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The Funny Books
Monday, August 20th, 2012 11:58 amI have now, by dint of waiting a few months, read a number of collected versions of DC Comics’ so-called ‘New 52’.
A few months back (probably getting on for a year, I guess) DC underwent one of their periodic reboots of their increasingly convoluted internal continuity. I’m showing my age when I say that the first reboot I remember was about 20 years ago, with Crisis on Infinite Earths, whereby they tried to reconcile everything that had ever happened, regardless of continuity and relative silliness with their characters and storylines in the entire period 1939 to (around) 1985.
I have to say that it was quite an entertaining, clever short series that introduced formally the idea of parallel worlds where each style of story was dominant, so that the 1950/60s style stories could sit alongside the slightly grittier 1970s and early 1980s stories and styles, which culminated in what seemed like a renaissance in comics with the launch of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. It also heralded the sudden, if short-lived mushroom of independent comics publishing and the continuing, if rather reduced publication of various gritty, horror and fantasy comics that both echoed the pre-code days and moved the genre along into wider vistas.
The point of the reboot was to tidy everything up, wrap up the old combination of relative reality and outright silliness and draw a line under it all. Everything then started anew with retellings of origins and redefinitions of characters; many elements of their backgrounds cherry picked from the supposed best of what had gone before and much just plainly reinvented.
And so it went for a while, until, someone decided that it might be fun to have a Batman story featuring Batmite and so on and so forth and then the attempts of the creators to rationalise everything slowly unravelled. So we then get further mini reboots that try to tidy things up again, often reusing elements of the Crisis title, if not its full intent (there’s too much money to be made from the fanboys selling miniseries with cross-overs and alternate covers for this particular cash cow to go away for any length of time).
For now at least, we have a major revamp that harks back to the original Crisis except that everything just stopped and restarted again at the beginning. Some elements were retained, others simply ditched and we pick up and carry on. For the past few months and for a few more yet, I guess, we that read such things shall live in a period where the stories are generally better, the art crisper and we will only have to suspend disbelief to a certain degree, without having to throttle it half to death.
Then, of course, creators –writers and artists, but also commissioning editors will move on and everything will slowly revert, bringing forward the next great reboot.
In the meantime, while the concept is up and running and still pure and fresh, I am enjoying the titles I have read. The new Superman, the revised Batman (both of whom seem to have lost their underwear over their leggings…), the revised Batwomans and relaunched Batgirl. I may have a look at some of the others as collections come on line. The stories, ‘reimagining’ and presentation have been uniformly excellent in those that I have read. I understand that some have been less successful and some of the ‘New 52’ have already failed the test of the markets, but while there is some good stuff to be read, I’ll continue to read it.
But not at the rate it’s put out. My days of mass comic consumption are behind me. And I really do not need multiple issues of the same thing with variant covers. Indeed, I actively resent the fact that I might be gulled into buying the same comic twice because I didn’t realise that the subtly hidden issue number was the same as one I’d already read. I shall be quite happy with the collected anthologies, thank you very much.
Either way however, I am enjoying the out put of the major publishers more than I have for a number of years. Within limits, of course.
A few months back (probably getting on for a year, I guess) DC underwent one of their periodic reboots of their increasingly convoluted internal continuity. I’m showing my age when I say that the first reboot I remember was about 20 years ago, with Crisis on Infinite Earths, whereby they tried to reconcile everything that had ever happened, regardless of continuity and relative silliness with their characters and storylines in the entire period 1939 to (around) 1985.
I have to say that it was quite an entertaining, clever short series that introduced formally the idea of parallel worlds where each style of story was dominant, so that the 1950/60s style stories could sit alongside the slightly grittier 1970s and early 1980s stories and styles, which culminated in what seemed like a renaissance in comics with the launch of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. It also heralded the sudden, if short-lived mushroom of independent comics publishing and the continuing, if rather reduced publication of various gritty, horror and fantasy comics that both echoed the pre-code days and moved the genre along into wider vistas.
The point of the reboot was to tidy everything up, wrap up the old combination of relative reality and outright silliness and draw a line under it all. Everything then started anew with retellings of origins and redefinitions of characters; many elements of their backgrounds cherry picked from the supposed best of what had gone before and much just plainly reinvented.
And so it went for a while, until, someone decided that it might be fun to have a Batman story featuring Batmite and so on and so forth and then the attempts of the creators to rationalise everything slowly unravelled. So we then get further mini reboots that try to tidy things up again, often reusing elements of the Crisis title, if not its full intent (there’s too much money to be made from the fanboys selling miniseries with cross-overs and alternate covers for this particular cash cow to go away for any length of time).
For now at least, we have a major revamp that harks back to the original Crisis except that everything just stopped and restarted again at the beginning. Some elements were retained, others simply ditched and we pick up and carry on. For the past few months and for a few more yet, I guess, we that read such things shall live in a period where the stories are generally better, the art crisper and we will only have to suspend disbelief to a certain degree, without having to throttle it half to death.
Then, of course, creators –writers and artists, but also commissioning editors will move on and everything will slowly revert, bringing forward the next great reboot.
In the meantime, while the concept is up and running and still pure and fresh, I am enjoying the titles I have read. The new Superman, the revised Batman (both of whom seem to have lost their underwear over their leggings…), the revised Batwomans and relaunched Batgirl. I may have a look at some of the others as collections come on line. The stories, ‘reimagining’ and presentation have been uniformly excellent in those that I have read. I understand that some have been less successful and some of the ‘New 52’ have already failed the test of the markets, but while there is some good stuff to be read, I’ll continue to read it.
But not at the rate it’s put out. My days of mass comic consumption are behind me. And I really do not need multiple issues of the same thing with variant covers. Indeed, I actively resent the fact that I might be gulled into buying the same comic twice because I didn’t realise that the subtly hidden issue number was the same as one I’d already read. I shall be quite happy with the collected anthologies, thank you very much.
Either way however, I am enjoying the out put of the major publishers more than I have for a number of years. Within limits, of course.