A Quick "Defense" of the New 52

The following piece was written while I procrastinated and stressed about my finals. It also took about two hours compared to the three or four that I can spend nit-picking every detail of the things I typically post. Basically: it's not my best work here, but it's representative of my thoughts on a subject that's been floating around in my head for a while and wanted to get out. Read with caution.

 
I want to take a minute to discuss a topic that may seem outdated, but keeps appearing the more that I browse the web and lurk on comic book community social media outlets: DC’s New 52 Reboot.

The general consensus of readers falls into two camps: People who absolutely and passionately hate it, and people who have accepted its existence and choose to move on with their lives by reading the good titles.

I would like to stress here, before I elaborate on the title of this entry, that neither opinion is wrong or bad. Everyone has a right to think or feel a certain way about the direction of a company’s platform and approach to their product, especially considering that we are all consumers of said product and should be making educated purchases based on our tastes and overall quality of the work.

That being said, however, I’ve noticed that there continues to be—despite the fact that it’s been almost four years at this point—a considerable amount of complaining, bashing, insulting, and general angst hurled at the New 52 reboot and, to a lesser extent, those who read the titles and enjoy them without any real knowledge of the cannon that came before it.

I’m going to clarify right away that I don’t fit well under either readership label. The first comic I ever purchased on my own and read wasn’t a specific issue—it was a graphic novel—and it was from the 80’s. I have done a decent amount of research and investigation on my own of DC’s history but have read few comics between 1990 and 2011. The ones that I have were close enough to the reboot date that it practically doesn’t even matter; most of what happened in them (in least in Batman’s case) is still in continuity. I am more actively involved and, you know, reading things from the New 52 than I am with the pre-boot.

Part of this is a practicality issue. Volumes of comics before 2011 tend to be either nonexistent, hard to find, or pricey. In the case of Stephanie Brown’s Batgirl volumes, they’re upwards of $50 used. I’m assuming this is because of her “character-in-limbo” status that’s become a bit of a sad inside joke amongst DC readers as she has yet to appear in continuity. But still: fifty dollars?! $20-$30 for a volume is the average for most. Though it may not seem like much, when I can get a New 52 volume for $8 or $9…there’s just no competition. As much as I'd love to read some awesome stories, I do have food and gas and clothes to pay for. Pre-boot volumes typically collect a story arc, event, or crossover rather than individual issues of one character’s comic, which means that even purchasing those volumes I'm bound to be missing chunks of the mundane, non-epic comics (and I like those). Which is a shame, because I have heard wonderful things about Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl run and would love to read it, but I’m not paying $50 for what is essentially six issues and maybe two hours of continuous reading material. Action Comics doesn’t even appear to have volumes outside of the New 52, and Superman is their flagship character next to Batman.

And as much as I think digital comics is a fantastic idea…when there are no volumes and I want to read a large amount of them instead of one or two, $1.29/$.99 adds up fast. I’m also not inclined to buy digital comics—visual mediums like this work better, in my own humble opinion, when you have them in front of you as a tangible object. It’s a personal preference, I know, and I don’t decry or judge those who love digital comics; like a said, it’s a great idea on the whole. It just doesn’t do much for me.

With all of these things being said, I think that the way DC approached the New 52 was a smart business decision. If you look at the state of the comic book industry at this point in time (and even back in 2011), it’s obvious that a large portion of investment has and will continue to be given to the films/television shows that are being made because they are garnering more attention and money than the comics themselves. There is a new generation of audience members that are being introduced to these characters through cinema/television, and both Marvel and DC are attempting to take advantage of this. The New 52, in many ways, is reflective of this shift. The entire idea behind the New 52 was to take characters back to basics so that the younger/newer audience less familiar with what had been going on in comics before could more easily get on board. They wanted to make them fresher and more accessible. Barbara Gordon is known more to the general public as Batgirl? Put her back in the role. No one, other than comic readers, was aware that Dick Grayson spent over a year as Batman? Return his Nightwing mantle. People think that the JLA are a bunch of boring, perfect demi-gods? Start back at the beginning and establish a new dynamic. I’m not saying these were all good changes, but they were certainly intentional.

What’s great about the New 52 is that is functions well as a jumping off point. People often ask, when they’re interested in getting into comics, what a good place to start would be. This is where the reboot helps out a lot. Rather than having to wade through decades of continuity, figure out who everyone is and where they stand, someone can pick up the first volume of Superman or Batman or Green Arrow or Justice League and start reading. After all, Action Comics and Batman were at issues #904 and #713, respectively, when they were restarted at #1. Even after almost four years of continuous storytelling, most of the rest of the DCU is still only at issues #36 (for the core group of comics). This is much, much, much less intimidating than 900 or 700-something. Readers have the option to read back issues from before the reboot because they want to, not because they have to.

What?! What do you mean someone doesn't like me?

Once someone has started reading parts of the New 52 and has become invested in certain characters—and their relationships with others in their particular circle of people—it makes it a lot easier and less stressful to go back and read comics from the pre-boot because they already have a foundation. Yes, some of the characters differ a great deal from their New 52 incarnations, but if someone enjoys New 52 Green Arrow and doesn’t like the pre-boot one, what exactly is lost? Does it make them less of a Green Arrow fan because they prefer the “new” interpretation of the character over the “old?” It still gave them a way into the comic and character, and maybe liking one book will encourage them to read more.

I’m not saying that all of the elements of the New 52 are perfect. I’m not bowing down and worshiping the ground any writer or artist walks on or planning to get a tattoo of the New 52 logo on my arm. There is no one on this earth that can ever tell me the five-year timeline makes any level of sense or that Jason Todd’s origin as some weird “creation of the Joker” isn’t kind of contrived and silly. There are good books and there are bad books. Good writers and bad writers. Good ideas and bad ones. Just like in every other medium, there are going to be variations in quality.

And yes, the pre-boot had some terrible things in it as well. Let’s not forget that All-Star Batman and Robin was a pre-boot book, and no one likes to remember that even exists.

Robin is cuter than Miller's attempts at being a good writer.

The reality is this: The comic book industry has always been eager to reset their universes in order to attract new readers. As I said in a previous post, DC and Marvel are still businesses and they want to make money. If it wasn’t the New 52, it would be something else. Give it another few years and I’m sure they will reset everything again. And I get it: it’s frustrating to constantly have to readjust and re-learn things and deal with change on a regular basis. If DC and Marvel want to continue to be a successful industry, then they have to change. They can’t stay stagnant because people don’t stay stagnant.

But despite all of the change, all of the screwing around with characters and origins and whatnot, it doesn’t mean that the books you loved are gone from existence. I’m sure as time goes on, more volumes of certain characters will be put together and become available. You can continue to love Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain even if they never appear in a single New 52 book (which they really should, but that’s beside the point). The New 52 isn’t the be-all-end-all of comics, and neither is the pre-boot. If the New 52 functions as a great jumping-off point, than the pre-boot becomes more accessible and can grow a person’s love for this particular universe. That’s what it did for me. And isn’t that what’s important—that people can find a way into an awesome medium that has traditionally been known to scare new readers away with its complexity?

Be nice to people who like the New 52 and accept that it’s probably going to change again in the near future. If worse comes to worst, head cannon is a lifesaver.

...seriously, DC, put Steph and Cass in a book. Please.