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[Roland_Gunner]

I have a big ol' boner for Morrison, but god, it still pisses me off that Final Crisis - a comic whose entire point was metacommentary on the grimdarkness pervading superhero comics, and specifically intended to usher in a more optimistic era of storytelling, was followed only a few months later by a comic where this (an established hero being brutally murdered by a wacky hero turned DARK and EVIL) happens in the very first issue. (And on top of that, the Hawks had already been seemingly killed in Final Crisis, only for Johns to retcon that so he could kill them off in a more shocking way).

I've read almost everything that Morrison has said about Final Crisis and can't remember him ever saying this or even strongly implying it. Went back over the interviews he gave after Final Crisis wrapped up and don't see anything there either. In fact, he says several things that argue against your point. Specifically:

"I was responding to a definite sense that the future had been cancelled, even that evil had ‘won’ during those years, and I think many of us were aware of a kind of sombre, heavy, ‘end of civilization’ mood and a retreat from progressive values into a kind of reactionary witch-hunting Puritanism"

And:

"My intention was to embody the spirit of the DC Universe as I saw it – with all its crazy contradictions and glorious inconsistencies – and to put that spirit under threat. I wanted to see what kind of resources a universe like DC’s could pull out of its history to fight against a living, destructive god."

So FC was a combination of a reflection of post 9/11 Western society plus Grant's thoughts on the chaotic structure of the DCU. Nothing about wanting a new wave of positive comics at all. If he said this elsewhere, I'd love to read about it.

http://www.newsarama.com/2053-grant-morrison-final-crisis-exit-interview-part-1.html

http://www.newsarama.com/2117-grant-morrison-final-crisis-exit-interview-part-2.html

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...son-final-crisis-and-the-superhero-genre.html

 

[Father_Brain]

To be fair, Infinite Crisis seemed to be more about complaining about fans that whine about things being dark, rather than actually criticizing the DCU of those years. Note that the one complaining about the then current world there was Kal-L/The original Superman, who ends up in the role of a misguided antagonist during most of the story, with his two allies becoming outright villains. The first issue by itself is misleading and seems similar to Rebirth in tone, but afterwards it goes in exactly the opposite direction. Reversing the changes brought by the Crisis in Infinite Crisis (Kal-L wanted to change the balance and make most of the world being based on Earth-2, rather than Earth-1) was considered comparable to killing the people of the current world in that story. And then Kal-L ended up redeemed by death while his former allies were killed or exiled. It's basically the opposite of this story, where we're meant to sympathize with Wally's criticisms and recovering the past world is portrayed as a good thing.

I get what you're saying, but I honestly don't think Johns meant for those criticisms to be invalid just because they're voiced by a misguided character; much as with the Watchmen twist in DCU Rebirth, I just don't think he thought through his own themes very well at all. Unless you think that having the guy on the cover of Action Comics #1 beaten to death by a murderous teen superhero-turned-supervillain was meant to express contempt for Golden Age superheroism, or whatnot.

I don't think Blackest Night and Flashpoint really fit there either. Blackest Night had no meta commentary at all, while Flashpoint was clearly just a self contained event that then got tweaked at the last hour to become a reboot. Final Crisis suffers from Morrison stepping away from monthly DC comics. Multiversity was clearly lighter than it at least.

Point isn't that they're all abundant in metatextuality, or even trying to be; the point is that they're all fairly dark, violent crossover events that deliberately juxtapose hopeful, lighter endings against the main storyline.

 

[Bear Force One]

Optimism levels high.

DCU is in a wonderful place.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Optimism levels high.

DCU is in a wonderful place.

And now we wait for Teen Titans to die or lose limbs again.

 

[Tragicomedy]

One of the points of Watchmen (in fact one of the points of Alan Moore's almost entire body of work) is that we've treated superhero fiction as sacred without considering the deeper ideological implications that carries.

Saying Watchmen, a work of superhero fiction, should be sacred goes against its entire ethos. The rights issues complicate those circumstances, but by no means they should change them.

If Watchmen is off-bounds from being examined, critiqued and re-purposed, then so is Marvelman. So is Swamp Thing. So is Allan Quatermain. So is Wendy. On and on.

Watchmen is entirely fair game.

Nothing we've seen in Rebirth gives me even a modicum of faith that Watchmen will be examined or critiqued. Repurposed, sure, completely against the wishes of the creator who has been fucked by DC as a publisher for 30 straight years. We're not going to see some meta analysis or serious commentary about what they mean and have meant to comics for the past three decades.

This is deus ex machina. This is a cash grab that shoe horns revered comic characters into a mainline comic universe in order to secure their rights in perpetuity.

 

[Father_Brain]

Nothing we've seen in Rebirth gives me even a modicum of faith that Watchmen will be examined or critiqued. Repurposed, sure, completely against the wishes of the creator who has been fucked by DC as a publisher for 30 straight years. We're not going to see some meta analysis or serious commentary about what they mean and have meant to comics for the past three decades.

This is deus ex machina. This is a cash grab that shoe horns revered comic characters into a mainline comic universe in order to secure their rights in perpetuity.

I could nitpick about things like how exactly the Comedian's pin could have ended up in the Batcave, or about how the reveal has no bearing whatsoever on the preceding pages because of course none of the DCU characters have any idea who Dr. Manhattan is, but let's start here: I would absolutely love to hear how this Dr. Manhattan, or Johns' description of him as an embodiment of cynicism and darkness, is at all congruent with his characterization at the end of the original Watchmen. Or even the end of his Before Watchmen series, if you want to treat that as canon.

 

[FoneBone]

I've read almost everything that Morrison has said about Final Crisis and can't remember him ever saying this or even strongly implying it. Went back over the interviews he gave after Final Crisis wrapped up and don't see anything there either. In fact, he says several things that argue against your point. Specifically:

"I was responding to a definite sense that the future had been cancelled, even that evil had ‘won’ during those years, and I think many of us were aware of a kind of sombre, heavy, ‘end of civilization’ mood and a retreat from progressive values into a kind of reactionary witch-hunting Puritanism"

And:

"My intention was to embody the spirit of the DC Universe as I saw it – with all its crazy contradictions and glorious inconsistencies – and to put that spirit under threat. I wanted to see what kind of resources a universe like DC’s could pull out of its history to fight against a living, destructive god."

So FC was a combination of a reflection of post 9/11 Western society plus Grant's thoughts on the chaotic structure of the DCU. Nothing about wanting a new wave of positive comics at all. If he said this elsewhere, I'd love to read about it.

http://www.newsarama.com/2053-grant-morrison-final-crisis-exit-interview-part-1.html

http://www.newsarama.com/2117-grant-morrison-final-crisis-exit-interview-part-2.html

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...son-final-crisis-and-the-superhero-genre.html

What? He talks about FC as a commentary on comics and a call for utopian storytelling multiple times throughout those interviews.

NRAMA: But still - the larger picture here - sun gods, heroes with weapons of light, angels, supercool teens and funny animals joining together to kill a creature of darkness that was sucking the life out of the world. Metaphorically speaking...well, I'd guess that's a pretty big metaphor for what you're wanting to do with Final Crisis?

GM: Your first sentence is a description of everything I love about comics. I just wanted to do the kind of comic I, and others like me, want to read. Apart from one or two things, I’m not getting much of what I’m into from mainstream hero books these days. They’re all well crafted and I enjoy the work of all my old favourites as usual but even with hundreds of books a month, I still can’t find many comics that deliver exactly what I, as a reader and a fan, am looking for from superheroes in these changing times. That’s why I wrote one.

For me Final Crisis, is about the type of guilt-ridden, self-loathing stories we insist on telling ourselves and, especially, our children—about the damage those stories do and about the good they could do if we took more responsibility for the power and influence of our words. Narratively, it’s inspired by the big “end of the world” stories from mythology and the Bible—the Norse Ragnarok, Revelations, the Mahabharata etc. It’s about events, ideas and consequences, rather than characters, in that respect but hopefully it encompasses struggles we all understand and tackles some big ideas in a new way.

GM: People like superheroes, particularly in stressful times, because there are very few fictions left which offer up a utopian view of human nature and future possibility. I suspect that’s some part of the appeal. The superhero is a crude attempt to imagine what we all might become if we allowed our better natures to overcome our base instincts. If we are not a race of predatory monsters intent on murdering ourselves with toxins and famine and war, then the superhero is the last, best shot at imagining where we might be headed as a species. The superhero occupies a space in our imaginations where goodness and hope cannot be conquered and as such, seems to fill what I can only describe as a spiritual hole in secular times.

 

[NeonZ]

I get what you're saying, but I honestly don't think Johns meant for those criticisms to be invalid just because they're voiced by a misguided character; much as with the Watchmen twist in DCU Rebirth, I just don't think he thought through his own themes very well at all. Unless you think that having the guy on the cover of Action Comics #1 beaten to death by a murderous teen superhero-turned-supervillain was meant to express contempt for Golden Age superheroism, or whatnot.

The scene where Kal-L confronts Batman about how bad his world was and how they needed to turn it back clearly seems to be a heavy counterpoint to the comments in issue one. He ends up basically defeated on his idea about Earth-2 being superior to the current DC universe.

I don't think Johns put much thought into Kal-L being the original guy from Action Comics #1, thematically, he just seemed to be going with a general message against people who just wanted to make time go back in comics. He got that role due to be an older character from the original Crisis, and I think that's where he stopped. The whole idea that using Earth-2 as a base would make things lighter compared to Earth-1 kind of falls apart, from an in-universe point of view, once you think about it for a moment - Earth 2 was the world that had a Batman and Superman who killed in the beginning of their careers - and also ended up killing again during their last years, while Earth-1 was the one with Superman and Batman with a perfect code from the start. If using Earth-1 as a base for the fused Earth still resulted in a dark Earth, using Earth-2 as a base would just result in an even darker one. Earth-2 there is basically just a stand in for generic "good old days".

This time, it's a complete reversal. The character who's looking from outside and criticizing the current world is clearly meant to be completely right.

 

[ElNarez]

Nothing we've seen in Rebirth gives me even a modicum of faith that Watchmen will be examined or critiqued. Repurposed, sure, completely against the wishes of the creator who has been fucked by DC as a publisher for 30 straight years. We're not going to see some meta analysis or serious commentary about what they mean and have meant to comics for the past three decades.

From chapter 4: "There's a force out there we've never met. There's going to be a war between hope and despair. Love and apathy. Faith and disbelief.", followed by Batman finding The Comedian's badge, and the whole epilogue. Hell, Pandora's death is panel-for-panel Rorscharch's death.

There's your critique right there, expressed through extremely unsubtle metaphor, as Geoff Johns does.

I could nitpick about things like how exactly the Comedian's pin could have ended up in the Batcave,

it's shown embedding itself in the Batcave wall when Wally gets pulled back into the Speed Force

 

[Tragicomedy]

I could nitpick about things like how exactly the Comedian's pin could have ended up in the Batcave, or about how the reveal has no bearing whatsoever on the preceding pages because of course none of the DCU characters have any idea who Dr. Manhattan is, but let's start here: I would absolutely love to hear how this Dr. Manhattan, or Johns' description of him as an embodiment of cynicism and darkness, is at all congruent with his characterization at the end of the original Watchmen. Or even the end of his Before Watchmen series, if you want to treat that as canon.

The pin flew out of the Speed Force when Wally arrived because LOL. It's incredibly stupid, but there you have it.

Dr. Manhattan as a grim dark force of evil will drive me bonkers, as it completely misses the character. I'm not talking it being an exaggeration or distortion of his actions. It's...a completely different dude. I'd like to give Johns some credit and believe he had actually read the Watchmen without wholesale violating Moore's desires, but he certainly doesn't give me that vibe.

From chapter 4: "There's a force out there we've never met. There's going to be a war between hope and despair. Love and apathy. Faith and disbelief.", followed by Batman finding The Comedian's badge, and the whole epilogue. Hell, Pandora's death is panel-for-panel Rorscharch's death.

There's your critique right there, expressed through extremely unsubtle metaphor, as Geoff Johns does.

All this tells me is that Johns doesn't "get" the Watchmen. Even ignoring the gross aspects of stealing someone else's work, it's a reductionist read on the series to the point of absurdity. He's simplifying material with far more staying power than anything he has ever written or ever will write, and doing his Fisher Price My First Comparison book.

Didn't I see Johns on stage praising the shit out of Snyder's Batman? That crazy grim and lacks any of the social commentary found in the Watchmen.

 

[Roland_Gunner]

This is deus ex machina. This is a cash grab that shoe horns revered comic characters into a mainline comic universe in order to secure their rights in perpetuity.

There are certainly issues with incorporating the Watchmen characters into the DCU but this is absolutely not a rights issue. The contract between Moore / Gibbons and DC is that the rights will revert a year after Watchmen goes out of publication. Dr Manhattan being the big bad in a JLA storyline won't have any impact on that.

 

[JTripper]

What's so strange to me is how Watchmen might potentially be discussed in the DC canon now; and I don't mean the original graphic novel itself or Before Watchmen, but its characters (or perhaps just Dr. Manhattan) and how, if they appear and interact with DC characters, they'll become just that: DCU characters and not the characters of their own standalone, allegorical story.

That might seem like a cynical way to look at this but I actually loved the reveal and I'm curious to how they handle it. I just fail to see how they can include anything Watchmen related without it being either extremely subtle and in essence, sort of inconsequential, or just ruin it by straight up involving it in the DCU as its own plot.

I don't know if I'm making any sense here, so forgive me, but once this Rebirth story is all said and done (even though nothing ever ends. See what I did there?), is it going to be something where people are going to view it as sort of a Watchmen sequel just because it involves its character(s) after the fact?

 

[Afrodium]

Does it even make sense that Doc Manhattan would have the highest power level in the entire DC universe?

 

[Tragicomedy]

There are certainly issues with incorporating the Watchmen characters into the DCU but this is absolutely not a rights issue. The contract between Moore / Gibbons and DC is that the rights will revert a year after Watchmen goes out of publication. Dr Manhattan being the big bad in a JLA storyline won't have any impact on that.

Adding key characters from the Watchmen into the DC universe as big bads provides all the justification DC needs to keep publishing their origin story forever.

But you're correct about the direct correlation. It's more of a dick move to fuck Moore than anything else.

 

[Roland_Gunner]

What? He talks about FC as a commentary on comics and a call for utopian storytelling multiple times throughout those interviews.

None of those quotes even hint at Morrison objecting to "grimdarkness" like you originally claim. You're taking your preferences in super-hero comics and over-laying that onto what he's talking about. Grant wants stories that are epic, action packed, almost operatic but not necessarily optimistic in nature. At roughly the same time he had Batman fight the Devil, get hooked on heroin and crack, and then die. Hard to reconcile that with a desire for "utopian storytelling." That's also why Batman & Robin was written in three issue arcs. To get away from the decompressed, grounded kinds of comics that were popular then.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Does it even make sense that Doc Manhattan would have the highest power level in the entire DC universe?

Maybe? Once you get that high up in the rankings, it gets pretty fluid.

 

[Father_Brain]

From chapter 4: "There's a force out there we've never met. There's going to be a war between hope and despair. Love and apathy. Faith and disbelief.", followed by Batman finding The Comedian's badge, and the whole epilogue. Hell, Pandora's death is panel-for-panel Rorscharch's death.

How does Dr. Manhattan, the specific character from Watchmen Johns chose to use, represent any of those things?

For that matter, how does Watchmen, taken in its entirety, represent any of those things?

 

[ElNarez]

Dr. Manhattan as a grim dark force of evil will drive me bonkers, as it completely misses the character. I'm not talking it being an exaggeration or distortion of his actions. It's...a completely different dude. I'd like to give Johns some credit and believe he had actually read the Watchmen without wholesale violating Moore's desires, but he certainly doesn't give me that vibe.

Yeah but it's not evil. Again, the book says it's "despair, apathy and disbelief". Which, I'm sorry, but that's the ending of Watchmen to a t. I mean, you're talking about the same Doctor Manhattan who accepts to go along with Ozymandias' plan, and who blows up Rorscharch to ensure its safety. Life is a thermodynamic miracle but fuck that guy, right?

 

[TheFlow]

Yeah but it's not evil. Again, the book says it's "despair, apathy and disbelief". Which, I'm sorry, but that's the ending of Watchmen to a t. I mean, you're talking about the same Doctor Manhattan who accepts to go along with Ozymandias' plan, and who blows up Rorscharch to ensure its safety. Life is a thermodynamic miracle but fuck that guy, right?

Leaning towards this. I don't think Dr.M was or ever will be evil.

 

[Tragicomedy]

How does Dr. Manhattan, the specific character from Watchmen Johns chose to use, represent any of those things?

For that matter, how does Watchmen, taken in its entirety, represent any of those things?

He doesn't. And they don't.

Doctor Manhattan's power level compared to DC players is irrelevant, since he wasn't designed with that in mind. He's a true super powered being in a world where "superheroes" are vigilantes in masks.

 

[pock3tmonster]

Does it even make sense that

Spoiler

Doc Manhattan

would have the highest power level in the entire DC universe?

It's my understanding that he exists outside of the universe but can appear or manifest within it, as he did in Rebirth when he

Spoiler

murdered Pandora.

As the

Spoiler

supposed creator

of the DC universe, his powers should be limitless.

 

[shoplifter]

Leaning towards this. I don't think Dr.M was or ever will be evil.

The reasoning is going to be more of the 'this is for your own good, I know best' rather than some evil plot by Dr. M. A dude that vaporizes Rorschach because reasons isn't exactly a hero anymore.

 

[TheFlow]

The reasoning is going to be more of the 'this is for your own good, I know best' rather than some evil plot by Dr. M. A dude that vaporizes Rorschach because reasons isn't exactly a hero anymore.

Yea don't remind me

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Adding key characters from the Watchmen into the DC universe as big bads provides all the justification DC needs to keep publishing their origin story forever.

But you're correct about the direct correlation. It's more of a dick move to fuck Moore than anything else.

Have they outright said Watchmen will be the big bads?

 

[JTripper]

Have they outright said Watchmen will be the big bads?

I think Johns referred to him as an "antagonist" but not a straight up villain.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Yeah but it's not evil. Again, the book says it's "despair, apathy and disbelief". Which, I'm sorry, but that's the ending of Watchmen to a t. I mean, you're talking about the same Doctor Manhattan who accepts to go along with Ozymandias' plan, and who blows up Rorscharch to ensure its safety. Life is a thermodynamic miracle but fuck that guy, right?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Have they outright said Watchmen will be the big bads?

Not really.

He doesn't. And they don't.

Doctor Manhattan's power level compared to DC players is irrelevant, since he wasn't designed with that in mind. He's a true super powered being in a world where "superheroes" are vigilantes in masks.

He was designed as "Captain Atom minus Charleston."

 

[Apt101]

I think Johns referred to him as an "antagonist" but not a straight up villain.

Manhattan is pretty much ambivalent towards everything, right? I wonder what his motivation to do any of this will be? Somehow save the universe? The next twelve months of comics from DC could be great.

 

[Father_Brain]

Yeah but it's not evil. Again, the book says it's "despair, apathy and disbelief". Which, I'm sorry, but that's the ending of Watchmen to a t. I mean, you're talking about the same Doctor Manhattan who accepts to go along with Ozymandias' plan, and who blows up Rorscharch to ensure its safety. Life is a thermodynamic miracle but fuck that guy, right?

Leaning towards this. I don't think Dr.M was or ever will be evil.

Johns can say what he wants, and the character will probably get some half-assed moment of quasi-redemption down the road, but there is absolutely nothing resembling nuance in the actual text of Rebirth to suggest that his interpretation of Dr. Manhattan is anything but malevolent.

"They attacked," "stole ten years from us," "before whoever attacked my friends attacks us again," every single line of dialogue Pandora says before being killed, "they took years from us to weaken us," "they struck deep in our hearts," "they're waiting to attack again," etc.

 

[Afrodium]

I'm okay with Manhattan being some thinly veiled metaphor for DC editorial who can just reshape the DCU at a whim whenever he feels like it instead of needing to resort to a Crisis for the same result. He kind of works as an editorial stamd-in because it's impossible to talk about the character's place in the universe without thinking about all these characters being owned by a publishing house that is responsible for one of the most revered graphic novels of all time. However, now that these characters are in the cannon it's only a matter of time until some writer gets their hands on them and fucks it all up.

 

[TheFlow]

Johns can say what he wants, and the character will probably get some half-assed moment of quasi-redemption down the road, but there is absolutely nothing resembling nuance in the actual text of Rebirth to suggest that his interpretation of Dr. Manhattan is anything but malevolent.

"They attacked," "stole ten years from us," "before whoever attacked my friends attacks us again," every single line of dialogue Pandora says before being killed, "they took years from us to weaken us," "they struck deep in our hearts," "they're waiting to attack again," etc.

True the rebirth gives off that feeling but this is a oneshot and things can change down the road. I remember reading the New 52 way back in the beginning and how Pandora was being hyped but look where we at now.

I am going to take neutral route and say "let's wait 6 months to see where this goes"

 

[Father_Brain]

In a nutshell: The Watchmen characters are not fucking symbols. They do not represent anything beyond themselves and their role in the story in which they originally appeared, and any attempt to ignore or change that is never going to be able to escape the gravity of the original work.

Yeah but it's not evil. Again, the book says it's "despair, apathy and disbelief". Which, I'm sorry, but that's the ending of Watchmen to a t. I mean, you're talking about the same Doctor Manhattan who accepts to go along with Ozymandias' plan, and who blows up Rorscharch to ensure its safety. Life is a thermodynamic miracle but fuck that guy, right?

Also: yes, Doctor Manhattan is certainly a morally compromised character at the end of Watchmen. Every character is, including the one who refused to compromise and paid for it with his life.

That doesn't mean that reducing Manhattan, or the story as a whole, to "despair, apathy, and disbelief" is anything but an extremely shallow, surface-level reading of Watchmen. In fact, its ending still manages to be considerably more hopeful than many of the dark and violent superhero comics that Johns himself has written, including this week's Justice League #50.

 

[JTripper]

Manhattan is pretty much ambivalent towards everything, right? I wonder what his motivation to do any of this will be? Somehow save the universe? The next twelve months of comics from DC could be great.

He's pretty pessimistic towards human endeavor and chooses to isolate himself because of his perceived god-status abilities and how he can't really relate to anyone because of them. But in Before Watchmen he's also very curious towards the possibility of creating something new and seeing where it will lead. But of course, that's "before watchmen" and people might not even consider it canon.

I'm really curious how DC is going to depict him going forward to whatever lengths they might go.

 

[Maple-Tech]

Have Gibbons or Moore said anything about Rebirth yet?

Also, I've been on a break from comics for a few months,

Spoiler

when did superman die? and how?

 

[Sandfox]

Have Gibbons or Moore said anything about Rebirth yet?

Also, I've been on a break from comics for a few months,

Spoiler

when did superman die? and how?

Spoiler

Today's issue of Superman.

 

[Afrodium]

Imagine if in the Black Panther movie we meet a lion named Simba and it turns out that The Lion King is now part of the MCU cannon. The same company makes both movies so I guess it would kind of makes sense... and you could still watch The Lion King and appreciate it for what it is, but it would be fucking weird to think about how after returning to Pride Rock Simba starts hanging out with Captain America.

 

[MisterHero]

Imagine if in the Black Panther movie we meet a lion named Simba and it turns out that The Lion King is now part of the MCU cannon. The same company makes both movies so I guess it would kind of makes sense... and you could still watch The Lion King and appreciate it for what it is, but it would be fucking weird to think about how after returning to Pride Rock Simba starts hanging out with Captain America.

That's what all the live action remakes are for. Duh

 

[JTripper]

I thought it was a cool, likely coincidental, little detail that

Spoiler

Batman was the one who found a blood-red smeared smiley face button right after researching the Joker.

 

[The Silver]

Imagine if in the Black Panther movie we meet a lion named Simba and it turns out that The Lion King is now part of the MCU cannon. The same company makes both movies so I guess it would kind of makes sense... and you could still watch The Lion King and appreciate it for what it is, but it would be fucking weird to think about how after returning to Pride Rock Simba starts hanging out with Captain America.

come up with something better cause that wouldn't bother me in the least, I would laugh.

 

[TheFlow]

Imagine if in the Black Panther movie we meet a lion named Simba and it turns out that The Lion King is now part of the MCU cannon. The same company makes both movies so I guess it would kind of makes sense... and you could still watch The Lion King and appreciate it for what it is, but it would be fucking weird to think about how after returning to Pride Rock Simba starts hanging out with Captain America.

stop.

 

[FoneBone]

None of those quotes even hint at Morrison objecting to "grimdarkness" like you originally claim. You're taking your preferences in super-hero comics and over-laying that onto what he's talking about. Grant wants stories that are epic, action packed, almost operatic but not necessarily optimistic in nature. At roughly the same time he had Batman fight the Devil, get hooked on heroin and crack, and then die. Hard to reconcile that with a desire for "utopian storytelling." That's also why Batman & Robin was written in three issue arcs. To get away from the decompressed, grounded kinds of comics that were popular then.

How much of his work have you read? Flex Mentallo, Seven Soldiers, Multiversity? The meta-messages that you seem to deny exist there aren't even remotely subtle. I'd say Batman is definitely more cynical than most of his DCU fare, but even there Bruce's "death" comes going toe-to-toe with *the* ultimate evil, and then he's brought back to reality by the power of family and friendship ("The first truth of Batman... I was never alone.")

 

[exmachina64]

Johns: "Who? Do you mean Hal Jordan?"

Thank you for this.

So when does it take place in continuity?

You'd be better off treating it as something that exists on its own, separate from mainline continuity, like Watchmen All-Star Superman.

 

[Doctoglethorpe]

Manhattan is pretty much ambivalent towards everything, right? I wonder what his motivation to do any of this will be? Somehow save the universe? The next twelve months of comics from DC could be great.

The best reason ive heard is that hes just treating this universe (one of infinite) like a petri dish. Messing with concepts to see what will happen. Basically just playing god, cause hes got nothing better to do at this point.

 

[Shamrock7r]

Imagine if in the Black Panther movie we meet a lion named Simba and it turns out that The Lion King is now part of the MCU cannon. The same company makes both movies so I guess it would kind of makes sense... and you could still watch The Lion King and appreciate it for what it is, but it would be fucking weird to think about how after returning to Pride Rock Simba starts hanging out with Captain America.

Billy Madison "everyone is dumber for having listened to you" .gif

 

[Father_Brain]

Convergence made the multiverse infinite.

Edit: Delays pushed the release of Multiversity back so long that the changes it was making to the structure of the multiverse were irrelevant by the time it was released.

Not exactly.

I mean, that's what subsequent interviews with DC editorial implied, but the actual pages of Convergence #8 depicted something quite different: the various Convergence worlds fading away like ghosts and being replaced by their Multiversity counterparts.

 

[BUNTING1243]

So as someone who is trying to use this to get back into comics, what do i buy to follow this "regain our memory and fight Doctor Manhattan" story. Is Rebirth a monthly series?

(Sorry if this is a dumb question, I fell out of mainline DC at Infinite Crisis so I'm rusty)

 

[Father_Brain]

So as someone who is trying to use this to get back into comics, what do i buy to follow this "regain our memory and fight Doctor Manhattan" story. Is Rebirth a monthly series?

(Sorry if this is a dumb question, I fell out of mainline DC at Infinite Crisis so I'm rusty)

They haven't announced anything about where or when the Watchmen stuff specifically will be followed up on.

I assume that at least some of the Rebirth one-shots, most obviously Superman, Flash, and Titans, will take up the task of reconciling the pre-New 52 and New 52 continuities, but even that's not that clear yet,

 

[Bear Force One]

I'm fairly addicted to rereads of this book. It just makes me happy. Brilliant job, Johns.

 

[mgarnica89]

Probably been brought up but it definitely feels like Vic sage's Question is gonna turn out to be Rorschach. Too many weird things happened with his character for that not to be what happens.

 

[BUNTING1243]

They haven't announced anything about where or when the Watchmen stuff specifically will be followed up on.

I assume that at least some of the Rebirth one-shots, most obviously Superman, Flash, and Titans, will take up the task of reconciling the pre-New 52 and New 52 continuities, but even that's not that clear yet,

Huh interesting, okay thanks!

What a wild reveal. As someone who loves watchman and older DC stuff I can't wait to see where this goes.

 

[KonradLaw]

Imagine if in the Black Panther movie we meet a lion named Simba and it turns out that The Lion King is now part of the MCU cannon. The same company makes both movies so I guess it would kind of makes sense... and you could still watch The Lion King and appreciate it for what it is, but it would be fucking weird to think about how after returning to Pride Rock Simba starts hanging out with Captain America.

. Lion King is completely differnt type of movie, one wiith talking animals. Watchmen is superhero comics. Not tonally any different from a lot of what DC has done in the past.

Instead it would more like Doctor Strange traveling two centuries into the past and stumbling into the castle with Beauty and the Beast. And that would be just fine.

Heck. I'm reading Invicible now and just went through crossover issue with SpiderMan..and it was decent.