Rumor: DC Comics “5G” Will Give Established Characters New Identities Via “Crisis-Level Event”

JB Augustine |

Oct 13, 2019

A new rumor suggests DC Comics’ formalizing and clean-up of their massive continuity will give rise to a Generation Five and it has a modern truncated code name: 5G. What’s more, it will introduce new versions of old characters.

ComicBook.com reports “most of DC’s heroes will cede their roles to younger heroes” after some type of “Crisis-level event.”

Comics Beat adds, “next year will likely see another crisis setting things up, combined with a hypertime concept to explain in part how heroes who debuted long ago remained active for so long.”

A previous rumor surfaced earlier this year, reported by Bleeding Cool, that was the first sign of this initiative. It held Bruce Wayne would be replaced as Batman by a person of color. The most likely suspect was Black Lightning because of his partnership with the Dark Knight in The Outsiders.

Now it’s said by Bleeding Cool Luke Fox, son of longtime Wayne compatriot Lucius Fox, will receive the honor after Bruce is presumed dead yet again. Luke Fox is better known as Batwing. He took over for David Zavimbe as of Batwing #19 in 2013.

Clark Kent’s son Jonathan, the current Superboy, and Cassie “Wonder Girl” Sandsmark might follow suit – taking over for their respective mentors.

5G represents the fifth generation of the new DC Timeline. Dan DiDio unveiled DC’s planned new Timeline that restructures their universe with a new originating point at New York Comic-Con.

Wonder Woman’s arrival in America marks the “Dawn” of heroes and sparks the formation of the Justice Society. Her ties to Ancient Greece canonize her as the world’s first superhero.

Superman doesn’t come around until Generation Two – “The Space Age” – officially.

Generation Three which includes Crisis on Infinite Earths and everything until Flashpoint.

Generation Four includes everything after the New 52.

DiDio said at NYCC he wants to make DC continuity less complicated and the mistake of the New 52 and reboots, in general, is they failed to understand “which stories matter” and “how these characters connect.” The Co-publisher added he doesn’t know what the future holds but there “is a high level of planning.”

This change to the DC Universe continuity comes after DiDio lamented that older fascimile issues sell better than a lot of their new comics.

“We do these Facsimile Editions where we reprint older issues of comics including all the old ads and stuff…and in some cases these are selling more than the new comics with these characters. People are more interested in buying the stories from 30 or 40 years ago than the contemporary stories, and that’s a failure on us.”

What do you make of this alleged idea behind 5G? What do you think? Tell us below.