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I thought that was referring to Civil War itself, unless they have an even nother event planned after that, but, yikes, that'd sure be a lot.
Johnston sort of references the idea that Joey Da Q had posited, that Civil War is a best of both worlds because of the "Ripped From Today's Headlines" press it's going to get all while satisfying the hardcores at the same time.
This is an optimal approach for Marvel, as they've always had the best shot at achieving something like this. The DCU is completely shunted out of our reality, so the only coverage it will ever get is "Superman's New Look!" "Robin Dies!" etcetera. Infinite Crisis will never get that kind of attention because it's so tremendously insular, as has been the way of the DCU since time immemorial.
That was an interesting read, but I think from a narrative standpoint, for the DCU at least, something like its current cohesion was sort of inevitable. It's so steeped in intricacies ("This title is about Robin, only he's grown up and he's not Robin anymore, there's another Robin, okay, long story...") that it makes sense to just build a wall and just make it as coherent as possible. Marvel, on the other hand, can really tell any kind of story it likes. Wolverine is always Wolverine. There's no Wolverine Lad who might someday become Wolverine. Etcetera. This is why I think it's a bad idea for them to try to replicate DC's approach. They should focus more on the way the DCU is being "rebooted", with high profile teams on like 80% of their books. Counter a Simonson/Chaykin Hawkgirl (?!?!?!?) with a Nocenti/Adams Longshot. Or something. Infinite Crisis is/was a culmination and a means to an end in terms of where the DCU was headed and what had happened over the past ten years or whatever. It seems like Civil War was just an idea that Mark Millar and Bendis had.
I really believe that they're two fundamentally different Universes and the same approach will never work for both of them, in the long run. Civil War will sell tons and tons of books. If you look at the cover dress of the crossovers, it almost looks like different installments of the same series. Once they're on a rack together I can easily see people just indescriminately plucking up the whole lot, strictly based on visual impetus. However, as we've seen with most reaction to House Of M, no one believes that any of these changes will be permanent.
The DCU, being its insular, walled-off self, can have these sorts of events and since they have a set in stone Trinity, they can literally tear everything else down around them, indescriminately. New Catwoman? Sure. Like 18 different Flashes? Why not?
I doubt it's the kind of approach that's going to tear down the medium anytime soon, but I do think it makes for a richer narrative experience, in my opinion. |
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