One Year Later Explained... Sort of
Newsarama distills all the "One Year Later" explanations that occured in the WORLD WAR III specials: " Though some of the status quo changes have been covered in previous issues of 52, and still others will be covering in the Annuals of their home titles (as in the case of "Nightwing And the Proposal that Wasn't! - or - Hey, Everyone Says Dumb Things When The Think the World is Ending", for instance), many of these “OYL” moves occurred during an exceptionally busy week in the DC Universe: the week of World War III. We’re going to take a light-hearted look at a number of characters and see what facilitated the changes that we saw (and covered!) fifty-some weeks ago through the prism of the four WW3 specials." Check out their great summary here.
I got 'em all, but was rather underwhelmed. The 'gaps' they were supposed to 'explain'? Hardly!! The Supergirl stuff is still confusing... Donna Troy, Nightwing/Jason and Batgirl are not even explained, even though they have panel time. Terra is senselessly killed so Didio can do his 'old mask-new face' trick again. ONE YEAR LATER has been horribly, horribly executed. SECRET WARS did it better over 20 years ago.
posted by Mr Saturday Morning @ 8:39 AM
4 Comments:
At 3:05 PM,
Anonymous said…
Sounds like you're buying the Batgirl explanation as much as I am (it really ignores the fact for it to have been true she would have WILLINGLY taken the initial injection). Jason is unresolved. Plus, it is really apparent that there sure as heck is a lot of time between the end of 52 and when OYL starts for the Titans. Considering that they established Mary was a Titan for two weeks previously and she was there when Rose was (who wasn't a Titan during WWIII), plus neither is Kid Devil and he was one at the same time as Zatara (which means he stayed for a while after WWIII as well), it looks like this time frame took more than two weeks to get to Cyborg's awakening. Little danger in comics that you run into when you set a timeline for an event in stone. And don't even get me started on Trials of Shazam.
As much as they give their explanation of why they did what they did, it really shows that they did a piss-poor job planning 52. You mean to tell me that by issue 2 you knew that you had to change your strategy because you started writing more for the main characters instead of making them secondary to the events around them, but you couldn't figure out how to incorporate the changes to cover all of the OYL changes except to just have nearly all of them happen in one week based around a single event? Really??? Trying to tell us you had no plan B? More like they had no plan A completely worked out yet. And once they realized the approach they were going to take meant they couldn't properly address the changes, they took an easy way out. Even despite the fact two of the changes are being addressed in Annuals.
Lately I get the feeling DC is more concerend with the hype surrounding the event than trying to fine tune the details of the event.
Mike
At 5:26 PM,
Mr Saturday Morning said…
I agree with everything you said, Mike. The only way I can reconcile any of it is to believe that each time we see the Titans teams, we aren't seeing all the members. For example, Kid Devil HAD to have joined shortly after the events of 52w32. Look at TT#42. Also, Kid Devil got lost in New Azarath for two weeks. I'd guess that he's lost there during the events of WWW3. But that's ME making sense of it, not DC planning properly.
As it is, Speedy's stay on that island is contradicted in GREEN ARROW by what is referenced in TT#34. And the events of TT and 52 contradict what happens in ROBIN #148-150... Because it would mean within TWO weeks, Cassandra takes the serum, takes over the League of Assassins and plans to kill Nyssa and frame Robin.
Hawk & Dove were said to have left the Titans in an issue of 52, yet they are back in WWW3. I guess we have to 'but into' the fact that the SAME members joined and left and then also rejoined within that crazy year.
I started doing a ONE YEAR GAP timeline, and man, it's screwy!
At 10:37 PM,
D-Man said…
You're absolutely right, guys! Man, $2.50 x 52 plus tax = one very disappointed d-man! I'm really close to stopping my entire hobby and it makes me sad. I admit that my loyalty to the Titans may be the only thing that keeps me in any comics. All this death I'm seeing is my main concern (and the Titans aren't any exception). Where is the creativity??!? Some things in the Marvel comics I pick up have been equally upsetting. Even though it's not DC alone, I feel like Dan DiDio is mainly responsible for a dreadful turn in comic books. They really are more interested in the hype than producing something of substantive quality.
At 6:49 AM,
Avi Green said…
I'm glad I read your take on DC's latest overrated hype machine. Why am I not surprised that once again, they've been dishonest with the audience? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Dan DiDio should kindly step down from his position as EIC.
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