Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
Okay, so, we can argue the current direction of DC as much as we want, but they seem to be (hopefully) set on methodically tying all their books into a more cohesive universe.
Infinite Crisis pulled a soft reboot on the characters and the universe as a whole, allowing writers a chance to fix continuity mistakes and moving the big three characters more towards their original, iconic states. 52 rebuilt the multiverse again in a way that's hopefully more manageable and controlled than the old multiverse. And now, Countdown seems to be tying all the DCU books back together by setting itself as a spine. I really hope they're counting down to a relaunch of the old Fourth World books, conceptualized by Morrison, but the chances of that are practically zero.
Regardless of what it's supposed to be counting down to, DC will probably keep going with the weekly format. So, that being said, what would you like to see out of the next weekly book?
A lot of people seem to be talking about the idea of a series that tells a different story for each of the 52 universes, but I think that kind of runs contrary to the state of the new multiverse. On the other hand, the age of heroes in the DCU will be about 13 years old when Countdown ends (10 years from the arrival of Batman and SUperman tothe end of Infinite Crisis + the events of 52 + approximately one year between OYL and Countdown + a year for Countdown). I'd like to see a book that establishes a timeline for the DCU. My original idea was to have a story that spanned the 13 years, split into miniseries (one each for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and one for the DCU as a whole), but that seemed limiting.
So here's what I'd like to see. Have an opening one shot that establishes the major events in each year, along with giving each year a particular ambience. So Year One would retain the Golden Age sensibilities, Year Four would resemble the garish sixties with colorful, over-the-top villains and more a sense of playfulness, Year Seven would resemble the dark and gritty feel of the eighties (and I'm playing loose and fast with the years here. They're not that structured out in my head). So the architecture, fashion, storylines, and ambience would all fit into that sort of flavor, and they'd coincide with the comic book events that really signaled milestones and changes in the universe's direction. So, the one-shot would set a sort of concrete understanding of loosely when events fall in the history of the DCU.
What would follow would be a series of four series which could be marketed as a weekly comic. Each would follow an obscure character who's been around since Year One, with each character representing a different corner of the DCU (superheroics, mysticism, adventurers/vigilantes, and space), with each issue moving forward a year. Each one would tell a story that could be read as stand-alone, but read together, they show the evolution of each corner of the DCU from their inception to their current state, and reveals a threat that ties all their stories together.
The beauty of the format is that you can market it a thousand different ways. If you buy it as a weekly, you get four ongoing stories that tie together to form a year-long mega-event. If you're just interested in the styles or sensibilities of a particular year, you can pick up the four comics that cover that year and get a wide panorama of the DCU for that period. If you're just interested in one of the storylines, you can buy the 13 issues and have a plus-sized miniseries. Each individual story would have a mystery a character was trying to solve or a threat they were trying to counter at some point in the year, and involve them interacting with the major events of that year. For instance, the year Batman gets his back broken, the detective story would gravitate tightly around the event, leaving the other three books with some breathing room to expand their own stories without being too bogged down by continuity event. By the end of the story, these plot threads would tie together.
As for how they'd tie together, I'd get meta with it. 52 made mention of a megaverse. The DC multiverse would be defined as 52 universes and everything encompassed in it. That means, 52 versions not just of Earth, but of the surrounding planets and everything else. An anti-matter Earth may exist in one or more universes, but this anti-matter earth is a part of that particular universe's shape, rather than one of the 52 different universes. The Wildstorm Universe for example, is a universe with a sort of pocket multiverse - the Bleed - but the Bleed is entirely contained in that universe.
And I imagine the Megaverse as being the sum of all multiverses. For the most part, the Megaverse is comprised of absolute nothingness, but floating in that nothingness are the multiverses, and where they touch darkness, the oblivion gains awareness. The only problem is, multiverses, like anything else, have a limited life span. And when they die, the space they occupied sinks back into nothingness, and the void loses consciousness. It doesn't like that. The lifespan of the DC multiverse, in particular, is just 13 years long. So the self-aware nothingness that surrounds the multiverse is constantly shaving off memories and events, pruning the multiverse to keep it from dying. This explains why there seem to be so many stories compressed into such a short period of time in the multiverse, why styles tend to change so rapidly, and allows writers some room to move around the continuity. The good guys end up challenging some threat to the delicate Zen-balance of time, and they win. Yay. Time fixed.
I think it could be a great storytelling tool for DC. Each Year would be a pretty distinctly delineated setting, with its own unique feel and motif. The series could then mutate into four ongoings, each a showcase of the four different corners (I'd resurrect titles of old DC books for them: House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Adventure Comics, Mystery in Space), and telling essential stories about various characters, each established in the different Years of the DCU.
So what would you do with the next DC weekly?
Infinite Crisis pulled a soft reboot on the characters and the universe as a whole, allowing writers a chance to fix continuity mistakes and moving the big three characters more towards their original, iconic states. 52 rebuilt the multiverse again in a way that's hopefully more manageable and controlled than the old multiverse. And now, Countdown seems to be tying all the DCU books back together by setting itself as a spine. I really hope they're counting down to a relaunch of the old Fourth World books, conceptualized by Morrison, but the chances of that are practically zero.
Regardless of what it's supposed to be counting down to, DC will probably keep going with the weekly format. So, that being said, what would you like to see out of the next weekly book?
A lot of people seem to be talking about the idea of a series that tells a different story for each of the 52 universes, but I think that kind of runs contrary to the state of the new multiverse. On the other hand, the age of heroes in the DCU will be about 13 years old when Countdown ends (10 years from the arrival of Batman and SUperman tothe end of Infinite Crisis + the events of 52 + approximately one year between OYL and Countdown + a year for Countdown). I'd like to see a book that establishes a timeline for the DCU. My original idea was to have a story that spanned the 13 years, split into miniseries (one each for Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and one for the DCU as a whole), but that seemed limiting.
So here's what I'd like to see. Have an opening one shot that establishes the major events in each year, along with giving each year a particular ambience. So Year One would retain the Golden Age sensibilities, Year Four would resemble the garish sixties with colorful, over-the-top villains and more a sense of playfulness, Year Seven would resemble the dark and gritty feel of the eighties (and I'm playing loose and fast with the years here. They're not that structured out in my head). So the architecture, fashion, storylines, and ambience would all fit into that sort of flavor, and they'd coincide with the comic book events that really signaled milestones and changes in the universe's direction. So, the one-shot would set a sort of concrete understanding of loosely when events fall in the history of the DCU.
What would follow would be a series of four series which could be marketed as a weekly comic. Each would follow an obscure character who's been around since Year One, with each character representing a different corner of the DCU (superheroics, mysticism, adventurers/vigilantes, and space), with each issue moving forward a year. Each one would tell a story that could be read as stand-alone, but read together, they show the evolution of each corner of the DCU from their inception to their current state, and reveals a threat that ties all their stories together.
The beauty of the format is that you can market it a thousand different ways. If you buy it as a weekly, you get four ongoing stories that tie together to form a year-long mega-event. If you're just interested in the styles or sensibilities of a particular year, you can pick up the four comics that cover that year and get a wide panorama of the DCU for that period. If you're just interested in one of the storylines, you can buy the 13 issues and have a plus-sized miniseries. Each individual story would have a mystery a character was trying to solve or a threat they were trying to counter at some point in the year, and involve them interacting with the major events of that year. For instance, the year Batman gets his back broken, the detective story would gravitate tightly around the event, leaving the other three books with some breathing room to expand their own stories without being too bogged down by continuity event. By the end of the story, these plot threads would tie together.
As for how they'd tie together, I'd get meta with it. 52 made mention of a megaverse. The DC multiverse would be defined as 52 universes and everything encompassed in it. That means, 52 versions not just of Earth, but of the surrounding planets and everything else. An anti-matter Earth may exist in one or more universes, but this anti-matter earth is a part of that particular universe's shape, rather than one of the 52 different universes. The Wildstorm Universe for example, is a universe with a sort of pocket multiverse - the Bleed - but the Bleed is entirely contained in that universe.
And I imagine the Megaverse as being the sum of all multiverses. For the most part, the Megaverse is comprised of absolute nothingness, but floating in that nothingness are the multiverses, and where they touch darkness, the oblivion gains awareness. The only problem is, multiverses, like anything else, have a limited life span. And when they die, the space they occupied sinks back into nothingness, and the void loses consciousness. It doesn't like that. The lifespan of the DC multiverse, in particular, is just 13 years long. So the self-aware nothingness that surrounds the multiverse is constantly shaving off memories and events, pruning the multiverse to keep it from dying. This explains why there seem to be so many stories compressed into such a short period of time in the multiverse, why styles tend to change so rapidly, and allows writers some room to move around the continuity. The good guys end up challenging some threat to the delicate Zen-balance of time, and they win. Yay. Time fixed.
I think it could be a great storytelling tool for DC. Each Year would be a pretty distinctly delineated setting, with its own unique feel and motif. The series could then mutate into four ongoings, each a showcase of the four different corners (I'd resurrect titles of old DC books for them: House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Adventure Comics, Mystery in Space), and telling essential stories about various characters, each established in the different Years of the DCU.
So what would you do with the next DC weekly?