Did ya hear the echo in the title? There’s supposed to be an echo. Anyway, if you’re a comic fan, you’ve probably heard the big news: In September, DC Comics will be launching 52 different series, all with new #1 issues, led by an updated Justice League. It’s a line-wide, simultaneous revamp of their entire universe, and it’s got the internet all a-twitter. I told myself that I wouldn’t really comment unless I had something new to add to the conversation. After all, EVERYONE’s contributing their two cents, and if it’s one thing comic fans love, it’s talking about shit nobody wants to hear. That said, the more I followed the discussion, the more I noticed that a certain question wasn’t being asked. Everyone is screaming “How could this do this?!” or “Don’t they know that this is gonna fail?!” Well, let’s look at it another way: What if DC didn’t really have a choice in the matter?
A few months ago, I wrote this post, where I critiqued DC’s failings, especially in regards to marketing and social media. In that post, I noted that Diane Nelson had been brought in to find new ways to monetize the DC properties so that the comic wing would stop being the Warner Bros redheaded stepchild. As it stands, though, comics aren’t a huge chunk of Warner Bros’ revenue. In fact, they could make more money by using the characters in other media, and just publish reprints from here on out. So, what if this new reboot was a forced mandate? Sure, it could be spun as “Wow, DC has balls” or whatever, but it was more likely a change or die situation. Something of this magnitude doesn’t happen for no reason, and it’s a huge undertaking. Sure, there’s a big risk of failure, but for a company to decide to take this course of action, circumstances must have been more dire than we realize. This isn’t a case of them trying to be the #1 US comic publisher, or even short-term sales. This sounds more like a battle for mere survival. Sure, that sounds kind of dire, but we are talking about comics here, and hyperbole’s the name of the game. I’ve said before that I’ve considered myself to be a “DC Guy”, so if this is what it takes for those properties to survive in comic form, then I’m all for it. I guess we’ll just have to see how this plays out.
