shaxper
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Posts: 22,330
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Post by shaxper on Oct 28, 2018 13:12:41 GMT -5
At a time when comic industry sales were at the tail end of a decade long slump, DC went with it's go-to solution to just reset everything...but they tried to do it differently. As a reader at the time, I still believe DC's 2006 One Year Later event was possibly the most innovative company-wide idea we've ever seen from the big two. Except that they screwed it up. Badly. The idea: fast forward every title one year into the future, with new directions and creative teams for most titles, in the wake of a World War III that apparently occurred sometime inbetween. Publish a weekly comic (52) that would fill in the gaps as to what occurred in that missing year. What went wrong (in my opinion): Story arcs were disrupted without warning and proper wrap-up, 52 ended up veering far off course and telling a very different set of stories so that the missing year never really got filled in, the new premises for each title often felt hurried and hastily considered, and World War III was the biggest nothing DC ever published. As a reader looking to get back into new comics around this time, I greeted OYL as a jumping on point and bought every single DC title for the first two months, and then carefully weighed what to keep and what to let go of after that. In hindsight, the only series that I felt truly used the OYL premise well was Green Arrow, and even that was ultimately somewhat inconsequential. So I'm curious who else was reading One Year Later back in 2006 and whether or not your experience and impressions align with mine. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2018 15:21:01 GMT -5
As with any "event" from DC & Marvel it was a mixed bag for me.
Superman: Up Up & Away by Johns & Busiek kicked off the Superman titles with a story I liked but I don't remember anything after that.
Batman: I also liked the Face to Face story in the Batman titles. One of the last James Robinson stories I liked.
Wonder Woman: an overhyped story that had Allan Heinberg writing WW after his acclaimed run on Marvel's Young Avengers. It suffered from massive delays and didn't deliver IMO.
Aquaman: Hated the "new" Aquaman who ironically was more like the Golden Age Aquaman.
Flash: Bart Allen becomes the Flash. Really a bad idea.
Green Arrow: Loved the story of Oliver as mayor of Star City.
Supergirl & the LoSH: I actually liked this. Having Supergirl "replace" Superboy in the Legion was fun.
Trials of Shazam by Winnick. Having Jr become the "new" Capt Marvel with Billy becoming the Wizard? Another bad idea.
All New Atom by Simone. Introduced Ryan Choi. I liked it. I thought it was a fun series that still managed to give Ray respect.
Other series had some minor changes. Some good, some bad. Overall I felt DC failed to capitalize on the potential of a "soft" reboot of their line. However I did like that DC "moved away" from the darker stories like Identity Crisis for awhile.
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Post by hondobrode on Oct 28, 2018 15:35:03 GMT -5
I was reading all and was hopeful as well but they really bungled it.
I think this was an example of poor execution on Didio's part.
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Post by Duragizer on Oct 28, 2018 19:33:48 GMT -5
All I read was Up, Up, and Away. Didn't strike a chord in me at all.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,330
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Post by shaxper on Oct 28, 2018 21:18:31 GMT -5
Aquaman: Hated the "new" Aquaman who ironically was more like the Golden Age Aquaman. I really wanted to like this one, what with the fantasy world-building that was being attempted, but it just utterly failed to hold my interest over time. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2018 2:26:06 GMT -5
This came out the year that I got laid off from work and the only two that I read was Supergirl and LoSH and Aquaman. I liked Aquaman and had that Golden Age feel that I liked. Like Michael James said -- Supergirl was a breath of fresh air and I enjoyed it very much and it was done just right and its was delightful to read.
I read a handful of them and sadly -- I gave them away at my LCS just shortly when I found out that I was being laid off and I had to get rid of them for pocket change.
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Post by MWGallaher on Oct 29, 2018 7:44:54 GMT -5
Aquaman Sword of Atlantis was the only one that I particularly enjoyed. A brief Sword & Sorcery boom was going on, with Conan returning to popularity at Dark Horse, and Kurt Busiek (and later, fantasy author Tad Williams) did some memorable and fun writing here. Was it really "Aquaman"? Well, no, but it was refreshing and I found it engaging.
The only other really memorable thing was Steve Gerber's Hard Time, which cheekily ended with a "49 Years Later" branding on its conclusion.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2018 21:02:33 GMT -5
Aquaman: Hated the "new" Aquaman who ironically was more like the Golden Age Aquaman. I really wanted to like this one, what with the fantasy world-building that was being attempted, but it just utterly failed to hold my interest over time. I thought I would love it. I like Busiek's writing. This Aquaman was similar to the GA Aquaman. There was some fantasy elements that I enjoy. But it just didn't work for me. |
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Post by profh0011 on Oct 19, 2019 21:20:05 GMT -5
The only thing I can remember was GREEN LANTERN, in which it was revealed that after coming back from the dead and redeeming his reputation only a year earlier, Hal had been STUPID enough to go flying into a war zone without his GL ring... and spent an entire YEAR in a Russian military prison. That was the first moment where I really wanted to just SLAP Geoff Johns SILLY. I believe it was right after this that Hal ran afoul of a group of GL surviors of Parallax' massacre, and not being in on what happened, wanted to KILL him. My main memory of that storyline was seeing Arisia again, who had been missing and believed dead for some time, but was still alive and in need of rescuing. By the end of the story, she happily told Hal she had NEVER lost her faith in him. There's a lot of reasons why she's my favorite GL. 
Oh yeah. I also remember Ivan Reis' art. To my eyes, he "did" Neal Adams BETTER than Neal Adams ever did.
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Post by rberman on Oct 19, 2019 23:02:47 GMT -5
This is essentially what Marvel did with Avengers: Endgame. A global catastrophe, a leap forward in time, and catching up with the changes in our heroes. Some went from tortured to happy, some from happy to tortured, etc.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 20, 2019 10:25:15 GMT -5
I had no idea there was supposed to be WWIII in between... I remember reading the promo stuff and it focusing on Brother Eye trying to take over (Is that the right event?) I liked some of the bits I read... The Rann-Thanagar War was good, and the bits of New 52 with the group Starfire was in definitely held my interest, but nothing else.
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Post by beccabear67 on Oct 20, 2019 14:23:14 GMT -5
All I know of this is it's effect on the regular Supergirl and Legion Of Super-Heroes titles. In Supergirl I just went with it while not understanding everything I suppose, and the Legion was more self contained and a somewhat confused Supergirl joining and receiving co-billing didn't have a huge effect really. I doubt I'll ever care enough to seek out the huge cross-over even itself, what I can grasp from here and the ads in the comics seems enough info for me. Everything post-Crisis 1985-86 is just whatever they tell me it is each time. I may find myself interested in some titles that will have had a one year later jump though, you never know.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 20, 2019 16:04:52 GMT -5
I didn’t read it but thought the idea of jumping one year ahead was an excellent one. It allowed a soft reboot that required neither the reader giving up on old favourites, nor writers having to come up with convoluted ways to explain how the characters ended up in a particular situation. Leaving the transition vague meant that later writers could visit it some day if they felt like it, or just leave it alone and move forward.
In that sense, I think the 52 idea was exactly the opposite of a good idea. Not that there’s anything wrong with a weekly series, but trying to tie an old status quo with a new one, even as the new status quo is moving forward, seems to be the perfect recipe for an added level of continuity nightmare. It’s much easier, methinks, and also a lot less frustrating to readers and writers, to just say “yes, Suchandsuch isn’t dead anymore, these two characters are now dating and that planet is no longer destroyed. There are good reasons for all of that, honest, but we won’t waste time going over the details because we have new and exciting stories to tell with things as they now are”.
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Post by SJNeal on Oct 21, 2019 21:22:08 GMT -5
At the time, my 2 favorite DC series were Hawkman and Aquaman. I was bummed that Palmiotti & Gray and Arcudi would be leaving their respective titles, but remained cautiously optimistic. I mean - Simonson, Chaykin, Busiek, Guice?! You can't go wrong with those names! Except DC did.
I might have been able to get into what they were doing with these books if they hadn't scrapped what (imho) was some of the best work being done with these characters in years.
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