'More is more' at DC

[Trey Strain]

The attitude at DC seems to be that the more super-heroes you pack into your stories and into your drawings, the better everything will get.

Do you think this is generally true? Or not?

[MajorHoy]

The attitude at DC seems to be that the more super-heroes you pack into your stories and into your drawings, the better everything will get.

Maybe you should give a few (not just none or two) examples of this involving multiple writers / multiple titles (and not "event" books) to show what you mean and why you feel it's now so prevalent at DC?

[WebLurker]

I think that, like everything, there's no blanket statement for how comics are written and designed.

[stephens2177]

Yes, I love seeing crowds of heroes all standing around each other. Jurgens had a splash page in AC 1000,we just got the Mann cover days ago.

I hope we get one at the end of doomsday clock with everyone there, and happy as hell, and kon-el back for good

[JackDaw]

A lot of the big event comics (Marvel as well as DC) feel like that.

Generally I don’t like that sort of comics, and avoid them.

It’s all subjective, of course, but things I associate with big event comics I dislike, include:-

No real character development for any of the characters.

A total disregard for characters powersets (The likes of Green Arrow will go up against mega powerful aliens and survive.)

A load of obscure characters dragged from obscurity to act as cannon fodder....I just don’t care about “Johnny Obscure” who appeared in three issues of All Star 40 years ago.

Planet wide battles, massive changes, etc...that two issues later have no effect whatsoever. Maybe I ‘m wrong but Marvel is even worse at this aspect than DC. Take the events in their big series “seriously” (in sense of thinking about likely impact) and many of their heroes should be deadly enemies.

[ed2962]

I don't think that DC thinks that more superheroes in a story makes things "better". I think they know some fans like big event stories so they publish such stories.

The quality of these stories is a completely different issue.

[Trey Strain]

I understand it. Comics with fifty characters packed into a cover sell. But more super-heroes in stories don't mean better stories, and I wonder what the long-term effects will be. Will that become the norm? Will it become hard to sell anything besides a Bat-book that doesn't do that? Ultimately readers will get enough of it and will turn against it, and then what will the writers do?

[DrNewGod]

IMO, cramming a book with characters doesn't necessarily hurt plot, but it does hurt story.

[ed2962]

I understand it. Comics with fifty characters packed into a cover sell. But more super-heroes in stories don't mean better stories, and I wonder what the long-term effects will be. Will that become the norm? Will it become hard to sell anything besides a Bat-book that doesn't do that? Ultimately readers will get enough of it and will turn against it, and then what will the writers do?

"Become the norm"? I think some folks would argue that it's been the norm for the last 10-15 yrs. Marvel puts out non-stops events that just roll into each other and DC pumps more Bat franchise books...

[CaptCleghorn]

The Marvel and DC Universes have gained their fame and fandoms through individual properties doing well on their own with some teamups and crossovers occurring. Where it may once have been cool to see Bruce reading a copy of the Daily Planet (or in modern terms looking at their website), we now have stories with multiple Bat characters and super powered folks with S shields on their chests. Each franchise should be able to stand on its own merits and stories. Yes, each franchise has created their own plethora of characters and legacies and even within them, we have many characters.

It's a valid observation.

[Jackalope89]

More Lobo is always good. He was good in JLA and No Justice. Really hope to see more of him. Come on DC, make him part of a team or have an ongoing! Or at least a mini!

But just cramming heroes in for the sake of it, not so much.

[WonderScott]

The attitude at DC seems to be that the more super-heroes you pack into your stories and into your drawings, the better everything will get.

Do you think this is generally true? Or not?

I think it generally has to do with the story. Makes sense for some epics, like Crisis on Infinite Earths or Heroes in Crisis, as it affects the DCU and/or superheroes massive way.

Counter to that is something like Doomsday Clock, where the the covers are very symbolic and a smaller, tighter group of characters are being focused on to tell the story within its pages. It's not an "everyone in the DCU needs a meaningful cameo" sort of story, so the characters that are shown (especially the most recent issue) are supporting the theme and narrative, more so than their own characterization.

[PyroTwilight]

What are we even counting as "More is More", and what do you even mean in regards to it being a DC thing?

Marvel and DC essentially use the fun of a ton of heroes in a story since...what the 70's? It's hardly a new thing on both sides.


It just might seem more apparent since event books are bigger now and almost consecutively releasing since they're the big things readers read and they almost always focus and use larger casts.

Even something like Doomsday Clock uses a bunch of characters despite only focusing on a smaller # of them.