DC Relaunching Everything in the Fall?
By
Agonus,
Posted on: 2011-05-17 19:08 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
Quote:
Yeah. Scarlet Witch rewrote all of reality, so that most mutants were either never born or were born as normal humans. It was at least as big a reboot for Marvel as Crisis on Infinite Earths was for DC.
|
Originally Posted by Cowman
What did House of M reboot?
We are keeping the actual meaning of the word 'reboot' in mind, right? |
...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Quote:
Wasn't that just part of the story arc, and in the end of the story arc, all returned to normal except for a bunch of mutants losing their mutant abilities.
|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
Yeah. Scarlet Witch rewrote all of reality, so that most mutants were either never born or were born as normal humans. It was at least as big a reboot for Marvel as Crisis on Infinite Earths was for DC.
|
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
And nobody except a select few knew how the world was before.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Wasn't that just part of the story arc, and in the end of the story arc, all returned to normal except for a bunch of mutants losing their mutant abilities.
|
Just like the story arc in Crisis, where at the end of the story arc all returned to a new normal, except for some specifics that had changed.
Both were universe-wide retcons that allowed the writers to tell some new stories and some old stories over again.
...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
Quote:
While I didn't care for all the changes it made (Jubilee losing her abilities comes to mind), I actually liked them losing the "mutants are everywhere" "1 mutant for every 10 normal people" that was going on.|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
And nobody except a select few knew how the world was before.
Just like the story arc in Crisis, where at the end of the story arc all returned to a new normal, except for some specifics that had changed. Both were universe-wide retcons that allowed the writers to tell some new stories and some old stories over again. |
Mutants should of stayed the minority.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
Well the thing about the mutants was that they were supposed supposed to be an emerging species that would one day outnumber humans and eventually rule the planet. No doubt the writers wanted to explore the kind of stories that would unfold as that transition began. Naturally, it was swept aside for a return to the status quo with the horrible Disassembled and House of M storylines.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
While I didn't care for all the changes it made (Jubilee losing her abilities comes to mind), I actually liked them losing the "mutants are everywhere" "1 mutant for every 10 normal people" that was going on.
Mutants should of stayed the minority. |
I'm generally one of those folks that doesn't care if things get rebooted or overhauled so long as we get a good story out of it, but that wasn't even the case that time.
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
Quote:
No, everyone remembers how the world was. Only a few remember the alternate 'House of M' world and what happened there. All those mutants remember being mutants. Scarlet Witch altering reality simply cancelled out their X-gene. It didn't rewrite history.
|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
And nobody except a select few knew how the world was before.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
And even with all those individual reboots, Marvel still had one universe-wide reboot: House of M. It didn't affect every title but it did hit a great many of them.
|
Technically OMD was a univers wide reboot as well, although limited in it's effect.
I love to be at the DC panel at Comic-con this year. Be soo interesting 
"And for us this is the end of all stories, and we can mostly say they lived happily ever after. But for them it was the beginning of the real story. All there life in this world and all there adventures in Narnia had only be the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of The Great Story which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before" - C.S Lewis, The Last Battle.
Quote:
It's also something that was suppossed to take centuries (evolution) not have half the world being mutants (even if most were relatively low power scale) in a few decades.
|
Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
Well the thing about the mutants was that they were supposed supposed to be an emerging species that would one day outnumber humans and eventually rule the planet. No doubt the writers wanted to explore the kind of stories that would unfold as that transition began. Naturally, it was swept aside for a return to the status quo with the horrible Disassembled and House of M storylines.
I'm generally one of those folks that doesn't care if things get rebooted or overhauled so long as we get a good story out of it, but that wasn't even the case that time. |
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
But it wasn't half the world. Even if there were a million mutants it still would have been not even a fraction of 1% of the population.
|
Originally Posted by BrandX
It's also something that was suppossed to take centuries (evolution) not have half the world being mutants (even if most were relatively low power scale) in a few decades.
|
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
Quote:
Okay, it wasn't half. It just seemed that way with the writing. Entire cities of mutants. Gangs of mutants. It was to the point one wondered how they were even a minority.
|
Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang
But it wasn't half the world. Even if there were a million mutants it still would have been not even a fraction of 1% of the population.
|
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Quote:
Well, the books were centered around the mutants, so it's probably easy to think that there's nothing but mutants running around when really it's just we see nothing but the mutant side of things.
|
Originally Posted by BrandX
Okay, it wasn't half. It just seemed that way with the writing. Entire cities of mutants. Gangs of mutants. It was to the point one wondered how they were even a minority.
|
- CaptainFoamerang
Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405
Here is what Quesada had to say regarding House of M and his thoughts behind it:
Quote:
Ahhhhhhh, Joe and his genies....
|
Originally Posted by JoeyQ
"Part of what is inherently important about the metaphor of the X-Men is that they are a minority. [T]here aren't supposed to be a lot of these guys they never really should've been in the forefront. That kind of message got lost over the years, to the point where we ended up with a mutant island where there were over six million of them, and every time you'd turn a page, you'd see a mutant on every corner. We even had 'Mutant Town'. So, one of the things that we wanted to do was put the genie back in the bottle."
|
Go Team Venture!
Quote:
Translation for those who don't speak Joephisto, "Grant Morrison so angered the Quesada, that he spent the next five years trying to erase everything he'd done from the Marvel Universe."
|
Originally Posted by BlackSun17
Here is what Quesada had to say regarding House of M and his thoughts behind it:
Ahhhhhhh, Joe and his genies.... |
More info from the DC Roadshow (Texas-style this time):
Quote:
Love the expansion of the Beyond-verse. Intrigued by the WB move to advertise - will be interesting to see how it works.
|
Originally Posted by BleedingCool
At the show, DC told retailers that they have a seven figure marketing budget to spend on the Relaunch, which includes everything from the previously Bleeding Cooled TV ad campaign, including the Cartoon Network ads to USA Today, Facebook, movie theaters ads, conventions and promotional materials. The target audience are men age 18 to 34 though they do realize that they have readers in other demographics. They also confirmed the Bleeding Cool story, not just that Batman Beyond would continue, with Superman Beyond but also Justice League Beyond. As to other creators, James Robinson is already working on a new comic project with several issues written, Amanda Conner has a project in the works as does the previously mentioned Nicola Scott. Phil Jimenez and Scott Kolins are also still working for DC. You wont be seeing Donna Troy yet in the new DCU, nor the Stephanie and Cassandra Batgirls. They havent been killed off though, just benched. No news on Steel, Black Lightning or other Milestone characters, though DC did emphasise that with Mr. Terrific, Static, Blue Beetle, Bat Wing, Voodoo and the new Omac, they do have more titles with ethnic minority leads than ever before. And, yes, that is Katana in the new Birds of Prey. Many of the new 52 books will have six issue story arcs, and Dan DiDio states that if sales are bad on a title, they wont wait very long to cancel it. He wants strong sales across the line. DiDio also mentioned maybe getting to a total of eighty titles published company wide, including kids comics and Vertigo. He also wants comics to ship on time and even mentioned that he is very willing to replace a writer or an artist if they fall behind. There seemed to be less agitation at the Dallas meeting than in LA. Well, you never know just who might be packing, I guess |
Go Team Venture!
Someone took the time to create a visual guide to the 'relaunch'. Not sure this clears things up too much:
Go Team Venture!
Quote:
They're going to blow more money on advertising than they will ever see in returns. It's the inverse movie quality method. The worse a movie tends to be, the more money spent on promoting it.|
Originally Posted by BlackSun17
More info from the DC Roadshow (Texas-style this time):
Love the expansion of the Beyond-verse. Intrigued by the WB move to advertise - will be interesting to see how it works. |
Quote:
| nor the Stephanie and Cassandra Batgirls. They haven’t been killed off though, just benched. |
Quote:
| if sales are bad on a title, they won’t wait very long to cancel |
They're struggling to sell 60 titles now and they want to sell 80? Methinks Didio has been sniffing the ink too long.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
About the only thing in there that surprises me is that theyre admitting the target market is the 18 - 34 crowd. Not that hasn't been the market anyway for the last few years, but at least theyre admitting they're not just shooting for the teen age crowd.
If they were smart what they'd do is...
Cancel all of their comics and then relaunch in a timeline...
Month 1 :
Superman #1 = Superman's Debut in Metropolis
Green Lantern #1 = Hal Jordan's debut
Month 2 :
Superman #2 = I dunno...sure they could figure something out
Green Lantern #2 = Hal Jordan meets the GLC and Sinestro
Green Lantern Corps #1 = reveals Sinestro as a corrupt GLC and creates the yellow ring
Batman #1 = Batman Year 1
The Flash #1 = Flash Year 1
Superman/Batman #1 = First Meet up
Detective Comics #1 = Gordon vs Catwoman
JSA #1 = Backstory + Black Canary Year 1
Month 3 :
Almost all issues this month are part of a story arc that ends with JL #1
In Batman #2 we see Bruce adopt Dick Grayson
In The Flash #2 we see Kid Flash debut
In Detective Comics #2 we are introduced to the Orphaned Barbara Gordon
In Green Lantern Corps we get to see Kilowog put some recruits through bootcamp and repercussions of Sinestro becoming a Yellow Lantern
And continue in this fashion till we return to present with everyone knowing whats going on. It basically allows people see the connections and allows you as writers to grow the world out from it's core...
Quote:
But doesn't that mean they're targeting the crowd that will be most likely to be cheesed off by the reboot?|
Originally Posted by Veritech
About the only thing in there that surprises me is that theyre admitting the target market is the 18 - 34 crowd. Not that hasn't been the market anyway for the last few years, but at least theyre admitting they're not just shooting for the teen age crowd.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Durakken
If they were smart what they'd do is...
Cancel all of their comics and then relaunch in a timeline... |
Honestly though, WHAT is this reboot supposed to fix again?
Apparantly a lot of the current history will still have happened in one form or another; so there's still a lot of back story, but now it'll be slightly different and much more ambiguous since you can't simply look to the older comics for what happened.
Quote:
it will fix the writers being too stupid to learn the history of the characters they will be writing for... which they should already know because they wrote them or are fans of them...
|
Originally Posted by Cowman
Honestly though, WHAT is this reboot supposed to fix again?
|
Quote:
But will it even do that?|
Originally Posted by Durakken
it will fix the writers being too stupid to learn the history of the characters they will be writing for... which they should already know because they wrote them or are fans of them...
|
Some of the history is still there. Now they'll also have to make sure that the history they DO remember actually still happened. I'm sure DC will have it written down somewhere... but they already have everything written down.
If they didn't bother looking it up before, why will they look it up now?
More info from the DC roadshow. Will edit and highlight after posting as the forums keep logging me out....
Quote:
Will be interesting to see how the news-feed on CN works out - not so sure it will make much of a difference. Also interesting that this relaunch is to stem the flow of people that just read trades.
|
This Issue of Collectors Cornered will focus on the DC Comics Road Show in Baltimore, Maryland. I (Randy – Owner) attended the roadshow with my store manager Dave in tow, we talked about what it might be like cynically on the way to the show but had no idea how cool it would be.This entry will sound a lot like a fluff piece, or us kissing DC Comics collective ***** so be warned. I went into this thinking it would be 50/50 Lip Service/ Useful Information and came out of the event 100% Behind DC and all the guys involved in the DC Relaunch. Let me explain and break down the three hours plus meeting and bar chatter to the points we took away that won us over as a store as we drank the proverbial Kool-aid. Sidenote : Didio & Johns both complimented our store shirts, that helped. At the meeting representing DC were John Rood, Bob Wayne, Dan DiDio, Vince Letterio, Jim Lee and Geoff Johns. A screen and podium as well as con style table with mics and a mic for retailer to ask, as well as a dozen or more Diamond Comics employees, since the meeting was held next door at a hotel near Diamond’s home office. The meeting started with John Rood who explained that the relaunch was a much need “Shot in the arm”. As he then explained that something was needed to turn around slipping sales and reinvigorate the line. Dan Didio then matter of factly added “That comics had become too talky, too quiet & less exciting. That comics were losing ground too video games, movies and TV, and that it was time to plant a flag in the ground!, That when new customers or lapsed customers walk into our stores that more action and better accessibility would be ideal. That comic book movies were doing comics better than comic books.” As an aside, around this time, he joked that he read a comic that had 15 pages of 9 panel grids of heads talking. I wonder what issue that was? Didio for all the heat he gets, was the most passionate of the bunch in explaining this initiative. He really won us over with some of this generalizing about the trend in comics to write for trades and to bet on the eventual sale or perpetual sale of of collected editions. We sell a lot of trade, but waiting for the trade syndrome is not helping us sell periodicals ultimately. Didio stated “Were not building for trades with this, were building for periodicals. Jim Lee added “Comics needed to jump into immediate story, ramping into action.” Jim Lee then talked a little about design elements with JLA & Team books and having a unified or team look using piping and collars etc, and how they wanted to update a freshen up certain looks. Dan DiDio added that “They felt that as readership aged so did the characters, past their Prime and that this was attempt to restore them to being less experienced where they haven’t defeated their greatest foes and are closer to their Prime age to reach a wider audience and that the last thing they wanted was for them to be encased in ember.” As they were discussing JLA they went into the 52 titles one by one slideshow and some interesting quips and insights were given about most including off topic anecdotes about planning and plotting this initiative. Of the 52 all but four will be $2.99. Action, All Star Western, & Men At War will be $3.99 each. “The higher the sales, the less is changed” Dan Didio said “They had an unofficial curve chart no one would see in the offices where the higher the sales the less is changed.” This is why the Batman & Green Lantern titles will re-launch relatively unchanged story wise. Some interesting tidbits of info about books we managed to shorthand from this : The word Superhero doesn’t exist yet. Geoff Johns stated “Three key elements to his JLA are “Heart, Humor & Heroics”, Lee & Johns added that the word Superhero doesn’t exist yet and that Batman at this point when the JLA first meet in the first arc of his book is more or less an Urban Legend that has been working behind the scenes for years.” Arc #2 would take place years later in the current timeline. JLA would be the book that is kind of the start of the DC Superhero universe. “Sawyer from Lost in a superhero setting.” Batman & Robin : Damien Wayne is Robin. Batgirl : Killing Joke and Oracle stories happened, Barbara dealing with being an hero again. Batman : As Urban legend, has been around a little longer than Superman coming out to the world. Nightwing : Dick Grayson, Red Symbol, Cully Hamner’s design Jim Lee felt more striking than the old blue. Catowman : Jim Lee “Those are goggles on the cover, not big enough. Don’t know why they are pink.” Demon Knights – Will take place in Medieval time in the DC Universe. (Sounds Cool!) Voodoo - Sexy, Spy Thriller. Grifter - Sawyer from Lost, in a Superhero setting. Omac - Giffen channeling Kirby. Blackhawks - Like G.I.Joe written by Costa (G.I. Joe writer) Men At War - Current Wars stories. All-Star Western : Features Jonah Hex in Gotham City in the old west times in the DCU, also with back ups. Teen Titans - Tim Drake is Red Robin. When discussing this book and Hawk & Dove, Jim Lee joked about the jabs of its the 1990s all over again on the net, as a bash against Image styled art. He stated ” There are only five of us that are in that style, Capullo, Lee, Booth, Liefeld & Finch” and that he would put the sales on those five book with their art up against the other 47 titles. Legion Lost - In Current DC timeline. Relaunch Collections to hit in May 2012 Trade Paperback Collections : Collected Re-launch titles likely to start hitting shelves in May, and there’s some discussion of Hardcovers and Softcovers depending on the titles. Also Dan DiDio and Bob Wayne said they hadn’t worked out trade dress yet and that they wanted prominent numbering on the spines and them to be thicker, since many stores place them spine out. Variants/Incentive Covers : Four #1s (Action, Batman, GL & Flash) will have 1:25 Covers and 1:200 Sketch Incentives and #2s going forward retailer will be able to order variants equal to the amount of the lowest number of books ordered on a 52 re-launch title, so order 15 copies of Animal Man or other title, you qualify to order 15 Batman #2 Variants. They collectively stated the titles would be give more or less a year to perform and would be canned according to sales if need be, and creators were being held responsible for meeting deadlines more so than ever before, that changes will be made in a quicker fashion and that they were committed to this initiative and not planning to go back on it or have back up, that they were committed along with the marketing portion of this to being new and lapsed readers in, using charts and going through 30-40 minutes of sales and marketing which would be a bit of a bore to go into specifics, but their was areal focus on bringing people into stores with all ads online, banner, social networking, movie and co-op, TV and Movie Theater and other programs being rolled out like Midnight Parties for certain books, chances for stores to get big names in for signing and a lot more. John Rood stated time and time again “That we know where our bread is buttered.” Comic stores were featured prominently in this sales and marketing portion and any fears we had about unbalanced attention and more resources focused on digital was assuaged. It was made clear that if digital can bring folks into stores, that would be the best case scenario and that more so that if these advertising tactics along with utilizing Warner Brothers to help them “Close that virtual loop” a phrase that John Rood used over and over to great effect, then this would be a success for all of us on board. That loop is what we as retailers have been asking for access to for years, CSLS at the end of popular comic films and animated DVDS and Video Games aimed at the target and non target audiences that may not read comics but potentially if made aware of them would, co-op tv ads timed with films and comic releases, reimbursement for social networking and movie adverts. Real time comic book store news on Cartoon Network Also little details were give but sounded intriguing about the DC Nation Block coming up on cartoon Network that will act as real time comic book store news on Cartoon Network and more possibly featuring adverts for getting things at your local comic store, or tickers letting viewers know whats going on in comic stores nationwide. Later at the Bar drinks were had and more info was relayed. Geoff and John talked with us and expressed a real excitement and commitment to this initiative and a strategy to carry out what retailers have begged for for a very long time, that publisher’s advertise their products, show people how cool comics are, make comics we can hand to anyone to get them excited about the medium no matter what the issue number. Maybe I’m still coming down from that high, but these are things that retailers have been asking for for years being promised. Now when they are delivered on and start to return lapsed readers to the fold and bring new faces into the store we can truly say this experiment was a great idea. We have new folks still coming in three weeks later after this news and asking what the deal is, asking about subscriptions, getting excited, asking questions, getting answers. Collectors Corner is on board and we will make September a huge month for the store and for DC. Were working hard on letting customers know about these titles, reaching out beyond the walls of our store to find new readers as I type this up, and we think all good retailers should get behind this initiative and take a chance and show DC that we can make these books hit huge sales figures and bring people in droves back to the medium. Sure everything isn’t going to be as big as JLA, but stay positive and be prepared when those new faces come walking into your stores! |
Go Team Venture!
We are keeping the actual meaning of the word 'reboot' in mind, right?