15 Years Ago, DC's Failed Experiment Set Up Its Best Batman Storyline

After 1973, the world of comic books became familiar with the concept of a massive reset button. That year gave us DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths, a best-seller for DC — famously featuring a crying Superman, holding the broken body of Supergirl. It was both a smart bit of PR to attract new readers and a seismic shift for the industry in that it introduced the idea of narratively rewriting canon on a mass scale. While Marvel Comics beat their competition to the punch in terms of the company-wide crossover event with the original Secret Wars in 1984-1985, the concept of a full universal reboot was unheard of; now, it’s a contentious and long-lasting trope in comics, one that DC has repeated multiple times with Infinite Crisis and DC Rebirth and one that Marvel has imitated with 2015’s take on Secret Wars.

But 15 years ago, in 2011, DC Comics was in a very similar position to the one they were in back in 1981 when writer Marv Wolfman first pitched Crisis on Infinite Earths – their sales were declining, and they were once again tangled up in over a decade of convoluted lore. Crisis on Infinite Earths had solved the problem of the DC Multiverse by folding everything into one “post-Crisis” timeline, and in less than 20 years DC had reversed that decision by introducing 52 finite alternate Earths; naturally, another company-wide reboot seemed like the solution to their issues. The result was 2011’s Flashpoint, a storyline which saw Barry Allen, the second Flash, travel back in time to save his mother – a decision that wreaked havoc on the timeline and birthed the New 52, an immensely controversial reboot that incidentally led to one of the most beloved modern Batman stories.

A Radical New Beginning

Unlike CoIE, the New 52 was sold as a “soft” reboot (starting over every comic with a new #1 issue), but the result was still a vastly different landscape than what came prior to Flashpoint – certain crucial events (like Jason Todd’s murder and resurrection or The Death of Superman) were preserved, but plenty of other things were drastically changed. Characters had their backstories changed or scrubbed, like Superman (who hadn’t been romantically involved with Lois Lane and was put into a relationship with Wonder Woman); teams like the Justice League had their histories and makeup rewritten (Cyborg was swapped out for Martian Manhunter as a founding member of the team); and the entire timeline was condensed so that superheroes had only begun to appear in the last 5 years. There were also other critical details altered – Barbara Gordon recovered from her paralysis at the hands of the Joker and returned to crimefighting as Batgirl, Alan Scott (the first Green Lantern) was revealed to be gay, and the Justice League’s first encounter with each other was in a battle with Darkseid.

Some of the changes and reinterpretations were well-received: Cyborg got promoted from a beloved member of the Teen Titans to a key player in the larger DC pantheon, Geoff Johns’ run on Aquaman undid years of mocking in pop culture and presented him as a serious and complex monarch and hero, and Grant Morrison restored the populist social justice crusader aspect to Superman’s original adventures with his Action Comics run. The New 52’s depiction of Justice League became a major inspiration for Zack Snyder’s ill-fated DCEU, and it was even adapted into multiple animated films. However, many of the changes were widely criticized – beloved Teen Titans member Starfire was heavily objectified in the book Red Hood and the Outlaws, fan-favorite Batgirl Cassandra Cain was erased from existence, and the legacy of the sprawling Flash family was erased to make Barry Allen the first (and only for a while) hero to have the mantle.

Overall, the New 52 continuity was messy and controversial, and it only lasted from 2011 until 2016, when the DC Rebirth relaunch began once again playing around with canon (this time engineered by Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan, surely much to the chagrin of Alan Moore). However, some characters experienced such a period of fantastic storytelling during the New 52 that they became canonized as instant classics – like Scott Snyder’s Batman.

The Court of Owls and New 52’s Batman

At the initial launch of the New 52 reboot, there were 11 Batman-related titles, with four direct Batman books and 7 spin-offs focusing on different members of the Batfamily. However, one of those books became the gold standard for the N52 era: Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s legendary run on Batman, a five-year endeavor which lasted the entirety of the relaunch period. The writer-artist pairing was something of a Dynamic Duo from their very first issue, Batman vol. 2 #1, and right off the bat they delivered a quintessential modern Batman story with the “Court of Owls” storyline. In it, Bruce faces off against a powerful and long-lasting secret society known as the Court of Owls, made up of Gotham’s rich elite across generations, who employ undead assassins known as Talons to steer the city’s politics from behind the scenes.

It has long been rumored that the Court of Owls might play a role in Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman: Part 2, which would make complete sense as a continuation of the first film’s emphasis on institutional corruption and class division. It also wouldn’t be the first time Scott Snyder’s work on Batman during the New 52 was used as inspiration for Matt Reeves’ Batman films – the first movie’s climax borrows heavily from the later storyline Zero Year, a new origin story prequel for the Dark Knight that involves the Riddler flooding Gotham City to inspire lawlessness and chaos.

Aside from the storylines that may or may not have inspired the current cinematic depiction of Batman, Snyder and Capullo’s 5-year streak offered numerous now iconic stories and status quo shakeups, including Death of the Family (in which the Joker tries to kill off the members of the Batfamily to rejuvenate his relationship with Batman) and the Superheavy arc (where Commissioner Gordon temporarily becomes Batman with the aid of a militarized suit). For all the criticism, the New 52 gave fans one of the most creatively adventurous periods of Batman in recent memory, which is a reflection of what the relaunch was intended to be at its best.

While the New 52 was mired in controversy for its entire relatively short lifespan, it was a pretty radical shift for the company, one that occasionally paved the way for talented writers and artists to offer a new take on classic characters for a modern, eager audience.