Fox Family Appreciation 2021

[Frontier]

I'm down for Bendis to share the responsibility.

Double-edged sword .

[Superboy-Prime]

Jace being protected thanks to his dad’s wealth, realizing how crap that is, and trying to redeem himself via using his wealth to make a difference is actually a great origin concept. If he was just another victim of a crime he’d be boring frankly, that’s already covered in the Batfamily (Bruce, Dick, Duke, Babs), as is human weapon (Cass, Damian), fanboy/girl (Tim, Steph), and edgy antihero (Jason). None of the other Batfamily members are motivated by guilt, so Jace stands out. Luke would be a boring choice for the exact reason Ridley presumably went with Jace: he’s too squeaky clean. He’s not flawed enough to be Batman.

That said Second Son was just ok, so it remains to be seen if that sticks or not.

Frankly I haven’t seen anyone except you refuse to read Jace because of his origin. Seriously doubt it plays any role in whether or not someone will accept a black Batman.

My thoughts exactly.

[Lal]

My thoughts exactly.

Well, Jace's main problem is that most readers don't want to read his story. I'm pretty sure DC expected more interest in him.
Their original plan was not to have 2 different Batmen, and it"s clear that they are struggling with how to make it work, and with the cold welcome Jace received so far.
It's hard to make a character Batman if most of your readers chose to ignore him.

I'd prefer Jace's story as self contained as possible. Let people who love Jace read him, and people who love the batfamily read them.

[Aahz]

Frankly I haven’t seen anyone except you refuse to read Jace because of his origin. Seriously doubt it plays any role in whether or not someone will accept a black Batman.

A better origin would have at least helped to win people over.
I mean most people who was indifferent about the idea of Jace as Batman before, will either not really changed his mind, or given up on him because this the series was kind of meh.

I don't think that this series has made many readers really excited for this character, and it may have even done the opposite to some that were excited.
Not necessary because of what happened in the book, but mostly because it is simply not a great series.

[BatsUSA]

Frankly I haven’t seen anyone except you refuse to read Jace because of his origin. Seriously doubt it plays any role in whether or not someone will accept a black Batman.

I have not "refused to read" the Jace Fox stories, in fact I am one of the few who probably read all of them -- hoping it would improve.
And it is not about someone "accepting a black Batman" - it about accepting THIS black Batman - major difference.

Some are interpreting public "indifference" for "acceptance" -- and measuring public by the relatively small, insular comics world.
"Indifference" and "Acceptance" are total opposites.
I have heard those unhappy with the Jace Fox origin. There just aren't a lot interested in the Jace Fox character at all.
I think the larger public is going to care about the Jace Fox origin - if they ever bother to hear about it.

I don't know of a single costumed hero whose basis was killing a person in a hit-and-run, leaving the victim to die in the street. That might seem edgy or creative to very small minority in the comics world. But when you try to sell that to the larger public, it is going down like a lead balloon. It is honestly astounding sometimes to see how little comics community understand the broader public. And for DC, how little they understand an essential business intellectual property like Batman. Imagine DC's business model with no Batman sales.

Today the only significant public interest in a Fox Batman character is Luke Fox as Batwing on television.
There are a lot of people (relatively) interested in Ryan Wilder, Luke Fox, Duke Thomas.
But even that is a very small percent. I can only imagine if you foisted Jace Fox's negative origin on these characters.

As I previously mentioned, 145,000+ Tweets on Batman Day, I found 13 on Jace.

Luke Fox is a much more marketable and positive character as a Batman family character and/or as a future Batman.

[BatsUSA]

How long before the inevitable Jace Batman vs Luke Batwing fight?

I think that would be a smart move by DC, and have Luke win, become the major Batman character in this series. That would allow a path through Luke Fox to salvage the series, and allow it to become part of the Bat-Family and continuity, rather than a form of an 'elseworld," disconnected from the rest of the DC universe. I also think there are opportunities to use other writers to do this important story line. I read John Ridley at Wildstorm, and his focus is more "mini-series" oriented. That may have worked with the Future State mini-series, but clearly there was real trouble once he was given Second Sons.

[Rich Johnston]

It's not a very big sample, but I am Batman wasn't among the 10 best-selling books of the week in Bleeding Cool.
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/x-me...stseller-list/

It still doesn't mean anything about the actual sales in all stores, but together with mediocre digital sales, it doesn't look like the book is a big success so far (and again, take into account that usually sales plunge between issues #1 and #2, and stabilize only after a couple of issues).

If it's not in the top 10, it's not the bestseller anywhere. But remember IAB had a zero issue before, which did place.

[DragonPiece]

Yeah he’s mostly keeping Jace to himself right now, even though it says he’s involved with Fear State he’s really not besides the fact that the magistrate exist. 100% doubt we’d even see him in the same scene with Scarecrow. But that’s probably for the best to just build him up as Batman for now and have all the crossover stuff with Bat-family and the dc universe a little later down the line.

The only thing I could think of is probably Fear State Omega, I don’t have anything to back it up but with Bruce leaving Gotham I feel like that’s when the two of them meet.

Yeah, hopefully someone in the bat fam acknolwedges there is another batman running around in FS omega. I wouldn't be shocked if that factors into why Bruce leaves the city.

[Lal]

If it's not in the top 10, it's not the bestseller anywhere. But remember IAB had a zero issue before, which did place.

True, but issue #1 was the big launching issue with all the different covers and hype, while issue #0 was more about connecting the new series to the previous one.

So if the book fell off the bestselling list already between issue #0 to #1, that's bad news for the book.

[Lal]

Yeah, hopefully someone in the bat fam acknolwedges there is another batman running around in FS omega. I wouldn't be shocked if that factors into why Bruce leaves the city.

Why would Bruce leave the city if there's someone masquerading as Batman?

[MajorHoy]

Why would Bruce leave the city if there's someone masquerading as Batman?

Only if Bruce meets the other Batman and is willing to let him have a go at it (with proper supervision), assuming Bruce learned his lesson after the Jean-Paul Valley mistake.

And if Jace somehow beat the Bat-guano out of Bruce, I doubt Bruce would willingly just give in and let Jace take over.

[Superboy-Prime]

Well, Jace's main problem is that most readers don't want to read his story.

"Most readers" or you?

[Lal]

"Most readers" or you?

No, apparently I was one of the few who acully read his book, but his sales so far seem to reflect a general lack of interest in either him or his story. And If a character claiming the Batman mantle can't sell books, it's hard to believe he'll stay Batman for long.

Luke could have worked as a new Batman, but so far Jace seems more like an imposter than the real thing.

[Superboy-Prime]

No, apparently I was one of the few who acully read his book, but his sales so far seem to reflect a general lack of interest in either him or his story. And If a character claiming the Batman mantle can't sell books, it's hard to believe he'll stay Batman for long.

Luke could have worked as a new Batman, but so far Jace seems more like an imposter than the real thing.

That's funny, because he's selling better than Jon Kent, Nightwing, etc.

[Lal]

That's funny, because he's selling better than Jon Kent, Nightwing, etc.

If he's selling, then there's really no discussion and I'm honestly happy for his fans, but do you have any numbers backing up these claims?

From what I see, Jace's debut issue was in place 32 of the icv best selling list- a very low ranking for a new Batman book. Robin and Batman the detective, for comparison, were amongst the top comichorn 10 most selling books when they debuted, static was in place 14, and superman son of kal el was in place 17, so if these numbers are true, jace had a very bad debut issue.

Of course, we still don't have the comichorn numbers for August, so the book ranking may be higher, and the sales of issue #1 could even be higher (they should have been), but so far it seems that issue #1, despite being the big first issue, didn't make it to the top of the bestsellers of the week.