All art copyright DC Entertainment Inc.
By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
The brain trust at DC Comics thinks some things are missing from their superhero comics. With DC Universe: Rebirth ($2.99, out May 25), they have gone metatextual to bring them back.
To explain: DC has a history of rebooting its superhero books, going back to 1986-87 and Crisis on Infinite Earths. That 12-issue maxiseries re-started most of DC’s superheroes – including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman – at the beginning of their careers.
Various problems in continuity (the in-story histories of the characters) forced a fix called Zero Hour in 1994. That minor reboot was followed by Infinite Crisis in 2004-05, which re-introduced the concept of multiple, parallel Earths, which Crisis on Infinite Earths had removed in 1987. (As you can see, this reboot business can get kinda tricky.) The latest reboot was Flashpoint in 2011, which once again de-aged most of DC’s characters and started them over again.
Now we have Rebirth, which seems intent on fixing character problems and story dead ends created by Flashpoint. The 80-page DC Comics: Rebirth one-shot that arrived May 25 will be followed by 18 more one-shots intended to define and update DC’s major characters, from Aquaman to Wonder Woman. Simultaneously, and continuing for the next several months, DC will reboot most of its titles with first issues – with many of them, amazingly, now scheduled to ship twice monthly.
Some of the band-aids the Rebirth project will apply are desperately needed. For example, DC hasn’t had an ongoing Supergirl title for a couple of years, despite the semi-successful TV show. But Rebirth will give us a new Supergirl #1 Sept. 7, a series closely mirroring its TV counterpart. Another example: Rebirth will help explain how Batman, who after Flashpoint has only been operating for five years, still has four Robins. Also, Rebirth will explain how the Teen Titans got started, when one of its founding members, the Flash’s sidekick Wally West, had been erased from history. And so forth.
But Rebirth is aiming higher than that. It wants to fix bigger problems – some that, while exacerbated by Flashpoint, go back all the way to 1986. No, not to the aforementioned Crisis. Instead, it addresses a trend that arguably arose from two other books published in 1986, two books that had a long-term impact on all comics, not just those published by DC.
Those two books are Frank Miller’s shockingly bleak Batman story, Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s dystopic superhero opus Watchmen.
Neither were in continuity. DKR featured a paranoid, sixtysomething Batman, a Dark Knight who may or may not ever happen, while Watchmen was set outside the DC Universe entirely. But both were incredibly successful – they are still in print today – and therefore influential.
Unfortunately, that success impacted everything that followed, including books that were in continuity, at DC and elsewhere. I say unfortunately, because what publishers took from that success was that the public wanted superheroes who were more “realistic,” violent and dark. Some movie directors reached the same conclusion; Zach Snyder’s Batman v Superman lifted not only content and themes from Dark Knight Returns, but also its bitter nihilism.
Whatever their other merits, Watchmen and DKR essentially launched the “grim-n-gritty” era of comics. An era which, in a roundabout way, is what Rebirth is rebelling against.
The Rebirth one-shot out Wednesday was written by DC’s chief creative officer Geoff Johns, who has identified a number of elements he felt that Flashpoint and its predecessors had slowly erased from DC’s books. Those elements are addressed by the four chapters of Rebirth, titled Lost, Legacy, Love and Life. But what they translate to are:
TIME: Flashpoint, like its predecessors, de-aged DC’s superhero universe, giving them about a decade less history – and therefore less experience, fewer acquaintances and less grandeur. Rebirth will have the characters actually realize that they’ve lost 10 years of their existence, and strive to get those experiences (and all those story springboards) back.
LEGACY: DC has always been about generations of superheroes, going back to the 1940s, when the first characters named Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Wonder Woman were members of the Justice Society of America. Eliminated by Flashpoint, the JSA of the past will return in Rebirth, as will DC’s champions of the future, the Legion of Super-Heroes.
LOVE: Re-launching characters in Flashpoint meant de-marrying some of them and disentangling others from their romantic partners, often to tell the stories of their courtship all over again. So Rebirth is re-coupling many of those characters. Aquaman, who was married to Queen Mera before Flashpoint rendered him single, is proposing to her again. Longtime DC power couple Green Arrow and Black Canary, who didn’t even know each other after Flashpoint, will find each other again. And Superman and Lois Lane? They’re married (again) … with a 10-year-old super-powered son!
HOPE: This is the big one, if DC can pull it off. After decades of grim-n-gritty, the DC Universe will once again feature a sunny Flash and a happy Superman. Maybe even Batman will crack a smile or two.
All of which is well and good. But it’s been done before, in all of those other reboots. What makes Rebirth different, though, is that the characters are going to know that changes have been made to their lives. No, they’re not going to break the fourth wall and realize that various writers and editors have been monkeying with their history since 1986. Instead, Johns is using a metaphor for that – a character heretofore not part of the DC Universe, who has literally reached into the DCU and stolen time, legacy, love and hope for his own, so-far-unrevealed reasons. A character familiar to us, but not to Superman & Co.
That character is Dr. Manhattan, the nearly omnipotent, barely human superhero from Watchmen. Yep, Watchmen – ground zero of grim-n-gritty in the real world – will be blamed in-story for the trends and events of the last 30 years.
“A darkness from somewhere infected us,” says Wally West, a character erased from the DC Universe by Flashpoint, who struggles to return in the Rebirth one-shot. “It has for a long time now, I think even before the Flashpoint.”
No kidding.
And as if to hammer the point home, a character called Pandora appears in the Rebirth one-shot, only to be murdered, presumably by Dr. Manhattan. Pandora’s significance is that she was the character central to the launch of Flashpoint – a character who is now dead. Not just dead, but most sincerely dead … just like Flashpoint.
You really can’t make it any plainer than that. It’s metatext become text.
It’s a bold move, and DC is to be applauded for taking it. Old fan favorites like Blue Beetle and The Atom are returning. The Watchmen characters are now available for use with Superman and the others. And hope burgeons on the horizon.
Of course, all the previous reboots were also considered bold for their time. And most of them foundered, not on the grand concepts at the beginning, but in the day-to-day execution of the monthly-book grind. It’s not easy for a given writer to stay faithful to editorial intent at every step, when he’s got this month’s Teen Titans to bat out on deadline.
But it’s a start. We can only hope that Rebirth grows up the way it’s intended. And hope is what they’re shooting for.
Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (captaincomics.ning.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics).
Replies
“But Rebirth will give us a new Supergirl #1 Sept. 7, a series closely mirroring its TV counterpart.”
Y’know what would be nice? A blurb during the end credits of the Supergirl TV show saying, “Supergirl appears regularly in Supergirl magazine.”
“Whatever their other merits, Watchmen and DKR essentially launched the “grim-n-gritty” era of comics.”
…a term coined by Mike Gold to describe GrimJack.
“An era which, in a roundabout way, is what Rebirth is rebelling against.”
And about time, too.
“Dr. Manhattan… will be blamed in-story for the trends and events of the last 30 years.”
Hereafter to be known as “Dr. Scapegoat.”
Hereafter to be known as “Dr. Scapegoat.”
Isn't that the new overlord of Deep 13?
I didn't know the phrase "grim and gritty" came from Grimjack, but that's not surprising. When did Gold coin that, early '80s?
I knew I was on shaky ground on when and where "darkness ... infected" comic books. Punisher and Wolverine preceded 1986, along with Grimjack and some others. Adams and O'Neil started Batman back on the path to being a Dark Knight as early as 1970, and he probably got there before 1986. So I tried to phrase it so that Watchmen and DKR are just generally what people point their fingers at -- that they didn't invent the concept, but did popularize it and keep it viable long after its natural shelf life. Which I think is true.
Yeah, early '80s, don't recall exactly when. I just threw that out there as a bit of trivia for anyone who didn't know, not to contradict anything you said.
Oh, I know. I wanted to mention that, though, because I write the columns for newspaper readers, not experts like we have here. Your remark gave me the excuse!
...Yeah , but you left out that the married Superman is (I believe) ,
(1) Really , the old Superman (Mylar Age/post-Byrne), and was in the DCU , co-existing with the New 52 Superman , for the past several months at least .
(2) Realistically ~ DC has already announced " Superman: REBIRTH " ~ not going to be the main Superman of the the post-Rebirth universe .
I betcha betcha betcha . And killing off Big Blue-52 , as has just happened ~ AWFULLY parallells a certain movie :-) !
Captain Comics said:
...And furthermore , though Mylar-Supes is supposed to be married to his Lois Lane ~ His beard and clothing makes him look like he should be hanging around the Castro and calling himself SuperBear !!!!!!!!!!! Rrufff .
...I guess " Big Bear " would be better . Big Bear . Woof !
So will the next reboot be in 3 or five years?
I think that will depend upon the sales.
Randy Jackson said:
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