USA Today confirms that DC is in fact relaunching everything at #1 in September, and Geoff Johns and Jim Lee are relaunching Justice League.
It looks like it’s a bit more than simply a coordinated jumping-on point like One Year Later or the post-Zero Hour #0 issues or a more thorough reboot. Jim Lee has “spearheaded the redesign of more than 50 costumes to make characters more identifiable and accessible to comic fans new and old,” and Dan Didio says, “This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today’s audience.”
Further details about individual series and characters will follow on The Source over the next week.
I guess the first rule of Flashpoint has been rescinded.
More importantly: DC will begin releasing comics digitally on the same day as the print editions go on sale.
As for what this means for the Flash franchise…I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I’m beginning to suspect that one of my worst-case scenarios for Flashpoint is actually going to happen.
Update: Newsarama posts a letter DC sent to retailers about the revamps, including the following explanation:
We have taken great care in maintaining continuity where most important, but fans will see a new approach to our storytelling. Some of the characters will have new origins, while others will undergo minor changes. Our characters are always being updated; however, this is the first time all of our characters will be presented in a new way all at once.
More details will be announced over the next month, with full September solicitations on June 13.
Updates: CBR has a round up of what we know so far. USA Today has an interview with Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and Dan Didio. More breakdowns at Weekly Crisis, Comics Alliance. The Beat has a round-up of creator & retailer reactions.
This being Wally West disappearing as if he never existed? Likely a very valid fear.
I’m less concerned about this than I thought I might be … DC’s stories from Infinite Crisis through to Flashpoint (Superman: New Krypton, Batman Reborn, etc.) have been fairly self-contained; I’m not sure we’re losing much more continuity than we already lost after Infinite Crisis. Yes, the loss of Action Comics #1,000 is a bummer, but I no longer feel like I’m losing “my” Superman; that guy was essentially gone after Infinite Crisis (though I understand Wally West fans might feel differently).
I just hope this doesn’t give DC the excuse to tell the same stories all over again. The last thing we need is another origin of Robin, another coming together of the Teen Titans, another first meeting of the DC heroes with Darkseid, another take on the Legion of Super-Heroes and so on. I liked Blackest Night because it was a crossover that did something new with the DC Universe rather than re-constituting DC continuity once again; that’s what I fear will happen here. But if it leads to good Superman stories, all the better.
That’s one of them. If DC wipes Wally West from history or resets him to Kid Flash, I’ll be sorely tempted to just walk away.
And I’m right there with you on the tendency of reboots to go back and retell old stories. It’s a new start — the whole point is to tell something new. And yet so many of them end up retelling the clone saga.
If you study the DC released “new” Justice League picture; and hope that Van Sciver’s little tweak of Wally’s suit still applies, then it may actually be Wally surviving Flashpoint…not Barry. I know it’s just an outside chance (and I’m a big Wally fan, so I am hoping against hope!), but we can hope!
I think that there will probably be re-tellings of origins, etc. because they are trying to attract new readers! This may take place somewhere in the future (not issue #1), but maybe a year or two in (like the Green Lantern series did).
I’m excited about this, and hope it leads to great stories!
I’m hopeful for this one. There’s a part of me that hopes that Barry sacrifices himself to reverse Flashpoint and Wally takes the mantle again. I know this won’t happen because Geoff Johns is doing everything humanly possible to ram down our throats the idea that Barry is the one and only Flash with all other speedsters unable to compare.
However, I’ve been feeling for awhile that DC, in their attempts to “clean up” the Universe, have just made it more confusing. So a restore is nice and feels good. To me at least.
Wally may not disappear, I think they know what kind of reaction that will receive. More than likely he’ll not be the flash, maybe another persona all together? Barry is great, and I enjoyed the Flash run despite it being just build up to Flashpoint. Honestly its probably the most enjoyable Flash run I’ve ever read but it is a bummer that after all the DCU has been through now it has to revamp it all..
I just hope they’re still drawing the line at 2.99 after F.P. otherwise we’re going to have a bunch of $4 comic books to begin with that aren’t very accessible to new readers wanting to jump on.
Oh, I’m sure DC knows the reaction they’ll get. I don’t think they care, though.
And even if they did care, a reboot on this scale is going to ruffle a lot of feathers across the board. To do it right, they should be basing their decisions on story possibilities, not solely on fan reaction.
My forecast: cautiously optimistic with chance of heavy doubts and a scattering of silver lining fears.
Gosh, Mr. Didio, I wonder if one of the Flash characters will be undergoing a costume change. Gee wilikers, do you suppose Barry will become more badass while Wally might become an aged sidekick just like the good old days of yore?
Hopefully, that won’t happen to Wally. I predict that if DC does that, there’ll be a major backlash.
Y’know, I remember when Johns talked about all his golden plans for the Flash comic: a new supporting character, a new villain, more of the Flash family, a Gorilla Grodd arc, an Abra Kadabra arc, etc. What happened to those? Sorry, but at this point, I take the grandiose claims from the DC brain trust with a grain of salt.
It actually makes me wonder if they did that on purpose to throw all of us off any clue of what was really going to happen? We just took Flashpoint as another “Blaa Blaa” event that DC does…Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, 52, Final Crisis, Blackest Night, Brightest Day…Flashpoint, then to the next. They threw in something NO ONE was expecting! I am really excited for this! Hopeful as well, that Wally will still be around afterward.
All bullshit (pardon my French). More thoughts later when I’m less irritated.
No no Lia. Tell us how you really feel. lol! I too am a little more than skeptical about this whole restarting back to #1 thing. ESPECIALLY after reading the bit about the heroes being younger etc. Does that mean that characters like Wally and Dick and Donna and Roy(I leave any of the original Titans out? Aqualad sorry) will revert back to a younger self. Not Nightwing? No Wally West as The Flash? Hmmm… I’m not really liking this to say the least. Although judging by the cover of JLA #1 and the ‘blue eyes’ it is Barry Allen under the mask. That sucks and I really hope that Wally is not just written off any more than he already has been. If this is the case then my decision to wait it out for the trades will be justified. And I won’t even have to pick those up. Ever since they brought Barry back I have been less than thrilled with the direction of everything. I honestly haven’t been keeping track of the current book as much as I should be. I said I would give it a chance and well. It just hasn’t been as fun to read as it was back in the middle of Wally’s run. And I am talking about anywhere from issue 45 on through just before issue 230ish??? This whole thing is just leaving a bad taste in my mouth and I can always spend what little I still am spending on comics elsewhere.
Unfortunately I have a temper and a potty mouth, particularly when provoked by DC doing stupid things :> I’m not ready to quit yet, but have certainly thought about it.
This is just weird. One would think that a complete reboot of the DC universe had to have been something planned a long time ago and it is very strange that Flashpoint (a crossover that plays down the linewide crossovers) is the catalyst. Geoff Johns had to have known about this some time ago… and had to have been integral to the thinking out the restructure given his current position. It seems extremely wreckless if in fact this “idea” arose after The Flash #1 was released.
Yup, and all the while, Johns was talking about these great plans he had for the Flash relaunch. Which never happened.
It’s clear that there was never a game plan for the DCU. They’re making it up as they go along.
Remember…..it’s “officially” re-vamp. Whatever that really means waits to be seen.
@Papa Zero: Whats scary is that Geoff Johns might have just come up with this late in the game -_- the ditched stories and other comic books (Wally back up, Kid Flash comic, grodd arc, fixing the dcu time line just to say its all messed up again) suggests a whole lot of “winging it” and now its like, well nowhere to go lets start with all #1s!!
Winging it? Nooooooooo, really? But Johns is the guy who maps out stories in advance. He takes it slow. His stories take a while to build. No way he could possibly be winging it!
/sarcasm off
I don’t believe that at all, the “Death of Superman” story arc proves that a group of talented individuals can come up with an awesome idea from start to finish in just a few days.
I believe Johns, Lee, & DiDio are very talented and could come up with the re-vamp idea in just a few days or a week.
Since the end game of Brightest Day (to bring back Swamp Thing and John Constantine) becomes kind of moot with a reboot I venture to say the idea came after Brightest Day launched on paper within DC offices and before Flash #1. I honestly thought that they didn’t pursue Wally because they were trying to focus on characterization of Newbarry Allen… I thought they passed on the Kid Flash series because sales didn’t warrant it – but perhaps they just thought there was no point once they settled on the reboot. Looks like they’ve just been spinning wheels til next September.
This is all some sort of hoax? Please someone tell me it is a stunt, and some semblance of the status quo will be back in 18 months. I expect maneuvers like this from Marvel, but blowing up the numbering on titles like Action is just plain wrong. Could Wally return as the Kid Flash again?
“I expect maneuvers like this from Marvel”….maybe this is why Marvel has been booting DC’s posterior for the last decade? Maybe this is why DC has decided that this must be done? Or, should DC be content to be #2 forever?
What about Bart???
…oh no no no, please, anything but…
I’m this close to drawing the line of my personal canon at Young Justice #55 (which I feel was the end of the late 90s era – for all its faults, it was a very fun time) – and I’ve been quite tolerant of all these goings-on thus far.
“This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today’s audience.” – DiDio
Or you could’ve just not screwed with anything and left the main characters as the ones who are actually younger [ie Wally West, Kyle Rayner, Dick Grayson, etc.]. You know, instead of sidelining all of the legacy heroes [or in Wally’s case, making him not exist in costume anymore], bringing Silver-Age characters back from the dead, and magically de-aging them?
Genius, DiDio and Johns.
Genius.
DC knows that the whole legacy/mantle thing, and sidekicks and lineages is popular with longtime fans, but that stuff isn’t core to their properties. It’s an outgrowth of ongoing continuity, like grey hair.
But in fiction you periodically need to rebuild, reset the table. Like Crisis did 20 years ago, or even like Geoff Johns did with Green Lantern; he rebuilt Hal Jordan and his entire mythology literally from the center out, revamping current history, old history and characterizations on the fly. (Was that the first Flashpoint?)
And yes, the baggage eventually cmoes back, or like a recycling bin it fills back up. And you have to empty it every so often.. So you can…uhh…continue to recycle and stuff.
They already tried aging and replacing the originals, and it didn’t work. Marvel has tried that as well….AND IT DOESN’T WORK! No One can be Superman but Clark Kent, No One can be Batman but Bruce Wayne, GL-Hal, etc.
The true way to deal with that issue would be to publish a Kyle GL & a Hal GL, a Wally Flash & a Barry Flash, a Bruce Batman & a Dick Batman, and let sales alone decide the outcomes.
I can see Wally going back to being a sidekick, although I do wonder if he’ll go by Kid Flash or if they’ll call him Impulse. (it’s probably a safe bet that Bart, Cassie, Tim and Conner are no more)
I’m of two minds about this thing, it’s a pretty good jumping on point, but I doubt you can wrap up the current DCU in a satisfying way in the next three months.
If Wally West gets de-aged to Kid Flash, could Impulse (Bart) end up in the Legion?
good point, I did notice that they’ve been referring to Bart recently as Barry’s ‘descendent from the future’ rather than ‘Grandson’ (which admittedly ages him a fair bit)
If this were an Ultimate DC-type scenario, I could get behind it. Otherwise, it’s clear DC is just throwing out events and reboots every other month. This sounds like DC’s version of New Coke.
Many of DC’s characters have been spinning in circles for years, including The Flash (especially the last three years, sheesh). Outside of the Batman & Green Lantern franchises, the reboots of all the others have been to try and find direction and sales….if everyone was so happy with how things are now, then sales would reflect that and DC wouldn’t be revamping.
Something has to be done, before DC Comics renames itself “Batman-Green Lantern-and-some-other-insignificant-characters Comics” (BGLSOIC).
When I first starting reading comics again (after about a 15year layoff), I had to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars for Graphic Novels to catch up on all the history of my favorite characters….I’m single, no debt, with no children, and make a fairly decent income….so I could afford to do that. A lot of people can’t. I think DC Comics realized this; and like Marvel Comics, has decided to go in a direction that allows new readers to jump on at #1 (not at .1), and follow their characters from there. They can still purchase all that background material, but it is no longer “essential” to following the character, but rather can be just for fun.
I think this is a great idea from a marketing standpoint for DC. As far as winging it? NO, if you throw DiDio, Johns, Lee…and a few others like Morrison, Snyder, Robinson, JMS, etc. in a room together they can come up with this idea from start to finish in a couple of days….lest we forget the “Death of Superman” story arc and how it came about.
My post above about the move being wreckless had less to do with them winging it than the seemingly forced syncronicity that DC has imposed leaving readers just scratching their heads. I do believe that a new idea can be conceived and executed in a short time from DC but when they’re just spinning wheels in a title til a reboot or alternatively trying to squeeze several arcs into what little time they have left one would imagine that this might have the effect of turning readers off…
Just, please, don’t get rid of Wally, that’s what I’m afraid of the most. Well, second to the possibility that the Batman Family will return to being just, Batman and Robin… I just, really hope they don’t get rid of anyone from both the Batman and Flash families… 🙁
The latest rumour is that there will be a Nightwing #1 and a Batgirl #1 (with Barbara Gordon).
I had a feeling this day would come, but I expected it more for 2015 or even 2020, for some reason. I get that every generation iconic heroes have to be tweaked to bring aboard a new audience and reflect the zeitgeist (e.g., Captain America’s Watergate-era disenchantment as written by Steve Englehart; O’Neill’s and Adams’s Green Lantern/Green Arrow “Hard-Traveling Heroes” arc), but i’m not looking forward to this reboot. On the other hand, i’m 48 and this is not aimed at me but at a much younger audience.
When I first got a sense of the potential grandeur of comic book universes, it was the early 70’s, with the JLA-JSA teamups, links between the Golden Age and the current age in Avengers, nostalgia and retcons vis the Invaders, Liberty Legion. Would a comics reader born in the post 9/11 era love that legacy in the same way i did? I’d be very surprised if they did.
Very well said. The modern books aren’t written towards those of us who grew up with the imaginative Silver Age books, the more sophisticated and timely Bronze Age books, or even the more literate and violent 80s books.
Every era reflects the youth/young adult mood of the time. What do we have now? The big splash pages, the ADHD-styled stops/starts style of storytelling, the extreme violence and so on. It’s comic books for the modern teenage video gamer.
Which admittedly is the right demographic to aim for.
…I was born in ’92, only got into comics in ’08, and actually prefer the late ’90s than this “modern” era, now that I reflect on it. Don’t go generalising everyone.
It’s very possible this is DC’s attempt to institute some sort of Ultimate-like universe, but forcing regular DC readers to pick it up.
I don’t think so, I think this is the DCU….and it’s new direction. That may be why they are doing the “retro” books…..to attempt to appease “old school” fans while going in the right direction for their future.
This is what they’re doing: They’re going to make their characters more “relatable” in real-world circumstances and move them all to real cities, like New York, California etc.. They want what MARVEL has, ie; the pulse on the film industry because they think that’s where the money is. It’s like I’ve always said; DC characters are the best iconic figures in the comic book industry but DC management are a bunch of idiots who don’t share the fan’s interest in good story-telling. BTW; Jim Lee se vendio.