The comment sections and forums are weird, especially on, how should I put it? Enthusiast driven sites? Anyway, there are great ones, like those on Comic Vine for the most part, and there are really terrible ones, like the ones CBR recently had to reboot. I really do appreciate that Comic Vine in particular has a generally welcoming and well-moderated community. I've only ever gotten into one fight with someone here, and that was as much my fault as anything. I was young and reckless then.

I have noticed one thing that tends to be a common trait of both the good and terrible online fan communities though, and with comics in particular. It seems like most people just hate new stuff. It's never as good as the old stuff, they're always reinventing characters in the wrong way when they were just fine before thank you very much, and what the hell it editorial thinking these days anyway? I noticed it in particular with the announcement of DC's new Grayson book. Not many people seem to like the idea of Dick Grayson as a super spy all that much.

It seems like comic book fans, or at least superhero comic fans, are never happy. Nothing is ever right, the companies are always ruining the characters by slightly changing their costumes, etc. etc. Reinvention, reboot, and retcon are all bad words that invite nothing but scorn and anger from the fanbase. Yet, the companies keep doing it, and the angry fans keep buying it, but know that they're doing it begrudgingly, dammit!

It's an attitude that I really don't understand. Some of the most lauded superhero comics are complete reinventions of characters. If you look at The Dark Knight Returns, it's a dramatic break from a lot of what Batman had been before. It took the most basic elements of the character and threw out everything else in the interest of creating something fresh. Batman: Year One was literally a reboot of the Batman character. Watchmen is a complete deconstruction of the superhero genre as a whole. Sure, they're original characters, but they might as well be alternate versions of Superman, Batman, and the rest.

If you ask any superhero comic fan, any, what some of their favorite stories are they will almost always list at least one of the stories I mentioned above unless they're trying to be contrary hipsters. For good reason, too. Those stories are not only great, but super important to the superhero genre, or at least DC's chunk of it. And yet, a book like Grayson being announced draws nothing but ire.

These characters have been around for a very long time. Superman turned seventy-five last year, and Batman has the same birthday this year. Dick Grayson is only a year younger than his mentor. Reinventions, reboot, and retcons are the reason these characters have had the longevity that they've had. They've been allowed to change with the times in such a way that keeps them fresh and interesting. Without those changes the characters would grow stagnant and die.

I get it, I do. Being a fan of something makes you internalize it in a way that makes it a very personal thing. When characters are being continually reinvented and changed, it's inevitable that you'll identify one version of a character as your favorite. Translating that into constant anger toward everything that isn't the specific version of the character you have in your head doesn't seem to me to be an especially fun way to be a fan of something though. If you don't like it, don't read it, but at least give it a chance. Condemning something just because it's different is a crappy way to go about life. If I had, I never wouldn't gotten back into comics in the first place, and boy would I have missed out on some great stuff.