Sometimes you've gotta start clean/You've got to begin/Not begin again ...

The above are lyrics from a favorite Weepies song of mine, a tune that delves into how much of our happiness depends on forging ahead, not vowing to start over, but to start something completely new.

That idea has been much on my mind since DC Comics announced they'll be rebooting essentially their entire line of comics and characters in the fall. This is not new territory for the company; they restarted their characters' lives, exterior and interior, back in the mid-1980s, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths. At the time, storylines for their characters had become so convoluted -- in terms of who was who, what had occurred in reality versus what was dictated a fantasy, etc. -- that they had to start fresh from their heroes' origins, lest they lose all sense of narrative structure in their writers' work. That reboot came from a place of editorial control. As I've read about the changes coming concerning this reboot, I can't help but wonder if this choice has been made in the interest of the artists at work, or if it's done in the interest of the almighty dollar.

According to the free online dictionary, reboot means to "boot up a computer again." On Merriam-Webster's site, "re-" as a prefix cannily means the following things: 1) again; anew (retell), 2) back; backwards (recall). Taking both these definitions into account may explain my worries about DC's decision to reboot their characters. Beginning again is not the same thing as just plain beginning something, and it seems to be the death knell of originality if the "re-" becomes the operative syllable in this reboot.

Back in the 1980s, the company seemed to be serving readers it already had by restarting their franchises. They used the clay these characters were made out of to integrate them into a more modern context, so readers who grew up in the 1970s would see something new in the characters, and still understand where they were coming from. Many thought Clark Kent turned into a yuppie during this reboot, but I'd argue the nerdish reporter became the focus of his own comic, a daring move for a series entitled "Superman." Readers grew to understand the character in a new context, as his secret identity became a personality unto itself, and actually the driving force of the hero's actions. Seeing the humanity in a flagship superhero must have been a risk at the time, and maybe it even forecast the darker tones of the flawed heroes that became popular in the 1990s. (My boyfriend made an excellent point to me the other day; if The Flash hadn't died during the events of the Crisis, would the rise in violence depicted in comic books have ever occurred? Killing a major character was not an option prior to DC cleaning house, and as meaningless as death is these days, I think it's a telling influence -- something that allowed endings as well as beginnings to have their place in the narrative canon of comic books.)

I don't want to spend more time speculating about the lasting influence of reboots, because I think Nick Philpott already explored how those can be helpful and harmful in his earlier guest post. Plus, most of the people reading this could probably care less about comics' narrative history. Frankly, I hate event comics and the narrative hoops I need to jump through in order to understand why characters make later decision motivated by an event from twenty years ago. Drama for me lies in the present, not the past -- so I won't spend more time dissecting the Crisis and its resulting billion other events within DC's larger continuity. I'll only say I include its mention as a way of letting the general blog browser know that the first reboot was done in the interest of the reader and editorial control.

So far, this announced reboot feels like it's being done to court new readers, who will check in for the first few issues of a particular character's new story, then decide whether or not they like comics, and then continue reading or give up on the whole proposition. This is smart marketing in one way -- if you can build a new universe without alienating longtime fans. Marvel Comics accomplished just that when they launched the Ultimates line of comics back in 2000. They created a separate universe where writers could explore their heroes' origins and adventures from scratch, all set inside the 2000s. In my opinion, some comics in this pocket dimension were more successful than others; The Ultimates (aka, The Avengers) is the ultimate in stupidity, gore and ill-defined concepts (turning Captain America into a quippy abuser for no thematic purpose, etc.), and a single panel displays this. Sorry in advance for all the following gross:

Ultimate Spiderman, on the other hand, rewinds Peter Parker to his teenage age, and uses the boy's upbringing in the 2000s to breathe new life into his everyday challenges, his computer geekery, his rough love life, even giving him a set of former hippies to raise him; the ensuing tragedy involving his Uncle Ben actually creates a touchstone with readers that feels fresh, even as it follows the template laid out by Stan Lee years and years ago when the character first debuted. By making his tragedy immediate, and tying it to a modern family and a modern boy, Brian Michael Bendis and company were able to re-imagine every character's motivation. This allows them to change core things about each hero or villain present in the book's pages, while still honoring what's come before. This is the kind of reboot I'd wish DC in the following months -- something that rewinds the clock without completely abolishing the mainstream universe.

But that's not what they're doing. No, they're restarting things within their mainstream books. They're destroying Superman and Lois Lane's marriage. They're making Dick Grayson go back to being Nightwing, instead of Batman. They may be completely cutting Wally West out of continuity, who rated the highest of The Flashes on IGN's recent Top 100 Heroes list. Maybe the worst thing they're doing is giving Barbara Gordon her legs back.

That's right; after years of sensitively crafting a character based not on her limitations, but based on the opportunities such limitations gave her, DC is erasing their only disability-centered storyline/character. There are multiple reason I find this to be a tragedy, not least because it invoked this passionate op/ed from a concerned reader: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/oracle-is-stronger-than-batgirl-110606.html. But what irks me most about this decision is that it shows a complete lack of compassion for readers. I grew up with a Babs who worked from a wheelchair. And I watched her grow into her role as the most important information gatherer in the heroes' world. Now that'll be erased from the record books. Or will I watch her lose the use of her legs all over again? Either way, that seems a cruel choice by a company that wants to introduce characters to fly-by-night readers who may not even stick with their efforts. Watching tragedies repeat over time is not meaningful -- it's crass, and at worst, boring and meaningless.

Let it be known, I'm not arguing for stasis here. But comic books are cyclical by nature. I accept this as a reader. Nothing can ever change too much. Batman can't give up his quest for vengeance and go to cooking school. Characters can't stop being superheroes. If they did, why would they be in superhero comic books? But how they operate can change, and over the years, watching second tier characters grow into fully realized human beings, as well as great heroes, has been really satisfying for me as a reader. Watching Dick Grayson become a warmer, more acrobatic Batman than Bruce Wayne ever was -- that was satisfying to me, having grown up with his youthful exuberance. Likewise, reading Wally West's adventures as The Flash meant I got to catalogue his journey from egotistical loner to self-sacrificing leader and family man on a personal level. Could I have seen this change in Barry? I'm not so sure. Wally started out a flawed character whose powers extended past those of his predecessor (of course, Geoff Johns changed this by stating in a recent issue of The Flash that Barry granted every other Flash his speed powers; thanks, Geoff, for ignoring every post-Silver Age hero, ever). Seeing Wally change made me think about how I've changed over time, how I've grown, what sacrifices I'm willing to make for the love of family.

Are comics meant to make us draw those parallels to our real lives? Deep down, I think so. I think they're not just fantasies -- because fantasies are rooted in real concerns. Change is a part of narrative structure; it's innately WHY we tell stories, to impact one another as fellow human beings.

Now, my grad school advisor often reminds me that characters don't actually change. They simply make choices that change our perception of them. In the best comics, you can register that change. Right now, DC isn't just erasing confusing continuity or bad story directions. They're erasing years of valuable storylines that DID show us how to perceive their characters differently. Event comics didn't make these changes apparent. Good storytelling did.

And what can save DC from losing readers -- as they often do once events like Blackest Night or The Death of Fill-In-The-Blank end -- is GOOD STORYTELLING. Here's some advice, boys in the boardroom and creative officers in negotiations over web series, downloadable comics and movie tie-ins: Let editors off the hook when thinking about promos for your Warner Brother's projects. Allow writers to write stories that don't have to match with eight other books. Let artists take characters outside their comfort zones. Let authors try crazy concepts out on readers, as Grant Morrison's been doing in Batman (one of the few books getting rebooted with its recent history intact). Don't recycle things in a reboot. Take readers' preconceived notions, then break them -- don't feed into those notions, and don't tell me Superman's origin story AGAIN. (Seriously, you've released four versions of it in the last ten years; updating that story isn't helping his in-continuity writers tell interesting stories; "Grounded" is one of the most miserable arcs I've read in years. It's not challenging our hero; it's making him repeat half-remembered Boy Scout mantras from the 1960s.)

Don't repeat story beats I know. Give me new beats, not re-imagined ones. I'd like to believe this is what DC plans to do. But Dan Dido's talk of "re-examining" things doesn't give me much confidence (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111141-DC-Sends-Clark-Kent-And-Lois-Lane-To-Divorce-Court). Nor does the fact that in Justice League: Generation Lost, one of the better books on the market in DC's latest event scheme, I had to watch a teenaged Blue Beetle get shot in the face, just as the previous Blue Beetle did. Repeating grisly occurrences does not create new meaning, DC higher-ups. It just makes me think you don't respect your audience or your characters, creating false drama like that to sell books. Everything I've seen in recent days makes me feel this reboot is injected drama, rather than solid storytelling built on a steady editorial foundation.

In the end, I suppose this reboot ties into a constant social issue for me. In the fight between art and commerce, what wins -- the thing that sells, or the thing makes an impact on the reader? I'd like to think talented, smart writers (like Greg Rucka, Gail Simone and Peter Tomasi) can show us rewound characters from a new perspective. But I have my doubts, given the mishmash way in which DC is announcing changes -- without a greater context with which to view their entire universe. Ultimately, I have no hopes for this reboot, because I don't think it stands for anything, I don't think it has a voice or a concern to attract the reader. The Crisis on Infinite Earths meant to restore the core essence of characters while scaling back their ridiculous concepts to the manageable main few. And that birthed some truly benchmark stories, involving Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman -- while giving their sidekicks room to grow into even greater, more human characters.

What is the point of this reboot? I've read nothing that tells me its purpose. And so I worry that the purpose is business -- just when I most want the human need to tell a story to shine through, to generate renewed loyalty to a franchise of books that have had troubled sales in the last few years. I want to be given new reasons telling me what is so important about these icons, in regards to American character and universal human challenge and achievement. Will I get that? I don't know. I hope I do. But then, I'm not a new reader, I'm not a target. What I hope for isn't DC's concern.