FEAR OF A RED BUTTON

The HISTORY ERASER BUTTON. The jolly, candy-like button.

NO STIMPY NO! DON’T PRESS IT!

It occurred to me that one of my objections against the Earth-1 books (at least as advertised) kind of falls in line with my primary objection to the STAR TREK reboot from earlier this year. They’re trying to eat their cake and have it at the same time. “See! It’s connected to the gigantic, convoluted continuity (note how the words share the same root) that you know and love! So it’s like it’s not brand new at all but old and familiar!” Spoilers follow.

Instead of having the new TREK just be “Kirk and Spock and McCoy and Uhura (and Scotty) together again for the first time” its “Capital S Spock finds a pocket universe and gets hurled back in time wherein he enables the destruction of his home planet but ensures that his Pocket Universe crew all get together just like they did in the Real World because dammit they were meant to.” Guys, we know the story already. Don’t artificially tie it to the bloated body of the first Trek universe. Just let it go.

Same concept applies to the needlessly confusing Earth-1 designation for the planned series of OGNs from DC. They just can’t be “Batman and Superman starting over from square one again for the first time!” and instead will have to be part of some parallel universe so that the precious patchwork of sixty plus years of continuity (wasn’t CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS supposed to fix that…gulp…twenty five years ago?) can be preserved. DC creative, listen to me. Nobody will care about it but a handful of comics fans. And you’re obviously not aiming these books just at comic fans, else they’d be serialized first and then offered to bookstores where readers are unaware, I repeat UNAWARE, that this material has been serialized once before.

Nor do they care.

People just want a good story to read. The Earth-1 branding just clutters things up. Listen to me, don’t worry about the existing base of superhero comics fans. If they want the books, they’ll get them (and if you think that retailers won’t order a Geoff Johns Batman book, you’re mistaken, though the numbers may not put it in BLACKEST NIGHT territory.) Maybe toss them a bone in terms of easter eggs or something. But you don’t need to cater to them or even pay lip service to which universe these stories are taking place in. The vast amount of potential readership simply doesn’t care so long as the characters act consistently (as opposed to being plot-hammered into doing stupid stuff because it fits the high concept.)

People will buy these because they’re about Superman and Batman, the franchise characters, and only a handful of the hardcore will care about where they fit in the cosmology of things. I’d say “give readers the chance at getting something new” but that’s not likely to happen with surface tweaks to characters that are older than my parents (and I’m already old). Do, however, make sure that readers aren’t beholden to a diminishing fanbase. Start things over and let them go a different way if things have to.