Okay, so the rumors have been confirmed: starting in September, DC comics is resetting 52 books back to #1 and is doing some slight rebooting. Unfortunately, we don't know much for sure right now and rumors are flying around like nobody's business. Be it The New York Times, G4, Bleeding Cool News, or even DC Comic's own forums, everyone seems to be talking about all of this. So what do I think about all of this? Honestly, while I'm a bit excited and a bit worried, I honestly don't know what to think. I also think that everyone losing their heads over this renumbering and rebooting is overreacting. Why? Because I keep hearing how "DC is ruining everything" from Grant Morrison's run on Batman to just about everything else being printed. They think Jaime Reyes and other great, newer characters are disappearing. But what do we know so far? We know that a) DC is renumbering 52 comics in September b) there will be some costume redesigns by Jim Lee and c) the first title in this reboot will be Justice League by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. Outside of those 3 things, it's all been speculation and anonymous sources, which aren't the most reliable sources.
Okay, so we know that the Justice League is getting a new most likely getting a reset origin. Everyone in that image is pretty young looking and many reports have quotes indicating that this is the case. But what about Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman? Wonder Woman just got a rebooted origin. Geoff Johns himself just got finished with Superman Secret Origin last year. And what of Batman Inc. and Batman and Robin? Grant Morrison seems to have plans in motion and Damian Wayne has finally started coming into his own. Are we done with all of that at the end of the summer? And let's now forget that Blackest Night and Brightest Day both just brought a handful of characters back to life and into new territory. And we already know that DC plans to keep characters like Jaime Reyes and the new Batwoman around and in fact want to try and diversify their line-up of heroes a little more.
So the only conclusion I can see as plausible is this: DC isn't wiping the slate completely clean. There's too much going on and too much still being planned for them to just up and do away with everything. Instead, I'm thinking that Flashpoint is going to end with Barry Allen having to fix the DC Universe, but unfortunately can't repair everything completely like before. Instead, he's forced to repair it all as best he can, which leads to whatever changes we get. For all I know I'm wrong on that completely, but I just don't see a total reset in order here.
As for why there resetting, the answer is obvious: they want new customers and more sales. Comic book companies need new blood reading their product and DC is trying something new to make that happen. This is even more obvious when you consider that they're pushing for day one releases of each of the 52 renumbered series. Comic shops aren't exactly the most lively places and some cities and towns don't even have any. Imagine how many potential customers there are with no access to the newest DC titles every week. That's who DC wants to attract.
Honestly though, outside of this, I don't think there's enough information to really gauge just how positive or negative a thing this is. We just found out about all of this yesterday and we've still got September solicits and San Diego Comicon coming our way, both of which should shed a little more light onto just what we should come to expect in terms of what DC is putting out. So for now, I think everyone just needs to take a breath, step away from the computer for a bit, and calm down. This isn't the end of the world and who knows, maybe we're about to see something really great coming out of DC.
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