DC Next Level Wants a Fresh Start. But What Is It Leaving Behind?

Part One: The Difference Between History and Homework

There are two propositions that ought to be posted above the desk of every editor charged with attracting new comic-book readers.

Accessibility removes barriers to caring. It does not create a reason to care.

And:

Continuity is not a barrier to entry. Continuity presented without context is a barrier to entry.

Those distinctions are important as DC Comics moves forward with DC Next Level, its latest collection of new series, new directions and—inevitably—new first issues. DC describes the initiative as a home for “bold new directions” and “creator-forward comics,” applying that treatment to characters and concepts including Batwoman, Deathstroke, Lobo, Zatanna, Firestorm, Deadman, Barbara Gordon, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Doom Patrol and the Teen Titans. The company has positioned these books alongside its existing DC Universe and Absolute Universe titles rather than declaring yet another wholesale continuity reboot. DC’s own announcement calls the line an expansion of the company’s storytelling rather than a replacement for what came before.

That sounds encouraging. I am not hostile to fresh approaches, new creators or neglected characters receiving another chance. Anyone who loves DC Comics history should want its enormous catalog of heroes to remain alive rather than become intellectual property stored in a climate-controlled vault.

But loving DC history also means recognizing when the company begins treating that history as something its books must escape.

DC has spent much of the past forty years trying to devise the perfect “jumping-on point.” It has collapsed universes, restarted numbering, revised origins, restored memories, removed memories and occasionally restored memories of events that may or may not have happened in the form readers originally remember. Every solution eventually creates another layer of continuity requiring an explanation.

The original Crisis on Infinite Earths remains one of my favorite comic-book events. It was enormous, dramatic and consequential. It made the DC Universe feel immeasurably large just before Marv Wolfman and George Pérez began destroying it.

But even while enjoying it, I resented one of its underlying premises: that DC’s parallel Earths had become too confusing, particularly for prospective readers. Earth-One, Earth-Two and the rest of the Multiverse were treated as obstacles standing between the company and some vast audience that might otherwise have been purchasing comics.

The proposed cure was one universe with one supposedly comprehensible history. It did not remain comprehensible for long.

The surviving characters did not all restart simultaneously. Superman and Wonder Woman received substantially revised histories while other heroes continued with much of their existing continuity intact. Questions immediately arose about which adventures still happened, which heroes had participated in them and how altered relationships fit together. The Multiverse had been confusing only if nobody bothered to explain it; the post-Crisis universe could become confusing even after someone tried.

That does not make Crisis on Infinite Earths a bad story. It demonstrates that a tremendous story and a questionable publishing philosophy can occupy the same twelve issues.

The greater irony is that popular culture eventually proved audiences perfectly capable of understanding a Multiverse. Marvel and Sony turned alternate realities, variant heroes and actors returning from previous continuities into mass-market attractions. Spider-Man: No Way Home earned approximately $1.91 billion worldwide, while Deadpool & Wolverine—a film whose story depends heavily upon variant characters, dead continuities and decades of audience memory—earned approximately $1.34 billion.

The problem was never that audiences could not understand more than one Earth. The problem was whether storytellers could make those Earths understandable and worth visiting.

DC Rebirth appeared to recognize that history itself was not the enemy. After the New 52 had removed relationships, marriages, legacies and entire generations of accumulated experience, Rebirth promised restoration. Geoff Johns identified “legacy” as something that had been lost, while describing Rebirth as a celebration of DC’s past and present rather than an effort to throw everything away. Contemporary coverage emphasized that it was not intended as a complete reboot, even though it once again realigned continuity and relaunched the publishing line.

For a while, it felt as though DC understood what readers had been missing. Wally West’s return mattered because readers remembered him. His reunion with Barry Allen was emotionally effective because their relationship had a history. The original Titans mattered because they had grown up together, separated and found one another again.

But Rebirth restored some things without clearly establishing everything. It invited history back into the house while leaving readers uncertain about which rooms it was allowed to enter. The result was neither a completely new continuity nor an unambiguous restoration of the old one. Readers still had to determine which marriages, friendships, battles and personal histories counted this month.

That is not an argument for eliminating continuity. It is an argument for editors and writers communicating it better.

No reader should need to complete a graduate seminar before opening Batman or Teen Titans. A well-made comic introduces the characters, the immediate circumstances and the relationships necessary to understand the story being told. Previous adventures should enrich that experience, not function as an admission requirement.

History should be a reward for curiosity.

A new reader can understand that Dick Grayson was Batman’s first Robin without knowing the issue in which he debuted, every team he has joined or every variation of his origin. If the story is successful, that reader may want to learn more. Eighty years of published adventures then become eighty years of books available to sell—not eighty years of baggage from which the character must be liberated.

That brings us to the Teen Titans, perhaps the clearest demonstration of what a jumping-on point once meant.

Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad were already known before they became a team. Wonder Girl joined them before their 1966 ongoing series, where Bob Haney and Nick Cardy sent Robin, Wonder Girl, Aqualad and Kid Flash into their first issue together. DC’s listing for that issue identifies a lineup of established young heroes associated with some of the publisher’s most recognizable adult characters.

They had never functioned together as this particular family, but they were already family to the readers.

That was the hook. The audience did not have to be convinced that Robin deserved attention before discovering how he interacted with Kid Flash. Readers did not have to absorb four unrelated origin stories before the group dynamic could begin. Each member arrived carrying an existing connection to the DC Universe, while the team created something new from those familiar pieces.

The original concept managed to be accessible without being empty. It drew strength from continuity without demanding mastery of it.

A completely unfamiliar group may be free of historical complications, but it is also unencumbered of legends. Such a book must introduce every character, establish every power, create every relationship and persuade the audience that these people deserve not only its attention but the Teen Titans name printed above them.

That is possible. New characters become beloved characters when creators do the work. Wolfman and Pérez proved that when Raven, Cyborg and Starfire joined established Titans and became legends themselves.

But those characters were not asked to carry the entire burden alone. They entered a book anchored by Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Beast Boy—characters who connected the unknown future to the familiar past.

DC Next Level now asks whether the company can advance characters by changing the conditions around them without severing the things that made readers care about them. Some of its books appear to understand that challenge. Others may be mistaking a clean entry point for an empty room.

In Part Two, we will examine the Next Level books themselves—and whether “bold new directions” are building upon DC’s legends or merely borrowing their names.

Part Two: A New Number One Is Not a New Idea

DC Next Level presents itself as something more modest than a reboot and more ambitious than an ordinary collection of relaunches. Its books remain inside the principal DC continuity, but they are designed to operate independently enough that readers can begin with the latest first issue.

Joshua Williamson stated the arrangement plainly: “These books are set in continuity,” while explaining that they would not be heavily tied to other titles. Scott Snyder described Next Level as an initiative for readers seeking “a jumping-on spot for DC’s main line of comic books.” Those quotations appear in DC’s original Next Level announcement, and they describe a sensible objective.

New readers receive a complete story rather than the middle chapter of a crossover. Existing readers retain the history that gave the character value. In theory, nobody must surrender anything.

That is not a reboot. It is how monthly superhero comics are supposed to work.

Every new creative team should offer some reasonable place to begin. Writers should introduce the information necessary to understand their stories without stopping every few pages for a lecture on previous continuity. An accessible first issue should not require the publisher to rename its entire line, but if a banner helps readers identify those issues on a crowded shelf, there is no harm in providing one.

The potential problem lies in what DC means by taking its characters to the “Next Level.” Does the initiative give creators room to explore established characters from new directions, or does it apply familiar trademarks to substantially different concepts and expect recognition of the name to do the commercial work?

The first Next Level titles demonstrate that the initiative does not have a single answer.

Greg Rucka’s return to Batwoman is almost the ideal example of history being used as a foundation rather than an obstacle. Rucka helped define the modern Kate Kane and returned with artist DaNi for a story involving the Religion of Crime, a threat already embedded in Batwoman’s personal mythology. DC promised that the series would “redefine Batwoman and her mission for a new generation,” but it did so by bringing back a writer intimately connected with the character and continuing concerns that belonged specifically to her.

A new reader does not need to know every previous encounter with the Religion of Crime. The book can explain the immediate threat. A longtime reader, however, receives an additional layer of meaning because Kate is confronting something that has shaped her since childhood.

That is continuity functioning properly. History deepens the story without becoming an entrance examination.

Lobo approaches the problem from another direction. Skottie Young and Jorge Corona’s series promises cosmic violence, grotesque comedy and the Main Man behaving like the Main Man. DC’s announcement even advertised “tasty, tasty continuity,” a phrase that would seem to concede continuity can be part of the meal rather than something the restaurant must scrape off the plate.

Readers know what Lobo represents. A new story can take him somewhere he has never been, but if it retains the excess, attitude and irreverence associated with him, it gives both old and new readers a recognizable center. Someone buying a Lobo comic should encounter a character who could plausibly make that person interested in other Lobo comics.

Deathstroke: The Terminator similarly begins with the character’s established essence. Slade Wilson remains a soldier, superhuman assassin and professional killer whose many enemies have finally begun dismantling his world. Tony Fleecs and Carmine Di Giandomenico are not required to reproduce every previous Deathstroke story. They merely need to begin with the man those stories created.

The most interesting test in the early group may be The Fury of Firestorm. Jeff Lemire and Rafael De Latorre transform Firestorm into the apparent center of a horror story. Ronnie Raymond arrives in a small Colorado town, transforms buildings into sand and people into glass, and appears to be acting without remorse. The premise immediately raises the question of what has happened to a hero readers recognize.

That question depends upon history. Firestorm’s disturbing behavior matters because this is not how Firestorm is supposed to behave.

The book therefore uses the familiar character as its source of tension. A reader who knows Ronnie understands that something is profoundly wrong. A new reader can still understand that a superpowered figure transmuting people into glass presents a mystery and a threat. Both audiences have an entrance, even if they enter through different doors.

DC has already extended The Fury of Firestorm through issue #15, with Lemire teasing further developments after its sixth issue. Whatever one thinks of the horror-oriented approach, that extension suggests the book found enough of an audience to justify continuing into 2027. DC’s announcement of the extension also demonstrates that “new-reader friendly” need not mean disposable.

Jamal Campbell’s Zatanna may be an even cleaner example of progression. Campbell returned after his 2025 limited series and promoted Zatanna to the role of Prime Magus, responsible for overseeing the world of magic. The status is new, but Zatanna remains a stage magician confronting supernatural responsibilities with theatrical confidence. According to DC’s announcement, the ongoing series follows directly from Campbell’s earlier work while beginning a larger assignment for the character.

That is what “next level” ought to mean: not discarding the person, but placing that person into a situation that demands growth.

The September expansion applies the same experiment to three teams with very different relationships to their histories.

The Doom Patrol becomes a heroes-for-hire organization because its members are broke. That is a new operating model, but Robotman, Elasti-Girl and Negative Man remain at its center. A missing-cat assignment escalates into the sort of reality-bending situation one expects from “the world’s strangest heroes.” The premise changes what the team does without pretending nobody has heard of the people doing it.

The Legion of Super-Heroes receives a more extensive reconstruction. Superheroes are outlawed in the future, R.J. Brande has been murdered, and Brainiac 1 of 5 must assemble young rebels scattered throughout the United Planets. Joshua Williamson and Hayden Sherman are not merely giving the existing Legion another assignment; they are retelling how a Legion comes into existence.

But even this reimagining draws from the mythology it is rearranging. R.J. Brande, the United Planets, the Persuaders, Brainiac and young heroes inspired by Superman are all identifiable pieces of Legion history. The new configuration creates questions precisely because the old configuration remains available for comparison. DC calls it “a new future,” but it is recognizably a Legion future.

The risk is that every reconstruction gradually becomes its own continuity puzzle. If these stories remain in the main DC Universe, what happened to previous versions? Which adventures remain part of the characters’ lives? Does a “reimagining” replace an earlier history, revise it or merely reveal another stage of it?

DC cannot simultaneously advertise continuity to established readers and treat questions about that continuity as unreasonable. The company need not place an annotated chronology in every issue, but someone should know the answers.

This is where the comparison with the Absolute Universe becomes revealing. Absolute Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are deliberately rebuilt outside the principal continuity. Readers understand the contract. These are alternate versions, and their differences are the point.

Next Level promises something else. These are supposed to be the characters readers already know, living in the universe they already follow, entering new stories that do not require extensive preparation. The books therefore inherit both the advantages and responsibilities of continuity.

They can draw upon decades of affection, but they must respect the source of that affection. They can introduce new supporting casts, but the established character cannot become an irrelevant guest in a book bearing that character’s name. They can change a team’s mission, but if they change its membership, history and organizing idea simultaneously, only the trademark may remain.

That brings us to Teen Titans, the Next Level title that pushes the experiment furthest. Fairplay, Cheshire Cat, Proxy and Wildcard are not familiar Titans entering a new phase. They are an unfamiliar group receiving one of DC’s most storied team names, with Red Hood serving as their principal connection to the larger universe.

There may be a good story in that premise. But the question is whether it is a Teen Titans story—or whether “Teen Titans” is being asked to do for these characters what the characters cannot yet do for the title.

Part Three will put that new team beside the original Titans and ask whether DC has created a jumping-on point—or merely a place from which everything familiar has already jumped off.

Part Three: A Team Without Legends

The new Teen Titans begins with a mystery. A young hero disappears after attending a rally organized by Ascend, a movement that claims to prepare young people for survival in a world repeatedly endangered by superhuman conflict. Fairplay, Cheshire Cat, Proxy and Wildcard set out to find their missing friend, eventually joining forces with Jason Todd—the Red Hood.

Jason considers the young heroes soft and reckless. They are disturbed that he still kills people. Conflict is therefore built into the arrangement before anyone agrees to call this group the Teen Titans.

Kyle Higgins and Daniele Di Nicuolo are capable creators, and the premise contains the machinery for an energetic young-superhero story. The new characters have personal connections to corners of the DC Universe, and the first issue has received generally favorable reviews for establishing its cast and rebellious direction. This is not an argument that unfamiliar characters cannot sustain a good comic.

It is an argument about what makes a comic a Teen Titans comic.

When Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad first worked together in The Brave and the Bold #54, readers already understood who they were. Wonder Girl joined before the team received its own series. These were young heroes associated with Batman, the Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman, but the book allowed them to develop identities and relationships beyond those adult mentors.

The concept was immediately understandable: What happens when the sidekicks form their own club?

That club became a family. The friendships continued as the characters grew older, adopted new identities, separated and reunited. Later creators could introduce new members because the original members provided a foundation.

Marv Wolfman and George Pérez did not restrict The New Teen Titans to familiar faces. Raven, Cyborg and Starfire were new characters. Beast Boy had existed previously but was reinvented as Changeling, while Robin, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash connected the new team to its history. The book introduced the future without requiring readers to abandon the past.

That balance proved extraordinarily successful. The new characters did not remain “the new characters” forever because readers encountered them beside heroes who already belonged there. Familiarity gave the book an immediate center; strong storytelling allowed the additions to become indispensable.

The Next Level Teen Titans tries almost the reverse. Fairplay, Cheshire Cat, Proxy and Wildcard constitute a largely unfamiliar group, while Jason Todd provides its recognizable face. DC’s official announcement describes them as “a new generation of Teen Titans,” but it does not begin with a previous Titan gathering successors or an established group inviting new members into its traditions.

Instead, the familiar brand is placed over the unfamiliar ensemble from the beginning.

That is certainly one way to avoid being bogged down by history. It is also a way to become unencumbered of legends.

These new heroes do not arrive with the audience’s affection already attached. The book must introduce their personalities, explain their abilities, establish their relationships, build the Ascend mystery, define Jason’s role and justify why the group should inherit one of DC’s most recognizable team names.

That is a great deal of work for a first issue, particularly when the publisher advertises the book as an easy jumping-on point.

Accessibility removes barriers to caring. It does not create a reason to care.

The original Teen Titans did not ask readers to become invested in four strangers simultaneously. Readers came because they knew Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad and Wonder Girl; they stayed to watch those familiar individuals become something new together. The Next Level book appears to assume the process can run in the opposite direction—that readers will come because they recognize the Teen Titans name and then transfer that affection to whoever happens to be standing beneath it.

Perhaps they will. But in that formulation, the title is doing more work than the characters.

Jason Todd is also a peculiar choice as the group’s principal anchor. He possesses a direct connection to Batman through his former identity as Robin, but he does not possess the same connection to Titans history. Dick Grayson helped create the team. Jason briefly crossed its path but never became one of the relationships upon which the Titans’ family was built.

His willingness to kill may generate useful dramatic friction, but it places the moral argument with the least familiar people in the book. The new heroes must explain to an established character why his methods are incompatible with theirs, even though the readers are still learning what those methods and values are supposed to be.

There is a potentially strong comic in that conflict. Jason Todd reluctantly guiding idealistic young heroes through a conspiracy involving exploited superpowered teenagers could be an excellent premise for Red Hood and the Outlaws, The Outsiders or a completely new team bearing a name of its own.

Calling it Teen Titans creates an additional obligation. The book must demonstrate not merely that these characters make an effective group, but that they represent an evolution of the Titans concept.

That evolution could still occur. Perhaps former Titans will appear. Perhaps the new members will learn what the name represents and deliberately choose to continue that tradition. If the story treats the title as something to be earned rather than a logo supplied by the marketing department, the unfamiliarity of the cast might become part of the point.

But that is not what makes the first issue a natural jumping-on point. It makes the first issue the beginning of an argument over whether this is truly the team advertised on the cover.

There is another contradiction in DC’s approach. At the same time Next Level launches Teen Titans with a mostly new cast, the publisher continues New Titans, a separate book featuring established Titans and newer members. An experienced reader can distinguish the two projects. A genuinely new reader encountering both titles on a shelf may reasonably wonder which one contains the Teen Titans they have seen in animation, film, games or previous comics.

The company has eliminated the need to know continuity inside one book while creating a branding question outside it.

That is why “jumping-on point” cannot simply mean “Issue #1 featuring people you have never met.” A number-one issue is only a piece of packaging. Accessibility comes from the storytelling: clear character introductions, understandable stakes, recognizable motivations and enough context to orient the reader.

Continuity is not a barrier to entry. Continuity presented without context is a barrier to entry.

DC Next Level is strongest when it understands that principle. Greg Rucka’s Batwoman can draw upon Kate Kane’s past without requiring readers to have witnessed all of it. Zatanna can advance its heroine to Prime Magus while preserving the qualities that make her recognizable. The Fury of Firestorm can turn Ronnie Raymond into the center of a horror mystery because readers understand that something has gone terribly wrong.

Those books use history to create significance. They do not expect history to supply the entire story, but neither do they discard it merely to make the first issue easier to advertise.

The Teen Titans should offer the same balance. New members are not the problem. New characters are how enduring universes grow. Cyborg, Raven and Starfire once had no history at all, but they were introduced into a structure strong enough to support them while they built one.

Legends are not born by removing every legend from the room. They are born when new characters stand beside them, challenge them, learn from them and eventually become their equals.

DC does not need another universal reboot. It does not need to make every reader memorize every adventure published since 1938. It needs creators who understand the essential promise of each character and editors willing to provide enough context for that promise to be understood.

Next Level could become an excellent model for that approach. Its books exist in continuity, recruit distinctive creators and offer new stories without formally destroying the universe to make room for them. That is considerably healthier than another event announcing that everything readers knew has been erased again.

But the initiative must remember what it is selling. DC’s characters are not valuable despite their histories. In many cases, they are valuable because of them.

A jumping-on point should open the door to that history. It should not reveal that the house has been emptied.

And a new generation of Teen Titans should not be protected from the legends who came before them. It should be given the opportunity to join them.