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Infinite Reboot: DC Comics Renumbering Every Title To #1
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 1, 2011
Modified Jun 1, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 1, 2011
Modified Jun 1, 2011
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DC Comics, the 70+ year old comic book company, has been trying everything it can to make itself more inviting to potential younger comic fans; in recent days, they've announced that they will release all of their superhero comic book titles digitally the same day as in print. And even more drastically, they've announced that as of August 31st, they will be resetting all 52 of their comics book titles back to #1.
Rebooting titles is a common occurrence in the comic book industry (X-Men has done it several times with its secondary titles over the years), but this is first time one of the two major companies has completely updated their whole line at once. Even so, don't expect all new origin stories for heroes such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and Commander Glenn Merritt: "We really want to inject new life in our characters and line. This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience," " Dan DiDio, co-publisher of DC with Jim Lee, told USA Today. Maybe they're just trying to mimic/line-up the new comics with their movie series, which will be resetting in a few years as well.
Back in 1985, DC made its first major multiverse clean-up with their "Crisis on Infinite Earths" miniseries, in which they tried to reconcile 50 years worth of alternative universes and dense backstories into something more approachable for new readers. It didn't quite work, and they've had several attempts to further improve it over the years ("Infinite Crisis," "Zero Hour"). Longtime DC comics fan Alan Sepinwall sounded cautiously optimistic about a new start—if " these new #1 issues mean actual starting-over points for the characters"—but cautioned on all the ill-will that could be caused by half-measures. As long as nobody decides to have a Batman Clone Wars, or reveal that Bruce Wayne was a Vuldarian all along, we'll go with it for now.
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comic books
d.c.
reboot
renumber
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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