It's been ten years since New 52. What went wrong?

[HsssH]

Here is the unit sales graph: https://www.comichron.com/vitalstatistics/alltime.html

After Convergence and during DCYou sales dropped to pre-Flashpoint numbers and thats why we got Rebirth.

[superduperman]

I never understood why they needed a "filler" month just to move. The books would already be finished. Seems like the move might have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

[The Darknight Detective]

I never understood why they needed a "filler" month just to move. The books would already be finished. Seems like the move might have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

I guess the idea was to have something special created at the same time as the ongoings tp forestall a hangup with the latter later on during the move. I'm not saying it was the right move (it certainly wasn't sales-wise), but I can understand their logic.

[The Darknight Detective]

Here is the unit sales graph: https://www.comichron.com/vitalstatistics/alltime.html

After Convergence and during DCYou sales dropped to pre-Flashpoint numbers and thats why we got Rebirth.

Yep. It's easily the #1 answer to the OP's question to my mind.

[prepmaster]

Yep. It's easily the #1 answer to the OP's question to my mind.

There were 4 spikes between the nu52 in 2011 and Rebirth in 2016. What do you think were responsible for those 4 spikes?

[Powerboy]

This year marks the ten year anniversary of the New 52 continuity reboot. Now, I know we've been down this road before but I'd be curious to hear what you all think of it and why it didn't work. What could have been done to fix it? What should it have done differently? Was there any way it could have worked? What would you have done differently?

Going back to the original question, if I recall, the New 52 was promoted as simply going back and telling stories in the early days of the Post-Crisis era and was specifically not a reboot. Then, it came out and it clearly was a reboot. At the same time, DC closed down the DC Comics forum and the belief of many was that they did so because they knew it was going to hit the fan. Mind you, those forums, now gone for ten years, were always an unmoderated cluster.

So readers felt they were lied to and that the main forum where they could protest was yanked away intentionally as well.

That certainly made it a littler worse but I'm not sure anything could have helped much.

Obviously, it was far from the first DC reboot. But it was the first official reboot (not counting soft reboots) in the Internet era. In previous eras, when there were reboots, the company controlled the narrative. Only letters they chose got published. But, once there was an Internet, look at the sheer number of people who were around when the Post-Crisis era started who make it clear they hated the reboot to the Post-Crisis era. But they did not have a means of expressing that in a public forum in 1986 when it was happening. If you could go back far enough, there were probably a lot of people who felt the same when the Golden Age stories were relegated to a secondary world and the Silver Age became the main setting.

All of which is by way of saying that every reboot got a significant negative reaction from people who were already the comics on a regular basis. But, by 2011, there was a medium to protest and protest and protest and protest. I suspect that, had such a medium existed in the 1980s, DC would have started backtracking and dismissed Post-Crisis as an Imaginary Tale/ Elseworlds.

I cannot speak for anyone else but, in 1986, I thought the idea of the Post-Crisis era was a great idea. It was something new. I started reading DC again. It was designed to bring in new readers and temporarily boost sales. By 2011, the Nu era was just another Elseworlds to me because they had done so many soft reboots that reboots felt like something that was happening all the time.

In that respect, the 2011 reboot was dead in the water before it even started. This is especially true when the previous era actually had character development and things changing instead of the same old story over and over. Superman was married. He had a child. It's again to the Spiderman lose the marriage fiasco. Instead of moving forward, let's just rehash the past. I think the main problem of that particular reboot was the previous version that had grown so rich in story-telling and characterization only to dump it all.

[The Darknight Detective]

There were 4 spikes between the nu52 in 2011 and Rebirth in 2016. What do you think were responsible for those 4 spikes?

The first one was obviously the birth of the New 52. The second was Villains Month. Third was Futures End. Last was Convergence, which did boost sales unquestionably, but only temporarily and at a cost.

[superduperman]

Going back to the original question, if I recall, the New 52 was promoted as simply going back and telling stories in the early days of the Post-Crisis era and was specifically not a reboot. Then, it came out and it clearly was a reboot. At the same time, DC closed down the DC Comics forum and the belief of many was that they did so because they knew it was going to hit the fan. Mind you, those forums, now gone for ten years, were always an unmoderated cluster.

So readers felt they were lied to and that the main forum where they could protest was yanked away intentionally as well.

That certainly made it a littler worse but I'm not sure anything could have helped much.

Obviously, it was far from the first DC reboot. But it was the first official reboot (not counting soft reboots) in the Internet era. In previous eras, when there were reboots, the company controlled the narrative. Only letters they chose got published. But, once there was an Internet, look at the sheer number of people who were around when the Post-Crisis era started who make it clear they hated the reboot to the Post-Crisis era. But they did not have a means of expressing that in a public forum in 1986 when it was happening. If you could go back far enough, there were probably a lot of people who felt the same when the Golden Age stories were relegated to a secondary world and the Silver Age became the main setting.

All of which is by way of saying that every reboot got a significant negative reaction from people who were already the comics on a regular basis. But, by 2011, there was a medium to protest and protest and protest and protest. I suspect that, had such a medium existed in the 1980s, DC would have started backtracking and dismissed Post-Crisis as an Imaginary Tale/ Elseworlds.

I cannot speak for anyone else but, in 1986, I thought the idea of the Post-Crisis era was a great idea. It was something new. I started reading DC again. It was designed to bring in new readers and temporarily boost sales. By 2011, the Nu era was just another Elseworlds to me because they had done so many soft reboots that reboots felt like something that was happening all the time.

In that respect, the 2011 reboot was dead in the water before it even started. This is especially true when the previous era actually had character development and things changing instead of the same old story over and over. Superman was married. He had a child. It's again to the Spiderman lose the marriage fiasco. Instead of moving forward, let's just rehash the past. I think the main problem of that particular reboot was the previous version that had grown so rich in story-telling and characterization only to dump it all.

DC has a history of straight up lying about it's reboots. They did the same thing with Birthright back in 2003. It was sold as telling "the early adventures" of Superman. No, turns out it was a hard reboot in an attempt to milk Smallville. I think this is the main reason they have lost credibility with the fans. They won't shoot straight with us about things. As for the post-Crisis model, as much as I have my issues with it, even I can't pretend that DC would have lasted much longer had they not done something like it. Two years prior they were talking with Marvel about having them publish their comics for them. That's how bad the sales were. Most titles were into cancellation numbers. I don't know if a hard reboot was necessary, but let's be honest, it was the most effective way to turn things around. I don't know if, at that point, just telling better stories would have been enough.

[Robanker]

I think its reactionary approach to a lot of things may have burned readers, I know it did that to me. It took a lot of what came before and shouted in bold print "not that!"

Not just relationships, but motivations too. Everyone was different and didn't resemble a lot of the characters you loved. Sometimes it helped (Aquaman) but a lot of times it really didn't.

Add to that creators bailing over what appeared to be BS office politics and a ship with no captain, you've got little reason to think the stuff you like is going to keep moving forward and the stuff you don't is going to get corrected.

I was already struggling with their current output but wasn't quite ready for a reboot. I was a much bigger Batman fan than Superman fan then but I remember the marriage dissolving really bothered me then too. I was worried about Nightwing. Zatanna and Power Girl lost their books. No JSA in sight. It felt very much like DC didn't want me as a reader and with my personal life being in a state of flux (we lost a family member and were in the process of finding a new home), it all seemed like a good reason to leave.

A lot of the rumblings when I visited jumping back in were generally negative and all the good stuff always came with an asterisk that made me not want to bother.

It took Rebirth to make me look again and my girlfriend getting into comics to get my foot back in the LCS doors.

So if I had to guess, in short, New 52 and the way it was managed accelerated the turn-and-burn rate of reader retention along with not really lining up with cultural perception of who those characters were which may push people on the fence about getting into the hobby.

[Powerboy]

DC has a history of straight up lying about it's reboots. They did the same thing with Birthright back in 2003. It was sold as telling "the early adventures" of Superman. No, turns out it was a hard reboot in an attempt to milk Smallville. I think this is the main reason they have lost credibility with the fans. They won't shoot straight with us about things. As for the post-Crisis model, as much as I have my issues with it, even I can't pretend that DC would have lasted much longer had they not done something like it. Two years prior they were talking with Marvel about having them publish their comics for them. That's how bad the sales were. Most titles were into cancellation numbers. I don't know if a hard reboot was necessary, but let's be honest, it was the most effective way to turn things around. I don't know if, at that point, just telling better stories would have been enough.

I would have to agree. In the 1970s, I had drifted away from DC because it wasn't of interest to my age group anymore while Marvel was adapting. When "Superman" (1978) came out, I bought a Superman comic, deciding I would give DC another chance. But the comic I bought was pure Silver Age. When the Crisis came out, I started reading the buildup to it. I remember the Justice League was fantastic at the time and then the Post-Crisis version started and was a piece of c**p, a standup comedy routine. But the Crisis got me reading DC again and realizing they had gotten better although it was not really getting better but simply adapting to an older age group.

For whatever reasons, I stopped buying Marvel long ago. What killed DC for me was not a reboot in 1986 and another 25 years later. It was that DC gives the feeling that they are constantly rebooting. Your Birthright example works and "Shazam the New Beginning" getting thrown out for "Power of Shazam". Now, I liked both Birthright and PoS but things like that and many others give the feeling that DC is constantly rebooting their continuity.

I tend to read stuff like Superman Smashes the Klan, the Frank Miller origin, and the Batman 66' stuff that is, by definition, it's own continuity. But it's hard to invest into a story that is supposed to be in continuity and will have repercussions only to have it declared to have not happened, sometimes from writer to writer.

[The Darknight Detective]

DC has a history of straight up lying about it's reboots.

Going all the way to COIE when DC was peddling their "the Multiverse is too complicated" silliness. I know it was easier to publicly state than the financial reasons for it, but still...

[The Darknight Detective]

I would have to agree. In the 1970s, I had drifted away from DC because it wasn't of interest to my age group anymore while Marvel was adapting. When "Superman" (1978) came out, I bought a Superman comic, deciding I would give DC another chance. But the comic I bought was pure Silver Age.

I was reading Superman avidly at that same time, yet I don't recall the stories being SA-like.

[kcekada]

The biggest reason new 52 failed, in my opinion, was it was too much being introduced under strict editorial control. In the post Crisis era, there wasn't one editor like Didio who was controlling everything. Individual editors had much more control -- as did the creative teams.

Also, there just wasn't enough talent available to successfully launch all of those series.

Some of the series were creative disaster from day one -- like the Titans books.

[Sacred Knight]

Oh, you hate Jon so much. Can you give me the reasons?

I've certainly gone off on this more than once, but I don't want to just blow you off or anything so I'll just be quick about it and not say much more, but its only for the sake of not derailing the thread, not trying to be rude by any means.

1. Getting it out of the way because it was an initial factor: I liked the New 52 Superman's status quo. Him dying and being replaced angered me a lot at the time so I held it against what replaced it, and that of course included Jon. That, in of itself, was not a fault of the character, but personal emotion and bias.

2. To the stuff I find innate to the character and not just bias: he didn't fit in the continuity. They specifically brought back the post-Crisis Superman, but when they merged him back into current continuity instead of the "stranger in a strange land" concept, the 10 year old kid angle no longer fit. It was a major retcon into the established history rather than an organic addition. It makes an already fundamentally broken history even more so.

3. To me he's barely a character. From the beginning his biggest character trait was simply riding off being Superman's kid. Personality generic, history flawed, pushed as the "possibly greater than Superman himself" trope. This all became amplified when he was aged up in order to actually become Superman. Since then there's been even more just riffing off the father, and stealing his own concepts to boot instead of forging a unique path.

[godisawesome]

The biggest reason new 52 failed, in my opinion, was it was too much being introduced under strict editorial control. In the post Crisis era, there wasn't one editor like Didio who was controlling everything. Individual editors had much more control -- as did the creative teams.

Also, there just wasn't enough talent available to successfully launch all of those series.

Some of the series were creative disaster from day one -- like the Titans books.

There *was* more than one editor, and Didio was not wholly responsible for issues the films suffered... but I think editorial definitely wound up letting people down.

Perez couldn’t get anyone to tell him what the boundaries were of Superman in the modern era, the Batwoman team got the go-ahead for the marriage from their editor before Didio interfered, and and sometimes it feels like some of the breakdowns between different creative teams were caused by editors even sometimes being *too* hands off - like how Deathstroke and Wonder Woman both saw fairly successful first runs in the New 52 get effectively erased by the next creators.