When I went to my LCS this past weekend, they had inserted a copy of Flashpoint #1 in my subscription box (without my asking).  I handed it back, telling the clerk that I wasn't interested and "probably couldn't afford to follow all 252 cross-overs."

The clerk began to tell me in earnest how Flashpoint #5 was going to be a turning point in the DCU -- the only DC book published that week! -- and that everything would be different after that.  He was really excited and was trying to sell me on this.

I looked at him and deadpanned, "then maybe it will be time for me to quit this little hobby."

He looked at me like I had grown horns... or turned purple... or was suddenly drawn by Rob Liefeld.

I like Flashpoint so far, the issues and the concept are something that I have dug since I was a kid.  So I am onboard for the remainder of the story (though there are some of the side books I will probably skip) and am very interested to see what comes next.

I am one of those guys who has fun with the hype machine.

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It was earlier than 1957, and it wasn't a reboot.

You perhaps forget that when The Flash appeared SHOWCASE in 1956, ushering in what many consider the beginnings of the Silver Age (tho J'Onn J'Onzz, arriving in DETECTIVE COMICS in 1955, predated Barry Allen's debut), characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Aquaman and others continued with their previous publication schedules unbroken. The arrival of a "new" Flash, to whom the Jay Garrick version was just a character in a comic book, did not introduce us to new versions of characters whose books had not gone away. The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom -- they got new titles, new looks (tho not so much for Hawkman) and new backstories, and were completely divorced from the characters who previously had those names. But ONLY them.

It was FAR from a "total" reboot.

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I know you're kidding, but it is important to remember that the "comicbook fan", as we know the term today, did not exist in any real sense in the 1950s. There were comicbook READERS, and even COLLECTORS, but as someone who was there at the time (albeit a couple of years after that Flash debut in SHOWCASE, but on deck for Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Atom), the average comic reader was perfectly content to be TOLD what the characters were all about, not insisting that he knew more about them than the people in charge of producing the comics.

Sure, there was Roy Thomas, writing in to ask why Hawkman didn't have wings on his helmet (and DC responding by putting them there! ARGH!!), but he was atypical -- and had even become a Golden Age fan AFTER THE FACT, picking up on those characters and stories literally second hand, years later.

What does a reboot matter to new readers anyway?

New readers might be attracted by a clean slate, and the concept of starting at the 'ground floor', more appealling than picking up a title with oodles of continuity.

 I don't read any DC or Avengers titles and so on, I don't know what's happening, what do I care if they're rebooted or not?

Then the Big Two don't care about you <g>.

How is 1957 DC a total reboot if SUPERMAN, BATMAN, and WONDER WOMAN--DC's biggest titles-continued on unaffected?

It probably would've been better if those three had been 'rebooted' as well. The eventual confusion (where does Earth 1 start, for example) sure helped DC reach a Crisis point.

I do agree that reboots nowadays are doomed to failure, considering the vast number of 'cooks in the kitchen' (including non-creative folk) responsible for the published titles.

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It probably would've been better if those three had been 'rebooted' as well. The eventual confusion (where does Earth 1 start, for example) sure helped DC reach a Crisis point.

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The "confusion" lay only with a very small, but very vocal segment of fandom. Unfortunately, it was from that group that there came many of the writers in the Seventies, who then insisted that DC needed to be "fixed". CRISIS, which did far, far more harm than good, was the result.

If I recall, DC didn't worry about reboots from when they started publishing comics up to about (and I'm guessing) 1969 because they figured that the average comicbook fan bought the product for about 7 years or so.  Basically, the fans back then were elementary school kids, who mostly abandoned comics when puberty hit.  As these kids left, new ones (those born, etc) came in and took their place.  The stories and characters were essentially new to them, so no reboot was necessary.  Art styles did start to change, however, and Marvel, which worked to establish continuity practically from the start of the FF, may have pushed DC into worrying about this.

When I was a teen, I continued to read comics, but it was a guilty pleasure, as almost all of my friends didn't read them anymore (or hid the hobby, as I did).  I often wondered about Stan Lee's assertion that College kids were reading (Marvel) comics.  Up in Canada, this sure wasn't obvious.

Things have obviously changed now, and maybe not for the better.  I like continuity as much as the next person, but given what some writers have done, I'm hopelessly confused with many of the titles.  That's what led me to give up the X-Men in the first place back in the '80s.

Don't even get me started on publishers who are insisting that story arcs have to run 6 issues to put the story into a trade paperback for resale.  I wouldn't mind this, except the majority of the stories I see nowadays could be told in 1-2 issues (silver age style).

One good thing about a reboot is it also gives dissatisfied readers an opportunity to jump off!