REBOOTS WELCOMED?: THE NEW FIFTY-TWO

Written by Diane N. Tran


Yesterday, on Wednesday, August 31st, DC Comics scrapped its entire publishing line for September in order to reinvigorate itself with a reboot — or a relaunch, as they're calling it.  This historic event consists of the release fifty-two first issues in a span of one month, starring rejuvenated versions of its iconic comic book heroes, such as Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, etc, and a storyline that had been previously rebooted twenty-five years earlier in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH.  Fan reaction has been mix, from massive issues like the paraplegic Oracle walking out of her wheelchair to the tiniest issues like Wonder Woman having retractable pants.

While I personally disapprove, strongly and pessimistically, of this reboot for countless reasons that are my own, the NEW FIFTY-TWO has started with a bang, whether good or bad — and is, thus far, here to stay.  Because I was unable to sleep the night before due my excitement and/or dread, I couldn't decide which, of picking up my brand-new issue of Justice League #1, I began to type up fifty-two reasons on why the reboot might (emphasis on might) be a good idea on my Facebook.  It took about twenty-four hours to compile and complete on the appointed starting date.  These are fifty-two of the most frustrating, most annoying, most inelegant, most senseless, most mind-bogglingly stupid aspects of DC universe in a nutshell.  Fifty-two things that always ground my gears in the worst possible way.  Perhaps, due to this reboot/relaunch, these aspects could be changed, fixed, simplified, or otherwise forgotten for the better.

1. Darkseid, the god of all that is evil, shows up in Mr. Miracle's house, sitting in his favourite chair, drinking his good brandy, and hands him a porn tape of Superman bangin' his wife, Big Barda.  No, really!  While Mr. Miracle and Big Barda are among my favourite couples in DC, this might have been funny in an Elseworld but, no, this is right there in continuity, it's canon, and it fills two issues of ACTION COMICS, the longest-running series in American comics.  This is pretty low, even for Darkseid, but it appears that it's the petty victories that make Darkseid smile the most.
2. While Kevin Smith has a dedicated fanbase, his comics aren't for everyone (and the same can be said about his movies).  Sure, he's a fan of Batman, but BATMAN: CACOPHONY was one of the most frustratingly lame story arcs in Bat-history.  He dumbs down and homosexualizes the Joker.  While this can be an interesting idea, Grant Morrison's ARKHAM ASYLUM: A SERIOUS HOUSE ON SERIOUS EARTH tossed this idea around with great effect, the only reason he did this is to make his own villain, Onomatopoeia, look better by comparison.  That's it.
3. Again, one of the worst things Kevin Smith did to Batman is in THE WIDENING GYRE where one of Batman's explosive devices accidentally sets off and causes him to pee in his Batsuit, which really makes wearing your underwear on the outside of your pants seem impractical.  Batman has a device for everything, except something to prevent a "bladder spasm" (and, yes, those were his exact words).  Classy.
4. Will Pfeifer's time on the CATWOMAN series could be tiresome and hackneyed one week and tear-jerkily Shakespearean the next week.  While Catwoman (Selina Kyle) was dating Slam Bradley, a middle-aged private detective, she met his younger, handsomer son, Sam Bradley, does the horizontal mambo without a condom, he dies, she gets pregnant, carries the baby to term, and gives birth to bouncing baby named Helena Kyle, a Robin-in-training, who got kidnapped constantly.  Rather than taking responsibility for her actions, like an abortion or motherhood in general, Selina gives her child away and our little feline fatale returns to the status quo.
5. Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), one of the most-loved legacy superheroes of comic history, can be described as a Batman without all the emotional baggage. He was fun, geeky, loveable, snarky, and always pulled out comedic gold whenever he teamed up with his best bud, Booster Gold.  Then, out of nowhere, the trusted publicist and bankroller to the Justice League International, Maxwell Lord, turns evil and shoots Blue Beetle, point blank, in the head and without a fight.  Poor guy died like a chump...
6. In revenge of Blue Beetle's tragic death, Wonder Woman, whose mission was to bring the Amazonian ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to man's world, snaps Maxwell Lord's neck and kills him.  You know, for peace and stuff...
7. Voted by fans (and I was among them), Jason Todd (Robin II) was beaten to death by the Joker with a crowbar.  His death was a shock and tragedy — and no one felt the blow more than Batman, to which he blamed the incident on himself because he unable prevent it in time.  Then, in another shocking turn of events, Jason Todd is reborn and transformed into the villain known as the Red Hood.  As a strange result of this, writers just recently began to mob together on whose to blame for his death and vilification.  Rather than allowing Batman to blame himself, which is how the character should be correctly portrayed, writers shifted the blame onto Jason himself, saying that it was Jason's own damn fault that he killed himself, that he was naturally bad to the bone from the beginning and, thus, would eventually turn evil anyway, and none of this is true!  Jason was there to help his mother, the Joker popped up out of nowhere, and killed him in a random happenstance.  His death was no one's fault but the Joker himself.  End of story.
8. Speaking of which, do you know the official explanation of how Jason Todd returned from the dead?  Superboy-Prime, the whiniest, most hated character in DC, in a fit of fanboy rage, punches the Source Wall that lies on the edge of the known universe in space and changes reality, resulting in realty-bending radiation that sprinkles down, travels billions upon billions of light-years, and makes Jason Todd rise from the grave.  Yes, that's the official answer!  I'm not making that up!  (Honestly, the recent animated BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD film explained it infinitely better!)
9. Superman, struggling with his connections to humanity because he's Kryptonian (notwithstanding the fact that he's possibly the most human superhero in comic history), goes on a year-long, soul-searching walkabout — just walk, not fly — where he becomes a dick to all his friends, messes up their lives, bellyaches, revokes his American citizenship, bellyaches some more, and then wraps everything in two pages with a pretty, pink gift-bow at the end.  Ugh.
10. Barbara Gordon isn't the biological daughter of James Gordon, but his niece.  When did this happen?  Always, actually.  Her parents were killed in an automobile accident back when she was thirteen; her uncle and his wife Barbara (yes, her name was Barbara) adopted her.  Wife Barbara divorces James, taking their son, James, Jr. with her, and James, Sr, married Sarah Essen and they kept Niece Barbara.  Confused yet?
11. The Joker, just to piss off Batman, breaks into the home of James Gordon, shoots Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) between her legs, cripples her, strips her naked, (allegedly) rapes her, as he takes photographs of her in excruciating pain, then kidnaps the Commissioner Gordon, strips him naked, and is bound down by midgets, while forcing him to look at the photos he took of the rape of Barbara.  Honestly, when do the Joker's antics stop becoming "good fun"?
12. The Dick Grayson-Barbara Gordon romance is one hell of a roller-coaster ride that really, by now, needs to go somewhere official for once.  When Babs gathers enough courage to confess her love for Dick with flowers and chocolates, Starfire answers the door, wearing Dick's jacket and little else.  Whoops.  Dick proposes to her another time and she refuses, doubting their feelings for one another.  Damn.  After being crippled, Dick and Babs finally have sex, then he confesses he's engaged to another woman.  Fuuuuck!
13. To date, poor Dick Grayson (Robin I/Nightwing/Batman II) has been raped a total of three times (and counting). Supervillain Tarantula raped an unconscious Nightwing on a rooftop, he was mind-controlled for dream sex by Raven, and slept with Mirage who was disguised as his then-girlfriend Starfire.
14. The Shado incident (where she "sexes up" an unconscious, critically injured Green Arrow in his hospital bed), which was only just recently acknowledged as being rape, was treated by many writers, particularly Judd Winick, as having been an example of Green Arrow cheating on Black Canary.  Rape is rape, whether it was instigated by a man or a woman.
15. Doctor Light, who is the lamest, goofiest villain of all-time (and he's right up there with Mr. Polka-Dot Man), breaks into the Watch Tower, the Justice League headquarters in space, rapes the beloved wife of Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, then goes off to kill Firestorm, Robin III's (Tim Drake's) father, and then Sue herself.  Convenient universe-wide amnesia.  Cue credits.
16. The daughter of Arsenal, Lian Harper, is killed in a completely preventable and senseless way.  Poor Roy Harper (Speedy I/Red Arrow/Arsenal) gets his arm ripped off in a similarly senseless way, gets a cyber arm because he can, becomes impotent for no reason, takes heroin because it was there, thinks a dead cat is his daughter because he's high as a kite, and starts bashing that dead cat over people's heads because — it was just a stupid story!
17. Black Adam plays THREE STOOGES with Psycho-Pirate by taking two fingers, shoving them into his eye sockets, into his brain — and, nuk-nuk-nuk, he dies.
18. After several wonderful years where he reformed and made a living as a private investigator, challenging Batman to the title of "World's Greatest Detective," the supercriminal-turned-antihero known as the Riddler was caught in the blast-zone of a bomb and was, magically, converted back into a villain again.  Character development, exit stage right!
19. After the bomb incident (which also destroyed his fashion sense with him), the Riddler was allowed to breed and out popped a nearly fully-grown daughter named Enigma.  She's an obnoxious little snot who doesn't speak in riddles, but speaks in really, really bad jokes.  Kill her, kill her with fire!
20. Grant Morrison's entire RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE arc!  I'll accept that you killed him off if you do it right, but FINAL CRISIS ended horribly by having Batman, who vowed on the grave of his murdered parents to never use a gun, use a gun on Darkseid, shooting him in the head, and promptly getting himself transported millions of years into the past.  To make matters worse, he travels through time and becomes Cave-Batman, Witchhunter Batman, Pirate Batman, Cowboy Batman, and Thomas Wayne survives his murder and becomes a Punisher-like Batman, taking away the revenge-fueled motivation that made Bruce Wayne's Batman great.  (At least, Dick Grayson turned out okay as the new Batman.  Oh, wait, he's Nightwing again...  Shit!)
21. Speaking of Thomas Wayne still being alive and turned into a Punisher-Batman, do you remember Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley)?  No?  Well, there's good reason why.  Back when Bane broke Bruce's back in KNIGHTFALL, out of the ashes, a new ultra-violent Batman named Azrael took his place.  He was an awful, bland, stupid character and, to add insult to injury, he defeats Bane in three pages.  Absolutely impossible!  Don't dumb your most epic villain down in order to make the dumber character look better by comparison.  When Azrael died, no one cared.  Wait, Azrael's came back and it's not Jean-Paul Valley?  I still don't care!
22. Beast Boy metamorphoses into a nematode, a small worm, to retrieve Raven's chakra, which has been swallowed by Brother Blood.  Instantaneously, he gets Brother Blood to regurgitate him as well as the chakra.  Eww.
23. Bart Allen was Impulse, quits being the sidekick to Jay Garrick's Flash, tries to be independent as Kid Flash, disintegrates, falls into an alternate dimension, artificially ages, becomes adult Flash, dies tragically to make way for Wally West as the new Flash, resurrects, de-ages, becomes Impulse again, changes back to Kid Flash again, becomes adult Flash yet again, dies again, and resurrects as a zombie.  When did Bart stop becoming a character and became the Fastest MacGuffin Alive?
24. While I personally loved the entire BATMAN: CATACLYSM and NO MAN'S LAND arcs when an horrible earthquake hitting Gotham City (years before 9/11), with one exception:  After months and months, a man behind the event was teased — the Quakemaster?  Who?  And the Quakemaster was really the Ventriloquist, the man behind the puppet who can't pronounce his "B"s.  What?  Later, it was actually just a natural event.  Huh?  Well, that was a lame segue-way.
25. What can I say about JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE where characters do, in fact, cry for (or shout, pout, or otherwise demand) justice?  And more justice, and some more justice, then add the word after each word balloon thereafter.  Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) watches Star City get destroyed, kills the supervillain Prometheus in cold blood, poses dramatically over the corpse as if he was a deer, loses Black Canary, goes to jail, gives up his identity, and gets himself exiled to a weird forest all for the sake of vengeance — I mean, justice!
26. Batgirl (Cassandra Cain), who dedicated her life to be a peacekeeper, resurfaces as the leader of the League of Assassins!  Facepalm!  To rectify this mistake, DC made Deathstroke the Terminator, archenemy of the Teen Titans, brainwash her with a syringe to the head and everything returns to the status quo.  (Writers, again, tip-toe around insidious paedophilia angle of Deathstroke.  Funny thing that the animated series, TEEN TITANS, meant for kids, was more open about his "paedo" nature.  Go talk to Terra, she knows what I'm talking about...)
27. If you thought Deathstroke and Terra/Cass was bad, Green Lantern Hal Jordon gets a thirteen-year-old alien girlfriend named Arisia.  He rejects her advances at first, then she physically ages herself into an adult in seconds and he's like "Okay, that's cool!  Boobs!"  They date, have sex, and act like the rest of the team are being assholes for questioning their relationship, as though this wasn't basically statutory rape or something.  Hurm.
28. Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend, Alex DeWitt, was murdered and shoved into a refrigerator by Major Force and it launched a revolution (and, of course, Gail Simone's career).  The term "Women in Refrigerators," where a female character is otherwise killed, maimed, or de-powered as a means to catapult the plot forward, primarily for the benefit of the male character to react, was heard around the world.  The biggest problem that detractors had isn't necessarily that she died, or even that she was killed in a grisly manner, but more that she was created to do so.  Her sole purpose of life was to be killed, hence she became the first "Woman in Refrigerators"...
29. Green Lantern Guy Gardner, after months of pining, asks a fifteen-year-old Ice on a date.  Despite being jailbait, he takes her to porno theatre on their first date, which I'm sure is also illegal in all fifty states as well.
30. Green Lantern John Stewart failed to prevent the destruction of the planet Xanshi by an avatar of the Anti-Life Equation (a quasi-mythological philosophical/mathematical formula for the total control over the free will of sentient beings).  Its sole survivor, a Green Lantern named Fatality, vowed revenge against him.  After years of intergalactic destruction and mass murder, even acquiring a Yellow Ring of Fear, Fatality turns into a Star Sapphire and, influenced by the violet power of lllllove, forgives John, they become lovers, and no one speaks of her crimes ever again.  The end.
31. Golden Age Steve Trevor was a fighter pilot who was shot down by enemy flyers, crashed on Themyscira, brought Diana to man's world as their ambassador, became her primary love interest, and fought crime alongside her (in a half-partner and half-sidekick sort of way).  After CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, this backstory was changed:  His lost mother crashes on Themyscira, helps the Amazons win against monster by using a gun, and she dies. Steve becomes a much older character who is manipulated by Ares to bomb the island, fights against his demonic possession, crashes his plane in the water, Diana rescues him, there's no romantic relationship between them, and then he dies for no reason when he finally shows deeper feelings for her.  Bah.
32. Speedy (Mia Dearden), molested by her father and fell into child prostitution, became the new sidekick to Green Arrow and she's HIV-positive.  While a wonderful character and a wonderful addition in diversifying DC, surely in a universe where alien plagues, miracle surgeries, nanoprobes, and magical spells practically cure anyone at any time anywhere, logistically, why has poor Mia been allowed to remain ill?
33. Wildcat (Ted Grant), a longtime basher of metahumans, was gifted nine lives by magician Zatara, the father of Zatanna, to alter a curse placed upon him by King Inferno when he refused to throw a fight — and he's totally okay with that!  He dies finally and suddenly returns, learning that it's nine lives for every "cycle," meaning he has to be killed nine times in rapid succession to be killed permanently.
34. Zatanna has turned into the DC equivalent of the Scarlet Witch, where every problem and every situation can be solved by her MacGuffin magic, (literally) appearing out of fuckin' nowhere, whether the characters could have solved the entire thing by themselves or not.
35. Donna Troy/Wonder Girl has turned into the DC equivalent of Jean Grey/Phoenix, dying and resurrecting again and again and again and again.
36. Raven and Mary Marvel have turned into the DC equivalents of Storm and Rogue, where they turn from good to evil again and again and again and again!
37. Taking over as the new Ventriloquist after the late Arnold Wesker died, Sugar (Peyton Riley), who has fallen in love with Scarface (and, yes, she performs sex on the puppet, too), dies at the bottom of Gotham Harbour, having put her estranged husband in cement shoes, and forced by Batman to sacrifice her own life if she wanted to take his.  She was too much of an interesting character to die.
38. For a character who fears fire and is physically/emotionally/psychologically weakened by it, why does Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz) have burning lasers shooting out of his eyes?  And don't tell me his laser vision doesn't set things on fire because it totally does!
39. Terry Berg comes out as a homosexual, hurrah, and was on his way to be the ever-loveable token gay friend and confidant to Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, only to be gay-bashed by thugs a few issues later, leaving him in a coma.  Later, Terry wakes up and finds that Kyle has left him a duplicate power ring, implying that he will soon become a Lantern himself.  However, Hal Jordan would return from the dead, squeeze Kyle out of the the GREEN LANTERN book title, and his supporting cast faded out of our memories, which is a damn shame, too, because it would have been great to have Terry become the first openly gay member of the Teen Titans or even the Justice League.  A damn shame, I say.
40. Golden Age Doctor Mid-Nite's (Dr. Charles McNider) sexuality remained ambiguous for over half a century, sixty-one years to be precise, causing fans to theorize that he was a possible homosexual.  Recently, in JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #40, it was "proved" (kinda-sorta, in a really vague sort of way) he was heterosexual.  I never liked this, no matter how much they pussyfooted around it.  DC talks about diversifying, adding lesbian characters to their cast, but gay men are practically nowhere to be found.  I personally think it would be more interesting to see Mid-Nite as a gay man forced in the closet during a time when homosexuality was considered wrong.
41. In the first FIFTY-TWO, the original Question (Vic Sage) died a useless death: He collapsed on top of a mountain, in the middle nowhere, in the snow — by cancer, and is probably still rotting away there at this very moment.  Is it so hard to have him die while saving the world?  Is a "hero's death" for one of my favourite characters too much to ask?  In addition of having the cheapest death of all-time, curiously, no one seems to care that Vic died, or even acknowledge that he's been missing either.  Nobody talks about him at all, not even his former lover Huntress.  That's just bizarre...
42. Honestly, I don't like Renee Montoya as the new Question.  Not because she doesn't deserve her own comics, it's because Renee was a better, more interesting character when she was a regular civilian, when she was the seasoned homicide detective from GOTHAM CENTRAL, because what made her awesome was she was a hero without a mask.  As a honest cop in a sea of corruption, she disapproved of Batman's methods and vigilantism in general, but concluded that it was an necessary evil and that she never wanted to be a part of the "freaks" herself.  However, all that apparently changed when she was tapped to be the new Question!  I always felt the character was "disrepected" when writers forced her to slip on the mask on.  Although her recent Question stories have been decent, originally, they fell short.  For example, in COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS, Flash supervillains Trickster and Pied Piper attempt explain why they're committing crimes to Batwoman and the new Question by putting on a hand-puppet show.  Although Batwoman, rightly, punches them in the face, the new Question says, however, that the puppets convinced her and she lets them go.  Jim Henson would be proud, I guess...
43. Scarecrow develops the closest thing to human emotions towards an albino scientist named Fright who promptly betrays him, tampers with his genes, transforms him into the gigantic, monstrous Scarebeast, then runs off with the new Black Mask (Jeremiah Arkham).  When we see Scarecrow after the incident, he's miraculously cured, but it was never explained how or why.
44. Lex Luthor acquires the Orange Ring of Avarice and promptly loses it in three pages.  Lex Luthor, later, acquires the Black Ring of Death and promptly loses it in the next page.  For a a super genius whose brainpower rivals that of Batman, he apparently is really bad at keeping jewelry, no matter how important they may be.
45. Lex Luthor opens the Phantom Zone and allows a giant monster that could destroy the universe out.  Using the technology he has at hand, he defeats it and becomes a god; but he has to choose between letting go of all his hate to keep his powers and, thus, bring peace to the galaxy, or letting go of his new-found powers in order to have the personal satisfaction of killing Superman himself.  He chooses haaaaate!
46. Driven mad by grief when his hometown Coast City was destroyed, Hal Jordan, thinking he could save those seven million lives, commits the mass slaughtering of the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, stealing their rings, absorbing their power, becoming the villain Parallax, and finally commits suicide by throwing himself into a sun.  When he resurrects years later, Hal explains he was possessed by an giant yellow alien bug and, thus, came back as an unblemished character as if he never did anything wrong in the first place.
47. Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen gets superpowers, dresses in a horrible hand-me-down costume, calls himself Mr. Action, tries to learn people's secret identities just to be a weasel, gets a girlfriend from the fifth-dimension for no apparent reason, becomes popular hero yet causes more damage than the villains do, learns his powers came from Darkseid, turns evil, glows like Kryptonite to kill Superman, dies, resurrects, gets his Soul Battery powers removed, is normal again, loses everything, and no one cares.
48. After a hard day fighting Floronic Man, the Atom (Ryan Choi) was stabbed by Deathstroke, clawed by Cheshire, burned by Cinder, slung by Tattooed Man, shut down by Osiris, and they mailed his corpse to Dwarfstar in a matchbox as proof of his death.  His friend and mentor Ray Palmer vows revenge and reclaims the Atom mantle for himself.  This is yet another example of how Asians in comics are killed off for no other reason other than to make way for a Caucasian character to take their place.  Make way for white supremacy!
49. In a flashback told by the Shade (Richard Swift), the original Ragdoll (Peter Merkel, Sr) terrorized Opal City by rallying a cult of followers willing to murder for him.  When he was captured by Starman (Ted Knight), with the help of his fellow Justice Society friends, Ragdoll threatens to hunt down his loved ones, specifically Ted's sons.  With an explosion of cosmic energy allegedly — don't you just love that judicious word "alleged" — from Starman's cosmic rod, Ragdoll dies painfully by exploding into a million glittery pieces.  Although Starman slaying the villain is under dispute by witnesses Golden Age Flash (Jay Garrick) and Golden Age Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Ragdoll's body did conspicuously disappear from the morgue that afternoon.  Curiouser and curiouser.
50. Drugged and tortured, Batman was brainwashed by a conman and cult leader named Deacon Blackfire and orders his cult of homeless people to rampage and mass murder through Gotham City.  Eventually, Batman frees himself from their control, jumps into the Batmobile (that looks like a monster truck on steroids), runs over Deacon, and the Goddamn Batman kills him in cold blood.  Damn!
51. The Man of Steel dies, but not at the hands of arch-foes like Brainiac or Lex Luthor, nor was he bested by Batman or General Zod.  He was killed by a total unknown — an inarticulate beast from ancient Krypton named Doomsday.  There was no complex or sinister plot, merely strength versus strength, and with Doomsday intent on destroying Metropolis, the Last Son of Krypton put every ounce of strength into his final battle, and died in Lois Lane's arms.  But that's okay because Superman's exploits continued on and on until they ran out of ideas for a dead man to star in, which weren't many to begin with, and brought him back.
52. In a ploy to make her into a better feminist icon, Wonder Woman was de-powered and became a kung-fu crimefighter à la Emma Peel.  Just as quickly as she lost her powers, she gained them again — and now she flies for no apparent reason.  Who knew?

While I can rant and rave all I want, the cold, hard truth of the matter at hand is comics are a business and it is important to realize that, as a business, the companies are obligated to sell or die.  Sometimes, a great story with great art just aren't enough and these enormous marketing ploys are used, more often than I'd care for, to boost sales — from character deaths, to crossovers, to universe-wide events, to civil wars, until that faithful day happens when they could do no more, but wipe the slate clean and start from scratch yet again.

And when you take a step back, to take a breath and soak everything in, one can't help but realize that once sales start to slip and the excitement flattens, where can you possibly go from here?  Is there anything that could top this?  And if we even survive this ploy, can we survive the next?

But that's business, my friend.