Why even sending Bruce Wayne into MIA status could backfire
Published by Avi Green on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 3:26 AM.
A writer at Broken Frontier looked at the whole plan of "Batman RIP" a few days ago, and like me, he too feels that it's a bad idea.
With the next Batman film scheduled to come out in a few weeks, I think that's partly why it could misfire, because if the audience were to try out the latest comics, they'd expect to see Bruce Wayne at work under the cowl. Aside from that, it appears to have what to do with Final Crisis, and if it does, then it's far from a natural development. And, as the columnist writes:
With the next Batman film scheduled to come out in a few weeks, I think that's partly why it could misfire, because if the audience were to try out the latest comics, they'd expect to see Bruce Wayne at work under the cowl. Aside from that, it appears to have what to do with Final Crisis, and if it does, then it's far from a natural development. And, as the columnist writes:
What does DC have to lose by killing Bats off? They could lose the respect of their target audience. All savvy comic fans know that the death of Bruce Wayne will not be final. Whether or not he becomes a New God or not, it will only be a matter of time before Bruce is wearing the pointy-eared cowl.Even if it doesn't happen, it's still cheap and done to death by now. It's also become pointless. Again, let's remember what Identity Crisis did, and how they haven't even tried to move away from it, letting its pall hang embarrassingly over the DCU even till now. Despite their claims that they were going to "lighten" the DCU, they didn't really do that, as the killing of Bart Allen should tell. I'd say that already, they have lost the respect of a lot of their audience, or what's left of it, because of that.
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You also have to consider the “going to the well too many times” scenario. The death of Superman was a media blitz for DC over ten years ago. The death of Cap was another for Marvel in the last year. But eventually, audiences will get tired of companies killing off their characters for some cheap press and a sales boost. And if that happens, there won’t be cheap press or a sales boost anymore.
