I have a strange relationship with continuity. Primarily, I prefer for stories to be stand-alone enough that if you pick up a series from #1, you’ll have all that you need. However, if a setting has extensive continuity, I do like for it to match up well enough that you can form a reading order of sorts where everything matches up (let me tell you about a column called A Crisis of Chronology…). The problem is, with all the Crises with a capital C the DCU has had – modifying the details of some stories and eliminating some altogether, except for one minor detail – doing such a thing for the DCU as a whole is… difficult, to say the least. With the reboot, though, DC has the opportunity to iron some details out by telling stories set in the DCU’s past. Follow the cut for more.
If you know how continuity works in the DCU, you know that there are many stories pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths that are assumed to be in continuity, even though some details were modified by the first Crisis, Zero Hour, and/or Infinite Crisis. As readers, we’re just supposed to read and enjoy the story while understanding that so-and-so was/wasn’t there, or that it took place after a certain event, rather than before it, and so on and so forth. As a fan of older comics, I understand that; I’m not going to tell you to pass on reading Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow simply because it’s no longer in continuity (go read it, damn it). I’m not asking for a modernized retelling of the same story, beat for beat; rather, I’m advocating a series where writers can tell their own take on certain important events in DC history.
What’s the difference? Simple, really. I’m not asking for current writers to take an older story and repeat what a classic writer already did and how they did it, with the artist omitting a certain character from the background. If I wanted that, I would just suggest a “remaster” of sorts, like how Haydn Christensen was edited into the end of Return of the Jedi — and, if I wanted that, I would be just as crazy as the people that thought editing Christensen in was a good idea. I’m not talking about telling the same story and changing a few small details, I want the opposite; let’s keep a couple of small details the same while telling a new story. Geoff Johns is already doing this in the first arc of Justice League: Batman and Superman are meeting for the first time. Is it necessarily going to be the same story as when they encountered each other for the first time in John Byrne’s The Man of Steel? I doubt it. And that’s good! It bears repeating that I don’t want “replacements.” Never should anyone say “Well, you shouldn’t bother with [classic writer]’s [classic story] because [modern writer] told an in-continuity version of the same thing.” It would be neat to see some nods to the first story, but any writer assigned (or choosing) to do one of these “historical” stories should come up with a completely unique and new story, or just not bother telling it.
There’s one exception: I have always been interested in seeing what the “in-continuity” version of the first Crisis looked like. The Crisis obviously “happened” — the Anti-Monitor blew things up, Barry Allen died, and Psycho Pirate was able to remember everything — but obviously however it happened in the “New Earth” setting was different than the story itself. Unless I’m terribly mistaken (which is always a possibility), CoIE changed history. There was no longer a multiverse, and there never had been. On the other hand, Infinite Crisis brought back the multiverse and revealed the pre-Crisis history of the DCU to a few characters, but it didn’t change time so that there was always a multiverse. Yeah, it’s confusing. Since this is an incredibly important story, I wouldn’t want it to be retold without at least some (if not complete) contribution from original CoIE creators Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, and if they didn’t want it to happen, I would rather respect their wishes and leave the events of what “really” happened to speculation. Of course, this is all moot if the Crises never happened in the DCnU, but I really, really hope that isn’t the case.
There are a lot of ways that these retrospective stories could be published. A couple are already happening: the Justice League is forming in the first arc of the title of the same name, and we’ll be seeing Superman’s origin in the pages of Action Comics. So long as it doesn’t interfere with a current writer’s plan, this could be a standard; that is, use big-name characters’ own books for stories relating primarily for their past. If a character doesn’t have their own book, give them a mini like Huntress and the Penguin. Another idea is to have a History of the DC Universe title (or something less wordy) that tells stories that might not fit in any specific book, like the first team-up of Green Lantern and the Flash, or the first… well, basically a lot of “first” stories. I’ll say it one more time: replacements are a no-no. Good, new stories are always the priority. Still, you can always tell an “old” story and make it new.
