The edgy tone offended longtime comic book readers, and so did the decision to rework certain character dynamics. I personally loved the new Superman. He was cocky, short-tempered, less patient, and I thought the idea of coupling him with Wonder Woman made sense. But I’m in the minority.
Readers could not wait for The New 52 to die, and it eventually did. DC Rebirth, which launched in 2016, was lauded for being one of the most revolutionary sagas in comic book history.
DC fanatics will tell you that DC Rebirth gave ageing stories and characters new life but that is a lie. DC Rebirth merely turned the DC Universe back to where it was before The New 52.The good guys were truly good once more. The morally gray stories were shelved. The familiar relationships were reforged. Basically, DC tried something new and the fans threw a tantrum; DC took things back to the way they were and the fans applauded them, completely failing to recognize their own inability to accept change.
Anyway, here we are, at the end of the line, the end of the line being Doomsday Clock, the mini-series that actually ties The New 52 and DC Rebirth together, creating a singular story that feels shockingly cohesive.
Doomsday Clock is a limited series expected to end in December of 2019. The project brings Watchmen into the main DC Universe. Watchmen, the Zack Snyder movie, was an adaption of a celebrated DC comic book of the same name. Alan Moore wrote Watchmen because he wanted to deconstruct the superhero mythos in comic books.
But because of his dark idiosyncrasies, DC would not let him play with their primary cast of heroes. So Moore created his own cadre of caped crusaders that he could raise up and then tear down.
For the longest time, Watchmen existed as a separate entity in DC and readers wanted it to stay that way. To these avid fans, Watchmen was too precious, too perfect. Any crossover with the main DC universe would simply stain it.
But now we have Doomsday Clock, a sequel to the Watchmen story, which brings Dr Manhattan and his comrades into the main DC universe for a showdown that will determine the fate of the universe.
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