DC Comics announced “the biggest initiative that DC has done in the better part of a decade” today, at least in the words of writer Scott Snyder (Batman, Undiscovered Country), who shared the news in an announcement video on the official DC YouTube channel. DC’s All In is a coordinated publishing launch of new comics series, new story arcs in current series, and a new alternate DC Universe full of restarted, reimagined DC Comics heroes.
“All In is about inviting everybody in — the existing creators, some new creators, everything — to tell their best stories, and to begin them all at one point,” Snyder said. “The idea is to create the greatest jumping-on point for you guys in many, many years.” He and co-host Joshua Williamson (Superman, The Flash) stressed that All In was not a reboot or a retcon, but would flow out of the conclusion of DC’s current crossover event, Absolute Power.
The crossover is expected to conclude on October 2nd with Absolute Power #4, after which a DC All In Special #1 issue — co-written by Williamson and Snyder, and drawn by Daniel Sampere (Wonder Woman, Injustice 2) and Wes Craig (Deadly Class, Kaya) — will cover the aftermath of Absolute Power in the main DC universe, and introduce an entirely new setting: the Absolute Universe.
Created by Darkseid somehow (Snyder and Williamson didn’t want to spoil more of Absolute Power than necessary), the Absolute Universe will be an alternate setting, one where DC is inviting writers and artists to reinvent characters like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, starting their stories over from the beginning. This new setting won’t replace the main DC timeline, but it won’t be entirely separate, either. According to Snyder, the Absolute Universe will be part of “a bigger story that we’ll be telling over the course of the next few years.”
The name “absolute” suggests prestige at DC, having long been the imprint for giant-sized, high-quality hardback and slipcovered editions of the company’s most historic titles. Snyder himself will be penning Absolute Batman, with Nick Dragotta (East of West, Ghost Cage) as the artist. Snyder described the Absolute Universe overall as more chaotic, dangerous, and wild than the main DCU. “In this universe, the heroes come up in ways that make them underdogs […] they have to be tougher, they have to be resourceful, they have to shine brighter.”
News of All In has trickled out in rumors and hints over the past month, particularly with photographs of a leaked black-and-white ashcan comic of Absolute Batman, featuring a pretty wild redesign in Dragotta’s characteristic style. But the real point of intrigue in the leak — perhaps a better draw than anything Williamson and Snyder could tease in an announcement — was the ashcan’s list of star talent involved on the Absolute Universe books, which seems to include:
Jason Aaron (Thor, Avengers), Deniz Camp (20th Century Man), Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk, X-Men Red), Che Grayson (Batman: Urban Legends), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Black Hammer), Jahnoy Lindsay (Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow), Pornsak Pichetshote (The Good Asian, The Sandman Universe: Dead Boy Detectives), Nick Robles (The Dreaming: Waking Hours), Rafa Sandoval (Action Comics, X-Men: Legacy), Hayden Sherman (Dark Spaces: Dungeon), and Kelly Thompson (Birds of Prey, Black Widow).
Snyder concluded the video by talking about the company philosophy behind All In as he sees it: “Let’s all launch our biggest stories, whether they’re radical reinventions of the characters — whether they’re continuing, awesome legacy stories that are happening in the main DCU — let’s do all of it at once.”
“From October on,” Snyder said, “everywhere you look at DC comics will be a story beginning, a place to start.”