Grant Morrison On Multiverse Characters Becoming Canon Cannon Fodder

[Captain Nostalgia]

As the guy who created Calvin Ellis, (Earth 23) Superman I can see where he is coming from.

I actually thought having a planet earth whereby Superman was the President of the United States was pretty cool, but....

treating multiverse heroes, as their own brand? I just don't see a market for it. DC has a hard time selling any characters outside of Batman these days, let alone heroes in the multiverse.

[HsssH]

The New 52 multiverse was a bad idea from the get go. Most of them were half formed ideas that were either lifted from popular Elseworlds or just random concepts that weren't fleshed out very well.

Nobody is going to flesh out 50 different universes in 8 issues.

[ZuLuLu]

As the guy who created Calvin Ellis, (Earth 23) Superman I can see where he is coming from.

I actually thought having a planet earth whereby Superman was the President of the United States was pretty cool, but....

treating multiverse heroes, as their own brand? I just don't see a market for it. DC has a hard time selling any characters outside of Batman these days, let alone heroes in the multiverse.

While it may be harder to make each character their own brand, I think it possible to make a few of these Earths popular or at least viable. These Earth are just AU and DC AU series tend to do well, Injustice, DC Bombshells, DCeased...

Nobody is going to flesh out 50 different universes in 8 issues.

Yep. The very nature of comics is one writer creating concepts and other writers developing them, the fact that so many writers' instinct is to destroy than expand on something is just lazy.

[Aahz]

I can see the point in keeping an earth if it is really populated by different characters from the main earth, but with the earth that are just "What if..." Version of the main earth, hand have only been used in couple of issues I don't see much of a problem in using them as fodder.

While it may be harder to make each character their own brand, I think it possible to make a few of these Earths popular or at least viable. These Earth are just AU and DC AU series tend to do well, Injustice, DC Bombshells, DCeased...

But even than I don't see much of a point on keeping than around, if the story that AU was created for is told.

[scary harpy]

As the guy who created Calvin Ellis, (Earth 23) Superman I can see where he is coming from.

I actually thought having a planet earth whereby Superman was the President of the United States was pretty cool, but....

treating multiverse heroes, as their own brand? I just don't see a market for it. DC has a hard time selling any characters outside of Batman these days, let alone heroes in the multiverse.

While it may be harder to make each character their own brand, I think it possible to make a few of these Earths popular or at least viable. These Earth are just AU and DC AU series tend to do well, Injustice, DC Bombshells, DCeased...

DC's leaving money on the table if they don't try to develop some of these ideas. That's an invisible cost that DC cannot afford.

Nobody is going to flesh out 50 different universes in 8 issues.

Yep. The very nature of comics is one writer creating concepts and other writers developing them, the fact that so many writers' instinct is to destroy than expand on something is just lazy.

Agreed.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

While it may be harder to make each character their own brand, I think it possible to make a few of these Earths popular or at least viable. These Earth are just AU and DC AU series tend to do well, Injustice, DC Bombshells, DCeased...



Yep. The very nature of comics is one writer creating concepts and other writers developing them, the fact that so many writers' instinct is to destroy than expand on something is just lazy.

But how many times have we seen writers introduce new concepts that literally nobody else showed the slightest interest in developing or expanding on? How many times have we seen new creative teams on books about established concepts and characters practically sweep aside the previous team's new additions into an off-panel garbage can because they're not interested in what the previous team added, only what they grew up reading about and adding their own brand new additions? How many times have we seen characters and concepts brought back out of limbo years later only to be killed off or do a face-heel turn?

Jeanne DeWolff from Spider-Man. Harold the hunchback from Batman. Triumph from the mid-90's Justice League franchise. Kathy Kane from the Bronze-Age Batman. And those are just off the top of my head.

[WebLurker]

treating multiverse heroes, as their own brand? I just don't see a market for it. DC has a hard time selling any characters outside of Batman these days, let alone heroes in the multiverse.

Arguably, Spider-Man has shown that it can be done, whether or not DC can do it now.

[Aahz]

Arguably, Spider-Man has shown that it can be done, whether or not DC can do it now.

But thing with DC is, that most of their franchises have allready more legacy characters, than DC can really use, so I dpn't really see much of a market for multiverse versions of them.

I mean if you had a character like Spider-Gwen where you had immediately lot of readers excited about the idea they should give it a shot, but otherwise it wuld just add brad confusion/dilution without really bringing much profit.

And if I look at DCs current sales, I think that for any franchise appart from Batman a multiverse Spin Off could really have sustainable sales.

[scary harpy]

I can see the point in keeping an earth if it is really populated by different characters from the main earth, but with the earth that are just "What if..." Version of the main earth, hand have only been used in couple of issues I don't see much of a problem in using them as fodder.

But even than I don't see much of a point on keeping than around, if the story that AU was created for is told.

That AU story was several persons' favorite story...and they don't enjoy seeing it machine-gunned down as cannon-fodder for the next cash-grab "Crisis" spectacular that amounts to nothing.

But how many times have we seen writers introduce new concepts that literally nobody else showed the slightest interest in developing or expanding on? How many times have we seen new creative teams on books about established concepts and characters practically sweep aside the previous team's new additions into an off-panel garbage can because they're not interested in what the previous team added, only what they grew up reading about and adding their own brand new additions? How many times have we seen characters and concepts brought back out of limbo years later only to be killed off or do a face-heel turn?

Jeanne DeWolff from Spider-Man. Harold the hunchback from Batman. Triumph from the mid-90's Justice League franchise. Kathy Kane from the Bronze-Age Batman. And those are just off the top of my head.

We have seen this too, too often, Timber Wolf-By-Night.

This proves to me that TPTB at DC do not know how to manage their IPs...as well as their artists, writers and etcetera.

...

treating multiverse heroes, as their own brand? I just don't see a market for it. DC has a hard time selling any characters outside of Batman these days, let alone heroes in the multiverse.

Arguably, Spider-Man has shown that it can be done, whether or not DC can do it now.

But thing with DC is, that most of their franchises have already more legacy characters, than DC can really use, so I don't really see much of a market for multiverse versions of them.

I mean if you had a character like Spider-Gwen where you had immediately lot of readers excited about the idea they should give it a shot, but otherwise it would just add brad confusion/dilution without really bringing much profit.

And if I look at DCs current sales, I think that for any franchise apart from Batman a multiverse Spin Off could really have sustainable sales.

Aahz, we have had characters like Spider-Gwen that immediately had a lot of readers excited about the idea...and DC has done next-to-nothing or nothing with them.

It often seems to me that DC is completely uninterested and/or unprepared for a minor character to become a fan favorite. The most recent occurrences that I recall are Impulse and Mime & Marionette...but I am sure there have been many others.

[Aahz]

That AU story was several persons' favorite story...and they don't enjoy seeing it machine-gunned down as cannon-fodder for the next cash-grab "Crisis" spectacular that amounts to nothing.

In most cases the Multiverse gets anyway restored after the Crisis (or the Crisis after that).

It often seems to me that DC is completely uninterested and/or unprepared for a minor character to become a fan favorite. The most recent occurrences that I recall are Impulse and Mime & Marionette...but I am sure there have been many others.

That's of course another problem (combined with that it even when they realize they have such a character it can take years for them to figure out a direction for teh character that fans actually like ...), but that's imo still not a good argument keep all multiverses permanently around. I mean most of these earth are just version of the main earth with some gimmick, and have not a particularly long publication history.

[Captain Nostalgia]

While it may be harder to make each character their own brand, I think it possible to make a few of these Earths popular or at least viable. These Earth are just AU and DC AU series tend to do well, Injustice, DC Bombshells, DCeased...

You bring up a good point with Injustice and Dceased, they sold well, but they were pretty much apocalyptic elseworld stories, which in many ways have taken a backseat to Black Label titles.

That being said, I don’ t see any harm in developing some of these multiverse earths, as certain characters like Calvin Ellis could be used to give DC some short term publicity if they chose to have him appear on a WB show ect, but...

I can’t see a team of heroes from an alternate earth ever being turned into viable profitable brand though, as I don't believe there has ever been a strong appetite in the DC fanbase to read multiverse characters.

In fact, there is a large portion of the fanbase that hates the multiverse altogether and prefer it when things are streamlined. (I myself am undecided on this issue)

[Dataweaver]

You bring up a good point with Injustice and Dceased, they sold well, but they were pretty much apocalyptic elseworld stories, which in many ways have taken a backseat to Black Label titles.

That being said, I don’ t see any harm in developing some of these multiverse earths, as certain characters like Calvin Ellis could be used to give DC some short term publicity if they chose to have him appear on a WB show ect, but...

I can’t see a team of heroes from an alternate earth ever being turned into viable profitable brand though, as I don't believe there has ever been a strong appetite in the DC fanbase to read multiverse characters.

In fact, there is a large portion of the fanbase that hates the multiverse altogether and prefer it when things are streamlined. (I myself am undecided on this issue)

The closest DC ever got to that was the Pre-Crisis Earth 2.

In my humble opinion, it was a mistake to bring back the Multiverse in 2005. Mainly because there was already a perfectly serviceable framework for alternate reality stories: you had the Elseworlds, and you had Hypertime for spirits involving multiple realities interacting. Writers were already making use of it, too, with Superboy's Hypertension sorry arc, Flash's Dark Flash saga, and the Kingdom Come Titans showing up in the pages of the Titans.

But no sooner had it started than DC editorial stopped it in its tracks. And a couple of years later, they gave us Infinite Crisis and 52: a much more rigid and limited multiverse. It was just small enough that the idea of mapping out all 52 Earth did not strike anyone as ludicrous. Even then, Morrison and others were saying that you shouldn't try to map everything out. It was advice that was taken when the Dark Multiverse was introduced; but it's advice that should have been taken across the board, not just for the nightmare worlds.

I will grant that hyper Time has its detractors, too; in particular, there are those who don't like the idea that tributaries can feed back into the central timeline, effectively implementing retcons. Zero Hour had supposedly been about bringing about a stable timeline that wouldn't need further retcons.

But on balance, I think we would have been better off with Hypertime and no Multiverse/Omniverse. I still think we'd be better off destroying the Omniverse and simply relying on Hypertime and its Elseworlds for all of our alternate reality needs.

[WebLurker]

The closest DC ever got to that was the Pre-Crisis Earth 2.

In my humble opinion, it was a mistake to bring back the Multiverse in 2005. Mainly because there was already a perfectly serviceable framework for alternate reality stories: you had the Elseworlds, and you had Hypertime for spirits involving multiple realities interacting. Writers were already making use of it, too, with Superboy's Hypertension sorry arc, Flash's Dark Flash saga, and the Kingdom Come Titans showing up in the pages of the Titans.

But no sooner had it started than DC editorial stopped it in its tracks. And a couple of years later, they gave us Infinite Crisis and 52: a much more rigid and limited multiverse. It was just small enough that the idea of mapping out all 52 Earth did not strike anyone as ludicrous. Even then, Morrison and others were saying that you shouldn't try to map everything out. It was advice that was taken when the Dark Multiverse was introduced; but it's advice that should have been taken across the board, not just for the nightmare worlds.

I will grant that hyper Time has its detractors, too; in particular, there are those who don't like the idea that tributaries can feed back into the central timeline, effectively implementing retcons. Zero Hour had supposedly been about bringing about a stable timeline that wouldn't need further retcons.

But on balance, I think we would have been better off with Hypertime and no Multiverse/Omniverse. I still think we'd be better off destroying the Omniverse and simply relying on Hypertime and its Elseworlds for all of our alternate reality needs.

Honestly, the Marvel model works so much better; all stories are in their own parallel universe, but that doesn't matter unless a there's a crossover story. Heck, DC's efforts to streamline things are why their multiverse is such a mess.

(I like Hypertime inasmuch as all stories exist somewhere in the multiverse, but I think the who "everyone remembers all timelines" and timelines can feed into and out of each other" was a mistake.)