DC New Universe and the Old Universe

I can't believe I forgot to mention this when I "phoned in" my thoughts to Paeter for the podcast . . . but I think my biggest problem with Dc Comics these days isn't with the new universe, but with how they ended the old universe (or original).

Dc Comics lost an amazing opportunity that would have had me buying trade paperbacks of the Old DC Universe for the rest of my life!

They should have finished all of their stories.

The nature of ongoing comics series is that we will never get a complete end to the tale of all our favorite characters. But with the end of the old DCU, the publisher had an opportunity to show me the ultimate fate of Batman. We could have seen the defeat of Darkseid, the retirement of Wally West, the birth of Superman's child. We could have seen the end of the story! (And then go into Flashpoint or whatever).

What a missed opportunity. What a waste.

Dude. You're a genius. DC is nuts for not doing this. I'm sitting here stunned at the idea. It's so obvious and so awesome a concept. Somewhere, someday, someone important at DC Comics is going to kick themselves raw over missing that opportunity.

Whoa!! That would have been AWESOME!! That never crossed my mind. Too bad....

Of course they still can carry on their old stuff as alternate time lines to please the disenfranchised if they wish.
This kind of stuff is why I don't do comics. I love the characters, but I'll take the films, novels and TV shows. It seems easier to maintain consistency and continuity.

I had thought about checking out a couple of the "new 52" but I got turned off after hearing that it wasn't going to be a complete reboot and was keeping parts of the old story into it

I don't know if I would have liked real endings to characters' stories that have been around so long that they've become somewhat "eternal"; especially with the "big guns" like Superman and Batman. If we knew Batman's ultimate fate, what would he be doing in the new universe? He might as well retire and then where would we be. Personally, I like that his story's still not "finished", but with his new, somewhat tweaked background, a whole new dimension of adventures is waiting. I love how Scott Snyder has been writing him this last year.

The way I read Flashpoint is that at the end of that event the old universe sort of turned back to normal but not quite. And this not-quite-the-old-universe is what DC now calls the rebooted universe, which (at least sort of) explains why everybody's still around and why some things have changed while others have stayed the same.

Although they're already messing up some of the new, cleaned-up continuity with Tim Drake's wavering status as former Robin/never a Robin. So stupid.