10 Reasons Why The New 52 Was Doomed To Fail
1. A Loss Of Legacy
Legacy is an integral part of the DC universe, and has been for, well, decades now. Mantles are passed down, characters come and go and, for the most part, when they depart the scene, it means something.
There have been genuine years spent building up heroes and villains to take the reigns in certain stories, with a certain Stephanie Brown coming to mind as being one of the more famous examples. Introduced in 1992, the character would, eventually, take the reigns as the new Batgirl in 2009, taking over from Cassandra Cain who herself would go onto become Blackbat. Fast forward two years later, and the character would disappear from mainstream DC continuity. That's twenty years of development, undone in an instant.
Renee Montoya - the new Question - would suffer a similar fate, as would Cass, but by far the reboot's biggest and most heartbreaking failure was its treatment of Barbara Gordon, who was 'cured' of her paralysis at the behest of DC editorial. Jessica Sirkin wrote a particularly salient piece in The Mary Sue a while back discussing the erasure of Gordon's disability, and by extension, the character's history post 1988's The Killing Joke, and came to the conclusion that - while some positives could be gleaned from the move - "it also took away a powerful, independent woman and the only superhero with a physical disability in the DCU."
Everything about the move just seemed to represent all that was wrong with the relaunch, and in particular, its treatment of the universe's women.
It's been a long six years, and with Rebirth now reaffirming DC's stance as the leaders in the medium - replete with a wide and varied cast of characters, creators and books - it would appear that they're just as keen to forget about the New 52 as we are. Which, when you consider how dreadful the reboot actually was, can only be a good thing.
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What did you think of the New 52? Are you equally as amazed that it lasted as long as it did? Let us know in the comments below!