DiDio: New 52 Crossover Crossover Planned For 2013

While there have been plenty of family-oriented crossovers, where for example all of the Batman titles or all of the Young Justice titles would tie in together, The New 52 has still not compromised on DC Entertainment Co-Publisher Dan DiDio's early promise that the company wouldn't return to form right away and just start having big, annual summer events. Well, it looks like all of that is about to change. According to an interview with ICv2 (spotted by Bleeding Cool), DiDio said that 2013 will be the year that DC plans to have their first line-wide crossover since the relaunch, tentatively planned to line up with the second anniversary of the New 52. The first anniversary of the New 52, coming in September, sees all of DC's ongoing, monthly superhero comics being dialed back to #0 and publishing backstory-rich issues that help to illuminate the history of the New 52 universe and set the stage for old threats to return again after September. "I'd love to be able to celebrate the anniversary of The New 52 with something that feels so special and something that unifies the line thematically (maybe not story-wise)," said DiDio. "We're leading to probably our first crossover event in the latter half of next year, but you're going to see a better continuity developing through the line." Of course, to call what's coming in late 2013 the first crossover might be somewhat disingenuous. The idea of individual comics publishing their own stories somewhat abstracted from the universe's continuity is one that went away within the first eight months of the New 52, particularly in the Batman and Green Lantern families of titles, where the fact that the characters retained much of their pre-relaunch backstory meant the writers didn't have to spend time establishing a new status quo. This year's Free Comic Book Day issue was a dense and inside-baseball-type issue that will lead into an upcoming Justice League story called Trinity War. Whether that's officially a crossover event or not, it appears to be a large-scale, widescreen story with long-term, universe-wide story impact. It'll be written by Geoff Johns and introduce or reinvent a handful of characters, as well as tying into books not currently connected to Justice League, such as DiDio's Phantom Stranger.