At this point, "New 52" isn't that bad at all.

[godisawesome]

Less good books, zero vision asides of vague "we gotta push those 5G characters, somehow" and now we are pretty much not even pretending that there is such thing as "continuity".

I think a sad fact of the matter is that a lot of those problems might still be aftershocks of Didio's administration style, the same issues that crept up before the New 52 and then during it.

Good books and continuity depend on good writing stables and consistency from editorial, even during the bets parts of the New 52, Didio and co. tended to arbitrarily decree something that contradicted even the brand new stuff or aggravated and ran off established and consistent writers as well as burgeoning new ones. And part of the annoyance of 5G is that Didio himself was known to loathe 90% of all legacy characters before then, but then wanted a massive deployment of mostly new ones for the blatant money grab of a special event and diversity, but without a commitment to it.

One of the things that handicapped the New 52's concerted effort towards diversity was Didio's blatant and biased view of it strictly from a shallow marketing perspective; you just had to wait long enough to see editorial screw up strong starts.

Batwing was treated as an interchangeable black hero between the two holders of the identity even though the two characters were radically different. They brought back a Blue Beetle book with Jaime and Static shock with a Milestone writer, but didn't manage the writing staff well and then exiled them into limbo when they "failed" them. They had a Batwoman book that was setting the world on fire, but then waltzed in and cancelled a wedding they'd already approved, driving off the creative team because they couldn't grasp the full context in which the book was successful. They let Scott Lobdell and Judd Winnick start off massively on the wrong foot with Starfire and Catwoman, then kept employing Lobdell after he became problematic, though not as problematic as a walking liability like Eddie Berganza. They tried rebooting Wally as a black teenager, only to go racist in their stereotyping. And of course, Didio's grudge against Cassandra Cain kept her off the field when there was no good reason to.

[HsssH]

So how long this aftershock is going to last? Till we are all dead?

[NathanS]

Rebuilding a team of writers depends on rebuilding a team of editors, both of which take time and money. And once you get those editors in figuring out what you want your vision to be also takes time, getting continuity to a working place will take time to get everyone on the same page. How much is impossible to say. And there's the added rub that comics are no longer likely to be seen as an end product in and of themselves. And rebuilding is likely to come with some amount of directive from up above with an eye towards cultivating things that can be used to push more profitable products.

Like... Spider-Man having a bunch of Spider-people likely is very good for other products. You can get new market segments to more thoroughly emotionally engage with the already well-known and proven Spider-Man product line. You have lots of possible media spin-offs and lots of merchandise. But comic books can't sustain all of them so it's left scrambling to figure out what to do with them all.

[godisawesome]

So how long this aftershock is going to last? Till we are all dead?

Rebuilding a team of writers depends on rebuilding a team of editors, both of which take time and money. And once you get those editors in figuring out what you want your vision to be also takes time, getting continuity to a working place will take time to get everyone on the same page. How much is impossible to say. And there's the added rub that comics are no longer likely to be seen as an end product in and of themselves. And rebuilding is likely to come with some amount of directive from up above with an eye towards cultivating things that can be used to push more profitable products.

Like... Spider-Man having a bunch of Spider-people likely is very good for other products. You can get new market segments to more thoroughly emotionally engage with the already well-known and proven Spider-Man product line. You have lots of possible media spin-offs and lots of merchandise. But comic books can't sustain all of them so it's left scrambling to figure out what to do with them all.

Yeah, we can't really determine how long it will take DC to get its administration and writing stables up to maximum health again - and especially since its a niche market, you can't guarantee you'll hold on to anyone long enough if they start displaying skills a parent company will want working on something more mainstream, like a TV show.

And part of the reason the Batbooks weathered Didio's tenure better than most while the Superman books seemed to handle it worse is because group editors can carve out little fiefdoms of either collaborative quality or toxic workplace.

A lot of this just kind of requires someone like Julie Schwartz or Jeanette Khan, and those types of executives don't grow on trees.

[Dataweaver]

I'm waiting for them to get their editorial and writing teams up to minimum health.

[Restingvoice]

Less good books, zero vision asides of vague "we gotta push those 5G characters, somehow" and now we are pretty much not even pretending that there is such thing as "continuity".

What kind of vision we're talking about? Because I don't really see a difference between that one vision and what they have 5-10 years ago. (New 52 had "bold and new", Rebirth had "bringing everything into recognizable basic and bring back what's missing in New 52" and while admittedly it sounds strong, it's also more of a fixing past mistakes than achieving something new)