Two Years Of The New 52, About A Year Of Marvel NOW!

I did this last year, but I'm cutting it down to one part. In terms of quantity, Year 2 (35 comics) was basically even with Year 1 (36). Keep in mind that both of those include some issues of Batman Beyond Unlimited, which isn't really part of the New 52. Even so, both are still well behind the last year before the relaunch (48). That would suggest my purchasing habits have largely stabilized for the relaunch, but I'm less sure. 2010 was a high water mark for DC with me, at 47 comics and 35% of my total. It's been downhill since then. Last year was 38 comics and about 28%, this year I don't expect it to reach 30 comics and 25%.

It's a missed opportunity, since the number of Marvel comics I was buying kept shrinking as well. Marvel was 79 books in 2010, but down to 65 last year. The space was there on my pull list, but DC couldn't take advantage. This year, Marvel looks as though it'll rebound to roughly 2010 levels. May be a temporary blip, or it may be a resurgence.

OK, that's a quantity perspective. In terms of quality, it's a mixed bag. Green Arrow never stopped having the same problem it had this time last year: Inconsistent art. Katana, which was the title Nocenti left Green Arrow to write, has much the same problem. In some ways it's worse, because at least Green Arrow typically used only one artist per issue. Katana is at two artists as often as one, and they aren't terribly similar artists. Both books also have a feeling of being overstuffed or rushed. My theory is Nocenti knows titles have a short leash these days, so she's trying to do as much as she can as quickly as she can. But it feels scattered. Maybe I'm just out of practice reading comics that aren't decompressed.

All that aside, Dial H was a distinct bright spot. I mentioned last year I thought it could be the new 52 title that would come closest to replicating Bryan Q. Miller's Batgirl's quality, but I was hedging my bets 4 issues in. It's done now, cancelled far too soon, but it lived up to my hopes. When Resurrection Man was cancelled, I didn't mind much. It had meandered so much my goodwill was squandered. I wanted Dial H to go on for at least a couple more years. I feel like there was so much Mieville didn't get to do, or had to speed through to provide some sort of conclusion.

I've read retailers in a couple of places detail how Marvel NOW! (which is approaching one year at this point), as a sales strategy, didn't work as well for them as the New 52. I can see it. It's easier to explain to a customer how the entire fictional universe is being started over from scratch (except for the things that kept trucking along, like the Bat and Lantern books), compared to a strategy which seems to have been, "Give creative teams books and characters they want, let them tell the stories they want."  The latter does have the distinct advantage of not throwing a host of characters into the dumpster, compared to all the ones DC swept out (the Dibneys, Cass, Cain, Steph Brown, insert favorite character here), but that probably doesn't work as a selling point to people wandering in off the street.

For myself, I'm at the point where I'm buying titles because I want to see what the creative team will do with it. I'm not interested in tie-ins to whatever the latest Event is, unless the team has plans to use it to further their story. Marvel's largely given me that. Hawkeye and Daredevil predate Marvel NOW! (they feel like the precursors that convinced the higher-ups to try it on a wider scale), and both largely keep to themselves. DD crossed over with Amazing Spider-Man once, for a month, but Mark Waid wrote both parts, and made it fit. And there was the Omega Effect crossover, which felt less natural, but didn't screw with the direction of the book in any way. For all the problems I have with Captain America, Remender and Romita Jr. were left alone to do their thing. Ditto Avengers Arena, and until this Infinity tie-in, Captain Marvel (I wouldn't count the Avengers Assemble crossover since DeConnick wrote both parts. It wasn't the strongest part of the run so far, but I didn't feel like being a crossover was the problem).

It isn't as though Marvel hasn't had its share of letdowns for me. I dropped Fearless Defenders, I'm dropping Captain America. At the same time, I'm still at 5 other ongoings, I'm going to try Deadpool and Superior Foes of Spider-Man here in a few months, and I regret not trying Journey Into Mystery with Sif when I had the chance (I bought the first trade last month, loved it). Even though they're all within the superhero genre, there feels like there's more variety among the books. It isn't all distrust, anger, and clandestine government organizations (though there's still plenty of that). Contrast that to DC, where I'll be down to one ongoing here, at least until Harley Quinn starts, and I don't expect Katana has much time left.

Dial H carried that same sense of creative freedom. Mieville, with Santolouco at first, then Ponticelli, seemed free to do what he wanted. He didn't have to send Nelson on a jaunt to Gotham to tangle with the Court of Owls, or mess with Rotworld. He had some things he wanted to do, he did them. I loved it. So it got canceled. Naturally. I feel like Nocenti's books try for it, but the inconsistency in the artists hurts the effort. It isn't as though Marvel keeps the same artists on titles, certainly not with all their double-shipping, but they do a better job finding artists whose styles compliment each other, or divvying up the work by story arcs, so that at least each story maintains a style, if not the book as a whole. It isn't perfect (Captain Marvel going from Dexter Soy, to Emma Rios, to Andrade could give a person whiplash), but there's at least the appearance that some advance thought was put into it.

I don't know how long the two companies will continue with their respective strategies. DC might decide it's a good idea to stop annoying the vast majority of their writers and artists by messing with their stuff constantly. Marvel might decide they want to have a tighter hand on the reins for their stuff. At the moment though, Marvel's plan is working much better with me than DC's.

So I'll turn to you. How is the New 52 working out for you? How about Marvel NOW!? Have your buying habits shifted at all, or remained largely the same?