The Four Color Media Monitor

At this point, I'm not surprised DC, having performed one reboot less than 3 years ago, could be preparing to launch another. And Dan DiDio said that:

...he and other industry leaders feel like the "excitement" that readers felt in September 2011 (when DC rebooted its universe) has died down.

"When we came out of the gate with the launch of the [New] 52 [in September 2011], we had people buy it, and we held onto them really tight and there was a level of excitement that we hadn't felt in comics for quite awhile," he said. "Quite honestly, we felt, even between ourselves and other companies, it seems like the excitement is quieting down again, across the industry.

"So we feel like it's time to crank it back up again and start to remind people about the big, bold and just craziness that we can bring to comics, that makes our storytelling so unique and exciting," he said. "And from my standpoint, the three weeklies that we're doing — with Batman Eternal, with Futures End and [Earth 2: World's End] — these are all world-building and show really, just the depth and breadth of the DC Universe and all of our characters from all different perspectives. And I think that's what makes it fun."

Why should it be fun when all these consistently frequent reboots and retcons keep it from being fun? There's no plausible characterization anymore, no serious drama, and they keep interrupting nearly everything for the sake of crossovers. Did it occur to him that's why his claim they held onto audience "really tight" is simply not true? The only excitement felt was that speculators could buy much of the output.

And his babble about "craziness" is merely telling what's gone wrong - it's more an allusion to the nasty brand of storytelling Geoff Johns specializes in.

The current environment in the comics industry — and really, the entire entertainment industry — is filled with relaunches, revamps and reboots. These days, readers encounter restarted numbering and redesigned characters several times a year, not just at major publishing companies like DC and Marvel, but even with other publishers and licensed properties.

And how does that amount to authentically character-based storytelling? Those are very superficial efforts that don't amount to anything meaty, and only compound the perception the publishers have no true interest in plausible character drama. If they can't keep themselves from doing crossovers, then they're clearly not making an effort to bring the situation back to what it used to be like, when major publishers cared more about story quality done independently from other books. They only care about fast bucks and the speculator market, and any variant covers that debut next year will only prove that part.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, dreadful writers