DC, the comic magnate owned by Time Warner, and who's catalog of characters include Superman, Batman, Starman, and Wonder Woman is revamping their entire universe, starting today.
Readers now, Mr. DiDio said, "are more savvy, and they're looking for more complexity and more depth for them to be following the stories on a monthly basis." A crucial phase of the campaign starts today with the release of "Infinite Crisis," the first of a seven-part monthly series that will bring together all the story threads - and the superheroes - that have been evolving in separate series over the past three years.
Toward the end of "Infinite Crisis," the characters will be catapulted a year into the future, some emerging with significantly new outlooks. To explain their transformation, next May DC will begin publishing "52," a yearlong weekly series set in "real" time chronicling the gap in the heroes' lives. By the end of the process, DC hopes to have recreated a universe of superheroes more in keeping with the times.
DC Comics has done this before but for different reasons. The results divided the comic fan base some not so happy, others quite satisfied. Interestingly enough, artist George Perez will take command of the pencils during the Infinite project just as he did twenty years ago with the original DC universe snow-globe job.
I would shrug this off as just another DC stunt to sell more books, which it still is of course, but the writing talent selected might make for an interesting ride and outcome.
Tapped to do this work are renowned comic writers Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Mark Waid. Rucka does great work with a noir taint and he's likely the one who will add the 'grit'. Johns and Morrison have a way of crafting a good story lines with massive threads — Johns tells a good superhero story while Morrison has the ability to bring out left field and slam it on top of your head. Mark Wade is the co-creator behind the huge hit, and excellent read, Kingdom Come — painted by Alex Ross, it's close to being coffee table quality.
Too long has it been since I've walked into the comic shop. These days I get my fix from the occasional graphic novel or trade paperback but this might be worth taking a look-see.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Oh man... I started reading comics heavily right after The Dark Knight Returns was published. I was a DC devotee of Batman and Superman (and all the various spin-offs) until about 1997, when I just ran out of time to keep up.
It was while I was an addict that the big DC-shakeup of the 90s happened (Zero Hour), which was very cool (but not nearly as cool as the original Crisis you mentioned). The scope of these events are always amazing, and an enormous amount of thought is put into how they will affect every title in the universe, even if it means killing off big names.
I haven't kept up with the superhero universe of late, but Infinite Crisis might get me in the stores on Wednesdays again (as DC intends :).
Maybe DC should realise it has nothing to do with being not caught up to the times. They just plain suck.
Make mine Marvel!
I'm having deja-vu all over again.
Marvel pulled a trick like this back in the Eighties and called it "Infinite Earths" or something like that. Their spiel at the time sounded almost exactly like Mr DiDio's.
In spite of the promised sea-change in the Marvel Universe at the time, the whole fiasco just ended up looking like a grandiose way to sell more crappy comics and ushered in the "variant-cover" scheme. Spider-man went back to his old costume after overwhelming fan demand and only Venom remains as a character from that era.
Personally, I think that some of the best make overs in the DC universe have been the small ones wrought by passionate craftsmen like Alan Moore on Swamp Thing or Neil Gaiman on Sandman.
Maybe DC can pull this one off better than Marvel did at the time, but we'll just have to wait and see.
Do'h! My mistake!
I got to thinking about it and did some research and I now recall the "Infinite Earths" was DC after all, and not Marvel. I don't remember what the Marvel event was called, but as I recall, both those "events" occurred very close to each other and didn't result in any lasting or notable changes in either publisher's "universes".
I'm like you Greg, I'm a big sequential-art fan, but I haven't set foot in my local comics shop since my son was born about 6 years ago. At that time was getting the occasional trade PB and graphic novel for my fixes (Sandman, Preacher, Bone, Hellboy, etc.). However, I have literally thousands of comics and comix from about the mid-Seventies and earlier up until a few years ago and have always been a fan of the higher quality comics.
As and adult, I'm generally not a big fan of the superhero genre overall, but it always pains me when these grandiose schemes fail to live up the publisher's hype and end up looking like an elaborate scheme to sell more comics to gullible collectors.
I'm dating myself here, but as a kid, I had many of the first issues of the Mighty Marvel Universe from the Sixties. Somewhere I even have my "Mighty Marvel Marching Society" certificate and badge, I think. Maybe that explains my memory lapse.
Now where's my walker? It's time for my "Sit and Stretch" exercises...
Well, if Grant Morrison's onboard, that raises my confidence in DC being able to pull this off.
Last Grant Morrison book I really enjoyed was Aztec (DC anyway, I thought Marvel Boy was pretty cool), which was abruptly canceled after it's tenth issue. But you're right, he brings a lot of punch to the writing table.
I'am not a big fan of comics, but WulffMorgenthaler cracks me up.
The revamping of "New Coke" seemed like a good idea at the time, too.
DaveMo: are you talking about Infinity Gauntlet or Secret Wars?
I don't recall Infinity Gauntlet or Secret Wars remaking the Marvel Universe. Secret Wars II might have made a bigger impact because the Beyonder came to earth. What I liked most about Infinity Gauntlet wasn't so much the storyline, but the artwork of George Perez. He hadn't done much Marvel after he reached his peak with The New Teen Titans. It's been too long since I've read my collection. Might be time for me to dust'em off and read.
One of my good friends is a DC Comic Artist and he and his wife were hanging at my pad tonight. He was talking about some of the new stuff he was working on, and how the color artists had screwed up a few of his scenes by picking the wrong shade of red when I brought up this whole "Infinite Crisis" thing. He said that things inside DC right now are crazy and that almost everybody is working on this project. He wouldn't disclose any juicy details, but said that although, yes, it is a marketing scheme, they're actually going to do something big. We'll see I guess.
Joe:
Geez, I don't remember! That was a while ago and I wasn't particularly into the superhero genre then, particularly Marvel's. But I think it was Marvel's Secret Wars. I don't remember the Infinity Gauntlet at all. Was that DC?
During that period I was collecting a lot of the newer alternative publishers comics like Pacific and Eclipse and such. I just remember that neither the Marvel or DC events seemed to live up to all the hype from the publishers, and so I'm am wary of this similar attempt another generation later.
Infinity Gauntlet was Marvel. Thanos created an all powerful Gauntlet of the Infinity Gems (collected in a plot line that lasted about a year in various books) to make himself all powerful. It was only six issues and didn't really change anything, except maybe for Silver Surfer and spun off a short lived Infinity Watch series...
Despite that... It was a very good read.
Sounds to me like they're trying to build a reality TV type of atmosphere around some of the new books.
Crisis- supergirl and a dead Flash?
Secret Wars- two many 'normal' characters and their lame 80's hair and tight pants in space, plus stupid concept and payoff. Black Spidey Costume Forever!
Infinity Gauntlet-The consumately evil villian revelling in being as bad as possible. 'Nuff Said.
It's funny, I grew up reading Marvel and stopped in college. Only reason I went back to reading comics was because Jim Lee started drawing again, but for DC (Batman Hush storyline). Anyway these days all I read are DC books (mostly Wildstorm stuff), but I didn't even know about this particular event until I stepped into the comic store for Jim Lee's autograph session at Midtown Comics.