Thoughts on the current Batfamily line? Things you like? Things you’d change?

[godisawesome]

Post-Crisis was the hottest, messiest Mess! That Did Not Work. (Other than being a cash cow for DC.)



I'm leaving those old stories on another Earth. The only pressure on the writer is to tell new, good stories.



Yep; DC half-rebooted some of the Bat-family...and it didn't work. Quelle surprise.



Attention Readers: be patient.

DC's made the multi-verse a truly hot mess with half-arsed reboots.

Maybe the next half-arsed reboot will make everything better.

We’re approaching this from opposite arenas; to me, the fact that Post-Crisis’s *longest-lasting successes* by the time Flashpoint rolled around were the properties that were the least rebooted means the problem isn’t the stuff that wasn’t rebooted - it was the reboot itself, in the way it was implemented and enforced. Flash, Green Lantern, Batman and others excelled because they could keep momentum and changes from the Pre-Crisis era, and were flexible enough to make some changes, but ignore changes or lore that weren’t working out... whether they came from before COIE or after.

Post-Crisis *DID* work... for those franchises that got a flexible approach to their continuity attached to marketing.

Meanwhile, the fact that the New 52 tried harder reboots on Flash and on the Batfamily and that failed shows that ordering a hard reboot is going to fail - long lasting continuity changes are really just people liking new stories, which depend more on having good creators and marketing than it does on erasing contrite and forbidding it’s usage.

Don’t dump good in pursuit of perfect... particularly in a niche marketplace trying to become mainstream again.

[scary harpy]

We’re approaching this from opposite arenas; to me, the fact that Post-Crisis’s *longest-lasting successes* by the time Flashpoint rolled around were the properties that were the least rebooted means the problem isn’t the stuff that wasn’t rebooted - it was the reboot itself, in the way it was implemented and enforced. Flash, Green Lantern, Batman and others excelled because they could keep momentum and changes from the Pre-Crisis era, and were flexible enough to make some changes, but ignore changes or lore that weren’t working out... whether they came from before COIE or after.

Post-Crisis *DID* work... for those franchises that got a flexible approach to their continuity attached to marketing.

Meanwhile, the fact that the New 52 tried harder reboots on Flash and on the Batfamily and that failed shows that ordering a hard reboot is going to fail - long lasting continuity changes are really just people liking new stories, which depend more on having good creators and marketing than it does on erasing contrite and forbidding it’s usage.

Don’t dump good in pursuit of perfect... particularly in a niche marketplace trying to become mainstream again.

We are approaching this from opposite arenas.

Yes, I agree the problem was the reboot itself.

Before COIE, DC had never implemented a line-wide restart of it's comics...and this inexperience quickly showed. The COIE story was great...but the aftermath was chaos! I don't know what the management was trying to enforce...but it wasn't an organized vision.

What you view as the exceptions are what I view as the problems: don't restart this character at Year 1 and that character at Year 5 and erase the other character entirely! No one will be able to figure out what happened and what didn't...including management apparently.

I read COIE when it first came out; then, I read every follow-up crisis since. (yep, i'm that old.) What has always impressed with each event is the complete breakdown afterwards. In other words, DC plans for the cash grab but not the ramifications of these decisions for the next decade.

I conclude that half-assed reboots don't work because that's all I seen: half-assed reboots and the decade(s) of hot messes afterwards.

I have never seen a hard reboot of everything and I don't know if it will succeed...but I doubt it could fail any worse than what we've had for the past 30 years.

[regg215]

While the batbooks aren't terrible I have to say that I massively enjoy the out of continuity stuff a lot more than the in continuity stuff now. I loved King's run (but also understand why people didn't like it/hated it) but right now all of the books just seem directionless with the exception of batman and the outsiders which I have enjoyed.

If I was in charge I would do this:

Batman- Please have tynion go away, he just is not a good writer, his books are just pale imitations of better written previous books and he has written bat family and batman related comics for a long time now and not a single issue he has written has really stood out. I would get priest to write the main book, his deathstroke run was the best comic dc has had in a long time. Pairing Priest with a well known batman artist like mahnke would be what I would do.

Detective comics- I would have the focus of tec be just street level crime, batman handling murder cases etc, take the approach that A conan doyle did with sherlock stories, short 2-3 issue arcs. Have rotating creative teams, which would allow for legendary creators to have a short run and could also provide less experienced or up and coming professionals to get a shot to write batman and then if one really lands then maybe they get a shot at their own batman mini series or something.

Batman and the outsiders- Keep the book as is

Robins- They can't seem to get any of the robin characters correctly but a team up book with Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Damian and Duke would work well in my opinion. Give them a large conspiracy plot to unravel a court of owls type enemy that they have to take down, you could showcase the different personalities of the characters. I would get someone like Tom Taylor to handle the book and if possible get someone like yildray cinar on art.

Batgirl- Have it be clear that Jim Gordon knows babs is batgirl and have the book be a team up series between the two. Would be great to explore that relationship in depth and could lead to some great stories about the nature of vigilantism and policing. Would get someone like Tomasi write it and get joelle jones on art.

Gotham City Sirens book- Catwoman, Harley, Ivy team up book, have batwoman show up as a guest star in the book along with characters like Renee Montoya. - If he would write it get dini and gillem march on art.

[Godlike13]

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/mair...iting-batgirl/

I thought this was rather interesting, and rather indicative of how the current Bat office is being run. Percy got out too for similar reasons I believe.

[Zaresh]

Yeah, that's a reciple for a disaster. Way to gain bad press between the creative workforce that is going to make money for you in the future. In the end, sooner or later, these sorts of things are always going to leak. If not because you genuinely hold and do good practices in your company, properly supporting your talent no matter their gender, race or whatever, do it for self-centered, self-preserving reasons, at least.

Some poor leadership skills here, too. Not making the team participate.

[Wingin' It]

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/mair...iting-batgirl/

I thought this was rather interesting, and rather indicative of how the current Bat office is being run. Percy got out too for similar reasons I believe.

A while back, Devin Grayson did an interview with The Batman Universe where she discussed among other things the shift in DC's editorial culture that she experienced while freelancing. See:

"TBU: You’ve done interviews where you’ve alluded to the editorial interference on your Nightwing run. Gail Simone has mentioned on message boards that it runs deeper than most fans realize. We’re aware of “War Games” and “Year One” messing up your pacing, but what other types of editorial interference were you both referring to?

Devin Grayson: I had a great editor who was totally in sync with me, but the bottom line is that the entire culture of the company was changing. It was a major paradigm shift. One of the effects was that the chain of editorial accountability became very muddied and unstable; there was literally no way to get anything approved or cleared in advanced. I went from nearly ten years of rarely being asked to rewrite a single line to months of never receiving fewer than six complete rewrites on every script—not because the quality of the scripts had suddenly changed but because something in the fictional universe had shifted and needed to be accounted for. DC went from a model of group editors pre-approving story arcs to upper management micro-editing finished scripts. It’s just a different way of running things, and maybe it feels normal to the people who came in after the seismic shifts had settled. But being in the middle of that shift while it was happening was pretty rough. It was ultimately not a culture I did well in."

This sort of culture of disjointed, stifling and damaging editorial interference has been going on for a long time at DC. I am glad more creators are speaking out; maybe if DC realizes that their creative pool is going to shrink when people learn how awful they are to work for, we might see some actual change. Though that's probably just the optimist in me.

[godisawesome]

A while back, Devin Grayson did an interview with The Batman Universe where she discussed among other things the shift in DC's editorial culture that she experienced while freelancing. See:

"TBU: You’ve done interviews where you’ve alluded to the editorial interference on your Nightwing run. Gail Simone has mentioned on message boards that it runs deeper than most fans realize. We’re aware of “War Games” and “Year One” messing up your pacing, but what other types of editorial interference were you both referring to?

Devin Grayson: I had a great editor who was totally in sync with me, but the bottom line is that the entire culture of the company was changing. It was a major paradigm shift. One of the effects was that the chain of editorial accountability became very muddied and unstable; there was literally no way to get anything approved or cleared in advanced. I went from nearly ten years of rarely being asked to rewrite a single line to months of never receiving fewer than six complete rewrites on every script—not because the quality of the scripts had suddenly changed but because something in the fictional universe had shifted and needed to be accounted for. DC went from a model of group editors pre-approving story arcs to upper management micro-editing finished scripts. It’s just a different way of running things, and maybe it feels normal to the people who came in after the seismic shifts had settled. But being in the middle of that shift while it was happening was pretty rough. It was ultimately not a culture I did well in."

This sort of culture of disjointed, stifling and damaging editorial interference has been going on for a long time at DC. I am glad more creators are speaking out; maybe if DC realizes that their creative pool is going to shrink when people learn how awful they are to work for, we might see some actual change. Though that's probably just the optimist in me.

Yeah, that sounds like a perfect description fo the issues of micro-management under Didio’s run.

It also feels like a situation that simply won’t help up-and-coming writers unless they have some patron above them or another.

[Swallowtail]

Yeah, that sounds like a perfect description fo the issues of micro-management under Didio’s run.

It also feels like a situation that simply won’t help up-and-coming writers unless they have some patron above them or another.

There was a year at the start of Rebirth where things seemed quite stable. The same writers were doing the same runs for 12 months. Nothing got cancelled. There weren’t a lot of events. Only the death of Tim and the parking of Wally seemed editorially mandated. But it changed fast when Nelson and then Johns left. Immediately we were back to writers being pulled off titles, petty editorial changes like return of the Hush batsuit and inexplicable editorial edicts like Ric Grayson.

Look at Green Arrow. Benson sisters are announced as the new permenant writers, run is taken over by events, then unceremoniously pulled off after 5 issues. Jackson and Kelly are taken on, set up characters for a longish run, book is cancelled in three issues.

I felt so sorry for Scott at the time. She was clearly building up James Jr as one of the big bad s of her run, and Just as clearly no one had bothered to tell her that Snyder was about to reform him in Batman who Laughs and he wouldn’t be available.

[Aahz]

There really needs to be more long term planning and a better coordination between the books.

Maybe they they should reduce the number of writers and have one writer handle multiple books.

[Frontier]

There really needs to be more long term planning and a better coordination between the books.

Maybe they they should reduce the number of writers and have one writer handle multiple books.

Well, it worked during the Chuck Dixon era...but I think one thing that would probably improve things is doing stuff like actually inviting one of the writers for your titles so they don't learn that they weren't invited to a meeting relevant to their title from a secondhand source.

[skyvolt2000]

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/mair...iting-batgirl/

I thought this was rather interesting, and rather indicative of how the current Bat office is being run. Percy got out too for similar reasons I believe.

Don't forget what Burnside Batgirl team dealt with that lead them to leaving for Image.

[lemonpeace]

Well, it worked during the Chuck Dixon era...but I think one thing that would probably improve things is doing stuff like actually inviting one of the writers for your titles so they don't learn that they weren't invited to a meeting relevant to their title from a secondhand source.

the fact that this isn't already the case is pretty horrifying but completely expected for DC.

[Frontier]

the fact that this isn't already the case is pretty horrifying but completely expected for DC.

Editorial mismanagement is not a DC-only problem. The Big Two could both be much better about it.

[Restingvoice]

Don't forget what Burnside Batgirl team dealt with that lead them to leaving for Image.

Why? What happened?

There really needs to be more long term planning and a better coordination between the books.

Maybe they they should reduce the number of writers and have one writer handle multiple books.

Well, it worked during the Chuck Dixon era...but I think one thing that would probably improve things is doing stuff like actually inviting one of the writers for your titles so they don't learn that they weren't invited to a meeting relevant to their title from a secondhand source.

I was going to wonder what happens if Snyder does the Chuck Dixon thing but then I remember they already did it and the result is Batman Eternal. Not in writing sense since they have multiple writers, but in plotting. Like that's the kind of plot you'll get if Snyder is managing Bat-family titles.

[godisawesome]

Why? What happened?

I was going to wonder what happens if Snyder does the Chuck Dixon thing but then I remember they already did it and the result is Batman Eternal. Not in writing sense since they have multiple writers, but in plotting. Like that's the kind of plot you'll get if Snyder is managing Bat-family titles.

Having re-read Batman Eternal, I feel it actually only suffered two problems - attempting to tell one long story over a year that didn’t as well as some of the subplots in comparison, and struggling a bit at getting Harper over while reintroducing Steph and Cass. The Jason Bard story, Catwoman’s becoming Queenpin, Gordon being sent to prison, stuff like that actually works as good hooks and subplot that could be undone later but we’re still interesting in the short term. Eternal started grinding to a halt once they tried moving more towards their ending.

B&R: Eternal was arguably worse because they tried removing the “filler” of subplots... which meant they just had filler in the main plot.