iProblem

Today Apple announced the iPhone 4S. The Gnome’s iPhone 3G is on it’s last leg, so she’s very excited to hear about the new hotness. From a hardware perspective, the iPhone 4S is a minor improvement over the iPhone 4, but I think that the biggest changes are going to be in the software. If people didn’t already start to realize that you’re no longer carrying a phone but a pocket sized computer, then iOS 5 and especially iCloud will change your thinking. Siri sounds intriguing and potentially a big deal, but I’d have to play with it to be sure. That is, if the Gnome lets me touch her phone.

Dan Didio rocked the world yesterday by announcing that none of the ‘Crisis’ events happened in The New 52 to which my first thought was, “Well, duh!” The whole point of The New 52 was a reboot that was a fresh start for new readers without the need to know tons and tons of backstory. For that to happen, the first thing that has to happen is you throw out the tons and tons of backstory. Crisis on Infinite Earths is over 25 years old and while very pretty, was a very different form of storytelling than what modern readers would be interested in. Starting a new initiative to attract new readers, but still latching onto 25 year old history is a recipe for failure.

I don’t quite get why people are surprised by this. The New 52 Barry Allen didn’t die, which implies that the disaster that would have brought about his death didn’t happen. Ted Kord doesn’t exist, which implies there was no Infinite Crisis because he wasn’t around to count down to it. Final Crisis is better off forgotten anyway. It’s not that Dan DiDio is saying that these stories are no longer “canonical”, it’s that we’re working with a whole new canon. The fact that they haven’t been wedged into the reboot doesn’t make these stories any less enjoyable as stories (well, except for Final Crisis), nor any less important as cornerstones in the comic era in which they are canon. Separating The New 52 from this chunk of history is exhilarating because now we get to see what new comic history will get made.