No, I don’t care if they’re not calling it a reboot. You can call it what you want, but firing someone and laying them off still mean the same thing: that someone doesn’t have a job anymore, and a reboot and a revitalizing just mean that history’s getting swept under the rug in favor of something that nobody asked for.

Look, people are asking me about my thoughts on this and honestly it’s too early to give any thoughts about this nonsense. I’m depressed about it, not only because ONLY LAST MONTH I wrote up a recommendations list for people and now half of it is completely worthless because those ongoing series I recommended will be ending. I hate that Birds of Prey is being relaunched (AGAIN) without Gail Simone. I’m upset that she’s working on a character, Firestorm, who I have zero interest in. I’m upset that it’s likely that Lois Lane and Clark Kent will probably no longer be together, since they keep hyping up that these are younger versions of these characters. I’m upset that Batgirl is very likely going to be Barbara Gordon again, undoing 20+ years of character development of her as Oracle. I’m upset that Dick Grayson probably won’t be Batman anymore and that Batman, Inc. will probably be ending, too, since I loved the concept and the story itself was awesome to me. I’m upset because Jim Lee is designing new costumes for everybody and frankly Lee, while a great artist, is not exactly the guy I go to for new designs because they just frankly don’t look all that good. I’m upset because they won’t just give a damn straight answer about whether this is a full reboot from scratch, everybody new, etc., etc., or if this is a continuation of everything that has come before.

And I guess what I’m most ticked off about is that this whole thing is, yet again, being done to capture this elusive “new reader” that they always want to get, despite them pulling this crap at least twice before now and FAILING AT IT.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I had read some Nightwing comics my brother had because he was a fan of Nightwing from the Batman animated series. In one issue, he had a flashback to when he was a member of a team called the Teen Titans. I had never heard of this team before, but it intrigued me and made me want to learn more. When I was at a comic book store, looking for material to read on a trip up to a camp up in the woods for a four-day retreat made by my school, I saw “JLA/Titans: The Technis Imperative.” Since I wanted to know more about the Titans, I picked that up and that’s how I started regularly reading comics. The book has tons and tons of heroes I had never heard of before and it was glorious because it made me want to learn more about them, to learn more about a history I had never thought existed.

THAT is the new reader you want to get, DC. You don’t get new readers by pretending that nothing ever happened before. You get new readers by telling good stories and making them want to know more about the history. You EMBRACE your history, use it as the platform to tell good stories. You have it even easier these days with the internet and its bottomless pit of information about characters and storylines that anyone can look up and read more about.

I am banging my head against my desk that I have to keep reminding the industry about this: tell good stories and the readers will come. They will come through word of mouth, they will come because you have dedicated readers who invest their time and money into these characters. Does it work for every book? No, because opinions vary on it, but you know damn well that a good book is going to last a hell of a lot longer than a bad one.

So, people, you want my thoughts about the upcoming DC reboot? I’m upset about it. Maybe it’ll all work out for the best – maybe I’m overreacting. It happens. But right now? I’m upset and I am going to continue to be upset about it because it feels like I’ve invested money and time in something for over ten years and it was for nothing.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just read HERE or google it.

Also, DC announced they would also release digital comics of those releases on the same day from now on. That’s fantastic and I love it, howevere, there’s a quote from the West Wing that I like to use at a time like this:

“Why is it for every good thing you do around here, we have to endure three screw-ups?”

Discuss, debate, argue, criticize me, support me, do what you like in the comments, but keep it civil.