The Crisis Of What Went Wrong In Infinite Reboots

October is here and so is the NYCC for the year. Over the past two days, DC teased a major announcement that would be released on Friday. Sometime yesterday afternoon, DC co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio revealed that they are working on an ultimate DC timeline that would provide the connective tissue for DC’s past, present, and future.

Seasons Greetings! 2018 In Review

Seasons greetings everyone! I apologise for disappearing for a while this month. I really did need to take a break from everything, namely due to exhaustion and feeling pretty burnt out by my day job. It's enough to say the abrupt changes that took place at my workplace midway through the year had some of us quickly taking on new responsibilities on the fly and with very little to no preparation.

Needless to admit, the fact that there were no backups in place for the event of crucial employee departures meant a lot of things went wrong in the transition process, and left quite a few of us feeling stressed out by the end of this month, myself included. The fact I expect the workload to quadruple in 2019 with more upcoming changes to our organisational structure and not enough staff to go around to make things go smoothly means I'm already looking for a new job to say the least.

DC's Rebirth Is Leaving Me Weirdly Optimistic--Some Spoilers Ahead

When I first heard of DC's Rebirth initiative earlier this year, I was cautiously optimistic especially with chief creative officer Geoff Johns overseeing the project. When we officially learned the details of the initiative in a live press conference in March, I was quickly bummed out by the lack of Earth-2 and Justice Society news, effectively leaving me with the impression that DC had decided to abandon the concept all together.

Johns had later confirmed that the Justice Society was 'still out there somewhere,' but without any details of the team's status, I couldn't bring myself to feel excited for that rather ambiguous confirmation, especially given DC's history with the Justice Society. Now that some very spoilery details have been leaked, I feel my optimism rising again and hoping for a better future. Since there are two major spoilers mentioned in this post, I highly recommend that you turn away now and come back to this post on Wednesday after you've already read the one-shot.

Dear DC Comics, Stop Being Sexist, Stop Pretending That Helena Wayne Doesn't Exist To Continue Her Own Family's Legacy

I am seriously getting tired of constantly addressing DC's problems with sexism. We're sixteen years into the 21st century, and we still have to have this conversation. We're especially five years into a relatively new DC continuity, and amidst all of the scandal and controversy surrounding DC's questionable hiring practises (practises where they find reasons to fire women from positions of power while coddling well known sexual harassers with a history), DC continues to demonstrate how little they regard women as both customers and as people.

What is the latest DC fuck-up that has me addressing this problem all over again, for the umpteenth time, on the fifth year that I've been addressing this same problem? Look no further than DC's latest solicitations for August, especially for Earth-2:

Geoff Johns Announces Rebirth's Mission Statement, DC Announces Rebirth Titles

DC Comics announced today the titles they have slated for their Rebirth relaunch later this year, and amongst the titles getting a 'rebirth' is Earth-2. Also today, Geoff Johns elaborated more on DC's mission statement with Rebirth, with an emphasis on getting 'back to basics' with what makes the DC Universe what it is and its characters who they are. Similar to how the Green Lantern and Flash Rebirths were handled pre-Flashpoint, we can expect some sort of revival of old concepts while still telling new and modern stories with DC characters. Johns also made a point of emphasising how valuable every DC character is to both the DC Universe and to every fan who's been fortunate to get to know them. He does want to find a place for each of them moving forward.

DC Rebirth: Return of the Classic Justice Society?

I've had several people tweet me about this today, so I guess I might as well talk about it. As is par for the course, Bleeding Cool loves rumours. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're sort of right, and other times rumours are just rumours. With DC recently revealing their Rebirth initiative for this year, naturally, Bleeding Cool has been pursuing rumours like little kids on an Easter egg hunt. One of the ones they revealed today was a revival of the Justice Society of America title with the following description:

Currently in the New 52, there was no Justice Society in the forties fighting in World War II. The analogous team fought on Earth 2 instead. But now, not only will this active team of superheroes be revealed, along with an explanation as to why no one remembers them, but they will be brought forward, young, to the present days, fishes out of water, fighting alongside the Justice League of America. Their presence may also tie into the changing realities that the member of Titans Hunt are experiencing, remembering memories of each other that never were…

DC Comics Rebirth: What Does It Mean?

Late Friday night, DC co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee tweeted an image with the hashtag #Rebirth teasing a big event for 2016. Naturally--as what always happens on social media--the tease got everyone talking.

For many veteran DC fans like myself, we're hoping #Rebirth will result in a clean reboot of the current continuity and a reinstating of the more iconic status quos for various DC characters, even if we don't get any of the previous continuities back. Considering the tough year 2015 was for both DC Comics and DC fans alike, bringing the characters back to a more recognisable place seems like the more logical approach. After all, despite Convergence not selling at the sales numbers DC wanted, it was still the highest number of sales they saw in ALL of 2015!

Obviously, I don't know what to expect with the initiative, but I do know what I want to see happen in the months to come for me to fully invest in DC Comics again. Most of this I've talked about already.