In the last few months, “JLA” has established that the new Doom Patrol wipes out all previous DP history (which is odd, since Beast Boy’s adopted mom and dad are from that team). Once again, as with Hawkman and Wonder Woman, a major team is simply rebooted without explanation. John Byrne has said that it was not his idea, that Dan DiDio urged him to do that.
Now Greg Gick has e-mailed me to point out that GOLD of the Metal Men is in Identity Crisis, alive and well! I hadn’t even noticed that! For those who don’t know, in the 1994 Metal Men mini-series Gold was killed off, Dr. Magnus became a robot and all of the Metal Men were changed. This reappearance of Gold means that, unless it was accidental, Identity Crisis serves as the first sign that Evan Dorkin’s Metal Men will be either a relaunch or a retcon.
(Cripes, and I wasted a decade trying to fix them in-continuity! I came up with a great story, too, and was two weeks away from talking to Dan DiDio when Bob Wayne announced the new Metal Men series. It never occurred to me to just say, “Let’s pretend it never happened.” )
DC seems to be doing an unofficial reboot of the DCU, simply saying, “Pretend it never happened” instead of coming up with a way to salvage and renew old, dead characters or using some major time-altering crossover to explain it.
I’m not saying I mind this. Overwrought history-rewriting isn’t as much fun as just starting afresh. Heck, it may be the only way to do an Elongated Man book in the future. (Sorry, sorry, that was uncalled for.)