Revamp the DC universe!

Cafe Society
21

I forgot to mention that in my original post, but you’re right. No character gets to appear regularly in more than three books, and that INCLUDES team books. Pare Batman & Superman down to their self-titled books, Action, Detective,and JLA.

Also, despite the hate people justifiably feel for Byrne, I think some of his Man of Steel stuff is worth keeping. Kal SHOULD be the only survivor of Krypton; if you want Supergirl, have her be a Daxamite or some such. All the kryptonite in creation can fit in the palm of your hand. But I’d kill Pa Kent.

22

I’d go a little farther than any of the posted ideas.

Basically, I’d try to keep some kind of continuity. However, I’d limit any series to (say) a maximum of 20 issues. That way, you’d have a pre-existing set of ideas and yet between one and the next appearance of any character you’d have some kind of leeway to show any changes you’d want to have.
Another concept I’d definitely introduce is an obvious one: entropy. There are few characters that wouldn’t be affected by it, and a good writer should be able to introduce the good (and bad) aspects of change into any life he portrays. An obvious consequence of this would be the introduction of death into the universe.

Imagine how, for instance, the introduction of a superhero-specific (deadly) plague would change any given universe…

23

That was done (albeit poorly) by the Legacy virus in the MU.

24

I’d leave the Byrne Man of Steel ideas pretty much intact, but otherwise give him a bowl of soup and a firm goodbye. Likewise, Frank Miller would be persona non grata.

25

I’d put Superman, Wonder Woman & Batman on hiatus (or even cancel them), as way of making a break with sameness. I’d turn Action Comics into an anthology, & Detective Comics into a series dedicated to–you guessed it–detective stories! I might also rewind Det’s numbering to the last number before Batman totally took over.

After 18 months, I’d reintroduce the Batman concept in some form. Superman & Wonder Woman, as characters, would still be around in the role of icons & older predecessors to the present characters. Moving forward would be the order of the day. I hope I’ll already have had a successful run as writer or editor with Justice League: 21st Century.

I’d build a line targeted at children under 12, probably bring back the Fox & the Crow.

Everything would be geared primarily toward mass market instead of comic shops, & offer more pages per dollar.

At that level, I wouldn’t care that much about the retcon-revamps. If they’re driven by editorial grandiosity, as in the OP, they usually won’t take. Also, writers typically write a given trademark because they liked the previous version & want to continue from it. Ergo, wiping continuity clean is an incredibly silly idea.

26

What, you mean you *didn’t * guess that Det would be dedicated to detective stories?

Superhero fans are so strange.

27

I like the way you think.

28

Now you’re being facetious. Spoiler’s still dead, for instance. Leslie Thompkins still had a hand in it. Even the most unpopular decisions are seeming to stick around past “the next creative team”.

And under the no-continuity system, character death becomes absolutely meaningless. Now they don’t even need to think of a clever explanation, they just bring the character back. There’s no point at all.

Also : DC Can’t put Wonder Woman in too long a hiatus - else the rights revert to the Marston estate.

29

[HitAndRunGrammarNazi]Exercise in futility[/HARGN] cough

30

Yes! Thank You! This is equally true of Marvel Comics.

I’ve been reading various online encyclopedias to see what’s happened in the Marvel Universe since I stopped following it in '98, and I’ve a passing familiarity with DC 's last decade through friends and reading various forums and newsposts online.

Back in the late '80’s and through the '90’s there was this big push about writing more serious, more dramatic, more grown-up stories because the CCA was dead and gone. But all that seems to have come from it is that they’ve gotten more angsty, dark, and ridiculous. Every writer nowadays has to have a Character-death-orgy to build-up their latest villain or plotline. Stories like “House of M” or “Infinite Crisis” try to hit a reset button on everything except that one; they fail to really fix anything, and two; 90% of what they try to change gets undone within 10 years by various writers who gradually realise that it was all too final.

X-Men had House of M, a botched attempt to rehash Age of Apocalypse with Magneto as the new overlord, and ended it by depowering most of the world’s mutants. Now, maybe it’s just me, but when the whole theme of you comic-books is about a new, growing minority and the oppresion and prejudice they face, it’s probably not a good idea to cancel-out 90% of that minority. :smack:

Or how about, let’s show everyone how much more mature the writing is! Instead of having our prejudiced masses protest, picket, and maybe lynch a mutant, we’ll have them crucify four established characters, and blow up a bus full of the kids, and have one tricked into letting them cut off his wings and then kill him, and so on and so forth. This is the kind of over-wrought tripe you expect to see in fanfiction written by troubled 13-year olds, not professional writers trying to prove that their’s real talent and quality storytelling going on!

Don’t kill characters unless you made them up to be killed. Do like Marvel did in Fatal Attractions, where the characters have areasonable expectation that the guys gone for good, but there’s a natural, rational way to bring them back. Another example would be Mystique’s supposed death while fighting Wolverine in the first X-Men movie; even if they hadn’t showed her posing as Senator Kelly at the end, it would have been enough to see her carried away posing as a guard. Just leave that ambiguity there, it’s enough to have someone mortally wounded and just stuck on the sidelines for a while. Another example was Batman’s back being broken by Bane, so they could temporarily try out the guy who became Knightquest.

Characters should only ever be resurrected in VERY RARE CIRCUMSTANCES, and as part of a major plotline, like Jean Grey as Phoenix, or the death and return of Superman.

I’ve said my piece.

As for how I’d restart the DCU, well, I’ve always been partial to the Batman: The Animated Series approach. I’d get the writers and animators from B:tas, Superman Adventures, the New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, Justice League, etc., to take over the mainstream DCU comics. But that’s just me :stuck_out_tongue:

31

Um, for clarification on my above post;

Fatal Attractions was a big X-comic mega-crossover that culminated in Xavier shutting Magneto’s conscious mind down and putting him in a coma, as retaliation for Magneto unleashing a world-wide EMP so powerful it lifted up cars and threw them. Magneto was out of the picture, if they wanted to, they could have left it there. Buuu-uut, it also left a reasonable way to bring him back if they changed their minds; Magneto simply recovers!

Rather than have this meaningless deaths every few months that get retconned out or resurrecting the characters in some ridiculous way, use more solutions like that, the one for Mystique I mentioned above, or Batman’s.

32

Speaking as a casual comics fan who keeps up with Batman, Superman, and other stuff in the DCU by checking collections out of the library, if they scrapped continuity, I’d stop bothering. With no continuity, nothing is at stake. Decisions characters make have no repercussions, because they’ll just be undone by the next creative team.

33

I was curious as to what kind of suggestions people would make about this. I like Skald’s basic proposal.

One of the things (already mentioned, I guess) is that if I want to get into Batman, I have a lot of books to read. Same thing with Superman. I’d like to read about Batman, in one book, without having the other stuff to keep in mind.

The other thing that gets me, and I may be committing DC heresy, is the city names. Just make it New York and not Metropolis, 'k? Central City? Chicago. The only problem would be how to handle Gotham City, which is supposed to be in such bad shape. Either focus Superman on Manhattan and Batman on the Bronx/Staten Island, or make Gotham Philly.

So, my idea is this:

Completely restart the universe. It’s 2006 and Clark Kent gets off a bus in NYC from Lawrence KS. Only the basic heroes exist: Martian Manhunter, Flash, GL, Green Arrow, Batman & Robin, Wonder Woman, maybe 1 or 2 others. Batman has been around for 6 years, GL for about 10. The others… it doesn’t really matter. About 3-7 years. The Flash is named Barry Allen, by the way. Aquaman exists, but doesn’t interact with the surface world. He is the equivalent of Superman for the a pretty well-developed undersea civilization. Same universe, but little or no interaction with the surface world.

Books
One book per big three hero, with a minor exception. Green Lantern Corps book. There’s eventually a Justice League book featuring the main heroes fighting intergalactic bad guys. There is another book, called DC Universe that tells stories about other heroes in the universe that don’t have their own book. Here’s where you find your Blue Beetle level heroes. If they are popular enough, they get their own books. Each book maintains continuity.

There are Superman and Batman (and maybe one other) books that are outside continuity and are complete stories in one issue. They are aimed at 6-11 year old readers. These books are sold in grocery stores, toy stores, and other places where a kid has a reasonable chance to see them. They cost about $1. They should have advertisements for Charles Atlas and see thru glasses.

There’s an ongoing Elseworlds series, where any character can be written about in any fashion, complete with deaths, and all sorts of mature goodness.

If things are popular, there can be an ongoing book of things that happened before Superman arrived. Batman:Year One, etc.

The Universe
No speed force. No Flash great great great grandchildren. Robin is the only kid superhero, and his name in real life is Dick Grayson. No Supergirl, Superboy, or Superdog. Superman is the ONLY survivor of Krypton. Lois Lane doesn’t know Supes secret identity. Neither does Bruce Wayne (and vice versa). There’s one kind of kryptonite, it’s green, and it will kill Superman if he’s around it long enough. Alan Scott named himself Green Lantern after the corps. Nobody from the future. That includes Iris Allen, by the way. No Booster Gold. That guy gets on my nerves like nobody’s bidness.

Green Arrow has major committment issues. Green Lantern is rather arrogant. Other heroes are kind of spooked by Batman. All of them make jokes about what a goody-goody Superman is. Wonder Woman doesn’t have an invisible airplane.

The Stories
For a writer to take over a character, he has to present an overarching storyarc for the character:where he wants to take the character, what happens, etc., to the newly appointed VP in charge of Universe Maintainance. This is the guy who reads every book, and makes sure that continuity is maintained. He shall receive a salary of $65,000 a year +bennies.

Characters progress and age close to regular time. Meaning Clark, who is 23 at the time, will be about 30-33 in 10 years. Which is important to note, because in 15-20 years, the whole universe is rebooted and started all over.

The tv shows:
Completely separate entity. They can do what ever they like.

34

Nothing is at stake. Everything is undone (or, at least, ignored, which is pretty much the same thing) by the next creative team. Character death is a joke. Continuity is a joke.

Grant Morrison turned mutants from a persecuted handful into a viable minority with growing social and political importance, and he killed off Magneto. Magneto was back before the year was over, and 90% of the mutants got depowered, turning them back into a persecuted subminority not long after that.

To an extent, this is unavoidable. Character death is the blunt instrument of drama, so writers are going to use it. But often another writer will have a really good idea for the character, so they’ll bring them back. Or the market (or the need to maintain the trademark) will demand that the character be brought back. The same is true in a more general sense. Writers and editors will make mistakes. They’ll make creative decisions that are great for the short term, but damage the long term viability of the character. There will be things that accumulate in continuity that need to be ejected in order to keep a character going. See Hawkman, Donna Troy. The very premise of this thread is that certain things in continuity ought to be discarded or revised.

Instead of having crisises and time-punches and clones and alternity-reality versions all of the other deritus that’s distracts from actually telling stories, can’t we just admit it and treat every artist’s run as a separate entity? That’s how it works. Paul Dini’s Batman is different from Grant Morrison’s Batman is different from James Roninson’s Batman is different from Frank Miller’s Batman, even though the first three supposedly share a continuity. How could it not be? They’re different people with different artistic visions.

This model would serve the paperback market very well, as it encourages writers to make discrete, strong storylines. Basically, my hope is to capture what really works with manga for the superhero genre. One strength that manga has over American superheroes is that they are usually planned to be finite in length, and controlled by a single artist. This, I believe, allows for stronger creativity and better stories. I want to harness the kind of atmosphere that made Starman and Sandman work so well, and attatch to popular characters like Batman and Superman.

An example of this, besides the All-Star titles, would be Loeb and Sale’s Batman: The Long Halloween and its sequels. It takes place by itself, but it builds off of Batman and his enemies’ previously established mythos. Is it in continuity? Despite it referencing Miller’s Batman: Year One, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Does it really matter? No. The work succeeeds or fails on its own merits.

35

Serious Suggestions
Make Superman’s heritage something of a mystery, even to him.
He shouldn’t know as much about Krypton & Kryptonian culture as he does.

Kal-El is the last Kryptonian. Period.

Have a Supergirl. Make her a “wannabee/tagalong”. An Earth Meta, who is sweet, helpful, nice, well-meaning, slightly naive, possesses weaker & superficially similar powers, & has this creepy fangirl obsession with Kal-El, & claims to be his cousin.

BTW–if Supergirl’s powers were produced in the labratory (Luthor’s Lab?), Krypto could be introduced as an prior animal test subject.

One Green Lantern. Alan Scott. Period.

No more than 1 Alien Visitor to Earth every year, **in any or all **of the titles. Alien visits should be special, dammit!

Ditto Extra-Dimensions.

Non-serious suggestion–

An all female, all naked team. I’d buy that for a dollar! :smiley:

36

What I’d like to see would be more continuity, not less. For each character or group, appoint one author as Master of Continuity for that character (characters which associate closely with each other, like Batman and Robin, would probably have the same MC). Other writers can write stories about a character, but any significant life change to a major character (including death, of course) must be approved by the MC for that character. For new characters, the creator of the character would be MC, and an MC would retain his position as long as he wanted it, even if he stops writing those stories. When an MC dies or retires, he should at least have a strong say in who his sucessor will be, if not choose him outright. Crossovers and teams would be OK, but would generally require different MCs to work together and come to a consensus.

The other thing I’d like to see is for characters to complement each other better. The Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face and the like are all suitable opponents for Batman, as he’s usually written, but Superman, as he’s usually written, could round them all up in about thirty seconds, between fending off his suitable foes. We’re left asking why he doesn’t. The solution to this is to let Batman and Superman’s abilities complement each other better: Superman can defeat anyone, but only if he first knows who to defeat. Superman can do a lot that Batman can’t, but Batman is the better detective. So make Batman’s stories depend not so much on a straight-up fight with the villain (which other heroes can do far better than he), but focus instead on a crime, and Batman has to figure out which of many villains did it, and where he’s hiding. Once he’s gotten that taken care of, he can call in the Gotham police force, or (if necessary) the bigger heroes.

37

No.

NO!

For the love of all that’s holy, NO!!!

Metropolis is NOT New York.

Metropolis should never, ever be mistaken for New York.

DC has the right way to do it. Dropping the main characters in real cities restricts the writers in how they can have the city grow with the hero, or, eventually, it’ll be changed so much the question becomes ‘why not just use a fictional city to begin with?’

There is no real city that’s like Gotham. There is no real city that’s like Metropolis. There is (and can be) no real city like Opal. The architecture, the histories, and, in Opal’s case, the geography, were chosen by the writers and artists to accentuate, amplify, or BE the stories they’re writing.

Not that putting them in real cities would be offlimits - there’s some characters set in real world cities, and they’re (mostly) done well. But, in general, they either don’t use the cities particularly, or, like the original Sandman (based out of New York) are made to fit the city. Which are also valid approaches, but forcing it onto characters that aren’t meant to be done that way would be…well, it would be horrific. To the extent that Teen Titans uses San Francisco right now, for example, they could just as easily be in ANY city - you wouldn’t know it was in San Francisco, except Titans Tower has a view of Alcatraz - which is, in the DCU, once again a working prison (designed to hold metas).

38

The thing that separates the DCU from most other superhero comics companies is their use of child/teen sidekicks. Most fans in their snobbishness deplore them, calling them “hostages” or worse, decrying the opinion that kids and teenagers shouldn’t be sent into combat/fight crime/or otherwise deliberately endangered by adults in matters of good and evil. (Ignoring this happens in pretty much every other storytelling genre and medium you can name, from fairytales to sci-fi!) Most writers and creators in their ignorance underutilize or ignore sidekicks, not recognizing the wealth of largely untapped story dynamics they contain. I am convinced that there are interesting unexplored stories about hodgepodge kid crimefighting groups like the Newsboy Legion; the mentor/protege relationship of heroes like Batman/Robin; or the family/superhero heritage of the Flashes; and the extended family relationships and friendships and potential romances of the Teen Titans; or even the offbeat variations of the theme, like VERTIGO’S Dead Boy Detective duo or the protagonists of the Children’s Crusade. These should be looked at carefully. For example, one obvious variation I haven’t seen much of is the idea of supervillian sidekicks trained from their youth to be world conquerors.

I agree with Tengu. DCUs bigh cities need to retain their fictional city status. However, I would like to see them have more personalities, history and planning – similar to how Kurt Busiek thought up the intricacies of Astro City and its landmarks and homaged streets and infrastructure, or Alan Moore incorporated Mayfair’s version of Gotham City into his Swamp Thing storyline.

39

MAKE EVERYBODY GAY!!!

Superman gets it on with Captain Marvel! Wonder Woman & Phantom Lady are a couple! Batman & Green Arrow get it on! Black Canary does the Huntress! A leather-clad Lex Luthor keeps the Joker as his slaveboy!

40

Well, at least you win the ironic username award for this thread…