DC to reboot pretty much everything in September

[Stego]

Does Green Arrow have a good story anywhere out there?

Ridiculous question.

Also, Green Arrow kicked MUCH ASS in the Batman series you mention as a pinnacle of comics.

[red snow]

I love Azzarrello's "100 bullets" and thought his "joker" was fairly good but i'm really not certain of him handling Wonder Woman. He just seems to struggle with the superheroes. I'd like to see him try Batman again or even Green Arrow (ideally Daredevil/Punisher).

Many companies have tried new heroes but very few of them have stuck. Image did well out of Spawn and witchblade but Wildstorm died (although they're coming back in a probably neutered form) and there's still the likes of Invincible and all of Millar's creator owned stuff. The problem is they don't sell as conssitently as the marvel DC stuff. Even a lot of Marvel/DC properties outside the big franchises struggle.

They could have started with number ones for digital readers without having to totally revamp continuity.

[Galactus]

Know what I'd like to see? New characters. Scrap them. All of them. 50 years is enough. As the World Turns has gone bye bye, so should Supes. Just saying. He was a hero for the 50's and isn't relevant to today.

Lets have some creative integrity and instead of rechurning the same characters - do something new. It's just like Hollywood, do we REALLY need a Three Stooges movie?

Superman was created in the 30's.

[jdiddyesquire]

Superman was created in the 30's.

Noted.

[Nephrite]

Ridiculous question.

Bah, look at that stupid hat. We'll call him if Sheriff of Nottingham rises from his grave or if a murder happens at a Renaissance Fair. Till then he can sit down and hopefully shut up.

Also, Green Arrow kicked MUCH ASS in the Batman series you mention as a pinnacle of comics.

I didn't really call DKR pinnacle. Not really my favorite, but I can see why people love it.

And still Queen was his typical ass in that book. I just don't like his particular brand of self-righteous diarrhea.

I'm surprised someone like Black Lighting doesn't shock his testicles every time he opens his mouth. Or before. No one cares what this jerk has to say. Usually he just compares somebody to fascists.

Seriously, fuck Green Arrow. :D

Know what I'd like to see? New characters. Scrap them. All of them. 50 years is enough. As the World Turns has gone bye bye, so should Supes. Just saying. He was a hero for the 50's and isn't relevant to today.

It's a beautiful sentiment, except nobody would read these stories.

God knows DC tries new characters, but the last one that caught on was Firestorm. And he was created back in '73 or something.

[red snow]

DC announced they are going to do combo packs where issues will come with a code that will give access to a digital copy at a price significantly cheaper than buying both formats separately (basically get the digital copy for a dollar). It sounds like a pretty good idea and one that will hopefully calm the retailers down somewhat. It's a shame to see they've crossed that line they've drawn of $2.99 comics though - that's a great incentive for new readers.

Some of the more astute comic fans have already pointed out that this whole stunt can be retconned if it goes pear-shaped by simply saying it's one of the 52 earths floating around.

[archer1949]

Know what I'd like to see? New characters. Scrap them. All of them. 50 years is enough. As the World Turns has gone bye bye, so should Supes. Just saying. He was a hero for the 50's and isn't relevant to today.

Lets have some creative integrity and instead of rechurning the same characters - do something new. It's just like Hollywood, do we REALLY need a Three Stooges movie?

Then it wouldn't be DC anymore. These characters make the company. It's how they were able to last for over seventy years.

I have been reading DC comics since the first big re-boot in 1986. I can't see this ending well. But we will see.

[jdiddyesquire]

Then it wouldn't be DC anymore. These characters make the company. It's how they were able to last for over seventy years.

I have been reading DC comics since the first big re-boot in 1986. I can't see this ending well. But we will see.

I hear ya. I'm obviously trolling a bit, but it's the truth. If you have to reboot everything it's because the characters got stale, no?

[AverageGuy]

Like him or not Superman is their main character though Batman is a very close runner up and Wonder Woman is a distant third.

Wonder Woman isn't their third anymore. Trying to push her is one of DC's problems. GL's the real third now.

This whole thing is pretty annoying. More than annoying if you're a comic book reader. I can see what they're tI personally love seeing Dick Grayson as Batman and Damien Wayne as Robin.

No way they're undoing Morrison's Batman run that much. Sells too well.

[Stego]

No way they're undoing Morrison's Batman run that much. Sells too well.

It makes zero difference. If Morrison continues to write it as a reboot, it will continue to sell.

[red snow]

It makes zero difference. If Morrison continues to write it as a reboot, it will continue to sell.

Sadly, that's probably true. At least if he was unwriting his own work it may be less painful than what happened after he left X-men. Surely Morrison would quit DC in protest if they screwed up his 5+ years of Batman? Then again it looks like he may finally get his chance at Superman (although with it being a reboot it's potentially just another "alternative" All-Star superman). It already seems like there are going to be two batmen on two different Justice League teams so maybe they are keeping the two batmen? Then again there aren't different Wolverines and Spidermen and they are on multiple teams.

I also think that Geoff Johns will be keeping most of his GL continuity because it would be pretty dumb of him to unwrite his own work. Then again he'd probably be happy to erase poor old Kyle Rayner, who has little chance of surviving as the other human lanterns are black and ginger.

The biggest irony with me dropping potentially all my DC titles is that I'm considering trying the relaunched (again) Marvel Ultimate comics. At least there's only 4 titles to follow there and there's a lot of buzz around writers Nick Spencer and Jonathan Hickman these days.

[delete this account pls]

Here's how I see it;

It's a desperate move, but it's an extremely bold move at the same time. DC are just admitting what everyone already knows anyway - that the industry is very quickly dying in America. 5 years ago, DC sold 3 million comics in the month of May. Sale for May 2011? 1.5 million comics. They've lost half their readers in 5 years, and these days, sales are declining by the thousands every month. DC (and, to be honest, Marvel) desperately need new readers, and neither company has been able to attract them so far.

A huge part of the problem is the direct market. Unless you go online, the "easiest" way to legally buy single issues of comics is from a comic book store. But those places aren't always easy to find. They can also be intimidating and confusing for a new customer. And ... lets face it, Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons isn't the most outrageous exageration in the world. Sure, there's some good stores out there, but there's also a hell of a lot of bad ones, ran by rude and/or incompetent staff. And dont even get me started on the whole pre-ordering thing. I don't think it's unfair to say that, over the last 20 years, the direct market has proven itself virtually incapable of any real growth.

Meanwhile, there's 19 million iPads already out there in the US. Within a few years, tablet devices will be as ubiquitous as cellphones. There'll be hundreds of millions of people using them, worldwide. If the comics industry could tap into even 1% of those people? They'd be selling ten times what they do right now. Literally.

And that's what DC is going for. New readers through a new medium - digital comics. And it's about damn time, because if anything can arrest the decade-or-more decline of the American comic industry, it's digital comics. Sure, if you want to, you can already get these comics digitally via illegal downloads, but things like iTunes and Netflix have shown that, if you provide people with a legit and easy way to get what they want, most of them will use it.

So yeah, DC are risking alienating their current fanbase ... but this move is all about getting new readers, not pleasing the current ones, and that's a move that virtually unheard of these days, so I give them huge props for it.

Plus, we all know Grant Morrison is going to be the fucking JAM on Superman.

[Switchback]

that was a good post Brady. and as someone who has wanted to get back into comics, but has found it intimidating/confusing when trying to get started, this news is music to my ears. even while i acknowledge it will piss some of the established comic fans off. selfishly, i am excited for the reboot.

[Ouroboros]

No way they're undoing Morrison's Batman run that much. Sells too well.

Morrison's X-Men sold well too, but Marvel retconned that. Don't underestimate editorial's ability to make stupid decisions.

[red snow]

Morrison's X-Men sold well too, but Marvel retconned that. Don't underestimate editorial's ability to make stupid decisions.

If anything a complete relaunch is a more humane way of killing Morrison's Batman work than the long slow death that was undoing pretty much everything he'd done on X-men. That's what eventually drove me away from the X-men after 10 years.

Brady: I totally agree that something has to be done and DC are either to be given extra credit or hailed as insane to try and attract new readers while alienating the ones standing. It's all or nothing, which given the downward sales and the potential reward is maybe worth the risk. I do wonder if there would have been a way to attract new readers simply with a whole bunch of issue 1s and accessible storylines - that way they would have kept hold of the current readership. Then again they wouldn't have got the media attention they need with that.

While they are planning on attracting new readers, I hope they decide to stop all the mega crossover event - something that's only ever attracted the hardcore reader. I think to be successful the titles need to be self-contained or be limited to 4 titles within a famiy per month. Keep Superman to his stories. Keep Batman to his (with a handful of bat-family titles). Keep Green Lantern to a solo book, a corps book and the new rainbow ranger book. Let the new readers pick their titles and not be forced to read all 52 to have a clue what the hell is going on. Justice league should be where all the characters come together and if anything should act as its own "event" book.

I also agree that there's nothing at all to be lost by going digital. It's probably quite easy to see how many illegal downloads are occurrring and if they can harness 50% of that (which is entirely plausible) then that's getting sales from a market you know already wants/enjoys your product.

[AverageGuy]

...the direct market has proven itself virtually incapable of any real growth.

...Within a few years, tablet devices will be as ubiquitous as cellphones. There'll be hundreds of millions of people using them, worldwide. If the comics industry could tap into even 1% of those people? They'd be selling ten times what they do right now. Literally.

And that's what DC is going for. New readers through a new medium - digital comics...

So yeah, DC are risking alienating their current fanbase ... but this move is all about getting new readers, not pleasing the current ones, and that's a move that virtually unheard of these days, so I give them huge props for it.

A good argument for going digital. The risk of alienation comes from the reboot, though, which isn't required to go digital. Although, I'm not really sold on the risk of alienation. DC probably won't lose many old readers no matter how much said old readers bitch. Comicbookguy will buy an issue, talk about why he hates it, and buy the next.

Against that, the reboot is theoretically a way to make things easier to understand for these new, digital comic readers. But I wonder how many new readers they'll actually get. I'm pretty sure they won't be selling ten times what they currently do anytime soon. I just can't see comics going the same way as movies and music; they just don't have the same sort of mass appeal. And if they're not doing anything besides getting rid of some continuity (a soft reboot, whatever that means), I don't think they'll get it. There's some talk about changes for modern audience, but I'm not seeing anything concrete to make me think they're not just reselling the same old package.

[Nephrite]

A good argument for going digital. The risk of alienation comes from the reboot, though, which isn't required to go digital. Although, I'm not really sold on the risk of alienation. DC probably won't lose many old readers no matter how much said old readers bitch. Comicbookguy will buy an issue, talk about why he hates it, and buy the next.

Yeah, I'm sure Jim Lee could enter people's homes shit on their chest and then smear in into DC logo and they would just complain that the old logo was better.

[Sci-2]

Changing the number and changing the storylines are two different things. seems to me a lot of storylines will continue, but the ones they felt were screwed up (Green Arrow as a murderer, Aquaman's convoluted origin) will be changed.

I can't imagine them trying to negate all the work Geoff Johns put in to Blackest Night and Brightest Day, though DC's continual use of time-space reset buttons is getting annoying. Just bring back Else-Worlds or produce an Ultimates type line for all the gritty stuff.

[red snow]

Changing the number and changing the storylines are two different things. seems to me a lot of storylines will continue, but the ones they felt were screwed up (Green Arrow as a murderer, Aquaman's convoluted origin) will be changed.

I can't imagine them trying to negate all the work Geoff Johns put in to Blackest Night and Brightest Day, though DC's continual use of time-space reset buttons is getting annoying. Just bring back Else-Worlds or produce an Ultimates type line for all the gritty stuff.

I guess it's possible to keep most of Blackest night/brightest day without it causing continuity issues. Then again it would seem a good opportunity to ditch Hal Jordan's death/the spectre/resureection storyline. You could still argue it's not very "new reader" friendly having stories coming out of Blackest night though.

At least I will now cut JMS some slack for jumping off Superman and Wonder Woman so quickly. It turns out he knew it was all going to be rebooted anyhow so I don't blame him at all for leaving (I suspect he would have never started if he'd know from the get go)

[Garlan the Gallant]

Okay, I don't read any DC mainstream titles, but let's clear things up. I don't have the patience to read this thread, so here it goes.

The reboot isn't really a reboot. Yes, some things will be changed. Firestorm will be in high school and Bruce Wayne may or may not have found his parents killers, but relatively speaking, most things will stay the same. Some characters will receive costume "overhauls" i.e. superman will now have a collar! Mostly, the titles will be re-numbered to issue #1 to try to bring in new readers and make the daily news. The biggest news to come out of this is that there will be new creative teams on titles. Gial Simone will no longer be writing Birds of Prey and Grant Morrison will be on Wonder Woman. The only title that will probably get erased from continuity is Wonder Woman's latest run with JMS' run. Blackest Night will still have happened, Superman still be susceptible to Kryptonite, and characters will die in one issue and be back twelve issues later. Cyborg and a few other racially significant characters will try to be pushed to the forefront with various levels of success or failure. Ultimately, this is not a reboot so much as a renumbering of a line and a publicity stunt to get new readers and make the news.

As per same day digital, this is a move in SOME type of direction; however, their price per issue is WAY too high. I can understand why they have remained with the same price as printed material (which will drop down a whole dollar a month after its release). This is because they don't want to tick off THEIR customers, the retailers (well, technically speaking, Diamond's main customers and Diamond is DC's only customer in terms of printed comics). BUT, it is a step in terms of digital release of same day digital. Some time down the line, I can imagine DC slowly lowering the price line on digital comics when it is embraced more by comic buyers. Until that way, I don't see digital comics outpacing printed comics or illegally downloaded scanned comics. Simply put, it would be like pricing a downloaded CD for $17.99 instead of iTunes' current price of $9.99. Too expensive.

All in all, this really isn't as big as most people are making it out to be. That being said, I don't read any DC titles that aren't printed by Vertigo, so what do I know. :dunno: