Solicits for the DC reboot madness
Well, the whole DC relaunch thing has the comic fanboys losing their damn minds. In case you don’t know, it seems comics fans are up in arms because DC decided to reboot all their titles back to #1. Comic blogs everywhere are kvetching about it. CT from Nerd Lunch even deemed it necessary to talk about the relaunch. CT mentions that he hates some of the costume redesigns, but I like them. Especially Flash. They just look more modern.
Now, I’ve read comics since the early 80s. I started with Flash and then ventured into Superman, Batman, X-Men and The Fantastic Four. I still read comics, but I tend toward the trade paperback collections and don’t really care about single issues anymore. I don’t care what number is on the cover, I just want good stories. But I look forward to this relaunch as a “wipe the slate clean” and start fresh with cool ideas. Almost buried in the announcement of the reboot is the fact that DC will also start distributing comics digitally the same day they release them in print. That’s huge. Reading comics digitally is growing quickly in practice, much to the consternation of comic book fans everywhere. With the iPad and other tablet computers, we finally have the perfect way to read a digital comic. I am looking forward to doing just that. I have been reading digital comics for the last few years now and while I prefer print, digital isn’t bad (especially when I get a tablet computer).
Anyway, I was reading The Source, the DC Universe blog, and they gathered together all the solicitations for the new reboot titles. There are lots of cool and interesting titles that have been announced. Let’s take a look at them.
Here are the Superman reboots. The two images above are for Action Comics #1 (left) and Superman #1 (right). In the solicit you can also see covers for Superboy #1 and Supergirl #1. Like I said I don’t care they are rebooting Superman, because, technically, they already did it once back in 1987 with John Byrne. This Superman #1 is interesting because it’ll be written and drawn by George Perez who took over from John Byrne back in 1989. I’m actually a bit surprised they are rebooting Action Comics due to it’s history. I mean, it was about to hit #1000. But they got Grant Morrison to write it, which is awesome. He did the spectacular All-Star Superman series with Frank Quitely. I’ll definitely want to check these out.
Here are the solicits for the Batman reboots. Detective Comics #1 is on the left and Batman #1 is on the right. I like Batman, I’m just not a huge Batman fan. Rebooting Detective Comics back to 1 is interesting to me because of the history (like Action Comics). It also nearly hit 1000. However, also interesting is the fact that this will be the first time that Batman has EVER appeared in a Detective Comics #1 (or #2-26). I’m surprised they didn’t reboot Detective Comics back to #27.
Here are some of the Justice League solicits along with other ongoing titles like The Flash and Aquaman. You can also see covers for Wonder Woman #1, The Fury of Firestorm #1 and what looks to be an awesome anthology title, DC Universe Presents #1.
Here are the solicts for DC’s “dark” titles. These really intrigue me. The big announcement is that of Justice League Dark #1 (on left). JLD consists of DC’s magic characters; John Constantine, Zatanna, Shade the Changing Man, Madame Xanadu and Deadman. They band together to battle the weird supernatural nasties that inhabit the DC Universe. That just sounds bad ass. The other cool title in this group is Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE #1 (on right). Frankenstein as a shady government agent battling the forces of darkness? Yes, please. I believe something similar had been done with this character by Grant Morrison back in 2007. Also in this “dark” group you can see covers for Swamp Thing #1 and Demon Knights #1.
And last, and, in my eyes, the least…
Here are the Green Lantern solici—zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Yeah, I’ve never been a huge Green Lantern fan and I’m not a fan of what Geoff Johns has done recently by splitting the Lanterns up into all these damn colors and DC gives EVERY SINGLE ONE there own damn title. F**K the Lantern Corps. I’m tired of hearing about them. I’m excited about the movie but that just makes me madder at the comics versions.
So, that’s essentially what DC has planned. What with the ongoing Flashpoint event and the historical company wide reboot, the summer RetroActive one-shots have completely flown under the radar. I’ve not heard one thing about them in a month and they should be coming out soon.
Cavalcade of Awesome 
June 14, 2011 at 8:20 pm
I could go either way on this myself as I’m more of a Marvel boy myself, but CT did make some great points about creating characters that a new generation of fans can relate to. It makes sense and besides, it’s not like DC (or Marvel) hasn’t done something like this before (“Electric” Superman, Stan Lee’s DC).
I am thrilled that Greg Capullo (Spawn, The Creech) is back and an Batman no less- that guarantees I’ll be on board for at least the first three issues. Justice League Dark also sounds pretty interesting… might have to give that one a chance too. 😀
June 19, 2011 at 11:34 pm
I don’t mind the Flash costume update. It’s not much different. The chinstrap is fine and the tweaked logo is cool. It’s really hard to tell how much different it is from current version. And allegedly, these designs aren’t necessarily final.
My biggest gripe about the reboot costumes are all the Superman and Super-family outfits. I hate the updated Superman suit and like even less the Supergirl outfit. The red trunks on Superman’s suit have been much maligned over the years and I’m not sure why. It’s no less absurd than what Olympics stars have worn over the past several years.
That said, Grant Morrison on Action is somewhat intriguing. I loved his All Star Superman mini but I am hit and miss on his ongoing work. JLA was mostly good, New X-Men was okayish.
We may cover this more in-depth on Nerd Lunch, but here are a couple other problems I have with the reboot.
1. It’s not a true reboot. GL and Batman are apparently going to continue their pre-Flashpoint stories. Also, a reboot would put us back at year one for these characters meaning no Robin, no Nightwing, no Red Robin, no Batgirl, no Superboy, no Supergirl, and no whatever else happens later in the chronology. DC seemed to initially be saying this is square one, and now that looks to not be the case. You will have to have some idea of the pre-Flashpoint crap that was going on.
2. DC has notoriously had a history of taking really cool characters and making them not-so-special. How many characters are in the Bat-family? How many speedsters are there? How many thousands of Green Lanterns are there? It just gets boring. I would have loved to see the reboot cut out some of the excess, but instead, there’s just more. Heck, it looks like there are going to be three Firestorms now.
There’s some cool potential in this reboot, but it’s not for me.
PS–Interesting point about this being a Detective Comics #1 that has Batman in it. It would have been a gutsy move to reboot the title and wait two years to bring Batman back in that title. Give Detective to someone else for 26 issues.
June 20, 2011 at 9:32 am
You make some good points, CT. Very well said. I especially like your idea of Detective Comics belonging to someone else until #27 (but that would be 2+ years later, so DC would never do that).
And really, a reboot doesn’t necessarily mean ALL THE WAY back. They could reboot back to immediately post Crisis where you would still have Robin and some of the other later characters that a true “square 1 reboot” would eliminate. Reboot can just mean “starting over”. But I agree with the character crowding. They need to “trim the fat” so to speak.
I think I like Superman’s new duds because I’ve always been a fan of the Crime Syndicate’s UltraMan, and it looks like that outfit. At least it’s not jeans and a t-shirt (hello, Connor). That’s what’s on the cover of Action Comics #1. That look works for Connor, but I don’t want anyone else to do it.