The return of the Mighty Mighty New 52 Discussion thread

[AlexanderLuthor]

I wasn't aware of the Andy Diggle story but if true that's kind of shoddy of him. Any links for this story? I'm interested to read more about it.

Pandora's "box" was explained that's for sure. It was a crappy explanation that makes very little sense but yes, it was explained. But what about her fancy appearance at the end of Flashpoint? You know, the scene that started the whole new 52? Or how she made a cameo in every first new 52 issue? What was with that? Even as late as Justice League issue 6 she and Phantom Stranger discuss how she rewrote reality (or "strengthed it" in her words). I want to read about THAT Pandora not the gullible girl who spent thousands of years being given the run around by Evil Alfred.

With regards to Diggle, he told his version of the story and the anti-DC contingent were happy to run with it. To my knowledge DC has never responded publicly. But from what I've been told and just common sense says he simply got a better offer. He made a pitch, it was accepted, DC did a ton of promotional, he did one issue and then all of sudden he's being introduced as the writer of Thief of Thieves. My understanding is that in between the pitch and the first issue coming out Kirkman came to him with an offer he simply couldn't refuse given the TV show, Kirkman's name and the $$$ involved. He then floated some half assed excuses that don't really make a lot of sense - his first arc was fully approved and promos were running. Don't think you can put that one on DC.

I'll just add that for all those that jump on every "editorial difference" meme that happens with creators - there is usually far more going on behind the scenes but it doesn't do DC much good to respond. If a writer wants to do something else, is likely to get replaced, isn't getting the assignments he/she wants, etc. - it's pretty easy to say it's editorial's fault. Just look at some of the comment threads, people eat that stuff up because it fits with their narrative

[AlexanderLuthor]

The story that was presented to us is that editorial wouldn't let Diggle write the story he wanted to so he left: Specifically he wanted to cut off Superman's hand and was told "Absolutely not." There is some speculation that the job offer from Kirkman was before he left, but I've never seen anything that actually corroborated that.

Yeah, that story was put out by Diggle at the time. I don't think it does him much credit as who in their right mind thought that DC/WB would allow Superman's hand to be cut off Rick Grimes style (maybe that's why Kirkman wanted him)? Evidently that wasn't in his original pitch as anyone with a brain cell knows that wouldn't get approved. I mean seriously - a one-handed Superman? That doesn't even pass the smell test

[Black Angel]

with your list i gotta agree with the pandora part i thought she would be more epic and would also lead to another great evil or something. Still it is young maybe more will come out of her story line later.

Forever Evil yea the delay kinda killed it especially since we already see hints of whats happening after and already into a new event.

The teen titans just disappointed me in general.

The lack of more wildstorm characters being used too.

[AlexanderLuthor]

with your list i gotta agree with the pandora part i thought she would be more epic and would also lead to another great evil or something. Still it is young maybe more will come out of her story line later.

Forever Evil yea the delay kinda killed it especially since we already see hints of whats happening after and already into a new event.

The teen titans just disappointed me in general.

The lack of more wildstorm characters being used too.

You bring up another disappointment: the Wildstorm characters. There are so many great characters and the integration has just been horrible. I know DC has problems with it because there is a lot of overlap - Apollo and Midnighter spring to mind - and other things like Authority existing is hard to explain in the DCU. However, I think the approach they seem to be taking now, introducing single Wildstorm characters in different books, is likely to pay off much better. The big inclusion of Grifter and others in Future's End is a positive sign to be sure

[Lee Stone]

I would say... in no particular order...

The walking off of major talent, sometimes publicly announced. See George Perez, Rob Liefeld, etc.

The trojan horse gift wrapping of the New52, where everyone expected a bright shiny bicycle and got huge lumps of coal, instead. See JLI, Stormwatch, Teen Titans, etc.

The "it's not a reboot", oh... wait, "it's a reboot... but not for these books...", "this did happen, but not with those people... so we'll let you figure it out"...

The big media surrounding the kid reading Justice League #1 at the New52 announcement and then virtually none of their line being 'kid-friendly', with almost every first issue being blatantly graphic as if they were told to include certain gory scenes to win publication.

How a random drawn in character got turned into the creative force of the New52 on a whim because they didn't have anything already figured out. "Heeeey... that works... Go with it!"

If you do the math...
New52 lost at least 1/4 of DC's readership at launch because the final issues made a good jumping off point.
It gained about twice that much with the launch, thanks to a promotion that reminded people in 'non-comics-land' that comics still existed.
Then it lost the speculator market after the first few months, since they got what they came for.
Then it lost over half of the readers who had held on from before because it wasn't to their liking or it "isn't made for them".
Then it lost a lot of the new readers from 'non-comics-land' who went on to try comics that were more accessible at Marvel and Image, or more familiar to them such as licensed properties, Walking Dead or Avengers/X-Men.
Then it lost some of the new 'non-comics-land' readers who came expecting cartoons and the lapsed readers who came back expecting four-color entertainment and got Vertigo-lite.

Mostly, I would say the bulk of readers that are left for New52 are Batman and Green Lantern readers that stuck with it through the reboot because they weren't drastically changed. At least "not to their face"... the old comics still mattered.. Sort of. Those readers didn't start questioning things until stuff didn't mesh with stories they were told that did still happen.

The end of their "lines": dark, edge, justice league, superman, batman, young justice, green lantern.
Oh, they're still there. If you pay attention. The color of "New 52" logo tells you which line it's in.
But other than that, it's been phased out.
Most likely to take the emphasis off of...

The Young Justice line.
What can we say?
All the books in the line got canned and only one replacement is coming?
That's hardly a "line".
NewDC didn't make a real effort to push that area.
If they were really concerned with keeping all 7 lines going strong, then they would have taken their big name creators and shuffled them to the areas needing the most help.
Instead, they remained on the core titles or were put on new books launching under the better selling lines, Batman or Justice League.

And are they still dropping creators when a comic is delayed?

[Joe Kalicki]

You bring up another disappointment: the Wildstorm characters. There are so many great characters and the integration has just been horrible. I know DC has problems with it because there is a lot of overlap - Apollo and Midnighter spring to mind - and other things like Authority existing is hard to explain in the DCU. However, I think the approach they seem to be taking now, introducing single Wildstorm characters in different books, is likely to pay off much better. The big inclusion of Grifter and others in Future's End is a positive sign to be sure

The ends of Voodoo and Grifter really felt like they were building to a WildCATs title, but I assume those plans have been pushed back or scrapped all together.

[BaneofKings]

Andy Diggle off Action Comics, Joshua Hale Fialkov and W. Haden Blackman off Batwoman, James Robinson off Earth 2, the delays of Forever Evil & Superman Unchained, Scott Lobdell dragging every title that he's involved into a crossover and the fact that the Young Justice line really did deserve better.

[John Ossie]

Forever Evil delays were certainly a let down for me as it killed the momentum of the story for me. Other than that I agree with JasonTodd428 about Shazam.

[GDC3]

Two things really:

The complete and utter ball drop on the Static series.

The failure of Stormwatch. As an old Wildstorm fan from the inception of the original SW, through Ellis' run, into The Authority, on and on...I was excited for the integration of the Martian Manhunter and the book being an important part of the New 52. But I struggled to enjoy it on a consistent basis and it couldn't rise above its failings to stave off cancelation.

[Double 0]

The utter failure of the initial diversity push, with very few exceptions (Batwoman)

The Young Justice Line in general

And that watered-down junk they called Stormwatch. I mean, Voodoo was alright, and I actually liked Gritfter. But any hope of a decent integration of Wildstorm within the DCU died with that title.

[cgh]

I'm not crazy about how Darkseid's been treated. He is kind of like Galactus in scope (if not physical size), on another level in terms of how he sees and interacts with the universe. Superman punching him around, though admittedly fun to read, cheapens the character a bit in my opinion.

I liked how he was portrayed in Final Crisis - a dying god, but still fundamentally unassailable except via his own weapons.

[jade_nova]

The failure of Wildstorm. An attempt to combine the Wildstorm characters and the DC characters into creating something new only to have it fail and DC winding up at the same place they were before the New 52.

Trinity War. It sounded like this could of been some big story but it just leads into Forever Evil but then again Geoff Johns does have a habit of having one story leading right into another.

[AlexanderLuthor]

I would say... in no particular order...

The walking off of major talent, sometimes publicly announced. See George Perez, Rob Liefeld, etc.

The trojan horse gift wrapping of the New52, where everyone expected a bright shiny bicycle and got huge lumps of coal, instead. See JLI, Stormwatch, Teen Titans, etc.

The "it's not a reboot", oh... wait, "it's a reboot... but not for these books...", "this did happen, but not with those people... so we'll let you figure it out"...

The big media surrounding the kid reading Justice League #1 at the New52 announcement and then virtually none of their line being 'kid-friendly', with almost every first issue being blatantly graphic as if they were told to include certain gory scenes to win publication.

How a random drawn in character got turned into the creative force of the New52 on a whim because they didn't have anything already figured out. "Heeeey... that works... Go with it!"

If you do the math...
New52 lost at least 1/4 of DC's readership at launch because the final issues made a good jumping off point.
It gained about twice that much with the launch, thanks to a promotion that reminded people in 'non-comics-land' that comics still existed.
Then it lost the speculator market after the first few months, since they got what they came for.
Then it lost over half of the readers who had held on from before because it wasn't to their liking or it "isn't made for them".
Then it lost a lot of the new readers from 'non-comics-land' who went on to try comics that were more accessible at Marvel and Image, or more familiar to them such as licensed properties, Walking Dead or Avengers/X-Men.
Then it lost some of the new 'non-comics-land' readers who came expecting cartoons and the lapsed readers who came back expecting four-color entertainment and got Vertigo-lite.

Mostly, I would say the bulk of readers that are left for New52 are Batman and Green Lantern readers that stuck with it through the reboot because they weren't drastically changed. At least "not to their face"... the old comics still mattered.. Sort of. Those readers didn't start questioning things until stuff didn't mesh with stories they were told that did still happen.

The end of their "lines": dark, edge, justice league, superman, batman, young justice, green lantern.
Oh, they're still there. If you pay attention. The color of "New 52" logo tells you which line it's in.
But other than that, it's been phased out.
Most likely to take the emphasis off of...

The Young Justice line.
What can we say?
All the books in the line got canned and only one replacement is coming?
That's hardly a "line".
NewDC didn't make a real effort to push that area.
If they were really concerned with keeping all 7 lines going strong, then they would have taken their big name creators and shuffled them to the areas needing the most help.
Instead, they remained on the core titles or were put on new books launching under the better selling lines, Batman or Justice League.

And are they still dropping creators when a comic is delayed?

So I take it you're not a fan of the New 52. Just guessing here, but you wouldn't happen to be a Marvel fan would you? It kind of undercuts your whole rant when sales in 2013 were 20% higher than before the reboot (from 23 million to 28.5 million).

[Lee Stone]

So I take it you're not a fan of the New 52. Just guessing here, but you wouldn't happen to be a Marvel fan would you? It kind of undercuts your whole rant when sales in 2013 were 20% higher than before the reboot (from 23 million to 28.5 million).

Nope. Right now I read Batman '66 and Earth-2 (in chunks, after price drops).
And every now and then I toy with getting caught up on Justice League Dark.
And... once the price drops on JLUnited, I will probably check it out since it has the new52 versions of most of DC's cosmic heroes in it.

I was one of the ones that helped spread excitement on my blog before it launched, bought all the first issues and then was embarrassed by the "shock" Marvel MAX treatments and the total "it's not a reboot/reboot" thing.

I'm still here because DC's 81 years prior to New52's 3 still has some good stuff to read and I can finally catch up on things I missed out on before.

[Archies League]

My would be the absolute cluelessness of what the New 52 was in the beginning. A relaunch? A small reboot? A total one? But I can forgive that because it seemed to be a bit forced and just had to happen. I'm most disappointed that I still don't think they're quite sure. Honestly, if you deal with a single character's origin multiple times in less than three years, you might not have any clue what's what. Just looking at Dick Grayson, I can accept that there have been four Robins in five years but there seems to be more than his short time as Robin in his own current look back in time stories. Of course I'm completely against dealing with his backstory so much just to throw it all out to become a spy... along side Helena Bertinelli that DC also thought was smart to purposely kill off screen and here they are digging her up again because... oops. September 2011 isn't that long ago but with professionals you'd think they'd have some sense of looking ahead by this point.