DC -- WTF Happened?

Can someone tell me when the next CRISIS will be? One NOT orchestrated by Geoff Johns?

I grew up reading DC and consider myself pretty knowledgable when it comes to plots, stories and character origins. I have read every issue of Who's Who in the DC Universe and survived the cross-hatch craze of the 90's. A lot of us have. I have stuck with print because I think holding the physical copy is part of the experience. A lot of us have. Eventhough the price of comics keeps going up and the number of issues collected in a trade keeps going down. $20 for 5 issues? This is what we put up with.

And that's not even counting the crap we'd at school. Being the kid with an Infitiy Gauntlet shirt carrying carfully bagged issues of Starman (v1 by Tom Lyle and Roger Stern -- with that tacky yellow and purple costume) through a crowd of Football players can be trying sometimes. To say the least.

What do we get for our troubles? For everything to be wiped away. To be blunt, all that time reading and studying utterly useless information. Let's not kid ourselves. Kryptonian history? Useless. That's okay though.

What is not okay is that DC has gotten to the point that, unless you are already well versed in the New 52, no one wants to explain where things are in the DCU. It's reduced to fragments of histories that were rewritten and then wiped away a year later. Sometmes it seems like the characters themselves don't really know what the hell their history is. And that's okay?

At least CRISIS on INFINITE EARTHS was referred to, "The Great Crisis" from time to time. "Crisis" was used with care because it was huge. Now, if the Anti-Monitor shows up, no one cares. I am reminded of Ambush Bug's use of Darksied.

(Side note: I was pissed about Hellblazer being rebooted. The fact that John Constantine aged in real time was a nice touch. Gone.)

-sigh-

Geoff Johns. I love your writing. Infinite Crisis was good stuff, as was Blackest Night. But please...sit the next crossover out. Reboots aren't the answer to unreseolved plotlines. I understand a lot of decisions are made for the good of comics as a business. But the feel I am getting from the general comic nerd community is betrayal or confusion. F--k, what color Lantern would embody "confused?" I want that shirt.

I lived thru the same with Marvel. I share in your pain and anger. But, the Gods of Comics were at my side, because when I stopped reading American comics, I discovered a really mature world of comics from Europe.

And I'm not talking Asterix or Tintin.

L'incal, Le chant de Stryges, Les Eaux-de-Morte-Lune, etc... The list is incredible, and my mind was blown a hundred times.

Thanks Europe for your Great Comics!

Swamp Thing was the best thing DC ever put out. I have'em all.

Never read DC but loved there character's anyway and you are right holding the print and especially when it is good old fashioned artwork not the new age computer generated art is a treat, I live in the UK and through the 80's and 90's my comic was one called 2000AD which I could not wait to get to the local paper shop to buy, it was just a little gory when compared to DC comic's though and it's feature character though not my favorit was Judge Dredd, My favorits were short story's called Future shock some of which where good enough to base a real long term character on, Halo Jones, Stainless steel rat and especially Rogue Trooper, the artists whom worked on it were absolutely fantastic and the only version of Judge Dredd movie that came close to portraying it was the Stallone version which was true to the artwork and I think better than the later version.
DC comic's are also like 2000AD victim's of the inevitable game producer tie in's but where 2000AD is concerned they are totally owned now by a game producer and effectively dead as a comic.
I am too old to get back into them but I know that the character's of the DC universe are some of the most culturaly iconic and favorite comic characters of all publications.

In one future shock a interstellar empire with a space samurai like military runs out of enemy's to conquer so as the military is a unsustainable and pointless burden they give them one final mission to go off where the emperor point's and conquer all they meet, so they conquer race after race and anihilate civilization after civilization only to eventually find a world filled with fat easy living beings whom they wipe out only to find an ancient monument which was erected when this civilization sent it's glorious fleet off on a final endless mission of conquest, it is at that point they realize that over the thousand's of generations they have flown through the stars they actually came in a giant circle and wiped out there own home world but with no other purpose they then simply continue with that final mission flying in there endless circle.

Try being a Star Wars fan. They carefully crafted their Universe making sure to not contradict any of the history, at least attempting not to. Building block upon building block, watching a small group of people grow over the years through their tragedies and triumphs. Only to have the company sold and all the fans told that you can throw all the books and all the history in the trash because it's less than worthless.

a reply to: The_Phantom

I had issue 1 onward until a few week's I missed some but almost the whole collection in the uk of the star war's comic's from the first sequence, some great story's and some lame one's but like you say they stayed true to the star wars universe, not that the three prequal movies did meta what.
I know the pain, I got to the age where I was ashamed if someone saw me buying it as it was not cool for a teenager to read what he had read when he was 11 and 12 I hid it under my jacket until I got home though by that time it lasted only 20 minutes to read it or so.

a reply to: LABTECH767

2000AD...was that one of thepublications Brian Bolland worked on? He is, to this day, one of my favorite artists. No contest.

I believe DC Comic has been plagued by continuity errors since its days as National Allied comics. The Crisis storyline, Zero Hour and New 52 have been attempts to fix this. But something tells me poor management exists in comics companies, so these problems and perhaps creative dryness still plague that company. Property issues with some characters seem to be happening as well.

Both approaches are starting to suck for the big two. You can either let writers tell whatever stories in whatever way they want. Which leads to continuity issues as writers make up what they want to fit the stories they want to tell. Or you tightly control your universe and have big universe wide events all the time. That forces the consumer to buy issues of books they do not care about just so they can keep up with what is going on. I am sick of both. Which is why I mostly read self contained comics that tell one story from beginning to end by one writer now.

To the OP. I agree about Hellblazer. That was a Vertigo title. They should not of tried to fold certain Vertigo titles back into the main universe. They were much better off as standalone titles. DC has gone through reboots before and they left the Vertigo stuff alone. They only did it because Constantine was a movie and is now gonna be a tv show. Not for any creative reasons.

Heck if DC wants to make their universe more interesting. Just fold all of Vertigo into the DC universe. Imagine, King mob, Lord Fanny, Ragged Robin, Jack Frost, Jesse Custer, Cassidy, Saint of killers, Arse face, Lucifer, Spider Jerusalem, Agent Graves and the Minutemen, the fables,and the only version of Sandman that matters. Battling the Justice League for control of the mind of a comic book writer named Derek Cornelius or D.C. for short. That right their is a story worthy of the title Crisis on Infinite Earths. I better keep my trap shut and not give them any ideas.

Something tells me that DC, even before, was suffering from lack of coordination on stories, so inconsistencies and continuity errors kept coming out very often. I think that happens to all comic book companies, but Marvel acted to arrest that more easily. With DC things just got out of hand, that they had to do story resets. Maybe they need someone like Jim Shooter to shake things up into order. Well, in movies, they probably should be careful in casting as well.