I’m a fan of that kind of thing, myself. Like I said- Legends of the Dark Knight is kind of the gold standard for me (I also kind of liked how they rotated creative teams often, so if you’re not feeling this one, it’ll be a new team telling a different story soon).
But if it’s a 3-6 issue, self-contained storyline then there’s a much easier time going to the back issues rather than having to comb through years of comics to figure out who is Character X who showed up out of nowhere and whose history is suddenly crucial to understanding the story.
But yeah, I restate, this is one of the reasons comic readership is shrinking- it’s hard to gain new fans when most people are like “Well, I like The Dark Knight, I’ll try picking up an issue of Batman/Detective” and then they open it, Batman himself barely appears and it’s say…all about internal strife at GCPD or something and some other sidekick’s relationship drama and then they’re like “what is this” and drop it. I’ve been that person.
I’m the exact opposite. I love some department drama at GCPD. I’m way more supporting character oriented (my name). I’d rather read about Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown than Bruce and Selina.
I’m also okay with Arkham escapes. Where you feel the family is too large, I have trouble keeping up with bad guys. Batman has at least (quick count) 200 named villains. Now, only 37 are “rogues”, but I don’t need more.
I guess it comes down to titles and covers. Make sure the reader knows it’s a team book vs solo. Make sure they know it’s mid story (part 7 on the cover for instance). I’m accustomed to seeing something at issue 1000 and understanding it’s gonna come with some baggage.
I’d say it would be just as bad an idea to not gain light new readers as it is to lose old readers like myself. I currently give Warner Brothers enough money in a year to equal several casual readers.
At the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, four characters from destroyed universes survived: Earth 2 Superman (in other words, the Superman from Action Comics #1), Earth 2 Lois Lane, Earth 3 Lex Luthor Jr., and Earth Prime Superboy. They were basically placed in a heaven-like existence where they could observe the events of the post-Crisis DC universe in peace.
At the beginning of Infinite Crisis, the four characters are watching angrily as the universe goes into full grimdark territory. (Just think of all the bleak DC stories from the late 80s to the mid 00s.) They decide that the heroes of this new Earth have failed, and they want to set things right. Superboy breaks free of their location, and in doing so, he disrupts the universe’s reality and causes minor changes to the timeline. (Then Superboy Prime eventually becomes a villain.)
Right. Jason Todd wasn’t “supposed” to die, so Superboy caused the timeline to revert to the way it was supposed to play out. Jason climbs out of his own grave and lives on.
I’m saying, if I knew what I was getting, I probably wouldn’t mind. I know Gotham Central was a police procedural, and I know I can avoid that since that’s a genre I don’t enjoy. If I open a comic that explicitly has Batman on the cover, I expect Batman. Maybe Robin. Maybe Catwoman. Like I’ve said, I get that an 80 year old franchise is gonna come with baggage.
If nothing else, it makes Arkham Knight’s use of Jason seem a lot less weird.
I’m just amazed that there’s a Crisis on Infinite Earths and an Infinity Crisis. You’d think someone at the editorial staff would catch how confusing that would be. Not to mention Marvel’s got their own line of “Infinity” events.
It is confusing, but I kinda love the idea that the 900-number vote was declared to be an intrusive continuity error that interfered with the character’s destiny.
I get it. I feel like Batman (solo) has done a lot of keeping things to itself lately. It’s way less crowded than it was fifteen years ago. I read Detective and NEVER need to read Batman anymore. That never used to be that way.
I’m probably overlooking a lot. I struggle being objective when reading at this point. If Batman is on 18 of 24 pages by himself then my brain would probably consider that him on his own. If that makes sense.
I’m realizing I’m definitely a hypocrite here because I’ve dismissed the complaint before that Batman isn’t in enough of Tim Burton’s two Batman movies, and I love those movies.
That left you confused? I thought it did a pretty good job of bringing people up to speed on what had happened in his life. The books were there if you wanted to know more, but basically the Rebirth issue just told you what you needed to know going forward, so that you could decide yourself whether or not you wanted to learn more or not, but knowing more wasn’t really needed in order to get the book going forward.
To be fair, Crisis on Infinite Earths came out way before the first Marvel “Infinity” book. And then Infinite Crisis was more or less a sequel to that. It’s essentially the same thing as having The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast, 2 Furious
So, personally, I find the ever growing number of partnerships and sidekicks Batman has to be one of the most fascinating elements of his character. At his core, Batman is still the boy who lost his family in Crime Alley. He puts on the costume and goes out to fight crime so that no one else has to experience that, too. But when he fails, and someone does experience that loss, he takes them in, and it’s like he’s trying to build his own family, but he’s scared of losing them, too, so he occasionally pushes away, tries to convince himself that he doesn’t need them, that they’re all just “soldiers in a war”. But the truth is, he’s still looking for his place in the world, and it’s not in some ivory tower boardroom meeting, or on a gargoyle while dressed like a bat. It’s with his own like makeshift family.
Imagine Nightwing: Rebirth #1 is the very first comic book that someone ever read. Someone who’d never read “Grayson”. Or even heard of Nightwing before. This Hypothetical New Reader goes into a comic store and wants to try reading comics for the first time. They see Nightwing and think his look and name are cool. The helpful comic store worker hands them the Vol. 1 “Better Than Batman” TPB. They take it home, open it up and start reading, and this is what they encounter:
Vague references to a “Helena Bertinelli”, who only appears on one later page of this issue, and vague references to events that sound pretty important, but no indication of how important they are to the current story, or what they mean. What were Helena’s reasons for being a part of “Spyral”? I dunno, Dick just kinda trails off there… And just what is “Spyral”, for that matter? Dick says it’s a “spy organization”, but beyond that, nothing.
Any new readers will have no idea what “Jim ‘N’ Juan” means. Who are Jim and Juan? Are they other characters? It’s clearly a reference to something. An in-joke (I guess? Maybe?) for readers of a previous series, but completely indecipherable for anyone reading this for the first time. It completely went over my-- I mean, the Hypothetical New Reader’s head. A new reader would have no choice but to just ignore this and remain mystified.
Or, should that new reader become curious and want to read that previous series to figure out what that reference means, it’s worth mentioning that nowhere in this issue is the existence of a previous series called “Grayson” mentioned. At all. So, without doing outside research, a new reader would have no way of knowing that that series even exists, and where they could even find the story that led up to this issue if they even wanted to read it. It would have cost nothing (and may have even sold some books!) for DC to throw in a footnote textbox on page 1 that said “Want to know more about Dick’s spy adventures? Read ‘Grayson’!”
Again, more vagueness surrounding this “Helena” person. Who is she? Why is there so much angst between her and Dick? The issue never explains. One would have had to have read a totally different series to understand, because this issue doesn’t explain at all. If Helena is going to be important to the story going forward, it would be helpful to know these things. And if Helena isn’t going to be important, then why is she even in this issue?
Boy, this sounds pretty important! But, once again, a brand new reader would have no idea what it means. This is clearly the aftermath of a story that took place somewhere else. And what the heck is a “Parliament of Owls”? Obviously, they must be bad guys, because they took over a city and implanted a bomb in this kid’s skull. But beyond that, who knows? They weren’t mentioned before this point in the issue, and though they do appear for several pages at the end, there’s never really a sufficient explanation here of who or what they are, beyond just being a group of bad guys.
And, what if I’m intrigued by this sentence? What if I’d like to read the story that Damian is referring to? There’s no way for me to know or find out where that story is, at least not in this book. Again, that sentence really needed a “See issues #X-Y of [Insert Series Name Here]” footnote textbox. DC might’ve even, gasp!, sold some more books if they’d included one of these helpful notes. It’s been months since I read this issue and I still have no clue where this “Parliament of Owls taking over Gotham and implanting a bomb in his skull” story Damian is talking about is.
Throughout the rest of the issue, we’re introduced to a succession of “Spyral” (we never really did learn what this organization is, what it does, or why it’s important, did we?) characters, one after another, for only a page or two, each accompanied by more vague references to a previous series that Hypothetical New Reader hasn’t read and doesn’t even know exists. A strange guy called “Tiger King” appears for two pages, as he and Dick beat up some randos. We’re told that he and Dick were partners, but don’t really like each other, but don’t get anything beyond that. Who is he? Why is he called “Tiger King”? Why are he and Dick all of a sudden beating up randos? Maybe Hypothetical New Reader would like to know. Then a strange pink thing called “Keshi” shows up for one panel. Is it a robot? Don’t know. Book doesn’t tell you. Looks cool, though. But we’re moving on already. Two pages later, this “Midnighter” guy shows up. Again, no information about him is provided, other than he’s another guy who Dick knows and they also don’t really like each other. Next thing we know, Dick and Midnighter are beating up a monster and getting teleported to a spaceship and everything just seems totally out-of-context and random to Hypothetical New Reader. Midnighter makes a reference to “The Gardener”. Who’s “The Gardener”? What does any of this have to do with anything? HNR is getting confused and frustrated.
At this point, Hypothetical New Reader is also probably wondering where Nightwing is, since he’s on the cover and was mentioned on page 1, but ever since then, we’ve just been hanging out with a guy named Dick who appears to be a spy (Where are the superheroes? HNR thought they were reading a superhero book, weren’t they?), some kid called Damian who’s supposedly Robin (HNR has heard of Robin, of course, but this kid never appears in costume in this issue; at least that would be recognizable to HNR), and these “Spyral” people, who, as far as HNR can tell, have nothing whatsoever to do with Batman. The helpful comic shop worker told HNR that Nightwing is a Batman-related character. But this book sure doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with Batman. Where’s Batman? Where’s Robin? Where, for that matter, is Nightwing? Y’know, the guy on the cover, who the book was supposed to be about? HNR is very confused at this point. Confused and disappointed. Confused, disappointed, and frustrated. HNR is starting to think that reading comics might not be for them, if comics are going to be this confusing and disappointing and frustrating.
OK. Maybe I’m overstating the case a bit. But the problem with Nightwing: Rebirth #1 is that it isn’t really Nightwing: Rebirth #1. It’s Grayson #21. It’s an epilogue to the “Grayson” series. Which makes it completely new reader unfriendly. To be fair, though, Nightwing (2016) #1 proper is a much better introduction to the series and the character. But considering that Nightwing: Rebirth #1 was intended to be the hopping on point for new readers, that’s a problem. And that’s a problem with a lot of modern-era on-going comics, not just “Nightwing”. Even issues #1, those intended to be fresh starts or kick off new stories, require knowledge of the events and characters in other series, both those which came before it, and those which are currently running alongside it. It’s easy to forget when you’ve been reading comics for years and years and have a knowledge base built up, but it can be very, very difficult for new readers to get into comics. Longtime readers don’t want their hands held with the same basic information re-presented in every issue #1, so new readers basically have to be willing to dive into the deep end and realize that they’re just not going to understand about half of what they’re reading for a while as they get into comic books for the first time. And it takes someone of a particular persuasion to have both the desire and the ability to do that, particularly when there are so many other entertainment options out there these days that don’t require a similar sacrifice.
