News Flash: DC are out of their fucking minds

[trashcanman]

Oy, this company. Now, if you follow comics at all, you've probably heard that DC is rebooting their entire brand yet again in September. The timing is quite insane. See, in the last year, we've seen Bruce Wayne return from the dead and open up a whole worldwide team of Batmen, which I thought was a stupid idea. So now, with this whole concept just getting going, we're going back to Bruce Wayne being the one and only Batman. This is a good thing, but why did they even bother with this Batman Inc. thing in the first place? Why even bother bringing Wayne back at all before the reboot? This is bad storytelling. But wait! There will be another Batman Inc. starting at issue #1 after the 10 issues they already managed! Wait, what? Apparently, everyone is changing their names so technically there is only one "Batman", but there are still a bunch of "Bat-affiliates" around the world. Whatever. [takes a Tylenol]

Now, I don't subscribe to many DC titles, but the one I do is getting pissed away. Birds of Prey has been one of my favorites since forever. In the last year, the title has made a comeback from cancellation and only made it a dozen issues or so before it's getting rebooted. Along with this reboot comes the Death of Oracle. This is fucking bizarre because they BoP just finished a storyline with that exact name where the death was not in any way literal, but figurative. Basically, Barbara Gordon faked her own death and cut off ties with most of the DC Universe outside of her own team so that villains would stop trying to track her down through her friends. But now, she is returning as Batgirl (around a year after Stephanie Brown became the new Batgirl), So that means no more Birds, right? Wrong.

This is the current line-up.


This is the post-reboot line-up.


Yeah, "what the fuck" would be a typical response. Birds author Gail Simone (easily DC's best) will be moving to Batgirl and someone else will take over Birds. I'm not really sure what to do about this. Cancellation seems the way to go. Seriously, fuck you, DC.

I'm not saying change is bad, but Jesus Christ, man. The correct way to do this kind of thing would be to have the major titles all coordinate to produce a kind of end game where a reboot would be a good idea. But instead, they started a bunch of things they aren't going to finish and are eliminating some of my favorite things about that particular line of comics. This shit came out of nowhere. To me, that is just plain laziness. Something like the way Marvel did Civil War culminating in the changing of the landscape would have been the right way to do things. Well, I've got a few more months so maybe things can be squared away in that time, but I have a feeling this is going to stand as one of the dumbest moves in the history of the medium.

[trashcanman]

Oh bloody hell. Now there's this:
www.bleedingcool.com/2011/06/01/flashpost-dc-women-to-wear-trousers/

A female dress code? For reals? I'm not saying all women should have to wear miniskirts and hot pants, but for some characters it simply works. So now current DC comic readers get confusing/non-existent continuity, unfamiliar characters, spastic storytelling, and less eye-candy to boot. They are seriously going to regret this when "the big two" comic companies become "the big one" in a year's time. At least they still have Vertigo.

[The Curmudgeon]

Because the face-palm images just don't cut it when it comes to DC anymore.

Seriously, how is this company still making money? Another reboot is another slap in the face for anyone who has stood by DC and their shitty storylines and often absurd characters. So basically, "thanks for reading and buying! It was all for nothing! Oh, and fuck you!"

I get the need for change. I get the need to update characters that were introduced 60 years ago. That's fine. No-one is really expecting "Lois Lane gets married to Lex Luthor - and Batman is the Bridesmaid!" type stories to still be considered canon.

But that's what the last reboot was for. Or was that the one before? Or the one before that?

And they can dress Supergirl etc however the fuck they want. I certainly won't be reading anything they have to offer.

[trashcanman]

Oh, and here's the cover to the "epic" that is going to do the rebooting:



Ooooooooh! Edgy!

I've stuck with DC mostly because of Simone's Birds of Prey and Secret Six, and smart money's on the Six being cancelled and you saw what's happening to the Birds so I may be out. I may wait an issue or two just to see what the new Birds are about and I'm considering following Simone to Batgirl just based on the fact that I love her as a writer, but it's not looking good.

Grant Morrison's Batman stuff is just ridiculous. Yeah, I know he's super-genius and layers hints and callbacks and reality-changing story subtleties that call into question every single thing ever in the history of the world, but what I want out of my Bat-stories is classic Batman without all the DCU bullshit. His shit is just too dense and yo have to read every single one of his several storylines in a specific order over and over to even have a clue what the fuck you are reading, which is nice if you do nothing but line up your various issues in order of continuity and re-read them twice a month, but it's just headache-inducing if you don't have the time. Is an easy-to-follow story just too fucking much to ask? Now if you wannt decent bat action without all kinds of meta-weirdness you have to get with the side characters like Batwoman (whose Elegy storyline was an instant classic), who aren't worth following until the TPB's come out because of the constant delays from the creative team. Fuck man, is it any wonder I only have like 3 superhero books left on my subscription pile. After all this is said and done, I may only have Deadpool left standing.