I without a doubt believe DC rebirth sparked and brought in a whole new wave of readers and brought waves of old ones back and I think thats thanks to marketing and word of mouth. After a long comic break, I finally jumped back in thanks to Secret Wars and Multiversity and some time after Multiversity, Rebirth came in. New 52 was thrown out the window, old continuity is back and will mesh with the popular ideas from New 52. There was a big super controversial set up for a comic at the end, which I will get too. Rebirth was a relaunch done right, and 5 years later as 2019 comes to an end I might as well see if anything held up.
From Page 1 you have an idea what’s coming, the innards of a clock and the text boxes. You know whose talking but cannot be sure. And unless you skip to the end or read the news you were- conflicted. I gotta say I love this mystery character’s dialogue in the opening of this, it’s personal and relatable. But that’s all I can say for now to be honest, more to come.
First off can I appreciate how good Gary Frank’s art is, it’s like all of DC’s most notable artist rolled into one man. To me Jim Lee was the definitive DC artist but If I’m talking depth and details it’s definently Gary. But yeah Three Jokers, it’s been 4-5 years and it hasn’t been brought up in Batman at all. Tom King’s Batman was great at first but got more meh as it went on. It feels like DC keeps pushing him to do these things in line with what they want and he doesn’t let them, almost like he demanded Three Jokers be done on his time not theirs. Good habit, but still awkward.
Note: Apparantly it was brought up in some other book, weird that it’s not the main Bat Book but hey.
Wowie Zowie the narrator was Wally West! Whose been absent since the New 52 began. This is the first sign that the old Pre-Flashpoint things were coming back. He calls to Bruce who doesn’t recognize him and mistakes him for Barry, no one remembers him no one remembers a lot of the Pre-Flashpoint stuff. For those not up to date, New 52 rebooted everything! Poor ginger Wally was gone and replaced by Black Wally, Black Wally hasn’t gotten a lot of traction lately and now he had lost the limelight(or has he?). Wally’s kind of the ghost main character of this comic, he jumps around different events in the heroes lives to find a connection strong enough to bring him back to the world after A STRANGE ENTITY fiddles with reality, mostly to set up upcoming comics. I’m not into setting up other books during big events, none do them good and that includes this.
After Batman failed to return him Wally has flashbacks about his Post-Crisis adventures. Old readers will be giddy with hype, hey they remembered! they spouted. Wally explains the history of DC up to Barry coming back and eventually causing Flashpoint which is what caused all of New 52. Wally saw a mysterious being tinker with the DC universe, this being caused the New 52 and he didn’t do it to be nice, he did it just cause! Wally continues to be lost in uhh Speed-Force? until someone with a good connection frees him.
Next chapter starts off with Wally’s fist victi-I mean connection. Johnny Thunder returns and he’s a crazy old man who lost the Genie that gave him his powers. This doesn’t get brought up as much in the DC comics of the following years,this is just one of those things that are set up to play a role in Geoff’s epic crossover story. I honestly think it’s a little to cruel to such a Golden age classic and I have to ask, where’s Jakeem?
Saturn-Girl appear and she’s a bit of a loon. For some reason everyone think her and Johnny are crazy despite living in the DC Universe, but it’s all just Geoff Jones set up. Saturn-Girl wants to see Superman but aside from the police thinking she’s a madwoman Superman has fucked off to who knows where. Oh yeah he died right in some New 52 stuff, or did he? Yeah the Pre-Flashpoint Superman is actually around and has been playing Batman for some time in the Lois and Clark books, they even have a Son!
Did anything come from Ryan Choi‘s hunt for Ray Palmer, or was it only in JLA. JLA was “okay”- It was a unique selection from DC’s B-C Lister’s in a team and go on crazy adventures. That includes following up on this story. Did DC not have enough faith for them to let this be some short mini that it had to be some side plot for JLA. Whatever though, Atom’s cool and I liked things like Sword of the Atom.
I don’t really like Jamie, he’s everything I hate in a Latino protagonist. I do like Blue Beetle and Doctor Fate teaming up to study the science of the magic of Jamie’s scarab. Not enough to actually read Blue Beetle, I don’t know if it’s good I think it might’ve be short lived, Fates hanging around being evil in Justice League Dark and as far as I’ve seen Ted’s still dead.
Wow nothing, just 6 panels setting up 3 different stories. I think Aquaman had the best of these three going for him. Aqualad from the Young Justice show was a great character and having him in the main canon is cool. But wait whats that last panel?
Pandora, from!- something I’m not sure, Flashpoint I think. She dies as soon as she comes back by uh SmurfMan. I think she does play some role In the major DC plot afterwards I don’t know, I don’t care.
Wally’s still jumping around, we see Darkseid being reborn and Jason (of the Argonauts) being mentioned. This is all stuff that shows up in Greg Rucka‘s Rebirth Wonder Woman run. I loved that book a lot, it felt like everything good from the movie plus the best parts of Morrison’s Earth-1. After a whole 3 part arc that leads to Diana, Cheetah, and Ares making amends. She faces off against Grail whose raising a teenage Darkseid with the help of Jason from the Argonauts. I stopped reading at that point to be honest.
Next pages, New 52 Superman died in a thing, again-everyone’s sad, again. I heard New 52 Superman got really good eventually but it started off very boring so I didn’t bother or want too. But you know what wasn’t boring, Peter Tomasi‘s Superman. These 2 pages also talked about Green Arrow and Black Canary‘s relationship but blah blah I don’t care.
New Superman may be dead, but old Post-Flashpoint Superman is very well alive and has been doing his Superman business at night Batman style, it was interesting. With rebirth Tomasi used this Superman as his lead. Something I thought was idiotic, even more so when Tomasi decided to do some weirdo multiverse shit and fuse the worlds of both into one so it’s all canon now. I would hate it more if Tomasi didn’t do everything else so well, Superman has adventures in Kansas then Metropolis with his Super-Powered son, Damian tags along and has fun. It’s genuine and heartfelt and I’m sad he got kicked off for Bendis.
New 52 Aquaman was great, and Rebirth Aquaman feels like a follow up to it. Aquaman want’s Atlantis to be recognized as nation which leads to some war stuff you know how it is. Mera want’s to marry Arthur but tradition gets in the way. I had one major complaint about Rebirth and that was killing off the Captain Nemo villain for Black Manta wanking. I love Manta, but Aquaman need’s more interesting villains.
Wally’s next attempt to return is with Linda Park, his love interest. I like this part, it feels like he truly believes the power of love can save him from his dilemma. Then is heartbroken when like Batman she has no memory of him. Wally screams in rage and goes to the next target.
Wally jumps and we see the characters Gotham and Gotham-Girl. I liked the idea of the characters a lot and I like Gotham-Girls role in King’s Batman (till I stopped reading). I wish more got done with both of them, I really liked their look. The idea of some Goth architect aesthetic Superman trying to take Batman’s place who even had a similar origin. They go off and fight giant monsters too, and the Bane arc is amazing, Gotham Civil War was okay. It’s a shame it goes downhill after the wedding issue, I still really like King though. The next panel tease is JLD but I don’t care for Justice League Dark that much, I didn’t read it.
After jumping around with some more characters, Wally finally meets Black Wally. I hate shallow conveniences and CONVENIENTLY Wally and Wally are related. Black Wally goes on to become Kid Flash, and Wally goes on to become THE Flash after this single issue. Also Barry Allen Flash is still the Flash! I used to hate legacy characters because they always go back to status quo so it never makes an impact, but I’ve grown to get over it. But if you have 5 characters with the same name in one world I think you are out of your mind.
After a long 80-ish paged issue, Wally finally gets through to someone. Barry his mentor, who didn’t remember at first but after Wally gives an emotional farewell- It was sappy enough for Barry to remember and save his friend from the grasps of the mysterious god being and into the rebirth world. After an emotional one on one, Wally explains that Flash’s adventures in Flashpoint didn’t cause the New 52 that some strange force had tampered with the laws of the world and for unknown reasons.
And the mastermind isssssssssssss-
The Watchmen!
But more specifically, Doctor Manhattan. You see at the end of Watchmen Manhattan says he wishes to create a world and leaves everyone to deal with their own problems. We learn that it’s New 52, he basically created it and this all gets explained in Doomsday Clock a sequel crossover comic by Geoff Jones and Gary Frank. It’s- okay, I have to ponder why DC and WB keep wanting to mess with Watchmen, and I dread it each time. I can forgive Before Watchmen for at least keeping it very respectful, but this is just a whole new level. Should they do a crossover with Maus? how about Y the Last Man? Blacksad? It’s disrespectful to the source material and it isn’t even anything fantastic to warrant it really!
Im certain it will end with an advertisement for DC’s next big plan
I like Geoff, he defined DC for a majority of it’s modern life. I don’t think he’s a bad writer at all but he’s the last guy I’d want to mess around with the Akira of American Comics. But like Alan Moore, we must move on. And so have I, by not buying them or watching the T.V show.
Rebirth finally ended around the time Doomsday Clock started, as Clock was the finale of it all. Some Books came and died quick, others are still going on in 2019. Overall I commend Rebirth for sparking an interest in comics again. So much so I was in threads where people created MARVEL rebirth mock covers. If it wasnt for the perfect timing, I might not be reading comics like at all anymore.
Thanks for reading, and remember “Nothing ever ends.”
Cartoonist's Man-Cave 