I posted this on another forum.
I feel very mixed about this:
It's turning out that this is becoming a full on continuity COIE-styled reboot with everything getting changed, as opposed to the more soft-Infinite Crisis styled reboot that was speculated eariler. As a comic fan, it's exactly as you say, I'm really invested in the current continuity for years and now almost all of it is going away. It feels like one big **** you to the fans because unlike with COIE where streamlining the DC Universe was necessary, another full on continuity reboot just wasn't necessary. You can attract new readers without alienating your old ones.
However, business wise, this move is quite possibly the most revolutionary thing the comic book industry has ever done and is the best chance to save the industry. The moves DC is making are not designed to hype people like me, they're designed to get people reading comics. The Direct Market is a dinosaur and overall, most comic book stores are creepy and a lot of comic book fans that populate them are weird. And because of this, most people don't want to go to them. So if people aren't going to go to the comics, publishers have to bring the comics to them. And they have to make them accessible and easy for new readers in order to retain them.
Selling them digitally the day the physical copy comes out on DC's website and through their iTunes and Android apps is a great way to expand their product. Making deals with retailers such as Barnes and Noble to devote more magazine space to comics is a great way to expand their product and I expect DC to make similar deals with more major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Wegmans in the next couple of months. Brian Michael Bendis may say that these moves are screwing over the struggling comic book retailer, but guess what? The days of the comic book shop are coming to a close and it's time for comic book publishers to evolve or die.
And with a new continuity, the $2.99 price point, and new #1s, it's going to be easier to retain these new readers. Most readers aren't diehard geeks like I am who enjoy **** like having multiple Batmen, merging universes, or someone coming back to life by the Superman of our universe punching reality. Most readers are going to be intimidated if they see something like Action Comics #904. And most readers don't want to pay $3.99 for a comic book.
This is how you get and retain new readers, by actually aggressively trying to get your product out there and by making it welcoming to new readers. Not by stupid gimmicky **** like .1 issues, renumbering to #500 or #600 when an anniversary happens, and not by relaunching pointless #1s and sell them only to the Direct Market. This is how the comic book industry is going to survive. And this is why I reluctantly support this. Yes, it totally sucks that a lot of the years I've emotionally invested in characters are just going away to make way for a bunch of idiots, but I'd still rather read comics and enjoy Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman as opposed to the industry receiving a slow painful death due to ignorance of modern market trends.
And besides, it's not like the stories I like are just going away. If I want to read story that I like, I can just pull them out of the box and read away and continue to enjoy the stories I love. And I'm still going to collect back issues of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Also with Grant Morrison on Superman, Geoff Johns on the Justice League, Green Lantern, and Aquaman, and Fabian Nicieza on Teen Titans, the creative teams so far are looking pretty damn good.
Can't take a wait and see approach can you?
