I've been meaning to chime in on the DC Reboot/Revamp whatever, but I wanted to wait until I could see all the actual solicits at once.
- DC's making the comics available in digital format the same day as the print copies, and for the same price. This doesn't affect me, since I'm not interested in buying digital versions of anything. Books, music, games, I'll take a physical copy, thanks. Maybe someday, if there are no print comics, I'll go digital, but for now, I'll pass.
- What I've read online suggests if DC really wants to expand their audience, bring in people who don't read comics - because they don't know where a comic store is, or wouldn't go in one if they did know its location - they need to drop the digital price considerably. I don't know if that's true or not. Let's say it is, in which case this won't bring in new readers because they'll be turned off by the price point*. The end result of the digital move would seem to be to hurt physical stores, because ultimately, it may only be the preexisting fanbase that will pay $2.99 for a comic. Some fans may decide it's more cost-effective to buy a digital copy than drive to a store or order from an online store and wait for the books to be shipped to them. It splits the audience up, but doesn't enlarge it.
- But you never know. People may be more willing to pay than we suspect. I can't say I have any idea of what other people are willing to pay.
- I'm going to wait until tomorrow to discuss the six books that actually interest me. 6 out of 52 for September doesn't seem like a very good ratio, but I guess it's not much worse than 4 out of whatever they'll ship in August. You all know how I feel about Bruce Wayne as Batman (boo!), and my indifference to Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is only exceeded by my indifference to Hal Jordan in all his identities. No, Geoff Johns can't make me care about Aquaman. And so on. There's a lot that's unappealing, or not appealing enough I'm going to plunk down money without hearing lots of reviews singing its praises first.
- Still, I keep telling myself these aren't aimed at me. DC wants to bring in new readers. They want a comics-buying audience of 1 billion, not whatever substantially smaller number it is now. Even if I only buy 4 DC comics a month, that's still a lot more than most people in the world. They want those other people, and I guess they figure I'll stick around regardless. Which, if they publish something I find entertaining, is an accurate assumption.
- I know most people have responded with a "What the Hell?", but I'll admit the description of Wonder Girl as a "belligerent, powerhouse thief" has stuck with me. Maybe that's because everyone keeps remarking on how ridiculous they find it. I do like thieves, though. The Black Cat, Garrett from the Thief games, Darien Fawkes from the Invisible Man TV show.
- The description of her as a powerhouse gives me pause. She may be a thief in the same way as Spider-Man's foe the Rhino. He does steal, but his method is "Smash through wall, run though vault door, grab shiny things, and either turn around and run back out, or just keep going through the opposite wall." I'm into thieves with a little more style and finesse. At any rate, that description has lead to me spending more time thinking about Wonder Girl (any of them) over the last week than in the rest of my life combined.
- I'm still not buying Teen Titans, though.
- Oh, what dumbassery is this? They're soliciting a new Suicide Squad trade. It collects issues 7-12, plus Justice League International #13. Except the last Suicide Squad trade collected issues 1-8. Why the overlap? I do not like buying the same thing twice.
- What do you think Marvel's response will be? Besides juvenile sniping. We all know that's coming. Do you think they'll make some rushed, ill-considered counter, or will they wait to see if this actually works, then make an rushed, ill-considered counter (even if it doesn't work?) I recall reading Civil War was done in a bit of a hurry after they saw Infinite Crisis doing well. If you judge by sales, then I guess it worked. Civil War sold well, better than IC (at least initially, I have no clue how trades of it have done vs. Infinite Crisis trades in subsequent years). Still it was delayed a bit, and critical response wasn't as positive, if that matters. Considering my affinity for a wider array of Marvel characters, restarting all the books at #1 and letting creative teams go nuts might get me to buy more titles. Which Marvel would promptly cancel in six months, but for a little while it might be swell.
* Unless the writers and artists really cram a lot into those 20 pages to make it seem worth $2.99. Always a possibility.
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5 comments:
If the rumours about the Super-marriage are true, well, I will *not* be a happy bunny.
Matthew: I don't get why they'd get rid of it. They need another start at the origin? And they got married on "Smallville" which is the most recently going adaptation, and I thought they were all about synergy with the other adaptations.
Oh, who knows what goes through the minds of those people.
'Reverting to an iconic version' can't be the excuse this time, as world + dog knows that Clark Kent loves Lois Lane.
'Telling fresh stories' hopefully isn't the excuse as we saw unmarried Superman for over 50 years previously. If your writers can't think of good stories for a married Superman, get more imaginative writers! (NOTE: I refuse to believe that Grant Morrison couldn't do wonders with married Superman anyway.)
'We want to see Wonder Woman and Superman necking' is the most likely one that I can think of, outside of 'make him more palatable to younger cool unmarried readers' of which there are about 20 in the whole comics-buying pool.
Matthew: Unless they still plan to hook him up with Lois, but think those hypothetical new readers (I may be giving them more credit for aiming for new readers than they deserve) want to see it happen, rather than come in part way? Granted, they've seen that before, but maybe they want to see it again?
I don't know why. Lois is an interesting enough character she and Clark being married shouldn't be dull. It's not as though she's going to stop being the best reporter in the world, sticking her nose into all sorts of business, just because she got hitched.
Well apparently Didio has pretty much confirmed it in a recent interview. I mean, I love a good Lois-revelation story as much as the next man but if I want that I can go back to the older comics or watch Lois and Clark. Has DC's writing talent *really* told every story that can possibly be told to explore the relationship between a human and the most powerful man on Earth? Is the only way forward to retell the stories that we read twenty, thirty years ago?
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