By Todd Allen

Over at Newsarama, James Robinson is finally talking — sort of — about Earth 2.  But more dramatically, the cover for the second issue of Earth 2, featuring the redesigned Jay Garrick Flash is revealed.

I’ll be honest.  I’m not sure I’d have recognized that as The Flash.  Certainly not at first glance.  The lightning bolt might have eventually clued me in… after the seams on the uniform informed me it was another DCU redesign.  Yes, those seams are what hold the costume theme together (pun intended).

By far, the funniest moment of that Newsarama piece is Vaneta Rogers’ valiant attempt to get the naming conventions on the various Earths straight:

DC and its writers have a tough time figuring out what to call the main DCU Earth. Robinson originally used terms like “Earth One” and “Earth Prime,” but Newsarama inquired with DC editorial and was told that Robinson should have used “main DCU Earth.” This is the second time a DC writer accidentally used the wrong name for the main DCU Earth in an interview with Newsarama.

“Main DCU Earth?”

Guys.  Just admit it.  You didn’t stop to think about naming conventions or remember you had a series of graphic novels called “Earth One,” before you titled this book “Earth 2.”  All you’re doing with this “main DCU Earth” malarkey is highlighting the problem.

(Why am I half expecting to be told the graphic novels are “Earth One” and the comics are “Earth 1?”)

So what does Robinson have to say about Earth 2?  Precious little.  On the other hand, we don’t have his comments followed up by the deadpan comedy of editor Pat McCallum getting all hot and bothered that these heroes are ready to kill.  What is revealed?

Supergirl/Power Girl and Robin/Huntress will be in the first issue, but only the first issue.

Lois Lane is already dead when the first issue starts.

The Amazons are already dead when the first issue starts.

Alan Scott (Green Lantern), Jay Garrick (Flash) and Al Pratt (Atom) will be putting on costumes for the first time as the series begins and plays out.

As the the parademons on the revealed alternate cover to #1, Robinson denies Darkseid is involved:

No. It’s related to Apokolips. And that’s all I can say. It’s a very subtle but very important difference.

In terms of how long the heroes have been around on Earth 2, the evasive answer is:

I don’t know. If you think about her age in the Robin sketch and her age now, I don’t know if it’s accurate to say that they’ve been around longer, but they’ve been around for five years.

If you compare her age now as the Huntress to the age she is as Robin in that illustration, it’s safe to say there’s a five-year jumping-on point like [the main DCU Earth], but it doesn’t necessarily imply to me that they’ve been around longer than that.

That’s about it for takeaways.  It is made to sound like there’s no history of heroes going back to World War II.  The only legacy hero(ine) is Robin/Huntress and she’s shipped off to Worlds’ Finest after an issue.  Flash/Green Lantern/Atom haven’t started their careers yet.

This is definitely the most information released about the book thus far.  It mostly settles the question of whether this is the Earth 2 and Justice Society that was anticipated (it’s not and DC probably would’ve been better served to just come out and say so).  What’s it going to be about?  Beats me.

Robinson mentions:

Unfortunately, for everything that I don’t say, there are a million theories and concepts, and people get angry because they don’t know what’s going on. This is a very tricky book to promote.

People are asked to buy a book without being told clearly what it’s about, who’s in it (this is the closest the cast has been sketched out, thus far), who the villain is (Apokolips-related?), what the plot is (something bad on a grand scale happens?), there might be some bait and switch with expectations and they’re annoyed at the lack of information?  No.  I can’t believe that would ever happen.

The PR effort for Earth 2 is comedy gold and nobody still has much of an idea what the actual comic is going to be like.

1 COMMENT

  1. Hmm. Hate to sound like a stereotype but I don’t like that redesign. The original Flash costume was goofy-cool and the helmet was awesome. This… Not so much.

  2. If they aren’t going to use anything else from the original versions of these characters (appearance, history, etc), why use their civilian names? Instead of calling this guy “Jay Garrick”, just make him a new character with a new name. All they’re accomplishing by recycling personal names like this is making Wikipedia articles more confusing.

  3. Jason, thank you for being the first guy to say it.

    There’s a tendency in film remakes to take an old franchise’s name and make something that isn’t reflective of the franchise. As in the original Mission: Impossible remake.

    I saw that on video a year or two after it came out. Forewarned it didn’t have anything to do with the TV show, other than masks, I was able to enjoy it as a spy movie. Had I seen it on opening weekend, I probably would have been insulted.

    Whether that experience holds true here remains to be seen.

  4. I still can’t believe they didn’t just stick with one Earth.

    My solution to the naming thing is the same one I’ve always wanted: we should call our planet Earth-1 and theirs Earth-2.

    And they should call THEIR place Earth-1 and OURS Earth-2.

    Makes sense to me!

  5. “The PR effort for Earth 2 is comedy gold”

    I don’t see this being the case at all. They are teasing the book. This is what comic companies do.

    All your articles thus far on this book have a snarky cynical take that makes me wonder why your even bothering paying any attention to this book at all.

    Surely your attention and time is better spent giving us examples of good things you think we should be reading instead of trying to force what you call this “PR comedy gold” down our throats every couple of days.

    Myself, I’m confident enough in James Robinson and Nicola Scott that I don’t really need much more than that to give the book a shot.

  6. I’m reminded of Flash’s line in Dark Knight Strikes Back:
    “Kids these days. Can’t tell the difference between plain old and classic.”
    I guess it makes sense in a way- he’s the Flash, give him a jogging suit. But Bleagh.

  7. “Instead of calling this guy “Jay Garrick”, just make him a new character with a new name.”

    Because James Robinson and Nicola Scott on a new character with a new name will sell a fraction of the comics that an established character and concept will.

  8. The main part of the costume is too busy IMO, but could be salvaged. I have no problem with streamlining the old shirt-and-pants look into a spandex bodysuit. But the helmet is just awful. The classic Mercury helmet is what *made* Jay Garrick’s original costume. This helmet doesn’t look great for anyone, but is a terrible fit for the Flash — or at least for Jay Garrick.

    A lot of people have said this costume makes him look like Ant-Man. If you redesign one of the A-listers of the Golden Age, and come up with someone who gets mistaken for Ant-Man, something’s wrong.

    The saddest thing, for me, is that the more we learn about Earth 2, the less interested I am in reading it. When all I knew was the name, and the fact that the JSA characters would be involved, I wanted to check it out. But every announcement over the past week has chipped away a little more at my interest, to the point where, as a Flash fan, I was wondering if I even wanted Jay in this book. To put it mildly, this costume reveal and interview haven’t helped matters at all.

  9. While I’ve certainly applauded DC’s courage in rebooting their line, after six months the latent cracks in the foundation have clearly started peeling off the new coat of paint (thus the appropriateness of the new DC logo, but I digress…).

    Similar to almost every issue of most new 52 books (with the significant exceptions of Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Demon Knights, Frankenstein, Wonder Woman, and most of the Bat-books), Earth 2 is classic Big 2 bait and switch. The difference this time is that the bait gets oddly less appealing with each new revelation: I’ve moved from mild interest to indifference to why does this exist? in the space of a few weeks. Just as I did with the new 52 Superman books and Justice League.

    The good dozen-odd titles listed earlier aside, DC is doing nothing to keep itself relevant or interesting beyond a dwindling base of 30-50 year old fanboys (and I say this as a 43 year old fanboy). Oh, and Marvel can stop snickering because the same situation applies over there, only without any good titles.

    The good news is that we’ve only a few more years to worry about this until TimeWarner/DC and Disney/Marvel throw in the towel and stop publishing new comics. At that point we can simply enjoy great indie comics and great classic DC and Marvel works without all the noisy death throes.

  10. James Robinson and Nicola Scott are good creators — so I expect E2 will be a good book, PR vagueness notwithstanding.

    “People are asked to buy a book without being told clearly what it’s about…”

    Superheroes on an Earth parallel to the ‘Main DCnU’ seems like a sufficiently clear premise, IMO. Do you expect complete cast lists (with bios) from every new title you come across?

    “[The E2 Flash illio]Looks good to me. I honestly cannot see why everybody is getting up in arms about this illustration.”

    This. It’s clearly a Lee redesign (lots of seams, construction lines, etc.), but one that evokes Jay Garrick’s old-school look, with perhaps a touch of the Earth 3 Johnny Quick (The Crime Syndicate’s resident Flash)design for added flavor.

    The E2 series and the new ‘World’s Finest’ sound interesting and have quality creative teams to boot. I know heaping scorn on Dan DiDio and/or the DCnU is considered fashionable in this corner of the comics blogosphere, but the negativity greeting these two books seems misdirected, and oddly so.

  11. Wow… I mean, I’m not a Marvel or DC reader, so I’m not the audience, but that is just atrocious. With all the talent DC has available, that was their best effort? OK….

    This is the writer who wrote the Justice League comic where Green Lantern and Green Arrow discussed the threesome one of them had with some superheroines, correct? So, yeah, this fits, then.

  12. My reaction is not just an “OMG that’s not Jay Garrick’s Flash,” it’ that this costume is actually ugly. It honestly looks like the sort of thing a 10-year old creates when he first tries to create his own superhero.

    Darryl Ayo: This really looks good to you? I’m not being mean or snarky here, I’m just asking. Is it good, or just not bad to you?

    Jon in Austin: I actually laughed out loud when I read that! Thank you for the best laugh I’ve had all day.

    ———–

    If I did not know who this was and had to guess who this was supposed to be, I would have thought (in order):

    1) An updated costume for Earth-3’s Johnny Quick from the Crime Syndicate of America.

    2) Air Wave (the teen version from the 1970s/1980s.

  13. I’d like to see a little more of it but I like the idea of a full body lightning bolt. That helmet is not helping anyone, though.

  14. I just don’t get three things:

    1) Why is DC bothering to introduce an Earth-2 book if they seem just to be the Flashpoint crap all over again? I mean, why bother to introduce something so similar to whatever they are already doing on “main DCU books”? More angst and more badass-ment? Really?

    2) Few people are noticing this, but the whole idea of DCU being the “legacy” Universe is gone if all is correct. There is no more of that, placing DCU squarely into Marvel territory (no legacy heroes on new Earth-2, more “street” vibe on Earth-Main).

    3) This whole scheme is cracking already: things are making less and less sense. The “new” Huntress was obviously much older than what they are trying to imply – it’s just that DCE decided to change things in the middle of the miniseries to accommodate this new tossed-off Earth-2 idea.

    And finally: it’s really a waste of talent to put James Robinson into angst-driven books.

  15. >The saddest thing, for me, is that the more we learn about Earth 2, the less interested I am in reading it. When all I knew was the name, and the fact that the JSA characters would be involved, I wanted to check it out. But every announcement over the past week has chipped away a little more at my interest, to the point where, as a Flash fan, I was wondering if I even wanted Jay in this book. To put it mildly, this costume reveal and interview haven’t helped matters at all.<

    Exactly. I, too, haven't read any new DC or Marvel books in years … only maybe stuff I could get in the library (i.e. not spend money on). They had a chance to get me with Earth 2 … I was interested when I first heard about it. The kick of Earth 2 for me is that it features the GA-style heroes and they were around back during WW2. This doesn't seem anything like that! It's more of the "five years ago" crap, and these versions of the heroes seem to be going for the "edgy" factor, even more than the "main DCU" ones are. That might work for Image heroes, but not DC, at least not for me.

    To sum up: LAME!!!

  16. As long as the teens like it, that’s the main thing. Personally I’ll save my money for more Harvey Horror books from PS Publishing or some nice Yoe! Books collections.

  17. >>>I don’t see this being the case at all. They are teasing the book. This is what comic companies do.

    Huh? You think they’re gonna go back and change this sh9t they’ve been doling out to the press? Because the majority of people think it looks like the newDC is keeping the ‘let’s appeal to the Eminenema crowd with hoodies and twitter references etc etc and that it looks look ABSOLUTE CRAP??

    Ummm. NO. They ain’t testing **&()!

  18. “People are asked to buy a book without being told clearly what it’s about…”

    What’s with the anxious voice? So what if there’s no forthcoming info… not the end of the world. This article’s a bunch of noise.

    What happened to ‘Being surprised’ or just anticipation in comics? Why do people to know everything about a comic upfront before they buy it??

    You could always read it in the shop.

  19. Speaking strictly from a design perspective, I think the costume works. It doesn’t have a golden age look but it definitely registers as Jay Garrick Flash for me. Helmet, check. Red top, check. Blue pants, check. Lightning bolt on chest, check.

    Just my two cents.

  20. That lightning bolt from shoulder to leg reminds me a little of Orange Lightning’s costume in SuperF*ckers. But, beyond that, it’s freaking crazy insane looking. I guess that’s good.

  21. Hopefully they sent out the Mad magazine cover by mistake and this is a parody of the 52.

    If not then as bad as I thought DC comics characters looked before the new look is truly horrendous and someone needs to do an intervention. This is a shame because a lot of the books read far better than they have before.

  22. I can’t really tell if I like the costume or not from the one image supplied, but it does seem clearly evident that this whole article was little more an excuse to have another go at DC – it reads as little more than a vindictive snark. The biggest gripe seems to be that – OH NO! – DC are trying not to reveal too much about the book right now. You could apply that criticism to any publisher who teases a book months in advance. I’m no lover of the New 52 – I’ve dropped them all bar Swamp Thing and Animal Man, and even they are starting to look like possible drops – and I’m all for a bit of DC-hunting. But this is just looking for controversy where there is none. Plus, the Robin and Superman costumes look great!

  23. “…the more we learn about Earth 2, the less interested I am in reading it. When all I knew was the name, and the fact that the JSA characters would be involved, I wanted to check it out. But every announcement over the past week has chipped away a little more at my interest”

    My thoughts exactly!

  24. Not a hater but I have to be honest. Everything about Earth 2, especially this costume design, is awful. I thought maybe Earth 2 was going to be the old legacy universe, giving us ancient readers some sense of continuity of Old DC and a reason to read their books. I was wrong.

    Unless something huge changes, I won’t be reading this stuff. It just doesn’t look appealing in any way. Maybe, as one poster indicated, nuDC is aimed at backwards-hat wearing, skateboard riding Eminem fans. It’s certainly not meant for people who like heroic, moral characters doing the right thing. That would be laughed at by these characters.

  25. This costume looks dumb as hell and anyone who thinks different needs to be kept far away from costume design.

    It never ceases to amaze me how so many artists that have worked on super-hero comics for so many years can be so bad at making costumes.

    Sometimes it seems like the last decent designers in this industry were Alan Davis and Dave Cockrum. And considering how Cockrum was balled up and thrown away by this industry I’m almost as equally amazed that someone as talented as Alan Davis still gets work.

  26. Well, Johnny: the costume is just a red field and a blue field with a yellow lightning bolt on it. The “busyness” that you’re perceiving is in the ILLUSTRATION, not in the costume design itself.

    I mean, really people. Some of you guys are nerds.*

    I’m saddened that so many people who are so passionate about comics have such a dull visual acumen that we’re confusing an in-use illustration that happens to be graphically dense and busy with a cluttered costume design.

    LOOK AGAIN and get back to me when you’ve passed freshman year 2D Design.

    *All of you are nerds. Nerds.

  27. I’m posting this one under my real name (instead of PencilSharp) for a reason.

    I’m quitting DC.

    This is a love affair that goes back 32 years. I was there for the highs of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Return. I was there for the lows of Invasion! and Justice League Detroit. I stuck with DC even when it was the utterly “uncool” thing to do. After all, Marvel had the best art, and 44 Wolverine books (not to mention the 23 Punisher books).

    Yet, I stuck with DC. I liked the JLA. Enjoyed the JLI. I soared with Superman, tracked clues with Batman, ignored WildStorm…

    And I loved the JSA. Legacy characters with superb character development that deftly blended what had come before with what was to come. And Jay Garrick. Man, the granddaddy of the DCU. Always had a warm smile for those who needed it, and a grim determination when the chips were down. Wildcat was a boor, GL was aloof, but Jay Garrick was the guy who opened the door for you into, not a super-team, but a super-FAMILY.

    But no more. My heroes are dead. Left laying in an editorial morgue, likely never to return. Perhaps they’ll return someday. The first Crisis left JSA fans like me without hope, but they came back. Maybe they’ll come back again someday, with writers who love them and artists who adore them and editors who understand them.

    For now, I’ll just shed a tear for our loss, and shake my head that we get this instead of a “Mazing Man” collection.

    Goodbye, DC. I still love you, and I always will. But, like seeing a dear old friend spiraling into a self-destructive abyss, I’ll not be with you here. Goodbye, old friends. I’ll be back when you decide to do better.

  28. The costumes’ aight. But it’s a costume. It can change like that. People saying that this is a “deal breaker”, a reason to quit DC is comedy gold.

    DC not being able to name one Earth from another is nothing new or unexpected. It just points out the problem with trying to have a straight continutity between more than a handful of books.

    Loosening the cuffs of a shared universe could do a lot of good, especially if you’ve got 52 Earths, 5 Worlds, Speed Forces, Hypertimes, etc.

  29. I’m going to check out the first issue at least, but hoo-boy my hope its gonna be good is slowly dwindling. :-(

  30. Why are they killing all the female characters on this Earth? The Amazons are dead? Lois is dead? SuperGirl is only in the first issue? I’m not calling it a sinister plot, but it strikes me as odd.

  31. “If they aren’t going to use anything else from the original versions of these characters (appearance, history, etc), why use their civilian names? Instead of calling this guy “Jay Garrick”, just make him a new character with a new name. All they’re accomplishing by recycling personal names like this is making Wikipedia articles more confusing.”

    Nah, that would never work.
    http://www.comics.org/issue/13042/cover/4/

  32. I saw this several times about how not knowing what the book is about shouldn’t matter. The difference was 20 years ago when I was surprised month to month it cost me 65 cents for 20 plus pages and if it wasn’t good that month it wasn’t a big deal. Now it costs me on average $4.

    If I am going to spend $4 for around 22 pages, I want to know what the book is about. Not saying I want a plot synopsis but the premise, who will be in the book,etc. I do before I take the time to invest in it.

  33. “If I am going to spend $4 for around 22 pages, I want to know what the book is about. Not saying I want a plot synopsis but the premise, who will be in the book,etc. I do before I take the time to invest in it.”

    Earth-2 is the introduction of a new alternate DCU, where things are radically different from both the current main DCU and the old Earth Two stories. It will feature new versions of Jay Garrick, Alan Scott and Al Pratt, as well as radically different versions of “the Trinity”. It will have a massive scope, covering superheroes on Earth and beyond, and establish its own concurrent timeline with that of the New 52 by establishing events “5 Years Ago”. Lois Lane and a load of Amazons will also be dead.

    Not sure what more information you really need; anything pushing beyond that is really getting into details of what the first arc is going to entail. I didn’t even get into the hints/tidbits we’ve seen from the Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman profiles, or how it has a sister book with Worlds’ Finest. Also, it isn’t coming out for another two months; I am sure with the forthcoming solicitations for issue 2 and 3 will come accompanied with more hints at what is going on.

    I don’t want to come off as dismissive, but with all of the above as well as a known creative team, I can’t help but feel like you have enough to know if this book is for you or not. Do you like Robinson and/or Scott? Do you have an affinity for AltU stories? Are you interested in seeing the new Jay, Alan and Al, with an understanding that they are indeed NEW? If not, then fair enough, keep on walking. But I don’t really buy that DC has been overly vague about what to expect in this book.

  34. But that’s like telling someone who asks what Lord of the Rings is about “Well, it’s from a very respected author, and it has an epic scope, and it takes place in a world called Middle-Earth that is different than both our world and the legends of old, and features characters named Elrond, Aragorn, and Gimli, as well as four Hobbits. It will establish its own distinct timeline by interjecting with historical tidbits. Also, a boatload of elves will be dead.”

    Do you see how that doesn’t really convey ANYTHING about what Lord of the Rings IS? That’s barely a pitch for an RPG sourcebook.

  35. Jefferson, Hm, I don’t like that description of LotR but I don’t really know HOW you would describe it.

    “See, there was this elf named Feanor…”

    OR, my favorite, the time Warner description: “Beings unite to defeat evil lord.”

  36. “If they aren’t going to use anything else from the original versions of these characters (appearance, history, etc), why use their civilian names? Instead of calling this guy “Jay Garrick”, just make him a new character with a new name. All they’re accomplishing by recycling personal names like this is making Wikipedia articles more confusing.”

    Nah, that would never work.
    http://www.comics.org/issue/13042/cover/4/<&lt;

    To be fair, that guy got a different name and was a different guy (yeah, he was still the Flash, but he was Barry Allen, not Jay Garrick … Garrick denotes something to longtime DC fans – and it'd mean nothing to hoped-for new fans, so why use it [or Alan Scott, or Al Pratt, etc.]).

  37. Honestly, “Beings unite to defeat evil lord,” with a bit OF that setting description–because that’s not a bad thing to have going into a story, it’s just not what that story’s ABOUT–is a pretty apt descriptor.

    “A group of humble little men called Hobbits embark on a quest across a mythical world called Middle-Earth to destroy an evil artifact called the One Ring, joined by heroes from across the land.”

    (Yeah, it’s a little corny sounding, but well, LotR is a little corny. I say that with nothing but love.)

    But you’re not necessarily giving anything away any essential twists (note I didn’t mention Gollum, or the Wizards, etc.), but you’re giving enough of a plot that people can go “Oh, that sounds like a story that grabs me.” or “Nah, that’s not a story I’m interested in.”

    Which is what I think people are asking for.

    That said, I do hope that once we get closer to release, we’ll see more detailed synopses. But it’s just weird to lead off with, essentially, “Well, some of the characters are Gimli and Boromir.”

  38. Dang … tried to make that a quote there, but all it did was add garble to the end of the URL Torsten put in. My original wordage begins with “To be fair … “

  39. “But I don’t really buy that DC has been overly vague about what to expect in this book.”

    I do, especially when the title of said book doesn’t seem to match up with most fans’ expectations for each new round of ugly visuals the publisher has been sneaking out.

  40. Dkompare, are you saying Marvel has no good titles? I would recommend checking out Daredevil and Wolverine and the X-Men (although I’m sure you’ve already heard that).

  41. @ Jefferson- Yes that was my point. We know it is a setting called Earth 2 and they are name dropping heroes but that doesn’t tell me anything except what I want to apply about to what I think I know on those items.

    If DC released something like: A parrellel Earth where the golden age of heroes never existed finds itself with broken heroes and little hope. From the ashes of this world a new generation of heroe is rising. But will they bring the dawn of a new era or destroy the Earth trying? -coming from DC in 2012 Earth 2

    It’s hokey but you get a when and where it is happening and a good idea of what the story hook might be. Then you can name drop some of the inital characters with a small bio as the launch gets closer.

    Not saying the example above is Earth 2 etc but rather that type of info release format should give anyone that read a good idea book if it is for them.