facing another crisis?

ok

so what exactly is going on with the DC universe then?

i'll have to admit one thing, for the amount of people that the 'reboot' has got riled up, i dare say that all of them, plus a few more, will be curious to see exactly what's going on with september's relaunches

like i said yesterday, i'm hardly up-to-date on current events in the DCU, i'm aware that the latest mass-crossover-type-thing is called Flashpoint, and that it involves The Flash

and word is he's been dipping his toe into the timestream and sodding things up considerably

the fact that Flashpoint concludes just before these massive changes get underway is unlikely to be a coincidence

and news has already leaked that Superman and Lois's marriage will no longer have happened as a result of Flashpoint

which raises a couple of bigger questions

how much will we see undone? and are DC establishing a new status-quo for their universe?

personally, i can't imagine that they would.  whenever comic book stories hit a massive turning point it is usually assumed that a year down the line practically everything will be as it was before, unless you're a second string superhero, in which case the usual guarantees don't apply and you'll likely be usurped by a younger hero taking the same name, i'm sorry, but those are the breaks

but the big hitters?

Superman?

Batman?

yes, we've seen massive shifts (better known as cross-overs or money makers) in their lives before, but if you just go re-setting their careers by a number of years, what would that mean?

would Superman never have faced off against Doomsday and died?

i'm more of a Batman fan myself, so perhaps Knightfall would have been erased from history, but would we go further back?  would Tim Drake ever have become Robin, would Jason Todd? is Dick Grayson still the Boy Wonder?!

no matter how DC plays this, and it could prove very interesting, i can't imagine that we'll see a complete striking of the DCU's complicated continuity from the books, not only would it be insulting to long-term readers, but it would be a complete about-turn from a company that have always seemed to embrace it's rich history (even if it does shrug off or ret-con portions of it on a whim)

people that have complained that the books have become too complicated to follow, and this is mostly down to the fact that massive cross-overs of late seem to have been drawing the world closer together, with knock-on effects that occur through-out an entire universe and run through multiple books, instead of allowing character their own threads that only occasionally tangle together, which may seem a great idea to get people interested in other books they don't usually shell out for, but isn't particularly easy on the wallet or on more casual or first-time readers

i for one, had always been fascinated by DC's past that i had missed out on, and enjoyed reading stories that referred back to them and would treat myself to back-issues or collected trade paperbacks as and when i could, it made the history richer when i could witness it all for myself firsthand

i don't view it as a messy continuity, i prefer to see it as legacy, and believe that there are writers out their such as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and James Robinson that will draw upon DC's rich tapestry of past goings on and almost forgotten characters

and even rebooted, how long could a 'simple' universe last before someone starts to complicate things, comics will continue to be published monthly and stories need to be told

perhaps we do need new comics that welcome new readers, but lets do it without alienating readers that have already dedicated their own time to following the lives of superheroes