Ten years ago, DC Comics had its controversial New 52 relaunch, and past Batman writer Scott Snyder has recently spoken about his wishes that there had been a bigger gameplan in the works for the publisher's polarizing new era. Coming in the aftermath of the Flashpoint event, 2011 saw the DC Universe being rebooted with a brand new continuity that erased years of past narratives, character dynamics, and relationships in favor of creating an exciting new jumping-on point for new readers (while also catering to Hollywood and future adaptation desires). However, the new era quickly fell apart, and the DC Universe is still being restored in the present day via various retconning events. Now, several DC creatives are taking a look back, and Scott Snyder in particular offers some of the most poignant recollections of what truly went wrong with the attempted revamp.
In a massively promoted initiative, 2011 saw the New 52 launch with a rebooted DC universe that provided new origins as well as 52 different titles with restarted lines, seeing all of them beginning with #1. As a result, Batman received its first #1 issue after 70 years, a major milestone that was not lost on then-writer Scott Snyder, who began this new era for the Dark Knight alongside artist Greg Capullo. Apparently, there was quite a lot of pressure involved, which indeed caused some significant panic on the part of Snyder which preceded the frustrations that would soon come from the New 52's lack of planning.
In a collected oral history of The New 52 from Polygon, several DC creatives from the era were asked to share their thoughts on the past initiative that for a short time put DC Comics in a dominant role in the comics industry before it all came crashing down with poor sales, canceled titles, and publicized tensions. While there were plenty who declined to comment or wished to remain anonymous, Batman's Scott Snyder shares his thoughts, pulling no punches about what he believed went so wrong. In his mind, it all came down to poor planning and the lack of a larger narrative game plan from editorial to tie all of the titles together, rather than them being so isolated. Furthermore, he also spoke to the high levels of frustration that were formed as a result, using his Court of Owls story as a prime and personal example:
"We’d finished [the first Batman storyline] “Court of Owls.” It was at the printer, and word came down from above that they weren’t sure that they wanted Batman not to be able to solve the mystery of the Owls; whether Lincoln March was his brother. They wanted us to change it, to make it so that he’d definitively solved it. For me, that would have changed the entire story, because the point of the story was just the opposite. I remember standing in Target, pushing a cart of paper towels, screaming into the phone, “You go down the hallway and you tear up my contract!”
Many of the New 52's problems can be probably be credited to the large focus on starting the entire DC Universe over, which reportedly left little time to create some sort of "uber-story" to tie it all together (which makes a lot of sense looking back). In Snyder's mind, The New 52 was DC was working on the fly, making things up and tearing them down in favor of other ideas on a daily basis:
"...it was wild in that way, too, and in being wild, there was also frustration. I saw some creators build things that never came to pass; others suddenly get to build. That’s comics a lot of the time, honestly, but here, it was like comics on Red Bull."
After 5 years, DC Comics abandoned The New 52, beginning Rebirth in 2016 which started the process of restoring the DC Universe and the large regions of its past that the 2011 reboot had elected to erase. Furthermore, events such as 2017's Doomsday Clock and 2020's Dark Nights: Death Metal (the latter of which notably coming from the past Batman team of Snyder and Capullo) were instrumental in retconning the DC Universe into its present era known as Infinite Frontier. Who knows what the present DC Universe would have looked like had The New 52 had a bigger and better game plan Snyder wished for. No doubt it would be much further along without having had to correct the chaos created by the reboot whose presence is still felt 10 years later.
Source: Polygon.com