DC Comics 2015 Wishlist: 10 Things That Must Happen
7. The Past IS The Past
How many fans, enthralled by the Chris Nolan Batman movies, went running to their comic book reading friends and requested Dark Knight reading lists to get them up to speed on the character? Tons of them. Of course, most of their friends listed the tried-and-true Bat books such as The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, Year One, The Long Halloween, Arkham Asylum, Knightfall and others still. These, the new fans dutifully ate up, recognising the Batman Begins-isms in Year One, the Long Halloween components of The Dark Knight and the endless parallels between The Dark Knight Rises and Knightfall and/or Dark Knight Returns... However, when those same fans, now up to speed on the Caped Crusaders history rushed down to their local comics shop, they invariably found that none of those classic books mattered to continuity anymore. This turned more potential fans away than we dare to think about. To put this into perspective, Scott Snyders Zero Year has wiped away Frank Millers Year One, as well as large portions of Alan Moores Killing Joke. Pete Tomasis Batman & Two Face series had destroyed The Long Halloween and even Paul Dinis Mad Love had, ahem, taken an acid bath... In an attempt to streamline continuity for new readers, many of DCs creators had actually complicated it further. What would probably work better than constantly revising the characters respective origins and landmark stories, then, would be to create a recommended reading list for each character and place it on the DC website. By keeping these stories (largely) in-canon, new readers would know exactly how to get into the current books and sales of classic collections would likely skyrocket. The publisher could even re-package Special Edition volumes of the old stories, together with written explanations of where and how they fit into the modern continuity in each volume. Even the spines could match, creating the ultimate comics collection for each corner of the DCU. Imagine that. Meanwhile, stories would continue to forge new ground, unencumbered by too much continuity. Creators could dip in to the rich tapestry of DCs 75+ year history whenever they liked, just as long as all concepts/characters were presented in a fresh and exuberant way. Besides, origin stories are old hat now. Lets see something different!
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
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Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
