As is well known in… well, most of the circles that would be reading this, the DC Universe is going to be “rebooting” in September, with fifty-two separate brand new first issues of fifty-two brand new-or-newly-restarted comic book series. 

You’ll note that I put quotes around “rebooting” above. That’s because despite liberal use of the term, this isn’t actually a reboot. As I’ve said elsewhere, at best it’s a few patches and edits being made to a save file.

As with any decision made by a large comic book company, there has been a huge discussion and debate surrounding DC Comics’s plans. People are upset about their favorite comics being tampered with. People are upset about favorite characters disappearing and other characters being changed beyond recognition (or, indeed, being changed into something too recognizable, in the case of Barbara “was-Oracle-now-once-again-Batgirl” Gordon. People are upset over the choices being made, the pants that some heroines are getting, and the fact that Superman isn’t wearing red swim trunks any longer.

And I’ll admit, I’m one of those people. I’ve been quite critical of this moderate shift in continuity. I think it’s ill advised at best and potentially disastrous at worst.

You see… I don’t think they’re going anywhere near far enough with it.

When someone speaks of “rebooting” a continuity, they generally mean they’re going back to a specific point and starting over. Star Trek, the 2009 movie, is kind of the exemplar of this kind of reboot. We went back to the birth of James Kirk, screwed with historical events, and bang, everyone knows what Romulans look like, Uhura’s in her underwear, and phasers have little rotating barrel flippy things that never work right when you spend $12.95 for the toy replica. “Authentic movie action” my ass.

But I digress.

The advantage to doing this is simple: rather than forcing new readers/viewers/consumers to understand the sometimes byzantine continuity that precedes your current work — or find ways to explain everything necessary in each new feature as you go along — you can start absolutely fresh. At the same time, you can take the classic, often timeless elements of the work in question and bring them to a new audience, while still giving the old audience touchstones to the work in question. Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies aren’t in any sort of continuity with either the Batman comic books or the Tim Burton Batman movies (much less the Batman TV show, Batman: The Animated Series et al, or the other myriad animated takes on Batman), but the elements people expect from those movies appear in them. Bruce Wayne is there. Alfred is there. Commissioner Gordon and the Bat-Signal are there. The Batmobile is there. The death of the Waynes are there.

That many of these things are different makes no never mind — the overall effect is so well put together that people forgive the changes. And people who’ve never read or seen a Batman movie can still recognize those iconic elements, but need no primer to get up and running. The franchise was successfully rebooted, in the best possible way.

And on the other side of the equation, nobody goes into these launches too pissed off. Now, I’ll admit, plenty of frothing Trek fans went ballistic upon hearing that the past was being changed and everything was being invalidated. It was… well, it was enough of a problem that the writers had to quickly do damage control. “It’s an alternate universe,” they said in interviews. “We make it clear in the movie that the old universe is just fine.” And that’s true enough — they do clearly define this as an alternate Star Trek, and that means no one has to get pissed off, and it (mostly) calmed people down.

Now, if we go back to that Retconning Essay I reposted at the beginning of the week (see, there’s a method to my madness), you’ll see that the Star Trek reboot is more properly a Category Four Retcon. You knew the story, but now the story has been changed. It’s a dangerous retcon to do, because there are only two ways to go about it properly. You can either make the absolutely minimal changes you possibly can to put the new bits of continuity in place, then keep going from the ‘present’ onward with everything else intact… or you completely wipe everything out of the present and past back to the change and move forward along an entirely new path. Star Trek did the latter, but things like Spider-Man’s Peter Parker was never married reboot tried to do the former.

The problem, as I said then, is that people fall in love with their own ideas. Rather than do the absolute minimum, they threw in lots of changes, even as they tried to pretend most everything ‘still happened as we remembered.’ It leads to bad places most of the time. When the Legion of Super-Heroes did it, it led things so off the track that they ended up needing to do several Category Five retcons, which is to say the true, full on reboot. All history was gone and they started from scratch. (Ultimately leading to them launching a ‘pastiche’ Legion that wasn’t really the original Legion, but was damn close to it.)

The best examples of full Category Five reboots are the Batman Begins movies, the DC Animated Universe, and the Ultimate Marvel universe. And it’s a damn good way to go, if what you want to do is take what’s great (and beloved) about your universe and represent it iconically.

Now, going back to the actual topic of the essay — the upcoming DC Reboot. The one where I claimed that they look like they’re not going nearly far enough.

When they first announced the Reboot, it was with a big fanfare and the implication that this would in fact be a Category Five Retcon — they were starting everything over. To prove it, they were going to redesign everyone’s costumes from the ground up. And there was a certain amount of shock that ran through the online medium. Where would that shock have gone?

We have no idea, because they started backing off on it almost immediately.

They made it perfectly clear, for example, that Geoff Johns’s Green Lantern work would all still be canonical, with just tweaks here and there. Brightest Day would still be canonical. Blackest Night would still be canonical.

All right then — it would be a Category Four of some sort — we knew the story, but the story had been changed. Almost certainly by the events of the Flashpoint ’event.’

I put quotes around ‘event,’ by the by, because by the standards of Comic Book Megavents, this one really… wasn’t. People didn’t exactly buy it in droves. Or care. And they didn’t get around to declaring that the whole universe was being changed ‘forever’ until it was well underway, so there was no anticipation for it. Beyond that, I have to believe that with the BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM of Identity Crisis leading into Countdown to Infinite Crisis leading to Infinite Crisis leading to One Year Later and 52 leading to Final Crisis leading to Blackest Night leading to Brightest Day, people were pretty well freaking Giant Evented Out. (Add to all that Avengers Disassembled to House of M to Civil War to Secret Invasion to Dark Reign to Siege and now to Fear Itself… yeah.) Further, the idea that everyone had… well, for lack of a better word endured all these events only to have them all changed again didn’t go over well.

Next, they began teasing the actual fifty-two (man, what is it with them and fifty-two? Is Jim Lee addicted to poker?) comics that would be the core of the ‘new’ DC Universe… and people began noticing some disturbing things. Women, for example, were… well, oddly absent. And… Batgirl had red hair, which implied she was Barbara Gordon. Only… Barbara Gordon was paralyzed, had been since 1988, and was considered a much stronger character as Batgirl Oracle.

Then, to confuse things more, there were other reports. Most of the big events and milestones of the DC universe were still in place. The Killing Joke had in fact happened. Only, there were also massive changes everywhere. Changes in costume, in history (the Teen Titans history they’ve teased sounds entirely incompatible with everything that’s gone before, for example, while the Batman chronology seems almost entirely intact — so how old is Tim Drake and how long was he Robin, if he ever was?) Superman’s marriage was being axed. We found out that both Action Comics and The Justice League of America were being backed up five years (at ‘the beginning’ of these heros’ careers), but everything else wasn’t — but no one would need to have any prior knowledge to come to these books….

It’s a muddle. It’s a mess. And it’s clearly only going to get worse. And I figured out why it happened this way. It happened this way because the two people at the head of the company — Geoff Johns and Jim Lee — couldn’t let go. Jim Lee redesigned most everyone’s costume — leading to some ridiculous choices (I really hope Red Robin’s battle cry is Biiiiiiiiiiiiirdman!) This was one of those ‘had too many ideas they just had to throw in’ I warned about — there’s no reason everyone gets a new costume. In fact, it’s not particularly good for branding and merchandising for everyone to get a new costume. But Jim Lee wanted to redesign the entire DC Universe. Who wouldn’t?

At the same time, Geoff Johns has clearly spent years setting up his multicolored Lanterns, and wasn’t about to junk the whole thing and start over. So all the Lantern stuff stayed in. And Grant Morrison had his ‘Batman master plan’ (seriously — they’ve called it that), so naturally they couldn’t wipe all that out. At the same time, Grant Morrison really wanted to start Superman over, the way he would do it, so okay — they’re doing that! And that means dropping lots of things, like… well, his marriage. And Power Girl. Okay! We’ll do that too!

The intent of all this, they say, is to appeal to 18-35 year old men. And make it easy for them to come into a ‘clean start.’ But… this isn’t a clean start. It’s messier than ever, full of a bizarre stitchwork of pet ideas, things they always wanted to do, continuity they need to support the stuff they like and a whole lot of things ejected for no good reason. It won’t make it easier for newcomers, it will make it harder.

And… I hate to be the bearer of bad news? But I think you’ve already got most of the 18-35 year old men you’re going to get. Especially with the overwhelmingly white male face of the ‘new’ DC Universe. Yes yes, I know you announced “Batwing, the Batman of… Africa. Because Africa only needs one and a single Batman can understand the massive panoply of differing cultural and technological levels to be found on what is, after all, a well populated continent. Obviously he can do it on his own, because… well, okay. Batman himself hasn’t exactly had a spotless record in one American city, but this is easier, right?

They  shouldn’t have done this. Not this way, especially in this timeframe. They should have done a true, full on Category Five Relaunch. They should have gone farther. They should have completely started over.

Here’s what I would have done. I would have announced all of these things in the same timeframe that they did, with enough time to build up a good head of steam before ComiCon. But instead of making a massive change to ‘the’ DC Universe in September, I would have announced the launch of a new DC Universe in January 2012 — one based on the world of Superman: Earth One by J. Michael Straczynski. Straczynski has claimed in interviews that the success of Superman: Earth One (which, for the record, is a remarkable graphic novel and deserves all its praise) made the folks in charge at DC decide they could get away with a full on reboot. (He also claimed in said interview that the knowledge that they would be retconning away everything he was doing anyway was the reason he gave up on Superman and Wonder Woman less than halfway through his storylines, but then he’s pretty good at disclaiming responsibility for when these things run off the rails. But I digess.) The rest of the year would give current storylines in the DC Universe a chance to wrap up and wind down. There would be no massive event ‘ending’ the current DC Universe. They would just move on to a different universe in January. The implication would be that the ‘New Earth’/’Center Earth’/’Whatever we’re supposed to call Earth since it’s not one of the ‘52 alternate universes’ would still be there, with everything in its history intact. Nothing invalidated. Nothing ruined. Nothing rebooted. Oracle would still be in her wheelchair. Lois and Clark would still be married. Jason Todd would still be scum in prison.

Superman: Earth One would lead into an all new Action Comics #1 (since they’re currently valuing low numbers at DC, until they next decide they want high numbers and reinstate all the numbering schema from before again), as well as a Detective Comics #1, Wonder Woman #1, Flash #1, Green Lantern #1, Adventure Comics #1 and Birds of Prey #1. Those would be all the comics they produced until April — when the leads of the comics would meet at the end of their April issues, leading to Justice League #1 in the first week of May, starring the leads of all their comics. Said Justice League would be fully balanced as a new world — no more than half white, no more than half male. Simple enough to do — this is an all new universe. Let the Flash be female. Let Zatanna be asian. Let Aquaman be black. Superman and Batman have to be white men, for trademark and brand reasons, but if you’re going to redo Wonder Woman’s costume anyway, you can add some olive to her complexion.

In May, launch the second wave of comics, building on the first wave. Launch the Batman comic as the second Bat-title, and start introducing a wave of kids who become informants for the Bat — teenagers like Dick Grayson (orphaned in May and taken in by Batman) and Barbara Gordon. 9-10 year olds like Jason Todd, Tim Blake Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown. And yes, don’t be afraid to make some of them black or hispanic while you’re at it. Give Bruce Wayne a reason to trust and begin training these kids — tragedies in their lives, a need for help in his quest — but have them working more in the Oracle mold and support role than as costumed heroes, at least so far. Launch the Superman comic in the same month, and have him start to meet other Metropolis luminaries. The Guardian. John Henry Irons. Even Kara Zor-El. This would also be the time to introduce other younger heroes throughout the DC Universe. A Speedy for Green Arrow. An Aqualad and/or Aqualass for Aquaman. Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark. Et cetera.

Also in May? Release a graphic novel or two, featuring the DC Universe as we’ve known it since… well, Final Crisis. Write it as a single graphic work. Maybe throw in a second about the Green Lantern/New Guardians thing. Give people a sense that those stories can continue, even if they’re not in the month to month comics any more.

In September, launch the third wave of comics, including Adventure Comics #1, starring the Legion of Super Heroes, and featuring the secret history of Clark Kent and his time with the future group. By then you have a solid number of titles going out, and you’ll have a good idea of what’s working and what isn’t. Keep those modifications going, all with an eye to January of 2013, when some books end and others begin… and we have the launch of Batman and Robin, Batgirl, Wonder Girl (one of them, anyhow), and the Teen Titans.

The idea in this new launch would be an honest, completely new DC Universe — one anyone can get started reading, with a small enough number of comics to begin with so that someone would have an easy time collecting them all in a month. By the time you’re back into full production, you’ll hopefully have a diverse group of people following different comics — and that would be the drive. Actively market to girls, actively market to kids. Have well written, entertaining books appropriate for a 12 year old but still interesting for a 35 year old — it really can be done, you know. Do all these advertising campaigns, but target them to populations who aren’t reading comics now — and give them a sense of reality and ownership by balancing this new universe with a real diversity. Not a token black guy and a token chick (like, oh, that Justice League group picture at the start of this post), but a real balance reflecting the real cultures found in America. 

It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be rewarding. And it would give DC and comics in general a chance to start gathering audiences they haven’t had before. Further, it wouldn’t be as viscerally upsetting for the old guard — especially if there’s a sense they’ll get the odd graphic novel or online series from the old universe now and then. This would be a real chance for the DC Universe to be something new, while preserving what has always been iconic about it.

But it would involve risks. And it would involve walking away from the books the heads of the company have worked on, and maybe making Grant Morrison mad, and they’re not about to do that. Better, I’m sure, to try and launch an all new universe without actually making any real changes except to the characters ‘no one really cares about,’ and push it towards the 18-35 year old male audience. There must be some more we can squeeze, right?

Right?

I wonder how many years it’ll be before there’s yet another major retcon — one that restores the status quo to before Identity Crisis for a few years, with a number of people talking about the “mess of the Johns/Lee era — everyone in collared suits and no one knew what was going on any more.” And how many years after that gang took over that their superstars decided to reboot it all over again….