Make DC better

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Invalid argument - New 52 was terrible regardless of continuity. So many awful decisions and stories. Now, if 52 had actually been good and still done as awful you might have an argument, but saying that letting go of an 80 year old continuity was what did it in is very disingenuous - anyone can come back with the counter argument that the lack of quality is what killed that initiative.

I think its foolish to assert that a lot of the discontent with the New 52 that eventually led to DC walking it back didn't have at least a bit to do with it tossing out decades of continuity and established characters. How many people showed up at conventions and voiced their concerns about how their favorite characters were now MIA? I mean, whereswally became a hashtag that was repeated ad nauseam on Twitter. Many people asked the same things about Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain. You can't ignore that because it doesn't fit the narrative that continuity doesn't matter. It obviously does.

A few things...
1. I never said there weren't great in-continuity stories, but a lot of the big ones aren't in continuity you have to admit. And even most of the ones in continuity don't have to be, how many of the best in-continuity stories really relied on needing to be in continuity to be good? Most of them could have been told as they were without being in the main continuity or ever affecting another book.

Not really. Yes, there are some big ones that are non-canon, some of the most classic stories told in this medium, but many of the non-canon ones are, for lack of a better term, the "basic" DC stories. The ones that people read when first getting into comics and when they aren't as invested yet. They're also still actually in the minority of what one would call great DC stories. For every DKR and Kingdom Come and All Star Superman and New Frontier, there's Long Halloween, the Judas Contract, Sinestro Corps War, Year One, Tower of Babel, Return of Barry Allen, Killing Joke, etc. And yes, a lot of those stories needed to be in continuity to even make sense.

Judas Contract was the culmination of Terra's infiltration into the Titans and her betrayal of their trust, which required, ya know, stories where she gained that trust. It also required Deathstroke's origin and motivations to be in-continuity otherwise, this old guy is just targeting these teenage heroes for no reason.

The Return of Barry Allen needed to be in continuity because it dealt with Wally struggling to live up to Barry's legacy, requiring COIE and Barry's death to be in continuity.

Sinestro Corps War was another culmination, this time of all the elements that Johns had been developing in the Green Lantern books for at least a few years at that point. It also required things like COIE, Death of Superman, and Infinite Crisis to be in continuity for at least a few of the important auxiliary members of the Sinestro Corps to be present and because the very shape of the Corps at that point had been influenced by events like the Death of Superman. And that story then also served as a building block towards the Blackest Night event, which required so much more than just Green Lantern stories to be in continuity because it revived characters who had died all throughout the DCU in stories past.


There's like dozens of other examples, but I digress

2. If fans were as invested in that 80+ history as you say, comics wouldn't be a dying medium.

Personally, I think the "death" of comics as an industry is a bit overblown, but its probably the same reason why people also say that newspapers are dying. Last I checked, newspapers don't maintain a shared universe. Print is just not as popular as it once was, especially with TV and film being the primary means of entertainment.

3. Consumers come for the characters, but they stay for the stories.

The stories, which are the building blocks of a larger shared universe.

4. Again, ditching the 80+ history wasn't the New 52's failure, being an awful universe with an awful direction and full of awful stories was New 52's failure. Pray DC learned that lesson over anything about continuity.

Again, as I pointed out, it would be foolish to dismiss the fact that, yes, fans were discontented over the fact that DC chucked out many of their favorite characters and stories. Like, social media was abuzz with people asking for Wally West and Stephanie Brown and Cass Cain and for Tim Drake's original origin to be restored.

But those are gonna be my final thoughts on this subject.

[Superfly Frankenstein]

Do like they did in the 90s (I know, I know). You have multiple corners overseen by editors who orchestrated “summits” a few times a year to develop over-encompassing arcs that flowed from title to title. There was never a continuity issue. When you saw in JLA #5 that you had Electric Blue Supes, you could just pick up the triangle Superman comics. An issue of JLA tied into No Mans Land. Huge events happened once a year and usually only lasted a month with a weekly miniseries (Final Night, Genesis, etc) and every title tied into it before going back to their regular stories. The EIC basically just kept everything from falling apart as opposed to making all the decisions that group editors helped facilitate.

Those were good stories.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

To answer the main question of the thread, I think that we need to look at what's working at DC and what's not. Its not like they aren't coming out with good stories at the moment. They are. I just think that certain elements of the management of DC need to ask themselves what's more important: making their fans happy or imposing their own will over the DCU. When an editor tries to shape either the DC or Marvel universe based on his/her own personal biases, its never a good idea and almost always leads to bad stories.

[Tzigone]

2. If fans were as invested in that 80+ history as you say, comics wouldn't be a dying medium.

When did they start dying? Can anyone point to a year-by-year or even decade-by-decade estimates of inflation-adjusted dollars or units sold for comics? It's something I was looking for earlier, but couldn't find.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

I agree that management is the problem at DC, but I'm not sure how far up it goes.

If it's just DiDio and Lee, then they should be replaced, but if Warner and AT&T is also sticking its nose into what DC publishes -- and it seems to be true given how DC canceled reprints that contained racist content like Shazam: Monster Society of Evil and the Detective 1-26 Omnibuses after DC solicited them knowing what they contained -- then the culling of management might have to go all the way up the ladder to the corporate overlords.

Unfortunately, I can't see this happening. Before the Dark Knight movies, Warner left DC alone for the most part, but since they've "noticed" DC in the wake of the trilogy's box office success, they've been in DC's business to its detriment. Warners has always been a notoriously top-heavy company as far as management, and for a long time DC was able to fly under the radar, but no more. Now that Warner values DC as an IP warehouse, protecting the IP comes first, and the comics stories will always come second.

[H-E-D]

In order to better contrast with Marvel, DC should mandate that every character needs to have a cape. Flash? Cape. Green Lantern? Capes for the whole Corp. Aquaman? Cape. Capes for everybody.

[WonderScott]

Reorganize/revitalize how the editorial offices' oversee titles, characters, and supporting and minor characters as well as creative teams. Create editorial "offices" that bucket/associate characters and titles and themes together. Editors employ a head creative lead (kind of like a tv show head writer) for each editorial office that establishes broad creative strokes for the characters and works collaboratively with the writers and artists on individual titles to fulfill the creative vision via stories and concepts that get revamped or newly introduced.

Head creative leads work together across offices for any synchronicities for crossover and event ideas so that they get executed more elegantly and in character, based on the current status quo of characters in their editorial office. They also look to collaborate and capitalize on any great story ideas and beats that capture the zeitgeist. They also look to revamp and reintroduce marginalized characters and concepts and/or introduce new ones and work together when a character gets shared across offices.

Some examples of potential Editorial Offices:

1. Batman
2. Superman
3. Wonder Woman
4. Justice
5. Cosmos
6. Future
7. Evil
8. Magic
9. Spy...

Or whatever creatively needs to get pushed or capitalized on at the time.

Another thing I'd do immediately is give Wonder Woman a fictitious city and then along with Metropolis, build them up to be as interesting and as formidable as Gotham. Gotham stands for and is the backdrop for so many ideas and themes that reflect Batman, but don't need to include Batman as a character in a title to be successful. DC needs to build up Metropolis and Diana's city similarly to kind of triangulate themes and concepts across the DCU. Clark and Diana's cities could also be populated by a lot more existing DCU characters to explore those themes and concepts in titles that fit under Superman or Wonder Woman, but don't necessarily need them to star in the book.

Call me DC!

[Robanker]

Jokes and vitriol aside, we need a regime change. Didio has been in charge too long and I don't feel Lee or Harras after good for management either. I'm not sure who would be, but I think we need a more positive, hopeful approach in charge.

[kjn]

I'm going to try to focus more on actions and policy rather than the individuals involved.

Break down the strict limits on who is allowed, and not allowed, to use a given character. Leaving characters like Donna Troy or Poison Ivy unused is just stupid, if they can be given good roles or stories in other books. I'm not sure a strict use-it-or-lose-it policy is the right way to go, but the editors and writers at DC should work in an atmosphere of a shared communal sandbox, where the job of the editors is more to facilitate their writers than keeping dibs on their characters.

Encourage writers to focus more on shorter story arcs in the floppy runs. They can still revisit themes or plot problems over time, but the discrete stories should generally be shorter (in issue length) and standalone.

The success of books like "Under the Moon" and "Raven" under the (formerly) Ink label points to that DC can gain new readers and critical success, if they are willing to break the teat of the traditional direct market and give the creators the freedom to craft the stories they want to tell using DC's iconic characters.

[Nick Miller]

Uh.....I really think this is incredibly drastic.

and a really dumb idea that doesn’t have a snowballs chamce
In Phoenix of working

[Nick Miller]

40 books a month should be the goal.

Getting readers to buy 25% of your line, wow what a concept.

Isnt 10 books a month reasonable for a fan?

The goal should be to hook readers for a year or 2. The casual fan, forget about them. They will choose 2/80 books and thats an awful hit/miss ratio. And thats for 2/3 months on average. The will not get issue 3 or 4, even if they enjoyed issue 1 and 2 We all know this. Retailers know this! Publishers know this!

I dont care what they do on the digital front, go wild.

[Tzigone]

Encourage writers to focus more on shorter story arcs in the floppy runs. They can still revisit themes or plot problems over time, but the discrete stories should generally be shorter (in issue length) and standalone.

I agree with this. It's hard to maintain momentum on one story over a very long time. It also dissuades casual readers. And, most of all, it's very frustrating for a regular reader who doesn't like a story. Next issue; still the same story. And the one after that and the one after that and the one after that, and then 8 issues later it's time to renew or not, and why bother since you don't like the story and who knows when it'll be done.

[Jackalope89]

In order to better contrast with Marvel, DC should mandate that every character needs to have a cape. Flash? Cape. Green Lantern? Capes for the whole Corp. Aquaman? Cape. Capes for everybody.

Jason Todd says "No." Damian tries to force him anyway.

[H-E-D]

DC editorial needs to step up and stop their writers from putting anti-cape sentiment in the books.

[mikelmcknight72]

Here's what I think Marvel and DC both need to do:

1. Your guiding statement for the vast majority of your heroes should be the following Superman quote from Action Comics 775: "Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us. And on my soul I swear...until my dream of a world where dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share...I'll never stop fighting." These stories, truly modern myths, should inspire us and bring us hope. Don't reflect the real world so much that this gets lost.
2. Anti-heroes are the exception, not the rule.
3. Deconstruction of the idea of a super-hero has been overdone, and it is depressing. Enough already. Like anti-heroes, it should be the exception.
4. Consistent characterization is king. Pick the right character for a story or update the story to suit the character. Never, ever allow a character to be written OOC to suit a story.
5. Don't be a slave to continuity, but don't discard it either.
6. Legacy and experienced heroes have value. Wisdom often comes with age. Don't be afraid to have some of your characters embody that.
7. Don't like a character? Limbo. Don't have a good story idea for a character? Limbo. Killing a character pretty much always results in fewer story possibilities than simply putting them in limbo until someone has a good idea for the character. Similarly, successes like Winter Soldier are few and far between. Characters whose deaths occurred long ago and have become part of the mythology should stay dead unless you are certain you've got a great story. Jor-El and FP Batman, here's looking at you.