The Lack of Communication, The Worst Problem in DCnU

I am a big fan of the New 52

However there are still a lot of things that are wrong with DCnU

thematically its not very diverse

it has some talent that i have no idea how they got work at all

we lost a lot of good characters that are now benched or just plain deleted without a chance to be back

other characters were reinvented in ways that utter destroy them beyond recognition

or simply plots or decisions that go nowhere and are recall immediately

but By Far, The Worst problem with the new 52

Its when @#$% happens, simply cause the writers do not talk to each other

This is of course nothing new in DC or in the comic book industry but its quickly becoming a suffocating problem, and its never been more evident than in this month, September of 2012, The Zero Month

with one week left i can pretty safely say that this month SUCKED

there had been some very good stories, like Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Amethyst, Action Comics, Team 7

but overall most of the stories have been average and some have been so bad(Deathstroke and Catwoman) that the sole idea of them being approved by DC just defies my reasoning

but for me what makes this month such an utter failure is cause the whole point of it was to one way or another

provide answers

simply explain where we are, were we came from and where we are going to on this comics and finally just respond some questions that we had since a year ago

which is where im going with this rant

It seems to me that a lot of writers and editors have completely different answers from other writers and editors

SPOILER ALERT on many comics

This month

on Stormwatch #0 Adam One reappears to teach Jenny Quark the secret history of Stormwatch, in which he also reveals that he is actually Merlin from Demon Knights but in a different era

on Demon Knights #0 its also reveal that Merlin is the son of Lucifer

so is Adam One the son of Lucifer?

this can very easily be explain by saying that Adam One is just pretending to be Merlin on those flashbacks but its really not clear

and this is the leaser offender

according to him

Rob Liefeld wrote Deathstroke #0, Then that idiot" of the editor(puff who needs those, right!) came to him and tell him about Team 7 and that Deathstroke is part of that team in a 5years ago period(ok, being fair im actually just assuming he tell him this but there exist the posibility that he didnt)

so Liefeld added in Deathstroke #0 how he joined Team 7

and how he got married while he was in Team 7

he also put how he leave team 7

and how his ADULT SON died later, the adult son that his wife had with him, the same wife whom he marries "5years ago"

So either Liefeld wasnt told that Team 7 was "5 years ago" or he completely disregarded and editor did nothing about

but there is more

The way Deathstroke joins Team 7 had NOTHING to do with the way he joins in Team 7 #0

which to me says that Liefeld had no idea what Justin Jordan was doing in the book, and is also very likely that Jordan also didnt knew what Liefeld was doing

another one

Birds of Prey #0, it was actually a solid comic but it has a major inconsistency

It takes place "a year ago" and it tackles the first time Black Canary, Starling and Batgirl meet each other

Batgirl who as most ppl know for a fact was in a wheelchair or at least still in recover

a batgirl that was also a highly functional and competent crimefighter and just plain Nothing like she is being written in Batgirl's book

needless to say that it pretty much ignores everything that Gail Simone did with the character(which i dont mind at all)

but it still shows how little talk its going between a writer of a solo book and a writer of a teambook which has that team member on

and Gail Simone has confirmed by twitter that she had Absolutely no idea what was happening in BoP

and finally and probably the biggest offender of this group

the Batman Books

ALL OF THEM

Its extraordinarily hard to ignore a problem as simple and at the same time as jarring as defining a timeline goes

now first i need to say that pretty much all of the Batman books have been good, 8s in my book but all have the same problem

what the hell is the timeline?

Detective Comics had an story title "The Final Lesson" which starts at a 10 years ago period and ends around the end of the same year

so put it simple it goes from year -10 to year -9

the back up story OF THE SAME BOOK takes place at year -7 as Bruce finally returns home

what happen with year -8? wasnt -9 the final lesson?

Batman #0 Starts 6 years ago

so year -6 with the start of Bruce's career as Batman

the back feature Starts at 5 years ago with the first introduction of the Bat Signal, a bat Signal that is presented by a Young Dick Grayson, a Young Tim Drake and a young Jason Todd, all in the same week that Dick's parents will die

what happen Between year -6 and -7?

and then it comes the cherry in the cake

Batman and Robin

takes place more or less 1.5 years ago when Damian Wayne was celebrating his TENTH birthday

whats even more, in a Flashback when Damian was no more than 5 he appears with this lovely image

yeah it looks super cute but it also shows that the Batcowl existed around year -6.5(at least)

and Batman Inc is out next week so that will be fun too

How come something as simple as grabbing this writers and just define something as easy and basic as reasonable timeline has not been achieve a year after the game started

this is not a little thing, this is astonishingly evidence of incompetence from the editors

Tomasi is most likely following a timeline similar to Morrison

but only Morrison knows his own timeline, who knows how many years are between the conception of Damian and his start as Batman

Snyder is using his, and James Tynion IV is using a similar from that

and who knows what is using Gregg Hurwitz

Communication is indispensable in a Shared Universe

for something like the new 52, the exchange of ideas and information is vital since is that information that is being used to build the foundation of the new DC Universe and the lack of dialog is just unforgivable

Thoughts?

End of Blog Post

Check out my Personal Blog lets-talk-about-comics.blogspot.com

With regards to Damian Wayne. Is it possible that he was conceived by Bruce and Talia while Bruce trained with the 'League of Shadows', right before he left for his final lesson? Since 'Final Lesson' happened 10 years ago this would make Damian 10yers old in present time during 'Batman and Robin'. Anytime between Damian being 3-5 years old, his mother/grandfather may have encountered Batman again and taken his cowl, which is why he is wearing it when he is 5 years old. I say 3-5 because Bruce didn't return home until 7 years ago, so that is the soonest he could have become Batman and had a cowl to take. Damian just turned 10 years old 1.5years ago, which is March 2012, just before Batman and Robin #1 and the rest of the 'New 52'. At any rate these are just some ideas in rolling around in my while we all desperately try to make sense of the new DC universe.

I tried to work this out myself here: http://www.comicvine.com/dc-comics/57-10/new-52-robins-my-thoughts-and-questions-please-help/92-730932/

but I did not think of some of the stuff you did. This was a really great post! :)

1. Both Adam One and Merlin are interesting characters on their own so better to use them as separate characters. 2. It is possible that Rob Liefeld is too busy doing extreme studios titles to be reading too many dc titles. 3. It is possible that Gail is also too busy to read too many dc titles so just pretend each title has its own universe or maybe read fewer dc titles so you don't have to waste time trying to harmonize multiple dc titles. 4. In the Batman timeline, 1 year is like a thousand years. 5. As for Damian Wayne, maybe Bruce Wayne and Talia went to the same high school ?

@colonyofcells: yeah but in the old universe 100 years would be 3 months.I mean at the very least each story arc would take place every 6 months,and people still pretend that batman is like 43 until DC does another crisis on blankity blank.

@arnoldoaad: your a huge fan of the new 52 as well?

But then I switched to marvel,but from DC I mainly like batman first,the everything secondly.But otherwise I mainly like marvel.

Completely agree... Simple as that.

@colonyofcells said:

1. Both Adam One and Merlin are interesting characters on their own so better to use them as separate characters. 2. It is possible that Rob Liefeld is too busy doing extreme studios titles to be reading too many dc titles. 3. It is possible that Gail is also too busy to read too many dc titles so just pretend each title has its own universe or maybe read fewer dc titles so you don't have to waste time trying to harmonize multiple dc titles. 4. In the Batman timeline, 1 year is like a thousand years. 5. As for Damian Wayne, maybe Bruce Wayne and Talia went to the same high school ?

1- This is an old blog post so from what i heard, apparently they actually the same character, i didnt knew that

2- lol, yeah right, there are so many continuity problems with Deathstroke 0 that im still in shock it got editorial approval, it just blows my mind that it pass through an editor at all

3- I have no idea why you mention Gail since the continuity problem is with Duane and he should be aware of the story of the character he just ignored and the editors say, "yeah whatever!"

4- WTF does that even meant XD

5- Batman Inc Contradicts that

@sgcomicguy said:

With regards to Damian Wayne. Is it possible that he was conceived by Bruce and Talia while Bruce trained with the 'League of Shadows', right before he left for his final lesson? Since 'Final Lesson' happened 10 years ago this would make Damian 10yers old in present time during 'Batman and Robin'. Anytime between Damian being 3-5 years old, his mother/grandfather may have encountered Batman again and taken his cowl, which is why he is wearing it when he is 5 years old. I say 3-5 because Bruce didn't return home until 7 years ago, so that is the soonest he could have become Batman and had a cowl to take. Damian just turned 10 years old 1.5years ago, which is March 2012, just before Batman and Robin #1 and the rest of the 'New 52'. At any rate these are just some ideas in rolling around in my while we all desperately try to make sense of the new DC universe.

I tried to work this out myself here: http://www.comicvine.com/dc-comics/57-10/new-52-robins-my-thoughts-and-questions-please-help/92-730932/

but I did not think of some of the stuff you did. This was a really great post! :)

You Know, I actually like this theory

its a little too complicated but it might work with Batman INC #2

Maybe when Pandora created the new timeline at the end of Flashpoint, Pandora forgot about Batman Inc ?

@cameron83 said:

@arnoldoaad: your a huge fan of the new 52 as well?

But then I switched to marvel,but from DC I mainly like batman first,the everything secondly.But otherwise I mainly like marvel.

I like a lot of things from the New 52, but I also think that a lot of other things in DC got ruined by the Relaunch

@Timandm said:

Completely agree... Simple as that.

Thanks!

@colonyofcells said:

Maybe when Pandora created the new timeline at the end of Flashpoint, Pandora forgot about Batman Inc ?

There was actually a theory going around about how exactly Pandora works

cause if she changed the timeline, then did she changed her own timeline too? considering stuff like the New Question being compared to her and Phantom Stranger

I think Pandora is the exit strategy

Maybe Dan didio should write all 52 titles so everything will be consistent assuming that all dc employees are in excellent mental health.

@arnoldoaad: Thanks :)

@colonyofcells:

"4. In the Batman timeline, 1 year is like a thousand years." what ARE you talking about? o.O

@colonyofcells: probably