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AND SO IT BEGINS!! New 52 continuity errors - a rant
SolitaireRose
Posts: 1,445
Scot Lobdell recently said that Tim Drake was never ROBIN, but has always been RED Robin, and will be telling stories about that soon. Never mind that there was a picture of him in his Robin costume in Teen Titans #1.
Written by Scott Lobdell
I have to vent a little bit. We've been told that the Reboot was planned for the last 3 years, that the creators were carefully chosen, many of these books were in the works for a while before they were announced and that there was a plan to all of this.
I call shenanigans
"Batman isn't being touched" then "Batman had very few changes" then "Grant Morrison's Batman stories planned for this" and now they are just rewriting continuity SINCE THEY REWROTE CONTINUITY!!!!
I'm the LAST guy who gets upset about continuity errors. I LOVED Hyper-time because it was a great way to explain little glitches and such. I loved it when Mike W Barr said that he would pay attention to continuity when it meant as good story and ignore it when it meant a good story. However, DC has been touting how careful they were with this, how they were going to make sure there wouldn't be the kind of problems that happened after Crisis and Zero Hour, and they make a huge change like this, retconning what was already established.
Then again, this is the same editorial crew that gave us Teen Tony, the Hellions being killed in two subsequent issues of a comic and the Spider-Clone saga.
Either do it right, or DON'T TALK ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME. If you're going to tout how tight the continuity will be, and how you had a grand design going into things, don't screw it up so quickly.
Written by Scott Lobdell
I have to vent a little bit. We've been told that the Reboot was planned for the last 3 years, that the creators were carefully chosen, many of these books were in the works for a while before they were announced and that there was a plan to all of this.
I call shenanigans
"Batman isn't being touched" then "Batman had very few changes" then "Grant Morrison's Batman stories planned for this" and now they are just rewriting continuity SINCE THEY REWROTE CONTINUITY!!!!
I'm the LAST guy who gets upset about continuity errors. I LOVED Hyper-time because it was a great way to explain little glitches and such. I loved it when Mike W Barr said that he would pay attention to continuity when it meant as good story and ignore it when it meant a good story. However, DC has been touting how careful they were with this, how they were going to make sure there wouldn't be the kind of problems that happened after Crisis and Zero Hour, and they make a huge change like this, retconning what was already established.
Then again, this is the same editorial crew that gave us Teen Tony, the Hellions being killed in two subsequent issues of a comic and the Spider-Clone saga.
Either do it right, or DON'T TALK ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME. If you're going to tout how tight the continuity will be, and how you had a grand design going into things, don't screw it up so quickly.
Comments
Honesty works. And in the current climate, if you feed me a line of crap, I'm spending my money elsewhere. If I wanted to be lied to, I'd read the e-mails from my bank about how they care about me.
And apparently, a lot of folks like that warm, wet feeling on their calf.
Well, I laughed out loud. While I've liked parts of the New 52 (Aquaman is popular! Supergirl gets away from all that creepy jailbaity storytelling! A Power Girl and Huntress buddy team-up book!), it has always seemed very much like a "making it up as we go along" kinda thing. Look at the whole thing with Cassie Cain and Steph Brown.
"Cass is still the Black Bat and Steph is Spoiler again, and they'll both remain part of Batman, Inc.! Well, Cass is the Black Bat and Steph is Spoiler, and they were never Batgirl, and so we're re-drawing that issue of Batman, Inc. to put Steph in as Spoiler. Um, wait, we're just going to release that Batman, Inc. issue as is with the caveat that it happened pre-Flashpoint, but Cass and Steph will show up eventually as members of Batman, Inc. Wait, hold up... Cassie? Stephanie? Who are they? We don't know who you're talking about, so now let's just go and forget all about this bizarre cover up."
So was it truly handled better back then, or were audiences more willing to let DC take the time to work out the kinks? Maybe a bit of both?
*Except for the poor Legion, who got repeatedly screwed over by the Superman editorial team.
Same deal with the New 52. If you mire yourself in the continuity of it all, you're going to get burned eventually. I'm enjoying what I'm reading but in the interest of full disclosure there's only one bat title and one super title in that mix (Red Hood and Supergirl, respectively), and both of those titles are pretty much "on the fringe" of their areas, so continuity doesn't seem to be affecting them that much.
... have they turned out to be a mess? We're 11 months into more than 50 titles sharing a universe. "And so it begins" with something said in an interview that represents a continuity error? If this ends up going forward as an idea that doesn't get retracted or worked around, then I would say nearly a year in before such a contradiction is actually not too bad.
(And I should also say, as caveats, that I don't much care about how carefully make-believe is coordinated, nor am I reading Teen Titans. So it it may be easier for me to dismiss this than someone more invested.)
Batman's absurdly-compressed four Robins and a ten-year-old son in five years "timeline". And he was dead... no he wasn't. Dick was Batman for a while... or not. Barbara was Oracle... maybe. Flamebird was a Teen Titan... um...
And that's just the Bat books.
The Crises happened/didn't happen.
Superman died/didn't die.
There are seemingly half-a-hundred different well-established secret/semi-secret government/international organizations running/monitoring/hunting superheroes.
Continuity be damned, There's no consistency or sense of a coherent DCU.
A lot of Robins in a short amount of time may be hard to accept, but is not actually a contradiction or mistake. At least not yet. And in Batman Inc. #2 we see an image of Damien incubating in a sort of glass sphere, so it may be that we will yet find out that his aging was sped up.
Again, I am not saying that all the explanations will be SATISFYING, that is a different thing. Or that it will all fit. I'm just saying that, as far as keeping all the make believe trains running on time and not crashing into each other goes (or whatever mixed metaphor you may choose) they are not doing so bad so far.
And I agree that coherence and consistency are more important than continuity. (And, hell, I think sheer entertainment value trumps all those other values). To me, I have not felt like there has been a lack of coherence and consistency so far in the book I am reading. But, again, I may be reading less books than many other people are.
Example: Red Hood and the Outlaws. When issue #1 hit the racks...hell, BEFORE issue #1 hit the racks...the internet was all abuzz with Starfire being a whore who ran around half naked and won't someone please think of the children? How can I show this book that features a gun-toting anti-hero and a guy who shoots people with arrows to my little girl? While all this is going on a very smug, self-assured number of people (myself included) were saying "Wait."
Wait, because this is going to be something more than what they're showing us now. And it was. And Starfire is awesome right now in that series. No, she's not the jiggling girl crushing on Robin throughout the Teen Titans run. No, she's not the cute waifish anime-moe girl from the cartoon. She's something she's never been before...she's a freakin BADASS. She's the alien you pray to GOD is on our side because god help you if she isn't.
But instead, we're still focusing on that first issue, and not the 10 that have followed it, because it's better to wig out over what might be than praise what actually is in our society these days.
Honestly, I don't care much about the inconsistencies at this point. Once the promise of a new, wholly-conceived DCU showed itself to be a sham, and the central books to what "universe" there is bored me silly, I've contented myself with relatively stand-alone books like LSH, Demon Knights, Wonder Woman and The Flash.
I do find it sad, though, that despite "years of planning" the New DCU seems to be a muddled as the Post-Crisis DCU was. In my opinion, too many compromises were made, and what could have been a brave new start is instead an over-cautious mess.
Monday Morning Quarterbacking: Were I in charge, I would have said New Earth still exists, as do Earth One, Earth Two, etc., however, as of September 2011, we will be telling stories set on Earth 52. Perhaps someday, we'll revisit those other Earths, but for now, let's focus on what's happening in this place. That way Wally West, Stephanie Brown, the JSA, etc. all still exist*, as do the other versions of Bruce Wayne, Barry Allen, Barbara Gordon etc.: but right now we're telling stories about these other folks who are younger, more "realistically"-dressed versions of folks you used to know.
*As much as any fictional characters exist, of course.
It was like there *were* changes, but nobody was really that concerned for most of them. Some creative teams seemed to look at the whole thing as just a way to introduce a few new characters (like the Charlton characters and Captain Marvel) into the regular DCU. Then, months later, some creative teams seemed to realize, "oh, hey, we can use this as an excuse to change things in the book." So, months after the event, they would bring those changes into the book.
It certainly wasn't seamless.
As for giving DC time? That is just an internet thing. Back in the dark ages, we collectors and fans didn't have a global forum to gripe on, we had to do it either at the comic shop or at school with friends. And, pretty much, the most anyone could do was jot off a letter (a real, actually piece of paper, sent through a complicated system of interstate delivery by truck and people in wool suits walking routes), and wait three or more months to see if the letter was printed and given an answer in the back of the comics.
There was no guarantee of a response, and if there was a response, there was no guarantee that your letter would be unedited (for space), or that you'd get a serious response.
We were patient... because we had no choice.
At this point and time, I actually miss the real DC universe!!!
Clearly you are passionate about this subject. But vitriol like calling a creator or editor a douche is not really how we do things here. So I would ask that you continue the conversation by making it more specific in talking about the work, and less about insulting the people behind the work.
The original post in this thread is a good example-- sure, it is complaining, or even, to borrow his word, a rant. But it is a rant that talks specifics, and stays focused on the work, rather than getting personal about the people. Which helps the talk stays above the level of name calling and attacks.
Thanks.
Geoff Johns and Jim Lee were planning a new Justice League book for longer than those 6-7 months, but their plans had to change to incorporate the new52. Johns mentions that their initial arc was dumped for the Origin story. I believe that Graves could have been their original idea.
A lot of the new52 has been DC making it up as they go along. I don't mind this approach. They dumped a whole continuity. Why try to recreate it back to what it was. There shouldn't be any backpedaling unless sales suffer (e.g. Firestorm)
Batman's absurdly-compressed four Robins and a ten-year-old son in five years "timeline". And he was dead... no he wasn't. Dick was Batman for a while... or not. Barbara was Oracle... maybe. Flamebird was a Teen Titan... um...
And that's just the Bat books.
The Crises happened/didn't happen.
Superman died/didn't die.
There are seemingly half-a-hundred different well-established secret/semi-secret government/international organizations running/monitoring/hunting superheroes.
Continuity be damned, There's no consistency or sense of a coherent DCU.
1. Damien's leads to contradictions in the whole Batman timeline. They'll never solve that. They'll just ignore it forever.
2. Batman was never dead, before or after the relaunch. After the relaunch, all they said (in the print comics) is that he went "away". Vague at best.
3. Nightwing was Batman for a time (Nightwing #1). Also recently shown in Batman Inc #0. That has yet to be contradicted (in print).
4. Batgirl was never hinted as being Oracle in the comic books. They may have discussed it in editorial meetings and online but the book itself hasn't shown that at all.
5. Crises happening or not was Dan Didio's decision. Before the decision, there was no mentions of Crises in the book. Hawk and Dove mentioned a crisis (little c) and a lot assumed that it meant COIE. Sterling Gates said that wasn't the case.
Superman died was mentioned in Swamp Thing #1. It has not been contradicted. Too much history in between Action and Superman that hasn't been addressed.
6. There's always been secret organizations monotoring/running/hunting superheroes. What's wrong with that? Checkmate (Int'l Spy Agency), Cadmus (Checkmate Science Arm), Blackhawks (monotoring advance Tech), ARGUS (US Super-hero support/monitoring), DEO (FBI of metahumans). It's not like regular gov'ts don't have many intelligence agencies/special forces, etc.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=41229
Lobdell even says "He is still Batman's partner (not really a sidekick, admittedly) and he still came on screen with an independent streak... "
I think a lot of people liked Tim because he did a lot of growing up as Batman's side kick, I don't know how old he was when he first appeared, but it seems to me we say him go from a child to an adult. Now... he's just an adult and its hard to really go along with Scott that things in the past still "mostly" happened when soooo much has been changed and undoubtedly more will be changed when other writers come on.
And I believe DC editorial got wind of this, because I seem to remember and issue or storyline where Drake told Batman in no uncertain terms he didn't plan on being Robin...or Batman...or anything involving a cape...forever. He wanted a normal life.