*Originally published on 12/16/09
Trying to follow comic book continuity can be a bit of a chore. With decades worth of stories and continuity, it's become rather tricky for new readers to jump on and enjoy a story. Marvel has had a similar problem, but DC is notorious for it's confusing continuity. Ironically, most of this is due to several attempts to hit the reset button to clear out continuity and every time, it only makes it more confusing.
Marvel has had a fair amount of success with it's "Ultimate" line. This second continuity basically started from scratch and returned all of the characters to their roots. It has no ties to the mainstream Marvel universe, although one was hinted at during the Crossover arc, that didn't turn out to be the case as it introduced the Marvel Zombies.
DC tried a similar thing with it's All Star Line. They announced titles for Batman and Superman that would take place outside of main continuity and would allow new readers to jump in without worrying about years of continuity.
While other titles were announced and the imprint had a ton of potential, only the two titles were ever released. All Star Superman was met with critical acclaim, won awards, and is generally loved by fans of the Man of Steel. It took awhile, but Grant Morrison finished the 12 issue run. This comic succeeded in telling a great story that distilled the characters and it did what the imprint set out to do.
All Star Batman and Robin, on the other hand, stunk to high heaven. It was hyped up as a new entry in Frank Miller's Batman universe, tying in to well renowned classics like The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. Like All Star Superman, the comic was supposed to run for 12 issues. The comic was so derided and ripped by critics that DC has put it on hiatus. While there are supposed to be 2 more issues, who knows if we'll ever see them.
Taking the "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again" mantra to heart, DC is taking another crack at the out of continuity series with it's Earth One series. Once again, we're going to see out of continuity stories that tell stories about the characters with a clean slate.
As mentioned before, the Earth One series will not be released in individual issues rather it will go straight to trade. That's not to say that it's a limited series, on the contrary, it will be an ongoing series, just in graphic novel form.
It's interesting that the limited series got individual releases while the ongoing series went straight to trade. I think it would've been pretty cool to release the All Star books in trade first. Since they were only 12 issue runs anyway, you could release them in one volume and get a whole story. Going this way would've also negated the delay problems as they could announce and release it when it was done as opposed to still being worked on.
Unlike the All Star series, the "Earth One" will be it's own continuity. With the All Star line, each book was it's own continuity. So while Superman appeared in All Star Batman and Robin, it wasn't the same Superman we saw in All Star Superman. As I said before, crossovers probably won't happen for some time, but it's interesting to note for when the time does come.
Hopefully this new project turns out better than All Star did. I remember DC was talking about releasing other titles under the All Star title and nothing ever came of it. With trades becoming more and more popular, this is a logical (and some say necessary) experiment to reach out to a wider audience.
It's hard to compare the two books as the Earth One books haven't been released yet, but it seems like a promising idea. We can only hope that it reaches the same heights as All Star Superman did. With writers like Geoff Johns and J. Michael Stracynski on the projects, we can take comfort in knowing that it won't reach the lows of All Star Batman and Robin.
I hope it's closer to the prior rather than the latter as this is a project that should be supported. It would be sad to see an idea with such potential get botched twice.
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