DC Relaunching Everything?

[Tron Bonne]

It's a neat little book, but I don't think you need it much. It's mostly for people who can't write a sentence to save their lives. So...yeah, more or less, everyone posting on message boards out you and Corp.

 

[redhawk23]

Maybe some people dont want to have to read a wiki to enjoy a comic book?

For those of you pointing out the fact that it will be just as bogged down 5 years from now, you are exactly correct. And thats the problem and the real reason why this whole thing is useless. I'm all for long form storytelling, yet when thats all there is, and everything is extremely interconnected then it becomes hard to follow and eliminates a potential larger audience, which means less revenue, which leads to comic companies either playing it safe or over doing the stupid stunts. its a vicious cycle.

 

[Nightwing Z]

Wasn't that the only thing he ever did?

He saved Tim's life once.

 

[NefCanuck]

People so sick of retconny characterkilly superhero comics that they will literally read comics backwards if that's what it takes to get twelve issues' worth of story without some idiot doing a massive 40-series alternate-universe crossover and then resetting the universe.

Thing is, I read comic books and I read manga, the major difference with manga is that aside from a few select titles, manga have a beginning, middle and an end.

You may absolutely hate the way the story ended in a manga. I've read titles in the past where I've finally gotten to the end of a series and literally thrown the book across the room in disgust at the ending, the worst offender being the Inuyasha manga that literally plodded on forever only to end with the most sappy and formulaic "and they all lived happily ever after" ending that the manga writer could produce

But is over, unless the manga writer suddenly develops a need for easy cash, Inuyasha will simply be another title in the back catalog to read and enjoy (until that ending)

American comics don't do that, to end a comic book means that the character is done, finished, won't ever show up again except as an in joke somewhere in the artists later works.

That's where trouble starts IMO because while comic book characters age glacially, the readers don't and as the gap widens you're left with trying to please everyone and pleasing no one in the end.

Just my two cents (sales tax where applicable by law)

 

[antsman41]

Does this mean we won't even get a proper ending to this +25 year Batman chronology?

I hate this reboot more than Schumacher...

 

[roach]

Maybe some people dont want to have to read a wiki to enjoy a comic book?

For those of you pointing out the fact that it will be just as bogged down 5 years from now, you are exactly correct. And thats the problem and the real reason why this whole thing is useless. I'm all for long form storytelling, yet when thats all there is, and everything is extremely interconnected then it becomes hard to follow and eliminates a potential larger audience, which means less revenue, which leads to comic companies either playing it safe or over doing the stupid stunts. its a vicious cycle.

However if someone buys JLA #1 and sticks with it for five years then the massive amount of continuity wont be a problem for them because they have read it all.

 

[Motown Marvel]

Maybe some people dont want to have to read a wiki to enjoy a comic book?

reading comics sometimes comes with a bit more responsibility than other reading materials. its just the nature of the medium. someone who isnt willing to accept that responsibility isnt going to last long in comics, which makes it ignorant to pander a whole comic universe to them.

 

[TheIncredibleSk]

You guys should never be businessmen because this is just smart business by DC.

 

[Delete]

You guys should never be businessmen because this is just smart business by DC.

There is a mix of smart and stupid going with this plan actually

 

[Motown Marvel]

You guys should never be businessmen because this is just smart business by DC.

no, i totally understand the idea of wanting to expand your business to new customers and wanting to do things to attract them. and i totally support DC comics doing that. but there are right and wrong ways to do that. and with total respect for their intentions, i think they are going about it the wrong way.

 

[roach]

reading comics sometimes comes with a bit more responsibility than other reading materials. its just the nature of the medium. someone who isnt willing to accept that responsibility isnt going to last long in comics, which makes it ignorant to pander a whole comic universe to them.

and that is why comic readership is waning....the only way the comics industry will survive is with new readership.

 

[roach]

no, i totally understand the idea of wanting to expand your business to new customers and wanting to do things to attract them. and i totally support DC comics doing that. but there are right and wrong ways to do that. and with total respect for their intentions, i think they are going about it the wrong way.

only time will determine if this is right or wrong

 

[hippie_hunter]

and that is why comic readership is waning....the only way the comics industry will survive is with new readership.

To be fair, I think it's completely possible for comic publishers to attract new readers without alienating old fans. You can make reader friendly books without creating a new continuity.

 

[Saint]

I think the type of reader who's going to become a lifetime fan doesn't need his hand held. I've been reading comics my whole life, and I never needed a continuity reboot to get into new books. It's not complicated.

But as I've said in other threads, I don't think the continuity reboot is going to be severe. If it was, we'd be seeing the current continuity wrapping up, and that's not happening--we're not seeing any books like "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" If the continuity really was ending, DC wouldn't miss the opportunity to sell a million copies of the last Batman story.

This is more about appearances. They want everything to have a #1 on the day-and-date digital launch, because that way if Joe Blow browses some comics on his iPad, he's not sitting there thinking "What issue do I start with?" He grabs the #1 of whatever book interests him, and he's done. He doesn't look at Batman #715 and think he can't jump into it.

I think whatever continuity changes they make are really secondary to the goal of having everything at #1, and accordingly I don't expect a lot of big changes (though I wouldn't be surprised if there were some).

 

[Jennifer Walters]

To be fair, I think it's completely possible for comic publishers to attract new readers without alienating old fans. You can make reader friendly books without creating a new continuity.

Haven't both Marvel and DC created new reader friendly titles on more than one occassion and they've always failed? All Star, Ultimate, Marvel Age, etc.

 

[Kurosawa]

DC are experts in one thing and one thing only-alienating their long-time fans. COIE was nothing but a big FU to fans of my generation, most of whom haven't read comics in years. Now this reboot I care nothing about since it will either destroy or further muddle up a continuity I don't accept anyway, but for the fans of today, I do feel for them. Going online is a good thing and new #1's are a time honored sales gimmick, but basically at this time, mainstream superhero comics are a dead art form apart from the occasional Grant Morrison comic, so I don't expect them to gain many new readers. I expect the online feature to do more for their readership than anything else, and maybe the GL movie if it's a big hit.

To me, it's just DC going further away from whatever tradition they had left. For some characters, that's okay, but for characters like Superman, it is disastrous. Instead of that horrid Jim Lee costume with no trunks and a v-neck collar, they should have just had Superman wear a shirt that says, "I'm embarrassed and shamed to be a traditional superhero."

 

[stillanerd]

J. Michael Straczynski comments about this on his "Fans of J. Michael Straczynski" Facebook page:

When Dan DiDio comes out to the West Coast, we tend to get a bite for dinner to discuss projects, ideas, books and just hang. Dan is a great guy and an energetic speaker, chockful of ideas and aspirations for DC. As part of that, he shared repeatedly on and off for really more than a year his dream of rebooting the DCU and starting over.

So I felt confident that it was coming soon (which is one reason why I felt there wouldn't be a problem in the long run leaving the monthly books, since most of the things done in Superman and Wonder Woman would be erased by the reboot anyway, so ultimately it didn't matter whether I stayed or left. I just couldn't say anything at the time because I wanted to respect Dan's privacy and his desire to do what he thought was right when he thought it was right to do it.

To a degree, I think the success of Superman: Earth One was very helpful in showing that you could reboot a major character in a very personal sort of book and have it become a real hit (27 straight weeks and counting on the New York Times Bestseller List for graphic novels).

That said: end to end, top to bottom, front to back, this is Dan's dream, and he's fought long and hard to make this happen. I think it's absolutely the right move at the right moment in history. If you think about how well the Flash, Green Lantern and Atom were rebooted during the Silver Age, those books made the characters more contemporary, personal and relevant to the 70s. Imagine how much poorer the comics world would be without those reboots, if there had never been a Hal Jordan, or a Barry Allen.

Taking that approach to rebooting the majority of the DC line is a gutsy move on an unparalleled scale, and I think Dan deserves a massive round of applause for making it. The business part of the comics business has been languishing for the last several years, with decreasing sales and media attention. Something this big, this brave, is exactly the shot in the arm it needed. There's a saying in some of the British special forces: "Who dares, wins." I think this was and will be seen in future as a winning move.

Good on him for doing it.

 

[Jennifer Walters]

Interesting take on the situation.

 

[Mystirious]

I hate JMS with all my hate

People so sick of retconny characterkilly superhero comics that they will literally read comics backwards if that's what it takes to get twelve issues' worth of story without some idiot doing a massive 40-series alternate-universe crossover and then resetting the universe.

Yep

I'mma read some Sailor Moon today to cheer myself up

 

[yenaled]

That's more text than he has written for The Twelve in two years.

 

[Mystirious]

The Twelve will be finished shortly after All Star Batman and Robin releases its next issue

In 2052

 

[Kirk Langstrom]

DC are experts in one thing and one thing only-alienating their long-time fans. COIE was nothing but a big FU to fans of my generation, most of whom haven't read comics in years. Now this reboot I care nothing about since it will either destroy or further muddle up a continuity I don't accept anyway, but for the fans of today, I do feel for them. Going online is a good thing and new #1's are a time honored sales gimmick, but basically at this time, mainstream superhero comics are a dead art form apart from the occasional Grant Morrison comic, so I don't expect them to gain many new readers. I expect the online feature to do more for their readership than anything else, and maybe the GL movie if it's a big hit.

To me, it's just DC going further away from whatever tradition they had left. For some characters, that's okay, but for characters like Superman, it is disastrous. Instead of that horrid Jim Lee costume with no trunks and a v-neck collar, they should have just had Superman wear a shirt that says, "I'm embarrassed and shamed to be a traditional superhero."

Thank you

 

[TheIncredibleSk]

I like JMS. All his book I'v read have been enjoyable. I totally agree with him.

 

[Pyro Man]

I'm just annoyed that years and years of character development will be thrown out the window. What JMS fails to mention is that the revamped characters of the Silver Age were completely different and seperate characters from their Golden Age counterparts and the Golden Age stuff still existed, albeit on an alternate earth. They didn't just go in and erase 25 years of story, make paraplegic characters walk again (what sort of message do they think that will send anyway?), regress characters back into old identities and erase a ton of new characters.

Granted COIE DID do that but thats a different story all together. And I feel for the fans of that era (I've only been a comics reader for about 9 years now and was born Post-Crisis, so I have no idea what it was like).

I just think that comic companies need to find a balance and bring in new readers without alienating long time readers. Comic storylines don't have to be complete replicas of whatever movie just came out for that character, differences between film and source material is accepted for film and it should be elsewhere. On the other hand, starting up a new arc with possibly a new creative team that feels like a fresh jumping on point is something I think is a reasonable way to get the new people in and maybe not have the dedicated readers leave in droves.

For what its worth though, when I went to my LCS for the firt time after seeing the first Spider-man movie I didn't crap my pants when there weren't new Spidey #1s, .1 issues or other blatant jumping on points. I just grabbed what looked interesting, read it, read up on stuff I didn't understand and I'm still here. So I don't have much sympathy for anybody that wants to read comics without getting their hands dirty and maybe reading a wiki article or two.

 

[yenaled]

Well it's universally agreed that COIE failed because it wasn't the universal reboot that it promised to be and was actually a scrappy mess of some reboots and some continuations with reboots staggered over a long periods after the event.

And this seems to be copying that.