When is DC going to actually USE the multiverse?

[Lairston]

Marvel's Watchers, you mean?

But I'm not sure why you need characters doing that. Just tell the stories. Although I suppose watchers could be used as a framing device, feeding the readers a little exposition on the Multiverse and the particular world of the story.

Yeah that's what I was thinking they would be like explaining in the beginning what makes this world unique and then move into the story. That's why I thought they'd be invisible and not interact in the story. I also thought they'd also be the way to connect the stories as an on-going series.

I actually didn't think of Watchers but yeah that's pretty much it. Probably means it couldn't be used.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I don't think they do, actually. The culture, such as it is, of DC fans, or superhero comics fans in general, prizes "the real universe" over alternate ones. "The comics that count," and all that. It's not every superhero fan, or ever DC fan, but it is a lot of them. Any time DC does something with alternate realities or alternate takes, you get a wave of complaints if it doesn't tie heavily into the main universe, as if people were tricked into reading Convergence or The Multiversity, or JLA 3001 because they're not "real comics," the way Action Comics #32 is a "real comic."

It's silly. It doesn't make a great deal of objective sense. But, it is a common sentiment.

That said, it's not as if DC hasn't marketed niche books to a niche, but hopefully reliable market before, and they shouldn't stop now.

Well, the poster did say "the same opportunity to be well-written," not "the same opportunity to attract DCU fans."

I do think people are attracted to an ever-expanding world. Personally, I'm not big on "just set the story on whatever alternate Earth you want to, and pick new one next month." I like learning more and more about an open-ended fictional setting. (And I'm not the only one, which is why the whole idea of a "DC Universe" or "Marvel Universe" is a marketing scheme as much as anything.) But for that to work - for people like me, anyway - it requires more attention to continuity. Saying "This story is set in the Mainstream DCU!" doesn't do much for me when the Mainstream DCU is self-contradictory. That's no way to learn more about open-ended fictional setting.

In any case: a handful of ongoing series set on a different Earth - like in the old days of the All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc. (or in Marvel, the Ultimate MU) - has a possibility of drawing in readers who like a whole, ongoing world in a way that random Elseworlds do not. But it depends on the way it's handled, too.

[Doctor Bifrost]

The fact that similar things have not sold well?

"Voting with your dollars" may be all that ultimately affects sales, but it's also not a very finely-grained message. When a series fails, it's very difficult to tell why. Is it because it wasn't set in the main continuity? Because the writer didn't have a flair for the characters? Because the pacing was bad? The art, while technically good, didn't fit the subject matter? DC will draw conclusions, of course, but I don't feel certain whether they will always be the right conclusions. (Also, public tastes change over time.)

I wonder how well All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc. would have done - and for how long - if the decision, after Crisis on Infinite Earths, to merge Earth-2 in with everything else derailed a lot of its momentum. (Although that did give me two of my favorite characters: the GA Fury, and the Infinity, Inc. Fury reconceived - no pun intended! - as her daughter. I miss them to this day.)

[GlennSimpson]

"Voting with your dollars" may be all that ultimately affects sales, but it's also not a very finely-grained message. When a series fails, it's very difficult to tell why. Is it because it wasn't set in the main continuity? Because the writer didn't have a flair for the characters? Because the pacing was bad? The art, while technically good, didn't fit the subject matter? DC will draw conclusions, of course, but I don't feel certain whether they will always be the right conclusions. (Also, public tastes change over time.)

I wonder how well All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc. would have done - and for how long - if the decision, after Crisis on Infinite Earths, to merge Earth-2 in with everything else derailed a lot of its momentum. (Although that did give me two of my favorite characters: the GA Fury, and the Infinity, Inc. Fury reconceived - no pun intended! - as her daughter. I miss them to this day.)

Well. "I want a series featuring the old-school JSA" or some such isn't a very finely grained request either. Whatever people's complaints are that prevents them from buying "Prez" or "Green Team" would have every opportunity of still being in effect if DC decided to do a multiversal-type series as being requested here. They would probably have a writer or artist someone doesn't like, or would make some sort of changes to the characters/situations to update it a bit, and those people who requested it still wouldn't buy it.

And those updates are inevitable, because not only does no quality modern writer want to write something that is EXACTLY the way it used to be, in many ways they simply aren't ABLE to write things the way they used to be written. The entire industry has moved forward. Marv Wolfman doesn't write a modern Titans story the same way he did in 1983. Everybody changes.

[t hedge coke]

Well, the poster did say "the same opportunity to be well-written," not "the same opportunity to attract DCU fans."

Yeah, I misread at the time. I thought it said, "the same opportunity" full stop.

Convergence does not count, it was just a filler event

Meh. I know that's a popular DC-fan sentiment, and yes, it was commissioned to fill a time while real life things were going on, but the people writing and drawing (and coloring) many of the two-parters were not doing filler comics. Some of them are deliberate caps to those characters, done with care and a lot of thought to bring closure to various standing story points and developments that couldn't be wrapped up, or weren't wrapped up wonderfully at the time. Others were using the characters and setting to talk about issues or deal with themes that they were taking fairly seriously, even if the comics were humorous or a fight book.

There's probably a lot more care, characterization, novelty, and development put into many of those two-parters than whole years of some of the normal ongoings.

And, we did get to see tons of realities in a whole bunch of comics. Really, if DC could manage that consistently, I'd spend way more money on them. I'd probably just ignore "the main series," while doing so.

[Tayswift]

maybe DC should do limited series on the paralel universes. get good writers and artist and let them have freedom

[Dataweaver]

Well. "I want a series featuring the old-school JSA" or some such isn't a very finely grained request either. Whatever people's complaints are that prevents them from buying "Prez" or "Green Team" would have every opportunity of still being in effect if DC decided to do a multiversal-type series as being requested here. They would probably have a writer or artist someone doesn't like, or would make some sort of changes to the characters/situations to update it a bit, and those people who requested it still wouldn't buy it.

For the record: requests for the old-school JSA are an interesting data point to consider. When Flashpoint came along, JSA and JSA All-Stars were doing fine. They weren't canceled and replaced by Earth 2 because they were commercial failures; rather, they fell victim to editorial decree: the guys in charge wanted to move them back nto an alternate Earth as they had been before CoIE, and they wantee them young and fresh without all of this “legacy” stuff bogging them down. Ironically, given the nature of this thread (and the post I'm responding to), most JSA fans were less concerned with getting them back onto Earth 2 than with preserving their legacies. Oh, some praised the decision when they heard that Earth 2 was going to be added to the New 52; but for the most part, they did so with the hope that Earth 2 would bring back even more of the legacy stuff that DC had lost since New 52 started: excitement centered around the fact that Huntress was Helena Wayne now, and around the possibility that Earth 2 might serve as a place in the New 52 where things that had been lost during the reboot might be regained. But as far as the JSA itself was concerned, its fans would have been quite content if something like Titans Hunt had happened and a secret history of the JSA on Prime Earth had been revealed.

A request for old-school JSA is not a request for a multiverse-style series (although it can be). It's also not a request for some obscure pre-Crisis concept (e.g., Prez, Green Team) to be reborn: the JSA had been thriving for over a decade when New52 dumped them. Which brings us to:

And those updates are inevitable, because not only does no quality modern writer want to write something that is EXACTLY the way it used to be, in many ways they simply aren't ABLE to write things the way they used to be written. The entire industry has moved forward. Marv Wolfman doesn't write a modern Titans story the same way he did in 1983. Everybody changes.

Yeah. The JSA of mid-2011 was exactly like the JSA of 1951. Oh, wait…

JSA has always embraced “everybody changes”, and a present that builds on the past but is not chained by it. Johns' notion of what Rebirth means (restoring what was lost, and making something new out of it) was central to the success of the JSA run in the 00s.