By Dan Horn
Sep 15, 2011 - 15:08
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The first book to lead DC's New 52 charge was Justice League #1, which opened with the caption "Five years ago." Five years before what? Detective Comics #1 opens by telling us that Batman has been following the Joker for six years. One can easily deduce that this is five years after Justice League #1, which can be seen as one year after the inexplicable advent of superheroes. Yet, other books in the New 52 lineup don't make our calculations quite so clear. We're not quite sure when Action Comics takes place, though it can be assumed that this is perhaps Superman's year one, so one year before JL #1.
Other titles have even more ambiguous timelines and vaguer origins. For instance:
- In Swamp Thing #1, Superman seems to reference his own death in the infamous pre-reboot Doomsday story. Swamp Thing has also retained nearly four decades of continuity, including his recent rebirth in Brightest Day. Slightly stranger is Superman's attitude, which is completely divergent from both of his incarnations in Action Comics and Justice League. Perhaps he's simply matured since whenever JL #1 is to whenever Swamp Thing #1 is, but therein lies the question: When and how are they related to one another?!
-Batwoman's history, which began in the weekly series 52 directly after a Crisis, has remained entirely unaffected by the retcon, so where do she and Bette, her cousin who has retained her history as the Teen Titan Flamebird, fit into the six-year structure of the New 52?
-In Batman and Robin, Damien, Bruce's son, is still Robin, and Dick, Jason, and Tim have also been Robins at one time or another as discussed within Batman and Robin #1. So, when were they Robins within the mere six years of Batman's operation? For that matter, if Damien is Bruce's ten year-old son, birthed by the villainess Talia Al Ghul, does that mean Batman and Robin happens in year ten instead of six, one, or two of his vigilante activity?
-When does the Killing Joke, as seen in Batgirl #1, take place within the first six years, and why wasn't that mentioned in Batman's rundown of Joker's crimes in Detective #1?
-Stormwatch #1 references Superman #1 which hasn't even been released yet (more of an annoyance and an editorial oversight than a continuity inconsistency), and it appears as though Stormwatch has picked up round about where the Authority left off years ago (in actual time).
-If Animal Man is an aging, has-been superhero already, how long has he been in operation?
-What's the deal with Batman Inc., which begets Batwing and other characters like the one seen in Batman and Robin #1, still being a plausible plot device, and when would Bruce Wayne have created the organization?
-What's going on with the Crisis reference in Hawk and Dove? Couldn't they be partners without all of the pre-reboot background? Is Crisis continuity essential to pairing these two together? At what point would the Crisis even have happened?
-When the Justice League International is first established, how are all of these heroes already so aware of each other and how do they have pre-established relationships? When is this supposed to be taking place?
If it's confusing to established readership, how are these books supposed to be accessible to new readers? Perhaps a better question would be, why are so many of the relaunch books mediocre or just plain garbage? It seems that for every good or great debut issue that I read, there are four really awful ones that force me to scribble four new series off of my pull list.
Thoughts? Concerns? Comments? If you can think of any other examples of these confusing inconsistencies, please leave them in the comments section so we can discuss them on this page! Thanks for reading!
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