The Four Color Media Monitor

It looks like DC has not had much success with their political-allegory miniseries. The sales chart analysis here at The Beat shows that it only sold 29,713 copies. The analyst says:

The cake for the most ham-fisted attempt at topicality this month goes to DC Universe: Decisions, a four-issue series created for the express purpose of having several long-standing DC characters spill out their political leanings, because, um… well, because it happens to be an election year, apparently.

Yep, I guess that could sum it up well. I discovered that Superman plays the part of a liberal, while Lois Lane plays the part of a conservative in this mini! Hmm, this really does sound similar to Civil War, with Superman playing the part of Capt. America, and Lois playing the part of Iron Man. One thing's for certain though: no matter what the political leanings they're depicted with, no sale here.

But, the analyst flubs with the following:

This is very uncharacteristic for DC, who usually shy away from anything that might cause any offense at all to anyone in their mainstream line of comics; in other words, they usually leave this sort of thing to Marvel. Perhaps that explains why they’re so clumsy at it, too. This being DC and not Marvel, for instance, the presidential candidates in the book are not called Obama and McCain, but are entirely made-up. Which undercuts whatever attention they were hoping to grab with a stunt like this one in the first place, of course, and makes you wonder what the point of the exercise is meant to be.

Gee, where's that guy been all these years? DC has done anything BUT shy away from anything that could offend in their mainstream line these past five years. A possible difference they have from Marvel is that they're more likely to camouflage the political themes in more metaphorical disguises. And wasn't Identity Crisis cause for offense? That seems to completely elude him.

Looking at the numbers, retailers seem to agree. While I didn’t expect the book to set the charts on fire, mind you, I didn’t quite expect it to tank so horribly, either.

But now that it has, all I can say is, good. Those who avoided it have done the right thing. Most likely that it's all just another cynical, slapdash attempt at a morally-equivalent story that doesn't help anybody.

Labels: dc comics, politics, sales, women of dc