Doooooooooooom!!!!!

'Muddled' was about 1984, after fifty years of continuity which spawned that many multiple Earths (including Earth-Prime with its Superboy, thankyouverymuch) and backstories so confused it needed to happen. Was I happy with it? Not particularly, as I have a large attachment to the Silver Age and a lot of its trappings. Do I concede that it had to happen? Definitely. It was overdue from that perspective.

This isn't a muddled continuity anymore, this is just desperation. Every tie-in/crossover/event that's happened over the last five to seven years promise some sort of lasting change only to wind up being undone or rewritten by the next event. I had some vague hope for the 'rebirth' of more heroic heroes from both DC and Marvel, but they've given that barely what...eighteen months?....before deciding they need to do something again to boost sales and get interest.

The problem here is if you don't build a continuity to be interested in from the get-go, and give it its proper time to be nutured and developed, then noone will care. And from what I can see, readers don't care because nothing sticks around long enough anymore to get attached to. Say what you want about the original Crisis, but around that period the writers and editors worked closely to evolve characters naturally (the Silver Age Robin-to-Nightwing transition being one of the best realised of this concept), so that costume changes and relationship changes didn't seem shocking or poorly thought out.

Now you have the biggest 'ideas' here being that all male character superhero costumes should have collars, that the underpants on the outside look should be dropped (well, isn't that daring), Superman and Wonder Woman should be percieved to be a couple (honestly, what is the point after six movies and two tv series that in the mainstream is going to scream that Lois and Clark are the obvious pairing?) and somehow making them younger is going to bring in an audience.

It's this same nonsensical thinking that permeates entertainment culture. Just look around; you have young-good looking vampires and werewolves that never get dirty or bloody; you have prequels to existing movie francises where, you guessed it, the characters are young and good-looking, and overall there's a fishbowl mentality that seems to suggest people are incapable of maintaining a long-term interest in characters and stories.

I'm sorry to disappoint DC, but the older fans is where your bread is buttered. We are the ones who buy trades, we are the ones who buy merchandise, and we are the ones who buy collectables because of the long-term connection we have to these characters and their stories. To ignore that fundamentally is to do just that; forget the fundamentals.

I buy a total of one comic currently, and it isn't DC. This will come and go, because this highly cyclic nature is the current trend. Someone can let me know when it's over.



S.

I think that's the exact "problem", from DC's perspective. Much of their sales are to older customers. Now that's not a bad thing per se, but it does pose the question, "What happens when our older readers start dying?" That's why the focus on a younger audience: they're trying to build that new readership that is attached to the characters. Are they going about it the right way? I don't know. But complaints from older readers like us aren't likely to carry much weight here. We say we're going to stop buying DC comics if this happens/isn't done well. DC knows that we are all going to stop buying their comics someday, when the Big D puts us in the ground. No amount ot crossover events or reboots will get us back to buying after that, so they have to go after a younger audience for simple survival.

That said, I hope they do this right but I'm not holding my breath.

I doubt it as well. The current execs in charge are this odd mix of loving the Silver Age but having no concept of how to write to emulate or pay homage to it.

And sure, I'm all for bringing new readers on board, but you have to get them to stick around to become older readers. The older generation are there for a reason, and chopping and changing your comics, desperately hoping you'll hit on a formula is not the way to go. Quality is, and always will be.

Comics are also competing with more immediate forms of entertainment; I saw a post on here last week mentioning that Amazon.com was reporting e-books were outselling actual print books. You can easily see the parallel that can be drawn with comics here. If it went all online, it'd be the death of the comic book store (unless they went into specialising in comics-related collectables which are physical objects).

I really think this is a big mistake on their part, but I'm not the one who has to answer for the inevitable dip in sales post-event.


S.

As I said in the other thread on the Flashpoint reboot, DC, as they are now, are -not- bringing in enough new readers. The older generation fans that DC has largely been catering to the last 5 or so years are still walking away. And DC also hasn't really managed to successfully do much of anything with the main DCU comics to bring in enough new readers to make up for it.

I could be wrong, but last I knew one of DC's biggest selling comics recently was the Superman: Earth One GN, which essentially ultimatized the Superman mythos. Seems to be that with the Flashpoint reboot, DC decided to try something similar to that on their entire line.

To my knowledge, there aren't any new arcs starting in any DCU title between now and then. Just about every current arc's been timed to end by the end of Flashpoint.

Don't know about any new minis starting now and then though, but it seems highly unlikely.

As for bothering to get the books between now and then anyway? To find out how the respective arcs end.

Ya, I believe that about as much as ED was in the works for a long-time before it hit the servers.


If DC is wanting to bring in new, younger readers, then why are they abandoning pretty much every iconic female outfit in favor of pants? Do they really think young male readers are going to be interested in Wonder Woman: Office Lady? Are they really expecting mass loads of strident feminists who think female heroes are little more than sex appeal to suddenly say, "Thank you for removing the sex appeal from this character, I will now read this comic!"?

If the problem was, say, Supergirl flashing on every page, that could be solved by having your artists learn to draw scenes such that she isn't. Continuity wide reclothing is not the way to go. What's going to happen to characters like Power Girl? I mean, hell, even in that promo pic, Wonder Woman looks like one sharp sneeze will send her into wardrobe malfunction territory, but she just HAS to have her legs covered...