User blog:Nausiated/The Convergence Crisis - A chance to Start Fresh

Hi everyone,

It has been a number of years since I've updated anything on this Wiki, but I still keep up with what's going on in the DCU and I check to see how this Wiki site keeps up with the various changes that goes on. The last time I opined on how things are organized was back in 2011 when DC rolled out their New 52 universe.. And man, what a difference 6 years makes.

At the time, I had suggested that New 52 was an excellent opportunity to go back and break up articles that got cumbersome because of the various reboots caused by various Crisis events. The counter arguments ranged from indifference, to Google metrics, to readers "not knowing" anything about past iterations of characters, or that a lot of characters basically remained the same after whatever event. (For example, a lot of old Earth-Two characters and the "lesser" Earth-One characters have always been viewed as being mostly the same after every event following Crisis on Infinite Earths)

Of course, since the original Crisis in 1985, many writers have gone back and revamped, retold, or completely rebooted the origins and past lives of a lot of the characters that people generally paint with the same brush. The current Prime Earth version of Jay Garrick for example, at least in essence is the same as the character first created in the 1940s, but if you go back and read all of those stories there are some massive differences. Plot points after various reboots that don't fit anywhere.

Or you have god awful messes like the New Earth Superman, who had reboot after reboot (I believe the official term is a "threeboot") until he was completely scrapped by the New 52.

Now Convergence opened up the flood gates. All those old versions of those characters, and their continuities, are back. They're all relevant. These characters are all distinctly unique and all bets are off. Suddenly you can't just say that Earth-One Oliver Queen is the same guy as New Earth Oliver Queen. Same with Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, the whole gang.

I think where this Wiki missed the boat was instead of taking the care to differentiate and do the hard research and take an academic approach to creating this encyclopedia of information, it's focused entirely on what is new and current. Which, as I said, missed a lot of opportunities. Nobody could have foreseen Convergence happening, I mean for years DC has basically thrown the baby out with the bathwater on all previous incarnations of characters save for maybe brining back a character here and there for nostalgic purposes during a Crisis. This was more so the case in Infinite Crisis when they created the NEW multiverse with Earth-1 through Earth-52, and again when THAT was rebooted in New 52. With New 52, most people stood on the idea that "Oh, it's only a soft reboot and these characters are all the same ones, as usual"... But suddenly that isn't the case. I point to Superman (again). I recall my last post met a lot of counter arguments from Hatebunny who pointed out how irrelevant past iterations of characters were. Ironically, six years later, he's working on an overhaul of the Superman page to create a separate profile for the New 52 Superman. When he first started his countering opinions, all that info was being crammed in the New Earth profile. Over the past six years since 2011, suddenly there is a differentiation between Pre and Post New 52.

It's interesting to point out that suddenly people are thinking "Right, we need to separate these things and differentiate between one version and the other with all of these characters", because suddenly it's not just a matter of inconvenience, now it's a matter of necessity.

The irony here being that now that the Pre-New 52 stuff is now rendered "irrelevant" by a lot of the people in this mind set, it's striking that nobody is going through and deleting all these now redundant profiles. Or how even though Earth-One stuff was considered "irrelevant" for decades there are still pages for Earth-One Superman and Batman and a slew of other characters. Or if only the newest comic book universes are relevant, why there are countless pages of variants of characters from unidentified Elseworlds, and various TV and film projects that have also seen countless reboots and rehashes. I think when you come down to splitting hairs it's not a matter of if the information is relevant or irrelevant, it's a lack of desire to do the hard work.

If the Christopher Nowlan Batman movies what is new and current, why are people still creating profiles for the Tim Burton film versions of the characters? Aren't those versions of the characters just as irrelevant to updating as it is creating an Earth-One profile for Hal Jordan?

The same thing with Post-Convergence, now you've got the original Multiverse back, you've got the post Infinite Crisis Multiverse, and the New 52 version. You've also now got THREE different versions of the Post-Crisis Prime Earth (Post Crisis, Post Zero Hour, and Post Infinite Crisis) that all have their own unique universes that are separate from the rest.

By definition, all the comic book summaries that have been complied on the DC Wiki are now incredibly inaccurate. They're a mess with all the generalizing of Pre-Crisis Characters into a Post-Crisis esthetic that has been the standard mentality on the Wiki for over a decade.

In short, it's a complete mess.

I think if Convergence could teach an important lesson is this: You should never discount fiction, and never ignore history. Because old ideas and past history always have a habit of coming back and sometimes it's to bite you in the ass.

I get that there is a divide between people who only like what's new and current, and people who are continuity driven. But I always feel that an encyclopedia of knowledge should include every scrap of information. Which -- with all due respect to the people who contribute here -- this wiki has failed at spectacularly by focusing only on what is current.

Which is too bad to be honest. When you take a look at all the sources out there, nobody -- not even DC Comics themselves -- has a detailed repository of their very rich and diverse history over the 80+ years they have been publishing comic books.

The argument I get a lot is based on Google metric and traffic. "You have to stay new and current to attract visitors" is the byline. I disagree. It's being unique and standing out. You take a look at the information found on this Wiki page, and it's a lot of the same stuff you can find on Comicvine, Wikipedia, and a slew of independently run fan sites that focus on single characters or titles. All of them have had the same mentality as the rest. "Let's focus on the new and the current, and lets forget the old stuff because it's irrelevant".

Now the powers that be have made it ALL relevant again, and I think what can really turn this Wiki around is a focus on differentiating the different versions of characters that have and always will exist. With the proper research there can be comprehensive, easy to follow profiles for anyone who wanted to know the difference between the Earth-One and the New Earth versions of Ray Palmer, or Hal Jordan, the different iterations of Hawkman. This is all stuff that you can work on to make this Wiki the definitive source of all things DC, instead of the definitive source of "Whatever is new at DC".

With the proliferation of digital comics and graphic novels, the excuse that older comics are hard to find is rapidly becoming a moot point. Old comics are no longer the hard to find collectors items that they are. If you're seeking to simply READ a story, you can find it with minimal effort or expense to yourself.

I think that there is a lot of potential for great things and wonderful additions to this Wiki to make it a THE place for all things DC, where everything matters and everything gets a mention. You just have to want to put the time in to do it.