Do I Contradict Myself? Apparently So

Sally had a post last week discussing some of her concerns with the Green Lantern books, and the new 52 in general. This has sparked a bit of discussion, a lot of it dealing with how DC threw out most of their old continuity with the relaunch, and how this has left many of the writers at a loss. Including (or especially) Geoff Johns, since he does love to mine the old stories for things he can build on.

I had a slightly different thought. Do you think the writers would have more success if they could just go nuts with their stories? Set aside how the creative teams are shuffled around like it's a game of 3-card monty. We've read interviews with more than one writer that talks about how their scripts are being rewritten after they've been turned in, or being told they can't do X, because it contradicts something. Sometimes the something is another writer's work, other times it's some rule the honchos want in place about whether a particular character exists or not. This doesn't seem like the best environment to encourage creativity.

If they really wanted to start fresh, get the characters back to basics and go in exciting new directions of whatever, they could do worse than letting the writers just write, and the artists draw. Tell them, "give us an entertaining issue each month." Let them use the characters they want to, or create new ones if they want. If one book contradicts another, the writers can decide if they want to bother addressing it. It's supposed to be a new universe, so things are in flux, a little unstable. They'll sort themselves out as they go along.

I don't know, the fans probably wouldn't accept it. They'd demand the books sync up, and why is this character evil in this book, but good in this book, you know the story. I've been as guilty of it as anyone. Still, if they're going to throw out (most) of the old stories, I'm not sure it makes sense to restrict the people responsible for coming up with the new stories.