[Stu]

Lead story by Busiek and Bagley(for ALL issues), with a backup by others.
forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=146142

[Batman]

NRAMA: Would it be safe to say that Trinity is more of a ground-level, new-reader friendly story compared to something like Final Crisis?

DD: It’s certainly new reader friendly, whatever that means, but what it really is though, is epic storytelling on a very personal level.

Dude, if you don't know what it means, how can you say that it is?

[Stu]

Maybe it's his way of saying that all of DC Comics are new reader friendly? Providing you're reading from the start of a particular storyline or something. Like for continuity-referencing stuff in any comics really, there tends to be some exposition about it as a set up.

[Batman]

A little exposition on almost seventy years of convoluted continuity does not = "new-reader-friendly."

[Stu]

Yeah, but it's not like all stories have something to do with 70 years of continuity. I was talking more like if someone did a Two Face story in Batman/Detective Comics, there'd probably be mention of what happened in Face the Face. It wouldn't NEED to go into Long Halloween for instance (although I think the new Ventiloquist is Janice Porter from Dark Victory, so her story would involve him and an explanation of that stuff, so that might be a bad example).

[Batman]

Imagine being a non-fan and reading that paragraph based purely on your knowledge of Batman from Super Friends and such.

That's what I'm talking about.

[Stu]

Right, well other than that, any thoughts?

[Batman]

I hope they kill them. And not make them legacy capes. Have Dick decide "no one can replace Batman" and stay Nightwing.

Then start the three of them completely from scratch with fresh continuity in a brand new universe.




I'd also like a pony.

[Stu]

From what Didio said about reminding people what makes these 3 characters so special, it seems they're definitely going to be Bruce, Clark and Diana. Glad for the the one writer and one artist for the main stories, as it should cut down on continuity errors that Countdown has had some of due to different writers/artists, and be a lot more consistent as a trade.
I don't agree that Dick would just let there be no Batman. I think Gotham pretty much needs him. 52 showed that. No one in Gotham's going to be scared of Nightwing as much as they are of Batman.

[Batman]

Well, yeah, I know I'm dreaming.

I haven't followed any weekly comics, so I can't comment on that aspect.

Maybe tard has some thoughts.

[OpTard]

you don't have to dump continuity to make things new reader accessable. they just dumped 20 years of spider-man and everyone, myself included, went apeshit. and i think rightfully so.

things are more easy to understand than we give them credit for. a great example of that is a co-worker of mine is reading 52 right now. and he is not a comics reader. he got interested in the book when i brought in a smattering of issues while it was coming out and decided to give it a read once it came out in trade. it's pretty universally agreed that when they made 52, they didn't worry about new readers. they just told a story with a huge cast, and while not referencing any specific stories per se, it (seems to) rely on knowing these characters pasts pretty well to fully get it. but you know what? my co-worker is halfway through the story and is having no problem understanding the story. none. the only problem he's had is keeping track of the who's who, which has nothing to do continuity or new-reader accessability. that's just a large cast of (to him) unfamiliar characters. but after going "is that ralph dibny? no, wait, there's the beard. ok it's oliver queen," he understands the story just fine.

if a story is specifically referencing a past story, exposition will get the reader up to speed at some point. but other than that, if you think a person needs to know the history to fully appreciate or understand the effect a situation is having on a character, well consider that a bonus for you. but it doens't mean another less informed reader won't still understand what's going on or enjoy and appreciate the story on it's own merits.

as far as trinity goes, even though i read 52 and countdown as issues, i think i'm gonna wait for trade on this one. i don't like 12 page stories. even on a weekly basis. i love busiek and i love bagley. i think they'll do a great job, but even weekly and with a back-up i feel i won't be getting enough each issue and so i'll just read it at once when it's done.

[Batman]

operationretard said:

you don't have to dump continuity to make things new reader accessable. they just dumped 20 years of spider-man and everyone, myself included, went apeshit. and i think rightfully so.

I'm not talking about dumping continuity in the half-assed way that they've been doing for the last twenty years. Wonder Woman, Legion of Super-Heroes (twice), the Doom Patrol, and now Spider-Man's marriage. They just wave a magic wand and say "that never happened." But all of the other stuff still happened, and the stuff that doesn't make sense anymore, well, we'll figure something out.

But they never really do.

When I was a kid and first getting into comics, I loved the feeling that I was just looking at the tip of the iceberg, that there was a huge story and a huge world--a tapestry that I was only seeing one little piece of.

Now that tapestry has lots of odd, poorly-explained holes in it.

The way to do a restart is the way Silver-Age DC did it (and, in fairness, Ultimate Marvel did basically the same thing.) All of the stories you loved still happened; just in a different dimension or universe or something.

What Marvel failed to do was realize that now that they have their restarted universe, they can let the characters in the old universe age more naturally. Quite the opposite, as demonstrated by the ridiculous decision to use a magic wand to reverse the gradual aging and change that's happened to Peter Parker.



Here's my idea for how to do it:

Death has become a joke in the DC Universe--everybody knows it. But what if regular people started not staying dead? So, let's say that this makes people pretty happy, till the germs and rats and cockroaches won't stay dead either. (Yes, I stole this idea from an issue of Thor.) Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman find a way to shut the door of death, but they can only shut it from the inside. So Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are dead, and death is permanent now.

After a few months of following the supporting characters in the big three's titles, switch over to a brand-new Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in a brand-new universe where they are the first and only superheroes. Continue following the old universe in the other titles.

That's what I would do if I were in charge of the DC Universe.

[OpTard]

you can't have superman, batman and wonderwoman living outside the shared universe. it just doesn't work. you think people would've wanted them to cancel spider-man when they started ultimate spidey? and people would just accept ultimate spidey and the one true spider-title? it would never work.

i also don't think the DC universe could survive if you took the 3 out of it. i also don't find continuity all that confusing so i do see what the need to do something like that is or what you would actually gain.

i'm sorry, but anyone can pick up a superman comic (provided it's a part-1 of a story) and know exactly what is going on. anyone can pick up any batman comic and know what's going on. it's really really easy.

i just don't see what the hub-bub is about resetting histories. it's just not necessary.

[Batman]

OK. Who were the founding members of the Justice League?

[Batman]

Also: Was Beast Boy in the Doom Patrol before the Titans?

[Stu]

Before I properly started to actually buy comics as singles and get into them, I mostly just read the odd trade here and there, and not necessarilly from a starting point. Like I read Morrions's JLA trades out of library, and I understood it pretty well, despite the shifting roster of characters I had little knowledge of. Hadn't even heard of Green Arrow when I read the arc when Connor Hawke joined the team, but I found it enjoyable enough without understanding how different he was from Ollie.
Similarly, I lend my stuff out to a friend of mine who doesn't have that much knowledge, and he seems to do fine. He really liked Green Arrow: Quiver, even though that story had a lot of references to DC history like Zero Hour and Hard Travelling Heroes, and featured a bunch of different DC characters like Etrigan and the JLA and Arrow Family.
I think Didio probably means that despite possibly referencing a lot of DC history, Trinity will still stand up good as it's own story, and that new readers would be given at least the minimum info they'd need to know about such stuff.

[OpTard]

sergeial said:

OK. Who were the founding members of the Justice League?

sergeial said:

Also: Was Beast Boy in the Doom Patrol before the Titans?

2 perfect examples of questions that, while they may be annoying to you, a new reader picking up a recent issue of JLA or the teen titans doesn't need know and would never think to ask.