As much as I tried to avoid talking about this, here I am giving my limited viewpoint of DC Rebirth, DC's attempt to fix something that used to be broken but isn't really THAT broken anymore but made a lot of people mad back when it was broken. First of all, trying to undo the sins of the New 52, something fans were pissed about five years ago, now that it turns out Big Two comic sales are looking down recently is like an abusive spouse taking you to Red Lobster because they remembered you asked for it five years ago when you met: Thanks but you'd still appreciate it if they stopped abusing you.
(From this point, I discuss actual events that have taken place in certain DC comics, so if you're not at least two weeks up to date and you actually care about spoilers, go ahead and stop here. For everyone else, further discussion happens after the jump.)
There is nothing preventing DC from just writing better books instead of tying these massive not-really-reboots to our nuts and tugging us across the town square until we cry uncle and buy the shit. There doesn't need to be a lot of fanfare to get us on board for re-shipping Green Arrow and Black Canary. Just put them together.
Having said all of this, what I've read so far has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, sure, who doesn't love the prospect of Green Arrow and Black Canary being back together? I like that Duke Thomas has been well developed and brought along organically so that we care about him being promoted to Robin or WhoeverHesSupposedToBeInThatWeirdYellowSuit. I'm totally down for seeing pre New 52 Dan Jurgens type Superman back in the panels. Granted, I wish that weren't manifested through an unnecessary dick measuring contest with Lex Luthor that Superman would probably not usually subject himself to, but hey....to each his/her own. There's nothing wrong with resurrecting aspects of characters that the majority of readers liked. However, when you make it a huge event where there's some macguffin-ish ripple effect that causes all these changes, the cracks in the narrative begin to show.
The thing I take umbrage with the most is probably the return of White Wally West. I refuse to believe that mainstream comics are so sociopolitically tone deaf that they don't see how racebending a time honored character and then sidelining them the second it doesn't have a great response (remember that Superior Spider Man, a book where Spider-Man, a white character, was replaced by Otto Octavius, a white character, started off with a backlash so horrible, fans were sending Dan Slott death threats yet Marvel dug their heels in and stayed the course until a shitty book emerged as a not-so-shitty book by its end) would be found to be problematic and indicative of an ongoing problem with comics that default to whiteness. The Rebirth prequel or launch title basically had Geoff Johns continuously hammering home this unspoken notion of All American Athletic Ron Weasley looking Wally West being "the REAL Wally West", begging (much like the outright racist backlashers at the time) to be brought back to his rightful place. It wouldn't be so bad if there was a history of this throughout the Flash legacy but there isn't. Each Flash has been established as their own Flash over the years even when they took the mantle under the previous Flash's extreme circumstances. In fact, there have been multiple Flashes in existence all at once living in harmony. Grant Morrison's Final Crisis featured THREE GENERATIONS OF FLASH simultaneously running from Death! There was no subtext of "the real Flash" coming back. Now, I'm not saying that Geoff Johns is somehow racist because of this, but this is super problematic.
The other issue is the reveal that the Watchmen (or at least Dr. Manhattan) are somehow the secret villain behind everything post-Flashpoint/pre-New 52 that (we're told through the eyes of the "real" Wally West) is "wrong." Now, there has been the argument that this doesn't necessarily make Dr. Manhattan a villain, but the fact that we're introduced to the secret character by them blatantly murdering Owlman and Metron implies right off the bat symbolizes the coming of a brand new menace. Also, the fact that Dr. Manhattan, at the end of Watchmen, had a change of heart about humanity and left Earth to start something better elsewhere....and then sometime after he leaves the love and care of Alan Moore, changes his mind and decides to play with reality and other people's minds (I'm assuming) to suit his own ends which has been previously demonstrated in the DC universe (namely in Identity Crisis and Flashpoint) as a fucked up, morally reprehensible thing to do does, in fact, constitute villainy. The Watchmen in the DC Universe makes about as much sense as getting the Mythbusters to test the tensile strength Rapunzel's hair. Rapunzel is a fairy tale....a myth...and something already established as a myth need not be busted any further. The Watchmen are a metatextual, satirical referendum on DC's version of the superhero myth. Oil and water do not mix, even if it's on a literary level. I don't even have to highlight how this is such a shitty way to go about keeping a writer's work relevant even when a). the writer's work is relevant regardless of DC's current efforts to modernize it and b). the relationship between the publisher and the writer has devolved to a dynamic that could only be described as "salt/slug."
Again, this is another one of these moments where DC tried to grow wings and FLY to better comics when, really, all they had to do was put on some comfortable shoes and jump. So, really, now that I've put it that way, business as usual over at DC.
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