DC Universe official streaming service details

[Lee Stone]

More reading:

DC Nation #0 - the Justice League story
I figure I may as well read No Justice since I'm going to be waiting for Justice League Dark anyway.
It was a little jarring to see the League working with murderers like Lobo and Deathstroke, and without them trying to kill anybody (yet).
And after reading a few Bronze Age comics with Zatanna, her 'backwards speech' being written wrong stuck out like a sore thumb.
Otherwise, it was a decent setup.

Justice League: No Justice #1
Well... it feels like an event. So it's got that going for it.
I was reminded of both Contest of Champions (1982) and Annihilation while reading this.
What could be worse than Galactus? How about four Galactus?
And I'm probably the only person in the world that doesn't care for Manapul's art.
Zatanna only speaks once: "Nepo rood", which technically could be either "Open door" or "Door open". So I'll let that pass.
Etrigan was done well.
It's also nice to see the Titans used in an event and not just as cannon fodder.
The story, itself, is okay. It has a few rough spots where it feels a bit contrived, but all summer popcorn flicks are like that.
Best to just sit back and let it go.
It did have a really good cliffhanger.

[Rac7d*]

Any news from Warner media

[Lee Stone]

Any news from Warner media

From what I've seen...
A whole lotta nothing.

They just talked about TBS and TNT, from what I've seen.

[Lee Stone]

More reading:

My Greatest Adventure (1955) #83
More Silver Age Doom Patrol goodness.
This issue sees Larry getting pushed to the limit to see what happens when the negative being is gone too long.
Something I'm really enjoying about reading these stories in their original issues is the back-up features.
They're fun and so very '60s Atomic Horror/Sci-Fi.

[smallo]

Meanwhile...
Let's talk frankly about the service, itself.

First a couple of recent articles.
This one, by Forbes: What Exactly Is The Point Of DC Universe When It's Missing So Much Content?
And this one, by Business Insider: The DC Universe streaming service is leading DC's resurgence in positive fan sentiment, which has rebounded since the all-time low of 'Suicide Squad'

There's no denying that the service has had some good things come out of it, such as Doom Patrol, Young Justice and the Ultimate DC Library...
However...
It's clearly visible that the service has had to change because the audience it originally marketed to was underwhelmed.

I think DC Universe unwittingly became a victim of its own devising: that being digital fragmentation.
Digital fragmentation has been all the rage of late, with new services popping up seemingly monthly, each catering to a more selective theme or audience.

I believe it first impacted me when I went to buy an episode or two of the '60s Steed & Peel Avengers on Amazon (which was my 'go to' service for buying movies and shows) and discovering that the series was now exclusive to some 'Comic Con' membership and you couldn't even buy them.

This has since spread, with more and more shows being removed from Amazon to be made available exclusively elsewhere, and often as 'streaming only' and no purchasing.
To make matters worse, you almost need a scorecard to keep up with where shows are at because they will disappear off one service and appear on some new, never heard of, startup service.

Meanwhile, DC Universe entered into this world of digital acrobatics and proposed to be the ultimate DC fan service. And it targeted not comic fans, but the 'outside world' of tv and movie fans.
The plan was to feature DC Comics TV shows and movies, with at least one new original series going at any given time, some DC-centric news shows to hype upcoming products and some comics on the side to give viewers a taste of what modern comics are like.

But then things had to adapt...
Because the audience that initially came in wasn't too excited about the offerings. No CW shows, no DCEU shows, no Adam West Batman... They really didn't care that much about the comics. Because this audience came from the usual video media sector of the industry.
DC Universe looked barren. All because of Digital Fragmentation.
The CW shows were all licensed to other sources, the DCEU shows were licensed to other sources, the Batman show was licensed elsewhere and the Animated Movies were licensed somewhere else.
They couldn't pull all those things to DC Universe without breaking a bunch of contracts.
And then... why would they want to?
Licensing to Hulu or Netflix could be more lucrative than putting the shows on a service that WB owns.
The best thing DC Universe is for WB is as a leverage to request more money for licensing because if nobody pays they can just put it on DCU.

So, then the direction of DC Universe shifted a bit, with it becoming DC's answer to Marvel Unlimited. They uploaded all (well, almost all, we'll get to that) their comics that have been made digitally available on Comixology, with the one clause that they would be one year behind current print comics. This was done to avoid upsetting both retailers and Comixology.
Now, about that 'almost all'...
DC Comics and DC Universe are not the same. They are separate entities, both under WB.
As such, DC Comics and DC Universe had to reach an agreement about what they could make available.
DC Comics wanted to keep all of Vertigo off the service but DC Universe managed to talk them into having the Vertigo runs of Doom Patrol and Swamp Thing to help support the shows.

So, DC Universe has flipped from being a DC Comics focused digital video service with some comics to being a DC Comics digital reading service with some video.
And this will probably have something to do with the upcoming WB service.
I wouldn't be surprised if they keep DC Universe as primarily comics and put all the video on WB.

One thing that would help raise subscriber faith right now, I think, is announcing the second season of Doom Patrol. We're two episodes from the end of the season, and they still haven't said anything.

Meanwhile, for the audience that came for the comics, DC Universe is a somewhat better deal than Marvel Unlimited and the community features are very nice.
But that audience wasn't the one that they initially sought to service.

I think the flipping may have hurt their image in the eyes of the audience that originally signed up, and the audience they have now would be bigger if they had reached for them from the start.
I don't think they realized how the Digital Fragmentation would effect their service and expected subscribers to be happy with the original programming.
But with one new show a week, it really came across as a glorified 'Columbia House' style video club.
The addition of the full library of comics helped raise its prestige, but maybe not for the audience that came for the shows and movies.

I, personally, am quite pleased with DC Universe, because I can finally check out some comics and either add them to my interests or finally purge them from my system.
One thing I do miss from buying print comics at a newsstand is the ability to flip through the book. The 'entire' book. Sometimes after flipping through, I'll decide not to get it. Or maybe on page 14 there's a panel that really grabs me.
This gives me the chance to finally mark off books that may have marginally interested me but I wasn't willing to pay the $3 to $5 to try out.

And the pricing for DC Universe is just about right.
You don't own any of the content. It could all go away tomorrow.
Or you could pay for it for 12 months then wake one day to find it gone.
Either way, the money lost isn't such a hit because you did get to enjoy much more content than you would have by actually buying the comics.

It'll be interesting to see how DC Universe continues to evolve.
They're currently working on an upgrade to their community forums, so that's a good sign.
But that Doom Patrol renewal needs to come soon.

Still missing issues from Golden and Silver Ages. For example Action Comics has 1-104 then skips 252 -- these gaps prevent me from subscribing because I want to skim from beginning to present.

[Rac7d*]

So we gotta wait until san diego comic con

[Lee Stone]

Still missing issues from Golden and Silver Ages. For example Action Comics has 1-104 then skips 252 -- these gaps prevent me from subscribing because I want to skim from beginning to present.

Yeah, DC Universe is limited to what DC Comics has made available for sell through Comixology.
They haven't made them available, yet.

[Lee Stone]

So we gotta wait until san diego comic con

Hopefully we'll hear something about Doom Patrol before then.

[Rac7d*]

Yeah, DC Universe is limited to what DC Comics has made available for sell through Comixology.
They haven't made them available, yet.

Their are some gaps but they seem to be adding books every week so whos to say

[Lee Stone]

Their are some gaps but they seem to be adding books every week so whos to say

DC is adding about a dozen back-issues a week.
And they're doing a good job of making those comics each week come from various eras to give variety.

But, they have all the comics from 1938 to 2011 that need digitizing. (2011 on were automatically digitized as they went digital with New52).
That's 73 years of comics, at about 12 comics a week, and they've only been doing them since 2011.
At this rate... it may take them about thirty years to get everything digitized.

[Jim Kelly]

What do the comics look like? For comics older than when everything was done with computers, do they use reconstructed pages like in the Archives, Showcase Presents and Chronicles--or do they use scans of the old comics--or a mix of both?

[Lee Stone]

What do the comics look like? For comics older than when everything was done with computers, do they use reconstructed pages like in the Archives, Showcase Presents and Chronicles--or do they use scans of the old comics--or a mix of both?

Mix of both.
It's the same copies that they're selling on Comixology.

Some of the '70s comics are scans, but the '60s are mostly reconstructed and from the Archives.
Most of the '80s stuff is from Archives or Trades, also.

As to how they look, it may depend on your preference.

Stuff from Archives may look cleaner to some, but I find the comics to look too bright because it removes the tint of the paper.
And I also think that the screentone dots and paper texture gave the comics a warmth that computer coloring has trouble grasping.

But some people desire clean computer coloring and art and don't like anything pre-2000 unless it's 'updated'.

[Lee Stone]

Just did a quick count...
In the last month and half, I've read (or re-read) almost 50 comics through the service.

Meanwhile, I just read:

Justice League of America (1960) #181
Green Arrow finally gets it off his chest and quits the League.
I can understand where he's coming from and I kinda wish DC had thought of the Outsiders at this moment.
An Outsiders team with Green Arrow instead of Batman would've been interesting.
Dick Dillin drew an amazing Ollie, btw.
I also enjoyed the after-meeting socializing that the League did back then.

And... an interesting panel now, thanks to Identity Crisis:

[Lee Stone]

Here's an article about the DC Universe service I found entertaining.
It features a non-comic-initiated person coming to the DC Universe with very little knowledge of the characters outside of Justice League Unlimited and various tv shows and movies.
The article is very honest and at times charming in their discovery of new characters.
Adrift in the DC Universe

[Elmo]

Damn Jean Loring should have just poisoned everybody with cookies