I start this thread mainly because my poor friend Hawkman had a special a couple weeks ago and its hinting at another reset of his backstory. A backstory that so far has already gone through about 3-4 resets, most recently with the Geoff Johns reincarnation story in JSA. Now they're hinting that this is NOT his back story and they seem to want to tie it in with Infinite Crisis (even though this would screw up all the stories in which evidence of Hawkman's reincarnation showed up).
I find that of all the companies DC seems to just love pressing the reset button. They did it so often that they needed 3 (so far) crisis storylines to try and shore up and fix some of their earlier attempts. I mean its so bad they have 3 legions of superheroes. Donna Troy's backstory lookes like an MC Esher drawing, green lantern is having his back story fleshed out anew, batman (if you read RIP) has apperently only been running around for under 5 years, and braniac has had so many incarnations that poor Geoff Johns just decided that none of them were real.
Does it annoy anyone else that instead of writing their way out of problems DC just presses their "EASY" button and starts over? I mean I love hawkman but I dont want his whole back story to be thrown out each time he gets a new series.

This is part of the reason I hardly ever read anything by DC anymore. I started reading comics with the Reign of the Supermen, and I actually liked Zero Hour, but I get very tired of their characters being reset. I think the worst example was Hal Jordan. "Oh, wait, no, he didn't actual do these bad things of his own free will. He was forced to do them. Yeah, that's the ticket!" I really liked the idea of a hero being pushed so far over the edge and then having to win back his redemption slowly. Ugh.

Of course, Marvel's not innocent of hitting the reset button, either. BND anyone?

In a word, no.

For Hawkman in particular, the problem started when they rebooted him back in the 50s to be Katar Hol, visited 'Earth-2' where the Golden Age Hawkman was still a member of the JSA, then crunched all continuity together after Crisis on Infinite Earths so that both Hawkmen would have to exist simultaneously. All the 'reboots' have been to get something that resonates with the fans in order to make him 'sellable'. Hitting people with a mace apparently isn't enough. The current incarnation I actually like.

Even Hawkman doesn't know what his deal is, according to him in Green Arrow...lol.

BND is a figment of everyone's imagination and will be undone within 2 yrs
regardless of what anyone says of jms's run it's lightyears better than bnd
and to stay on topic....
infinite crisis didn't bother me if that had been it for the next 15 yrs or so. not a huge hawkman fan but if they are undoing his reincarnation story that's just dumb
and batman running around for less than 5 yrs is NOTHING compared to the other spoiler i heard about RIP. and if the time thing is true you jus completely pushed dick grayson out of continuity or at the least you have to "fix" his character now

And you got this part from where? I too have been reading R.I.P., but nothing in there suggested to me that he has been Batman for such a short period. If anything, it suggests a longer history. Heck, just the inclusion of Nightwing gives you at least 6 years, and that would mean that Nightwing was 18.

Dick started when he was 8 or 12, depending upon the sotry you read. He propped out of college, so he is at least 18. And since Tim is 17, I find that unlikely.

Bruce has been Batman for at least a decade.

The Batman issue before last I believe, has Tim reading Bruce's case files and it mentions how long he's been at it, maybe I took it wrong but it seemed to try and make it sound like bruce had only been batman a few years. Kinda like how they bring Iron Man's origin up a few years each time they flashback to it to keep him young, only problem is bat's should be like 50 if tim and dick aged as much as they did.

And yes BND was awful and I cant stand that they did it, but at least it was the first major retcon for the character (not counting the "is it or isnt it a clone" story). I just have this feeling that DC would reset any character if you promised them a few 100 more issues sold each month ("You mean we'd sell 500 more issues if superman were a teenage prostitute? Done and done!")

The journal that Tim was reading was Bruce's "Book of the Bizarre" so to speak. It isn't his standard journal, nor was the entry he was reading current. He was reading into Batman's past tying to find an answer to the stuff that was happening to Batman now.

Sorry then, they did ok on that, so thats 1 reset out of 300 we can deduct from the total haha. Also I cant get Grant Morrison, I know he has a plot in there, he just cant figure out how to convey it to the reader unless the reader has read the past 600 issues of batman and detective comics also.

I'm a BIG Hawkman fan myself.

I don't think that I need to say more.

Crisis on Infinite Earths was bold and groundbreaking.
An attempt to bring together and make sense and "continuity" to a comics universe sadly lacking in it.
I appreciated it, even though I didn't like a lot of it.
I'm still an Earth 2 fan!
In fact I'd love it if the current JSA story brings it all back!

But I think you're right, "ret-conning" has taken the place of creating new and interesting characters. So fans of one character get a "new and improved" version of that character stuffed down their throat!

Now excuse me, I have to go stand on my front porch and shake my fist at those lousy kids...with their skateboards...and their rap music...

I'm ignoring it and hoping it will go away.

Loved the Geoff Johns reboot for Hawkman. Reincarnated lovers destined to be and die together is a really good way to keep interest in the character, shore up most/all of his stints, and perfectly fit in that death is fine because he'll back in a little different. Those stories were so good it gets some irk/emotion from me to see the flashes of Hawkgirl with Roy and Hawkman with Power Girl.

-Hated the Wonder Woman change from Rucka to the Dodsons ( they do really nice artwork though ).

LoSH and Donna Troy are big messes as well. I think Johns will shore up the Legion with Lo3W.

not really because other than Batman, DC pretty much sucks.

When I think of "Iconic" Batman, I think "Mid-Late" Forties.


Nightwing Year one seems to enforce that it gives an actual timeline

I heart Earth-2. I remember buying the DCU Roleplaying game put out by West End in ... 1998? It must've been right around Zero Hour, because I read the "new" Huntress' origin story and was all "WTF?!" It's a little silly that "I get to make up and maintain my own consistent continuity" is such a big reason I'm into superhero RPGs.