Is 2022 the worst year in DC's history since the 70s?

[Jim Kelly]

I'm sure they meant 1978, when the Implosion happened and the number of titles per month was severely cut. Around this time in 1978 there were about twenty-five titles per month against about thirty-five titles per month in the year before. It took a few years for them to get back up to the thirty-five number.

Even with the current cuts, I don't think their total output per month is that low--when you include all the collected editions and such.

But at least the cuts in 1978 were evenly distributed. A Batman title got cut, a couple of war titles, a few other super-hero titles. But they continued to produce other war titles, horrors, westerns. The sad thing is VIXEN never got published--meaning it would be decades before another black female super-hero got her own ongoing title.

[Dreaded Porcupine]

I have hardly bought any DC titles this year. The ones I was buying were either cancelled or mini’s. The fact that DC decided to get rid of their team books was asinine and made it even worse. I am really excited for the Johns titles coming out. JSA, The New Golden Age and Stargirl. That right there should boost the year. I loved the JLA in the 70’s. I didn’t really collect that much from DC then to compare to this year. Bring back the team books DC.

[Captain Nostalgia]

Franchises like Justice League, Green Lantern or Titans do not have a book for the first time in decades. Other major characters such as Green Arrow, Aquaman, Suicide Squad, Legion of Superheroes or Shazam also don't have a book. Batman has taken over ~50% of the line (and 13 out of 17 of the ongoing series), sometimes more. You'd have to go back to the DC implosion to find a line that's abysmal as this one.

Sales are trash, the only characters in the top 50 are Batman and Nightwing (the latter who has an A-list creative team carrying it, mind you). We don't have exact data but back in 2019 and 2020 many major characters were hitting record lows and it looks like the situation has only become worse since then. Dark Crisis looks like a flop so far, generating little buzz and excitement.

How can DC even turn this around? Especially with Zaslav the butcher waiting in a corner.

I think comparing a print media era like the 70' s to today is like comparing apples and oranges.

That being said, I crunched the numbers on this, so let's compare 20 years ago; August of 2022 with August of 2002 and I'll show what the problem is:

Here are the comic rankings for August 2022 of this year. (Obtained from Comic Book Revolution)

Top 10 Marvel 7, DC 3
Top 25 Marvel 18, DC 7
Top 50 Marvel 31, DC 16
Top 100 Marvel 58, DC 33

Now the comic rankings 20 years ago (August 2002) (Obtained through Comicron)

Top 10 Marvel 6, DC 2
Top 25 Marvel 16, DC 5
Top 50 Marvel 32, DC 12
Top 100 Marvel 55, DC 32

The sales rankings are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago, but here's what's different.

Non Batman titles in the top 100

August 2002 - 24 out of 32 were non Batman titles in the top 100 75%
August 2022 - 12 out of 33 were non Batman titles in the top 100 36%

So in short, back in August 2002, 75% of all DC titles in the top 100 comics were non Batman related (There was a variety, Green Arrow, JSA, Birds of Prey, Legion Of Super Heroes, Titans, Young Justice.)

Contrast that to today where only 36% of DC titles in the top 100 are non Batman related and a lot of those are Superman, Wonder Woman & Aquaman titles, a long with the Flash (GL's been cancelled)

For fans of the DCU who like to buy books outside of the trinity than obviously it feels like the sky is falling in, which is why animosity to legacy characters runs high, because there is diminishing returns for non bat character appearances.

But if your solely a Batman fan....everything is just peachy.

[BatmanJones]

I dropped out of buying comics completely from the early 90s until Morrison’s JLA. Not a single comic purchase for about 5 years. To me 2022 isn’t even close to my least favorite DC year.

[KC]

Yes. Looking at the comics that have come out so far this year and the comics coming out soon, it is bad.

[NeathBlue]

I'm sure they meant 1978, when the Implosion happened and the number of titles per month was severely cut. Around this time in 1978 there were about twenty-five titles per month against about thirty-five titles per month in the year before. It took a few years for them to get back up to the thirty-five number.

Even with the current cuts, I don't think their total output per month is that low--when you include all the collected editions and such.

But at least the cuts in 1978 were evenly distributed. A Batman title got cut, a couple of war titles, a few other super-hero titles. But they continued to produce other war titles, horrors, westerns. The sad thing is VIXEN never got published--meaning it would be decades before another black female super-hero got her own ongoing title.

The Implosion wasn’t the disaster that history tries to paint it as imo.
Yes we lost a lot of titles soon after DC had banged its drum about how great the Explosion was going to be, but a lot of them turned up in other comics that were expanded… All Star and Showcase both went to Adventure Comics and Batman Family stories went to Detective Comics.
Also quite a high number of the titles that were cancelled, were going to be cancelled anyway apparently and not because of the Implosion.

But even with the cancellations, I’d say there was a far better choice of comics and they were for the majority, far better written imo.

[Aahz]

I will believe it when I see it. So far nothing has been announced and DC's current editorial have not given me any reasons to believe in them

I think it is safe to assume that at least Justice League and Green Lantern will return pretty soon and Clark taking over the main Superman book will likely also increase the sales of that franchise again.

[exile001]

For people bemoaning all the Batman books, maybe you should see it as Batman's popularity keeping DC publishing monthly books at all. If 65% of your worthwhile sales are Batman related you're going to prioritise Batman books.

Cutting back on the thing that's selling isn't going to magically make 5 Flash books viable, no matter how much you personally love that mythos (and I do).

DC has a lot of problems, 90% of which are self-inflicted and have been for decades, but complaining about the character keeping the lights on is pretty stupid.

[Captain Nostalgia]

For people bemoaning all the Batman books, maybe you should see it as Batman's popularity keeping DC publishing monthly books at all. If 65% of your worthwhile sales are Batman related you're going to prioritise Batman books.

Cutting back on the thing that's selling isn't going to magically make 5 Flash books viable, no matter how much you personally love that mythos (and I do).

DC has a lot of problems, 90% of which are self-inflicted and have been for decades, but complaining about the character keeping the lights on is pretty stupid.

I'm not bemoaning the bat books, but obviously they wrecked the train with their other ip's.

It's been an almost 180 degree reversal over the last 20 years.

[Proto Man]

I think it would be difficult to argue that DC is doing well at this point. Too many of its key brands are in the toilet and have been for a good long while:

Superman (there may have been some good stuff here or there, but he hasn't been consistently doing well since the '90s, I would say.)

Green Lantern (Train wreck. No one DC hires seems to have any good ideas for this thing. They just create a bunch of superfluous characters to make up for that, for some reason)

Legion of Superheroes (Totally off the rails.)

Titans (Such a shame what happened here.)

Justice League of America

Justice Society of America

[Mai Zen]

For people bemoaning all the Batman books, maybe you should see it as Batman's popularity keeping DC publishing monthly books at all. If 65% of your worthwhile sales are Batman related you're going to prioritise Batman books.

Cutting back on the thing that's selling isn't going to magically make 5 Flash books viable, no matter how much you personally love that mythos (and I do).

DC has a lot of problems, 90% of which are self-inflicted and have been for decades, but complaining about the character keeping the lights on is pretty stupid.

Sometimes I feel like its gonna bite them someday. I see some Bat fans already complained that most of their overabundance contents are not good and retreading lot of Bruce stories over and over again

[BohemiaDrinker]

This thread is interesting as it seems populated mostly by people complaining about books they don't read, analyzing numbers they don't have and ignoring the rest.

I mean, I'm not going to complain about people complaining - I complain quite a lot myself - but I wonder at what DC these guys are seeing, or not seeing.

Quality wise, the line is mostly fine to great, despite some atrocities like Dark Crisis: YJ.

Sales wise we don't know, and haven't known for quite a while.

[Buried Alien]

This thread is interesting as it seems populated mostly by people complaining about books they don't read, analyzing numbers they don't have and ignoring the rest.

I mean, I'm not going to complain about people complaining - I complain quite a lot myself - but I wonder at what DC these guys are seeing, or not seeing.

Quality wise, the line is mostly fine to great, despite some atrocities like Dark Crisis: YJ.

Sales wise we don't know, and haven't known for quite a while.

I'm just confused by the idea of anybody choosing the 1970s as some kind of benchmark for how low DC can sink. The 70s weren't DC's finest hour, but the decade was overall pretty decent for DC, especially if you look outside of the comics alone.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[BohemiaDrinker]

I'm just confused by the idea of anybody choosing the 1970s as some kind of benchmark for how low DC can sink. The 70s weren't DC's finest hour, but the decade was overall pretty decent for DC, especially if you look outside of the comics alone.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Yeah, there's that as well.

Sure, DC entered the Bronze Age in weird and uneven increments, but there were many runs from that decade still held in high regard today. I see that the DC implosion had more to do with marketing issues and Marvel's success than any significant drop in quality, and although COIE mostly cemented DC entering the modern age in a big, bombastic and mostly uniform way, it's not like everything was crap in the years prior, at all.

As for the premise of this thread, I can pick half of the 2010's as worse years than 2022, quality wise, easily. The DC Comics bubble in social media from my view hasn't been this positive - and open - in quite some time, even with he massive layoffs the many corporate side has imposed.

I don't know where all this "the sky is falling" threads here are coming from, but I suspect (and this is only a suspicion) that some people fell in some internet rabbit hole of less than reputable "commentators" and are assuming the the general sentiment is not only true, but universal. If that's the casew, though, I see no point in indulging the argument.

[Buried Alien]

Yeah, there's that as well.

Sure, DC entered the Bronze Age in weird and uneven increments, but there were many runs from that decade still held in high regard today. I see that the DC implosion had more to do with marketing issues and Marvel's success than any significant drop in quality, and although COIE mostly cemented DC entering the modern age in a big, bombastic and mostly uniform way, it's not like everything was crap in the years prior, at all.

As for the premise of this thread, I can pick half of the 2010's as worse years than 2022, quality wise, easily. The DC Comics bubble in social media from my view hasn't been this positive - and open - in quite some time, even with he massive layoffs the many corporate side has imposed.

I don't know where all this "the sky is falling" threads here are coming from, but I suspect (and this is only a suspicion) that some people fell in some internet rabbit hole of less than reputable "commentators" and are assuming the the general sentiment is not only true, but universal. If that's the casew, though, I see no point in indulging the argument.

Any decade that can give us a comic where Superman fights Muhammad Ali can't be written off as a stinker decade.



Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)