Granted, fans knew that 2011's Flashpoint was building to something big, but a complete reset of the DCU seemed like an outlandish prospect to entertain back then.
Indeed, the event was billed as nothing more than an interesting look into an alternate earth when it released, with a story featuring the Flash roaming through a mad (and very entertaining) distortion of the mainstream DCU that harkened back to classic Elseworlds tales like Superman: Red Son and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. By the time the big reveal came, however - and all of the old DCU lied in tatters - fans were left totally confused by how left-field the whole affair felt.
Now, that's not to say that comics shouldn't surprise their audience from time to time, but a relaunch as big as the New 52 needed to be built towards in a way that didn't leave old readers surprised and, it must be said, frankly horrified in regards to what was going to happen.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
