"52" Reasons Why DC's Reboot May Fail

In case you hadn't heard, DC Comics has decided to "reboot" their entire line of comics to a whole new volume of issue #1's.  52 of them, to be exact.

When I first heard of it, I tried to be optimistic.  Since then, bits and pieces of information have trickled out, including teasers of cover art.  What I see leaves me unimpressed and underwhelmed.  None of the descriptions of the 52 titles that will survive the reboot leave me with any desire to obtain even digital copies... Digital distribution being one of the reasons stated for the shakeup.  (Or is that "shake-down"?  I'm not sure yet...)

Action Comics might as well have been titled "Superman: Year One" as it literally is about Supe's first year on the job in Metropolis.  According to rumor, he'll lose most of his power in the process, and he'll be "younger, angrier, and more of a social activist".  Right.  Don't know what they're going to do when they have to "catch up" with the timeline they'll establish in the new "Superman" title.  Oh, and forget what you know about Superman... history has been changed so that Clark and Lois aren't married.

A large portion of the 52 titles have been given to the "Batman Family", which should be a clear signal that DC is aiming to make their lineup darker and edgier.  A look at the revealed cover art and tidbits about the rest of the lineup seems to confirm that hypothesis.  In some cases, it seems as if DC has decided to take the worst of the DC-verse and comics trends in general.  A lot of the decisions leave me scratching my head.  Like, did they really need a magic-oriented "Dark Justice League"?  Did they really tape an S-shield onto Superboy's back?  Did they really allow Liefield to draw any of these titles?

One hopes that this move by DC turns out to be nothing more than another "event" like Infinite Crisis and that, sooner or later, something more like the old status quo re-emerges.