Why do you think the "Year of the Villain" isn't catching the reader's interest?

Let's start by saying, that i have yet to catch up on Snyder's Justice League. So far i only read Drowned Earth and am now starting at the beginning. However, i noticed, that the whole things (inclusive all attached miniseries) seems as if it should be a bigger thing among readers.

I mean, it is similar to the time before Infinite Crisis - i didn't read monthlies then, so i assume - with some stories running parallel and then crossing over in one big meta narrative. We have not only 'Justice League', but also 'Justice League Dark' and 'Odyssey'. We also have the new 'Batman/ Superman' title, which is a follow up to 'The Batman who laughs' mini and will lead to the 'Hell arisen' mini. In addition to that, we have the "Year of the Villain" stuff which is crossing over into the single titles. All in all we have a lot, and it seems to lead to something big. Yet it seems that nobody is talking about it. The reaction to Snyder'S League run seems to be a little numb.

But why?

Is it just to much stuff to read all of it, so people just ignore it?
Are people turned off by the constant "World is ending, millions are dying" scenarios in his run?
Are people still angry at the whole "Doomsday Clock" and its delays and 'non-importance' for the DCU?

And most importantly: If you are reading it, is it worth catching up?

It's the 15th "year of the villain" thing in ten years.

People are bored with it.

[QUOTE=BohemiaDrinker;4629434]It's the 15th "year of the villain" thing in ten years.

People are bored with it.[/QUOTE]

This, combined with several "beginning of the universe things" in the last several years directly contradicting one another, with no explanation, certainly hasn't helped.

You’ve got Event Leviathan and Doomsday Clock running around the same time, while Marvel has their big Hickman relaunch of the X-Men. Add to that the writing talent at DC these days isn’t very impressive especially compared to what Marvel has and it’s not surprising to see stuff underperforming. But Snyder JL still outsells Aaron Avengers and despite all the whining Snyder’s BWL’s mini was a huge sales success. Once DC announces the upcoming event I think you’ll see more interest once we know what the endgame is.

I don't participate in events. Making all of the titles connect to an event ensures that I won't participate in those title either.

Lack of a clear direction caused by a narrative disconnect between books and no real stakes. These are my best guesses. It doesn't feel like a true event rather it feels like a bunch of loosely related stories within a broad, somewhat confusing, theme. Being overshadowed by Leviathan isn't helping matters either.

I’m enjoying it but it’s really just a rehash of Underworld Unleashed.

Too close to Forever Evil, which ran half a year too long (and killed momentum on a couple new books).

Honestly, I don’t favor stories where heroes are secondary to the villains. I want to be able to root for somebody!

My first reaction was "so what's the difference with Forever Evil?" where they also have villains issues replacing regular issues and then I remember Underworld Unleashed and Faces of Evil. I don't know if they're the same or not but the marketing is similar. Villains issues or cover replacing heroes.

Then the event was lead by a new Elder God type character who's supposed to have been there all this time. Perpetua reminds me of a lot of Kronika from the recent Mortal Kombat 11 so that's already too much similarity to past events.

Then there's the Batman Who Laughs fatigue.

The only thing I'm actually interested in the event is James Gordon Junior's involvement among the Batman Who Laughs Infected, but he doesn't look infected, the only one who wasn't chained to him, and he's a manipulator type of character so I'm curious what he'll be doing.

Because YOTV is villains basically doing what they’d normally being doing anyway with a fancy banner slapped on the cover & featuring an Apex Lex cameo.

Because it's a dumb event.

The Dark Metal thing ruined what was a promising new direction with Rebirth. And now it's dragged on into another crossover "event" that is even less exciting. Doomsday Clock is looking more and more like a non-event after it was hyped to be the big COIE style universe changer.

I'm at the point to where I don't care about continuity between titles. I would just like to read the books I want to read and not worry about them getting sidetracked by an event. When events happen, I usually wind up dropping any book involved in it.

But yeah, nobody gives a flying flip about Year of the Villain.

It's too complex to follow (my guess), demands the reader to have read a lot of previous stuff, and if you don't like the style of the stories that are being told, you're not going to follow it because you lack the interest. And it's involving too many books, aparently. And it's an event-ish and people is starting to be tired of them. And it's not a very fresh idea either. All of it helps.

In my case, I didn't read metal, it wasn't my cup of tea. I didn't liked the prelude to metal either. And since then, because I'm not into that, I'm skipping every Snyder book, because all tend to be tied to it.

I'm reading some of the oneshots, because I hear good things from them and they're very stand alone. And I'm reading the books that I was already reading, and if they've tie-ins, I'm not going to skip them. But I'm not reading the main stuff, I'm not interested.

Funny enough, I am reading DDC: the story is pretty self-contained* by itself and it's a good read. If only the whole thing were monthy.

Too much competition; I'm far more invested in Doomsday Clock and Event Leviathan than I am this. We've also seen this exact same thing in the recent past with Forever Evil, and I've seen it at least three other times in the 20+ years I've been reading. And for me, Villains United doesn't feel all that long ago either, even though it was like 2006.

It's also not really an event so much as a weird non-crossover where the books just put more emphasis on the villain and Lex shows up, trying to be coy and spooky. There really isn't much reason to follow YOTV; the premise is "Lex gives bad guys stuff" and if you read JL you're already getting everything you need there.

I'm also at the point where I don't give a damn about Events. I actually tend to avoid them most of the time, unless they're self-contained like Clock or something that happens to catch my interest (like Metal; I'm a huge Metallica/Sabbath/Pantera/etc fan so a DC book inspired by that music was right up my alley).

I also think YOTV is just a distraction right now. We've been waiting for the resolution of the missing decade and all the crazy Manhattan stuff since 2016, continuity has been a wreck far longer than that but since Rebirth it's been done intentionally, and we're all waiting to see how that gets resolved. YOTV is just a distraction most people seem to be ignoring, as our patience for the "real" mega-story wears out.

Because new powers does not an interesting villain make?

Villains should be foils. They should have depth. They need not be redeemed, but they at least should be sympathetic or understandable. Only a few villains can get away with sheer menace, or evilness.

Since we know the villains won't win, we need something to absorb us into the story. Using the villains as foils does that. Extra power does not.

Giving the Rogues powers, for instance, takes away from their every-man status and turns them into gimmicks