DC Announces Death of the Justice League

[TheKryptonMan]

I think people kind of overhype the public domain thing.

You know you make a really good point about the public domain. I mean do we really want just some guy writing Batman or Superman or Spider-Man for that matter ?
If DC loses the rights to the characters, I rather that it goes to another good publisher exclusively. And have a proper creative team write the stories .

[TheKryptonMan]

Was there actually a time that it would actually happen? Maybe before Adam West, but certainly not on a permanent basis after the TV show.

Yeah I think before Adam West , Batman could have become someone other than Bruce long term.
But now after all the success of all the movies and other media, I don't see anyone being Batman other than Bruce.
Well the only exception that fans will accept is Dick Grayson as Batman , he's done it 2 times and sales are still good .

[Superboy-Prime]

Mr. Superman: Son of Kal-EL, other annuals did better and did not have the hype the character got.

Mr. Goldrake, I do believe you're moving the goalpost. It was in the Top 50.

Yeah I think before Adam West , Batman could have become someone other than Bruce long term.
But now after all the success of all the movies and other media, I don't see anyone being Batman other than Bruce.
Well the only exception that fans will accept is Dick Grayson as Batman , he's done it 2 times and sales are still good .

No one's accepting anyone as the permanent Batman of Gotham other than Bruce. I mean, I read Dick as Batman, yeah, but... Besides the person's name under the cowl being Dick (Why let people call you that?) is there anything really interesting about it? There's Damian, I guess, but he's off doing his own thing now.

[Goldrake]

Mr. Goldrake, I do believe you're moving the goalpost. It was in the Top 50.

Mr Kal EL, So other annuals and by far, and the drop from 6 to 45 is significant.

[The Darknight Detective]

Yeah I think before Adam West , Batman could have become someone other than Bruce long term.
But now after all the success of all the movies and other media, I don't see anyone being Batman other than Bruce.
Well the only exception that fans will accept is Dick Grayson as Batman , he's done it 2 times and sales are still good .

But how good would those sales be if Bruce were really gone for good instead of taking a vacation? I suspect Batman would always sell, but I doubt he would be nearly as popular with someone else in his place as a permanent replacement.

[Superboy-Prime]

But how good would those sales be if Bruce were really gone for good instead of taking a vacation? I suspect Batman would always sell, but I doubt he would be nearly as popular with someone else in his place as a permanent replacement.

Bruce Wayne has had 80 years of traction as Batman, I really don't think comparisons with his successors that don't necessarily have the same outside exposure with adaptations and the like is really fair. Same with Clark Kent.

Diana... I can't remember the last time I read a Wonder Woman comic. Probably when my wife's son she had with her boyfriend was born about 40 years ago.

[The Darknight Detective]

Bruce Wayne has had 80 years of traction as Batman, I really don't think comparisons with his successors that don't necessarily have the same outside exposure with adaptations and the like is really fair. Same with Clark Kent.

That's my point. It's that history and exposure that makes it virtually impossible for anybody else to replace Bruce (or Clark). Now if Dick has become the new Batman in 1964? That might have been doable.

[Superboy-Prime]

That's my point. It's that history and exposure that makes it virtually impossible for anybody else to replace Bruce (or Clark). Now if Dick has become the new Batman in 1964? That might have been doable.

I think "replace" is going too far. Barry couldn't even permanently replace Jay. "Coexist"? That's doable. Not for Superboy, though, Conner was getting rightfully shelved for years.

[superduperman]

Regarding the public domain....I've talked about it a bit lately too, but we are really ahead of the curve here; Action #1 doesn't hit the domain for another....eleven?....years, and that's assuming Disney and WB don't successfully lobby for another extension.

Steamboat Willie will enter public domain in 2024 under current law, so any action corporations take to protect their copyright will happen before that.

Whether the attempt will be successful is another matter. The safe bet, of course, is that politicians line their pockets with Mouse money and extend the law. But there's a few points that make this *slightly* less of a foregone conclusion; public opinion, greater awareness of how copyright law has been changed to benefit the rich elite, and there's never actually been a good legal argument for extending the law anyway. It's possible that this is a fight politicians don't want to get into and they'll let the law stand rather than risk pissing off voters and losing their next election. I wouldn't bet on that, but we'll see what the socio-political climate is like after midterms.

If the law does stand (unlikely as that seems), when Clark enters the domain it'll just be the version from 1938. And that guy bears little resemblance to the Superman most people are familiar with. And DC/WB will still have the active trademark (which can be maintained in perpetuity) so this isn't the solution to DC's mismanagement that some of y'all might be thinking it is. It could still be good for the character, I believe that it likely would be, but time will tell.

Anyway, as for this death of the League thing....I'm confused. I hear that the JL book will be off the shelves for a while, which is fine, but it seems like the rest of the publishing line isn't acknowledging this? Seems like Bruce and Clark and Diana and the rest are still active in their own titles so what exactly is this going to achieve beyond giving the JL book a break?

It seems like such a cheap gimmick. I'd be pretty happy about an opportunity for other heroes and teams to get the spotlight; the League and its Big 7 roster have become a glass ceiling holding everyone else back. But if the League heroes are still alive and kicking in their own books there's damn little room for such development. The fact that they're all dying first just makes any of this even less likely to matter six months later, because you know DC isn't going to keep any of the Big Names dead for very long. And I think DC would just use this as an opportunity to push their current pet characters and the Future State roster, rather than making any kind of genuine effort to elevate longstanding, "deserving" characters and teams.

This could be the chance for characters like Nightwing, Cyborg, Power Girl, Firestorm, Blue Beetle, etc., to step up and take the reins as earth's greatest heroes. But instead I think we'll just get a Junior Justice League team, with a roster of Big 7 legacies made up mostly of rookies who haven't earned the right to call themselves the "greatest" anything, much less the greatest heroes on earth.

I don't think it's the Superman name so much as the Clark Kent and Lois Lane names that they are worried about. You could do a generic "superman" comic where he has no cape or logo as we know it and it would still fall under public domain. The real question is, how long after a creator dies will they be able to sell the idea of a private ownership to the public? Disney has been dead for over 55 years at this point. How long can a corporation keep telling the public they need to keep the rights to Mickey and co? Especially since they own Marvel and Star Wars now?

[The Darknight Detective]

I think "replace" is going too far. Barry couldn't even permanently replace Jay. "Coexist"? That's doable. Not for Superboy, though, Conner was getting rightfully shelved for years.

My only point is Bruce wasn't anywhere near as iconic sixty years ago as he is today.

[superduperman]

As has been mentioned here before, only the original stories will start fall into the public domain (starting in the next decade). That doesn't mean anybody could start publishing new Superman and Batman stories at that time, however.

So it would be like the Fleischer cartoons. That would make their actions even stranger, then.

[The Darknight Detective]

So it would be like the Fleischer cartoons. That would make their actions even stranger, then.

Whose actions are we talking about?

[Superboy-Prime]

My only point is Bruce wasn't anywhere near as iconic sixty years ago as he is today.

Yeah, that's true. The passage of time hides how different the character has become throughout the many decades of his existence.

[Vordan]

My only point is Bruce wasn't anywhere near as iconic sixty years ago as he is today.

Bruce will never get replaced any more than Peter will. The comics lines at DC and Marvel rely too much on them to ever seriously consider replacing those two. Other characters however might get replaced no matter how iconic they are.

[Ascended]

You know you make a really good point about the public domain. I mean do we really want just some guy writing Batman or Superman or Spider-Man for that matter ?
If DC loses the rights to the characters, I rather that it goes to another good publisher exclusively. And have a proper creative team write the stories .

Not like the publishers we have had done such a great job. Not like other comic publishers are any better or much different.

If we did somehow get an abundance of public domain Superman (or Spidey or Bats or whoever) then some of it would be good and some of it wouldn't, just like now. From a consumer standpoint not much changes except we'd have multiple companies/creators competing for our Super dollar, and hopefully more content and offerings to pick from.

Public domain Superman wouldn't look much like the Superman we know today, so there'd be plenty of variety between that and DC's Superdad, and hopefully the competition would encourage DC to hire better talent. But it's not like comic book writers are an elite group and nobody else is capable of writing these characters.

Let me put it this way. DC put Scott Lobdell on Superman. You really trust them and companies like them to always provide the best talent possible? Speaking for myself, I'd be more excited about a public domain effort than I would be the corporate cycle of serialized narrative that's only used to storyboard potential movies. The guy writing the public domain version must be writing it as a labor of love (else why deal with the hassle of a character another company still partially owns?) while the corporate story is art by committee.