Nine Months Later: DCU Relaunch 2
So yesterday I talked about DC's relaunch and some of the mistakes I felt they made with their marquee characters. Today I'm going to get into something a little different. Something that focuses less on the stories and more about the creative teams.
2. Not Enough Talent
So, The New 52 meant DC was going to launch 52 brand new titles, which meant they needed 52 artists and close to 52 writers working for them. But then you look at the list of writers and any long-time fan has to start asking questions?
Questions like where's Mark Waid? Well, apparently DC's screwed him over so many times he doesn't appear to have any desire to work for them anymore. So he's over at Marvel writing the best Daredevil run we've seen in years.
Kurt Busiek? Apart from health issues, the guy's happily working on creator-owned projects. Greg Rucka? Left DC a few years back and like Mark Waid is over at Marvel, making an amazing Punisher run. Great. Peter David? Presumably still exclusive at Marvel, but if not probably has no strong desire to write for DC after the Young Justice thing. Chuck Dixon? Not working for Marvel OR DC, but seemed pretty peeved when he left Robin prematurely. Meanwhile indy sensations Brian Wood and Nick Spencer are off doing--guess what? MORE Marvel work. Brilliant.
And where are some of DC's best artists? Working on Before Watchmen. Darwyn Cooke. Andy Kubert. Amanda Conner. All working on titles that they won't ever get proper respect for, no matter HOW good they are.
Meanwhile long-time DC fans have to sit through article after article of "the 90's are back" because for some reason SOME higher-up at DC thought it was a good idea to give Scott Lobdell not 2, but THREE DC books. One of which not only had a weak concept, but gave DC far too much bad press coming out the gate in September. Just think if that one book had been The Question by Greg Rucka. (For the record, I like Lobdell's Superboy and Teen Titans.)
At the end of the day, this is what it all breaks down to. Poor timing and bad business decisions from the past caught up with DC when it was time to do this massive reboot that was supposed to "fix everything". And it got worse over time, as writers (and artists) began leaving books almost as soon as they hit the stands. This gave fans the mistaken impression that this was all hurriedly put together, but I just don't think it was. A lot of work went into making sure all the books came to an end in the same month. You don't DO that without months of planning.
Fortunately, DC's plan appears to be cancelling what obviously doesn't work and launching new titles with different creative teams, in effect turning their entire line into television, with each series getting a pilot and a number of episodes based on it's popularity, only getting canceled if ratings aren't solid enough. Which means comics like Static Shock go away (thankfully...no representation of black people is better than a bad one, to me), even if it also unfortunately means ones like O.M.A.C. eventually get canceled too.
And while I DO think DC could've had more creative muscle on their books, I also think that if they're willing to cancel what isn't working to try new things, what they have now is a great base to work off. There's a lot of potential for different DC characters that haven't been seen in this new continuity to get developed, and I hope DC doesn't let it go to waste.
3. Why Bother?
Of course, above all, one of the questions that was at the forefront of every person's mind was why should DC even bother with this? It's not their first reboot, or even their second--why go for another when it's never fixed the problem before?
I dismissed this as silliness, and thought a lot of people who wanted huge changes to DC Comics (like getting rid of half the superhero line) were just being ridiculous. But the more I think about it, the more I HAVE to ask what WAS the point?
I'm not saying they should scrap most of their comics and create a bunch of Romance and Western comics. That's silly. DC publishes Superhero Comics. And unless the romance comic was about superheroes, there was no way it would get my money or the money of most DC fans. The renaissance to make superhero comics less popular isn't going to start with DC, or me.
But. As DC gets ready to reintroduce a formerly straight superhero as gay, I can't help wondering...why didn't they make bigger changes? Superman could've easily been a black guy. Wonder Woman honestly should be a lesbian. And literally NOTHING would've been lost changing Barry Allen into Bethany Allen and creating a love triangle between her, her co-worker Patty Spivot, and interviewer Ian West. It's a cop-out to change the orientation of someone like Alan Scott when you could do it with an A-List character like Wonder Woman. You've already pissed off a lot of fans, why not both give them a reason to be mad AND possibly attract new readers at the same time? The way it is now, nobody's all that happy.
Anyway, Jumping in Headfirst isn't meant to be negative, and it irritated me to write this at all, but for months DC's "new" relaunch hasn't quite been working for me the way I wished it would, and I knew I wouldn't get over it until I tried to get some of my problems with it all on paper. Anyways, with all of that out of me, look forward to this place getting a little more...musical for the next couple months, hopefully.
2. Not Enough Talent
So, The New 52 meant DC was going to launch 52 brand new titles, which meant they needed 52 artists and close to 52 writers working for them. But then you look at the list of writers and any long-time fan has to start asking questions?
Questions like where's Mark Waid? Well, apparently DC's screwed him over so many times he doesn't appear to have any desire to work for them anymore. So he's over at Marvel writing the best Daredevil run we've seen in years.
Kurt Busiek? Apart from health issues, the guy's happily working on creator-owned projects. Greg Rucka? Left DC a few years back and like Mark Waid is over at Marvel, making an amazing Punisher run. Great. Peter David? Presumably still exclusive at Marvel, but if not probably has no strong desire to write for DC after the Young Justice thing. Chuck Dixon? Not working for Marvel OR DC, but seemed pretty peeved when he left Robin prematurely. Meanwhile indy sensations Brian Wood and Nick Spencer are off doing--guess what? MORE Marvel work. Brilliant.
And where are some of DC's best artists? Working on Before Watchmen. Darwyn Cooke. Andy Kubert. Amanda Conner. All working on titles that they won't ever get proper respect for, no matter HOW good they are.
Meanwhile long-time DC fans have to sit through article after article of "the 90's are back" because for some reason SOME higher-up at DC thought it was a good idea to give Scott Lobdell not 2, but THREE DC books. One of which not only had a weak concept, but gave DC far too much bad press coming out the gate in September. Just think if that one book had been The Question by Greg Rucka. (For the record, I like Lobdell's Superboy and Teen Titans.)
At the end of the day, this is what it all breaks down to. Poor timing and bad business decisions from the past caught up with DC when it was time to do this massive reboot that was supposed to "fix everything". And it got worse over time, as writers (and artists) began leaving books almost as soon as they hit the stands. This gave fans the mistaken impression that this was all hurriedly put together, but I just don't think it was. A lot of work went into making sure all the books came to an end in the same month. You don't DO that without months of planning.
Fortunately, DC's plan appears to be cancelling what obviously doesn't work and launching new titles with different creative teams, in effect turning their entire line into television, with each series getting a pilot and a number of episodes based on it's popularity, only getting canceled if ratings aren't solid enough. Which means comics like Static Shock go away (thankfully...no representation of black people is better than a bad one, to me), even if it also unfortunately means ones like O.M.A.C. eventually get canceled too.
And while I DO think DC could've had more creative muscle on their books, I also think that if they're willing to cancel what isn't working to try new things, what they have now is a great base to work off. There's a lot of potential for different DC characters that haven't been seen in this new continuity to get developed, and I hope DC doesn't let it go to waste.
3. Why Bother?
Of course, above all, one of the questions that was at the forefront of every person's mind was why should DC even bother with this? It's not their first reboot, or even their second--why go for another when it's never fixed the problem before?
I dismissed this as silliness, and thought a lot of people who wanted huge changes to DC Comics (like getting rid of half the superhero line) were just being ridiculous. But the more I think about it, the more I HAVE to ask what WAS the point?
I'm not saying they should scrap most of their comics and create a bunch of Romance and Western comics. That's silly. DC publishes Superhero Comics. And unless the romance comic was about superheroes, there was no way it would get my money or the money of most DC fans. The renaissance to make superhero comics less popular isn't going to start with DC, or me.
But. As DC gets ready to reintroduce a formerly straight superhero as gay, I can't help wondering...why didn't they make bigger changes? Superman could've easily been a black guy. Wonder Woman honestly should be a lesbian. And literally NOTHING would've been lost changing Barry Allen into Bethany Allen and creating a love triangle between her, her co-worker Patty Spivot, and interviewer Ian West. It's a cop-out to change the orientation of someone like Alan Scott when you could do it with an A-List character like Wonder Woman. You've already pissed off a lot of fans, why not both give them a reason to be mad AND possibly attract new readers at the same time? The way it is now, nobody's all that happy.
Anyway, Jumping in Headfirst isn't meant to be negative, and it irritated me to write this at all, but for months DC's "new" relaunch hasn't quite been working for me the way I wished it would, and I knew I wouldn't get over it until I tried to get some of my problems with it all on paper. Anyways, with all of that out of me, look forward to this place getting a little more...musical for the next couple months, hopefully.
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