I’ve mostly lost track of DC continuity but I occasionally browse a comic or two as opportunity permits. Now “Nygma” (a.k.a. The Riddler) has taken over Gotham in the ongoing “Zero Year” arc. Does the franchise reboot mean that the events of “No Man’s Land” for example don’t count, or has Gotham been resurrected more times than Ra’s al Ghul?
To be a comics fan requires a certain tight-focus on long term memory. We’re supposed to remember that Oliver Queen was dead…but to forget about the serious meaningful implications. We like to answer trivia questions…and not to care that the answers entail blatantly contradictions.
Batgirl was still paralyzed…she just “got better.” Gotham City has been through hell (literally!) and rescued by Batman…but everybody still thinks Batman is either a myth or a menace.
It’s all a cross between soap operas and professional wrestling.
If you buy the theory that gotham is a stand in for NYC, it gets destroyed about once a year and entire neighborhoods get leveled a few times a week.
There are reasons I generally ignore the mainline superhero titles–it’s basically impossible to deal w/ the continuity, for various reasons. (Reasons include: Shit’s been running for like 80 years; DC/Marvel insist on putting all of their heroes in the same universe so they can sell crossovers; there’s a constant need to top yourself.)
Why do you have ‘Nygma’ in scare quotes? That’s like saying ‘Now “Wayne” (aka Batman)’. Even if the retcon that Edward Nygma was an alias, in itself, rather than his real name, is still standing (I don’t think it is), it no more calls for quotes than Riddler does.
Anyway…
It’s unclear if events similar to No Man’s Land happened (though due to some changes that we do know for sure, it was definitely not as shown in the crossover), but based on things that ARE clear, NML (if it happened) would have happened about 4 years after Zero Year - plenty of time to get most of the city cleaned up and inhabitable again (and remember, Gotham being a city of decay and neglect is a major part of the Bat-books, so the parts they didn’t get to cleaning up wouldn’t stand out much). Gotham (along with most of the rest of the US, and presumably significant parts of the rest of the world) getting trashed again in Forever Evil comes much closer on the heels of NML (if it happened) than NML (iih) did on Zero Year.
(Major Batman stories that we do know something like them happened: Year One, The Killing Joke, and A Death In the Family.)