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newnumber6It's time for another edition of What I'd Do With...
This time, we (and by that I mean I, but I'm playing god in these things so we might as well get into the spirit by using the royal We) tackle the DC Reboot/Relaunch/Whatever.
So, DC's launching in September with 52 all new #1 issues. Is it a reboot? Partly, it seems, because characters like Superman are being changed back to the beginning, but others are seemingly untouched. It feels more like a continuity cluster!#$! to me.
But let's say *I* was in charge of that potential cluster&$@!. What would my 52 #1 titles be, and what would my vision for the new DCU as a whole be?
Keep in mind two things before we begin.
1) I started writing this when very little was known about what DC was doing continuitywise, aside from the list of books they were doing. There may be references to things that are already disproven.
2) A great deal of the magic of WIDW is, occasionally, talking almost entirely out of my ass. I'm not a huge DC fan. A lot of what I know, outside of my particular favorites, is just from reading wikis, scans, and just general knowledge and so may be inaccurate. Sometimes I take an idea just briefly mentioned on a wiki that's not really very important, and run with it. I might suggest things that have already been tried. I may completely miss the point of a character or concept. I make no apologies for that, I just point it out up front.
3) I don't always edit as well as I should, a lot of it's written off the top of my head and not meant to be super polished, and in fact, I like the energy of coming up with ideas on the fly and elaborating them as I type them. (See, I said two things and this is #3. Perfect example). With things like my Runaways Vol 3 outlines I try a little more structure and organization and pre-planning, but this is not one of those times.
First, let's talk briefly about some alternatives:
There are of course, always alternatives to a line-wide reboot. One is keeping things more or less the same, maybe making a few necessary changes to characters who've been FUBARed (Cassandra Cain), but not on the level of what they're doing now. Obviously, that's out of the picture (unless Flashpoint, an altered reality story, is designed to lead into "the reboot" which is ALSO an altered reality story, which is designed to eventually lead back to the REAL DCU, with a few of the ideas from the reboot world incorporated where they worked out well with some technobabble excuse like "reality bleed through").
Another is alternate lines of continuity, SOMEWHAT like Ultimate Marvel, but a different take. Now, you can also do this in CONCERT with a line-wide reboot. One idea I had just to play with was a "Battle of the Brands", where each sub-brand of the DC universe now focuses on a different reality. So all the Superman books focus on one, all the Batbooks on a separate, the GL ones on a third, and so on (with a few of the smaller brands banding together in one). This is pointed out in specific detail. Now, one of the big things is that the universes are separate, but that doesn't mean the characters are. For example, Superman could (and in fact, should) show up in certain titles in the BatUniverse... except he wouldn't be held to the standards of whatever the Supesverse is doing with the character. The Batverse gets to design his continuity to order for their universe, and vice versa. Maybe in the Batsverse, Batman has his team of operatives, whether Batman Inc or just his usual Gotham associates, but in the Supesverse, Batman is a lone vigilante, or maybe just with Robin (or once had a robin who grew up to Nightwing). Maybe Supes is married in the Batverse, but single in the Supesverse. Team books get associated with one particular brand... Justice League with Superman (even though it includes their version of Batman). Teen Titans might be in the Batverse. One brand might actually be the existing DCU as it stood before the Battle.
Anyway, the idea of this Battle of the Brands is not to be a permanent status quo of four or five separate universes, although that's a possibility if sales suggest that people would be accepting of it long-term, but to present five different universes, one of which will eventually set the tone for the whole DCU, just each one is seen through a particular 'lens'. The winning universe will have its continuity exploded over the rest of the DCU (again, except for particular individual elements that are judged to work or not), probably in a storyline involving the several coming into conflict (like, a Crisis). But you get fan competitiveness in action and trying to prove to others how the brand they like best has the superior universe.
This could easily go bad of course, with fans getting attached to one of the new universe and feeling alienated when it gets wiped out, especially so soon after the regular DC disappeared (or reduced to one brand). But fans are getting alienated anyway. I don't think that this is something that I'd do were I actually in charge, I just like tossing around the idea and playing with it.
Another idea I've had for a long time as a new imprint is what I, for lack of a better title, called "Unleashed". This would go alongside the regular DC universe (or it could be done with Marvel too, I suppose). Get top creators if you can, of course, but that's always saying something. The rules for Unleashed are as follows:
1) Each Unleashed title is its own universe. Events in Superman Unleashed do not bear on Batman Unleashed. Sort of like the All-Star Line I guess, but read on. It starts from an arbitrary point in continuity, either established, or created, but should be relatively recognizable at the start.
2) 12 issues = 1 year of time IN THE TITLE. It's not a hard and fast rule, there's wiggle-room, but in general, if an Unleashed book lasts 5 years, everyone in it is 5 years older. (So technically if you can pump out 18 issues in a year, that's 12 months too) Whether you do this with one-issue stories each taking place over a month (or with a month gap), or a twelve issue story followed by another set a year later, that's up to the writer. This is probably the least essential of the rules and most likely to go by the wayside, but I really like it so I include it.
3) (Almost) Anything Can Happen. The writer has (almost) total free reign. By (almost), I mean, obviously, certain things like making Batman a child molester are out of the question. But if a writer wants to, say, kill off Lois Lane and make Superman get involved with Lana, or Wonder Woman, or what have you, they're free to do that. They can even kill off the main character and have them replaced by another. There's one other caveat in the 'almost' category, which is rule 4:
4) NO GOING BACKWARD. If you DO kill Lois, you can't ever bring her back. If you reveal an identity to the world, you can't magic up a solution so everybody forgets. No retcons, either, where you just assume something didn't happen. You deal with the consequences, always. There's some room for 'fake-out' deaths, but pretty well only if it was intended to all be resolved in the same storyline. If you turn Batman into a guy who kills his villains, you'd better be prepared to make new ones.
5) It's partly a game. The game is not only to please fans enough to want you to continue... but also to 'pass the baton', so that another writer picks up your universe and gets to do whatever they want with it. Nobody gets forced out before their time, but when you're ready to go, someone else takes over. But, you wonder, maybe someone leaves the universe in such a state that nobody wants to take over? Well, then they lose the game. The next writer of Batman Unleashed (for example) can decide, "I can't deal with this", and push the proverbial cancellation button, which ends the title for 6 months to be relaunched again, from a new arbitrary-but-recognizable point in continuity, where we play it all again. But the game is not to tell the definitive Batman story that nobody can follow. Maybe All-Star was that, but this is a game in the tradition of ongoing comic books where the game is to keep the title alive, while still providing as much in the way of thrills and unexpected developments as you can.
For the fans, we get to see what creators would do if they weren't shackled by editorial mandate and were truly Unleashed, we get to see characters grow up (albeit, at the same rate we do), and we get the ability to be actually surprised. Oh, I realize that this is probably untenable and would never be attempted, but I'd love to see what would happen in a world where it was.
But all of those are just odd ideas of what to do instead of a reboot to generate buzz. Let's assume a full reboot - or let's call it universe shift - is what they're doing, as seems to be the case (right now it looks like they might not be starting everything from scratch, the early days of the universe, but they're certainly changing lots of things at once while leaving a few lines more or less alone). A Shift could range from a reboot to changing most of the origins and then jamming them awkwardly into the storylines that were ongoing, but this is the mandate from on high, we must do one or the other, and relaunch all books at #1. Also, digital comics. So before we get to the changes to the universe itself, let's discuss some of the outside issues of how I'd handle announcing it, and how I'd want to handle some of the associated details.
1) Be Honest About What It Is.
As you can tell if you're reading this article, part of the problem writing it is discussing exactly what it is DC is doing. Is it a reboot? They don't want us to call it that, assuring us that most things are the same, there are just some 'tweaks'... except the information they've released on books suggest that Superman is going back to his early days, Robin (Tim Drake) just joined the Teen Titans, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl (but hasn't been magically CURED from the wheelchair, just, probably, never was in one in the first place and has been de-aged somewhat), and Batman Inc, the most recent big Batman storyline that changed their status quo, continues to have its impact apparently unchanged...
WTF?
Seriously, WTF?
It's like a hodgepodge of every different possible way they could go, leading to all sorts of theories about many of the #1s being 'flashback' books, designed to rewrite history but then eventually bring them back up to date, but nobody's really sure.
And mass fan speculation might be good for business, but, maybe this shows I wasn't cut out for business, but I'd rather just be honest from the outset. Sure, maybe a little bit of rampant speculation time at the beginning, but once the information about the books is released, everyone should have a firm idea of what's happening. From a business sense, I justify it as follows: Nobody knows what's happening, which makes it more possible for people to believe their own personal worst case scenarios, whatever they may be, be outraged about it, and emotionally 'break up' with DC over it. Even if those scenarios turn out not to be true, they've already made their peace with leaving. But conversely, people who are excited about one of the scenarios in particular, if that turns out not to be what happens, they don't usually get more excited, they just feel let down... although, granted, often not enough to just not buy into it (since they tend to be more positive people in general). In any event, I think it's more than fair that when you advertise an issue of a comic (much less 52 of them) that they have some idea if it's a flashback, a limited time alternate universe, a genuine starting point that's going to continue forever, or even a "potential starting point but we're going to see what the reaction is". As long as you tell us.
As for the new reader? I don't know, try explaining to a new reader what's happening and you have a headache in the making. You think continuity's impenetrable NOW? Try explaining to them how Batman has had 4 different Robins but Superman is the first superhero in the universe and has been operating for 5 years is even worse. A vision you can't clearly articulate is a vision you can't sell very easily.
2) Digital Comics Plan
I like the idea of releasing the comics the same date they hit the stands. Yes, they risk eating into the retailer market, but it's really their only shot at capturing that ellusive 'non-reader'... and let's face it, most comics are released, illegally, the same day they hit the shops ANYWAY. Anyone who really prefers electronic versions to the actual physical comics, if they're halfway competent, already can get them (assuming they're willing to)
The one problem I have with the idea is the price. They're going to charge the exact same price as the comic on the stands, though a month later it'll drop by a dollar. Why is this a problem? Because when you buy a comic, you're buying some_thing_. You get a physical object that you can do whatever you want with. You can share it with a friend, you can pass it on to your kids. Properly cared for, it'll last forever. You also support a local business, very likely a person you know to some degree, who struggles with making their business work. With a digital comic? You get a temporary license to read a comic on a device. This license can (almost certainly) be revoked at any time. You can't share it. And the money you pay goes to (aside from the creators) only a huge corporation which is going to be just fine either way. In effect, you're paying the same amount for a lot less.
Moreover, $3 is a steep price for media as short as a comic. You can buy an episode of a TV show for less, and if you decided to buy the comic and watch the show on TV, you can often complete the whole comic in one commercial break (at least, I can). This is not encouraging to the impulse buyers, those people who don't already go to comic stores. I have to think that most of those people who decide to try a comic and pay $3, unless they've got a lot of disposable income (and in today's economy, that's fewer and fewer people), they're going to feel ripped off and just not come back.
I like the 99 cent price point, except perhaps for certain 'event' comics. But if that's out of the question, there are other options. Like $2.99 an issue, but if you buy 10 at once, it's only $10. Or a monthly subscription that allows you X number of free comics a month, working out to something like .99 an issue, and if you want to go beyond that, you either buy another subscription, or pay the full $2.99... get people invested in multiple titles at once.
Then there's my old idea of having an option of digital comics be a blanket monthly subscription service with sort of a exclusive clubhouse mentality. You don't just get access to all the monthly comics, you also get a certain number of "DC Dollars" every month, that you can use to buy special DC swag (either real or virtual goods, probably a lot more of the latter, maybe 'super powers' you can buy that let you do fun stuff to other members), or to "pledge" to greenlight certain projects. Really want a Spoiler miniseries? If enough people pledge their DC dollars, it gets greenlit (although what you can pledge on will probably be based on creator pitches to begin with, so you'd only get stories creators are already interested in telling but DC isn't sure can "sell").
3) Creators
One thing I noticed (well, some others pointed it out), but a lot of the new titles seem to have a lot of the same DC names behind them, like they just reshuffled all the current writers/artists they had. And I can understand that, they need to work too, or they're already on DC's payroll. But if I could, I'd like to reach out and help promote diversity a little more within the creative teams as much as they said they wanted to do with the universe itself. Reach out to female creators a little more, and ones of other minorities, and not just to put them on the minority books, just as people who might like to do a particular character. And reach outside actual industry comics creators, too. Webcomics, or even some of the better fanfiction. Hell, Gail Simone is something of a low-level superstar now and once she was a fan who was given a chance based on her online writings. There are great writers out there that are just waiting for a chance, and have different voices. Some books already have writing teams, try more of that to give the same amount of books more writers.
But diversity, much like change, can't be just a word, you have to back it up. If you're going to change the tone of the universe, change the people creating it. Don't just reshuffle what they're working on.
Now, for the purposes of this WIDW, I'm going to assume it's actually a reboot, starting over from scratch, or near-scratch - maybe within the first few years of different heroes careers. Because this half-assed 'rebooting some things and continuing on with others' doesn't seem to make much sense, even if it's probably the truth, it would not be WIDW the situation if I could help it. So, the rest of the points assume it's a reboot, or at least that I can hold some sway and make it a reboot. Because I can respect a reboot. Trying to eat your cake and have it too though, that's almost never good.
4) End the Current Universe
The storyline immediately before the relaunch is Flashpoint, which is a little like Age of Apocalypse in that it posits a whole different alternate universe in which much is different. Now, presumably, something happens when "correcting" the universe which leads to our new continuity blips, like that time when Superboy Prime punched reality.
But no. To me, that's not a good plan to set a new fresh start (it's tolerable if you're making a few tweaks in only a few characters, but the tolerability runs out before we reach the half-assed-reboot approach that seems to be happening)... because it sets up your audience with the idea that the new universe is ALSO just an alternate reality, one that couldm should, eventually be corrected.
We don't want to do that. We want to make people know that the universe they knew and love is going out with a bang!
Part of this starts with more of a lead time, we announce it earlier, instead of just in time for the solicitations of the new universe. Have some big Marvel-style creator summit, and we create some send off storyline to say goodbye to the old universe. It doesn't have to be apocalyptic, and in fact a somewhat happy ending is probably called for... maybe lots of them. Give every creator the chance to wrap up loose ends (and structure the story to allow the books to resolve their own issues instead of just being dragged into a storyline). A bigger lead time also allows us more time to recruit new creators and gently let go ones who are on contract but we don't necessarily want to be part of the big reboot (not because of any particular failing on their part, but just to make room for fresher voices). It also might attract superstar creators to the 'end', because... I mean, who wouldn't want to be the writer to have a chance at telling the LAST Green Lantern story, or Superman, or Batman, in that particular universe.
Now, I don't have a strong idea of what the storyline is, or the ending, but since this is a WIDW and part of that is to toss off ideas off the top of my head if I don't have a firm idea, so here's my "top of the head" idea for the "ending" we go for, and the rest of the final plot gets structured to enable it:
After the big adventure, something happens to reality. Nothing from the past changes, but the way things work changes. The end of the Superheroes. And supervillains, too. Super-science likewise doesn't work. Basically, in terms of science, it becomes our universe.
It's almost like the book series beginning with "Dies the Fire" (in which something changes in the world and virtually all high-energy-density technology ceases to function... so electricity and gunpowder both no longer work), except instead of limiting our world to a lower technology, it limits the DCU to a more realistic one. It's probably done deliberately to stop some universe-destroying threat that can't be stopped any other way. I almost imagine it like they physically take out part of the structure of the universe that allows for such things, and use it as a weapon to destroy the badguy... and in the process, destroy that part of the universe forever. Once it's destroyed... well, things will never be the same. You will believe a man can't fly. The Lanterns of all colors lose their power in the true blackest night. Magic doesn't work, although a few claim it can it can never be conclusively proven. FTL is now impossible, so the Earth is isolated again (or maybe the change itself happens because the planet Earth itself and only Earth is moved into another universe where this kind of stuff just doesn't happen), and only those aliens already here can continue... but only have the strength that their own bodies can support. Perhaps the best way to signal it is to have somebody shoot Superman and he dies (but, make it so that he knows what has happened, and still makes the choice to jump in front of the bullet, maybe to save Lois, and go out as the ultimate hero). Since magic solar-energy-that-turns-certain-people-invulernable no longer exists, he's just like he would be on a red sun world, a normal person. Other aliens likewise... a few might have special abilities due to strict biology, but the super-powers part fades. Martian Manhunter may have certain chameleon-like abilities, but can't shapechange, fly, read minds, etc.
This isn't the end for everybody... Batman can still, mostly, function, as would some of his rogue's gallery, but on a lower level, and many existing superheroes/villains would try to make a go of it under the new rules. So heroes exist, but it is the end of SUPERHEROES.
It's a bit of a bittersweet result, the loss of wonder in the world, metahumans no longer exist, but at the same time, the world's no longer threatened by evil menaces. Some heroes continue as heroes, others fade quietly to a normal life. Lex Luthor devotes himself to understanding the limits of the new science.
You could even conceivably still tell stories in this universe, with a special imprint.
The other option I had in mind was making it a true happy ending, with all the major evil forces in the DCU ending all at once and leaving the world as something of a utopia, except for some low level crime that still persists at normal. But I kind of like the "DCU gets real"... it also leaves us with a jumping-off point, with characters talking about the loss of wonder the end of the Age of the Superheroes, and one character comments about the multiverse being a big place, assuring them that wonder, magic, flying men, alien invasions and all that goes along with the Age of the Superheroes, are all still taking place... somewhere, out there. And one of those worlds is getting its chance at the big stage.
Then we start our new universe.
5) Designing a DC NU...
Well, not start. We now bring you our new universe, already in progress. Because I don't want to have to tell everybody's origin stories again, that would be pretty dull. But we start a universe that is a few years into their age of the superheroes, and there are many things that are familiar...
and many that are not.
See, if we're going to do a reboot, instead of JUST starting over, we might as well remove some of our insistence on things matching the original, as well as do some all-around new ideas. Sort of like the big Golden Age/Silver Age reboot. The Green Lantern and Flash of the Golden Age were a lot different than the ones that followed... later they were adapted into continuity, but at the time, it must have felt a lot like just the name and same general concept were kept, and everything else was thrown into the air. So yes, we could do that again. Probably not to the same extent, but maybe to some of the lesser tier characters. Power Girl doesn't have to have any ties to Superman continuity or previous worlds, she could be a human who somehow gains a variety of powers... they don't even have to be the same ones she had before. Hawkman could, instead of being some reincarnated alien archaeologist could be a man genetically crossbred with a hawk! Well, that's silly, but you get the point.
And even in more established and well-known properties, we can get rid of some sacred cows, and make ones that were already accidentally butchered into delicious hamburger as though we planned it all along (that analogy kind of got away from me). Maybe get rid of the Speed Force in Flash, or redesign it from scratch (it always seemed a little too mystical and woo-woo from me to take seriously). In Green Lantern, instead of one hero from every sector (except for Earth which for some reason gets 10000), make every sector get a squad of lanterns assigned to it and drawn to it, and instead of Hal Jordan being the first, he's just one of the many when Earth is assigned to be recruited.
Does Dick Grayson have to be the first Robin? Or Barbara Gordon the first Batgirl? Heck, Barbara Gordon could START OUT as Oracle, either being paralyzed due to some non-crime related action (born that way, perhaps?), or just being a person who starts out being able to walk and wants to make a difference but decides to do it behind the scenes, sort of like Chloe Sullivan in Smallville... and then, maybe, at some point, she gets paralyzed later (and although obviously struggling with the drastic change in her life, continues her superhero career almost unimpeded and proud of it). Maybe Dick was the first Robin, but moved on to Nightwing in the years before the series started, and Spoiler becomes the second Robin when Batman encounters her trying to undo her father's crimes.
Superman's mythos could likely also change... maybe it would have to, to help distinguish it and resolve some of the problems of the upcoming legal issues with the Shuster estate (or was it the Segal?) regaining ownership of some of the most classic elements of Superman, even while DC continues to own more modern ones. One obvious (though probably regrettable) choice is to make it more like Smallville (and if they wanted to, they could even literally separate Barbara Gordon and Oracle, making Chloe into the latter and the former into Batgirl... it wouldn't be MY approach, but it's doable). Another is that you could turn a few things on their head. Maybe Superboy is Clark's cousin from Krypton, and Supergirl is a clone, turned female in an X-23 like twist because something in the normal Kryptonian Y chromosone resists cloning. Or maybe Supergirl's not even related to him - the daughter of a colleague of Jor-El's for example, making her a potential love interest (though I wonder if there'd be a lot of potential psychic ewww from knowing the old story of the character).
We can also take some of the best of the more recent ideas and incorporate them into the universe as though they were planned all along. Like the Rainbow Lanterns idea, I actually quite like, in concept (although when it got into Black and White Lanterns, I thought it a little silly). So, all the lanterns already exist in the universe, and they always have, even if Earth is only learning about them now.
And, of course, here's where diversity comes into play. No sacred cows. Well, realistically, there would probably have to be three: Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman are considered iconic and have to be more or less recognizable (I personally wouldn't have a problem with changing the race or sex of them (although the names would have to be changed for sex I suppose), but I expect it would not just be a hard sell to WB, but virtually impossible). But there's no reason that any of the other characters can't be of different races or sexes than is traditional. Hallie Jordon, Green Lantern (well, with the Green Lanterns you can just start out with a more diverse bunch so changing specific characters might not be as necessary, although it would help cut out the possibility of creators not featuring the new, more diverse characters in favor of the classics). There's no reason any of the Robins couldn't be black, or Asian, or Native American. I kind of like the idea of a black Dick Grayson. Anyway, diversity not just in terms of race and gender, but also sexuality. It would be nice to have some more gay and bisexual heroes.
However, I'm going to state up front that somehow, in general, going through characters and saying "This character can be gay" or "This character can be black" or what have you seems a little wrong and condescending in some ways, as though I'm choosing ones which wouldn't be "harmed" by such a change (implying that other characters would be). I may mention specific examples from time to time, but the absence of that should not be construed as an intention to keep them straight and white... likewise, just because I refer to a character by a name that implies certain things about their race (ie, Tim Drake doesn't sound especially Asian), doesn't necessarily mean that their name won't be changed to compensate. In general we should be striving for a makeup that's representative of America at least (or elsewhere if they're set in other countries).
6) Planning Ahead
I think, aside from the specific families of titles, you have to make a few decisions in advance about how things generally work, to help build your universe around them, since they're elements that will crop up again and again. It just makes sense to start out with everybody on the same page with them.
a) Space
Simply put, how space works, what empires are out there, where they are, how Earth plays a role, etc. I think I'd put this mostly in the domain of the Green Lantern books. They determine how it works in advance. However, I think I'd set two things:
i) Earth is in a bit of a 'badlands', galactically speaking, at least as we begin. Surrounded by hostile empires or extreme alien threats. Perhaps Mars recently controlled the region until their empire collapsed.
ii) Everything takes place pretty well in the galaxy, not the universe. Green Lantern had the whole universe divided into Sectors (with Earth being sector 2814 of 9000 or whatever... that means each sector would have to be many, many galaxies). I'd prefer to have most of the action happening in the Milky Way galaxy, with occasional, but rare, contact with other ones. Lantern energy exists in other galaxies too, probably, but operate independently and maybe with variations... perhaps different emotions associated with the colors. Maybe Lantern energy comes originally from the galactic core and each Galaxy has its own quirks, maybe the Lanterns of Andromeda are universally tools of oppression.
b) Time
The universe's Timeline, or at least that of Earth, should also be established in advance, particularly with respect to superheros. I like the "five years in" standard, maybe up to ten, but even five feels like a good number and allows us to start to have second-generation heroes show up. But other questions arise, of course. Are there Golden Age heroes, like the JSA, who existed but operated in secret? Or even operated in public. My own feeling would be no, at least for powered heroes, there might be Watchmen-essque costumed heroes that existed for a time but nothing serious, and of course certain figures like Ra's al-Ghul or Vandal Savage who existed but were legends, if that. Also, Batman himself may have existed slightly longer than Superman, but in the 'urban legend' realm.
The future, too, needs to be considered, especially with the Legion of Superheroes being a staple. I think the Legion would stay, a thousand years or so in the future, but the how and what happens in the meantime should be worked out (if we're including Wildstorm, I could see an "Age of the Authority" happening in the near-future as a semi-dystopia).
c) Sidewise in Time
What is the state of the Multiverse in our new DC. Does one exist? How many worlds are in it? Is the OLD DCU actually part of it, or is it treated as similar to the Marvel universe in DC - accessible only through special events, but not reachable through the normal multiversal travel.
Although 52 is a cool number, it never really sat well with me. So, I prefer the classic Multiverse. There are loads of them out there.
However, travel between them is MUCH more difficult than in normal comics. Except, perhaps, through universes that are closely connected. Let's say Universes exist in clusters... maybe 52 per cluster. Travel between universes in your cluster is relatively easy... still outside the means of most people, but with traditional DC superscience and some super powers, it's doable. Travelling outside your cluster is VERY difficult, almost impossible to do so directly.
Except, say, there may be two universes in each cluster that is actually part of TWO (or more) clusters, and so you can travel THERE and from there into a separate cluster. These universes tend to be more chaotic and dangerous, so you still don't get a lot of cross-cluster traffic. And maybe the science required to access each cluster is a little different, so it's not like you can just pop there with your machine and then pop to another cluster. You'd have to pop into the bridge-world and tweak your machine so that you cross into the different cluster. (And maybe to make it worse, you have to tweak it in such a way that, if you tried to activate your machine using this tweak and you weren't IN a bridge-world, it would mean explosion and death)
This way we get the benefit of 'familiar' universes to visit, and also still the potential for unlimited adventures, if you just do a little more work. And the original DCU is out there, somewhere, just not in our cluster (and if we use our 'End of the Age of The Superheroes' ending, normal dimensional travel rules might not work... it might actually be outside of almost all clusters, requiring a godlike power to access).
d) Time Travel
We've discussed Time, but Time Travel is a very different thing. Is it possible? It's comics, so it has to be. Can you alter the past? Does it change reality, or create a new branching universe? If the former, how does that mesh with the multiverse. If the later, why do time travel stories matter? (that is, if a villain time travels back and kills your dad, why is it important to go back and stop him, all he does is create a new universe).
I've never found an easy answer for his. As I said, Eating your Cake and Having it Too rarely works, but you WANT to do that with this... have time travel threaten to alter reality, and yet continue to have alternate worlds that are created through time travel.
My best result, if we're using my cluster-theory of multiple universes, time travel splits universes, but it's sort of like a siamese twin, connected at the hip. The original universe gets cut off from the cluster, from all clusters, and in fact there's no way to reach it. Some people may be aware of the old universe and feel a need to 'correct' it. This is part of the natural branching process of universes, these people help midwife the new universe... or, restore the old one. Or, wait, perhaps you can go counterintuitive. The way to create a new universe is to UNDO the split, more or less. If the change remains, it's like an embryo that parasitically consumes its twin, and replaces it. Or more a matter of will. If one person has the will to change history, it gets a new universe. If another has the will to undo it, then obviously both universes are desired on some level, and so both are kept. But if nobody cares enough or manages to turn history back to its "rightful course", then the changed history BECOMES the rightful course, the original timeline obliterated. Of course, this leads to odd situations if people are aware of it, where even if a change if beneficial they need to travel back in time to 'undo it', so they can preserve the old universe.
Of course, 'correcting' a timeline can often create a third timeline, but that could easily be where either orphan universes (unconnected to the multiverse) or bridge universes (connected to multiple clusters) come from.
You might also establish a rule, sort of temporal inertia, that it takes a certain amount of will to alter history, otherwise events won't let you... like, if you blunder around in the past you won't wind up changing history... but if you do something that you know contradicts history, that's when you get the problem. Anyway, just some wacky thinking.
e) Magic
Similar to space, magic should have some rules set up in advance. Doesn't have to be hard and fast... it is magic, after all, but general philosophy, what it can and can't do, etc. I don't have any particular guidelines in this.
This might be where we discuss Wonder Woman, and elements like Themyscira, since if we're going with the "it's just like our world" theory you have to account for a society much like ancient Greece through magic. But it also goes into our next point...
f) Religion
God, gods... well, how do they work? Is there an afterlife? A capital G, God? I mean, Wonder Woman has the Greek gods all over the place, and then there are of course the New Gods and Darkseid and all of that.
Of course actually including a definitive God is always a minefield, so I'd prefer to leave it mysterious. However, souls of a sort, do exist, and travel to other dimensions after death, and there are figures who inhabit the other dimensions who've made their way to the regular ones (perhaps following the flood of souls into their particular domains). Dimensions here do not refer to multiverse-dimensions, although some of them resemble Earthlike environments, but more higher-planes-of-existence or mathematical dimension. We could similarly describe magic as 'science involving these other dimensions, performed instinctively'). One way to distinguish dimensions from alternate universes is like this - every alternate universe has its own copy of, say, Greek-God dimension (unless it got destroyed or something).
Back to Themysciria, you could either go with the idea that it's a normal island, cloaked magically by technology, or that it's a bridge to another dimension itself, or even that it is another dimension. (You could also go whole-hog and say that it's another world in the local Multiverse cluster, but that kind of screws over the chance for other-universe Wonder Women so I think we have to nix that).
I do kind of like the idea that Wonder Woman is an ambassador from another dimension, one that's fully based on greek mythology and magic. The portal between the worlds is in Themyscira on her side and some movable object on our world, so her adventures can straddle both worlds.
g) Metahumans
Are they pretty much mutants by another name? And why have they JUST started popping up recently?
I think one way to do this is to assume that, with rare exceptions, they started appearing five years ago. And the cause?
Superman.
As the result of one of his early adventures, humanity was exposed to somehing which allowed metahuman genes to activate. Some developed powers spontaneously, others got them when they were exposed to a traumatic/scientific process. Not his fault directly, perhaps (it could be Lex Luthor, or someone like Braniac). We may actually get to see this adventure. Powers tend to run in families... unlike mutants, where having the gene means you get any collection of powers, in DC, the metahuman gene creates powers for you based on other parts of your genetic code. So if you get have a metagene and get Superspeed, and your cousin's metagene gets activated, there's a good chance they'll also get superspeed, because they share some of your genes... or they might not, it's a cousin. But siblings and children are much more likely. This is a default notion, though, there are certain origins, chemicals, etc, that tend to give people similar powers. An example of this is the 'quantum juice' from the Milestone universe, which gives people powers related to what they were near when they were exposed. So if you're underwater, you might become a water-based being.
h) Other Universal Mashups
We know that part of this effort has DC wanting to mesh the Wildstorm universe into the DCU as a whole. I'm against this idea as part of the "partly a reboot but lots of things stay exactly the same", but I'm for it in a full reboot. Certain characters work well, others could be tossed out, but there's definitely some good stuff. Likewise, certain Vertigo concepts, Sandman and Death could well exist. Milestone characters also fit in well. Of course, they're all subject to the same rules: They can be revamped, sometimes radically, to better fit in with the new universe.
There is one problem with mashing up characters from other universes that needs to be mentioned, though... a lot of other comic universes specifically design characters that are thinly veiled knockoffs of classic DC characters. Wildstorm did this, and had a couple different Superman copies, for instance - Apollo, The High, Mister Majestic. Icon from Milestone is kind of a Superman (albeit with a different outlook). Sometimes we can deal with this by letting them coexist separately, at other times we might combine our characters, and still others we might just have the copies not exist at all (but their names are still up for grabs for new concepts).
i) Redesigned Looks
I can't stress this enough. JIM LEE DOES NOT DESIGN EVERY COSTUME.
He's okay, but he's not especially great, and some of his work (Huntress) is far inferior to earlier versions. So redesigns, sure, but let's have them be with a bit of a purpose. Maybe in some cases, even do it as a contest.
Similarly, there's no "no bare legs" edict for girls, however common sense should be used - not all girls are going to want to dress like they're out of a cheesecake poster, but some would. Costumes should reflect the personality, to a degree. However, if you don't have some degree of invulnerability, or superhuman ability to dodge attacks, leaving a lot of bare skin is just stupid (I'm looking at you Jim Lee-designed Bare-Stomached Huntress), and we don't want stupid superheros.
7) Enough with the generalities, onto the specifics!
In the next part, we list the full roster of 52 launch titles, with more details on changes revealed inside.
This time, we (and by that I mean I, but I'm playing god in these things so we might as well get into the spirit by using the royal We) tackle the DC Reboot/Relaunch/Whatever.
So, DC's launching in September with 52 all new #1 issues. Is it a reboot? Partly, it seems, because characters like Superman are being changed back to the beginning, but others are seemingly untouched. It feels more like a continuity cluster!#$! to me.
But let's say *I* was in charge of that potential cluster&$@!. What would my 52 #1 titles be, and what would my vision for the new DCU as a whole be?
Keep in mind two things before we begin.
1) I started writing this when very little was known about what DC was doing continuitywise, aside from the list of books they were doing. There may be references to things that are already disproven.
2) A great deal of the magic of WIDW is, occasionally, talking almost entirely out of my ass. I'm not a huge DC fan. A lot of what I know, outside of my particular favorites, is just from reading wikis, scans, and just general knowledge and so may be inaccurate. Sometimes I take an idea just briefly mentioned on a wiki that's not really very important, and run with it. I might suggest things that have already been tried. I may completely miss the point of a character or concept. I make no apologies for that, I just point it out up front.
3) I don't always edit as well as I should, a lot of it's written off the top of my head and not meant to be super polished, and in fact, I like the energy of coming up with ideas on the fly and elaborating them as I type them. (See, I said two things and this is #3. Perfect example). With things like my Runaways Vol 3 outlines I try a little more structure and organization and pre-planning, but this is not one of those times.
First, let's talk briefly about some alternatives:
There are of course, always alternatives to a line-wide reboot. One is keeping things more or less the same, maybe making a few necessary changes to characters who've been FUBARed (Cassandra Cain), but not on the level of what they're doing now. Obviously, that's out of the picture (unless Flashpoint, an altered reality story, is designed to lead into "the reboot" which is ALSO an altered reality story, which is designed to eventually lead back to the REAL DCU, with a few of the ideas from the reboot world incorporated where they worked out well with some technobabble excuse like "reality bleed through").
Another is alternate lines of continuity, SOMEWHAT like Ultimate Marvel, but a different take. Now, you can also do this in CONCERT with a line-wide reboot. One idea I had just to play with was a "Battle of the Brands", where each sub-brand of the DC universe now focuses on a different reality. So all the Superman books focus on one, all the Batbooks on a separate, the GL ones on a third, and so on (with a few of the smaller brands banding together in one). This is pointed out in specific detail. Now, one of the big things is that the universes are separate, but that doesn't mean the characters are. For example, Superman could (and in fact, should) show up in certain titles in the BatUniverse... except he wouldn't be held to the standards of whatever the Supesverse is doing with the character. The Batverse gets to design his continuity to order for their universe, and vice versa. Maybe in the Batsverse, Batman has his team of operatives, whether Batman Inc or just his usual Gotham associates, but in the Supesverse, Batman is a lone vigilante, or maybe just with Robin (or once had a robin who grew up to Nightwing). Maybe Supes is married in the Batverse, but single in the Supesverse. Team books get associated with one particular brand... Justice League with Superman (even though it includes their version of Batman). Teen Titans might be in the Batverse. One brand might actually be the existing DCU as it stood before the Battle.
Anyway, the idea of this Battle of the Brands is not to be a permanent status quo of four or five separate universes, although that's a possibility if sales suggest that people would be accepting of it long-term, but to present five different universes, one of which will eventually set the tone for the whole DCU, just each one is seen through a particular 'lens'. The winning universe will have its continuity exploded over the rest of the DCU (again, except for particular individual elements that are judged to work or not), probably in a storyline involving the several coming into conflict (like, a Crisis). But you get fan competitiveness in action and trying to prove to others how the brand they like best has the superior universe.
This could easily go bad of course, with fans getting attached to one of the new universe and feeling alienated when it gets wiped out, especially so soon after the regular DC disappeared (or reduced to one brand). But fans are getting alienated anyway. I don't think that this is something that I'd do were I actually in charge, I just like tossing around the idea and playing with it.
Another idea I've had for a long time as a new imprint is what I, for lack of a better title, called "Unleashed". This would go alongside the regular DC universe (or it could be done with Marvel too, I suppose). Get top creators if you can, of course, but that's always saying something. The rules for Unleashed are as follows:
1) Each Unleashed title is its own universe. Events in Superman Unleashed do not bear on Batman Unleashed. Sort of like the All-Star Line I guess, but read on. It starts from an arbitrary point in continuity, either established, or created, but should be relatively recognizable at the start.
2) 12 issues = 1 year of time IN THE TITLE. It's not a hard and fast rule, there's wiggle-room, but in general, if an Unleashed book lasts 5 years, everyone in it is 5 years older. (So technically if you can pump out 18 issues in a year, that's 12 months too) Whether you do this with one-issue stories each taking place over a month (or with a month gap), or a twelve issue story followed by another set a year later, that's up to the writer. This is probably the least essential of the rules and most likely to go by the wayside, but I really like it so I include it.
3) (Almost) Anything Can Happen. The writer has (almost) total free reign. By (almost), I mean, obviously, certain things like making Batman a child molester are out of the question. But if a writer wants to, say, kill off Lois Lane and make Superman get involved with Lana, or Wonder Woman, or what have you, they're free to do that. They can even kill off the main character and have them replaced by another. There's one other caveat in the 'almost' category, which is rule 4:
4) NO GOING BACKWARD. If you DO kill Lois, you can't ever bring her back. If you reveal an identity to the world, you can't magic up a solution so everybody forgets. No retcons, either, where you just assume something didn't happen. You deal with the consequences, always. There's some room for 'fake-out' deaths, but pretty well only if it was intended to all be resolved in the same storyline. If you turn Batman into a guy who kills his villains, you'd better be prepared to make new ones.
5) It's partly a game. The game is not only to please fans enough to want you to continue... but also to 'pass the baton', so that another writer picks up your universe and gets to do whatever they want with it. Nobody gets forced out before their time, but when you're ready to go, someone else takes over. But, you wonder, maybe someone leaves the universe in such a state that nobody wants to take over? Well, then they lose the game. The next writer of Batman Unleashed (for example) can decide, "I can't deal with this", and push the proverbial cancellation button, which ends the title for 6 months to be relaunched again, from a new arbitrary-but-recognizable point in continuity, where we play it all again. But the game is not to tell the definitive Batman story that nobody can follow. Maybe All-Star was that, but this is a game in the tradition of ongoing comic books where the game is to keep the title alive, while still providing as much in the way of thrills and unexpected developments as you can.
For the fans, we get to see what creators would do if they weren't shackled by editorial mandate and were truly Unleashed, we get to see characters grow up (albeit, at the same rate we do), and we get the ability to be actually surprised. Oh, I realize that this is probably untenable and would never be attempted, but I'd love to see what would happen in a world where it was.
But all of those are just odd ideas of what to do instead of a reboot to generate buzz. Let's assume a full reboot - or let's call it universe shift - is what they're doing, as seems to be the case (right now it looks like they might not be starting everything from scratch, the early days of the universe, but they're certainly changing lots of things at once while leaving a few lines more or less alone). A Shift could range from a reboot to changing most of the origins and then jamming them awkwardly into the storylines that were ongoing, but this is the mandate from on high, we must do one or the other, and relaunch all books at #1. Also, digital comics. So before we get to the changes to the universe itself, let's discuss some of the outside issues of how I'd handle announcing it, and how I'd want to handle some of the associated details.
1) Be Honest About What It Is.
As you can tell if you're reading this article, part of the problem writing it is discussing exactly what it is DC is doing. Is it a reboot? They don't want us to call it that, assuring us that most things are the same, there are just some 'tweaks'... except the information they've released on books suggest that Superman is going back to his early days, Robin (Tim Drake) just joined the Teen Titans, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl (but hasn't been magically CURED from the wheelchair, just, probably, never was in one in the first place and has been de-aged somewhat), and Batman Inc, the most recent big Batman storyline that changed their status quo, continues to have its impact apparently unchanged...
WTF?
Seriously, WTF?
It's like a hodgepodge of every different possible way they could go, leading to all sorts of theories about many of the #1s being 'flashback' books, designed to rewrite history but then eventually bring them back up to date, but nobody's really sure.
And mass fan speculation might be good for business, but, maybe this shows I wasn't cut out for business, but I'd rather just be honest from the outset. Sure, maybe a little bit of rampant speculation time at the beginning, but once the information about the books is released, everyone should have a firm idea of what's happening. From a business sense, I justify it as follows: Nobody knows what's happening, which makes it more possible for people to believe their own personal worst case scenarios, whatever they may be, be outraged about it, and emotionally 'break up' with DC over it. Even if those scenarios turn out not to be true, they've already made their peace with leaving. But conversely, people who are excited about one of the scenarios in particular, if that turns out not to be what happens, they don't usually get more excited, they just feel let down... although, granted, often not enough to just not buy into it (since they tend to be more positive people in general). In any event, I think it's more than fair that when you advertise an issue of a comic (much less 52 of them) that they have some idea if it's a flashback, a limited time alternate universe, a genuine starting point that's going to continue forever, or even a "potential starting point but we're going to see what the reaction is". As long as you tell us.
As for the new reader? I don't know, try explaining to a new reader what's happening and you have a headache in the making. You think continuity's impenetrable NOW? Try explaining to them how Batman has had 4 different Robins but Superman is the first superhero in the universe and has been operating for 5 years is even worse. A vision you can't clearly articulate is a vision you can't sell very easily.
2) Digital Comics Plan
I like the idea of releasing the comics the same date they hit the stands. Yes, they risk eating into the retailer market, but it's really their only shot at capturing that ellusive 'non-reader'... and let's face it, most comics are released, illegally, the same day they hit the shops ANYWAY. Anyone who really prefers electronic versions to the actual physical comics, if they're halfway competent, already can get them (assuming they're willing to)
The one problem I have with the idea is the price. They're going to charge the exact same price as the comic on the stands, though a month later it'll drop by a dollar. Why is this a problem? Because when you buy a comic, you're buying some_thing_. You get a physical object that you can do whatever you want with. You can share it with a friend, you can pass it on to your kids. Properly cared for, it'll last forever. You also support a local business, very likely a person you know to some degree, who struggles with making their business work. With a digital comic? You get a temporary license to read a comic on a device. This license can (almost certainly) be revoked at any time. You can't share it. And the money you pay goes to (aside from the creators) only a huge corporation which is going to be just fine either way. In effect, you're paying the same amount for a lot less.
Moreover, $3 is a steep price for media as short as a comic. You can buy an episode of a TV show for less, and if you decided to buy the comic and watch the show on TV, you can often complete the whole comic in one commercial break (at least, I can). This is not encouraging to the impulse buyers, those people who don't already go to comic stores. I have to think that most of those people who decide to try a comic and pay $3, unless they've got a lot of disposable income (and in today's economy, that's fewer and fewer people), they're going to feel ripped off and just not come back.
I like the 99 cent price point, except perhaps for certain 'event' comics. But if that's out of the question, there are other options. Like $2.99 an issue, but if you buy 10 at once, it's only $10. Or a monthly subscription that allows you X number of free comics a month, working out to something like .99 an issue, and if you want to go beyond that, you either buy another subscription, or pay the full $2.99... get people invested in multiple titles at once.
Then there's my old idea of having an option of digital comics be a blanket monthly subscription service with sort of a exclusive clubhouse mentality. You don't just get access to all the monthly comics, you also get a certain number of "DC Dollars" every month, that you can use to buy special DC swag (either real or virtual goods, probably a lot more of the latter, maybe 'super powers' you can buy that let you do fun stuff to other members), or to "pledge" to greenlight certain projects. Really want a Spoiler miniseries? If enough people pledge their DC dollars, it gets greenlit (although what you can pledge on will probably be based on creator pitches to begin with, so you'd only get stories creators are already interested in telling but DC isn't sure can "sell").
3) Creators
One thing I noticed (well, some others pointed it out), but a lot of the new titles seem to have a lot of the same DC names behind them, like they just reshuffled all the current writers/artists they had. And I can understand that, they need to work too, or they're already on DC's payroll. But if I could, I'd like to reach out and help promote diversity a little more within the creative teams as much as they said they wanted to do with the universe itself. Reach out to female creators a little more, and ones of other minorities, and not just to put them on the minority books, just as people who might like to do a particular character. And reach outside actual industry comics creators, too. Webcomics, or even some of the better fanfiction. Hell, Gail Simone is something of a low-level superstar now and once she was a fan who was given a chance based on her online writings. There are great writers out there that are just waiting for a chance, and have different voices. Some books already have writing teams, try more of that to give the same amount of books more writers.
But diversity, much like change, can't be just a word, you have to back it up. If you're going to change the tone of the universe, change the people creating it. Don't just reshuffle what they're working on.
Now, for the purposes of this WIDW, I'm going to assume it's actually a reboot, starting over from scratch, or near-scratch - maybe within the first few years of different heroes careers. Because this half-assed 'rebooting some things and continuing on with others' doesn't seem to make much sense, even if it's probably the truth, it would not be WIDW the situation if I could help it. So, the rest of the points assume it's a reboot, or at least that I can hold some sway and make it a reboot. Because I can respect a reboot. Trying to eat your cake and have it too though, that's almost never good.
4) End the Current Universe
The storyline immediately before the relaunch is Flashpoint, which is a little like Age of Apocalypse in that it posits a whole different alternate universe in which much is different. Now, presumably, something happens when "correcting" the universe which leads to our new continuity blips, like that time when Superboy Prime punched reality.
But no. To me, that's not a good plan to set a new fresh start (it's tolerable if you're making a few tweaks in only a few characters, but the tolerability runs out before we reach the half-assed-reboot approach that seems to be happening)... because it sets up your audience with the idea that the new universe is ALSO just an alternate reality, one that couldm should, eventually be corrected.
We don't want to do that. We want to make people know that the universe they knew and love is going out with a bang!
Part of this starts with more of a lead time, we announce it earlier, instead of just in time for the solicitations of the new universe. Have some big Marvel-style creator summit, and we create some send off storyline to say goodbye to the old universe. It doesn't have to be apocalyptic, and in fact a somewhat happy ending is probably called for... maybe lots of them. Give every creator the chance to wrap up loose ends (and structure the story to allow the books to resolve their own issues instead of just being dragged into a storyline). A bigger lead time also allows us more time to recruit new creators and gently let go ones who are on contract but we don't necessarily want to be part of the big reboot (not because of any particular failing on their part, but just to make room for fresher voices). It also might attract superstar creators to the 'end', because... I mean, who wouldn't want to be the writer to have a chance at telling the LAST Green Lantern story, or Superman, or Batman, in that particular universe.
Now, I don't have a strong idea of what the storyline is, or the ending, but since this is a WIDW and part of that is to toss off ideas off the top of my head if I don't have a firm idea, so here's my "top of the head" idea for the "ending" we go for, and the rest of the final plot gets structured to enable it:
After the big adventure, something happens to reality. Nothing from the past changes, but the way things work changes. The end of the Superheroes. And supervillains, too. Super-science likewise doesn't work. Basically, in terms of science, it becomes our universe.
It's almost like the book series beginning with "Dies the Fire" (in which something changes in the world and virtually all high-energy-density technology ceases to function... so electricity and gunpowder both no longer work), except instead of limiting our world to a lower technology, it limits the DCU to a more realistic one. It's probably done deliberately to stop some universe-destroying threat that can't be stopped any other way. I almost imagine it like they physically take out part of the structure of the universe that allows for such things, and use it as a weapon to destroy the badguy... and in the process, destroy that part of the universe forever. Once it's destroyed... well, things will never be the same. You will believe a man can't fly. The Lanterns of all colors lose their power in the true blackest night. Magic doesn't work, although a few claim it can it can never be conclusively proven. FTL is now impossible, so the Earth is isolated again (or maybe the change itself happens because the planet Earth itself and only Earth is moved into another universe where this kind of stuff just doesn't happen), and only those aliens already here can continue... but only have the strength that their own bodies can support. Perhaps the best way to signal it is to have somebody shoot Superman and he dies (but, make it so that he knows what has happened, and still makes the choice to jump in front of the bullet, maybe to save Lois, and go out as the ultimate hero). Since magic solar-energy-that-turns-certain-people-invulernable no longer exists, he's just like he would be on a red sun world, a normal person. Other aliens likewise... a few might have special abilities due to strict biology, but the super-powers part fades. Martian Manhunter may have certain chameleon-like abilities, but can't shapechange, fly, read minds, etc.
This isn't the end for everybody... Batman can still, mostly, function, as would some of his rogue's gallery, but on a lower level, and many existing superheroes/villains would try to make a go of it under the new rules. So heroes exist, but it is the end of SUPERHEROES.
It's a bit of a bittersweet result, the loss of wonder in the world, metahumans no longer exist, but at the same time, the world's no longer threatened by evil menaces. Some heroes continue as heroes, others fade quietly to a normal life. Lex Luthor devotes himself to understanding the limits of the new science.
You could even conceivably still tell stories in this universe, with a special imprint.
The other option I had in mind was making it a true happy ending, with all the major evil forces in the DCU ending all at once and leaving the world as something of a utopia, except for some low level crime that still persists at normal. But I kind of like the "DCU gets real"... it also leaves us with a jumping-off point, with characters talking about the loss of wonder the end of the Age of the Superheroes, and one character comments about the multiverse being a big place, assuring them that wonder, magic, flying men, alien invasions and all that goes along with the Age of the Superheroes, are all still taking place... somewhere, out there. And one of those worlds is getting its chance at the big stage.
Then we start our new universe.
5) Designing a DC NU...
Well, not start. We now bring you our new universe, already in progress. Because I don't want to have to tell everybody's origin stories again, that would be pretty dull. But we start a universe that is a few years into their age of the superheroes, and there are many things that are familiar...
and many that are not.
See, if we're going to do a reboot, instead of JUST starting over, we might as well remove some of our insistence on things matching the original, as well as do some all-around new ideas. Sort of like the big Golden Age/Silver Age reboot. The Green Lantern and Flash of the Golden Age were a lot different than the ones that followed... later they were adapted into continuity, but at the time, it must have felt a lot like just the name and same general concept were kept, and everything else was thrown into the air. So yes, we could do that again. Probably not to the same extent, but maybe to some of the lesser tier characters. Power Girl doesn't have to have any ties to Superman continuity or previous worlds, she could be a human who somehow gains a variety of powers... they don't even have to be the same ones she had before. Hawkman could, instead of being some reincarnated alien archaeologist could be a man genetically crossbred with a hawk! Well, that's silly, but you get the point.
And even in more established and well-known properties, we can get rid of some sacred cows, and make ones that were already accidentally butchered into delicious hamburger as though we planned it all along (that analogy kind of got away from me). Maybe get rid of the Speed Force in Flash, or redesign it from scratch (it always seemed a little too mystical and woo-woo from me to take seriously). In Green Lantern, instead of one hero from every sector (except for Earth which for some reason gets 10000), make every sector get a squad of lanterns assigned to it and drawn to it, and instead of Hal Jordan being the first, he's just one of the many when Earth is assigned to be recruited.
Does Dick Grayson have to be the first Robin? Or Barbara Gordon the first Batgirl? Heck, Barbara Gordon could START OUT as Oracle, either being paralyzed due to some non-crime related action (born that way, perhaps?), or just being a person who starts out being able to walk and wants to make a difference but decides to do it behind the scenes, sort of like Chloe Sullivan in Smallville... and then, maybe, at some point, she gets paralyzed later (and although obviously struggling with the drastic change in her life, continues her superhero career almost unimpeded and proud of it). Maybe Dick was the first Robin, but moved on to Nightwing in the years before the series started, and Spoiler becomes the second Robin when Batman encounters her trying to undo her father's crimes.
Superman's mythos could likely also change... maybe it would have to, to help distinguish it and resolve some of the problems of the upcoming legal issues with the Shuster estate (or was it the Segal?) regaining ownership of some of the most classic elements of Superman, even while DC continues to own more modern ones. One obvious (though probably regrettable) choice is to make it more like Smallville (and if they wanted to, they could even literally separate Barbara Gordon and Oracle, making Chloe into the latter and the former into Batgirl... it wouldn't be MY approach, but it's doable). Another is that you could turn a few things on their head. Maybe Superboy is Clark's cousin from Krypton, and Supergirl is a clone, turned female in an X-23 like twist because something in the normal Kryptonian Y chromosone resists cloning. Or maybe Supergirl's not even related to him - the daughter of a colleague of Jor-El's for example, making her a potential love interest (though I wonder if there'd be a lot of potential psychic ewww from knowing the old story of the character).
We can also take some of the best of the more recent ideas and incorporate them into the universe as though they were planned all along. Like the Rainbow Lanterns idea, I actually quite like, in concept (although when it got into Black and White Lanterns, I thought it a little silly). So, all the lanterns already exist in the universe, and they always have, even if Earth is only learning about them now.
And, of course, here's where diversity comes into play. No sacred cows. Well, realistically, there would probably have to be three: Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman are considered iconic and have to be more or less recognizable (I personally wouldn't have a problem with changing the race or sex of them (although the names would have to be changed for sex I suppose), but I expect it would not just be a hard sell to WB, but virtually impossible). But there's no reason that any of the other characters can't be of different races or sexes than is traditional. Hallie Jordon, Green Lantern (well, with the Green Lanterns you can just start out with a more diverse bunch so changing specific characters might not be as necessary, although it would help cut out the possibility of creators not featuring the new, more diverse characters in favor of the classics). There's no reason any of the Robins couldn't be black, or Asian, or Native American. I kind of like the idea of a black Dick Grayson. Anyway, diversity not just in terms of race and gender, but also sexuality. It would be nice to have some more gay and bisexual heroes.
However, I'm going to state up front that somehow, in general, going through characters and saying "This character can be gay" or "This character can be black" or what have you seems a little wrong and condescending in some ways, as though I'm choosing ones which wouldn't be "harmed" by such a change (implying that other characters would be). I may mention specific examples from time to time, but the absence of that should not be construed as an intention to keep them straight and white... likewise, just because I refer to a character by a name that implies certain things about their race (ie, Tim Drake doesn't sound especially Asian), doesn't necessarily mean that their name won't be changed to compensate. In general we should be striving for a makeup that's representative of America at least (or elsewhere if they're set in other countries).
6) Planning Ahead
I think, aside from the specific families of titles, you have to make a few decisions in advance about how things generally work, to help build your universe around them, since they're elements that will crop up again and again. It just makes sense to start out with everybody on the same page with them.
a) Space
Simply put, how space works, what empires are out there, where they are, how Earth plays a role, etc. I think I'd put this mostly in the domain of the Green Lantern books. They determine how it works in advance. However, I think I'd set two things:
i) Earth is in a bit of a 'badlands', galactically speaking, at least as we begin. Surrounded by hostile empires or extreme alien threats. Perhaps Mars recently controlled the region until their empire collapsed.
ii) Everything takes place pretty well in the galaxy, not the universe. Green Lantern had the whole universe divided into Sectors (with Earth being sector 2814 of 9000 or whatever... that means each sector would have to be many, many galaxies). I'd prefer to have most of the action happening in the Milky Way galaxy, with occasional, but rare, contact with other ones. Lantern energy exists in other galaxies too, probably, but operate independently and maybe with variations... perhaps different emotions associated with the colors. Maybe Lantern energy comes originally from the galactic core and each Galaxy has its own quirks, maybe the Lanterns of Andromeda are universally tools of oppression.
b) Time
The universe's Timeline, or at least that of Earth, should also be established in advance, particularly with respect to superheros. I like the "five years in" standard, maybe up to ten, but even five feels like a good number and allows us to start to have second-generation heroes show up. But other questions arise, of course. Are there Golden Age heroes, like the JSA, who existed but operated in secret? Or even operated in public. My own feeling would be no, at least for powered heroes, there might be Watchmen-essque costumed heroes that existed for a time but nothing serious, and of course certain figures like Ra's al-Ghul or Vandal Savage who existed but were legends, if that. Also, Batman himself may have existed slightly longer than Superman, but in the 'urban legend' realm.
The future, too, needs to be considered, especially with the Legion of Superheroes being a staple. I think the Legion would stay, a thousand years or so in the future, but the how and what happens in the meantime should be worked out (if we're including Wildstorm, I could see an "Age of the Authority" happening in the near-future as a semi-dystopia).
c) Sidewise in Time
What is the state of the Multiverse in our new DC. Does one exist? How many worlds are in it? Is the OLD DCU actually part of it, or is it treated as similar to the Marvel universe in DC - accessible only through special events, but not reachable through the normal multiversal travel.
Although 52 is a cool number, it never really sat well with me. So, I prefer the classic Multiverse. There are loads of them out there.
However, travel between them is MUCH more difficult than in normal comics. Except, perhaps, through universes that are closely connected. Let's say Universes exist in clusters... maybe 52 per cluster. Travel between universes in your cluster is relatively easy... still outside the means of most people, but with traditional DC superscience and some super powers, it's doable. Travelling outside your cluster is VERY difficult, almost impossible to do so directly.
Except, say, there may be two universes in each cluster that is actually part of TWO (or more) clusters, and so you can travel THERE and from there into a separate cluster. These universes tend to be more chaotic and dangerous, so you still don't get a lot of cross-cluster traffic. And maybe the science required to access each cluster is a little different, so it's not like you can just pop there with your machine and then pop to another cluster. You'd have to pop into the bridge-world and tweak your machine so that you cross into the different cluster. (And maybe to make it worse, you have to tweak it in such a way that, if you tried to activate your machine using this tweak and you weren't IN a bridge-world, it would mean explosion and death)
This way we get the benefit of 'familiar' universes to visit, and also still the potential for unlimited adventures, if you just do a little more work. And the original DCU is out there, somewhere, just not in our cluster (and if we use our 'End of the Age of The Superheroes' ending, normal dimensional travel rules might not work... it might actually be outside of almost all clusters, requiring a godlike power to access).
d) Time Travel
We've discussed Time, but Time Travel is a very different thing. Is it possible? It's comics, so it has to be. Can you alter the past? Does it change reality, or create a new branching universe? If the former, how does that mesh with the multiverse. If the later, why do time travel stories matter? (that is, if a villain time travels back and kills your dad, why is it important to go back and stop him, all he does is create a new universe).
I've never found an easy answer for his. As I said, Eating your Cake and Having it Too rarely works, but you WANT to do that with this... have time travel threaten to alter reality, and yet continue to have alternate worlds that are created through time travel.
My best result, if we're using my cluster-theory of multiple universes, time travel splits universes, but it's sort of like a siamese twin, connected at the hip. The original universe gets cut off from the cluster, from all clusters, and in fact there's no way to reach it. Some people may be aware of the old universe and feel a need to 'correct' it. This is part of the natural branching process of universes, these people help midwife the new universe... or, restore the old one. Or, wait, perhaps you can go counterintuitive. The way to create a new universe is to UNDO the split, more or less. If the change remains, it's like an embryo that parasitically consumes its twin, and replaces it. Or more a matter of will. If one person has the will to change history, it gets a new universe. If another has the will to undo it, then obviously both universes are desired on some level, and so both are kept. But if nobody cares enough or manages to turn history back to its "rightful course", then the changed history BECOMES the rightful course, the original timeline obliterated. Of course, this leads to odd situations if people are aware of it, where even if a change if beneficial they need to travel back in time to 'undo it', so they can preserve the old universe.
Of course, 'correcting' a timeline can often create a third timeline, but that could easily be where either orphan universes (unconnected to the multiverse) or bridge universes (connected to multiple clusters) come from.
You might also establish a rule, sort of temporal inertia, that it takes a certain amount of will to alter history, otherwise events won't let you... like, if you blunder around in the past you won't wind up changing history... but if you do something that you know contradicts history, that's when you get the problem. Anyway, just some wacky thinking.
e) Magic
Similar to space, magic should have some rules set up in advance. Doesn't have to be hard and fast... it is magic, after all, but general philosophy, what it can and can't do, etc. I don't have any particular guidelines in this.
This might be where we discuss Wonder Woman, and elements like Themyscira, since if we're going with the "it's just like our world" theory you have to account for a society much like ancient Greece through magic. But it also goes into our next point...
f) Religion
God, gods... well, how do they work? Is there an afterlife? A capital G, God? I mean, Wonder Woman has the Greek gods all over the place, and then there are of course the New Gods and Darkseid and all of that.
Of course actually including a definitive God is always a minefield, so I'd prefer to leave it mysterious. However, souls of a sort, do exist, and travel to other dimensions after death, and there are figures who inhabit the other dimensions who've made their way to the regular ones (perhaps following the flood of souls into their particular domains). Dimensions here do not refer to multiverse-dimensions, although some of them resemble Earthlike environments, but more higher-planes-of-existence or mathematical dimension. We could similarly describe magic as 'science involving these other dimensions, performed instinctively'). One way to distinguish dimensions from alternate universes is like this - every alternate universe has its own copy of, say, Greek-God dimension (unless it got destroyed or something).
Back to Themysciria, you could either go with the idea that it's a normal island, cloaked magically by technology, or that it's a bridge to another dimension itself, or even that it is another dimension. (You could also go whole-hog and say that it's another world in the local Multiverse cluster, but that kind of screws over the chance for other-universe Wonder Women so I think we have to nix that).
I do kind of like the idea that Wonder Woman is an ambassador from another dimension, one that's fully based on greek mythology and magic. The portal between the worlds is in Themyscira on her side and some movable object on our world, so her adventures can straddle both worlds.
g) Metahumans
Are they pretty much mutants by another name? And why have they JUST started popping up recently?
I think one way to do this is to assume that, with rare exceptions, they started appearing five years ago. And the cause?
Superman.
As the result of one of his early adventures, humanity was exposed to somehing which allowed metahuman genes to activate. Some developed powers spontaneously, others got them when they were exposed to a traumatic/scientific process. Not his fault directly, perhaps (it could be Lex Luthor, or someone like Braniac). We may actually get to see this adventure. Powers tend to run in families... unlike mutants, where having the gene means you get any collection of powers, in DC, the metahuman gene creates powers for you based on other parts of your genetic code. So if you get have a metagene and get Superspeed, and your cousin's metagene gets activated, there's a good chance they'll also get superspeed, because they share some of your genes... or they might not, it's a cousin. But siblings and children are much more likely. This is a default notion, though, there are certain origins, chemicals, etc, that tend to give people similar powers. An example of this is the 'quantum juice' from the Milestone universe, which gives people powers related to what they were near when they were exposed. So if you're underwater, you might become a water-based being.
h) Other Universal Mashups
We know that part of this effort has DC wanting to mesh the Wildstorm universe into the DCU as a whole. I'm against this idea as part of the "partly a reboot but lots of things stay exactly the same", but I'm for it in a full reboot. Certain characters work well, others could be tossed out, but there's definitely some good stuff. Likewise, certain Vertigo concepts, Sandman and Death could well exist. Milestone characters also fit in well. Of course, they're all subject to the same rules: They can be revamped, sometimes radically, to better fit in with the new universe.
There is one problem with mashing up characters from other universes that needs to be mentioned, though... a lot of other comic universes specifically design characters that are thinly veiled knockoffs of classic DC characters. Wildstorm did this, and had a couple different Superman copies, for instance - Apollo, The High, Mister Majestic. Icon from Milestone is kind of a Superman (albeit with a different outlook). Sometimes we can deal with this by letting them coexist separately, at other times we might combine our characters, and still others we might just have the copies not exist at all (but their names are still up for grabs for new concepts).
i) Redesigned Looks
I can't stress this enough. JIM LEE DOES NOT DESIGN EVERY COSTUME.
He's okay, but he's not especially great, and some of his work (Huntress) is far inferior to earlier versions. So redesigns, sure, but let's have them be with a bit of a purpose. Maybe in some cases, even do it as a contest.
Similarly, there's no "no bare legs" edict for girls, however common sense should be used - not all girls are going to want to dress like they're out of a cheesecake poster, but some would. Costumes should reflect the personality, to a degree. However, if you don't have some degree of invulnerability, or superhuman ability to dodge attacks, leaving a lot of bare skin is just stupid (I'm looking at you Jim Lee-designed Bare-Stomached Huntress), and we don't want stupid superheros.
7) Enough with the generalities, onto the specifics!
In the next part, we list the full roster of 52 launch titles, with more details on changes revealed inside.
