A couple weeks ago I brought up the question of how much of DC heroes' history is lost with 'The New 52.' For the most part, we shouldn't worry too much about this as long as the characters re-introduction doesn't completely change who they are and we continue to get great stories. But what about the big stories that really defined a lot of the characters? What about all the crisis we've seen in DC Comics?

It turned out that Dan DiDio had something to say about this on his facebook.

For those in crisis over Crisis, let me clarify. The topic of Crisis was much discussed among the editors and talent working on The New 52. With so many characters and histories restarting, major events like Crisis are harder to place when they work for some and not for others. (that was one of the problems coming out of the original Crisis). While we are starting aprx five years into our heroes’ lives, we are focused on the characters present and future, and past histories will be revealed as the stories dictate. Yes, there have been “crisis” in our characters lives, but they aren’t exactly the Crisis you read before, they can’t be. Now, what this means for characters seen and unseen…… well, that’s the fun of The New 52, infinite stories, infinite possibilities, with the best yet to come.

Thanks, as always for your interest and enthusiasm in The New 52. DD

So does that mean they didn't happen? No more Crisis events? What about Final Crisis and with it, Batman: R.I.P.? Did Ted Kord still get killed? They may have happened but just in a different way. Not quite sure how to take this right now...

My opinion is to just not straight out state things didn't happen. Why completely negate past events? Just don't mention them if they don't exactly fit. This way, readers can pretend they still somehow happened if we really wanted to.

Well they kept some things and threw out others, like with other parts of continuum. Like you said, Batman still died.

I wish they'd just release a series that details the timeline of the current DCU.

DC is taking a runaway success with their 52 and making some questionable choices now

They definitely need to do something to explain the back story of this new timeline....to many unanswered questions and confusions

I don't know how successful it has been because it is still early. I wonder if there is really a master timeline though. I doubt there is one other than for certain characters. It is up to writers to sort of weave through the mess.

DC needs to get it's head out of it's arse and give a definitive statement on what is and is not canon. This is getting annoying and confusing for people who are accustomed to their crapshoot that is continuity, can't imagine how confusing this must be for new readers.

Seems to me like he's basically saying they aren't sure either and don't want to address it until the stories require it.

idk why ppl trip over it. im enjoying the new 52. just let the past comics be in the past. move on people! if you wanna read old comics. get trades or some shit! the whole point of the NEW 52 is to reboot. obviously things arnt the same!?! lol just enjoy the read guys damn..its not that important what things are incoperated!

I got ONE question..."WHAT HAPPENED TO POWERGIRL?!" Is she no longer apart of the continuum or what?! She she gone for ever?! I dude's got to know!!

@The Dark Huntress: It is not confusing to new readers at all because they don't know they should be confused or any of that old stuff exists. Do they really need all that stuff to be happy? They can be just fine with just starting there and not thinking that much started before.

It's okay.

If the new DC Relaunch doesn't work out in the next few years, and sales go back down, we may just see another "Relaunch" in 8-9 years, and Flashpoint may end up being like the next Crisis of Infinite Earths as if it never even happened.

@zackattack529 said:

idk why ppl trip over it. im enjoying the new 52. just let the past comics be in the past. move on people! if you wanna read old comics. get trades or some shit! the whole point of the NEW 52 is to reboot. obviously things arnt the same!?! lol just enjoy the read guys damn..its not that important what things are incoperated!

But they did make a whole big thing about it not being a reboot, honestly if they actually released a definitive list of whats changed and what counts instead of randomly choosing what still matters every month then people wouldn't be so annoyed. I like the new 52 but they need to just make up their minds and since all of batman's history is still in tact then saying the crisis events didn't happen kind of contradicts that. Comic readers read for continuity not just for the characters its a simple fact, if its a completely fresh start than ok but its technically not.

Everyone will get over it in like a month but the news is still fresh so give it time to get processed

at this point I think it would have better if they would have just done a full reboot instead of picking and choosing what happened and what didn't....the new titles are great but it seems like they're focusing more on the new readers than on us

@RazzaTazz said:

@The_Tree: In 1985 there was the series Who's Who designed to make sense of the mess after Crisis. These days there is the comic vine wiki

But do people editing it know what exactly is canon or not?

@Blue Son: She is in boob heaven.

To me it just comes down to why should we care? If every few years they deside to restart the universe why should we care about chartacters who may or may not be the same in just a few short years. Its just one big event after another just to get a few new #1s out there and now the latest ones didn't last a much more then a year before everything got rebooted.

@RazzaTazz: I do not doubt that it will be correct as soon as they know.I do have a few hundred wiki points over on GB so I know how it works. There is a reason I have been using this site for years to look up people.

In my opinion, things like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, and Flashpoint all happened outside of time. Since they all involved creating major reality changes and world reboots then they all must have taken place outside of the current linear timestream (since they can all be seen as the starting points of new timelines). Most people in the DC universe were not aware of exactly what went on during Crisis on Infinite Earths anyway. In Animal Man #24, Psycho Pirate asks John Highwater if he remembers the Crisis, and John replies: "Just red skies and natural disasters." Most of the heroes didn't even speak of the events of Crisis after it happened because they were onto their new lives and storylines. Honestly, this isn't a new problem. Even after the Crisis they had to deal with the fact that they couldn't talk about it without admitting the former existence of multiple worlds which Crisis was supposed to get rid of. How do you talk about an event that literally altered time to the point where no one should know that the world is different? Can't we all just accept that they happened out of time, that only certain characters know about it, and just move on? This is a brand new take on continuity. All will be revealed in time. I would suggest everyone relax and read on.

As long as they give me good stories, I don't care about the Crisis.

@The_Tree: that would olny be toped by the scond comeing of jesus

There are always going to be questions that need answers. But for now, I'm just enjoying good stories.

Flashpoint's what caused the new 52.

@The Dark Huntress: I tend to agree with that but at the same time, I think DC is trying to say, "Just ignore all the continuity and Crisis stuff" and enjoy the new 52.

I am willing to try and do that. However, there really hasn't been any true continuity for well over 25 years with DC. Marvel has had similar problems but not to the extent that DC has. This is partially why so many comic book readers don't like DC.

@The Dark Huntress said:

DC needs to get it's head out of it's arse and give a definitive statement on what is and is not canon. This is getting annoying and confusing for people who are accustomed to their crapshoot that is continuity, can't imagine how confusing this must be for new readers.

Yuppers. As of now I don't care too much. But honestly, they should've just done a straight, go for broke reboot.

>sigh< The problem with picking apart continuity like this is that then the stuff that's left makes no sense. There are gaping plotholes. >_<

@Icarusflies:

Indeed, indeed. You know what, I've just in this moment decided not to care. If I get nods or references to the old stories still affecting the character's present stories then cool. Nice bonus for me, but if not? Meh? Who cares. This isn't the first reboot of continuity at DC and it won't be the last. Hell, by the time I'm forty I expect at least two/three more.

is Huntress's new mini series apart of the new DCnU Universe??? Also why not cancel some other lame series and giver her, her own comic?

All I wanna know is.....where's Shiva?

I wish they would rerelease the DC Encyclopedia so we had an idea of what's going on..
 
Or a timeline would be nice. Instead of having those questions we could have a nice time line in the back of our books so we know what happens.

I think everybody is reading into everything too much, I think everything should still be considered canon until they make an actual announcement about the specific "event", they will just keep wiping out events that don't fit into their new DCnU grand plan and I'm sure they will keep whatever ones made a lot of money or have anniversaries coming up so they can make money on anniversary edition trades and hardcovers. More then likely down the line they will probably re-introduce events that are tweaked, same name (like Final Night or Crisis on Infinite Earths, ones that were successful) but it will be slightly tweaked and take place now so they can act like it is new.

Well if Crisis on Infinite Earths didn't happen, does that mean all the other Crisis didn't happen too? Does that mean Martian Manhunter never died? So does that mean that he never came back to life in Brightest Day? I would hate it if history was rewritten so that Ted Kord never existed. In Crisis on Infinite Earths he came from another universe like Powergirl did and when everything merged his past story was changed so that he was always part of the DC universe. What if, with Crisis on Infinite Earths never happening, that they just wrote him out of existence. He never came over from that universe, its always been Jaime.

I understand that part of the fun is to discover along the way what happened and what didn't. But I would also feel better knowing before hand. Like Before reading an entire series, for example because I like Ted Kord I read JLI Blue Beetle, and that series ultimately reveals that Ted Kord never existed, for example, I would like to know because because I would be upset if after reading 6 issues I find out the reason I was reading it didn't happen. I am not saying I would buy 6 comics just for that reason, but if after reading six issues of JLI I find out that the old JLI comics never happened I might be upset.

I sort of wish they would reveal a little more, they don't have to give a detailed list of what happened and what didn't, but just say something like Max still shot Ted Kord, the former Blue Beetle, and Max and Ted met when Max made the JLI international. Or all of Blackest Night did happen, including Martian Manhunter being dead and comic back. I mean with Spider-Man all they had to say was that all his past stories happened just without MJ.

It is enough to make one's head explode thinking about all this.

TED BUDDY! WHERE ARE YOU?

One great example of continuity disaster is Carter Hall. Anyone remember when Hawkman was an alien in the Hawkworld storyline? I loved that interpretation... Then it all disappeared. I'm getting that WTF is happening feeling again. I'm enjoying some of the new 52 (Action, Batman, Teen Titans, Voodoo), but call a reboot a reboot...

Opinion from a Brazilian fan: the guys at DC are completely lost with the continuity. They can´t deny it or accept it 'cause one way or another dozens of inconsistences will show up!

This sucks of course but the only way is calm down and enjoy [sadly I admit] the new stories!

Someone should track Alan Moore down and ask his opinion of the New 52. I think the pure, unadulterated venom would be a treat to hear/read.

This sort of reminds me of Crisis on Infinite Earth. DC writers and artists were tired of how complicated continuity had gotten with alternate Earths, timelines, Earth 1 and 2, etc. So they merged them all and got rid of all the Super types like Krypto and Superboy and Supergirl, etc.

I remember reading 52 and them bringing back all the characters they got rid of and reopening all the stuff they closed and I wondered what they would do when they wanted to close it back up again.

@Icarusflies said:

>sigh< The problem with picking apart continuity like this is that then the stuff that's left makes no sense. There are gaping plotholes. >_<

EXACTLY! That is the big failure of New 52. You can't just say "we don't want to talk about the past, we're focused on the future." These characters are a result of their pasts, and their history shapes them the same way your past shapes who you are in the real world (just slightly more hyperbolic). It's like a Jenga tower, they get rid of some bits, and then other bits need to be gotten rid of or the whole thing falls apart.

This attitude of "past doesn't matter" actually really pissed me off in Scott Lobdell's Q&A threads: most of the questions about past events/ relationships canonicity, he was dismissive of. DC may be seeing great sales numbers initially, but that is to be expected with such a radical change as people try and suss things out. I think we can't say how well this reboot went until 4-6 months from now.

…This also means that I now have to revise my theory that Mysterious Red Hooded Woman is the newest Monitor.

DC is riding high right now but I am sure that they will let it go to their head and screw stuff up. Lets face it this is the second universe reboot, relaunch, call it what you will that DC is undertaken. I don't see a problem right now but what happens say 3-5 years when the creative directors od DC change and people come in with different ideas and perhaps wants to implement some ideas that will contradict what has happened now. Also I seriously doubt DC will be able to resist launching one of their massive crossovers within a year or so, and we will be subjected to another 'Blackest Crisis of Infinite Dawns' and all the crap they stir up.

I can understand the idea of wanting to get rid of some stories in the past in order to make continuity cleaner or easier for people to understand, but the problem is that some things now make no sense when you pick apart certain other things. Like take the return of Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing came back with the help of Firestorm, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl (as well as Aquaman and Martian Manhunter) but now Firestorm is brand new, and who knows about the history of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, so if they weren't there to bring him back then how is he here now? Or Blackest Night, they say that still happened, but with so many characters having not died or ever existed, then how was Blackest Night different? Like how could so many of those characters have come back to life at the end of it if they were never dead in the first place or didn't even exist?

@TheRedRobin96 said:

is Huntress's new mini series apart of the new DCnU Universe??? Also why not cancel some other lame series and giver her, her own comic?

I'm pretty sure it is as it's supposed to tie into an upcoming Birds of Prey issue.

@lorex said:

I don't see a problem right now but what happens say 3-5 years when the creative directors of DC change and people come in with different ideas

Ooh. Could we do that now?

Put this in my BS translator: "We kinda don't know what we're doing!". Just call it a reboot and be done with it. These half answers are what led to so much fan confusion with all of DCs continuity mucking events.

Someone should track Alan Moore down and ask his opinion of the New 52. I think the pure, unadulterated venom would be a treat to hear/read.

It's a horse a piece thing.
They retain continuity fully, even a diverged one, then they erase the entire point of the revamp by reading years of history and even more convoluted being it's a fully diverged version riding alongside the priors, and by doing so undo the whole point of restarting the issues, or leave it as is, which is to attempt to tell good stories with extremely well known character legends, and/or characters that should be as well as positioning more titles to be looked at by their parent company for new movies, cartoons ect., as they'll translate more proper now. I think their best maneuver is to leave the details out, because if they don't than the whole New 52 thing would just become moot. Personally I really like just enjoying the characters for the characters and being presented with new refreshing tales rather than have it dictated by a " way it's supposed to go/supposed to be " endless locked in motion.

As much as I want them to release what's still continuity and what isn't. But if they do more people will be angry because of the stories would be taken out. They shouldn't say explicitly Batman:RIP (Example) isn't in continuity because it's a great story and it's still available in trades so they would lose further business.

The way I see it is, I'm just gonna read the new comics and enjoy the stories. And maybe sometime in the future, we'll find out what happened and what didn't. I'm not gonna let it bother me. Yes, a lot of the older stories did have some defining moments for characters and even if its not canon with this new DCU, it doesn't mean I can't still enjoy that story.