Relaunch!

I figured that in the wake of the DC relaunch, there's no time like the present to resume. I will admit that over the summer i found myself, shall we say, less than excited with mainstream comics. Future Foundation has been nothing but delightful, and Spider-man is always amazing, but the massive crossover events left me a bit wanting. Fear itself and Flashpoint both had me waiting for their conclusion, rather than wanting to see the drama of the story or whatever.

So, the old DC continuity is gone in a Flash (see what I did there?) and this new mass has surfaced to reveal what it's all about. I guess that's cool and all, but I'm fairly confused as to what this accomplished other than allowing me to say I own Action Comics #1.

And, this is not me complaining about what I'm reading. I think that Grant Morrison has provided a fresh take on Superman (I would expect nothing less) and that Geoff John's Justice League is actually quite good. I do have some problems with Batgirl, but more on that later.

Good writing aside, I am actually really confused. I thought this was a relaunch. I thought everything had been wiped and was new and different, but it's actually not. It's still very similar. Sure, Superman no longer wears red underwear and Barbara Gordon walked off her paralysis, but I really don't feel a tangible difference. Things are still rooted in continuity as much as they ever were, it's just a different one that has not made itself clear yet.

It's still this weird miasma of what is and what isn't that needs to get sorted out before it's fully accessible, which seems counter-productive to what the whole thing was supposed to do. I'm really unsure about all the Green Lantern stuff, especially with the "New Guardians" line. That seems like a lot of backstory that new readers might not want to get into quite yet. The canon is there. It looms over the universe(s), waiting to poke through and remind us that what was once is now lost. I'm still really uneasy, and as exciting as some things are, some ideas are unsettling. What happened to Jason Todd? What about all the Blackest Night and Crisis stuff? All these things happened! I have proof in the boxes I keep in my room! Do all these stories still exist somewhere? Do they still apply to the world, or are we sweeping them under the rug.

All of this stuff is what makes me nervous in comics. I don't want comics to fall by the wayside. But this, and DC no longer "holding the line at 2.99" when I have a poster promising they would, is quite disconcerting. I hope things get better, I do, but it's hard to not be uncomfortable right now.