I'm going to try to make this thread brief, but I want to sound off on reboots:

They are generally bad.

The problem with reboots, as seen primarily in comics (and particularly at DC) is twofold:
1) They never want to reset everything, because some character growth is good and important
2) They lead inevitably to attempts to re-tell popular old stories

These are related problems, in that fixing one would likely exacerbate the other. Comics (and other franchises) love remixing old stories because the people doing the remixing love those old stories and know their audience loves them too.

The problem is that people generally love the old stories because they were doing something new and unique, not trying to reference an old story.

The original story likely held some excitement because people hadn't seen it before. The remix gets to have a sort of artificial meta-excitement, because the audience is wondering if the story will go the way it did the last time, or do something different.

Which is, um...not the same. It's aspartame when you want a sugar rush.

The best example I can think of as to why this is a problem is Star Trek: Into Darkness, a movie which remixes Wrath of Khan (and Star Seed, and The Trouble with Tribbles) so much that nearly all of its emotional moments rely on the audience remembering that movie.

"Oh, Khan?! I remember how scary he was! Oh, this is like that scene when Spock was in danger, but now it's Kirk! Oh, but unlike last time, he makes it out alive!"

All the tension and emotion is reheated. It's leftovers.

And comics do the same thing. People talk about "Kryptonite, Nevermore!" but do you ever hear people talk about the Sand Superman story Walt Simonson did in the 90s?

Quick quiz: how many "Who is Donna Troy?" stories have there been? How many do you remember?

Everyone wants to cover the classics, and that's understandable. But it's rare for a cover of a classic to become a classic in its own right.

and as if by magic, immediately after this thread I ended up seeing a trailer for Ghostbusters Afterlife, which seems determined to do all the same remix stuff with a sense of religious reverence for a movie where a Conehead gets a hummer from a ghost.