Monday, August 29, 2011

Last minute questions on the new 52

We are basically only a few days away from the start of DC's new 52 and there are still a few unanswered questions bouncing around in my brain. So I figured I would bounced them off of the internet as well.

1) There are four Lantern-related books in the relaunch. However, none of them appear to feature Hal Jordan (either at all or in any major role). So for those among us who don't mind the existence and appearance of the other Lanterns but are for the most part strictly Hal fans and don't want to fork over three bucks (and the time involved in reading) to read tales of other Lanterns (even more specifically Sinestro) ---- what Lantern title is there for us? Which one are we supposed to read?

2) Oracle is no more and we have a young Barbara Gordon as Batgirl in her place. It stands to reason that a Lazarus Pit is responsible for this change. Not only can it heal her lower body paralysis, but it could also potentially make her younger. If that is the direction you want to go, so be it. But we've been told that Oracle did exist in the new DCU and that the Bat-titles are mostly being left alone. If that is indeed true, the Birds of Prey happened with Oracle, Dinah, and Helena (along with Zinda and several other heroes who helped on occasion). So if Barbara is back to her old Batgirl-self ... why isn't she working with Dinah? Why isn't she a member of BoP? Why isn't Helena? It doesn't make sense.

3) Where is Power Girl? (and don't say Earth-2 with the JSA because I might have to throw a heavy object at someone) And what about Terra (Atlee, not Tara Markov). Are we going to see her again?

4) Tony Daniel has mentioned that he is removing the Egyptian origins and reincarnation aspects from Hawkman's history. I'm mostly indifferent to this. But if those things are gone, does that mean there is no Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman? I think I'm ok with no Shayera. But what about Kendra Saunders? Do we have to lose her too?

5) Where is Wally West? And why doesn't the DC brass acknowledge the fact that the target demographic (essentially everyone under 35) doesn't recognize Barry Allen (outside of the recent Rebirth series) as their Flash? Essentially anyone who has been reading comics since the mid-80s has known Wally West as the Flash. He was the Flash in the comic books and he was the Flash in the Justice League cartoon (the initial version and JL Unlimited). The only people who give a rip about Barry Allen are 40 or older. And these are not the people who are going to be driving digital sales (and chances are, they are not driving a significant percentage of the physical paper comic sales either -- and if they are, then DC has even bigger problems than a line relaunch is going to solve).

6) If you're going to have an Earth-2 (it was announced at FanExpo Canada there would be a JSA book and it is set on Earth-2), then what is the point of folding the Wildstorm characters into the regular DCU? Why do they have to occupy the same world/dimension? Why couldn't they be on an Earth-3 or Earth-W or whatever? Do we really need StormWatch interacting with the Justice League? Grifter, Voodoo, and the rest of the Wildcats crossing paths with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman?

7) What happened to Rose Wilson (Ravager)?

8) We've already seen a few titles announced with different artists by the second and third issues (in fact, there is one title that has a different art team on the first, second, and third issue). And we are hearing some of the reasons are due to scripts getting to the artists late because of story changes or shifts in creative teams. One thing that turns me off from a new title faster than just about anything else is the publisher not having their act together enough to have stock piled enough enough issues to have a consistent creative team through (at the very least) the first arc. Given some of the relaunch seems hap-hazard at best (late changes to creative teams and the lack of cohesive creative teams following), why should we trust that DC editorial (from the top down) actually has their $h1t together on this whole thing?