"Final Crisis".Another Reboot?

[RonFez.net]

Why don't they reboot already? I like the idea of a reboot every couple of years or so.  I'd say 10 but what do they care after final crisis they'll probably say there's more than one multiverse or something like that.  But anyway now Superman has a family (something i'm not particularly fond of) and batman has a son too.  Wally's kids are teenagers and bart is dead.  Why don't we have a few send of tales and start over, huh?

[Johnny Nevada]

>>I wonder what Earth For Better or For Worse takes place on?  Talk about convoluted continuity and 30 years of backstory!  I would love a team-up between Ace the Bathound and Farley...<<

Guess it takes places on "Earth-FBOFW" (or "Earth-F" for short?)... :-)

Make that a teamup between Ace and Edgar, Farley's current-day replacement (Farley died in an early 90s storyline while rescuing a drowning 4-year-old April...).

[TELLE]

I'm sure there is an Earth where Farley didn't die --let's call it Earth-Farley-- and where instead of drowning Farley was sent back to Earth by God as a superpowered agent or perhaps he was magically imbued with the power to breath underwater and became a sort of aquatic avenger.  Either way, he would make a great team-up with Ace or maybe Krypto.

It would be funny if For Better or For Worse had too many alternate timelines and universes and Johnston had to devote he retirement to a series of miniseries to clean it all up, killing off all of her mistakes.

Given Dc's bent for hiring famous artists and writers from outside of superhero comics, isn't it unfortunate that they haven't talked to Lynn Johnston?  She could whip together a great melodram for them and wouldn't have to draw it, freeing up tons of time.

 

[JulianPerez]

It occurs to me that I've generally been harder on crossovers than perhaps they deserve.

Sure, there have been some real dogs (GENESIS and EVOLUTIONARY WAR come to mind), however, I suspect they are viewed with an amount of cynicism that they just don't deserve, as "artificial" and "soulless." Which they certainly can be...but the point is they ought to be judged like any other kind of story.

In that light, I've reread several crossovers, like MAXIMUM SECURITY and COSMIC ODYSSEY, and I've found them surprisingly enjoyable once I read them like they're just another kind of story instead of a "soulless event."

I like something like FINAL NIGHT, where you have the sun-eater attempt to chew on earth's sun. The miniseries itself was the usual nineties stuff, but the tie-ins made logical sense, as this crisis was worldwide. You had, for instance, Aquaman deal with the fact the oceans were freezing. There wasn't the usual compartmentalized nonsense that often made me dislike JLA in the 1990s, where there was a worldwide crisis and the only people available to fight it are, conveniently, the main characters of the book.

A crossover done well is a thing of beauty. The reason I like a book like LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES or AVENGERS is because they do these huge "event" stories that shake things up and where people die, like "Kree-Skrull Wars," or "The Thanos War," or "Earthwar." The crossover is essentially the Legion or Avengers event story, only more all-encompassing. If I want to be intellectually consistent, I have to admit there's no functional difference in approach and storytelling style between a comic I love, say, Englehart's AVENGERS/DEFENDERS WAR, and the idea of the big crossover.

And my position on continuity - or rather, consistent characterization and worldbuilding - is fairly well known. For those that came in late: "Continuity" is another word for "the world." And that the single most defining characteristic of adventure comics, from TERRY AND THE PIRATES to ASTRO CITY, is the ability of characters to remember their past.

If you don't like continuity, read PEANUTS. Or watch a sitcom. Charlie Brown falls for the football every time. The Scooby-Doo gang doesn't remember that their last adventure was pretty much identical to their current one. It's like they wake up every morning with a wiped memory.

I suspect everyone else believes this as well, and that it's all a matter of degrees.

The current "fashoinable" position among writers and a certain kind of DC fan is to "reject continuity," but I have found they reject continuity in theory, but they actually demand it in practice.

For instance...let me select an example unrelated to comics:

Remember that episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION where Data builds a daughter? She eventually breaks down when Starfleet threatens to steal custody of her from him.

I will never forget the moment when Data calmly walked onto the bridge, and without any emotion in his voice, took his duty station, and told the crew that Lal, his daughter, was dead.

Then, though, they just about never saw fit to mention that something this important had happened. True, Data is not capable of emotion and the crew may avoid talking about his daughter's death out of sensitivity, but Lal was quietly forgotten for the rest of all of Trek's seasons as if she had never lived. Data never repeated his attempt to create her. He kept Tasha Yar's hologram, but he basically forgot Lal.

I was speaking about this with a fellow TNG fan, and she agreed with me: yeah, that was pretty friggin lame.

But right there...that's continuity, isn't it? Remembering your past and having it influence your current characterization. And contrary to popular belief, this isn't at all hard to do, or anal retentive: just have the writers remember that Data had a daughter.

[AMAZO]

Actually it was mentioned again late in the series. When Data met his "mother," Dr. Soong's ex-wife. She told him about the many failed attempts she and Soong had made at making a working positronic brain. She was shocked to learn about Laal (after seeing Data's painting of her), and tried to convince him never to attempt to create an android again. Incidentally, she turns out to be a very sophisticated android herself. However, this is the only mention I can think of in subsequent episodes, so you do make a good point. DS9 and Enterprise used more complex and faithful continuity.

My only real problem with crossovers is more a financial issue; I have a hard time justifying adding all these tie-in books to my monthly buys. Especially if the tie-in is only very tangential to the main story. My other problem with Big Crossovers is that they interfere with the long-term story and character development in the characters involved. For example, I kind of liked Young Avengers. I felt like it had far more of the spirit of an  Avengers team than say the New Avengers. I feel like their stories got put on hold in order to get them involved in Civil War, and that this ruined the book.

[carmine]

I am going to sound like a whiney fanboy but....Unless Final Crisis deboots the entire DCU back to the original pre-crisis continuity I might just drop reading comics. Its just getting annoying as a hobby.

-I am getting tired of reading a writers "version" of a character instead of reading a writers "take' on a character.

[JRJ123]

That cover looks sweet, can't wait for that! Is that the Wally West Flash?

[JRJ123]

In fact, any details anyone has on Final Crisis would be welcome, as I for one enjoyed Infinite Crisis, and that picture excites me particularly.