DC's Next Weekly Title

Zombipanda

My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
Joined
Jan 31, 2006
Messages
9,401
Location
Zoo Atlanta
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?
 
I'd like to see a weekly series about a time traveller, maybe Rip Hunter, travelling every week to a new point in history, in chronological order, throughout all of DC history, from the Big Bang to the Final Crisis. I want a timeline absolutely set in stone and adhered to for the whole of DC history. With a weekly series like this the very major points of history could be reached (it could cover multiple years and eons per issues), we could see how the DCU as it currently stands came to be, smaller events could be touched on in the background. Everything could be layed out.

We could see stuff like the Viking Prince, Oa and the Guardians and Manhunters, all the Crisises and big events that are still in continuity. It could cover everything that's ever happened up thorugh the 31t century and everything beyond to the furthest era DC has published.

The only thing is, this book could only cover events that happened to New Earth. The other Earths will exist and be used for Elseworlds and other types of stories as the writers see fit, but this particularly series is the definitive history of New Earth DC.
 
I'd like to see a weekly series about a time traveller, maybe Rip Hunter, travelling every week to a new point in history, in chronological order, throughout all of DC history, from the Big Bang to the Final Crisis. I want a timeline absolutely set in stone and adhered to for the whole of DC history. With a weekly series like this the very major points of history could be reached (it could cover multiple years and eons per issues), we could see how the DCU as it currently stands came to be, smaller events could be touched on in the background. Everything could be layed out.

We could see stuff like the Viking Prince, Oa and the Guardians and Manhunters, all the Crisises and big events that are still in continuity. It could cover everything that's ever happened up thorugh the 31t century and everything beyond to the furthest era DC has published.

The only thing is, this book could only cover events that happened to New Earth. The other Earths will exist and be used for Elseworlds and other types of stories as the writers see fit, but this particularly series is the definitive history of New Earth DC.

THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME THING I'VE EVER HEARD!

Edit: The part that covered the period with the Wild West would HAVE to use Jonah Hex as the main character though. He'd also have to appear in the late 21st Century, for sure. I don't know why you need Rip Hunter in it, though. Every issue he has a new, one-shot adventure in that era? The exposition from that would waste a lot of time that could be used to show the big events of the era.
 
Last edited:
Honestly, I think DC is smart enough to know that Countdown is already pushing their luck (and you can tell sales on 52 went down eventually, because they raised the price fifty cents)... They're committed to give us this next year, but what I'm expecting next is one more Crisis... A big one...

If the first Crisis was to define the history of their characters, and the second Crisis was to define the characters as they exist within current continuity, then the third Crisis should try to define where these comics can go in the future... It should be final, in the sense that there shouldn't be more crises down the line, at least none that deal with the structure of the Multiverse.

To balance out this next Crisis with the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, I think that it should be Twelve issues instead of the measley seven we got for Infinite Crisis.

My Ideal Writer? Grant Morrison. He could do something really brilliant. Something that will define the next twenty years of comic book writing. And honestly I hope that he would bring us back to an infinite multiverse. Limitless possibilities. That's what I hope is the message to writers down the line, ANYTHING is possible.

Countdown is counting down TO something... And that's not just going to be another weekly series...

Maybe they'll try something weekly again, down the line, but I bet Countdown is it for the next few years
 
Last edited:
THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME THING I'VE EVER HEARD!

It's basically History of the DC Universe, only with actual stories instead of Harbinger reciting a textbook.

Maybe they'll try something weekly again, down the line, but I bet Countdown is it for the next few years

I agree, but it's fun to dream. I like the weekly format so much I'd buy just about anything they publish that way.

According to Lying in the Gutters it seems Busiek is going to write Final Crisis. Which leads me to wonder what Morrison's big project is going to be. . .
 
Honestly, I think DC is smart enough to know that Countdown is already pushing their luck (and you can tell sales on 52 went down eventually, because they raised the price fifty cents)... They're committed to give us this next year, but what I'm expecting next is one more Crisis... A big one...

If the first Crisis was to define the history of their characters, and the second Crisis was to define the characters as they exist within current continuity, then the third Crisis should try to define where these comics can go in the future... It should be final, in the sense that there shouldn't be more crises down the line, at least none that deal with the structure of the Multiverse.

To balance out this next Crisis with the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, I think that it should be Twelve issues instead of the measley seven we got for Infinite Crisis.

My Ideal Writer? Grant Morrison. He could do something really brilliant. Something that will define the next twenty years of comic book writing. And honestly I hope that he would bring us back to an infinite multiverse. Limitless possibilities. That's what I hope is the message to writers down the line, ANYTHING is possible.

Countdown is counting down TO something... And that's not just going to be another weekly series...

Maybe they'll try something weekly again, down the line, but I bet Countdown is it for the next few years

word on the Morrison... and everything else for that matter.
 
Edit: The part that covered the period with the Wild West would HAVE to use Jonah Hex as the main character though. He'd also have to appear in the late 21st Century, for sure. I don't know why you need Rip Hunter in it, though. Every issue he has a new, one-shot adventure in that era? The exposition from that would waste a lot of time that could be used to show the big events of the era.

I think we should have one "guide" character, but adventure doesn't have to be about him.

I'm kind of thinking about Marvel: The Lost Generation, which had a time travelling character making time jumps, but she only really appeared in a few panels of every issue. It was just a subplot really.
 
I think we should have one "guide" character, but adventure doesn't have to be about him.

I'm kind of thinking about Marvel: The Lost Generation, which had a time travelling character making time jumps, but she only really appeared in a few panels of every issue. It was just a subplot really.

:D Nuh-uh. Not Rip Hunter. It should be about T.O. Morrow vacationing through the different eras.
 
:D Nuh-uh. Not Rip Hunter. It should be about T.O. Morrow vacationing through the different eras.

That would be cool.

I actually know virtually NOTHING about Rip Hunter. Didn't he used to have a cyborg eye or something (like mine)?

Anyway, whoever. DC needs one streamlined, rock-steady continuity. Particularly with all the other worlds they can screw around with, there's no excuse not to lock down the continuity of one of them.
 
That would be cool.

I actually know virtually NOTHING about Rip Hunter. Didn't he used to have a cyborg eye or something (like mine)?

Anyway, whoever. DC needs one streamlined, rock-steady continuity. Particularly with all the other worlds they can screw around with, there's no excuse not to lock down the continuity of one of them.

I don't think he did. I don't know much about him either. He's a Time Cop. I think that's all you have to know.

It really would work to have him as a central character, and each story, he has to track down and eliminate some sort of anomaly. It could be sorta like Sliders, and if a particular era needed more than one issue to breathe, you could tell stories throughout the era that are still stand-alone.

Or, it can be Quantum Leap, and he can actually become one of the major shakers in each era.
 
Last edited:
linearmen.gif


Okay, i still don't know the guys name, but I guess it's not Rip Hunter.

RIP My Childhood Memories


I don't like the Quantum leap idea because it takes away from the actions of the other characters he inhabits. In essence, they didn't do the things they did anymore.
 
Last edited:
linearmen.gif


Okay, i still don't know the guys name, but I guess it's not Rip Hunter.

RIP My Childhood Memories


I don't like the Quantum leap idea because it takes away from the actions of the other characters he inhabits. In essence, they didn't do the things they did anymore.

Yeah. ;) It was a joke.
 
Sure it was.

How often do you post on the bakulalovers.net boards?

I searched Wikipedia for some abstract term called bakula, or some other person with Scott Bakula's name or something, but typing just "Bakula" automatically shoots you to his page...... Like he's never had a family.... Like he just appeared out of nowhere, and he just WAS Scott Bakula.... and we all knew.
 
I searched Wikipedia for some abstract term called bakula, or some other person with Scott Bakula's name or something, but typing just "Bakula" automatically shoots you to his page...... Like he's never had a family.... Like he just appeared out of nowhere, and he just WAS Scott Bakula.... and we all knew.

Of course. He travelled back to the beginning of time inhabiting all male Bakulas AND their female mates, culminating in the perfect Alpha Bakula we have now.
 
I searched Wikipedia for some abstract term called bakula, or some other person with Scott Bakula's name or something, but typing just "Bakula" automatically shoots you to his page...... Like he's never had a family.... Like he just appeared out of nowhere, and he just WAS Scott Bakula.... and we all knew.
That's because he retroactively inserted himself into our reality, our plane of existence :shock:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top