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

[bat39]

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.

You might have a point there.

I remember reading this interview by the late Dennis O'Neil a while back where he's talking about getting Frank Miller on board after COIE to do Year One. Miller was initially apprehensive about working with ''mainstream'' DC canon and not having the creative freedom he had with DKR. To which O'Neil was able to assure him that thanks to COIE, Miller had complete freedom to redefine Batman however he wanted.

I can't imagine any group editor circa 2011 being able to give the same assurance to anyone!

[superduperman]

You might have a point there.

I remember reading this interview by the late Neal Adams a while back where he's talking about getting Frank Miller on board after COIE to do Year One. Miller was initially apprehensive about working with ''mainstream'' DC canon and not having the creative freedom he had with DKR. To which Adams was able to assure him that thanks to COIE, Miller had complete freedom to redefine Batman however he wanted.

I can't imagine any group editor circa 2011 being able to give the same assurance to anyone!

Did Neal Adams die?

[seismic-2]

Did Neal Adams die?

Not according to Wikipedia, at least, and people are usually in a race to update it whenever someone does in fact die.

[Eto]

It boils down to alienating the fans, both the new ones and the older ones.

[mr_crisp]

Poor integration of the Wildstorm characters. DC should have sprinkled them throughout and treated them as if they were always part of the DC world since all past continuity was gone.

[BlackClaw]

Poor integration of the Wildstorm characters. DC should have sprinkled them throughout and treated them as if they were always part of the DC world since all past continuity was gone.

Adding on to that, there was Static’s disastrous new 52 title. Not helping matters was that the head writer had no experience with writing prior to Static and even bossed around the co writer who actually worked at Milestone!

[Cat]

Adding on to that, there was Static’s disastrous new 52 title. Not helping matters was that the head writer had no experience with writing prior to Static and even bossed around the co writer who actually worked at Milestone!

The problem was the artist, Scott McDaniel, who overstepped his boundaries, and basically went behind the writer's back and gave himself the job, and the editor just went along with it.

It was a big thing back in the day. Bleeding Cool in particular covered it extensively. Just google Scott McDaniel Static New 52 and you'll get results, look at the Bleeding Cool articles that pop up.

[BohemiaDrinker]

There are many things very wrong with the new52, and a few that were very, very right.

However, at the end of the day, the guy running it had a particular vision of what the DCU should be, and that vision excluded more customers from it than it included, in hopes of bringing a new, larger fanbase.

All the mistakes were actually pretty fixable if it wasn't the "us VS them" mentality DC had with it's own audience.

[HsssH]

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.

While it wasn't sold like that I now think that maybe part of it was preparing for DCYou phase as well that launched once Convergence ended. Kinda how now we had Future State and Infinite Frontier followed it. Good thing I guess is that Future State and Infinite Frontier (at least so far) was better received than Convergence and DCYou.

[bat39]

Did Neal Adams die?

Oh damn!

I meant Dennis O'Neil. I often conflate them in my mind

Sorry!

[superduperman]

Oh damn!

I meant Dennis O'Neil. I often conflate them in my mind

Sorry!

Okay, that makes a little more sense. I thought that's who you meant.

[godisawesome]

There are many things very wrong with the new52, and a few that were very, very right.

However, at the end of the day, the guy running it had a particular vision of what the DCU should be, and that vision excluded more customers from it than it included, in hopes of bringing a new, larger fanbase.

All the mistakes were actually pretty fixable if it wasn't the "us VS them" mentality DC had with it's own audience.

Yeah, looking back, the overall quality of most books was pretty good to great for about the first six months or so, in spite fo the lack of planning and more than a few stumbles... until DC’s editorial board started repeating numerous “unforced errors” as they had even before the New 52. I was even still supporting all of Scott Lobdell’s books at the time, since he seemed somewhat more able to handle non-Red Hood affiliated properties at the time.

The issue came when DC’s editorial started acting like it could dictate audience reception for the long term again, and began valuing editorial edicts of dubious merit over the input of their writers actual skill. Lobdell, again, supplies a good example of this because he was so onboard with the strategy; his books became overincumbered with bloated crossover events, spin-off goals, editorial mandates, and a general sloppiness in cast composition and plot that both clearly hailed from editorial desires and exposed his weaknesses as writer (especially his Teen Titans and Superman books.) At the same time, this is when people started being aware of the issues with talent that editorial was having, driving away some big names and up and comers, and crashing a few books like Batwoman in what was clearly a bit of unintentional self-sabotage. I think people hung on more out of habit and loyalty than enjoyment for a while.

And I think it was a fairly thin veneer holding editorial’s belief in their success together - Convergence and DCYou likely splintered support more by forcing readers to take a break, at which point all the little issues that had accumulated got enough time to ferment and ripen into genuine discontent and (worse) disinterest.

Then, Rebirth suffered the same issues - editorial eventually got back into bad habits of trying to tell readers what “should” interest them even after what had clearly been a play to cater to reader complaints, and eventually torpedoed the returning good will - though I’d say some things, like “Ric” Grayson and Heroes in Crisis, make it feel a little bit more willfully defiant of reader desires, like Didio and others were going to sacrifice whatever they could to convince people that the first Titan character were liabilities.

[Digifiend]

- Few people are all that scared by deep continuity, as long as it actually, y'know, exists. Before the Crisis, DC's continuity wasn't particularly daunting. It was deep, and had some silly stuff in the past that could probably be ignored (looking at you, Wonder Tot),

Wonder Tot can definitely be ignored. In fact, she was basically non-canon as soon as Teen Titans started, due to Wonder Girl being retconned as a separate character.

[The Darknight Detective]

Wonder Tot can definitely be ignored. In fact, she was basically non-canon as soon as Teen Titans started, due to Wonder Girl being retconned as a separate character.

Yeah, by the time I was reading comics in the '70s, I don't recall Wonder Tot ever being mentioned in a story.

[titanfan]

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?

The existing market didn't want it.

Which is fine, but it didn't do enough to reach new readers and when they did, the quality wasn't good enough.