DCU : The Original Universe

[Eternal Padawan]

As 52 winds down, Countdown commences. Instead of starting at 1 and going to 52, the book will reverse, starting at 51 and "Counting Down" to issue Zero. And then they say it will be a REALLY HUGE DC crossover/ event.

[anarky]

Man, both Marvel and DC need to take three years off without any massive crossovers. Minor crossovers and guest appearances in moderation, fine. But step away from the massive ones.

Back in the day where there were only a few, they were events. Then things got worse in the early 90s (as so many things related to comics did). And it tapered off, but now it's back, and worse than it ever was in the 90s.

[anarky]

'Kay, so let me get two things straight:

First, DC has an upcoming crossover called World War III. Won't they feel like shit if and when the real thing happens?

Second, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are gone for a year. Superman apparently lost his powers; I can understand why he'd vanish. Wonder Woman, well, despite what DC thinks, no one gives a shit about her.

But Batman, simply taking a year off? WTF? That is so incredibly out of character it boggles the mind. "Hey, Ragman, Anarky, Oracle--why don't y'all hold down the fort, 'cause I'm going to Disneyland!"

Dude, there is no human side to Batman. It was killed in an alley when he was a kid. There may be emotions, like his sympathy for young boys whose parents get killed, but there's no aspect of his persona that would simply take a year-long vacation.

This is some really stupid shit someone should've thought through before going for the sales gimmick.

[vynsane]

But Batman, simply taking a year off? WTF? That is so incredibly out of character it boggles the mind. "Hey, Ragman, Anarky, Oracle--why don't y'all hold down the fort, 'cause I'm going to Disneyland!"

Dude, there is no human side to Batman. It was killed in an alley when he was a kid. There may be emotions, like his sympathy for young boys whose parents get killed, but there's no aspect of his persona that would simply take a year-long vacation.

This is some really stupid shit someone should've thought through before going for the sales gimmick.

maybe he'll reveal his identity on live TV...

[anarky]

Anybody reading DC anymore? I've been sorta keeping up in press releases.

So, EVERYTHING is so totally tied into the Crisis series that it seems like it wouldn't make jackshit sense otherwise. Do that with your horseshit characters like Booster Dildo. Hell, the Lanterns seem logical, since they're defenders of the entire goddamned universe.

Leave fucking Nightwing out of it. He's a dude who outsmarts and beats up other dudes. End of story.

Jason should've either stayed dead, or had a totally non-Crisis reason for coming back. It's one thing to throw Batman and his friends into the big-ass world changing crossovers. It's another to have them infiltrate his book. Batman is best when you only have to suspend enough disbelief to believe there are guys who look like clowns and giant crocodiles.

But, let me get this straight.

First, there was Crisis, which destroyed all the other worlds of the Multiverse. Then came Man of Steel and Year One, which "undid" and topped the old origin stories by miles.

Then Armageddon 2001, where suckass Hawk becomes suckass Monarch, and no one cares. Until Zero Hour, where he's working with Parallax to re-create the universe. Thanks to the forgotten hero Damage, we still have a universe.

Years go by, and some idiots at DC decide no one likes Man of Steel, despite there being no evidence whatsoever for this, and Krypton turns back into the stupid ass horseshit from the Silver Age, complete with Supergirl and Superhorse and Superdog and what the fuck Super Ever. (What the fuck is with all the anti-Byrne sentiment among comicdom in the past few years? It's not like he's Liefeld who, wait, is BACK TO DOING X-FORCE AT IMAGE AND YOUNGBLOOD AT MARVEL, or am I backwards since they're the same goddamned book anyway?)

And then we get strange crossovers. Like Identity Crisis. I've heard both praise and complaints about this, but, let's be fucking serious. You have homicidal maniacs running around raping superheroes and their wives, and so the JLA brainwashes them to think they're silly characters, thus explaining all the villains from the (real-world) 1950s being sorta goofy? At what point does that make any sense? Kill them or throw their asses in jail.

Oh, and someone fucked with Batman's mind during IC, so they retcon this deep-seeded hatred of metahumans into his story, and say he's maintained a fucking satellite and robot army to deal with them if need be?

Then Infinite Crisis restores the Multiverse, and the main heroes just take a year off to go chill? I mentioned how incredibly out of character that is for Batman. Stupider, Batman leaves Harvey Dent to watch Gotham? Harvey Dent, who thinks he's better every other week when he gets plastic surgery, but inevitably turns back into Two-Face. (I have literally lost track of how many times he's had surgery and said to Batman, "There is no more Two-Face." And that's just since 1985 or so.) Dude, I know he's not on the best terms with them, but wouldn't ANY of the other heroes of Gotham be better choices?

During this year, the New Gods start dying, the Amazonians start a war with humanity, World War III takes place, Aquaman apparently dies or some shit, Bludhaven is devastated, blah blah blah. And everything's building up to Final Crisis, where apparently all the characters from all the Elseworlds stories will show up and fight each other. (I'm sure that's what Frank had in mind when he wrote The Dark Knight Returns.)

And Batman, as written by Grant Morrison, looks good, but the stories in the main title of one of the two flagship titles don't appear to actually take place in any sort of pre-existing Batman continuity? WTF? Why didn't you just give him All-Star Batman instead, and maybe it'll actually come out more than once every three years?

Sigh. DC is fucking themselves badly with this mess.

[vynsane]

that's why i don't read DC anymore... they're just too retarded.

except for all-star superman. i read that.

[Diabolical]

Beppo the Supermonkey is cool.

[Eternal Padawan]

The whole Identity Crisis leading into Infinite Crisis was DC's zenith as far as riding the top of the sales charts. Then Marvel's Civil War and World War Hulk hit and now DC is scrambling to retain that momentum. One Year Later, other than the initial story arcs, ended up being a dud, since everything was back to status quo, more or less. They tired a new Flash, only to unceremoniously kill him off in favor of the Wally West version. And now all this Final Crisis hooey. Not to mention, DC is so afraid to commit to any single ongoing title for a character, they have about 500 mini series coming out with odd sounding titles that don't tell you anything like "Coutdown to Adventure" and "Salvation Run" which all kinda sorta tie into the upcoming crossover, but not in any definitive kind of way. Frustrating.

I am going to say the Green Lantern story right now is pretty fucking cool. But I've cooled on a lot of the other DC books lately. Of course, I also get EVERYTHING from this guy I know six months later for 50 cents a book, so I can afford to wait on a majority of it.

62.

[Zero]

I read the "Just Imagine if Stan Lee...." prestige books. Where Stan reinterprets DC's big guns, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and finally puts them altogether in JLA. Some of these were surprisingly good, and if they had been "original" characters, they might still be going to this day. The Batman and Wonder Woman were exceptionally good. Stan packs alot of angst and potential angst into his origin stories.

Batman is the story of Wayne Williams, whose cop father is being buried on the splash page. He has a dead end job at alocal grocery store and when the neighborhood crime lord is the victim of a drive by, Wayne rushes out and saves the thug's girlfriend. The thug, bothered by being out-couraged by a kid, roughs him up and then later sends some thugs to rob the grocery store, fingering Wayne as an accomplice "Thanks for the tip, Wayne! This place is an easy score!" so that his dick boss thinks hes involved and he gets sent to prison. His mother dies whiles he behind bars, so she'll only think of him as a criminal. While in there he gets beat up, so some friendly inmates train him start lifting weights, and a scientist who builds tech stuff(!!) is his cellmate or something. Oh, he also befriends a little bat whiles hes in prison. So when he gets out, he vows revenge against the bad guy and realizes he needs money. So he makes a Batman costume and starts wrestling, using his superior fighting skills he learned staying alive in prison. He soon becomes the most popular wrestler alive, raking in a ton of money in endorsements, toys, etc, all the while maintaining his secret identity since he ONLY gives interviews in character. badabing! Instant Billionaire. Then he tracks down the scientist he befriended in prison to make him a Batsuit that actually works like a bat, with ultra hearing, night vision, wings that will allow him to glide, etc. and goes and rectify's the situation with the villain. In a scuffle, the villain goes over the railing of his penthouse, and Baman helps the girl he saved all those years ago and offers her a job or something. Sounds cheesy in recap, but it was a good read and if some of it had been slightly changed ( Not Batman in other words) there was enough set up for an ongoing series. Like a black inner city Peter Parker.

Wonder Woman was the story of a young girl, Maria Mendoza, whose father is a judge in a small Central or South American country where an evil drug lord is in cahoots with an american corporation to discover ancient Incan or Mayan underground temple with a rare power source. The drug lord has the judge under his thumb for some incident when Maria was born and her mother died, but when he defys the bad guy, he has the judge killed right in front of her. She runs into the excavation and finds a hidden power that transforms her into a Warrior Chick, with a power staff. The bad guy, meanwhile finds some ancient runes that turn him into a goiant monster and he goes to America to find the other runes already sent back to the corporation. Maria follows, ends up destroying the bad guy, and becomes an instant sensation in Los Angeles, as sort of an urban myth. Maria stays to ry to find the other runes and gets a job at newspaper, where her new boss is obsessed with finding out who "Wonder Woman" really is, thus setting up the Clark/Lois/Superman triangle in reverse. it didn't hurt that this one was drawn by Jim Lee, but it was probably the best of the bunch.


And in going through my recent mass purchase, I discovered that Green Arrow, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, and Outsiders all recently concluded their series. So DC would rather have books like "Crime Bible" and "Salvation Run" which nobody knows who and what they are about, than traditional comic books titles, where you at least have an inkling what to expect inside?

[Zero]

I just figured out where they were putting all the good Batman stories. I read the last six issues of LOTDK before they dropped for that hideous new Batman:Confudential title with hideous Portacio scratches.

First up was an intricately plotted mystery written by Bruce Jones and beautiful, Beautiful, BEAUTIFUL painted art by Ariel Ollivetti. You NEED to find this to see how awesome Ollivetti does the Dark Knight.

Then the last three issues were stand alone stories, but each one was as good as it was different from the other two. If this kind of stuff was finding its way into the regular monthly title instead of ninja man-bats, Batman would be regarded as a much better title.



I also caught up on Wonder Woman officially. Wow. Welcome to "How to fuck up your title 101".
1. Hire a big name TV writer for the first six issue arc of your relaunch.
2. After months of delays, shorten arc to five issues.
3. Release issue 4 with HUGE double page spread cliffhanger of WW about to fight ALL her rogues.
4. For issue 5, put out a fill in issue, completely unrelated to previous story.
5. In issue 6, hire completely new big name chick novelist to write ENTIRELY NEW ARC, with no mention of previous arc's unresolved story. But curiously using previous arc's badguy (Circe) in your story.
6. Shanghai big writer's story by wedging Amazon Attack crossover directly in middle of story.

[jjreason]

I just checked the DC website sure I'd missed ASSuperman 9.... but they don't have it scheduled for release until NOVEMBER. 8 came out in JULY. That's another fairly good way to fuck up your story/readership.

[Zero]

Totally. Think about this, the All Star books premier issues were solicited BEFORE Infinite Crisis. All seven issues of IC came out, then OYL, then 52 issues of a WEEKLY series, and now they are 20+ issues into their second weekly series...and the two AS books are on issues 7 and 8. Wow. Just wow.

[Snigtad Flornbi]

U NO WHAT AN INFANITE CRISIS IS? I NEED MORE GOGDAMN ODOULS!!!! GOOD THINK BONER HAS SOME HE WIL BE HEAR IN A MINUTE!!

WWOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I just got another batch of DC books, every issue of Action, Atom, Batman/Outsiders, Birds of Prey, Blue Beetle, Catwoman, Detective, Flash, Green Arrow/Black Canary, Infinity, Inc., Nightwing, Robin, Shadowpact, Superman, SuperBat, and Wonder Woman for the past six months or so. Plus a bunch of mini series.

I'm reading a big chunk of older JSA issues from the previous series. Geoff Johns is a GREAT writer. As soon as I dig into this new stack ( over 150 issues) I'll check in with my DC updates/thoughts.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Well well well. One of the perks of working at WB is access to our intercompany directory. And guess whose name and direct office number I stumbled on?

DIDIO, Daniel DC DC COMICS Bldg: NY-1700 BRDWY Rm: 7TH * Off Lot: 212-636-XXXX

I love my job.