What would it take for a new superhero universe to rise and rival DC/Marvel?

[shooshoomanjoe]

Power Rangers say HI. Because I have been to stores where those books sell out way more and more often than any Marvel or DC book.




Then build your empire outside of the bias direct market.

Look at some of the top selling novels, trades and stuff-it's NOT DC or Marvel. It's everyone that the direct market has chased off.

Focus on other markets.

How much money do comic book companies make selling at Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble and Amazon?

[Powerboy]

I think the mistake that every wannabe rival/competitor has made in trying to create a shared super-hero universe has made is that they are trying to create it whole cloth out of the gate, and neither the MU or the DCU were created that way. They developed organically over time and were not created as a whole entity. And I just don't think trying to create something wholecloth is going to work.

There have been other successful shared universes outside superheroes and outside comics and the thing with all of them is they started small and grew larger-Star Wars was a single movie, Trek a single show, Wild Cards and Thieves World were both a single anthology series of short stories at first, etc. etc. They started small, provided a quality product, built an audience, added another product, then another, then grew into a larger sandbox with more products/characters and creators involved. Marvel and DC grew the same way. Trying to do it whole cloth all at once is going to limit your audience and limit the chances of it catching on in a big way, because people are often reluctant to buy into something new if it is too big or too much of a commitment. They might try one story or one book (or film or show, etc.) and if they like it will come back for more and then keep asking for more, but ask them to buy into 5, 10, 12 things at once, and you've created a barrier to entrance, and they won't come the first time let clone come back for more and ask for even more.

So it would take a quality book that captures lightning in a bottle. a book that has room to expand and spin off as it grows its audience, curated by someone who understands how to grow an audience and always leaving them wanting more rather than inundating them with too much and drowning the audience before it has a chance to catch one. It has to be grown organically not birthed monolithicly.

And honestly, there just not a large enough customer base in the current direct market for that to happen, so it would have to target an audience outside the direct market to even have a semblance of a chance to succeed.

-M

Yes, even Marvel itself made that mistake when they created the New Universe in the 1980s. Partly, it was that comic sales had already dropped and they lost most of their budget right before it started. But it was also that they launched it as a shared universe with eight monthly comics. Had they started with just one, whichever they thought was the best one, it might have caught on.

[MyriVerse]

Why does it have to be a superhero universe? Isn't it about time we moved on to other things?

Those other things already exist though.