Hello! So, I realize that is a loaded question, but it is essentially the bare bones of what I'm asking. Why do DC fans dislike initiatives like DC You and, in a grander scope, the New 52? These operations serve as DC's attempts to cater to its fanbase and ultimately profit. I understand being unhappy with the delays and all of the technical problems, but what about the initiatives specifically do fans find deplorable? Does the fault lie in the storylines, lack of creativity, characterization, excess of creativity, lack of emotional depth or too much emotional depth? Is it simply because characters like Superman aren't being written with their Golden Age ideals intact? Shouldn't characters reflect the societies that produce them? Using that logic morally ambiguous heroes are the product of the increasing tumult of the 21st century and thus necessary in creating a believable three dimensional world. Is attempting to make a comic about a teenager cater to the social media obsessed generation by adding aspects that they can better relate to like Twitter and Facebook such a bad thing? The ideals of family and friendship simply don't GENERALLY resonate as strongly with that generation, as a whole it usually has a greater stake in the digital and the superficial. I'm trying to play devil's advocate with most of these examples. But to my point: is the hate that comes with these relaunches simply a product of the anger and betrayal of a generation who've in a sense 'lost their heroes', or is it an honest abhorrence at the smothering of the creative potential of such iconic characters?

Nostalgia and disturbing the status quo

I have literally no idea what the order of events currently is in DC. Does the stuff in individual titles actually happen in JL?

I'm going on a limb and going to say DC fans dont like change

It makes all the awesome stories before non canon and it changes all we have come to love about the universe and the characters.

A disturbing lack of story quality and character distortion.

@dernman said:

Ding ding ding.

You can't throw out over 70 years of history and expect people to be happy about it.

Because a lot of it is continuity issues, characterization, characters being sidelined, or stories being weaker. Plus the need to cater to newer readers who by all accounts would be more confused about the N52 than the previous continuity. I mean they have the Internet, what's the excuse

@xwraith said:

Bingo.

If I did nothing but read Post-Flashpoint Aquaman, how would I be confused?

This. It's all fiction.

This is the same thing people complained about back in the 90's with DC and the Post Crisis Continuity, which everyone conveniently seems to forget whenever these discussions come up and it took DC the better part of two decades to iron all that out, however the DCnU comes out a few years ago and suddenly everyone acts likes this is some new fangled thing.

This is more than likely the underlining problem.

@xwraith: They didn't, no more than COIE threw out roughly forty years of continuity.

Continuity is a myth. Intact or rebooted, Marvel or DC - there are countless problems and contradictions within both.

@xwraith: 70!? We both know it less then that

I like new 52...go ahead and hate me, I like how I don't have to buy every comic title to understand whats going on. Each title generally tells a different story, I like that

i like the new52. Maybe because I started with DC post flashpoint around convergence. Harley has gotten more exposure than she would ever have gotten before the new 52. Superman has been fun to read overall. Too many crossover events. I actually kinda like him and Wonder Woman as a couple.

One thing I have noticed on these boards. It seems that when Marvel tries something new against the status quo, more people are willing to go with it and jump on board. DC fans seem much more negative towards changes. Now maybe it's warranted, I haven't been around long enough. I can't imagine though that flashpoint was the only time the DC universe underwent a massive overhaul.

It has nothing to do with it being a new universe cause the majority of fans love Snyder's batman, Azzarello's Wonder Woman & Johns' Green Lantern.

The problem is the majority of the new 52 books aren't very good which gives the whole line a bad name.

I love the New 52, I was a fan of the DC characters, but only read the comics once in a while. The New 52 made me read their comics, and in turn I've been reading more and more DC comics.To be honest I think its just people who don't like change. All fans in comics hate it, heck marvel fans complain that they get a new number one every year. The difference between DC fans hating on DC and Marvel fans tolerating Marvel is that Marvel changes the status quo at least three times a year whereas DC does it less frequently, but when they do it the status quo is changed in a big way.

I can't attest to this, but the biggest problem people seem to have is that Superman isn't in his underwear, and he isn't a boy scout anymore. And obviously they updated a few other characters too, but like you said in your beginning post these characters need to be updated and I personally am liking what they're doing to it. I hated Superman until the New 52 came around, for the first time in my life I finally understood him and could relate just a little more. Although, I can't really defend DC in certain areas when they keep their bad writers (Lobdell jumps to the forefront) on the same titles. I think if they fixed up their Teen Titans book (which they seem to be trying with Titans Hunt) and a few other titles that used to be big with the fans and now have declined, then I think the fans would be happier, but I'm okay where DC is right now. I think people are being much too harsh on them.

As for the DCYou I've heard nothing but great things from it. Which surprises me when I learn how much people hate them. Midnighter is the most popular of the bunch, and I've heard that Black Canary is really good too. Dr Fate seems to be some of people's favorite comic to pick up, and even Martian Manhunter has taken in fans. From what I've noticed there have been more talk about the DCYou books than the ones that are not You books, and they are being talked about in a positive light. So whatever fans are crying about, I think DC is slowly taking steps in the right direction.

I forget where I heard/read this, but I think it was in an interview with Didio where he says that the DC universe isn't really progressing in a linear format. They are more lenient in putting out titles even though they come later in the timeline. Like the first arc of JL was the introduction to everyone, but at the time it was only one of two series set five years ago while the whole universe was in present day. Then they moved up their timeline a bit with the second arc, and finally they were back to present day with the Atlantis storyline. It has also been stated that the Justice League is the spine of the DC universe, and some fan speculation is that the DC universe hasn't caught up to the JL storyline. Like Darkseid War happens in the future, but we're getting the story now, and eventually the other DC comics will catch up to them. So think of the JL right now as the end game for whats to come in other series, because if I'm not mistaken Hal Jordan is part of the JL in that title right now, but since volume 4 of Green Lantern he obviously hasn't had time to be in the League. He spent months in space and is now rocking the long hair going renegade. Batman hasn't really been Batman in a while, Superman is rocking the shirt and jeans being a stud, and so forth and so forth, so I think the theory that Darkseid War is in the future is a big plausibility. Does that help?

Because the quality of the stories is a mixed bag and several characters were ruined with hasty and illogical reinventions.

I actually really liked DCYou. New 52 was hit or missed. I liked a lot of stuff from New 52 but too many characters I like (Kon-El, Karen Starr) got ruined or become uninteresting. Found new stuff to get into (Green Lantern, Wonder, etc) but still.

Personally, I'd blame it on certain writers and editors. For an Scott Lobdell got too much work during new 52.

I actually like the New 52, as it gave me place to jump into comics...But I have been reading some 90's Flash and Morrison's Batman run which are fun but after every 5 or 6 issues,there is one which is tying into events with different parts in different books...This is a relief as it is one of the main things they changed as now all storylines happen in one comic while others only have tie-ins which aren't a must to read...

Only thing I hated about DCYou was that they killed off Terry McGinnis and replaced him with Tim Drake as Batman Beyond. Aside that, I actually enjoyed the Justice League, Batman and Wonder Woman titles. I just remembered something else I don't like, how they keep changing Tim's identity, first he was a Robin then Red Robin, then he tried to be Batman for a while till Jason almost killed him, now he was never a Robin, and now he's Batman Beyond (Future Tim). I mean why couldn't DC just call him Cardinal instead of having him take up a bunch of mantles that were never his own. I mean seriously Red Robin is a terrible name.

More the first than the second, but both of these are part of the problem to be sure. To expand on the second first and foremost, no one's going to be happy about the continuity that they've grown up reading and investing so much time into being tossed out the window and no longer beind held as canon. I don't think that that issue should be all that hard to understand. Older fans who were reading comics before COIE and right after can probably confirm this for me, but i'd bet any amount of money that there were people just as upset when the original reboot happened back in the day. It's just the type of thing that's going to rub a person the wrong way.

Then back to the first point, what it was replaced with isn't something of the same quality. The majority of the titles we've seen from the New 52 have been trash. Even a lot of properties that are solid like Batman then still aren't equivalent to what we had previously and even in the stories you do like there are some things that again just rub you the wrong way in comparison to how things were previously. You'll have some changes made to characters that you don't agree with, some characters completely thrown aside alltogether, etc.