Are Batman and Green Lantern Going to Get Their New 52 Reboot?

When the New 52 launched in September 2010, there were a couple of heroes who were immune to the line-wide changes to the history and characterization that rippled through DC’s superhero universe: Green Lantern and Batman.the reasons were so obvious that DC didn’t even bother trying to pretend it wasn’t the case: these characters were largely left alone becuase they were doing well–selling well, doing well critically, and generally not perceived to be in need of an overhaul.It didn’t hurt that Geoff Johns, the company’s Chief Creative Officer, was writing Green Lantern and had been for years–in fact, that he was nearing completion on an epic run that completely rewrote the mythology behind the character. Or that the chief architect of the Batman titles at the time was Grant Morrison, who was in the final stages of a similarly ambitious uber-arc with Batman, which began in 2005. Unlike some other creators whose long-term runs were abruptly cut short, these two big guns were able to continue their epics, finish them in style, and…what?What’s next for the Batman and Green Lantern family of titles?Obviously the things that have happened in the New 52 won’t disappear; it would just be awkward and make continuity even harder to explain than it already is for these characters (if you don’t believe us, as Green Lantern: New Guardians writer Tony Bedard, who recently performed some impressive verbal gymnastics trying to explain Kyle Rayner’s status quo in an interview). Still, we already know that when Geoff Johns leaves, he’s taking the writing staff with him and that, among other things, Simon Baz will no longer be the lead character in Green Lantern. Incoming writer Robert Venditti has promised that Hal Jordan will lead the book again, marking the first time since the launch of the New 52 that the most identifiable Green Lantern has actually been the star of the book.Venditti has also expressed a desire to explore the mythology that Johns has established and interact with the other corps of the emotional spectrum more, which sounds like more of the same…but it’s difficult to imagine that after ten years of Johns, DC isn’t looking to take the book in a very different direction in the near future, to avoid unwanted comparisons.