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Hey, remember when DC published a crossover event depicting corporate comics publishers as interdimensional parasites feeding off of existing stories? Fun times.
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May 21, 2016 01:25
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Dexie posted:Newsarama just put up their review of the issue and gave it a 10/10. Comes in both the spoilers and no spoilers variety! Sounds like a great time to link to what David Brothers wrote about their godawful coverage of Before Watchmen! http://4thletter.net/2012/02/newsarama-needs-to-do-better/ http://4thletter.net/2012/04/if-newsarama-knew-better-it-would-do-better/
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May 21, 2016 03:39
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Seriously, what the gently caress is this from the Newsarama review: "Of course the cynicism of the DC Universe began here — and the only way to counteract that is to call out the “world’s greatest graphic novel” for its sins." Those aren't Watchmen's sins at all. Those are the sins of subsequent creators who took Watchmen as a model for what superheroes should be.
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May 21, 2016 03:47
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All hail Geoff Johns, bold repudiator of grim and gritty superhero comics. Also worth recalling that a few years before that, Johns made an earlier, ham-handed attempt to critique those comics in Infinite Crisis: 
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May 21, 2016 04:30
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X-O posted:Newsarama apparently just said gently caress it, secret's out, let's dump what we have on it. Here's some more pages. Hmm, Jackson Hyde Aqualad from Brightest Day? He wasn't originally gay, was he?
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May 21, 2016 05:01
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Two Tone Shoes posted:I understand what you're saying with the other stuff but this is utter nonsense. What Flashpoint became was not under his total guidance or control. They hijacked what was supposed to be a minor Flash Crossover event -- no bigger than Blackest Night -- and turned it into a way to reboot the universe because they were in a financial emergency. Then the New 52 happened where every book save a few corner cases were under heavy editorial scrutiny. IIRC, Wally West backup stories for the main Barry book, a Kid Flash ongoing series written by Sterling Gates, and (I'm more iffy on this one) a speedster team book called something like Flash: Feet First were all announced at one point in 2009 or thereabouts. They were all cancelled.
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May 21, 2016 05:23
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Toxxupation posted:It's bad when your medium reboot (if stuff like final and infinite crises were "soft" reboots and new 52 was a hard one) ends up adding even more continuity and confusing retcons. Johns and DiDio haven't stated it too explicitly, but reading between the lines of interviews with them this year, it's fairly clear that Rebirth is aimed primarily at lapsed DC readers. Winning over new readers was just a silly gimmick they tried last year.
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May 21, 2016 07:18
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First interview I've seen with Johns on this. Here's his take/spin/whatever you want to call it on the Watchmen twist, for what it's worth:quote:Johns’ final page is a doozy; after a long and winding search for who (within the DC universe) stole Batman and the other characters’ vitality, their reasons for being, their connections and legacies and history, Batman digs into the wall of the Batcave and discovers The Comedian’s pin, from Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel, Watchmen, which was published by DC in 1986 and 1987. Johns is, understandably, worried that the internet will explode at the plot twist, pitting DC’s superheroes against the Watchmen line-up, hoping for simple clicks based on the kookiness of the premise. “It’s more than that,” he says, and he’s right. For that reason, it’s a shame that Rebirth leaked, in disconnected pages and segments, on Reddit last night. The volume must be read, in its entirety, in order to be understood and appreciated. quote:Johns believes, correctly, that the core message of Watchmen was grossly misunderstood and manipulated in decades following its release. The comic, Johns believes, was a warning not to become disillusioned with the values that have defined DC from the beginning: justice, legacies, epic storytelling, love. Watchmen was not an instruction manual for writing contemporary hero comics. quote:Readers, and Johns himself, believe the creators of the ‘New 52’ comics, in part incorrectly inspired by what they thought was a manifesto in Watchmen, are to blame for the loss of many beloved storylines and distinctive tones across DC’s pantheon. The ‘New 52’, and the direction DC films have gone in lately, have homogenized DC’s characters as grim spectacles, punching up giant foes and not feeling anything in particular for their teammates. Johns, and DC, have made the stunning choice to embody that extra-textual threat in Dr. Manhattan, who will be the literal foe for Batman and the rest of DC’s heroes, moving forward. “I promise it’s not going to be Batman and company punching Dr. Manhattan a bunch of times. That’s not how you combat something like this,” Johns says, laughing. Personally, I find this rationale thoroughly unconvincing; if his intent was not to criticize Watchmen itself, but rather just subsequent creators misinterpreting Watchmen as an "instruction manual," then that intent is hopelessly muddled by the decision to cast an actual character from Watchmen as the villain. But I guess more subtle and well-thought-out metacommentary wouldn't have had the same headline-grabbing shock value.
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May 21, 2016 21:53
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Thing is: the lettered preview pages from the one-shot are actually pretty good! I expect a lot of the Rebirth books to be pretty good! Which just makes the pathetic, deeply cynical Watchmen twist stand out all the more.
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May 22, 2016 17:17
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Just cancelled my preorder for the one-shot; I'm not gonna call for a boycott, but I might as well put my money where my mouth is. Not buying any Rebirth book that features Watchmen characters, either.
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May 22, 2016 21:32
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Looking forward to DC Unbirth, a line of comics catering to extremely specific fetishes.
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May 22, 2016 22:35
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Little Mac posted:What the hell was Nightforce? Also, wasn't Voodoo supposed to be a big deal for some reason? Weren't the Daemonites also supposed to be a big deal? Did they ever reveal what the hell the Question was? They tried to sell a book just called "Sword and Sorcery!?" Why?! Why did I read the N52 as long as I did? IIRC, there was supposed to be a crossover centered around the Daemonites around fall 2012. Its abrupt cancellation is one of the things that led Rob Liefeld to very publicly and angrily quit DC.
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May 22, 2016 22:47
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I think the bare minimum for the Manhattan twist being defensible as a purely creative decision would be if Johns was actually willing to own the obvious symbolic implications of using Dr. Manhattan as he's used here: "Yes, we believe Watchmen was a deeply flawed work that's responsible for the grim and gritty superhero comics that have been published since 1986, and we're going to have the heroes of the DC Universe fight it and everything it represents head-on." It would be a highly controversial opinion, and not one I'd agree with, and crashingly unsubtle in its execution, but it'd at least be consistent with what's on the printed page.
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May 23, 2016 01:34
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It will definitely result in a decent sales boost for six months or so, maybe a bit more, but I highly doubt it'll fix any of their underlying problems.
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May 23, 2016 03:31
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PoshAlligator posted:I don't know how the comic book industry is doing right now but wouldn't it be better to try and make their comics easier to get into and not even more impenetrable? DiDio and Johns have been fairly clear that the primary intent of Rebirth is to win back lapsed DC readers. That said, the Rebirth one-shots *should* be pretty accessible if the writers have done their jobs right.
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May 23, 2016 13:29
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USA Today has some additional preview pages for the Atom, Blue Beetle, and Superman segments. http://amp.usatoday.com/story/84767346/
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May 23, 2016 15:33
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Norns posted:The Rebirth header on these books looks like garbage. The Rebirth logo is garbage, period. No idea what whoever designed it was thinking.
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May 24, 2016 01:47
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Oh, good, DC is giving away the Rebirth one-shot for free so I can legally read it and still not have to support it with my money. https://m.comixology.com/redeem?code=DCRebirthDCGames
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May 24, 2016 17:34
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SirDan3k posted:Yeah that's what he's trying to accomplish but he's failing because nobody but him sees Pandora as an embodiment of anything but horseshit. Since nobody likes Pandora and she was already established as the in-universe creator of the New 52, why not just reveal her as the real villain? At least the meta-criticism would be vaguely coherent.
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May 24, 2016 22:02
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WSJ may have won the title of worst Rebirth puff piece with just two sentences: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2016/05/25/how-dc-comics-is-confronting-the-legacy-of-watchmen-with-dc-universe-rebirth/ quote:Is the age of “Watchmen” dominating the comic-book conversation coming to an end? If DC Comics creative chief Geoff Johns has his way, it just might be. Yes, that's exactly why you'd hinge your biggest relaunch in five years on the shock value of introducing Watchmen characters into the DCU. Because you want people to stop talking about Watchmen.
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May 25, 2016 19:09
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