What Would You Change About DC Comics (Not the Movies)

MadVillainy

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Stealing this from a thread I saw on Reddit.

What are some things that you would change about the DC Comics universe. And I'm not talking about the movies, cartoons, or even the games.
Basically if you were Editor in Chief at DC, what changes would you make to the comics?
 
No.More.Crisis's!

Mandate that every 12-24 issues would be "seasons" or 24 issues would equal 1 year.

If a character is "killed off" there needs to be a plan to bring them back if its meant to be a fakeout or they would have to be killed for a minimum of 4 years.

Major events would be planned in advanced so it can be planned out with each creative team to incorporate it into their story plans or possible special issues.
 
Im not really sure.
The only really profound thing would probably what @Primal Slayer already mentioned in terms of big events, i would see it put into the whole relaunches etc...more planned out stuff.

It can get so confusing where something happens in the timeline of the relaunches after a while, because they all do their thing with the characters and stuff.
So having a more planned out direction for all teams to follow on the bigger scale, would be neat.

Other than that, i really have no idea.

The more superficial things would be stuff like bringing alfred back, de-age jon again, dont whitewash Damian for the love of god, make Wonderbat canon...but thats all just superficial things.

@Primal Slayer idea with seasons has something too...but im so allergic to passing of time in comics.
I mean i do want to see Damian as a grown up some day and all that...but it kind of gives me anxiety seeing the characters i love since childhood getting old...i dont know, thats a really weird thing i have.

Maybe a relaunch every 6-7 years that adds just small pieces of new canon...i dont know.

Really the only thing i would like to see changed is more of a clear path in terms of the timeline.

Most stuff i can come up with is really just stuff like this or that specific book, more from this character, that kind of things.
 
Im not really sure.
The only really profound thing would probably what @Primal Slayer already mentioned in terms of big events, i would see it put into the whole relaunches etc...more planned out stuff.

It can get so confusing where something happens in the timeline of the relaunches after a while, because they all do their thing with the characters and stuff.
So having a more planned out direction for all teams to follow on the bigger scale, would be neat.

Other than that, i really have no idea.

The more superficial things would be stuff like bringing alfred back, de-age jon again, dont whitewash Damian for the love of god, make Wonderbat canon...but thats all just superficial things.

@Primal Slayer idea with seasons has something too...but im so allergic to passing of time in comics.
I mean i do want to see Damian as a grown up some day and all that...but it kind of gives me anxiety seeing the characters i love since childhood getting old...i dont know, thats a really weird thing i have.

Maybe a relaunch every 6-7 years that adds just small pieces of new canon...i dont know.

Really the only thing i would like to see changed is more of a clear path in terms of the timeline.

Most stuff i can come up with is really just stuff like this or that specific book, more from this character, that kind of things.

I think once a universe reaches a certain "age" you reboot it and start over again. If COIE started all the major heroes in their early-mid 20s then they'd only be in their mid 30s/early 40s right now if have 24 issues=1 year. That's practically what Bruce/Clark are now.
 
I love Crisis events. But for the love God, cut down on the 'road to' reading lists! The 'required reading' for Death Metal is insane! People should be be able to pick up an event book, buy it, and read it. They shouldn't have to think Okay, now I just need to track down and read all the pre-reads, and I should finally get to this in, say, three months? The daddy of 'em all, Crisis on Infinite Earths, can be picked up and read 'as is'. Just like that, no pre-read necessary.

Any story elements that do require prior knowledge should be capable of being catered for in a single 'Prelude' or 'Road to' reprint volume (as with Infinite Crisis, or Dark Nights: Metal). It shouldn't be hard to do.
 
-Bring back "Earth 2" universe with no Batman, no Superman, no Wondy that houses the JSA (Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, Power Girl, etc.). They will only crossover with the prime Earth during major events. Dr. Fate might pass in both worlds tho. Would it be set in the 1940s? Not sure. But for sure would set it in the past.

-Limit the amount of superhero family members. Batfamily, including extended members, has like 13-15 members in it. Arrow Fam has like 7-8. GL has like 7 Earth Lanterns. I could go on. That's too much and clearly too much to handle. And it's not about which character I prefer and I'm not even saying you have to kill off the other member. Just move them into their own worlds. Families should have like 5 members max. AND if you're going to use a superhero family at least have them look different and especially have them have different abilities. And I get and like that DC seemingly does this as a way to incorporate diversity into comics. I like that and is something that should be done. However, it make so many superhero stories overstuffed and they can't focus on everything

-Going off the last bullet, no more legacy characters. This is ironic because Wally West 2nd favorite hero Marvel or DC, but it's too much. We don't need 3 people to have held the "Wonder Girl" title. You don't need 3 people to have been "Kid Flash".

-Wonder Woman needs to get a push that they gave GL and they did with the Flash. I know a lot of it is sexism and biases, but it’s shameful that such an iconic character really has been handled so poorly. Give her a supporting cast that will stick around. Give her a personality other than “she’s friend to all living things.” Give her a more interesting love interest than Steve Trevor or none at all. Give her more than 3 good villains. She had/has Gateway City but give her a city with a more interesting sounding name that’s based in Man’s World. IMO they should really lean into the Greek mythology angle without making her a psychotic brute like the New 52 did

-Really define some characters. Give them traits beyond “they snark” (because every single fictional character does that in some way nowadays) and they’re “kind and compassionate” (because that can describe most heroes). DC has some characters that may be iconic, but aren’t well defined imo. Like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, Superman are so well defined in their personalities. I feel that a lot of DC’s premier heroes are not. It reminds me of this Wonder Woman thread and cartoon.
Vg1tCDv.jpg

But yeah Wondy, John Stewart GL for sure. Honestly The Flash are iconic, but I feel haven’t been as well defined as they could have. And with the Flash, I think that’s why we get so many adaptations that give them “weird” personalities like Barry acting like Wally, Wally acting like Bart, etc. The Young Justice show did a good job giving all the Flashes separate, distinctive personalities before they killed of Wally and pushed Bart to the side post season 2

-Limit the amount of villains turning anti-hero. It's lazy and at this point it's almost cliche.

-Create a great, top tier female villain. Easier said than done, but we’re lacking in that department. Don't turn her into a hero/anti-hero

-Solution for the Hawkpeople continuity and backstories: Earth Prime= Sheyera Thal. Thanagarian space soldier (similar to the DCAU). Earth 2= Carter Hall: Egyptian reincarnation stuff. Both will get an equal amount of push.

-With Green Lantern, chill with the every color of the emotional spectrum stuff and focus on other types of villains. They're space cops/space soldiers give them more villains like alien gangsters, galactic drug dealers, etc.

-Turn Action Comics and Detective comics into anthologies that can feature Batman and Superman respectively, but also can feature other characters like Question in Detective Comics or Martian Manhunter in Action Comics. Also these books can be used as a testing ground for new characters.

-Going off the last point, create a “Space Comics” or something like that which will be an anthology series that can feature interstellar stories/characters. DC should really branch more into their space stuff.

-Just create or reimagine better villains in general. And this is a problem that Marvel and DC have, so many great heroes but imo only 5 heroes (not counting Justice League, X-Men, or Avengers) have a good to great rogues gallery. Most heroes have at least 2-3 good to great villains but they need more

-Reimagine The Outsiders similarly as to how Marvel reimagined the Defenders from being Hulk, Dr. Strange, etc. to a street level team featuring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc. Instead of being founded by Batman make The Outsiders a group made and led by Black Canary that focus on smaller, street level threats. Line up would be heroes like Green Arrow, Mr. Terrific, Question, Huntress, Chesire

-Make the Justice League only 7 members and keep the members list pretty stagnant. At this point it’s not that special to have been a member of the JL because everyone is at some point. But do create or reimagine more teams and make people members of those.

-Change the name for Justice League Dark. Sentinels of Magic is ok. So is Shadowpact

-Stop trying to make Suicide Squad DC’s answer to Guardians of the Galaxy
 
-Limit the amount of superhero family members. Batfamily, including extended members, has like 13-15 members in it. Arrow Fam has like 7-8. GL has like 7 Earth Lanterns. I could go on. That's too much and clearly too much to handle. And it's not about which character I prefer and I'm not even saying you have to kill off the other member. Just move them into their own worlds. Families should have like 5 members max.
Noooo! As a huge lover of the Bat Family, I would be worried about who makes the cut. I think that the fact that there have been 5 Robins is actually a plus for Batman. Each has their own distinctive personalities (except maybe Tim Drake. He’s pretty boring) and each has had their own impact upon Batman. And to your point about legacy characters, one of the best comics written right now is Batgirls, which recognizes that there have been 3 batgirls in the past 15 years and runs with it, having all three take the mantle. And it works well. The problem with the larger family isn’t the size, but more that some characters just aren’t good or interesting, like Duke Thomas, Harper Row, Clownhunter or Ghost Maker.
-Limit the amount of villains turning anti-hero. It's lazy and at this point it's almost cliche.
Agreed. Deathstroke and Poison Ivy are now the Ric Flair of comics. They’ve had so many heel and face turns that it doesn’t even matter their affiliation anymore.
 
-Wonder Woman needs to get a push that they gave GL and they did with the Flash. I know a lot of it is sexism and biases, but it’s shameful that such an iconic character really has been handled so poorly. Give her a supporting cast that will stick around. Give her a personality other than “she’s friend to all living things.” Give her a more interesting love interest than Steve Trevor or none at all. Give her more than 3 good villains. She had/has Gateway City but give her a city with a more interesting sounding name that’s based in Man’s World. IMO they should really lean into the Greek mythology angle without making her a psychotic brute like the New 52 did

Oh im with you on that.
I speak about the Wonder Woman lack of momentum always when theres an issue coming out.
There are 3 i think WW books and only 1 really interesting, her solo feels like a lackluster attempt at doing golden age style, without really anything new or interesting.
Diana really got the short end of the stick since infinite frontier.
Everyone gets so much fun stuff, Historia is incredible...but really the only thing going on that has anything really exciting.
Even when she shows up in other books, the character is just there.

Branching out more would help, not necessary in terms of Diana herself, but open the world up with new characters, new bonds...and get rid of Vanilla Steve Trevor for the love of god.
Ship him off with Selina for all i care(to make way for wonderbat XD)...or start doing something profound with this character.

-Create a great, top tier female villain. Easier said than done, but we’re lacking in that department. Don't turn her into a hero/anti-hero

That is something i thought for a while...we are lacking in terms of Female Villains quite a bit.
Most of the time when we get them, they are one offs or turn into some anti hero or so.
No, i want some really deranged female villains for a change.
Maybe a new god that can hang with Darkseid? I dont know...bring me a few female villians.

I mean look at the one that was supposed to be part of the Shadow war...completey forgotten, i dont even remember her name.
Cool design wasted.

-Turn Action Comics and Detective comics into anthologies that can feature Batman and Superman respectively, but also can feature other characters like Question in Detective Comics or Martian Manhunter in Action Comics. Also these books can be used as a testing ground for new characters.

I always felt that Detective comics should be more the kind of Series that is more over the top and focuses on the batfamily, the justice league etc.
Always felt that the Batman series should focus on batman himself, detective comics can be the fun Batfamily + friends series.
Action comics too yeah, have superman be a clark "solo", action comics can involve his family.

That is imo a good way to give those series some uniqueness.

-Stop trying to make Suicide Squad DC’s answer to Guardians of the Galaxy

I dont know, i quite like the comparison.
I really enjoyed the recent Suicide Squad stuff, but i have no idea where to go with that to be honest.
Making it the GOTG of DC could be a neat idea, or bad...i really dont know if i agree with you on that or not.
It comes down to who is in the squad i think.

Noooo! As a huge lover of the Bat Family, I would be worried about who makes the cut. I think that the fact that there have been 5 Robins is actually a plus for Batman. Each has their own distinctive personalities (except maybe Tim Drake. He’s pretty boring) and each has had their own impact upon Batman. And to your point about legacy characters, one of the best comics written right now is Batgirls, which recognizes that there have been 3 batgirls in the past 15 years and runs with it, having all three take the mantle. And it works well. The problem with the larger family isn’t the size, but more that some characters just aren’t good or interesting, like Duke Thomas, Harper Row, Clownhunter or Ghost Maker.

Yeah i agree...please never cut down the Batfamily.
There is enough room for them all, a batfamily series could even work fantasticly well.
We already have Duke and Tim who are left in the dust pretty much, two characters desperately in need for more exposure and charactert work.

Bring Duke and Harper into Batman inc with Ghost Maker and Clownhunter, or make a sub group with them or so...they are good characters, dont throw them away.

Agreed. Deathstroke and Poison Ivy are now the Ric Flair of comics. They’ve had so many heel and face turns that it doesn’t even matter their affiliation anymore.

Deathstroke i dont know, feels like he is villain for a while, but he teams up with Dinah in his solo right...so i dont know.
Ivy for sure, back and forth, constant changes of being good or bad...who can keep up with that?
Stick with one, preferable in Ivys case a good guy and bring her and harley back together.
 
Create a slew of original characters that have nothing to do with Batman.
 
Hire better editors and writers. preferebly People who have worked in comics in the past.
 
Right now we have Mark Waid, Peter Tomasi, Tom King, Tom Taylor, Christopher Preist, and Gene Luen Yang, to name a few. I seriously think that DC has cornered the market on great writers right now.

Last time they tried to pull a big name from a rival company, we got Bendis. So no thank you.
 
Yeah, I only Read pretty much Tomasi of those you mentioned. Waid has some talent, but I dont follow his modern work anymore.

Taylor and King I just dislike.

Id be more than happy if DC got people like Roger Stern, Walt and Louise Simonson etc back full time on for example Superman.

Another thing I would som Is to skip all these dumb anthology comics that dont mean a thing. Those are terrible.
 
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Outside of reducing the amount of Batman spin-off books, barring the core Bat-family books, I'd like to see more mini series focussing on B-List and lower characters.

Batman obviously has the bigger push, which should cease. Superman's getting a bigger push, and Wonder Woman's in a better place than she's been in a while. But I wish they'd give a bigger push to Wonder Woman, along with the Flash and Green Lantern. Both of these latter two books have a large cast. Spread the love.

Or better yet, bring back something like the old Showcase '93-96 books or Action Comics Weekly: anthology comics with a focus on characters who don't have their own books.

If I really wanted to be a hard ass, I'd also say cultivate new talent and let them blossom into the next generation of writers and artists that change the game and throw nostalgia to the wind.
 
I've been enjoying the weird limited series they do like Jurassic League, DC vs. Vampires, and Dark Knights of Steel. Just random ideas some writer has like what if the Justice League were dinosaurs. Silly fun comic what ifs that turn out to be awesome. So I'd encourage more of that.

Instead of having a bunch of different Batman series from different writers, I might try doing something like television does. Have writers room full of all those writers working together on one series. For non-readers who enjoyed films like The Batman and go into a comic shop, they have to be overwhelmed by how many different Batman titles there are.

Following up on that, I would stop restarting series at #1 to try to get new readers. I buy those thinking they are a good jumping in point, but they still rely on the context of many past series. You just feel tricked. I would publish Batman #873 or whatever the legacy number is at and every year or 6 months publish essentially "previously on" issues. Highlights and big reveals from past issues that serve to give you all the knowledge required to enjoy the current issues coming out. A new reader comes into a shop wanting Batman, they can be directed to the annual catch up issue and the issues that have been published since.
 

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