The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Last week I reviewed Justice League issue 1, the lead off book in the complete revamp of the DC Universe, the first of 52 new number 1s coming in September.

And I found it too quick a read, and not that satisfying. But over the last few days I’ve been thinking about the comic and more importantly what it represents, what the whole New 52 thing means.

It rather surprised me that, on reflection, I actually found Justice League a disappointment not because it wasn’t a great comic, or that it wasn’t a good story. In actual fact, it was a pretty good introduction to the Justice league, a nicely worked first few moments in the first storyline that will eventually reveal the new League to this new DC world.

My big problem was that, as first contact to this whole new DC it just didn’t feel epic enough. And thinking that led me to realise that, actually,  I was really rather looking forward to the whole DC relaunch because of what it meant to me as a lapsed superhero reader.

I often bemoan that I used to love superhero comics but now I find I’m only really comfortable when it’s a comic that isn’t necessarily part of the huge continuity that exists at Marvel and DC.

Suddenly, with the DC 52, there’s a moment of real hope in my cynical heart – if this does anything right, anything at all, maybe it will strip away all the old continuity, that prevented my entry into the DC Universe proper and stopped me reading some potentially good, possibly great books.

And there was the hope – right there on page 1 of JL#1: 5 years ago.

Those three little words mean that the DC Universe may only be 5 years old in this new era, and by definition that must mean there’s a whole lot of stuff that just has to be ditched, simply because it can’t fit in the timescale.

I certainly hope so. Every time I read something online from someone complaining that this was wrong, how can it be five years ago when that doesn’t give enough time for X,Y, and Z to happen, my hope increases.

The lack of a crippling continuity might be the thing that does the trick here – it could be a way of increasing readership at both ends – old readers like me who couldn’t keep up, and new readers who might just get drawn in to the whole thing afresh.

And remember – if you’re one of those fretting that this ditching of continuity means that the stories you loved didn’t happen. They did.

They did because they exist still. You remember them. You read them.

And as Alan Moore said in the 1986 story “Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow” as he ended the Superman and Action Comics titles prior to John Byrne’s Man Of Steel reboot…………..