Three years ago I requested help from my fellow fans in compiling a list of all the reboots DC had done of characters or entire teams in the years since COIE. Recently I repeated that request on a few forums, asking for help in listing anyone who had received the Reboot Treatment within these past three years. Here's how I think it stands at the moment, for anyone who was wondering.
Before I offer my current list of DC Reboots, I want to talk a bit about what I mean and what I don't mean when I use that word "Reboot." This has caused a bit of confusion in the past. Different fans had different definitions in their heads when they saw and used that same word in their responses. Let's see if I can explain myself clearly this time, using what I honestly believe to be the same definition commonly used by a majority of those fans who really worry about "reboots" and what does or doesn't qualify.
What is a Reboot?
Reboot = Everything from before gets thrown away!
Allor very nearly allof a character's previously published stories, that had him at the center of the action, get erased from continuity, leaving a clean slate for a fresh start. In the new continuity, they never happened and the other superheroes in that same comics universe don't remember anything about them. Now a writer is "starting all over from scratch" with the essential character concept. That is a reboot.
If some bits and pieces of a character's history get changed on the spur of the moment, that is a retcon. But if a lot of his old adventures are still supposed to be valid, allowing for some changes to various details, then he has not been rebooted.
Things that Aren't Reboots
1. The character's origin story gets retold with some new twists, but all of his subsequent adventures are still supposed to have happened, just about the way his veteran fans remember them.
For instance, Frank Miller's "Year One," published as four issues of the "Batman" title shortly after COIE, was a retelling, with new details and a grittier tone than usual, of Batman's "origin story" and his first several months on the job as a costumed crimefighter in Gotham City. However, most of the old Earth-1 continuity from the Silver and Bronze Ages (lots of previous clashes with Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, etc.) still appeared to be canonical in the Post-COIE era, so Batman and all the associated characters (such as Jim Gordon, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, etc.) hadn't been utterly rebooted.
2. The old character dies or retires and someone else puts on a costume and starts calling himself the successor with the same name.
For instance, Barry Allen (the Silver Age Flash) died in COIE. Wally West took over the role of being the Flash. That was a big change, but not a reboot, because most of Barry's old Pre-Crisis stories were still in continuity. People in the DCU still remembered that those things had happened.
3. A new writer comes along and makes some changes, giving the hero a new supporting cast, giving him a different attitude, telling his stories with a whole different style, but we are expected to assume that most or all of the previous stories still happened before this.
This happens all the time in the comic book industry. It isn't a reboot; it just means different writers will have different stories they want to tell.
4. The hero's old series got cancelled; he gets a new series with a new #1.
That isn't a reboot unless all the hero's past adventures from the old series have just been erased from continuity, the way Wonder Woman's were twenty years ago when her old series got cancelled and then a new one started up later. Most of the time, this is simply a Relaunch.
5. Changing the exact roster of the "Founding Members" of a team, but saying that the team actually still had most of the same adventures from its old series, is not a reboot.
For instance, in the Post-Crisis continuity regarding the original JLA, the official version said that Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman had not been Founding Members of the League. The second Black Canary had been, however, "replacing" Wonder Woman. Superman and Batman were apparently admitted to have lent a helping hand to the old JLA on various occasions if opportunity permitted. That was a major retcon to JLA continuity, but we weren't being told that all those stories from the JLA title of the 60s, 70s, and early-to-mid 80s had "never happened at all." They had just happened with a somewhat different set of members than we previously thought. That was not the same thing as tossing out the old JLA series and saying, "All that stuff never happened at all!" (It was a rather obnoxious thing to do to veteran JLA fans, however.)
The DC Reboots Since COIE
Superman. Rebooted in 1986 after COIE. All previous Superman-centric stories (Earth-2, Earth-1, or any other version) effectively got thrown away and forgotten. Although, because that same treatment was not being given to most of the other heroes who were formerly of "Earth-1," it was kept in continuity that he had been a superhero for a few years already as "Superman #1" (vol. 2) opened up, and that he had already become well-known to other heroes, and generally respected by them. (For instance, when Post-COIE Superman teamed up with Cyborg in an issue of "Action Comics," it was clear that they knew each other from past experience, although I don't believe we were given any details on just what that past experience had been!)
Wonder Woman. Rebooted at about the same time as Superman, around early 1987, shortly after COIE. Unlike Superman, she was rebooted as "I am just now appearing in public for the first time in the modern DCU, where the Justice League and the Teen Titans and others have already been household names for years before anyone heard of me!"
Note: Last year I saw a fascinating online rumor that when George Perez started plotting the initial story arc for the Post-COIE "Wonder Woman" title, he thought it would be the functional equivalent of Byrne's "Man of Steel" mini or Miller's "Batman: Year One" story, a retelling of her origin story which was mostly happening as a "flashback to several years ago" when Diana was just making her debut in the public eye, and then the title would subsequently "fast-forward" to "here and now," with Diana already a well-established heroine with years of seasoning in the later stories in that series. However, the person mentioning this rumor didn't cite any sources I could check. At any rate, some of what was done to Wonder Woman at that time has now been undone by her recent restoration (post-Infinite Crisis) to her old role as a Founding Member of the original Justice League, meaning she once again has about as many years of experience in superheroics as do Superman, Batman, and various other DC heroes.
The Legion of Super-Heroes. Rebooted in 1994 after Zero Hour. Rebooted again in 2004.
Note: I have not read the miniseries "Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds," but I am told that the general effect of it seems to be to shunt the two "rebooted Legions" aside into other timelines and "restore" the version of Legion continuity which had previously been featured in DC publications from 1958 to about 1985 (the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths). If I've got this right, however, the subsequent 9 years or so of "original Legion continuity" (published from COIE to Zero Hour) does not apply to this "un-rebooted" Legion (or whatever it should be called).
The Doom Patrol. Rebooted in 2004. One rumor says that John Byrne did not "ask for permission" to reboot the Doom Patrol from scratch, but, on the contrary, was told that rebooting was the way DC had already decided it wanted the DP handled by anyone who did a new series about the "Doom Patrol" concept. Take it or leave it. Thats the rumor; I dont vouch for its accuracy.
On the other hand, I'm told that the reboot was thoroughly un-rebooted within two years or so of the reboot, with the events of Infinite Crisis serving as a convenient excuse, and I also hear that Dan DiDio has allegedly said that this was the Master Plan for the Doom Patrol all along.
Starro the Conqueror was apparently rebooted by Grant Morrison in 1997 in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1," clearly set around the time of the early pages of "JLA #1" (the first issue of the series which began around that same time). There's this giant alien organism resembling a starfish, which uses miniature versions of itself to cling to people's faces and place them under its mental control. It's referred to in dialogue as "the Star Conqueror." Various superheroes in this story (including Wally West and Wonder Woman) say things which make it clear they feel no sense of recognition at what they are seeing, despite the fact that Starro the Conqueror had used the same schtick in several previous stories (usually against one incarnation or another of the "Justice League," beginning in the original team's first published adventure). If they did remember meeting Starro or hearing about Starro from other heroes, then it would have been more logical for someone to say: "This sounds like Starro or one of his relatives. Refresh my memory: How have various incarnations of the League overcome Starro all those other times?"
Note: I just now checked, and saw that the Wikipedia entry on Starro simply asserts that Morrison's "Star Conqueror" villain in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1" was simply a different member (a green one) of the same species as Starro (usually purple). However, that interpretation of events does not fit with the way the heroes fighting "the Star Conqueror" are obviously drawing a complete blank as far as "recognition" is concerned. On the other hand, reading the Wikipedia entry gives me the impression (possibly inaccurate) that other writers working for DC in the past 12 years have not felt the obligation to write about Starro and/or "Star Conqueror" as if all the Starro stories from before 1997 had never happened. Perhaps this qualifies as a case where Grant Morrison tried to do a subtle reboot, but everyone else at DC just ignored the implications?
The Warlord. Rebooted in 2006. His previous regular series had lasted 132 issues back in the 1970s and 80s (and I have all those stories in my collection), plus a bunch of annuals, a six-issue miniseries, and all sorts of guest appearances in other people's titles over the years. All of that is now gone with the wind.
At least some of the Charlton Comics characters were "rebooted" when they were integrated into the post-Crisis DCU.
For instance, Captain Atom started over from scratch in a series written by Cary Bates, in which he was becoming the superhero Captain Atom "for the very first time" and none of his old Charlton adventures had ever happened. I believe the same thing happened to Peacemaker.
I am told, on the other hand, that the Blue Beetle and the Question kept a fair piece of their pre-DC continuity (allowing for the fact that it had now happened to them as part of their retconned participation in the mainstream DCU instead of some other parallel world).
I believe that all of DC's Impact line in the early 90s constituted "Reboots" of characters owned by Archie, since these heroes were generally being presented as people just now getting their special powers, etc., instead of seasoned veterans who had survived the events of all the stories previously published about them by another company or companies. That would include the following characters: The Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Black Hood, The Jaguar, The Web.
I have heard that DC has once again acquired permission to publish stories about the Archie-owned stable of superheroes, but I haven't seen any of those stories yet and I don't know if any further rebooting is contemplated. (Likewise, I hear that the old Milestone characters are scheduled to be integrated into DCU continuity, but I have the impression that all of their old published stories will not simply be thrown out the window; ask me again in a year or two and I may know more about it by then.)
Captain Marvelmeaning the guy in the red bodysuit with a big yellow thunderbolt on his chest who keeps yelling Shazam!; not any of the heroes Marvel Comics has published using that same aliasgot rebooted in the miniseries Shazam! A New Beginning in 1987 (written by Roy Thomas). Six years later, in 1993, Captain Marvel got his Second Post-Crisis Reboot in the graphic novel The Power of Shazam! by Jerry Ordway.
Note: Since I first wrote that entry, the idea that Ordway's graphic novel (and the subsequent monthly title "The Power of Shazam") qualified as a Second Reboot has been seriously questioned. For instance, someone pointed out to me that in the late 80s Captain Marvel spent some time working with the Justice League International in the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis run, and he assured me that this was still supposed to be "in continuity" as something that had previously happened to Captain Marvel after the events of Ordway's graphic novel and before the events chronicled in the later monthly title "The Power of Shazam." The first issue of the monthly title plainly stated it had been four years since Billy Batson first gained the ability to transform by saying his magic word, and apparently Captain Marvel's brief stint as a Justice Leaguer had occurred during that four-year gap. The person telling me this did concede, though, that just about anything and everything in the four-part mini by Roy Thomas got flushed down the toilet as "never happened; never could have happened" in Ordway's retelling of Billy Batson's origin story. I don't think I had realized (or much cared) that it was still in continuity that Billy Batson had been part of the JLI back around the late 1980s. Although I now doubt that Ordways work qualified as a "full reboot, " I decided to leave this listing in here (with this lengthy note) to explain what happened, rather than simply omitting any mention of Ordways work and then having other fans yell at me for "completely forgetting about the putative Second Reboot of Captain Marvel.
Before I offer my current list of DC Reboots, I want to talk a bit about what I mean and what I don't mean when I use that word "Reboot." This has caused a bit of confusion in the past. Different fans had different definitions in their heads when they saw and used that same word in their responses. Let's see if I can explain myself clearly this time, using what I honestly believe to be the same definition commonly used by a majority of those fans who really worry about "reboots" and what does or doesn't qualify.
What is a Reboot?
Reboot = Everything from before gets thrown away!
Allor very nearly allof a character's previously published stories, that had him at the center of the action, get erased from continuity, leaving a clean slate for a fresh start. In the new continuity, they never happened and the other superheroes in that same comics universe don't remember anything about them. Now a writer is "starting all over from scratch" with the essential character concept. That is a reboot.
If some bits and pieces of a character's history get changed on the spur of the moment, that is a retcon. But if a lot of his old adventures are still supposed to be valid, allowing for some changes to various details, then he has not been rebooted.
Things that Aren't Reboots
1. The character's origin story gets retold with some new twists, but all of his subsequent adventures are still supposed to have happened, just about the way his veteran fans remember them.
For instance, Frank Miller's "Year One," published as four issues of the "Batman" title shortly after COIE, was a retelling, with new details and a grittier tone than usual, of Batman's "origin story" and his first several months on the job as a costumed crimefighter in Gotham City. However, most of the old Earth-1 continuity from the Silver and Bronze Ages (lots of previous clashes with Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, etc.) still appeared to be canonical in the Post-COIE era, so Batman and all the associated characters (such as Jim Gordon, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, etc.) hadn't been utterly rebooted.
2. The old character dies or retires and someone else puts on a costume and starts calling himself the successor with the same name.
For instance, Barry Allen (the Silver Age Flash) died in COIE. Wally West took over the role of being the Flash. That was a big change, but not a reboot, because most of Barry's old Pre-Crisis stories were still in continuity. People in the DCU still remembered that those things had happened.
3. A new writer comes along and makes some changes, giving the hero a new supporting cast, giving him a different attitude, telling his stories with a whole different style, but we are expected to assume that most or all of the previous stories still happened before this.
This happens all the time in the comic book industry. It isn't a reboot; it just means different writers will have different stories they want to tell.
4. The hero's old series got cancelled; he gets a new series with a new #1.
That isn't a reboot unless all the hero's past adventures from the old series have just been erased from continuity, the way Wonder Woman's were twenty years ago when her old series got cancelled and then a new one started up later. Most of the time, this is simply a Relaunch.
5. Changing the exact roster of the "Founding Members" of a team, but saying that the team actually still had most of the same adventures from its old series, is not a reboot.
For instance, in the Post-Crisis continuity regarding the original JLA, the official version said that Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman had not been Founding Members of the League. The second Black Canary had been, however, "replacing" Wonder Woman. Superman and Batman were apparently admitted to have lent a helping hand to the old JLA on various occasions if opportunity permitted. That was a major retcon to JLA continuity, but we weren't being told that all those stories from the JLA title of the 60s, 70s, and early-to-mid 80s had "never happened at all." They had just happened with a somewhat different set of members than we previously thought. That was not the same thing as tossing out the old JLA series and saying, "All that stuff never happened at all!" (It was a rather obnoxious thing to do to veteran JLA fans, however.)
The DC Reboots Since COIE
Superman. Rebooted in 1986 after COIE. All previous Superman-centric stories (Earth-2, Earth-1, or any other version) effectively got thrown away and forgotten. Although, because that same treatment was not being given to most of the other heroes who were formerly of "Earth-1," it was kept in continuity that he had been a superhero for a few years already as "Superman #1" (vol. 2) opened up, and that he had already become well-known to other heroes, and generally respected by them. (For instance, when Post-COIE Superman teamed up with Cyborg in an issue of "Action Comics," it was clear that they knew each other from past experience, although I don't believe we were given any details on just what that past experience had been!)
Wonder Woman. Rebooted at about the same time as Superman, around early 1987, shortly after COIE. Unlike Superman, she was rebooted as "I am just now appearing in public for the first time in the modern DCU, where the Justice League and the Teen Titans and others have already been household names for years before anyone heard of me!"
Note: Last year I saw a fascinating online rumor that when George Perez started plotting the initial story arc for the Post-COIE "Wonder Woman" title, he thought it would be the functional equivalent of Byrne's "Man of Steel" mini or Miller's "Batman: Year One" story, a retelling of her origin story which was mostly happening as a "flashback to several years ago" when Diana was just making her debut in the public eye, and then the title would subsequently "fast-forward" to "here and now," with Diana already a well-established heroine with years of seasoning in the later stories in that series. However, the person mentioning this rumor didn't cite any sources I could check. At any rate, some of what was done to Wonder Woman at that time has now been undone by her recent restoration (post-Infinite Crisis) to her old role as a Founding Member of the original Justice League, meaning she once again has about as many years of experience in superheroics as do Superman, Batman, and various other DC heroes.
The Legion of Super-Heroes. Rebooted in 1994 after Zero Hour. Rebooted again in 2004.
Note: I have not read the miniseries "Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds," but I am told that the general effect of it seems to be to shunt the two "rebooted Legions" aside into other timelines and "restore" the version of Legion continuity which had previously been featured in DC publications from 1958 to about 1985 (the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths). If I've got this right, however, the subsequent 9 years or so of "original Legion continuity" (published from COIE to Zero Hour) does not apply to this "un-rebooted" Legion (or whatever it should be called).
The Doom Patrol. Rebooted in 2004. One rumor says that John Byrne did not "ask for permission" to reboot the Doom Patrol from scratch, but, on the contrary, was told that rebooting was the way DC had already decided it wanted the DP handled by anyone who did a new series about the "Doom Patrol" concept. Take it or leave it. Thats the rumor; I dont vouch for its accuracy.
On the other hand, I'm told that the reboot was thoroughly un-rebooted within two years or so of the reboot, with the events of Infinite Crisis serving as a convenient excuse, and I also hear that Dan DiDio has allegedly said that this was the Master Plan for the Doom Patrol all along.
Starro the Conqueror was apparently rebooted by Grant Morrison in 1997 in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1," clearly set around the time of the early pages of "JLA #1" (the first issue of the series which began around that same time). There's this giant alien organism resembling a starfish, which uses miniature versions of itself to cling to people's faces and place them under its mental control. It's referred to in dialogue as "the Star Conqueror." Various superheroes in this story (including Wally West and Wonder Woman) say things which make it clear they feel no sense of recognition at what they are seeing, despite the fact that Starro the Conqueror had used the same schtick in several previous stories (usually against one incarnation or another of the "Justice League," beginning in the original team's first published adventure). If they did remember meeting Starro or hearing about Starro from other heroes, then it would have been more logical for someone to say: "This sounds like Starro or one of his relatives. Refresh my memory: How have various incarnations of the League overcome Starro all those other times?"
Note: I just now checked, and saw that the Wikipedia entry on Starro simply asserts that Morrison's "Star Conqueror" villain in "JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1" was simply a different member (a green one) of the same species as Starro (usually purple). However, that interpretation of events does not fit with the way the heroes fighting "the Star Conqueror" are obviously drawing a complete blank as far as "recognition" is concerned. On the other hand, reading the Wikipedia entry gives me the impression (possibly inaccurate) that other writers working for DC in the past 12 years have not felt the obligation to write about Starro and/or "Star Conqueror" as if all the Starro stories from before 1997 had never happened. Perhaps this qualifies as a case where Grant Morrison tried to do a subtle reboot, but everyone else at DC just ignored the implications?
The Warlord. Rebooted in 2006. His previous regular series had lasted 132 issues back in the 1970s and 80s (and I have all those stories in my collection), plus a bunch of annuals, a six-issue miniseries, and all sorts of guest appearances in other people's titles over the years. All of that is now gone with the wind.
At least some of the Charlton Comics characters were "rebooted" when they were integrated into the post-Crisis DCU.
For instance, Captain Atom started over from scratch in a series written by Cary Bates, in which he was becoming the superhero Captain Atom "for the very first time" and none of his old Charlton adventures had ever happened. I believe the same thing happened to Peacemaker.
I am told, on the other hand, that the Blue Beetle and the Question kept a fair piece of their pre-DC continuity (allowing for the fact that it had now happened to them as part of their retconned participation in the mainstream DCU instead of some other parallel world).
I believe that all of DC's Impact line in the early 90s constituted "Reboots" of characters owned by Archie, since these heroes were generally being presented as people just now getting their special powers, etc., instead of seasoned veterans who had survived the events of all the stories previously published about them by another company or companies. That would include the following characters: The Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Black Hood, The Jaguar, The Web.
I have heard that DC has once again acquired permission to publish stories about the Archie-owned stable of superheroes, but I haven't seen any of those stories yet and I don't know if any further rebooting is contemplated. (Likewise, I hear that the old Milestone characters are scheduled to be integrated into DCU continuity, but I have the impression that all of their old published stories will not simply be thrown out the window; ask me again in a year or two and I may know more about it by then.)
Captain Marvelmeaning the guy in the red bodysuit with a big yellow thunderbolt on his chest who keeps yelling Shazam!; not any of the heroes Marvel Comics has published using that same aliasgot rebooted in the miniseries Shazam! A New Beginning in 1987 (written by Roy Thomas). Six years later, in 1993, Captain Marvel got his Second Post-Crisis Reboot in the graphic novel The Power of Shazam! by Jerry Ordway.
Note: Since I first wrote that entry, the idea that Ordway's graphic novel (and the subsequent monthly title "The Power of Shazam") qualified as a Second Reboot has been seriously questioned. For instance, someone pointed out to me that in the late 80s Captain Marvel spent some time working with the Justice League International in the early days of the Giffen/DeMatteis run, and he assured me that this was still supposed to be "in continuity" as something that had previously happened to Captain Marvel after the events of Ordway's graphic novel and before the events chronicled in the later monthly title "The Power of Shazam." The first issue of the monthly title plainly stated it had been four years since Billy Batson first gained the ability to transform by saying his magic word, and apparently Captain Marvel's brief stint as a Justice Leaguer had occurred during that four-year gap. The person telling me this did concede, though, that just about anything and everything in the four-part mini by Roy Thomas got flushed down the toilet as "never happened; never could have happened" in Ordway's retelling of Billy Batson's origin story. I don't think I had realized (or much cared) that it was still in continuity that Billy Batson had been part of the JLI back around the late 1980s. Although I now doubt that Ordways work qualified as a "full reboot, " I decided to leave this listing in here (with this lengthy note) to explain what happened, rather than simply omitting any mention of Ordways work and then having other fans yell at me for "completely forgetting about the putative Second Reboot of Captain Marvel.
