Flushpoint: Nostalgia Has Finally Brought the 90s Back

More than 80% (if not closer to 100% by the time you read this) is now know about DC's Relaunched series for September. 52 #1s, apparently all continuing series or mini-series (no one-shots so far as we know), many of them already controversial. The overall feeling I get is that of the late 80s and early 90s, when everyone was trying to be like the Image boys - in both artwork and tone - and the only refuge was DC's UK invasion of writers who created their own strange and dark corner of the DCU, until it was finally sequestered behind the Vertigo banner. And so it is again. Not only is Image co-founder Jim Lee leading a lukewarm redesign of dozens of costumes, but DC's bringing in various artists better known for their Image work like Booth, Capullo and - OH MY DEAR GOD NO, MY EYES, MY EYES!!! - Rob Liefeld.



(Note that when I talk about Image, I don't mean the Image that, to me, feels like the Dark Horse creator-owned comics of my youth - Invincible, Bulletproof Coffin, Infinite Vacation, Nonplayer. I mean the terrible X-Men/Wolverine clones of their very early output. Comics that were big on splash pages, but not on story. The ones with distorted anatomy, and plagued by chronic lateness. Those ones.)



Some of Jim Lee's Image characters are in fact going through the veil that separates Wildstorm comics from the DCU and being integrated into the DC comics line proper. Do we need a Grifter in the DCU? Well, I can't see why we would. And even when DC is using homegrown talent, there's a tendency to give the reigns over to people who are basically artists and not writers, often artists that haven't even proven they understand the basics of telling a story through pictures.



And once again, there will be a refuge from these EXTREME!!! superhero books in the form of that dark corner of the DCU. Strange books like Animal Man, Justice League Dark, Frankenstein, Swamp Thing, Resurrection Man and Demon Knights, have garnered applause where superhero announcements have generated ire and ridicule. Obviously, there's some kind of market for angsty, footless art and violent or buxom superheroes. There must be or else they wouldn't be trying to push yet another Jason Todd series on us ("because WE demanded it!"... apparently). The hope is that DC's new supernatural line will also get support in the marketplace, just as Morrison's Doom Patrol and Gaiman's Sandman once did. And there's reason to think there will be. Urban fantasy is all over the television and the cineplex. These might be comics for those flocking to Fringe, Twilight, Being Human and True Blood.



And as I did then, so will I doubtless do now, leaving superhero titles behind for that dark, more mature corner of the DCU, where WRITERS are still in charge. I remember a time when DC was all about its writers, and it's why it had become my preferred shared universe.



If I'm generally disappointed by the announcements, it's that Flushpoint seems like a step back. Have we not learned lessons from the 90s? Is that decade not derided by fans? Why go back to that? And on the matter of Relaunch vs. Reboot, not that the various announcements leave ANY semblance of a coherent strategy (Green Lantern seems to follow on from the current storyline, but the Justice League is "younger" and the Titans each get a new - and atrocious - origin), it feels like we're getting half-measures again. It's a reboot on properties we don't know what to do with. It's not when the architects of Flushpoint want to keep writing their same old story. Costumes are redesigned, but look the same, or are worse than ever. Characters with continuity-heavy backgrounds that make them non-viable are still getting books (Jason Todd and Arsenal being prime offenders). The first Crisis has shown that partial reboots only lead to confusion as to what the characters stories actually are, but beyond that, it doesn't go far enough, or else goes way too far.



There are two ways to move forward. Either you reboot everything, start fresh and invite readers to get in on the ground floor - of EVERYTHING (and this can work, think of the WB superhero cartoons, for example). Or you can just allow the superhero narrative to evolve by itself without any kind of retcon. I'm not a big fan of what Marvel's been up to in the last couple decades, but on a business level, they still kick DC's ass without ever creating a massive entry level opportunity. It's clear to me that the two shared universes' continuity are not the problem. Cost and format are the problem. But if you're not going to address that (or do so, again, with half-measures that make electronic copies the same price as already too-costly paper publications), then there is no stunt that can save your company in the long term. So if we do not accept a reboot as a real solution, it doesn't make sense to void all that continuity. But I won't go into a big speech about DC embracing its history, because you've read it all before. But this "let's continue some, but revise others"is just the kind of one step forward, two steps back publishing strategy that's been cramping their style. Worse, this time it looks like some creators are getting to do what they like because of their position (or proximity to someone higher up), while others are getting booted off their well-received projects. Ideas and designs are green lit not because of their merits, but because of who conceived of them.



At least, that's how it looks from here, perhaps as a way to justify the most mind-boggling of decisions.