DC Rebirth Complete indepth Coverage/Explanation

 

Whats goin on guys welcome to comic island, my name is Joey and this is part 2 to my last video, Dc Rebirth issue 1. So if you haven’t watched that video yet, then I suggest you save this article and come back to it after you finish the original video. Click here for the complete DC Rebirth story.

Ok, you guys still with me? I’m going to discuss the events in the comic book as if you are already caught up. Ok lets jump into the first scene. Our narrator goes through his life from youth to hero but we get images of the mechanisms of a watch. That is a huge clue to a character that we will discuss in a bit. So the narrator is revealed to be none other than Wally West from pre-new 52. This causes a huge paradox because we already have a Wally west with a different skin color. But we will get to that later on so stay with me on this.

This scene is all about batman and the joker. If you have been following us then you will know the entire story of the Darkseid war. If you didn’t, well to keep things simple and short, Batman asked the Mobius chair for the identity of the joker. It replied: there are three. So this image basically breaks continuity and anything else that it can break because of the simple fact that the new 52 batman is shown the golden age joker and the joker from a stand-alone story arc called the killing joke, which is argueably one of the best joker storylines ever. The 3^rd image makes sense because this is the most recent incarnation of the clown prince which we saw in batman endgame. Link in the description if you haven’t watched our complete story to that yet.

So, continuing on, one joker is on its way to arkham while another one is wreaking havoc in another city. The third isn’t talked about so could this mean that the third is dead following the events of batman endgame? We also saw a man eerily similar to the joker in scott snyder’s batman issue 48. So could this be the first or second joker? How about during the darkseid war during Wonder Woman’s narration: she recalls a greek god who laughs during great chaos and death. That would insinuate that the joker is a god of some sort. But hey, remember that time when the joker stole the powers of mr. mispliclick? Ya I probably butchered that name but joker was basically a god. One of the most popular theories right now is that one of the joker is the comedian from watchman. This is digging deep into spoiler territory so I won’t go in too deep for now.

But the true reveal is that we, as the fans, are teased with the true identity of the joker. I honestly don’t recall any DC story that would reveal his identity. The closest would be the killing joke. Fans are split in two about this subject. Would you like to know his identity? Or would you rather it be kept a secret. For me, personally, I would rather his true identity be kept a secret.

Honestly I could talk for an hour about this subject but we got a lot of ground to cover but, if you want me to go in-depth of my thoughts on the 3 jokers, please let me know in the comments below. With enough requests, I will make a video on that.

Ok next scene: so now it’s established that pre new 52 Wally West will be our guide through this. We see a bit of his personal history from regular human to taking on the flash’s identity after Barry dies.

Wally brings us to the home for the elderly. To be honest, I’m not familiar with comics older than 1990 so I had to do some research. This is what I dug up. This man is Johhny thunder from the justice society of America. The JSA was basically written out of continuity when the new 52 began. Somehow this man, Johhny thunder is still kicking it and somehow he remembers his past life. Well, way before I was in diapers, Johnny thunder found a genie named thunderbolt who turned him into a hero. Before Wally left, he told Johnny to use the genie and find his old teammates. That’s the thing, is the justice society around in the new 52? Johnny is. So I wouldn’t be surprised of the JSA reforms and will aid the DC heroes against this mysterious villain.

Onto the next scene: we are not shown the face of this woman but she claims to be from the future. She knows that superman lives well past the death of the new 52 superman. So is she talking about the pre new 52 superman, or is she saying that the new 52 superman will somehow return to life. Are you confused? I sure as hell am. Lol just kidding. There are currently 2 main clark kent that I am referring to and I’ll get in depth about that in a few moments. But lets continue on this scene. She has a legionairre ring. That basically tells us that she is from the future and is part of the legion of super heroes. The ring has time travel abilities. That explains how she got to the past. My best guess is that this woman is Saturn girl. The legion’s founding member consists of two guys and a girl. Well Saturn girl is a blonde, check, and she obviously owns a legion ring. Check. Well what does this all mean? Its not just the present at stake now. From our visit to Johnny thunder and Saturn girl, the past and the future will be pulled into this. And if the 3 jokers are somehow linked to parallel earths, then the multiverse is at stake as well.

So we move on to the atom. In this case, we got 2 guys: Ray Palmer, who you guys may know from the CW show the arrow and legends of tomorrow, and Ryan Choi, who became the Atom pre new 52. I am not the biggest fan of the Atom but I do appreciate his presence when he’s around. But Dc is bringing both Atom’s back into the new 52 so what can that mean? Well Rebirth is all about bringing back past stories and characters that worked well while amalgamating the cinematic and TV universe into one. but lets look at this through the eyes of our heroes. Ray says he is stuck somewhere in the microverse, or the nanoverse or even palmerverse, which ever you wanna call it, and he is hinting on discovering something big. If we follow the tone of this comic book then we gotta assume that this mysterious being that stole 10 years from the heroes causing the new 52, is affecting everything down to the microscopic level. This could open up a world of great stories to be told so I’m quite excited for this change.

So we move onto one of my favorite scenes in DC rebirth issue 1. We get reintroduced to Ted Kord, the original non powered blue beetle and his successor Jaime Reyes. Same as atom, I never really got into blue beetle comics BUT I got a ton of exposure to this character outside of comics such as Jaime’s appearance in smallvile, batman brave and the bold, young justice and his newest appearance in the justice league vs teen titans.

Ted Kord also made numerous appearances as well the last I heard of anything Kord related was at the very beginning of Forever Evil where Lex Luthor tried to strong arm Ted Kord’s father to buying Kord industries. Ultraman nearly kills Luthor in his wake so the whole Kord concept stayed in the backdrops. But lets get back to Dc Rebirth. We also got the first appearance of Dr Fate. Please correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Dr. Fate only present in earth 2 comics? If so then where has this Dr. Fate been all this time? And what does he mean by the scarab being dark magic? I much prefer the origin of the scarab being alien base from a very hostile race called the reach.

This next scene shows us Jessica Cruz having a small conversation with Hal Jordan about her new partner Simon Baz carrying a gun. I love me some good old buddy cop story-line and this has the making of a great classic beginning where two partners despise each-other but learn to work and respect each-other at the end. But lets focus on Hal Jordan’s green lantern. Notice how he isn’t raggedy looking anymore? Well he is somehow back with the green lanterns after DC rebirth. If you have been following Hal Jordan’s journey than you know he’s been through a ton so I don’t know how I feel about him returning to the corp. I actually quite enjoyed him being a rebel renegade using an archaic green lantern mechanism in replace of a ring. But that’s just my opinion.

So this next scene is a doosey. Pandora is said to herald the new 52. She was the prime focus during the trinity war and her box allowed the syndicate to cross over causing forever evil. Heck she was in every single first issue of the new 52. But then she went silent for quite a while only to resurface now and get disintegrated by an unknown assailant. Following the tone of this comic, we can safely assume that the killer is this mysterious man that stole 10 years from us or someone connected to him. We already know that this entity is vastly powerful but to be able to kill Pandora that easily? Damn the heroes are going to be in trouble.

Next scene: we see Grail talking to her father child about Diana’s twin brother. After the
Darkseid war ended, we found out that Jason, the twin brother, is out there and is someone we have already met. The Darkseid war was just spectacular so its no surprise that DC would want to continue it but this time, it will be the hunt for Jason, Diana’s twin brother.

This next scene got me really excited. The most iconic hero in DC is arguably a tie between Batman and Superman. Well we all know that Batman is awesome and he is my favorite superhero BUT I love how Dc brought pre new 52 superman into the new 52. Its very convoluted so I’ll skip the details unless you guys want me to make a video dedicated to that but lets focus on the story at hand. New 52 superman is dead, killed when he went up against Vandal Savage and he died in this exact place. So this panel with some of the world’s finest heroes mourning over new 52 Superman just gave me chills. But that was not the point of this scene. This scene is dedicated to an epic love story between the black canary and the green arrow, a love story that was completely absent during the new 52. This couple ranks pretty high for me as one of my favorite super hero couple so I think DC is going in the right direction when they chose to bring back their love story. But in a story point of view, somehow these two are feeling how they should pre new 52. Lost emotions are returning to them and they don’t know why. This could open a ton of possibilities and it has already been explored in titans hunt where we see the original teen titans somehow started to remember who they were. This is an excellent read and I recommend checking it out if you haven’t done so yet. The ending leads directly into the first few pages of DC rebirth.

Ok we move on to talking about my favorite thing to happen to DC comics in the last little while, the return of the original pre new 52 superman. This was the square jawed man of steel who went toe to toe with Doomsday.

Not that doomsday,

THIS Doomsday, this OG spike bodied monster that did what no one else could do: Kill superman. If you don’t know whats going on in this scene, well let me tell you: DC Convergence re-introduced us to pre new 52 superman and his wife Lois Lane who is pregnant with their soon to be son. If you remember the tone of Convervence, then you remember how Telos pitted a city against another city plucked from different parallel universes. Well its pre new 52 superman versus flashpoint characters but at the end, Thomas Wayne was the doctor that brought the son of superman himself into the world. And at the end of convergence, we see superman and his family venturing off into the new 52 world. And the story continues in superman: Lois and Clark. If you are a fan of superman than stop what you are doing right now and pick up this short series if you haven’t read it yet. But lets assume you have read it and we skip to present day. Clark’s son, Johnathan, is reaching his teen-hood and is starting to discover super powers of his own. From the promo pictures, we know he is going to be teaming up with Damian Wayne and probably somehow reform a new teen titan group.

But who is this man? He calls himself Mr. Oz. if you haven’t been reading the spoilers online yet then get ready to be spoiled. The watchman is coming into the world of DC and my best guest, keep in mind that this is pure speculation, is that this man is Ozymandiaz, Adrian Veidt, the villain of the watchman movie. What’s more interesting is what he said about how nothing is what it seems. He’s referring to Clark and his family and also the new 52 superman. There are tons of theories online as to what this means but everything is a wild speculation at this point. Bleeding cool released a great post about why they think that Mr. oz is Ozymandias. I’ll have a link in the description below if you guys want to check it out.

Ok onto the next scene. I was quite surprised at this actually. I read a lot of Aquaman comics back in the day and I loved his new 52 run. I stopped somewhere when he found Hercules in hell? I think I lost interest since that was when forever evil pulled me away from Aquaman comics. But the love between princess mera and Arthur Curry is the stuff of legends. If you don’t know then allow me to give you the quick recap: Myra, princess of a fallen under water city called Xebel is sent to kill the king of Atlantis. Instead of carrying out her duties, she found out that Arthur wasn’t the villain of the story and they found love. He commands the inhabitants of the ocean and she is a powerful sorceress able to control water. Both royalties in their own right and now they are getting married. Sure its not as epic as the marriage between Lois and Clark but I’m still diggin’ this scene. I did thought that Arthur might get a complete make over to resemble this guy (Kal Drogo), but eh, this might work out to be a better thing.

Ok next scene. We meet a young Linda Park, Wally West’s love interest. This scene is a great build up and shows us how much pain that Wally must be going through and it enforces the urgency and doom that is lurking over the horizon. This scene gives him more conviction than ever and it builds up to when he finally gets reunited with Barry Allen. Btw guys, if you want to see DC Rebirth through Barry Allen’s eye, pick up The Flash Rebirth right now. Everything is inter-connected and I love it. But this scene actually pulls at my heart strings and I know there are tons of Wally West fans out there. So there you have it, DC gave us our original Wally back and gave him a center focus 1 shot. Dc brought back what worked in the past but even though they explains how there are 2 Wally’s now, how is that going to play out? New 52 Wally didn’t get much of a warm welcome because everyone was expecting pre new 52 Wally but, because of the CW’s the flash TV show, maybe we can give this new speedster a break. So I’m going to wait a year or 2 to see if new 52 Wally stacks up and I cant wait to see how these 2 will co-exist in this new world. Oh and if comics isn’t confusing enough, if someone asks you why are there 2 different skinned Wally West, how are you going to even explain this?

Ok moving on to the batcave scene. Batman finds the comedian’s pin in his cave.

This is the ultimate reveal, and the characters of the Watchman are coming to the DCU. This also spawns a theory that one of the joker’s identity is the comedian from the watchman. My only exposure to this franchise is from the movie and even though its enjoyable, I doubt that the comedian is one of the jokers. But then, let’s look at it a little deeper: The joker doesn’t have any special powers, same goes for the comedian. We could argue that the comedian is dead, but then this is comics we’re talking about. The joker has died a few times. In endgame, joker is almost seen as a character that has lived through the ages. He died and came back and well, died again at the end of Endgame. But then this guy that has an eerie resemblance to the joker is seen talking to Bruce Wayne in a park bench: Both guys suffering from memory loss. There is another theory that the joker is simply one man that is suffering from multiple personalities and the killing joke story-line REALLY digs deep into this possibility. Sigh – this is such a hot topic for me and I’m moving away from the point of this video.

Ok, lets get back on track. The end gives us a conversation between two guys. Its safe to assume that the first person talking is Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias. He says I did the right thing didn’t i? it all worked out in the end. Well this statement further backs up the possibility that mr Oz is Ozymandias. Mr Oz is clouded in mystery and he is seen as the guy that trains new 52 supermen and is basically a puppet master pulling the strings. Btw, I had to re-read superman issue 32. Who is mr oz talking to behind humongous iron doors? Dr manhattan? I hope we get a reveal to this scene.

Oh and if you need more evidence that the second speaker is Dr Manhattan then pay attention to the internal mechanisms of the watch in the background. Dr Manhattan’s father is a watch maker. The scene also brings us to mars, where Dr Manhattan goes to find peace: Kind of like is own fortress of solitude. And finally the saying: nothing: nothing ends, nothing ever ends. This quote is pulled straight from the mouth of Dr Manhattan. Even the silk spectre quotes this line on behalf of Dr Manhattan in the movie.

So there you have it: Dr Manhattan is the prime suspect for murdering metron, owlman and Pandora. He is probably this guy with the gigantic hand reaching out of the void and he is indeed the one that stole 10 years from everyone and causing the aftermath of the flashpoint. We are lead to believe that everyone we are reading is the exact same character as pre new 52 minus 10 years. But here’s the thing: the convergence event proves that new 52 and pre new 52 are different universe and we have a new 52 superman that is similar but at the same time, very different from his pre new 52 counterpart. Heck they are already living in the same world. Take a look at the picture below.

Ya you are seeing this clearly (Darkseid’s first invasion) pre new 52 superman was there all along. He would have jumped in and aided the heroes if they somehow failed to fight off Darkseid’s invasion. This scene is just bursting with awesomeness and at the same time, is so confusing.

So there you have it: my coverage of DC rebirth. I think Dc is moving in the right direction because it has been 5 years since new 52 and the fans didn’t respond too well at all to the reboot. They tried creativity over continuity with DCYOU but I think they nailed it this time with DC Rebirth. And it does help a ton knowing that one of my all time favorite writer Geoff Johns is leading DC to a new beginning. I get asked all the time this one question: Marvel or DC. One year it could be Marvel but the next year, it could be DC. I love both companies and as you guys can see from our coverage of Secret wars, we loved what marvel did with their event but then all new all different marvel started and I didn’t feel a strong connection to it. Sure we got civil war II which Arden is currently covering right now, and I still have yet to talk about the apocalypse war but this year, DC is really coming out strong with DC rebirth. So now im torn: I have plans to cover the apocalypse war but at the same time, I wanna talk about DC Rebirth. In a perfect world, I would cover both but im afraid I might only have time for 1. So that’s my question for you: should I continue with the apocalypse war or jump ship to DC Rebirth? Please let me know in the comments below.