I’m not much of a comic person. I don’t go out and buy new issues of things, with a couple of rare exceptions, and there’s a narrow band of trade paperbacks that I buy – Y: The Last Man and The Walking Dead, for examples, and the Buffy Season Eight stuff. Any of the “traditional” comic trades that I have fall into the “event” category – stuff like Batman: Year One, Watchmen, that sort of thing.
I have toyed with the idea of getting into DC and Marvel’s core comic universes, picking up issues and jumping straight into the deep end, and before I lost my job last year I actually picked up a few issues of various stuff to get myself started. Having a friend who works at Marvel certainly helps – she can, when she’s not busy working on Super Secret Projects™, provide me with new materials to peruse. Which is nice.
I had yet to truly delve into DC’s stuff, and now they’ve rebooted all of their core lines there’s really no incentive for me to do so. Why would I want to invest in any of their comic universes when they’ve made it clear that they’ll quite happily undo years, sometimes decades of history to try and bring in new readers? What reason do I have to get attached to characters, or to follow storylines that may be largely irrelevant a handful of years down the line?
So congratulations, DC Comics. In your pursuit of potential new readers, you’ve alienated a potential new reader.
Isn’t that a bit like saying “why should I get into this new sitcom if they’ll stop making it in ten years”?
Perhaps, if in the eleventh year they produce an all new version with the same characters that essentially starts from the beginning again. There’s also a world of difference between a TV show that lasts for ten years and comic books that have lasted for decades and show no sign of going anywhere.
They do do that. Only they change the title slightly. Basically there are only two sitcom set-ups.
Anyhow, isn’t Batman (or whoever is DC’s) getting on a bit now?
Batman is a 147 years old.
I’m confused. Assuming they hadn’t rebooted the series, then you would be either be jumping into the series some decades in (not preferable b/c you’d have no idea what events preceded what you’re reading) or starting at the beginning. And provided that the latter is in some way feasible (I dunno how much old Issue #1 comics go for nowadays), you would have to work through some decades of comics to arrive at the current point. Considering that you may not even have the time & money to read all those comics in your lifetime, the Reboot Of 2011 would hardly matter … you’ll be in your deathbed still working your way through the early 80s material!
Another point is that, as I understand it, there are several alt-universe plotlines anyway. Like, I think I’ve read about Batman dying in various universes, etc.
Finally, on the one hand I suppose that reboots are, by definition, “beginner”-friendly. But that said, I have to confess that it’s possible (perhaps likely) that the reboot will take the comic in a stupider & sillier direction.
The argument against your first paragraph can be summed up in two words: Doctor Who. That show had 40+ years of history before it was revived in 2005, and while it could easily have been rebooted they opted to continue with the established continuity. You can jump into Doctor Who at any point in the show’s history, although obviously some points are better than others, and you don’t have to be familiar with the show’s long history (or even have watched much of the preceding new stuff) to enjoy the current series.
The same is true with comics. There are some great entry points. For everything else, there’s Wikipedia. Few things on the internet are catalogued and tracked the way comic storylines are.
It occurs to me that the validity of your argument against the reboot hinges almost entirely on how good an ending the original storylines were given. Do we know? If it’s satisfactory then isn’t it good that there’s some chance of an eventual resolution and closure? Even soaps eventually wrap up characters’ stories. A story that goes on forever and never ends and never even changes the status quo much is a sitcom, isn’t it?
Or it’s an American soap. American soaps often have characters who have been played by various actors over the years. It’s a bit mad.
I can’t say whether DC “wrapped up” the old character versions’ stories, but given the nature of the Flashpoint event that preceded the reboot it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t.