This differs from a creator producing a separate interpretation of another creator's work; rather, the owner of the creation declares that the rebooted continuity is now the official version.
This term is often applied to Comic Book s, where the prevailing continuity can be very important to the progress of future installments, acting (depending on circumstances and one's point of view) as a rich foundation from which to develop characters and storylines, or as a box limiting the story options available to tell and an irreconcilable mess of contradictory history. Such large continuities also become a barrier to introducing newcomers to the fandom, as the complex histories are difficult to learn, and make understanding the story very difficult; a reboot gives the chance for new fans to experience the story by reintroducing it in smaller and easier to understand installments.
- Godzilla (ゴジラ - Gojira) had pressed the reset button several times since its inception in the 1950's. The most notable deviation from the original production being the 1998 American remake entitled 'Godzilla'. Godzilla continuity reboots are as follows:
- ---Godzilla 1984: Toho presses the continuity reboot button, eliminating the entire Showa series (the films from Godzilla Raids Again through Terror of Mechagodzilla), stipulating that Godzilla's only prior attack was in 1954, in the original Godzilla. This new series is called the "Heisei" series and continues until the events in Godzilla vs Destorotah, where Godzilla dies.
- ---The "Millennium" Godzilla series also makes heavy use of the continuity reboot; every film in this series (except for , which is a direct sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla ) is a self contained alternate universe connected only to the original 1954 Godzilla.
- Similarly to Godzilla, Deiei's Kaiju star ). However, unlike the Godzilla series, both reboots ignore the original Giant Monster Gammera .
- Arguably this is what DC Comics did in the late 1950s when it reintroduced several characters that had been staples of their superhero comics in the 1940s, but had since disappeared from the public eye. The Flash was relaunched with a different name and costume, and other characters, including Green Lantern , Hawkman , and The Atom , were re-introduced (mostly with more Science-fiction -influenced attributes rather than the often mystically-tinged earlier characters).
- DC Comics' Crisis On Infinite Earths in 1985 had far-reaching effects on many DC titles. One of the goals of the event was to make DC continuity less complicated and more modern, and this involved complete reboots of Superman , Wonder Woman , Hawkman , and others. (The histories of some other characters were merely Retcon ned.) This may be the earliest use of the term "reboot" in this way, though it is unlikely that the term was widely used at the time, when most readers were still unfamiliar with the operation of computers.
- DC's '' Legion Of Super-Heroes '' comic book had its continuity rebooted in the events surrounding '' Zero Hour '' in 1994 . The characters' stories came to a decisive close, the previous 36 years of continuity were discarded, and a new Legion made up of similar characters based on the earlier versions began their careers without any mention of the previous continuity (except for tacit allusions). The series was rebooted again in 2004 .
- Marvel Comics , in the mid- 1990s , turned several of their titles over to studios affiliated with Image Comics , and these titles ('' Fantastic Four '', '' Captain America '', '' The Avengers '', and '' Iron Man '' — the Hulk would be included in this trend only as a character, but without his own title) were rebooted in their own separate universe, while the rest of Marvel's line maintained the original continuity in which the affected characters were presumed to have died in a cataclysmic battle. The rebooted titles lasted only a year, at which point the heroes involved returned to the original universe. See Heroes Reborn .
- In 2000 , Marvel launched the '' Ultimate Marvel '' line of comic books that rebooted the Marvel Universe . The Ultimate series was intended to modernize the characters, to rewrite the individual characters into a more cohesive universe, and to make the series more appealing to non-Marvel fans; the huge back-story of the Marvel Universe, made it very difficult for newcomers to understand the characters and storylines. Unlike most reboots, however, the original Marvel Universe continued to publish as well.
- In 2005 the webcomic Melonpool featured a complex time travel storyline which resulted in a reboot. This coincided with a change from newspaper style strips to a comic book format and the removal of the previous strips from the site's archives.
- In 2006 James Bond film franchise will go through a reboot. The 21st Bond film, '' Casino Royale '', will be Bond's first adventure where he will be shown acquiring his 00-number from MI6 .
- Based on various pieces of information concerning Shadow The Hedgehog and 2006's Next-gen Sonic Game , it's heavily suggested that the video game Sonic storyline will be rebooted for the next generation of video gaming. Whether this will affect the Archie Comic Book (and its sister publication, '' Sonic X '') has not been confirmed.
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