REBIRTH and the DCEU: Synergy and the Lack of Consistency

[GreenLanternRanger]

No thanks, I say let the comics & films be there own things. We don't need Aquaman to suddenly look like Mamoa or Killer Croc to stary wearing a hoodie. Let them both do whay they want without interference from the other.

[GlennSimpson]

If it wasnt for the synergy between Batman and his other media he wouldnt have become as popular. His comics likely gets a boost from fans who come from Movies/TV, who stay because there is synergy between the comics and what they saw in Movie/TV. Those 100, 000 comics Batman fans, some percentage of that came originally from movies/tv.


I know I came to DC comics through Smallville, If I hadnt seen much link between the show and superman comics, I wouldnt have bothered reading comics. I would have left. But I feel like Smallville did a really good job of adapting the core of superman comics, and in turn the comics started adapting & giving nods to a few things from Smallville show. I really do think superman comics picked up a few fans from Smallville and not just Superman but Aquaman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Cyborg, Flash etc who got to be on the TV show.

It's pretty much been the trend that monthly comics about a character don't see much of a spike when there is a movie or new TV show. I think it's fair to say movies/TV shows make people who read comics more likely to read comics about the characters in the movie/TV show, but they don't do much to bring in non-comics readers.

Given how many people went and saw "The Avengers" movie, the Avengers comics should have been selling 200,000-300,000 a month during and right afterward. But the numbers never really went up that much.

That's not to deny that what happened with you, but it's not all that common.

[JasonTodd428]

It's pretty much been the trend that monthly comics about a character don't see much of a spike when there is a movie or new TV show. I think it's fair to say movies/TV shows make people who read comics more likely to read comics about the characters in the movie/TV show, but they don't do much to bring in non-comics readers.

Given how many people went and saw "The Avengers" movie, the Avengers comics should have been selling 200,000-300,000 a month during and right afterward. But the numbers never really went up that much.

That's not to deny that what happened with you, but it's not all that common.

I've never thought it was all that common either.

[GlennSimpson]

I've never thought it was all that common either.

Nope. I would suspect it is a combination of things.

1. People who go to movies or watch TV shows may not necessarily read for pleasure.
2. If they do read for pleasure, they don't necessarily feel motivated to track down the comics, since they are not right in front of them anywhere, and of course nobody they know talks about comics. Many people don't even know comics are still being published.

[JasonTodd428]

Nope. I would suspect it is a combination of things.

1. People who go to movies or watch TV shows may not necessarily read for pleasure.
2. If they do read for pleasure, they don't necessarily feel motivated to track down the comics, since they are not right in front of them anywhere, and of course nobody they know talks about comics. Many people don't even know comics are still being published.

I know there are some of my non-comic reading friends that fit into that second catagory. In fact they're also not interested in tracking down the comics even when I point them in the direction of where they can get them or even after I tell them they can get them online if they want. On the flip side though a lot of my comic book buddies were hooked into them by tv shows or movies. I'm really the odd man out there since I didn't come to comics via that route. I more or less just stumbled into it myself because of a rainy day spent in my grandparents attic.

[Earth-2 Refugee]

I suppose I was unclear there. The "route" I was speaking of was DC allowing synergy to basically become the be all and end all status quo for their books. I'm fine with a little synergy here and there but not that.

That's pretty much what I'm saying, but I guess I'm being too thorough in my posts.

[cranger]

It's pretty much been the trend that monthly comics about a character don't see much of a spike when there is a movie or new TV show. I think it's fair to say movies/TV shows make people who read comics more likely to read comics about the characters in the movie/TV show, but they don't do much to bring in non-comics readers.

Given how many people went and saw "The Avengers" movie, the Avengers comics should have been selling 200,000-300,000 a month during and right afterward. But the numbers never really went up that much.

That's not to deny that what happened with you, but it's not all that common.

It is relative. Would it be great for the comic book industry if a movie could just bring in another 200,000 readers? Sure, but what about 10,000?

Even if we can conclude that the movies themselves don't lead people into buying comics, certainly there are people every month who are buying their first comic. Given that readership can be seen as a "reader in/reader out" system, and that comic sales overall are up in recent years, new people are reading comics.

When people decide to look into comics for the first time many of them will be looking for something familiar. With the abundance of superhero content in other media people today have many more preconceptions then I am sure many readers as old as myself when I started.

My first step into DC was after the first Tim Burton Batman movie, I bought the film adaptation because it was the closest to what I knew as Batman, but did not get into the Batman ongoings because they did not resonate with me the same way.

Maybe many of those people who saw Avengers and also happened to go into a comic shop for the first time would have picked up an Avengers book if there was one even came close to looking and feeling like the movie.

That said, I am not arguing that the comics should just mimic whatever Hollywood decides to do with the characters, just that we cannot rule out the benefits that "synergy" can have since we really have very few cases where it has been used properly.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Deadshot's new origin was given in Suicide Squad #1 and it resembled heavily what the movie showed us.

Just missing the pimp hat and skin color.

Deadshot's origin was never addressed in the movie, so how could the comic resemble the movie?

[MadFacedKid]

I'd rather CBM's take notes from Comics then the other way around. It's rarely the opposite for me. Though I wouldn't have been bothered with a BatBale in the comics

[Earth-2 Refugee]

I'd rather CBM's take notes from Comics then the other way around. It's rarely the opposite for me. Though I wouldn't have been bothered with a BatBale in the comics

The main thing I don't get is why people expect the comics to put in the effort to be like the movies when the movies put in zero effort to be like the comics. The comics are 75 years old. The oldest movie franchise still going is 16 years old (X-Men). Comics do not have to change a thing to be like the movies, and if the movie going public doesn't like that, then there's probably a reason they weren't reading comics to begin with. Especially since the movies like to hit the same beats over and over whereas the comics like to experiment. The MCU just finished their Civil War, but the comics are in Civil War 2. Do the comics have to backtrack so Civil War fans will get the same exact thing. The MCU released an origin movie for Avengers, and the comics have had the Avengers around for decades. The two are going to be quite different. The DC movies have only shown us that there are 6 heroes and 2 Robins along with a dozen or so villains. Does that mean the comics can only have this so readers don't feel challenged? The comics already have established universes and lore. That's to be expected from 75 years of writing. Don't expect to go in knowing everything because you watched a season of Flash or the Captain America trilogy.
If we start having synergy as a rule, where does it end? Only in characterization? Then Batman is a murderer, Joker is a standard mob-boss, Deadshot is an anti-hero, and Superman is dead. What happens when the Flash movies comes out? Which version do we go with? Also, what happens when members of the Suicide Squad show up on Gotham, Arrow, Flash, or any other show? Which version comes out on top? Setting up rules for synergy, patterns, any kind of foundation only limits the writers and what they can do. Don't make a pattern, don't make rules on what can and can't be put into comics. Let the writers and editors find what works for what they want to do, and don't expect them to pick what you want. You like Batman v Superman, and want to read their comics? Great, but Batman doesn't murder people, Superman is a dad, and Wonder Woman didn't fight in World War One. It's going to be different, get over it.
Sorry for the tangent MadFaceKid, but the ball started rolling and I couldn't stop it. It started with me agreeing, and ending on a completely different note.

[GlennSimpson]

The main thing I don't get is why people expect the comics to put in the effort to be like the movies when the movies put in zero effort to be like the comics.

Because millions of people go see movies, but only a few hundred thousand read comics.

And, at most, only about 100,000 read an individual comic. There's theoretically an opportunity to bring in more readers by making the comic more accessible to those who saw the movie.

The reality doesn't play out, but that's not something one would know unless one had watched it over a period of time.