Aldo reads DC's New 52 (So you don't have to)

Final Crisis was where Superboy was revealed to be an ILXor, IIRC.

I see. I mean I thought one of the main ideas behind the New 52 was streamlining and while GL and Batman continuity made that impossible in the long run, we can concede in principle that it worked in other areas. Just that the stories weren't good enough to make it worth anybodies while.

Infinite Crisis wasn't a hard reboot in the same sense that Flashpoint was so its a lot easier to walk back from the aftermath of Countdown. If they try to maintain current continuity whilst going back to Countdown then they've only made things worse. At the same time do they really just pick back up where they left off?

Can't imagine how they turn the shitshow around.

Tie it in to Multiversity and explain the last few years only happened in the comic books. Sad voila.

"Simple" plot resolution could be:

CoIE was the bottling process
The post Crisis universe was the bottlers' attempt at covering their tracks
Punchy Superboy/52/countdown etc have all been coverup of the results of somebody trying to beat the bottlers (Superboy punching, for example, created the different Earths but also they recombined within the same story)
The aliens out of Animal Man (since they're the things we know that work best outside of comics panels) finally beat the bottlers and reinstate normality. Convergence is their metatext of how they achieved it.

It's going to be weird that things like Red Sun and True Brit will be 'proper' versions of Superman in a couple of months.

i was still kinda following this up through Final Crisis and i'm still like whaaaaatttt
though i still appreciate your summary, aldo

i totally thought at some point the DCU got shunted back into 52 Earths but now i'm having hard time backing that up

they might try and go back just as far as SuperBoy Punch The Universe therefore 52 universes exist.

isn't the whole point of Multiversity that 52 universes is in fact the Nu52 status quo?

The conclusion of 52 was that 52 Earths still existed but very few people knew. Everybody assumed Countdown, but more crucially Final Crisis (because it had Crisis in the title) would be about them becoming known again, and crossing between boundaries would happen but from memory apart from Superman 3d none of that really came across and imo it became more like a new version of History of the DCU hidden in a New Gods murder mystery with a time travelling Batman and seemed more about the return of Barry Allen as anything else.

Nu52 cant have 52 Earths, because as a minimum Earth Zero, Earth Thirteen (Vertigo) and Eath Fifty (Wildstorm) were merged into the one Earth.

How many were on Rian Hughes' map?

Some of the potential 52 are just daft, for example a 1998 Wonder Woman story that DiDio said in DC Nation editorial #89 happened on Earth 34, the only reference to it.

Have at it:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(DC_Comics)

i've spent decades as a superhero fan but i find this utterly impossible to follow. how did they manage to fuck this up so badly?

http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Diane+Nelson+DC+Entertainment+Hosts+Darkness+01pJ3UBMTOWl.jpg

I sort of expect nothing to change at all after Convergence, given that so much of the nu-52 is wrapped up in actual moneymaking things like the Injustice game, movies, TV stuff, etc.

Looking back it feels llke DC lost itself way before nu-52, maybe as far back as 2007 -- I can't think of anything memorable they've put out since then that wasn't Grant Morrison's, excluding maybe that weird blip when Geoff Johns and Gail Simone wrote good comics for a few months.

aldo can u explain how continuity is working in action comics? obv some stuff is totally rebooted but then it seems like doomsday had killed superman in the past? or did that never happen? i am very confused.

<I>Nu52 cant have 52 Earths, because as a minimum Earth Zero, Earth Thirteen (Vertigo) and Eath Fifty (Wildstorm) were merged into the one Earth.</I>

B-b-but couldn't that make four different Earths? Or has it been explicitly shown that Pandora made new52 out of exactly that?

<I>nu-52 is wrapped up in actual moneymaking things like the Injustice game, movies, TV stuff, etc.</I>

Is it though? I see brand new young readers novels in the Bruce Timm style. My son just got Batman Duplo--Lego Batman is arguably the best known iteration of the character. I'm not sure where all the different video games fit in. If anything, I think DC has figured out that there doesn't need to be a dominant version of the DCU. Cripes, the giant grocery store I go to once a month was still selling sticker packs of the Meltzer/Benes JLA (Red Arrow!) a few months ago.

Mordy,

The answer is simple. THEY DO WHAT THEY FUCKING LIKE. It's all notionally rebooted (the Titano story, for example, was the first encounter) but as you say Doomsday and Dead Supes happened. The handwave is that they happened in the Five Year Gap.

52 (the series) said there were 52 Earths, which was why 52 was such a secret. Pandora's Flashpoint merge came after that and was made from the Multiverse as stated in 52. DiDio says there are still 52 Earths despite two not existing so he could give Rob Liefeld shitloads of ex-Wildstorm books and have Supes fight Lord Hellspont (or whatever he's called). Because it's not like there aren't enough Superman villains to choose from.

In other news, the Giffen/Maguire JLI is turning up piecemeal in JLA3000. Booster and Beetle have been there for a couple of months, Ice turned up this month and Fire is on the way. Plus their Superman behaves just like Guy Gardner.

but it's still drawn by Howard Porter

I mean, I assume - I never even remembered to pick up a copy in the shop and see if there was the faintest echo of a joke detectable

Yes, still drawn by Howard Porter and no, not much in the way of jokes.

My point is, the *actual* Giffen/JMdM/Maguire JLI is turning up. Not the time period equivalents. Not a reimagining of the characters. Not even the Nu52 versions of them (OK, Booster only there). I mean the same Booster/Ted Kord. I mean Ted Kord as shot in the head my Maxwell Lord Ted Kord.

Totally up for an all-Duplo reboot.

http://www.hirescovers.net/gallery/albums/userpics/29733/normal_dcauc_batman_lego_v1_d1.jpg
^almost certainly better than most of the constituent comics or any of the movies.

watched one of the Batman Lego movies with my kid the other day (the one where he joins JLA) - it was funny

at this point, i would buy into a hard reboot to non-grim-gritty superboy-fights-the-martians

Honestly, I haven't followed much at all outside of the main Batman title (although I recently read a bunch of the weekly one) and all I can say is that Batman probably hasn't slept for five years if all this shit has happened in his life during that time

Nice legs Bats

http://www.comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The-Multiversity-Mastermen-2014-001-013.jpg

http://thisdayindeath.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ROCHUS_MISCH-e1378912637711.jpg

Calves are worse tbh.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bUa_VOx3Gd0/SdL6161E4mI/AAAAAAAACE4/sAyQSoILh5Q/s400/Picture+10.png

turns out the muscles were not meant to be a jodhpurs reference, they were literally meant to be jodhpurs but Jim Lee has not learnt to draw after three decades as a professional artist

https://twitter.com/JimLee/status/568274080438177792

still haven't seen the issue myself, I'd drop the whole series if i could :-/

wow, his belt is bigger than his head. that's fuckin baller

what if we've been misunderstanding all along and Liefeld really likes jodhpurs

A small child travelled back from the present, wearing one of those foam padding Superman costumes...

"I like thick thighs, I cannot lie" - Jim Lee

sir crosshatch-a-lot

has anyone got the chutzpah to follow this again?
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=59085

I suppose I could be tempted out of retirement. (PS I am still reading all the books, every week, just not writing about them.)

Group project?

If that's code word for 'intervention for Aldo' then I'm down.

share your scans and i'll read any damn thing

I eagerly await your reaction to the flood of taint pictures you've inadvertently requested

DELETE DELETE DELETE

I feel like we need to talk about this: http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/dc-comics-debuts-new-costumes-for-superman-wonder-woman

And to a lesser extent this: http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/flash-green-lantern-and-green-arrow-get-new-costumes-too

I like Batgundaman but the others are pretty much shit.

The Bat Bunny.

Comics is a much funnier place when DC editorial is trying to do something.

I like the Batman a lot! Good design. Reminds me of Marvin the red rabbit in Dungeon. Snyder's been a bit shit since the first year, though, so not expecting much.

The rest are a bit ridiculous but not really ridiculous enough.

they all suck imo

I like how the Wonder Woman outfit at least addresses the ages old "why would a warrior wear something like that?" question of her previous costumes, too bad it looks so "90s shit" otherwise.

The new Bat-bunny costume has gotta be a shoutout to the rabbit-eared cyborg guy in Masamune Shirow's Appleseed, right?

http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdhhzjx7Dt1rl7xr1o1_r1_1280.jpg

Another shitstorm
http://thehappysorceress.tumblr.com/post/113946213941/christopherjonesart-so-about-that-joker-variant

that doesn't address the major shit element that Albuquerque was repeatedly asked by DC to make the image creepier and more inappropriate, including elements like the blood lipstick and the gun pointing towards Batgirl's crotch