10 Comic Book News Stories That Shocked The World‏

4. The New 52

One entity that was paying close attention to Marvel's meteoric rise back into the stratosphere and dominance over the comic book industry was, of course, their Distinguished Competition. Depending on where your loyalties lie, DC have either been trying to imitate Marvel's success for decades, or they have steadfastly continued on in their traditions; either way, there was no denying that the company were being royally trounced in the charts and box office receipts of their closest competitor. It was this, along with the DC Universe's convoluted history and multiverses, that inspired them to completely reboot their entire line of comics in 2011, under the banner "The New 52". So named because they launched 52 new titles in their places, returning the majority of their characters to square one and building them back up, the initiative was supposed to give long-term readers something new to sink their teeth into, and to provide jumping-on points for new readers who would otherwise have been overwhelmed by the amount of continuity and character history that's a prerequisite of reading any comics that have been around since the thirties. The New 52 was a shock to readers; not because DC hadn't done the continuity-reset thing before (it tends to be the climax to each of their major crossover events), but because they had never done it so thoroughly. The initiative has since produced numerous other news stories - with controversies over creative teams, character changes and aforementioned editorial decisions over gay marriages - but nothing was a greater shock than finding out that 70+ years of comics history had all but been erased.