC’s Source Blog. It has a breakdown of all 52 titles. Read it, find ones that you think speak to you and pick them up. Because if there was ever a chance to get into comics, now is it. Enjoy!

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

As a result of the events in Flashpoint, DC made some major changes both to its publishing format and industry as a whole, as well as to the fictional universe – the New 52. It was, in essence, a total and complete overhaul from the top down. First up, DC canceled its entire line of publications and is embarking on the unprecedented effort of releasing 52 all new #1s. This includes titles like Action Comics and Detective Comics, which had been continuing their respective runs since the 1930s. In addition, DC is embracing the information age by releasing their titles digitally on the same day as they are published, called day-to-date publishing. This means that folks that have been using their laptops or tablets to read comics of late no longer have to wait weeks or months to keep up to date with their favorite stories.

In addition, they are not actually really rebooting their universe. DC made a very concerted point to call their effort a “relaunch,” as they are picking and choosing the best parts of their respective characters’ histories, and then putting a fresh face on it moving forward. After having read Action Comics #1, I am so pleased that I did not have to read about Clark Kent falling to Earth yet again, and instead saw this young brash hero, and how terrified the population of a modern city could be by the concept of a man who could bend steel, tearing his way through town on his own moralistic crusade. This orchestrated retelling and revisioning of its past was, of course, met with the same fury and outrage as all change is perceived in fandom – with abject rage and condemnation.

Rather than interview a normal fanboy or fangirl about this new effort DC is taking on, I thought it would be more appropriate for a retrofuturist, such as myself, to explore the future of the DCU by instead looking backwards. As such, I took advantage of the gigantic pop culture festival juggernaut called Dragon*Con to sit down with some creators and artists and get their thoughts.

Among the brightest points of this research expedition was talking with Mike Grell. I sat down and had words with this long time comic creator as he drew a fan commission of Green Lantern, which I found all too appropriate. For those new to the DCU, Grell is most famous for bringing Green Arrow into the forefront with his own title with the hallmark book called the Longbow Hunters. In addition, Grell has been drawing for DC off and on since 1973, was the creator of the popular Warlord character as both writer and artist, and has worked with many famed and not so famed DCU characters, but none more so than the Emerald Archer himself, good old Oliver Queen.

“I like to see stories that have a lot to do with the world we live in. [Green Arrow is] a non-powered super-hero. It makes the character more relatable to the audience. He just has a superior skill that anyone can learn,” said Grell of the hallmark character. With his own decade’s long work on many other characters in the DCU, Grell did express some reservations that I think were typical of the rumor and scuttlebutt surrounding the relaunch:

“I would like them to be aware of the heritage that goes into these characters,” said Grell.

And rightly so. Grell very recently participated in the DC Retroactive project – a look at the long history of many of the classic characters of the DCU from the 70s, 80s, and 90s in which a classic writer/artist team creates a story in the style of the era and it is paired with a classic reprint story of the same time. The overall effect makes for a wonderful homage to the length and breadth of the DCU. These books were put out this past summer, so by all means take a look for them at your local comic shop.

Amid the general discussion with the artists and fans at the Con, there was a lot of apprehension and general concern. Not only for the launch itself, but for the embracing of the digital comic frontier with day-to-date publishing. Many of the comic shop owners expressed to me a general concern that with comic shops already having a hard time getting new customers into comics that the convenience of shopping from their tablet or other device may cause even more local shops to close. While that opinion was expressed, all have since seen some record level sales with the unveiling of the New 52’s line of books. As much, many feel that the new digital format is unlikely to really impact store sales at all.

Comics legend Peter David, best known within the DCU for his work on Young Justice – now a primetime cartoon show soon to enter its second season, and rumored to be part of the “DC Nation” block of Cartoon Network programming in 2012, put it best, “What would be nice is if digital comics got people back in the habit of reading comics weekly.” He remains very optimistic that the future of the industry could very well continue on with the digital era, whereas other printed mediums such as newspapers have been struggling even more than comics.

All in all, the legends of DCU’s past were cautiously optimistic, some more suspicious than others, but all hoping that DC’s intrepid effort be well executed, well received, and well intentioned to those whose collective efforts have shaped these characters time and time again.

Go back to Part 1

Greetings fellow fanboys and fangirls. The good folks here at SpaceGypsies asked me if I could pitch in and serve as their comics correspondent. Normally, for those that know me over on Steampunk Chronicle, I tend to be overly active in that world – so I jumped at the opportunity to talk about my other love, forgoing gears in the name of graphic novels.

October now brings us a full month into what is perhaps the biggest event in the major comics industry since the rise of the independent comics companies in the early 90s – arguably bigger. I am, of course, speaking of DC’s Relaunch, dubbed the New 52. As such, I will be writing this multi-part story to give all of you whom have been curious about the DC Universe, along with those well stepped in the lore of those within, my own take on this process covering both its history, legacy, present, and projected future. Ambitious, I know. Allow me to begin with some Comics Lore 101 as we go into the beginnings of what we call the DCU (that’s short for the “DC Comics Universe” for those unaware).

DC Comics was officially formed as National Allied Publications in 1935, which was then merged with Detective Comics, Inc. Its largest sellers at the time were the still-famed Superman and Batman, so they used the brand “Superman-DC.” They used this name often enough so that they became known colloquially as DC Comics long before they finally sealed it as their corporate name in 1977. However, the early days of DC has far more than just the spandex-clad heroes we know and love – they made westerns, romance, mystery, horror, and war comics. As a matter of fact, for a good long time in the world of comics, superheroes were the least popular genre within the medium. That changed in time and for the past 40 years or more the tights-wearing crimefighters have all but dominated the industry. Now DC, like its fellow major comic publisher, has strived to keep these franchises and their characters topical and modern to today’s readers. This is no small feat, as many of these characters have legacies that go back 60 years or more, and the world has changed by leaps and bounds since then. As such, reboots, retcons, rewrites, and retellings have become commonplace in comics.

As one of the “Big Two” publishing companies of comics, DC has also acquired many properties and characters as they’ve expanded over the decades and, in addition to their own legacies, they have acquired the history and creations of others that were once competitors of the company. The most famous acquisition, in my mind, would be the addition of Fawcett Comics and Captain Marvel and his family of characters. There was also the Charlton Comics acquisition that brought us many characters beloved by long-time DC readers such as Blue Beetle and the Question. However, as DC gained these properties, it was hard to find a way to work them into their already existing world. So they didn’t bother. Instead, they used the parallel world plot device and so the Marvel Family’s stories took place on Earth-S, and the heroes of Charlton Comics were on Earth-4, and the original Golden Age superheroes continued their adventures on Earth-1, with a nearly endless allotment of more ad-hoc continuity bandages. Wikipedia has a great list of them all.

This brings us to what is perhaps a major hallmark in the DCU – Crisis on Infinite Earths. This 12-part series published from 1985-86 was done in an attempt to correct and streamline 50 years of continuity. It took its name from the world-spanning crossovers of the past such as “Crisis on Earth-One!” (the infamous JLA/JSA crossover) and more. The story touched on the length and breadth of the major DC properties it had to date, with the mainstay heroes of the DCU alongside others from parallel Earths, as they did battle against a world-devouring entity hell-bent on total annihilation. After the dust settled, a New Earth was formed and the countless parallel worlds were phased out. The result, however contentious, did simplify things…slightly. Some characters got rebooted, others rewritten, and some were all but unchanged. Then in the intervening years that followed came more crossovers that used Crisis as their own inspiration. Perhaps each Crisis could be discussed at length here, but I am sure a good search will find you all the information you need.

It seemed to me that each Crisis was an attempt not only to tell a world-spanning story, but also to update and stream continuity. But each time was met with resistance, either on the part of fans, internal conflicts, etc., so that some characters were given fresh new life while others were too risky to reboot. And so what was an attempt for simplicity became mired in even more complexity. As such, the more current Crisis events gave us the 52 – 52 Unique Earths that comprise the epicenter of the multiverse. (See Infinite Crisis for the start of this, then the weekly series 52 that followed. Is it coincidence that the exact number of worlds corresponds to weeks in a publishing year? I thought not.) And so while the first Crisis gave us the “death” of the multiverse, Infinite Crisis brought about its re-creation. For the multiverse, much like the characters within it, can never seem to stay dead.

And it all probably could have culminated with Final Crisis. Thankfully, it didn’t. I don’t mean to talk ill of my beloved DC, but this event was billed as the final chapter of the Crisis saga… and even though years have passed I still have a hard time explaining it (seriously, read the DC wiki or Wikipedia for the details, it makes much more sense that way). The short version is the bad guys kind of won, Bruce Wayne was “killed” and all the heroes had a serious reckoning. The only plus side to it all was an end to all the Fourth World craziness. Sorry Darkseid fans, but I am just not fond of all things Apokolips. When you have actual mythological gods in the DCU, as well as the Creator, his right hand of Vengeance, and a slew of similar divine and mythic entities… these Fourth World fashion rejects never seemed to fit into it for me. Don’t hate me for that opinion, it’s purely personal. But I digress.

At some point, this Crisis was, in fact, not destined to renew fresh blood into the DCU. As a matter of fact, most of the universe saw little real effect outside of Gotham City after a year or two. Enter Flashpoint. Now I will be honest in saying I am still catching up on my Brightest Day reading and have not begun Flashpoint, but the Relaunch snuck up on me, and that’s a Flash Fact. As such, and by way of apology, I will be covering the Flashpoint story, the Genesis of the New 52, and an overview of the 52 books in a future article. But we now come to the end result – the New 52.

This monumental project looks to many like taking a giant leap into uncharted territory. But when looking at the various ways that DC has rebooted and rewritten their history, and to be honest, sell some books, they have always managed to do so cautiously, in fits and bursts. Perhaps a bold move is warranted this time. Dare I even say this would be a giant leap up, up, and away into a brave new world. Stay tuned for the next installment as we go further into the New 52!