<![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @jinchoung: Calm down. You'd think I was talking about you, personally, or something.

steven522

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> what are you talking about? and where do you get off trying to tell people what to do? if you have a problem, tough. go tell the mods and if they agree, someone'll get booted. and if they don't, you'll just have to come to grips with the fact that the world doesn't bend over backwords to accommodate your tastes.

jinchoung

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> Hey! Here's a novel idea about posting comments in a blog: Use normal capitalization, punctuation, and complete spellings.

The only thing worse than reading through a post like the following:
"man i really liked the movie because it shows how the director knows the characters the other actor was bad there were too many special effects however they needed to have a little more character development"

...is reading a post like this:
"Dude!!!!111111 Teh mooveee roxxorez!!11111!!! ROTFLMAO! I is so L33T 4 because I type like teh retard. PWNED!!!!111!!!!!"

Try to make it easy on everyone, OK?

steven522

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @ceejeemcbeegee: you're certainly welcome to your preferences. but i really dig the notion of all that stuff being canon. in keeping with the sentiment expressed in the above post, canon imposes limitations. history imposes restrictions. in a way that non-canon stuff is free from. and with a multiverse, todd can be dead on earth prime but story-lines with him can continue in earth-5 or something if they need him as a character. actually, speaking of canon, i wish FM's dark knight stuff had an official place in the dc continuity....

jinchoung

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @Ghede:

yeah, multiverses and time travel are certainly not the sole domain of sci fi anymore... but still, i dig the idea. especially if it's a bit more involved than evil versions just sporting goatees.

agreed also about economy and greatness being achieved within strict limits.

but for me, the biggest thing that i dislike about annihilating dc's multiverse is it is an attempt to strip out continuity for newbies. as i said, that's such a slap in the face for long time fans and continuity should be allowed to persist. let the newbs catch up.

jin

jinchoung

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @steven522:
huh... i looked over my post and it's pretty darn far from every other word.... but i don't mind the shatner link. anyhoo, guess where i get my writing style from? that's right, AMERICAN COMICS! where certain, evidently KEY words are bolded so that kids and the mentally inept wouldn't fall behind.... i kinda adopted the same policy for the net. : )

jinchoung

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @jinchoung: I'm SORRY, but while reading your POST with every other word CAPITALIZED, all I could HEAR IN MY HEAD was William Shatner doing a VOICE OVER.

steven522

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> First: The Multiverse isn't confusing...at least, it's no more confusing than mainstream corporate superhero comics are in general. In other words, none of it is written for the neophyte, and that point can certainly be debated back and forth, but the multiverse has nothing to do with it.

The multiverse is simple: There are other universes. Things are different there. End of story.

So what you probably should have hounded Dan DiDio about on your noble quest was why you need to read $100 worth of crappy comics every month to follow a story that should be far more simple and elegant than it is. Or why to JESUS they haven't adopted the simple convention of the summary page, which Marvel has in all their books, and which makes them SO much easier to read. Hell, even on books you read every month, sometimes you forget stuff, and a refresher never hurts.

Matt S.

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @zerofritz: "(oh yeah. featuring Wolverine)"

Well done.

moff

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> Next year, look for Infinite Secret Crisis Wars, where Ultimate Quesadaman fights the Green DeDio from Earth-S to see who can do more damage to the continuity.

(oh yeah. featuring Wolverine)

zerofritz

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @jinchoung: Well, there is another side of the coin. Some of the best work is the result of imposing limitation on yourself. When you can say "Hey, it is in an alternate world" there are no limitations. I'm not talking What-ifs, those are fine in my opinion (But do they really need to be in an Alternate world? Why not just have a big fat preface saying "This is outside the continuity.") But when the "Alternate Worlds" start interacting you get moments like "I am werewolf Superman, you don't know who I am, frankenstein Superman, but I am here to kill you." (Actually, werewolf Superman does sound kind of neat.)

Second: Alternate worlds is no longer sci-fi exclusive. In fact, everyone and their granny are making alternate world stories. I've gotten sick of it. Why does everything have to be a universe now? When Dune came out, Despite it's richly detailed history and fascinating planets, I'm pretty sure nobody was yelling Dune-iverse.

I think by this point, even Hugh Everett would hate the Many-Worlds Interpretation.

Ghede

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @ceejeemcbeegee: Agree completely. If canon becomes too difficult to follow or interpret, I won't follow it.

AgtShadow

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @jinchoung: I perfer my mutliverses to be Elseworlds or What Ifs, not part of canon.

Oh and, Jason Fucking Todd will die.

ceejeemcbeegee

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> Um, y'know, Michael Moorcock popularized the term "multiverse" (a term coined by William James). It'd be nice to see credit where credit is due, especially in an SF site.

lightninglouie

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> I hate alternate universes.

Defendant

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> It's simply weak story telling. just like how in X-Files and Alias there was always another absurd "plot" "twist" to keep the "tension" up. It would take balls to really finish a plot or to let fun characters finish their arc, and nobody has any balls.

In a sense, it's actually good that Firefly/Serenity is over: Now we don't have to watch those great characters jump awful sharks.

noncornbatant

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> I'm waiting to see what Grant Morrison does with all this in Final Crisis. That's pretty much the test for me, to see if he can make the multiverse's return more meaningful than just fanboy nostalgia.

It's funny, I came of age Post-Crisis, so I have no problems with reconciling pre-Crisis baggage into one earth. I prefer Kara being from Atlantis, I thought Hippolyta as the JSA Wonder Woman was a perfect fix.

Maybe in 20 years I'll be the one writing "Countdown to Multiversal Consolidation" out of my own fanboy nostalgia...though I'll need a peppier title!

CapnCalamity

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> All I can say is that I was a young kid when the original Crisis came out, and they are still the best superhero storyline I have ever read. Especially the issue where Supergirl gets it. Pretty hard to top, but now as an adult, I still love the books (and the updates as well).
Most enjoyable comics ever.

aixelsyd

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> I'm very grateful for projects like New Frontiers. It'd be interesting to see what Darwyn Cooke's successor, fifty years from now, makes of the mess that Didio is creating these days.

Moeskido

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> It's funny to me that all this nonsense started with the most innocent story. The "Flash of Two Worlds" way back in the sixties. The "multiverse" was just a cute way of explaining why the two flashes had never met. Kids got double their superhero, and a really awesome Infantino cover.

Now it's all about juggling "continuity" that was never meant to make sense anyway. *sigh*

[www.comicsinaflash.com]

shudderstep

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> @moff: I agree, that seems like it would be the draw for me.

ggodo

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> actually, i don't NOT understand the appeal of the multiverse. i was VIOLENTLY opposed to the crisis of infinite earth's endeavor of coalescing every universe into a single one.

first of all, there's the richness of HISTORY. the dc universe has all these characters from all these variant earths. this is its heritage. this is far different from something like marvel that keeps coming up with history annihilating (at least revisionistic) ULTIMATE series of books.... with dc, at least you have a diagetic framework to hang revisions. the initial impulse to coalesce was market driven too... they felt they were losing their audience because of too much backstory (very much the impetus for marvel's ultimate)... but this is just a lame smack in the face to longtime fans. embracing the heritage and the backstory - the history provides tremendous depth and possibility. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?

secondly, the sci-fi angle... how SOPHISTICATED AN IDEA it is for layman COMIC BOOKS to adopt such a nifty hallmark of sci fi lit! it is potentially relevant to actual cosmology and it's just nifty to think about schroedinger's batman! for me, the appeal is even greater when the disparity between worlds are not great.... when there's just a slight something that is different.

when you're tired of the same old same old of death defying daring doo... to discover yourself suddenly put off balance because you recognize that issue 257 actually occurs on earth alpha instead of earth prime.... that's just neat.

seriously... what's not to like? esp for sci fi fans.

jin

jinchoung

]]> <![CDATA[The Multiverse Is Strictly Business, Says DC Comics Czar]]> I always thought it was to allow more freedom of movement without even more retconning than there already is.

moff

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