"I love this world. But there's something missing."
- Wally West
Happy days may be ahead as DC's "Rebirth" initiative has begun. Having read the one-shot special, I can say that it was probably one of the best comics I've read, with emotional moments (one in particular that gave me goosebumps) and setting up a bright future but also teasing a looming threat. Compared to when the New 52 started, going into "Rebirth", I have a lot of enthusiasm for what DC has planned. I'm even considering buying the "Rebirth" omnibus that will eventually come out, and maybe future trades for some series depending how I feel about the initial issues in the collection.
From my own personal standpoint though, I have to ask: what took so long? Now I've actually been planning a write-up about my feeling toward DC for over a year now but was waiting until the conclusion of Justice League's "Darkseid War" storyline to put it all together. "Rebirth" here was just the cherry on top. Buckle in, because this is going to be a long post.
Let's start all the way back in May 2014. DC had just wrapped up the "Forever Evil" event, with the final page teasing the Anti-Monitor claiming that he will destroy Darkseid. At the same time, the weekly series "Futures End" had begun, telling the story of Terry McGinnis/Batman Beyond traveling back 30 years to what would be five years from the present DCU to prevent the artificial intelligence Brother Eye from taking over the Earth. One of the events mentioned in the series was how after Earth 2 had been destroyed (which would be detailed in the subsequent and concurrent weekly series "Earth 2: World's End") by Darkseid, the survivors of that world had came to the Prime Earth through a boomtube. This lead to an all out war with Apokolips against the heroes of two worlds, the aftermath resulting in a very dark future as seen in the "Futures End" weekly.
Considering the looming presence of the Anti-Monitor, Darkseid's threat to both worlds and the tease of a crossover between the two, it appeared that DC was planning a big event that would detail the war mentioned in "Futures End", but have a different outcome with the Anti-Monitor's involvement and the time travel aspects. And considering 2015 would be the 30th Anniversary of "Crisis on Infinite Earths", which also featured the heroes of the multiverse fighting a major threat to all existence, it just seemed right.
But there was more. "Futures End" had another major threat in Brainiac, who appeared to become just as dangerous as Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor. Take a look at some of these connecting covers from "Futures End".
Take a close look at the red energy coming from Brainiac's hand. It's characters from the DC Universe before it rebooted with the New 52. It seemed that whatever DC was planning, their old universe would actually play a part in it. Picture it: the heroes of the New 52's Prime Earth and Earth 2 and the pre-Flashpoint DC Universe against the powers of Darkseid, Anti-Monitor, and Brainiac. If anything, it would have been more of a proper send-off for the old universe than "Flashpoint" gave us, as well as make the main New 52 Earth feel like the old Earth. Unfortunately though, what we got was very different.
DC had announced two different events, "Convergence" and "Darkseid War".
"Convergence" would be a two month weekly series culminating from the end of "Futures End" and "Earth 2: World's End". As a result of "Futures End", the survivors of Earth 2 don't teleport to Prime Earth, drifting through space on multiple life-ships. In addition, a group of Earth 2 heroes (Val-Zod/Superman, Thomas Wayne/Batman, Jay Garrick/Flash, Alan Scott/Green Lantern, Wildcat, and Dick Grayson) are somehow transported to Telos, Brainiac's living planet that contains cities he collected from past timelines from DC's history, from pre-Crisis Earths 1 and 2 to the pre-Flashpoint DCU and everything in between. With Brainiac's capture in "Futures End", Telos decides to take charge and forces the heroes from the cities collected to battle each other to see who is the strongest.
"Darkseid War" would by contrast be contained to the main "Justice League" book.
My thoughts on "Convergence" are that it started out interesting, kind of had a lull during the middle, but had a satisfying conclusion. Though if there's one thing I can't forgive it for, it's not showing the conversation Earth 2 Thomas Wayne had with pre-Flashpoint Bruce Wayne. That could have been a tear-jerking moment, but it just got glossed over.
However, the real heart of the "Convergence" event were the 40 2-part miniseries tying into it. Each week during the two months were dedicated to a past era of DC's history, so whichever era you grew up, you had a chance to read your favorite heroes again as you were familiar with them. For me personally, it was the weeks that showed the pre-Flashpoint heroes. While DC had continuity altering events before, they never had the significance that the New 52 did. The pre-Flashpoint DCU was the culmination of everything that came before. It was a joy reading and looking into some of these stories, like seeing Stephanie Brown as Batgirl, Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon finally getting married, and Clark and Lois still together and having a child. It was definitely feeling like the last hurrah for the pre-Flashpoint DCU. So between this and the fact that I was rewatching the "Young Justice" animated series at the time, I had to ask, why did we have to lose all this history?
While I appreciate the New 52 for expanding my horizons and DC reading list, I couldn't help but wonder if DC still would have been able to create new jumping on points but not starting from scratch. I would say that probably half of the stories, at least in premise, told under the New 52 could have still happened in the old universe albeit with some changes, particularly the Batman and Green Lantern lines. There could have still been changes to the universe, whether they be costumes or origin stories, but only if necessary. For starters, there were many characters who had their history and relationships removed and restarted, including the pretty much every Teen Titan and former Batgirls Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain, who would be introduced years after the New 52's beginning. Yeah, there'd be none of that. "Superman and the Men of Steel" and "Batman: Zero Year" could still work since they took place in the past. "Justice League: Origin" though, I would set in the present, with the new League forming to face the returning Darkseid. As for costumes, Superman would retain his classic look (and still be with Lois to boot) and I actually liked Wonder Woman's "Odyssey" redesign (I don't know why it's a problem for her to have pants). Characters whose new designs could have worked were Batman, Nightwing, and Cyborg. Bruce was reestablished as the one and only Batman after sharing the role with Dick, who had been moving back to his Nightwing role. For Cyborg, he could have been be upgraded with Apokoliptic tech. I could go on, but that would warrant its own post, so I digress.
But back to what we actually got. Following "Convergence", DC began the DCYou era (a name I didn't really like; I would have gone with "Divergence"). Largely, a number of titles had very little to do with the aftermath of "Convergence" and continued to do what they were doing before, but with major shake-ups. Some examples include Superman slowly being depowered and his identity being revealed to the public and Bruce Wayne getting amnesia with Batman believed to be dead, leaving Jim Gordon to become the new city-sanctioned Batman. Aside from that, most other changes were just new costumes for Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc.
The problem during this era though was DC's new stance of "creativity over continuity". Despite the changes going on in their solo books, the main Justice League book, which began "Darkseid War", seemed largely unaffected. It begged the question of when "Darkseid War" actually took place, before or after the events going on in other characters' books. I remained steadfast in my belief that "Darkseid War" happened before everything else. As it would turn out though, it happened after. There in lies the problem with "creativity over continuity". I like to have a sense of when stories take place in relation to each other as I'm reading them. Let me clarify with an example. After Bruce got his memory back and became Batman again, he was wearing a new costume. But as we see Bruce in "Darkseid War", he is clearly wearing his New 52 suit as he had been. In addition to that, Cyborg had also gotten a new design for DCYou, but he still had his previous look during "Darkseid War". However, there were some points where his DCYou look was used, only to go back to his old look later. But then you have the other characters who had gotten new suits for a little while, for seemingly no reason, only to go back to their previous original New 52 suits. It just seemed pointless.
In fact, a lot of aspects of the DC Universe between "Convergence" and "Rebirth" seemed pointless. Besides costume changes, any status quo shake-ups were undone in under a year. Superman losing his powers? Surprise, he got them back. Hal Jordan becoming a renegade and the rest of the Green Lantern Corps missing? Look, they're all back. Bruce getting amnesia and Gordon becoming Batman? Bruce is back and Gordon becomes Commissioner again. On top of that, Gordon got a hair cut and shaved his mustache while he was Batman, but he quickly and automatically looks like his old self by the end. Speaking for the stories themselves, powerless Superman was interesting at first but lasted a bit longer than it needed. And while Gordon as Batman was somewhat entertaining in the main Batman book, it wasn't as good in any other book he appeared in.
I mean, there were still some good times to be had in the DCYou era (some of those titles include Justice League, Grayson, and Robin: Son of Batman), but having shake-ups just for the sake of them and having them undone in a short period of time with seemingly no major impacts afterwards could really irk some readers. I was trying not to bring Marvel into this, but at least they're sticking with Sam Wilson as Captain America and Jane Foster as Thor for the foreseeable future.
In contrast to "Convergence" though, I really enjoyed the "Darkseid War" story in Justice League. It was very focused and its conclusion did a good job of setting up "Rebirth". It also dealt with characters from different worlds coming together, but in this case, it was the Justice League of Prime Earth and the remaining members of Earth 3's Crime Syndicate. So the multiverse aspect was still there.
That said, I still feel that "Convergence" and "Darkseid War" should have and somehow could have been merged into one event. Yes, "Convergence" was considered a "filler" event while DC was moving operations to the west coast, but it still had some ramifications, from the Telos planet becoming the new Earth 2 and the pre-Flashpoint Superman and his family secretly residing on Prime Earth.
To break it down, it would have been the New 52's heroes of Prime Earth and Earth 2, the Crime Syndicate of Earth 3, and the pre-Flashpoint heroes against Darkseid, Anti-Monitor, and Brainiac. Among the major ramifications would be the death of New 52 Superman, whose role would be filled by the pre-Flashpoint Superman, and the return of pre-Flashpoint Wally West. "Rebirth" could have been the aftermath of this event and set the next stage for the DC Universe.
Considering that people had a taste of the old DC universe again in the "Convergence" tie-ins and the goal of "Rebirth" being to re-establish legacy to the DC universe, it would have just made sense for one to lead into the other. I don't think we would have missed much if we just skipped over the DCYou era and jumped straight into "Rebirth" (especially since all the DCYou titles are being cancelled anyway).
Again, while I appreciate the New 52 for getting me more into DC, in some respects, I do agree with some of the criticisms it received. While there were still good stories, and many will attest to that, at times, the New 52 did feel dark and miserable, sometimes just for the sake of being new and different. To compare the past and the future, look at these two promo images from the pre-Flashpoint and Rebirth universes:
Do you know what I see in these images? Hope. Icons. Legacy. Heroes Together. And they actually look happy. Like they're waking up from a five year coma and ready to live again.
It's been a bumpy road since the New 52 began. There's been good and bad. But honestly, no era was perfect. It could just be a matter of opinion of what's best or maybe nostalgia clouds our minds and make us forget the bad moments. I'm sure the "Rebirth" era will have its misfires, but at the moment, the future looks bright. You just have to have hope. As the Blue Lanterns say "All will be well".
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