Trivia / DC Rebirth

• Teasing Creator:
  • Before its announcement, it was thought that Wally West would return in Titans Hunt (2015) and was the "forgotten fallen Titan". However, it was revealed that this was not the case. Then, the teaser for Rebirth featured several characters in silhouette, with only their logos visible. The centre character was a spiky haired male with Wally's DCAU/Post-Flash: Rebirth logo... Then another teaser featured more characters in silhouette, with a speedster running, with said speedster being the same size as the known adult characters like Batman... then it was revealed that this was the New 52 Wally, who just happened to be the only character in the foreground. However, during the DC Rebirth panel, Geoff Johns and Joshua Williamson repeatedly joked about The Flash, and how they had something big planned. In the end, the original Wally did return.
  • The pre-Zero Hour Legion of Super-Heroes was shown in the montage of works at the beginning of the Rebirth panel. While no Legion ongoing was announced, Saturn Girl did appear in DC Universe: Rebirth #1. Later, at Baltimore, DC would reveal that, when the Legion comic returns, the writer would be Dan Didio, Tom King, Hope Larson, James Tynion IV, Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens or Yannick Paquette. Tom King wasted no time teasing people, with Saturn Girl making an appearance in Batman, with her drawing the Legion's symbol and Commissioner Gordon's speech bubble in very close proximity saying "who's taking on that burden" ^note King used a similar technique in Grayson. It would later be revealed that Batman will set up the Legion's return, though no writer for the actual Legion ongoing is confirmed.
• What Could Have Been:
  • DC Rebirth was only the second proposed Continuity Reboot to follow New 52, and for a while the first, 5G Initiative, was beating out DC Rebirth to the point its implementation felt like a Foregone Conclusion despite pretty much every DC writer having at least one misgiving about the 5G proposal.
  • Christopher Priest was approached to write Cyborg, but he turned it down due to the pigeonholing his career had suffered in The Noughties after he'd written Steel and Black Panther in the '90s. When Priest was offered Deathstroke (a non-black character), he accepted.
  • Marguerite Bennett was the original writer for Wonder Woman, with Liam Sharp still being one of the artists. But Greg Rucka was brought on at the last minute and brought Nicola Scott with him from Black Magick, so Bennett was eventually given Batwoman in Wave 2, and the second would-be Wonder Woman artist is still unknown.
  • The first Batgirl (Rebirth) annual is very different than what its solicitation led people to believe. The solicitation focused entirely on Batgirl and Supergirl breaking into Arkham Asylum and running into an important inmate, and saying that it would lead to a much bigger story. The obvious implication was that the annual would lead into the next Supergirl (Rebirth) arc which is supposed to feature the Emerald Empress forming a new Fatal Five, and that Saturn Girl would be the inmate. Adding to that, Hope Larson was revealed to be one of the candidates to write the Legion ongoing (see above). Come the time of release, and Arkham Asylum isn't even in the issue, making it clear some plans changed.
  • Tomasi and Gleason said they wanted to do a 100 issue run on Action Comics. Then DC signed up Brian Michael Bendis, who is taking over both Action and Superman.
  • Josh Williamson (writer of The Flash) has indicated that he wanted to use the Flash Family much earlier, but was refused because his editor, Brian Cunningham, believed Barry Allen shouldn't have a Flash Family as the concept didn't come around until Wally West's era (it actually existed in some fashion since before Barry himself). He also planned to end his run after Flash War, but was asked to continue, so he created the Other Forces as a means to keep the story going; the two details combined indicate that Flash War would have ended with the return of the Flash Family, as the story spent much time teasing their return.