Threeboot: One Year Later

It has been ten years since DC's One Year Later promotion which ran throughout their titles. Ten years! It is amazing how time flies. This promotion impacted the Threeboot Legion greatly. Heck, it impacted every title.

But I have a couple of questions.

One, what did you think of the One Year Later idea?
Two, did you consider it a 'jumping on' point? Or a 'jumping off' point for your DC pull list?

In 2006, DC released Infinite Crisis, the latest of company-wide crossovers hoping to smooth over some continuity hiccups while cashing in on the Crisis name.

When first announced, I was pretty excited for Infinite Crisis. Geoff Johns was writing. Phil Jimenez was drawing. It clearly was going to lean on the best of company-wide crises, Crisis on Infinite Earths.

But somewhere in the book, everything seemed to fall apart. It was clear that this story wasn't going to destroy rather than build on much of COIE.

The Earth-2 Superman, who appropriately was the hero of Crisis on Infinite Earths and given a hero's paradise, was brought back in Infinite Crisis as a patsy. The Earth Prime Superboy was turned into a lunatic killer. The Earth-3 Alex Luthor turned from savior to megalomaniac. The Earth 2 Lois died. It just didn't jibe with me. There wasn't much of a reason to sully COIE in my mind.

Moreover, the plot never jelled. The book had so many artists that the last issue feels disjointed, every other page seemingly drawn or inked by someone else.

I have reread Crisis on Infinite Earths many times. Same with Legends. I have reread Final Crisis multiple times. I have only reread Infinite Crisis once.

At the end of Infinite Crisis, all the DC titles leapt forward in time. Every book sported the One Year Later logo. A year had passed meaning that all the books were starting from a fresh point. The trinity of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman were missing that last year.

Each title would have the opportunity to look back at the prior year's events. But this One Year Later leap, in essence, was like starting all the books at a new #1.

DC would cover that missing year in the weekly book 52. So the big beats of the continuity's stories would be covered there. But each book was fresh.

I remember enjoying 52 as I was reading it although I haven't reread it.

Looking back at some titles as they picked up 1 year later, I would say things were a mixed bag.

The Up,Up, and Away arc in the Superman bookes was very good. Sure, Superman is depowered initially but there is a nice Supes/Lex ending. And Supergirl has a nice part in it.

The Candor arc in Supergirl was awful.

Birds of Prey seemed to lose its way.

So how did this impact the Threeboot book.

Well, it leapt forward 1001 years. We do skip a year from the end of the last issue.

And things change dramatically. The title changes to Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Kara joins the team. The Praetor Lemnos arc is behind us although Lemnos himself remains a background character.

As a Supergirl fan, I applauded the change. She injects some energy into the book. And frankly, Waid wrote the best Supergirl in the DCU at this time. The brat in the main Supergirl book was completely unlikable. This Kara was much more classic.

I thought this leap forward worked. Despite liking each issue, I felt the Threeboot book had been mired a bit in the first mega-arc. With that behind us and with a new lead character, things surely would look up.

And so begins the next stage in my reviews, the 21 issues of Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

But I'll ask again...

Would you say the One Year Later promotion was a success?
Did it make you try more books? Or did you drop books with the leap forward?