The More Things Change…
Its been an interesting week to be a mainstream/super-hero comics fan. After several months of speculation, DC Comics finally announced what their summer crossover event, Flashpoint, is building up to; a new universe. The brainchild of co-publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee, and chief creative officer Geoff Johns, every single book currently published under the DC Universe banner will be cancelled in August (simultaneously with the end of Flashpoint) and relaunched with new issue #1s, new creative teams and a new status quo. At the same time, DC Comics is using this opportunity to go day-and-date-digital with all their books. In other words, people who prefer to read comics on notebooks or e-readers (or the iPad, which seems to be DC’s primary market) can now get them, legally, on the same day that their paper-reading brethren can.
Both of these are major news for comic fans. As a result of the relaunch–NOT a reboot, per DC comics senior VP of sales–the characters they’ve known for the past 20+ years will suddenly cease to exist or be radically retooled to be almost unrecognizable. Much of the information that has been revealed so far is based around the fringe characters of the DC Universe. Firestorm has been de-aged to his late teens; Aquaman is Lord of the Seas again; Cyborg is a member of the Justice League. Of course, this has not prevented rumors about the major characters from leaking out. Barbara Gordon back as Batgirl; Superman de-aged to his late 20s and dating Wonder Woman; and of course, a wipe of several younger super-heroes because they are not iconic enough.
