"It’s not a reboot."

Comics I've been watching with distanced interest and not a little entertainment DC Comics's plans to relaunch their entire publishing line in September. Given, from what I gather speaking to clerks in comic shops, the tumbling sales in comic books in general, this feels very much like the kind of action a high street chain going into administration takes, closing a bunch of stores (in this case comics titles like Secret Six) and refitting the rest in hopes of brining in a new audience (HMV ditching music in favour of games and games zones for kids to play them in).

DC have been keen to stress this isn't a reboot, even though the continuity and mythology of many of the characters is being rewritten, whole storylines are being ditched and while on the one hand they're clearly trying not to make comics fans feel as though they've wasted their life reading years and years of stories which now don't matter in relation to their favourite character on the other that's exactly what it feels like.  Fans of Star Wars can certainly relate to this kind of slash and burn approach to continuity especially readers of Karen Traviss's clone trooper novels which she famously stopped writing when the animated series rendered them null and void.

In an attempt to reassure fans and comics shops, DC Comics have put out an FAQ which is being carried by a number of sites finally detailing their thinking behind the whatever it is and stressing once again that it isn't a reboot despite all of the evidence in everything else they write to the contrary:

"Why not call it a reboot?

It’s not a reboot. A reboot is typically a restart of the story or character that jettisons away everything that happened previously.

This is a new beginning which builds off the best of the past. For the stories launching as new #1s in September, we have carefully hand-selected the most powerful and pertinent moments in these characters’ lives and stories to remain in the mythology and lore. And then we’ve asked the best creators in the industry to modernize, update and enhance the books with new and exciting tales. The result is that we retained the good stuff, and then make it better.

This having already said earlier:

"With all of the titles starting at #1, our creative teams have the ability to take a more modern approach – not only with each character, but with how the characters interact with one another and the universe as a whole, and focus on the earlier part of the careers of each of our iconic characters. A time when they didn’t have as much experience defeating all their nemeses. A time when they weren’t as sure of their abilities. A time when they haven’t saved the world countless times. It’s this period that is rich with creative opportunity as we show why these characters are so amazing, so iconic and so special."

It's the kind of repetitious, circular logic Ed Milliband would be proud of and the problem is, like the high street stores which refit and relaunch, it's doomed to failure because even though they didn't use the shop the last thing they want is for it to change.  People like the reassurance of good old Superman or HMV being there even if in not reading the comic or visiting the shop they're the exact reason why it's failing.

While there's some curiosity, from what I read all this is doing is cheesing off the core audience, many of whom are talking about dropping well loved titles and catching up on everything they've previously missed from the old regime.  You mark my words, in a couple of years if not sooner, this reboot will be retconned away by another universe width event written by Grant Morrison with Crisis in the title.