It would have been very interesting to see DC start the universe over; wipe out history and let us see characters from the beginnings. More of the way action is doing it, but will the entire universe. Risky though.

I think DC underestimated how iconic some of their characters are.

But i think the new 52 has been successful so far. Definitely in sales and i'm really enjoying the titles i'm reading

@Shamelesslysupportinaznballers: See but I don't think the Ultimates line is accessible at all and has generally failed to recruit a sizeable new readership of people who don't read comics. Therefore, using the Ultimates line as a model in the first place seems like a bad idea. There is simply no awareness of it for the public outside of comic book readers, with the exception of Ultimate Spidey who has been in video games and such. Even then, who the hell knows about Miles Morales? Because it is a sub-brand, Marvel can't promote it like they do their main brand. There will never be an Ultimate anything movie, it's would be too confusing to explain and dilute their main brand.

The worst offender here is of course, x-men. If for example the average person walked into a comic shop they would say say hey, I liked that x-men movie maybe i will check out the comics, hmm uncanny x-men ok but wait who are all these characters I've never heard of before, why are they on an island what happened to the mansion, wait what's the difference between this and astonishing x-men, oh hang on here's another one wolverine and the x-men, isn't wolverine part of the x-men??, wtf is ultimate x-men and why is it 'ultimate'?, great there's another ultimate one called ultimate x, where did all my favorite characters go, who are all these stupid kids?, x-force, x-factor, x-men (the same title no adjective wtf?), x-men legacy...oh just fuck off, comics.

TL;DR: The ultimates line isn't a shining beacon of new-reader friendliness. It's yet another layer of complication to dig through when first starting to read comics.

I was impartial against the relaunch, but always said that if DC was really going to pull the trigger on this relaunch, they should go all out and do a FULL-REBOOT to clean up their continuity mess which was one of the reasons that made it hard for "new" readers to just jump in.

But instead, DC just did a PARTIAL-REBOOT here and a PARTIAL-REBOOT there.

In other words...

Stay tuned for another Final Identity Crisisof Infinite Earths 52 to clean some of the mess come 2015 (if not sooner).

"Oh no, not again! But we just relaunched!"

Im actually really liking the Catwoman title as well as the Animal Man title. Both are pretty dark and bold, but thats what makes them both so good. These arent titles for kids and I think DC knows it needs to appeal to some adult readers with better situations than "oh no! so and so is attacking, lets go save the day!!!!"

@Avenging-X-Bolt said:

@Or35ti said:

The DC characters used to be too stable and happily ever after as is. Nothing would ever change because nothing could change and excite readers at the same time. Marvel doesn't have that problem yet, Spider-Island is great proof of that. But in old continuity it was obvious that Superman and Lois would never break up and neither would Barry and Allen. The characters just felt too old and perfect. Now there's so much room for them to grow again, and we have no idea what might happen which excites the hell out of me.

i lol'ed

whoops! my bad everybody I meant Barry and Iris... it's been a long day.

@Jordanstine said:

I was partial against the relaunch, but always said that if DC was really going to pull the trigger on this relaunch, they should go all out and do a FULL-REBOOT to clean up their continuity mess which was one of the reasons that made it hard for "new" readers to just jump in.

But instead, DC just did a PARTIAL-REBOOT here and a PARTIAL-REBOOT there.

In other words...

Stay tuned for another Final Identity Crisisof Infinite Earths 52 to clean some of the mess come 2015 (if not sooner).

"Oh no, not again! But we just relaunched!"

lol

@Avenging-X-Bolt said:

@Or35ti said:

The DC characters used to be too stable and happily ever after as is. Nothing would ever change because nothing could change and excite readers at the same time. Marvel doesn't have that problem yet, Spider-Island is great proof of that. But in old continuity it was obvious that Superman and Lois would never break up and neither would Barry and Allen. The characters just felt too old and perfect. Now there's so much room for them to grow again, and we have no idea what might happen which excites the hell out of me.

i lol'ed

whoops! my bad everybody I meant Barry and Iris... it's been a long day.

My brother thinks this should have been a Real Reboot (i.e. wipe everything and start from scratch). I think this opens a huge can of worms continuity wise (care to explain who is Bart Allen and when did Superman died?).

Also I'm of the group who believes DC should have tried to attract their TV audience and make more kid-friendly titles and have more diverse characters. And as a foreign living in my home country, I think investing in foreign markets might be a good idea.

I think they definitely could have taken better risks, but I think at least all the risks they have take have been taken pretty well. I'm happy over all with what they've changed and what they haven't

I think DC has done enough to get their point across, so I don' think they need to do anymore. Except with JLD, It's gone absolutely nowhere and I feel it won't get any better anytime soon. So far it's two issues of of nothing but build up and i have a feeling the next 3 or 4 issues will be the same.

I think DC did just fine with the relaunch. I think they were risky where they needed to be and safe where they needed to be.

As to comments on appealing to their TV audience... check out the sales on the title related to their TV shows. They're abysmal in comparison. There isn't a market right now. If they could magically pop the readers from the couches of Young Justice to the floppies of Young Justice they would, but it doesn't work like that.

I'm also curious why there are so many comic book fans who spend their time watching 12 year old kids getting excited about the Catwoman bedroom scene. That seems bizarre to me.

And I echo the sentiment that it has been a success so far, they made a good call. It is easy for us to suggest that "a full reboot would've done 10 millions times better!" but we don't know that. What happened works for now, let us roll with it.

@Nasar7 said:

@Shamelesslysupportinaznballers: See but I don't think the Ultimates line is accessible at all and has generally failed to recruit a sizeable new readership of people who don't read comics. Therefore, using the Ultimates line as a model in the first place seems like a bad idea. There is simply no awareness of it for the public outside of comic book readers, with the exception of Ultimate Spidey who has been in video games and such. Even then, who the hell knows about Miles Morales? Because it is a sub-brand, Marvel can't promote it like they do their main brand. There will never be an Ultimate anything movie, it's would be too confusing to explain and dilute their main brand.

The worst offender here is of course, x-men. If for example the average person walked into a comic shop they would say say hey, I liked that x-men movie maybe i will check out the comics, hmm uncanny x-men ok but wait who are all these characters I've never heard of before, why are they on an island what happened to the mansion, wait what's the difference between this and astonishing x-men, oh hang on here's another one wolverine and the x-men, isn't wolverine part of the x-men??, wtf is ultimate x-men and why is it 'ultimate'?, great there's another ultimate one called ultimate x, where did all my favorite characters go, who are all these stupid kids?, x-force, x-factor, x-men (the same title no adjective wtf?), x-men legacy...oh just fuck off, comics.

TL;DR: The ultimates line isn't a shining beacon of new-reader friendliness. It's yet another layer of complication to dig through when first starting to read comics.

As an example of said hypothetical person I want to make it clear that Nasar is 100% right. The DC rejiggering got me into reading comics monthly simply because everything was finally ordered and clear.

'It was the introduction of the black symbiote suit for Spider-Man that caused me to start reading comics.' Why is color so important just joking lol

Hey,Catwoman and Batman are adults let them do their thing lol I think a bit more risk with some characters is good,others you just spruce up,little changes to update things. I truthfully like Superman better with the changes and same with some of the others. I would like to have seen Power Girl included in the new 52,with an updated outfit at least,but hey,I'm not writing these things so too bad for me.

It is unrealistic to think even Superheros and Supervillains NEVER have sex,or use the bathroom,or what have you. Even on Star Trek Data had sex but don't you wonder where the Enterprise's restrooms are? lol Comic books are NOT like cigarette companies that's ridiculous.

@TheMinister707 said:

I really wish that they had just started an Ultimate DC comics line of books, I mean, they kinda have already with "Superman: Earth One" but they could be doing so much more with a grittier DC universe w/o disrupting current continuities.

The problem with that idea is that they'd have to increase the number of books they were putting out, which would mean that they would make even less money. Beside that, without something as... drastic, I guess, as the New 52 they never would have gotten the press and attention that they got with the reboot. They would have just had to sink more money into more books that, honestly, probably wouldn't have done that well.

I don't know, I really like the majority of the New 52 that I've read. I love Animal Man and Swamp Thing, something I never really thought I'd say, much less stuff like Action Comics and Batman and Aquaman of all things. There are some really amazing books here that maybe never would've happened if not for the New 52.

Sure, DC isn't taking a ton of risk with Batman or Green Lantern, but they didn't really need to. They kind of already did, just before the reboot. I mean, they made Sinestro a Green Lantern again and they killed Bruce Wayne. Kind of. Anyway, my point is that the books that didn't change in the reboot, mostly those two, changed dramatically shortly before the reboot, so shaking things up again on those books was probably unnecessary.

Ultimately, there are some really great stories coming out of this reboot or whatever that are making me care about characters again that I haven't cared about in a long time, maybe ever. Maybe it's a byproduct of mainly being a trade reader, but the minutia of continuity has always felt tedious to me and it's not been something I paid a ton of attention to. Sure, history for these characters matter, but if you force writers to resolve and pay attention to every single tiny little detail in every book ever, you'll cripple their storytelling.

Honestly I don't know how the hardcore DC fan feels about this. Up until the new 52 I was just reading a few Dark Horse, Image and Vertigo titles. I would have never gotten into the more mainstream books. DC has given me the opportunity to start fresh with stuff I would have felt a little lost going into before, and for the most part I'm really enjoying a lot of the books. Bottom line is, if they write good books who cares?

I just wished they broke up Aquaman and Mera like they broke up some of the other iconic couples... I thoroughly enjoy the books I've been picking up and I bought much more dc than marvel as of late. it's definitely paid off for them.

@Nasar7: I respectfully disagree about ultimates line not picking up new readers. A lot of people I know went back after the x-men movies to the comic store and ultimate x-men was a perfect time to start. As far as how many of them stayed after 10 years & loeb...I don't know. The fact that Marvel had been outselling DC for so long is a testament that they were doing things to bring in readers and keeping them better than DC.

What I do agree with is that its not as crazy as this new 52. Now what the industry need to do is take a cue from DC and find a way to reach a bigger audience with their ads. Maybe throw in a ad with the Avengers movie. To me what DC did was restart something to appease new people who may not stay on while pissing off a lot of loyal fans.

Also, new readers will be confused regardless of whether or not its a reboot or if they are coming in right in the middle. Its a matter of how quickly they can catch on once they pick up that 1st book. Usually a quick trip to wikipedia will fix that if people really want to continue. You don't see Kirkman doing a reboot because of the TV show & I guarantee new readers of the Walking dead would be going wtf is going if they came in from the TV show.

But If you think Miles Morales is confusing, how is picking up GL & JLA #1 not confusing initially? In 1 book, Hal isn't even a GL. Superman is wearing armor in 1 book, in his other book he has jeans and a t shirt. And what??? Superman & Lois are not married & don't even work together? What about the movies, the tv shows? This is just the first 3 months for DC, what about 10 years later like the ultimates line? Sure Ultimatum was crap but at least you can still just pick up 6 books a month which would just cost a little under $30 to follow a whole universe as oppose to 52 books times how ever much each cost to follow another? 6 books a month I don't think fills you in on everything that is going on within the Batman universe right now, let alone Superman, Wonder Women, Flash, GL etc etc.

@Gordo789: As a hardcore DC fan, I can tell ya I'm happy.

@Shamelesslysupportinaznballers: The fact that Marvel had been outselling DC for so long is a testament that they were doing things to bring in readers and keeping them better than DC.

Even if they are bringing in new readers, respectfully, I cannot agree with this statement... they were outselling DC because they were putting out more product and had more effective tactics at convincing readers to buy multiple books. Each marked sales unit does not equate to a corresponding singular audience member.

You don't see Kirkman doing a reboot because of the TV show & I guarantee new readers of the Walking dead would be going wtf is going if they came in from the TV show.

You do, however, see the publisher, Image, re-releasing the material from a new initial standpoint in the form of Walking Dead weekly, as well as new editions of collections.

@gothicshieldagent said:

It is unrealistic to think even Superheros and Supervillains NEVER have sex,or use the bathroom,or what have you. Even on Star Trek Data had sex but don't you wonder where the Enterprise's restrooms are? lol Comic books are NOT like cigarette companies that's ridiculous.

Pretty much.

I still think they should change it all back in a year or two.

Honestly, I can say is that somethings has changed too quickly I'm catching up with the Green Lantern and Justice League something isn't adding up, Hal lost his ring but in the new league he gets it back. Not to mention a few new and old characters are missing.But hey it's something we need to make sure we're gonna like it in the long run

I am so glad they did this. As a new comic book reader I was finding it impossible to get into DC comics. There were just SO many out there, I had no idea where to start. It was pretty daunting. Now I can get into all the new comics, and find characters that I love.

I am so glad they did this. As a new comic book reader I was finding it impossible to get into DC comics. There were just SO many out there, I had no idea where to start. It was pretty daunting. Now I can get into all the new comics, and find characters that I love. 

@Shamelesslysupportinaznballers: If you read GL #1 Hal tells Carol the Guardians took his ring. If you read JL #1 the first panel says 5 years ago. If you read Superman #1 you'd know Lois was promoted. If you start reading from issue 2, that may be confusing but not at #1. And trying to compare it to the TV show or movie which are different from each other is pointless. Which Superman movie is it suppose to resemble (I,II,III, IV, Returns) or TV show (Smallville, Lois & Clark).

@cagedleo730: I know, i'm just responding to someone saying how the ultimates universe can be confusing to a new reader after it being in existence for 10 years because of what people may see in TV, movies with Miles Morales.

As a new-ish DC reader, I think the reboot worked well in terms of what they were trying to accomplish: bring new readers in.

I read mostly Marvel and Image books before the New 52 and the only DC books I had ever read was Batman and other Bat-Family books because the rest like Superman, Justice League, Green Lantern etc. were far too intimidating to me.

I think the New 52 is good because, even if it doesn't change much, the point is to make the books accessible and I personally think they accomplished that well (on most books anyway). It's definitely made it easier, for me anyway, to break into DC's continuity without having to do extensive research on the long (and extremely convoluted) backstories for most characters.

One thing I do miss is Stephanie Brown, though. I really liked her as Batgirl. Babs is great, but it feels weird having a Batgirl with no Oracle :(

@RedheadedAtrocitus: Exactly. Just look at this, you can apply it to any other facet of the entertainment industry:

(FYI, this parodies the climax of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.)

I think the reboot was less about the relaunch and more about a corporate change. They were not the best managed publisher out there. Now, that has changed. They committed to a pricepoint, $2.99. (Except comics with a backup feature) They committed to shipping the comics on time by requiring writers/artists to be three months ahead and using fill-in artists. They made the change to same day digital release. Making the characters more accessible was probably the least significant change.

I'm all for DC making changes, but that doesn't mean they had to have a full reboot and throw decades of continuity and character growth.

For the most part, I'm loving the New 52, and the changes DC have made so far are great; especially regarding Superman -- awesome new costume(s), no marriage, more outsider themes ... LUV IT!

I think the infamous Batman/ Catwoman sex scenes are more fun than some folk are suggesting. As for Starfire, I don't mind the changes, I'm hoping to see her new attitude be given a few more layers, add some depth, intrigue, backstory ... there's a lot of fun potential with this new take on the character.

While I'm enjoying Voodoo, maybe they could have upgraded it to a 'Mature' rating and been a bit more daring with the nudity and horror! Just a thought! :)

Anyway, it's still early days for the New 52, but so far so good.

@McBecks14 Now although i agree the sex is a lil to much for some however i do disagree with your approach simply bc its that kind of thinking that has caused CN(formerly Cartoonetwork) to drop toonami and with that to loose not only 95% of there long time fans in order to reach out to a "kid friendly" audience negelcting us who grew up with them and yet nowadays they show shows like adventure time who have no inspiration and show many sexual innuendos such as the commerical when it looks like that stupid dog jake is holding his crotch yet showing blood is a taboo really. Sometimes we americans have such a twisted sense of morality so while i do agree that they shouldne be having so many charcters have sex i also disagree in that comics should continue to be able to show things like they alwayss have simply bc some comics will be dark just like the world

@TadThuggish: True, we should also make Batman comics more realistic so it can be like The Dark Knight, first we retcon the Robins, pull Batman out of the new Dc universe make all his villians hyper-realistic and retcon the ones out that don't work. That way we'll see all the people (a shit load more then those who watched Teen Titans GO!) who loved The Dark Knight Loving the comics when they try it. Thus DC making more money and keeping more people happy. Lets also retcon Aquaman out cause no1 outside of comics likes Aquaman.

And Who said you need "Enough Change" to justify the relaunch. Its Justifyed, New Dc works better then old Dc, It sells better (for now) and people seem to be enjoying it alot (fans and creators).

The most I can contribute to this discussion is that, for the first time in my life, I am actively following ongoing monthly comics. I have enjoyed almost every bit of The New 52 I have had the chance to read, and find my only major issue with it being the fact that I cannot continue to buy near so many of the titles each month as I would like.

If one considers The New 52's goal to be securing new readers, then so far as I am to be concerned it is been an absolute success.

You know that the Catwoman/Batman sex is ridiculous when you have Batman asking if Selina's okay. Since when does Batman ask if Selina's okay?

@RainEffect said:

You know that the Catwoman/Batman sex is ridiculous when you have Batman asking if Selina's okay. Since when does Batman ask if Selina's okay?

.... since the DCU revamped? :P

The handful of changes made have failed to impress me. The handful of things that really should have been changed to eliminate some of the "new reader confusion" *cough*BatmanInc*cough* were left intact. Basically, all the DCnU has really done for me was cancel Red Robin after over 200 issues of Tim flying solo, and give us Batwing as a poor substitute, and cancel Secret Six which has been not just the best DC comic going, but the best overall series I've read since Elementals, and that got replaced with a very poorly written version of the Suicide Squad that seems to think killing D-lister extras is a suitable substitution for quality character development, team interaction and dynamics, and brilliantly written stories. Having read all 52 now, I firmly believe DC lost far more than what it gained.

POINT IS, that theyve accomplished there goal of aquring new readers both paper issues and digital! and you guys cant say its because people just wanted number ones for the worth in the future. because why would the digtal comics be selling just as well? idiots..all of you! lol
i for one am loving the new 52, and im an old reader so yaa :p

@trinity_stormbreaker: .... you have TONS of control over novels. Have you ever sat down with a stranger and tried to descirbe a character in book you both read to one another? You usually have completly different views on their height, their facial expressions, and pretty much anything else you novel does not specify in great detail. Its the reason why whenever they make a book into a movie, half of the book fans hate it. Its not what they imagined, and this new imagery ruins the story for them.

Comics are a monthly thing. DC needs us to buy offten so they can keep doing it. A novel is a one time thing, and authors get royaltes forever. But comics need you to like them. As a result, if thousands of readers express a dislike for soething, you either have to change it or risk loosing all of those people next month. And Comics dont get royalties. They get their sales and thats it.

big difference.

@TadThuggish said:

EXACTLY!!

@RainEffect said:

You know that the Catwoman/Batman sex is ridiculous when you have Batman asking if Selina's okay. Since when does Batman ask if Selina's okay?

This happened several times in BTAS. Watch Cat Scratch Fever and Tyger, Tyger.

Not going to address the specific controversies (I think TadThuggish's posted comic sums up my feeling on the Starfire thing) but I do think DC didn't go far enough. The half-reboot thing is confusing still at times, in what still happened, and did it happen the say way (like the Death of Superman, it seems to have happened in Superman, but is still to happen in Action, and how did it happen etc), and for new readers these things still get referenced or used. To me, if they were going to do it they should have gone all the way, and complete clean slate or not done it at all.

@TadThuggish said:

This, exactly XD. I'm gonna give Lobdell a chance to turn things around and show our initial impression of the new Starfire isn't all there is to her, but if things don't improve I fear for the future of DC comics ):

@sEsposito7 said:

Nice article, Tony.

In my opinion, DC dropped the ball with the relaunch. I'll just get that right out there before I say anything else. My justification for saying this is that they had an opportunity to (1) really floor long-time readers and re-energize the core of the DCU and (2) bring in a new fold of readership. The fact that they didn't really succeed with number (2) isn't really their fault -- comic books are a dying medium, no matter what -- although, I do think the top guys over at DC foolish for being so optimistic in their expectations.

The first missed opportunity is the fatal one. They had a chance to either do things extremely different, or keep them pretty much the same while still having the benefit of renumbering. Instead of one of these options, they tried to appease supporters of both directions, and in doing so, it comes off as very half-assed.

I know that in a few years, when all this is settled and done with, I'll look back on "the new 52" and cringe. This is not to say that there aren't some excellent stories being put out right now -- there absolutely is! Batman, Nightwing, Animal Man and Swamp Thing have pretty much been across-the-board hits since their release. It should be noted that those books and a few other that have been revered and loved by nearly everyone are all written by a rather small handful of writers. And it should be dually noted that those same books are those that have almost no changes that couldn't have been worked into a story in the pre-New 52 DCU. Mostly everything else has been (at least) less than note-worthy; and that's because DC was too timid to take any real chances or they took the wrong ones with the wrong characters.

*EDIT*: Also, I see that a lot of people seem to think that the relaunch has succeeded in bringing in new readers. I suspect that it's some type of observation bias, based upon the fact that those people who think that the relaunch did bring in a decent number of new readers are those that were pulled in. I'd be curious to see any kind of quantitative data as to how many new readers actually bought first issues, and how many actually stayed stayed on through at least the third.

As usual, you've saved me a post. I won't lie, this little stunt has turned out a bit better than I ever expected. I mean I am reading more DC books than I was previously (the fact that a few of them were cancelled probably adds to that). But I feel like overall this was missed opportunity and DC basically moved deck chairs around on a sinking ship. No truly major creative shakeups took place. Those that were writing crap before are still writing crap. Those who were excellent writers are still telling great stories. Books I love like Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Batman,& Batwoman are pretty much unchanged continuity wise and that continuity and history is integral to their present narratives and what's driving them. The reboot did give me books like Demon Knights/Frankenstein Agent of Shade/JLD but less left field books like this are being produced and the line is still remaining more or less the same as it was before. While I'm enjoying the "Vertigozation" of titles like Wonder Woman I don't feel that most of these stories couldn't be told without the reboot and the stories starting from scratch have all left me rather limp.

@JonesDeini said:

As usual, you've saved me a post. I won't lie, this little stunt has turned out a bit better than I ever expected. I mean I am reading more DC books than I was previously (the fact that a few of them were cancelled probably adds to that). But I feel like overall this was missed opportunity and DC basically moved deck chairs around on a sinking ship. No truly major creative shakeups took place. Those that were writing crap before are still writing crap. Those who were excellent writers are still telling great stories. Books I love like Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Batman,& Batwoman are pretty much unchanged continuity wise and that continuity and history is integral to their present narratives and what's driving them. The reboot did give me books like Demon Knights/Frankenstein Agent of Shade/JLD but less left field books like this are being produced and the line is still remaining more or less the same as it was before. While I'm enjoying the "Vertigozation" of titles like Wonder Woman I don't feel that most of these stories couldn't be told without the reboot and the stories starting from scratch have all left me rather limp.

I totally agree with what you said. I haven't read Wonder Woman yet, but only because I'm waiting for the trade (here are some writers that I simply love to read collectively -- Azzarello is one of them).

Selina is one lucky lady...