DC Rebirth

Let’s make this clear at the start; the DC Universe Rebirth special is not a milestone in superhero comics. It’s a relaunch taster issue, and DC have been producing these for yonks; at least since the DC Countdown special in May 2005, which seeded the story arcs that would lead to the Infinite Crisis mega-event. Rebirth is noteworthy for two reasons though; it came out in the same week that Geoff Johns’ epic Justice League run concluded, and it laid the first bricks in a road that would lead to the critically acclaimed Watchmen characters crossing into the mainstream DC universe.

The Rebirth special itself is in fact very readable, and was one of my favourite comics of the year when it came out. The storyline is almost meta; concerning the long awaited return of a fan-favourite character, the Wally West incarnation of The Flash, who had effectively been written out of history by DC editorial during the New 52 relaunch 5 years earlier. The hook here is that he has become aware of the editing process, and all clues point to the editor actually being the omniscient Dr Manhattan from Watchmen. The art, by a collective of DC’s biggest talent, is spectacular, and the scatter-gun plot coalesces towards a massively emotional beat in the knock-out climax. As a fan of the characters concerned, I do admit that my eyes get a bit damp reading it. 

As well as a special, Rebirth was also a line-wide reinvigoration of the DC line, with every title getting a new #1 in the summer of 2016, and many of the plot-threads benefitting from the steerage of Geoff Johns himself, who was masterminding the whole thing. In the end, none of the arcs were actually required reading for the eventual arrival of the Watchmen characters. But for the benefit of completists and superfans, the most closely related storylines probably occurred in Batman, Action Comics and The Flash; and all, like the Rebirth special itself, explored a common theme of reunion.

The most relevant and arguably best storyline was 2017’s The Button, a crossover that ran in Batman 21, 22 and The Flash 21, 22. It picks up almost directly from the spine tingling cliffhanger in the epilogue of the Rebirth special, and although it doesn’t do much to progress the Watchmen thread along very much, it does provide more indications of Dr Manhattan’s tinkering of continuity. More importantly, the final chapter lays the groundwork for the other big reveal of Rebirth; the return of the original golden age superhero team The Justice Society of America, who had also been editorially wiped since the New 52 relaunch of 2011. 

A further big return is Thomas Wayne, the Batman of the Flashpoint timeline; although he’s not critical to the overall Rebirth/Watchmen arc, his brief meeting with his son Bruce packs an appropriately emotional punch. Even if none of this makes any sense, the writers packed so much event into these 4 issues that by the time that the Watchmen’s return in Doomsday Clock is finally announced in the closing pages, the overall mystery has really begun to build some momentum.

A less critical tie-in would be the Superman arc The Oz Effect, which ran through the pages of Action Comics 987 to 991. This was actually a bit of a red herring, as many fans had assumed that the mysterious villain Mr Oz, who had been introduced by Geoff Johns himself a couple of years earlier, was actually Watchmen’s twisted villain Ozymandias. When it turns out that Oz is in fact Superman’s own Kryptonian birth father Jor-El, the resulting reveal inevitably felt like a bit of an anti-climax. 

Although the storyline does share some nice echoes with Batman’s own paternal reunion in the Button, the whole reveal still comes across as an undercooked editorial bait-and-switch. There are some minor allusions to Dr Manhattan’s influence, and although the final issue does peter out a bit, it leaves Superman struggling to make sense of a pretty hopeless world, so completists may still enjoy the read.

The final major tie-in was the Flash War arc which started in The Flash 2018 annual and continued in issues 45-50 of The Flash. Here, the overall reunion theme is carried through with the meeting of Wally West and his beloved aunt (and regular Flash Barry Allen’s girlfriend) Iris West. The plot line continues to explore the bond of the returning Wally West and his mentor, Barry Allan, which was the emotional spine of the Rebirth special. For a comparatively short arc, Flash War is a bit of an epic, with global stakes and the return of several beloved characters from Wally West’s heyday as The Flash in the ’90s and ’00s. Trying to keep up with all this, new readers may find themselves with whiplash, but if you can hack the pace you will still get enjoyment from some fantastic artwork and big emotional plot beats. Ultimately, Wally and Barry would go on to have very little involvement in Doomsday Clock, but the events of Flash War do lead directly to Wally’s involvement in Heroes in Crisis, a controversial 2019 miniseries which was one of my faves of the year (see review here).