CBI Archive
Friday at lightspeed
Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 8:29 AM EST
Updated: Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 7:34 AM EST
I’m endlessly fascinated with the various controversies that erupt in our little pop-culture backwater. I admit it. Especially since they seems so… inconsistent.
Last week, there was this giant freak-out over DC Universe #0. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that if you are reading a CBR comics column, you know what I’m talking about. If not, well, there are spoilers lurking below the fold, okay?
Oddly enough, it was the lack of a “spoilers” tag that got so many people’s knickers in a twist to begin with. I’m referring to the New York Daily News blowing the whistle on the shock ending of the book a full… what? Sixteen, seventeen hours before the end of business Wednesday? (How is that worse than some guy with a name like “NinjaFart23″ blabbing it all over CBR or Newsarama or whatever? For crying out loud, this happens every Wednesday.)
The point being, okay, yeah, the Daily News spoiled it, but… come on. How many of us read the New York Daily News? It was every blogger in and around comics complaining about it that really broke the news of the Barry Allen Flash returning, spreading that spoiler far and wide…. several hours ahead of schedule. Usually the Wednesday internet spoilers show up everywhere on comics sites at about ten AM, but apparently the News broke the story at four AM east coast time. (Insert sarcastic “Oooooooooo, that’s BAD!”)
I’d already read the book by the time I got home and turned on the computer, because truthfully I tend to not look at comics sites until after I’ve read the week’s haul… I know better.
The odd thing is that left to myself I’m not at all sure I’d have concluded it was, in fact, “the Return of Barry Allen!” There’s no picture. There’s a first-person narrative caption with a lightning-bolt logo. To me, that only says “Flash.”
(And the logo was so tiny I had to really squint at it. Personally, I am not terribly fond of this newest replacement for the thought balloon. Yeah, I know, I’m old, our regular commenters are probably already muttering “Oh, quitcher crabbing about how they did it in your day, Hatcher, jeez.” But in my defense, allow me to point out that we never had to wonder who a thought balloon was attributed to, unlike these Meltzer-esque color-coded captions.)
My first thought, sans rumors? Probably would have been, “Is this some kind of callback to that Lightning Saga crap? Wally saw something before the Legion re-integrated his atoms or whatever the hell?”
No, strike that. My first thought, upon finishing the book, would have been exactly what it was: “Jesus, I don’t understand half of this and I have a houseful of DC books.” Normally when one of the Big Two puts out one of these loss-leader books, 10-Cent Adventure or whatever, I look at it with an eye towards getting another fifteen or twenty for my students or for next Halloween’s trick-or-treaters, or something. (We like having a pile of disposable kid-friendly funnybooks on hand in the Hatcher household; my wife Julie usually spends time at conventions cleaning out quarter boxes for just this reason.) But I didn’t do it for the last DC one, where Max Lord blew Ted Kord away, and I won’t do it this time either. Last time it was because I thought the book was a downer. This time? Too obscure. The kids wouldn’t be into it.
Hell, it was too obscure for me, really.
But I’ve already done a bunch of columns about obscure continuity, there’s no need to go over it all again.
No, this week I wanted to talk a little bit about Barry Allen. Saint Barry of the DCU, as some people call him. I’ve seen a lot of people foaming at the mouth over the idea of bringing Barry back, but let’s think it through. (As, one hopes, DC Editorial thought it through.)
I’ve always had a soft spot for Barry. He was the star of my first real comic book, and you never forget your first.
But objectively, looking at his published oeuvre, he’s not really an A-lister in today’s market. Even I moved on from his adventures to other things pretty quickly when I first dug into comics…. you know, in the Long-Ago Times.
So I’m wondering what the point is. There’s hardly anyone out there in fandom, is there, that’s really been pining for the return of Barry? Certainly not the way the Hal Jordan people were foaming at the mouth for a decade.
In that fine old tradition of internet-blogger idle speculation, though, I thought I’d make the case pro and con and see what you all think.
Pro-Barry:
DC needs a Flash. One in the red suit, that is, the one that’s licensed for toys and cartoons and so on.
Bart Allen… well, that just didn’t work. Geoff Johns started by sucking a lot of the joy out of his character in Teen Titans — honest to God, am I the only one left that thinks it’s okay for a superhero to be light and fun? Impulse wasn’t exactly aimed at my demographic but the few times I picked it up it made me smile, and sometimes even laugh out loud.
Then Geoff Johns put him in the Titans, changed the name and the suit, and started riffing on the idea that Bart wanted to be taken seriously. Fair enough, it was a hook to hang his character on, but Johns was already doing it so much better in JSA with Stargirl. Then Bilson and DeMeo took him and made him even more morose and bitter. By the time it was decided to generate some quick buzz by killing the kid, it was almost euthanasia.
Now we have Wally West back. Wally, it has to be said, is probably my favorite iteration of the red-suit Flash, especially once Mark Waid got hold of him.
The trouble is, I’m afraid Wally suffers from the fact that his entire history takes place in an era where the superhero audience has never really turned over. He’s died and come back, he’s married, he’s had kids, he’s had the wife and kids killed, he’s got the wife and kids back, he’s gone public, he’s gone back to the secret ID, etc., etc…. and we remember all of it. Most of this is available in trade paperback. I look at Wally and think, geez, what’s left to do with the poor guy? You’d have to go back and un-do stuff. They’d probably start by killing the family again, because we all know how comics writers feel about married heroes with families…
And I really don’t like that idea. I suspect that was the thinking behind aging Bart and putting him in the suit in the first place. So you give Wally his happy ending and pass the mantle on to someone else.
Why not Barry? First of all, he’s a lot easier to doubletalk back to life than people think. He didn’t die of a gunshot or a beating. He was zapped by some sort of cosmic widget that sent his atoms careening across time. Batman and Wally saw him sort of disintegrate, but for a guy that had conscious control over his molecules, as Barry did, it’s not unreasonable to posit that maybe he could eventually pull himself together.
And, more to the point, creatively it’s an attractive notion. The Barry Allen stories took place in the Silver Age, in an era where fans tend to dismiss the stuff as corny or being for kids. There are hardly any modern stories about him. In that sense, he’s a blank slate, almost.
In fact, Barry never really had a fair shot with modern comics fans. I mean the generation that came and stayed, back when comics shops were getting going. At the time those fans were entering the superhero readership, the Barry Allen murder trial was in its second or third year. Carmine Infantino was phoning in the art, and the book was mired in a storyline that no one but its writer seemed to be enjoying. And there didn’t look to be any end in sight. Sales on the book were in the toilet. The only reason the book wasn’t canceled sooner was the desire to tie it in with the original Crisis, and run out the clock to #350. (A nice even number. For some reason everyone has OCD about this. I think condensing the story and ending with #341 would have been fine, but no, it has to be a round number.)
…But I digress. The point is, a new Barry Allen book could work, especially using a Steve Rogers riff — the man out of time, adjusting to a changing world. The Fastest Man Alive discovering that time has passed him by. We’ve seen characters dealing with losing decades, even centuries, but no one’s done a story where a superhero has to adjust to the idea that he’s lost ten or twelve years of his personal life.
And Barry, unlike, say, Batman or Green Arrow, was very much about his personal life. There are lots of stories that can spin out of that premise. I especially like the idea of playing him off some of the other younger JLA folks like Hawkgirl or Red Arrow, who probably would think he’s too old-school for them. “You know Barry looked totally horrified when he saw me coming out of your room this morning… Geez, Wally was never this much of a stiff.”
(And then those same old-school smarts would come through in a crisis situation: “He was gloating. Luthor was always a gloater, and when he laughs his head goes back. Plus, he tends to focus on Clark and Bruce. I knew if he was taunting them he’d be distracted from his monitor long enough for me to disable the device at superspeed, even with the molecular safeguards.”)
And so on. You get the idea.
Also, Barry’s a really smart science guy, a forensic analyst, and that’s a skill the League could use. I think Batman has ended up doing most of the science and forensics by default, the last couple of years, and they draft Michael Holt for the rest. The JLA should have their own resident scientist, and the thought of a chipper, up-with-people guy like Barry chitchatting with Bruce over lab work is another scene that makes me smile. It practically writes itself — Barry would take the position that Bruce’s demeanor isn’t scary, it’s unhealthy, and he would be compelled to try and cheer him up.
He’d certainly work in the Justice League, anyway. But could Barry carry his own book?
I think so. The key to doing the man-out-of-time riff would be to hang on to Barry’s positive outlook, but challenge it. We’ve seen lots of superheroic whiners deal with personal trauma. What about a non-whiner? Barry Allen was a guy who really believed in the American ideal, and achieved it — even more than Steve Rogers did, in terms of creating a fulfilling personal life for himself (happy marriage, good job) — how would he find his place in the world after it’s all taken away?
He’d shake it off and grimly start from scratch again, I imagine. And show real heroism doing it.
I think that would be an interesting book to read. Your mileage may vary. But certainly, I think the example shows that it’s possible to do a Flash book starring Barry Allen that modern audiences would be into.
*
Anti-Barry:
First of all, it’s yet another resurrection. Which means that none of the Gigantic Event Deaths from the original Crisis will have stuck. (Sorry, you don’t get to count the Don Hall Dove.)
My inner nerd balks at this. For one thing, Barry’s original sacrifice really was well-done, it had a nice build, and somewhat redeemed his character after all that turgid “Trial” stuff. I don’t like to see that undone, even though rationally I know it doesn’t actually affect the original story that sits on my shelf. But it’s annoying.
Secondly, the Event Resurrection seems to be replacing the Event Death as a sales stunt. Every time a writer does this, it adds to the readership’s jaded belief that death in a superhero comic is about as threatening as a bad cold. It is a terrible handicap if you are in the business of creating adventures that depend on building suspense. Why add to the already-prevalent audience cynicism?
Thirdly, and this is, I think, the most compelling reason — Barry Allen works better as a dead martyr than a live hero. All the best stories about him happened after he was dead.
The riff that Barry was one of the Great Ones, the Example We Must Live Up To, has led to some really good stuff. One of the reasons Wally West’s adventures were so interesting was watching him struggle with carrying on the legacy.
And all the stuff that’s been layered on to that legacy over the last twenty years makes it problematic… there’s the time-travel things with Iris and Bart, etc., etc. And we have an audience that remembers all of it. You can’t just say, “everybody out of the pool, it’s a do-over!” (Although I’m amazed DC’s gotten away with that once, with the new Supergirl. I suppose it’s because there was a totally different Supergirl ongoing monthly book in the decades between the original Kara dying and the new Kara showing up. I don’t think that kind of sleight-of-hand will work with Barry Allen, though.)
Even the non-legacy, flashback stories starring Barry have a kind of power because we know his eventual end; it gives them a gravitas that helps them work.
Although I’ve often said that if Barry Allen and Hal Jordan had been written with the kind of snap Mark Waid gave them in JLA: Year One and The Brave And The Bold, there’d have been no need to get rid of them in the first place, I have to admit that the idea that these are ‘historical’ stories kind of helps sell them. It adds to the illusion that time really does pass in the DCU, things happen that matter, people pass on.
Event deaths are often cheap stunts. I don’t think Barry Allen’s was one, though, and it would be a shame to devalue it. If we’re to have a new Flash, let’s get a genuinely new one. Create a new character. DC already spends way too much time looking back at its own history, it’s getting branded as the superhero nostalgia publisher. They should try looking forward for once, just to show the readers they’re capable of it.
*
And that’s the case, pro and con, as it has played out in my head the last week or so. I honestly can’t decide.
Of course none of us know what DC actually is going to do. Certainly, I don’t. But I do know that never even slows us down when it comes to talking about what should happen.
So let the opinionated speculation begin!
See you next week.
NOTE: If you are in Seattle, come see me and my students at the Emerald City Comic-Con this weekend! We’ll be in Artist’s Alley, tables E-5 and E-6. The kids will be signing, doing sketches, and I think Tiffany and Lindon are going to have some of their original art pages for sale at VERY reasonable prices. (And they’re pretty good.) It’s going to be a lot of fun.
If not, we’ll have a full report here next week, with lots of pictures. We are determined this year to get good ones.
62 Comments
Carl
May 9, 2008 at 9:17 am
One aspect of Barry’s personal life is that his wife has aged decades in his absence. Iris raised two children to adulthood and saw her grandchildren born before returning to the 21st century. In fact, given The Legion of Three Worlds, the question might come up as to which Don and Dawn Allen are his actual children.
Stephen
May 9, 2008 at 9:20 am
“And the logo was so tiny I had to really squint at it. ”
Um… big honking lighting bolt over a moon forming an almost page-high Flash logo in the background? Didn’t really matter that the caption was hard to make out.
>Event deaths are often cheap stunts. I don’t think Barry Allen’s was one, though, and it would be a shame to devalue it. If we’re to have a new Flash, let’s get a genuinely new one. Create a new character. DC already spends way too much time looking back at its own history, it’s getting branded as the superhero nostalgia publisher. They should try looking forward for once, just to show the readers they’re capable of it.<
Every time they do try this (Kyle as GL, the new Blue Beetle, Firestorm, Atom), the readership base inexplicably rejects it, sometimes in a manner that makes the readership look completely insane (the Marz death threats, the racist remarks made about Jason Rusch when he was revealed as the new Firestorm). What’s worse, DC actually pandered to the nostalgia readers in Infinite Crisis, with the “well, they’re not REALLY Earth’s heroes, they would’ve been shunted off to Earth-8 if the multiverse still existed” line.
While one of the appealing aspects to DC is that its history does matter - Wally’s the best example of this, as the Sidekick Who Fulfilled His Promise is a compelling character base to build from - the current reactionary trend is disturbing. They’ve gone from a forward-looking company in the 90s to a company who, in the last couple of years, seems to want to turn the clock back to 1983. The decisions are being made by people who were into comics in that era, but a lot of the readers that DC’s losing are people who bailed from Marvel when they screwed up their entire line in the 90s and DC was publishing great books that took the best of Marvel plotting and characters and married them to DC’s richer legacy (Waid’s Flash, Dixon’s Nightwing and Robin, Marz’ GL, etc.).
Could a book with Barry go back to that? Maybe. But it just wouldn’t feel right (and, as noted, would almost invalidate “Return of Barry Allen”, which would be a shame since that was the best of those DC-Marvel hybrid stories and probably DC’s best post-Crisis story, period). Have this be a cameo, like the prior two times Johns had him show up, and then vaporise him again.
Yeah, if they’re done with Wally - and I don’t think they should be, but I do see the argument - it’s time to let someone completely new get the powers. What’s been missing from Flash for years has been the sheer joy that the power of speed should bring - it’s been a part of Wally’s life since he was 15 or so, so he practically takes it for granted. Someone new would allow the reader to see that, which would be an interesting spin on it.
If DC ever grows a backbone again, that’s what they’ll do.
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 9:34 am
First, Barry Allen is a great character. The stuff Broome & Infantino did with him stands with Spidey, the FF and the Weisinger Superman as the best of the Silver Age. If you cannot crack open a Flash re-print and enjoy it, then I am not sure why you read comics. It make me smile, which is what is great about comics for me.
That said, the Flash is an arch-type. The big DC arch-types really should get re-thought for every generation. Byrne re-thought Superman from the ground up for my generation. That really gave me a character I loved from my childhood back. “Smallville” re-thought the same character for a younger group of people and it has worked for years. The same is true for Batman. The Frank Miller/Tim Burton version was for me, but now there is a different version that is equally good. Wonder Woman is dying for a post-Perez refresh.
The way DC has re-thought its second tier characters has been put a new person into the suit. The best example of this was always the Flash. Jay Garrick gave way to Barry Allen who, in turn, gave way to Wally West. To kids who grew up in the ’60s, the paradox of a square scientist who was unbelievably fast in secret made sense. For me, Wally West connected better. Being fast meant being glib and charming, so the womanizing, joke cracking Flash was perfect. The writers who followed Mike Baron and William Messner-Loebs sort of beat those qualities out of Wally, so it probably was time to move on,
Sadly, the idea that DC has decided to return to the ’60s instead of looking forward to what Gen Y kids think “The Fastest Man Alive” means is probably the real death knell for the character. Going back to Barry closes the man in the red suit off to new readers. One more time, you have know what the COIE was, what the Final Crisis was and 90% of what happened in between to understand a comic. That rarely makes me smile.
The Mutt
May 9, 2008 at 9:48 am
The “man out of time” idea is a good one, but only if you think in terms of real time, not “comic book time.” In the DC universe, Barry has only been dead for a few years. I tend to think of Barry as being a product of the fifties, but that can’t be true in the DCU.
(Just how long has Dick Grayson been a superhero anyway?)
When Captain America was thawed out, he’d been frozen for about twenty years. Jumping from the mid forties to the mid sixties would be a big culture shock. Jumping from the late nineties to today would barely register on someone.
One of my favorite comic stories (the name of which is escaping me at the moment) dealt with the WWII era JSA seeing a vision of life in “present day” America. They were so appalled by what they saw they assumed the Earth had been taken over by demons and felt that they had to come rescue us.
This is one reason I think the best way for Marvel to bring back Steve Rogers would be to have Reed and Tony time travel back and find him in the ice again. 1945 to 2008. Now there’s a culture shock!
Greg Hatcher
May 9, 2008 at 10:02 am
No, no. You’re absolutely right about that. I was thinking of the smaller, personal things. His wife is gone. Wally’s all grown up and married and has kids. The world knows that Barry Allen was once the Flash and his life story’s on public display in books and a museum. Eight or ten years isn’t about CULTURE shock, but in terms of personal life, that’s a jump. I was thinking of the kind of lost-time adjustments that, for example, the Vietnam POW’s had to make after they got home. That kind of thing, only a superhero version of it.
Hondo
May 9, 2008 at 10:31 am
Much as I love DC, it really feels like they’re pandering to the older crowd of hardcore fans by bring these Silver Age characters back. I love Barry Allen and his Flash title was one of my favorites as a kid. I dig Wally West as the Flash and was quite bummed when Impulse was killed as I thought it made perfect sense for him to be the next Flash.
Is there any single major DC character who’s died and stayed dead now ? I guess if Barry comes back I can’t think of one off the top of my head. That’s really sad, as his death showed that death could be permanent and self sacrifice is the ultimate trait of a true hero willing to sacrifice himself for the good of others if there’s no other way to make it better.
Still, the point about his being able to control his molecules is a very valid point, so I’d sooner see him return as a character than say, Oliver Queen, who I also think should have stayed dead and DC would’ve stuck to their guns with Conner Hawke as the new Green Arrow.
Matt
May 9, 2008 at 10:51 am
Great piece as always Greg.
I feel like the possible pitch on a Barry Allen Flash series is one of those head-slapper moments: It’s superheroes meets CSI. He’s got the superspeed, but he’s also a classic textbook forensic investigator.
I don’t know HOW those pieces fit together, but I’m convinced they would.
Jeff Ryan
May 9, 2008 at 11:01 am
Not to always bring up Quasar, but in one Quasar issue they had a contest with all the Marvel speedsters to see who was the fastest. A few seconds from the finsih line, a new charatcer apepared in a flash of lighting AT THE STARTING LINE and beat all the other racers to the end. He was wearing torn red outfit, had amnesia, and thoguht his name was “Bureid Alien.”
Classy. Not as classy was when they gave him the kick-in-thepants-bad superhero name of Fast Forward.
Jeff R.
May 9, 2008 at 11:10 am
All of the event deaths undone? Nah, Kole is still dead, right?
Wouldn’t Barry Allen be pretty much rubbish as a CSI today, though? All of his technical knowledge is ten years obsolete, and that would be ten fairly big years in the field. Even if the Flash could do a speed-learning trick, getting the necessary degrees and accreditations for the Barry Allen ID would be difficult at best.
Barry also has the same ‘family’ baggage as Wally, with the added complication that his kids are in the 31st century. It’s tough to find a way for a returned Barry not to move himself there instead of sticking in the present. I think that a completely new flash is the only real way to go, myself.
Michael
May 9, 2008 at 11:27 am
“(As, one hopes, DC Editorial thought it through.)”
And there’s the rub. If the return of Hal Jordan is any indication, thinking this sort of thing through is not DC Editorial’s strong point.
But we’ll see.
Greg Burgas
May 9, 2008 at 11:36 am
As I was just reading in the latest issue of Back Issue (and I’m sure you were too!), I like how “sales in the toilet” mean it was selling over 60,000 copies in a month. The times, they have a-changed.
Greg Hatcher
May 9, 2008 at 11:45 am
Yeah, I know. When I look at the numbers Heidi puts up on The Beat every month I really get depressed. I try not to dwell on it.
Teebore
May 9, 2008 at 11:58 am
I’ve always been firmly in the “Barry is better as a legend” camp, but I have to admit, your ideas in the “pro return” category are interesting and intriguing.
Still, I think the best course is to pass on the Flash mantle to someone else; no character better embodies the sense of legacy that DC has (which is the thing, imo, that most separates the DC characters from their Marvel counterparts) so if any character is crying out for a step forward instead mining the past, it’s the Flash.
Bill Reed
May 9, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Greg, I actually kinda wanna read your Barry-centric Flash series. Unfortunately, they probably wouldn’t do it like that, and we’d be back to boring ol’ Barry Allen who was always more useful dead than alive. That’s the Barry I know, and it’s the Barry that works. You know. Like Jason Todd. Can’t imagine what would happen if they brought HIM ba– oh, right.
If they’ve really run out of Wally stories to tell– I don’t think they have quite yet, but they might be getting there if the writers fall into traps with the kids– then I’d rather have a brand-new Flash, one with no connection to the legacy, no Speed Force, nothing. Take the Flash back to being a science hero, but one for the modern era, one that’s free of the deathly nostalgia (”Barry Allen and the Deathly Nostalgia”– there’s a book for you). No one would buy it, though. There’s the kicker.
Hondo
May 9, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I didn’t follow Quasar and had never heard that story. Hilarious !
Barry could pull an Impulse and super read a ton and catch up from 10 years ago or whatever it is since his death. The whole CSI thing was always cool and him helping to shoulder some of the forensics burden.
The Flash with that whole Speed Force (a great concept I’m glad they haven’t dtiched), that whole 31st century / Legion connection, the whole legacy thing fits the Flash family more than any other character I can think of.
Good points if they do bring him back, but like Teebore I agree they should leave him dead. I agree that it does add another dimension to DC’s legacy characters that other companies lack. It helps to show how classic the characters are and that they’ve grown and endured as properties since the Golden Age. Marvel really only has Cap, Subby, and to a lesser degree, the Human Torch, that have endured since then when they were Timely.
Thinking about it upon reflection, I’m a huge LSH fan, and while I know the Super editorial powers are going to connect Superman more with the Legion and the 31st century, it would be cool to see that expanded upon in the Flash’s title too, regardless of who will be the current Flash.
"O" the Humanatee!
May 9, 2008 at 12:48 pm
But we already know what happened to Barry when he discorporated: He accelerated to such a degree that he traveled backward through time and turned into a “human thunderbolt” - the same lightning that struck the chemicals that turned him into the Flash. (That may sound forced or stupid, but it was really quite a moving story - no pun intended.)
The Mutt
May 9, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Gotcha, Greg. That makes much more sense.
As for the Barry Allen: CSI notion, which I have heard many, many people give as a reason for his return, my keen pop culture sense tells me that it would be yet another example of comics jumping on a bandwagon just as it was about drive over a cliff. TV has been over-saturated with those shows long enough for the bubble to be about to burst. Have you watched one lately? Boy do they suck.
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I read that story and adored it. It is a shame that DC appears to have decided to toss it out of continuity, but nostalgia for ‘83 trumps nostalgia for ‘93 at these days. Maybe in a couple years DC will fire DiDio and replace him with someone who thinks the “Invasion!” era was the paragon of good comics.
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 1:43 pm
DC appears to have made a decision to make the majority their books totally unreadable to anyone who has not been reading them weekly for at least a decade. That tiny priesthood probably is not going anywhere, but it is not growing any time soon either.
It is really weird that given the explosion of superhero stories in every other media that DC has decided to make their product less accessible to the general public. “Smallville” had seven million viewers at its peak, which is eleven times what an issue of “Superman” sells. “Superman Returns” was seen by probably three times that many people in the theater. However, DC has never made the slightest effort to tailor their content to appeal to those folks. The same is equally true for fans of “Batman Begins”. If they had cold re-started the Superman and Batman comics in rough continuity with those characters in other media, then they might have been able to capture some of that larger audience. Even a 1% conversion rate and those would be the two biggest selling monthly comics.
Marvel has been making the same mistake, but their priesthood is a bit larger. Also, they have had a higher quality of comic in recent years. That puts them ever so slightly higher in the water.
Michael
May 9, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Frankly, I don’t understand the people who say a “superhero CSI” comic would be great. On CSI, they spend most of their time either collecting evidence or examining it in the lab. In either case, it’s a lot of standing around making pithy comments, and not much action. You ever read the CSI comics? It’s a lot of talking heads. Not really what I’m looking for from the Flash.
Stephen
May 9, 2008 at 1:57 pm
“TV has been over-saturated with those shows long enough for the bubble to be about to burst. Have you watched one lately? Boy do they suck.”
Also, they tend to skew far older than what a comics company should be trying to draw - there’s a number of articles out there about how CSI, in spite of all the high-tech stories and flashy camera work, is far more beloved by the 40+ crowd than those under that age bracket.
“If they had cold re-started the Superman and Batman comics in rough continuity with those characters in other media, then they might have been able to capture some of that larger audience.”
I don’t think that’s an issue - the Batman titles got a nice sales bump in 1989 off the strength of the Burton Batman movie, and they weren’t rebooted (that was in the middle of the good Detective run mentioned in the Top 150 runs list) - about the only change I remember is that they brought Vicki back out of nowhere, albeit the DCU version with red hair. The issue with people picking up the monthly books these days is that no one acutally wants to go to a comic shop to buy those books - comics were simply much more visible back then.
On the other hand, everyone I know working at Chapters or Indigo (our Canadian versions of B&N) have pointed out that sales of comic-based TPBs always go up during the summer movie season, usually in direct correlation to whatever movies are out that year. The TPBs are where DC and Marvel go for their movie tie-in push, and it’s been working thus far.
(And with Batman, DC has Long Halloween, Year One and Dark Victory continuously in print, so there’s no real need to reboot Batman - if people want stories with the same feel as the movie, they’ve got the ones that inspired the movie.)
(… and like it or not, Chris Kent was basically DC aping the Superman Returns continuity.)
comb & razor
May 9, 2008 at 3:47 pm
“It is really weird that given the explosion of superhero stories in every other media that DC has decided to make their product less accessible to the general public. “Smallville” had seven million viewers at its peak, which is eleven times what an issue of “Superman” sells. “Superman Returns” was seen by probably three times that many people in the theater. However, DC has never made the slightest effort to tailor their content to appeal to those folks.”
Superman: Birthright was an attempt to slant the comics continuity towards “Smallville,” wasn’t it?
for whatever reason, it didn’t take.
Jack Norris
May 9, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Just as an aside, as far as this whole “they’re pandering to older fans with this” thing goes, I’m towards the older end of the spectrum, and I say leave Barry dead. Wally should permanently remain the sidekick who moved into the main man’s shoes.
The Mutt
May 9, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Bwah! I love comments like that one from ImNotQuiteBrightEnoughToUnderstanAlanMoore. They are what makes the internet so much fun. But I kid. He’s just as smart as Mr. Mackey, for sure.
I’m not quite old enough to remember Jay Garrick as the only Flash, but I’ve never been a Flash fan. During the Barry Allen years, it was always one of the weakest of DC’s superhero titles. Long after DC comics left the Silver Age goofiness behind, Flash was about the goofiest superhero title they published.
Wally’s run was good, but not good enough to overcome my lack of enthusiasm for comics featuring a hero that should have won the battle on the first page, yet somehow couldn’t get the job done.
Impulse actually made sense, because his wits weren’t as fast as his body.
Barry works best as a martyr. Best to leave him lay.
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 5:22 pm
My opinion is that it didn’t work for the same reason that most in-continuity changes of that type don’t work: the only people who were aware of it were the people most likely to be hostile to the idea. If you are one of the 60k people reading “Superman”, then radical change is bad. You want everything to be in continuity with whatever your jumping on point was. For a lot of people, that was probably the Byrne revamp.
To make it work, you need to draw in a lot of people from outside the 60k that are already reading. Logically, they want a story that is in continuity with where they came aboard. The would be either the first season of “Smallville”, or “Superman Returns”. “Birthright” did not directly connect TV and movie continuity to a new comic continuity. This exactly what Joss Whedon did with “Buffy: Season 8″ and it is selling great. It will probably move a ton of trades as well.
The bad news is that it would require a hard re-boot of the entire DCU. There could be no legacy of the JSA, or Barry Allen, or anything. It would have to be a perfectly clean slate. Maybe move all the stories to an “Earth-Zero”, or something.
DC could then use the re-launched Superman and Batman as a gateway to new versions of everything. It could be fun to see modern creators re-think Green Lantern, the Flash and the rest Julie Schwartz style. If it worked, then it could bring an influx of new readers into comics for the first time in a long, long time.
Alan Coil
May 9, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I think we’re all getting pretty sick of this ‘MyName…’ troll. Isn’t it time to stop the madness?
The Mutt
May 9, 2008 at 6:09 pm
While it would hurt to lose decades of cool continuity and relationships, there is nothing I’d rather see more than to see DC start from scratch. Restart every comic at #1. Let us see Superman arrive in Metropolis for the first time. Let us see Batman’s first fight. Let us see Steve Trever crash on Paradise Island. Build it all again from the ground up. C’mon, you know you’d love it.
And put a reprint story in the back of very issue. Golden Age, Silver Age, Modern Age. Every comic MUST have a reprint.
Start from scratch. It’s the right thing to do.
Hondo
May 9, 2008 at 6:48 pm
They either need to completely reboot everything, like they should have after COIE or at the very least apply the same rules to all the characters so we know where their individual status roles are in the DCU. It’s too risky for DC to do that IMO but I’d love to see it. If they officially rebooted everything they could go back and rebuild their entire universe from book one brick by brick. How exciting how that be ? Of course they’d have all that wonderful backlog of unofficial stories to mine and retell but excluding the elements that no longer work. Kind of like converting your favorite old recipes with healthier ingredients to match today’s more health conscious attitudes and lifestyles.
Master Mahan
May 9, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I’d say the return of Jason Todd is a good argument for reviving Barry Allen. I find it pretty hard to imagine them screwing up any worse. After all, Countdown transformed Todd from a jerky, costume-less ex-Robin to… a jerky, costume-less ex-Robin, but without a domino mask. It was a better story when Todd turned into some sort of mutated blob over in Nightwing.
I’d also like to request that DC Universe 0 is the last use of the mystery caption for at least the next 3 years. The fade-to-red was sort of clever, but I hate reading a comic and then being forced to immediately reread it to interpret what the hell the narrator was talking before.
The Mutt
May 9, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I don’t think it’s risky at all, Hondo. I think it would get major media play and invite new readers like nothing before. Plus, every fanboy would buy every single issue..
End the next crisis with the entire DC Universe being destroyed by Darkseid solving the Anti-Life Equation. Then take a month off. That’s right, a whole month.
During that month, publish a select few comics.
Week One: Anthro. Vandal Savage. Lucifer.
Week Two: Shining Knight. The Demon. Viking Prince.
Week Three: Jonah Hex. Bat Lash. Tomahawk.
Week Four: Sgt. Rock. Haunted Tank. The Losers.
Then do the next month set during the 40’s and 50’s:
Week One: Crimson Avenger. Wildcat. Vandal Savage.
Week Two: Sandman. The Demon. The Atom.
Week Three: Starman. Hourman. Hawkman.
Week Four: Jay Garrick Flash. Alan Scott Green Lantern. The Spectre. Martian Manhunter.
Then relaunch the entire DC Universe in the Present Day:
Week One: Action Comics starring Superman. Detective Comics starring Batman. Adventure Comics starring Wonder Woman.
Week Two: Flash. Green Lantern. Aquaman.
Week Three: Atom. Black Canary. Green Arrow.
Week Four: Everybody else. And Vandal Savage.
You can’t tell me that these comics would sell less than what the current DC comics are selling today. Even if they did, the mega-conglomerate that owns DC could take the hit for two months, considering how many more comics they would sell if all of a sudden every issue was a jumping-on point. Plus, the major media would be talking about DC Comics for three months in a row.
There you go. I’ve saved the DC Universe.
You’re welcome.
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Done right, it would be very exciting. More to the point, it would be something DC could promote to a wider audience. Near as I can figure the monthly comic book market looks kind of like this:
- 90k that read Marvel exclusively, or very nearly.
- 60k that read DC exclusively, or very nearly
- 30k that read some combo of Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse.
- 10k that never read Marvel, or DC superheroes.
That is a total opportunity of maybe 200 thousand readers. Unless I miss my guess, the average age of those readers is late 30s to early 40s. Based upon the trend in cancellations, it seems like 30k is break-even for the Big Two. The total market seems to be growing, but that is mostly collected stuff.
If someone walks out of “The Dark Knight”, into Barnes and Nobel and buys “The Dark Knight Returns” in trade; that is good news for a lot of folks. The reader gets a great experience. DC Comics makes some money and, in all likelihood, so does Frank Miller. The customer may even go back and buy “The Long Halloween” a week later. The problem is that this does nothing to help the economics of creating new comics.
On that front, DC seems to be treading very close to the line where most new monthly comics do not make financial sense. Sure, “Superman”, “Batman” and “Superman/Batman” make a profit, but I worry about a lot of their other books. To endure, the comic book business needs to draw new readers. Marvel has more wiggle room, so they are probably less motivated at this point.
Rene
May 9, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Not sure how wise it would be finantially, but as long as we’re talking a line-wide reboot to attract the non-initiated:
- Put quality over quantity. Perhaps no more than 12 regular monthly titles, so people could buy them all if they so desire, and concentrate on making these twelve sell REALLY well, with top writers and pencillers. 2 Superman titles, 2 Batman titles, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Aquaman, Titans, Green Arrow, and Brave and the Bold.
- Make liberal use of minis, graphic novels, and specials to complement the 12 regular titles, highlighting lesser known characters. Moving away from the 22-page monthly as the “standard” can only be good.
- Use the same approach to continuity as the Jim Shooter era in the Marvel Universe: keep everything tight, but do NOT have stories that depend on other comics for you to understand them.
- Create a “clean” universe without zillions of heroes, villains, aliens, and mutants. Here is how I disagree with the Mutt. The non-geek people that watched Smallville and Batman Begins would prefer a more grounded universe with fewer meta-humans and fantastical occurrences. A more “realistic” universe (I know realistic is a dirty word to many Internet fans, though).
- Another controvertial decision with Internet fans who are fond of the Silver Age, but cut down on power levels. Seriously. It would appeal more to the average movie-goer or TV fan to read about a Superman that can still be beaten (like Smallville or the Byrne version) than a Superman that juggles planets and moves at light-speed.
- You could even fold popular Vertigo characters like John Constantine and Swamp Thing back into this grounded, more realistic, DCU.
Greg Hatcher
May 9, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Um…. I hate to say “I told you so,” but, well, I actually already did the column suggesting the line-wide reboot.
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Mutt, I love your spirit, but I think it needs even more radical surgery.
I’d start with exactly two titles: Superman and Batman. The Superman title would spend a year updating the chronology of the first two films for the “Smallville” audience. Nothing would be there to throw them. Nothing. So, Pete Ross is black, Lex Luthor would instantly recognize that Clark Kent is Superman and Green K gives regular people powers. Batman would be instantly accessible in the exact same way to “Batman Begins” viewers. So, Ra’s al Ghul trained Batman, etc. You’d spend the first year introducing Robin and the Rogue’s Gallery.
At the end of year one, you do a Superman-Batman cross-over.
By that point, DC would have time to do a total re-think on the rest of the JLA. You roll the All-New, All-Different versions of Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Flash at a rate of one per month. Then, you launch an All-New, All-Different version of the JLA. Finally, you roll out the “Teen Titans” with exactly the same roster as the Cartoon Network series: Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven and Beast Boy.
There are areas that I am open suggestion. Maybe you need to re-launch Wonder Woman with Superman and Batman. Maybe someone has a killer idea how to introduce a new version of, say, Nightwing that is unconnected to Batman continuity. Maybe Aquaman is too dated to be salvaged. However, I’d suggest the following are essential:
1. The titles should focus on deconstructed, decompressed and modernized re-tellings of older stories.
2. Everything should be kept as simple and consistent as possible. If there are two green shape-shifters (i.e. Martian Manhunter and Beast Boy), then they are related somehow
3. When re-thinking characters like the Flash and Green Lantern, the creators should keep no more than Julie Schwartz did. So, the Flash is the fastest man alive and Green Lantern is a guy with a magic ring he has to re-charge from a lantern. Everything else is new.
4. The kids are never coming back. If you can make the titles hip, then College students would be your best new audience to target. Keep it R-Rated. A Lois Lane nude scene might land you on the news. Being in the news is a good thing.
5. Only launch as many titles as you can staff with top talent. Better to have one good Batman book a month than five crappy ones.
6. Try lots of new stuff and keep what sticks. If nobody can come up with a good idea for a new Hawkman, then why bother?
Dean
May 9, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Great column. That is more or less what I was thinking.
However, I’d suggest that you don’t have to wrap everything up from the current DCU. If you just move the line to an “Earth Zero” that has never had a paranormal person prior to the arrival of a certain rocketship carrying a certain baby in the mid-80s, then you can leave the older characters on their own Earths. It worked just fine in the old Earth-1 and Earth-2 days. It gives the nostalgia inclined a chance to read the inevitable Geoff Johns, or Mark Waid, mini “in continuity”.
Kelson
May 9, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I’ve got a write-up, with scans, of the Quasar story with Buried Alien.
comb & razor
May 9, 2008 at 11:26 pm
i agree that both of the Big Two could definitely benefit from publishing fewer books, but i must say that DC would probably lose me as a leader were they to limit ther publishing to just their mainstream superhero titles.
one of the things that i always enjoyed about DC over Marvel is the fact they seemed to me to be more than just a superhero publisher–as much as i loved and love superheroes, i appreciate the fact that i’m offered so many other genres. right now, my favorite DC book is Jonah Hex.
otherwise, i think this line-wide reboot would be extremely exciting… but i have to admit that i’ve always kind of wished that Superman could be rebooted into his own universe. in many ways, i think the problem with Superman is not his power levels per se, but the way that the existence of hundreds of others metahumans makes him less unique and simultaneously necessitates the boosting of his power level.
Superman and the Hulk are two characters i think make more sense as the only metahumans in their own (possibly more realistic) worlds.
but of course, i understand that fans want myth tapestries in which everything is connected to everything else, so-oooo…
Dean
May 10, 2008 at 12:02 am
There is no need to lose the Western, War and Horror titles They just wouldn’t be in a shared universe with the superhero stuff. It doesn’t seem like losing the ability to cross-over with Batman is huge loss to the average Jonah Hex reader. Maybe DC could just bundle all the non-superhero stuff under the Vertigo imprint.
I agree to a point. In the current DCU with nearly 70 years of backstory to the various superheroes and dozens of unrelated characters with similar powers, Superman loses something. He isn’t the first superhero (or the fiftieth), so he really isn’t “the light that shows the way” toward a better humanity. In fact, being super-strong and flying are pretty well as common in the DCU as hitting the breaking ball is in ours.
However, he fits nicely with the “Big 7″ edition of the JLA. Re-focus an updated and revamped take on the Martian Manhunter figure on his spooky abilities (telepathy, shape-shifting) and those seven characters have very little overlap in terms of abilities. In a true, hard reboot, Superman would be the first super-human again. So, he works very like he would in his own universe.
red-Ricky
May 10, 2008 at 12:56 am
Hey Greg, just wanted to say that you wrote a great article and I think that I pretty-much agree with you on everything. To me, DCU #0 felt like a giant promotional giveaway. Like the “DC Direct Currents” and “DC Samplers” of old.
And like you, I wasn’t sure the Old Flash was back. The only reason I think he is back (at least for Final Crisis) is because Didio said so in an interview. That’s it. It’s like when I was told that Bart Allen’s first Flash issue was narrated by a Flash, other than Bart but you couldn’t tell who it was.
So in all honesty, a lightning bolt across the moon (or in a caption) may indicate that a Flash is talking; but that is pretty much it. In the same interview in which Didio confirmed Barry’s Return, he said that the body “materializing” was Libra’s.
So yeah, I agree with you. It wasn’t much of a spoiler and I don’t think you call it that, if you have to read the damn thing 3 times and you are still like… “are you sure that’s him? Sure or just positive? Positive or HIV-Positive?”
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
As far as which Flash will stay, I’m kind of hoping that they both stay. Maybe one of them will be the Present Day Flash and the other can live in the Future. Call him Star Trek Flash! He could be the Ultimate Captain American-Flash. But to be honest, I don’t think that even DC knows what the Ultimate Fate of the Flashes is going to be.
It’s all in Grant Morrison’s hands. DC, like the rest of us, will look at Grant’s last Final Crisis script and just roll with whatever Grant gives them.
As far as a new Flash goes…
It’s been done before, it didn’t work. People like Wally. People like Barry. They are fun and have an “it” factor that the others don’t. John Fox, Jesse Chambers, Bart Allen and Quicksilver (for Marvel); these are all Speedsters that have had their solo-shot at famdom and failed. The only success story I can think of, is Walter West; and technically he was a parallel Wally.
So I’m sorry, but this is not a case of “if you built it, they will come”.
People are not going to magically wake up one Wednesday and say: “Hey, today’s the day that a new Flash debuts! In fact, today’s a good day to start my comic book collection! I think I’m going to go to a comic book store and spend $2.99 (plus Tax) for the first time in my life so that I get to read 1/6th of a story!!! Isn’t that a great deal!!!”
Sorry, but that’s just my take. I don’t think that a comics blackout and complete reboot is going to accomplish what the Ultimate Line, the All-Star Line, the Death of Captain America, the Movies, the tv series, free comics and a nice confy reading table at your local Borders (or Library) hasn’t.
(But if you think so, then maybe I can interest you in some nice Enron Stock; don’t worry, they are still around, and at prices this low, it’s almost a crime not to buy!)
Even if the Flash could do a speed-learning trick, getting the necessary degrees and accreditations for the Barry Allen ID would be difficult at best.
Not really. Barry Allen already has a Ph.D in Chemistry. Besides, CSI is a vocational trade. If you have worked in a Lab, or been a Lab assistant; you could be a CSI. What’s a pain in the ass for most of the people is doing the Police Academy stuff. You could still be a Civilian CSI but all the perks that come with being a civil sevant like retirement plans, health insurance, hazard pay and life insurance; are reserved for career Cops.
If anything, coming back should be a breeze for Barry. In the old days, he would have to send all his DNA stuff
to an FBI facility and go to a store in order to compare tire tracks or foot prints. All that is now done by computers, and we all know that he knows how to use them!!! We’ve seen him do “Monitor Duty.”
The real problem I see is that Barry Allen is a real smart scientist; and most comic book writers aren’t! So it’s hard for them to write a good Barry Allen when they don’t know anything about chemical reactions, quantum physics, etc.
Wally is a good Flash for today’s writers because he is a pretty dumb guy for someone who has a Master’s in Physics (as seen in Flash #2, vol. 2 & the The New teen Titans).
And speaking of Wally, for the life of me I don’t know why the powers-that-be made him a mechanic instead of a CSI. He was a CSI in the Justice League Animated Series, and he could be a shoe-in over at Central City PD. Afterall he is a personal close friend of Jay Garrick (who used to run his own Lab business over in Keystone); plus he’s the nephew of Barry Allen!!! Wally West not being able to get a job as a CSI (or as a Cop), is like a Bush not being able to get in at Yale!
I look at Wally and think, geez, what’s left to do with the poor guy? You’d have to go back and un-do stuff. They’d probably start by killing the family again, because we all know how comics writers feel about married heroes with families…
You know, I like the Flash-Kids; but I have no illusions about them. Their fates are sealed… it’s in the mission statement and says so right there in the credits page.
I just hope that instead of getting killed by Captain Boomerang, Dr. Light or whatever the stupid pedophille villain of the week is; we get to see the natural progression of the disease and how the family deals with the kids being adults, and elderly, and dying. Don’t get me wrong, this is the DC Universe (not Lifetime!!!) So I expect Wally to try and stop the aging process by using Magic (Zatanna), going to the Rock of Eternity (Capt. Marvel), traveling to space (Oa/Thanagar/Etc.), visiting the Future (the Legion Era/The Abrakadabra Era/The Pre-Crisis Barry Allen Future Era), etc.
I even expect Neron to ask for his marriage as payment for restoring the kids youth!
But that would never happen… would it?
Rene
May 10, 2008 at 7:26 am
The only problem I see with trying to draw the fans of Smallville and the movies is that these different media aren’t always compatible with one another. Smallville is mostly the John Byrne Superman (kid from Kansas, businessman Luthor), Superman Returns is mostly pre-Crisis Superman (Kryptonian angel, mad scientist Luthor).
I think the Smallville version works better for the non-nerd audience, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be so loyal to other media. After all, you’ll want to introduce the Penguim in the Batman comics, but probably they’ll come with a different version in a new movie. You gonna wait for the character to be introduced in a movie before you use him in a comic? And sometimes the movie people also do “reboots”, the new Hulk movie is sorta like a reboot, right?
Lynxara
May 10, 2008 at 8:12 am
Generally characters are simplified for use in other media, and that simplicity can sometimes be very elegant and far more graceful than the morass of continuity that the comics proper tend to build up. The idea of making the characters simple and elegant again is very beguiling to comics fans, which I think leads to the fascination with resetting continuity and constantly replacing whoever the current HeroGuy is. Hal came back after he was gone long enough to be made new, and that’s probably the thought being used with Barry.
The problem is that newness doesn’t last, and if it becomes clear to the audience that there will be a reboot/restart/revamp as soon as the bloom is off the rose, then they realize that they’re essentially reading a story doomed to have no impact (if viewed as a whole, rather than a series of discrete, independently functioning parts). I think this leads, in the long run, to people tuning out of comics because the potential goodness of the Next Hot Thing doesn’t outweight annoyance at a favorite story’s consequences being undone in a way that is possibly not fun to read.
It’s strange– I came in off the 90’s legacy heroes, but I can see why DC now thinks they were largely bad ideas. The problem is that replacing them so rapidly is an even worse idea, since it suggests to readers that DC won’t stick with anything and consequences of actions - a big draw when reading a serialized medium - will only occasionally play out. That makes it very easy to write the whole genre off as a waste of time. The sheer complexity of the characters and plots built up over time by many hands is one of the attractions superheroes have in their native medium, and what DC needs to be doing is finding more ways to let writers build upon that without giving the impression of trying to tear down what came before.
Dean
May 10, 2008 at 8:43 am
I think the Smallville version works better for the non-nerd audience, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be so loyal to other media. After all, you’ll want to introduce the Penguim in the Batman comics, but probably they’ll come with a different version in a new movie. You gonna wait for the character to be introduced in a movie before you use him in a comic?
Rene, I agree that the “Smallville” version probably has a broader natural base of support. For one thing, it has outlasted any other adaptation of any other comic property by a mile.
However, what I am proposing is not trading slavish devotion to comics continuity for slavish devotion for continuity created in other media. I am saying that DC Comics needs to create comics that give a compelling reason for a broader audience to read them. A good first step would be creating versions of their biggest characters that are accessible to folks that have been exposed to them in other media. Comic book creators are … well … creative. Let them figure out a story that makes wealthy heir Lex from TV and con man Lex from the movies the same guy. If it is a good story, then it is not a big deal that it contradicts Episode 4 of Season 5 … or whatever.
The point is that rather than navigating Superman and Batman stories around literally hundreds of stories that are familiar to maybe 50,000 or 100,000 people in the whole world, DC should use versions that are closer to those familiar to millions. It expands your potential audience.
Red Ricky, any fan of new comics should get down on their knees and that God for those price increases.
They have moved the threshold for a title to survive down a lot. Let’s say 60k was the break point in the mid-80s. Those issues were cover priced at 75 cents, so that is about $540,000 per year in revenue. Assuming a 3% rate of inflation, by the mid-’00s that same tier of title needs about $950,000 in revenue. At $2.99 per issue, that is just north of 25k in sales. Now, that is not a straight apples-to-apples comparison. The paper stock is much better, etc. I’d bump the threshold of sales being “in the dumps” to 30k at current pricing levels.
If take that number and look at the monthly sales charts, then you see that DC clearly needs to do something radical to stay in the business of producing new comics. Opening up the entire line to new readers is the best solution that I can think of.
Alan Coil
May 10, 2008 at 9:13 am
Dean said:
““Smallville” had seven million viewers at its peak, which is eleven times what an issue of “Superman” sells.”
Agree with your point, Dean, but the best selling Superman is All Star Superman, which is selling around 100,000 copies a month. 7,000,000 divided by 100,000 is seventy. 70 times, not 11.
Carry on.
Alan Coil
May 10, 2008 at 9:23 am
The Mutt has a fun idea about having a few months where only a select few titles would be published, but it would never happen. Both Marvel and DC publish somewhere around 90 titles every month. They would not be allowed to publish so few titles in one month, let alone 3 consecutive months. Corporate bosses would not allow it to happen.
Alan Coil
May 10, 2008 at 9:39 am
I would like to see a monthly or twice monthly anthology. My dream anthology would be 80 or 100 pages with no ads, have stories of varying lengths (say anywhere from 10 to 18 pages), would feature characters that can’t carry their own books (Atom would be one), would have some team-ups between characters in the anthology (sort of a smaller character version of Superman/Batman), and would be cheap enough (say $6.99 to $8.99) so that everybody would be tempted to buy it.
Stories for everybody. Characters for everybody. Fun for everybody.
Alas, anthologies don’t seem to sell.
Dean
May 10, 2008 at 10:52 am
Alan, I think that All-Star is a bad point of comparison.
For example, I had not bought a floppy comic from the direct market in 3-4 years prior to “All-Star Superman”. It was the first thing in a long time that I felt like I couldn’t wait for trade. It is safe to assume that I am not completely unique, since the bookstore market is fairly robust. What amazed me about being in a comic shop after a few years away was how little there was to buy. I really like superhero comics in general and DC in particular. However, I will try most anything, so I had complete runs of the big 80s Marvels (Claremont/Byrne “X-Men”, Byrne “Fantastic Four” and Simonson “Thor”) before I gave them to my kid brother. Also, I read most of the First Comics titles (’Nexus”, “Badger” and “Grimjack”), the Comicos (”Mage” and “The Elementals”) and Eclipse (I had a full run of “Miracleman” and “Airboy”).
After college, I moved on to the Vertigo books, the Indie work by 80s titans (i.e. “Sin City”, “From Hell”) and more mature stuff like “Love and Rockets”. The rise of Image and other interests pretty much ran me out of monthly comics. However, I followed “Sandman” and “Starman” in trade. It seemed like there should be stuff that I could read, but most of what I found were re-prints of some kind. I am enjoying “Transmetropolitan”, but I know it is old. “Fables” and “Powers” are good, but I don’t feel driven read the floppies. I am trying Kirkman’s first “Invincible” trade this week. Of course, I love the Showcases.
Once Morrison wraps up “All-Star Superman”, I won’t have much reason to buy new comics off the rack. That is despite really, really wanting to. I cannot imagine what it is like for someone with less desire to connect to an on-going.
Rene
May 10, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Lynxara, I think the problem is that DC has been effectivelly undoing the 1986 reboot for years now and returning everything to the pre-Crisis status. Most of the current writers are fan of that DC Universe, and it caters to a hardcore fanbase.
Superman is a god again. Luthor is a pariah again (I think, I’m not sure). Wonder Woman is “Diana Prince”. Hal is back, the GL Corps are back. Now Barry Allen is back. Ollie is Green Arrow. Supergirl is back.
Some of these things aren’t necessarily bad. The DCU should have a Supergirl and a Green Lantern Corps back. Not sure about the others. Seems like a bad case of middle-age nostalgia.
red-Ricky
May 10, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Bwah-hahahahahahahahahhahaahahahahhaha!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect you. It’s just that you reminded me of the Mark Millar School of Economics! (The Laws of Supply & Demand work differently there!)
Not survive “a lot” …but for a while. It has nothing to do with the quality of comics, and everything to do with the Business’ Elasticity of Demand. It doesn’t matter how “perfect or awesome” a story is; as the overall price of comics (in general) increases, its consumer base will decrease.
It’s the Law.
Reboots, stunts, new characters, old characters, the quality of stories… all that is just a band-aid! The only thing it accomplishes is a redistribution of the current fanbase/consumer base. They are not creating new customers, they are stealing Paul’s to pay Peter’s.
This is what Greg was alluding to when he said that Wally’s problem was that his “history takes place in an era where the superhero audience has never really turned over.
That means that a new generation of customers hasn’t replaced the old one. And the reason is not quality, or universes, or characters. It’s the Market.
Neither DC, nor Marvel, appear willing to change how the market works and how they run their business. They want to stick with the status quo because it saves them money and places the burden of finding clients and selling comics, onto the retail stores. “It’s not them, it’s the ugly comicbook guy!”
And well, let’s just say that they are not the first U.S. Industry to do this; and die because of it. It’s so common that there is even a term for it; I think it’s called Market Myopia.
As far as customers crossing over from other entertainment mediums… well, I don’t think that’s the solution. There have always been Movie tie-ins, and toy tie-ins, and tv tie-ins; and they just attrack consumers who happen to like Comics. Which is like 1 in 500. You know, look at the history. There’s been Star Wars comics, Indiana Jones, Ewoks, He-Man, Transformers, GI JOE, Star Trek, etc. The list goes on and on; but their impact as an increase in the consumer base does not equal the proverbial vaccine that will cure whatever ails the industry. Their impact has been more akin to taking a Vitamin. It will help, but it won’t cure you, and you’ll just pee it away in a day or two.
And finally,
This idea about having a few months where only a select few titles would be published, is just bad. Most retailers I know can’t afford to be short on any given comic, let alone entire lines. But if you don’t believe me, talk to your Comic Book Guy. Ask him if he was around during the Heroes World Era, and what was it like to only have a handful of Marvels.
Dean
May 10, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Actually, it does have something to do with quality. Every product has its own demand curve that more, or less, elastic. Look at other forms of entertainment. A winning sports team has a more inelastic demand curve than a losing one. A beloved movie can support a price-y, extras laden DVD, while a less popular one cannot.
Not sure that I fully agree with this. Marvel and DC have both done a nice job packaging their content in a variety of ways. There are the traditional floppies, the Trades, the Essentials/Showcases and the Absolute Editions. Looking at the numbers, the non-floppy market appears to be actually growing fairly robustly. The problem is in the periodical, direct sales business.
Not saying that it is a solution in itself, but done properly it could at least get new people to sample comics. Maybe they could run an ad on “Smallvile”, or distribute a coupon at “The Dark Knight”. A very low conversion rate on the audience grows the audience substantially.
The trick, of course, is keeping them.
For the most part, it is young people who sample new products. Gen Y consumers were not raised on comics, so they walk in with fewer pre-conceptions. The product would need to be able to compete effectively with video games and the Internet. I’m not sure if that is possible, but at least it would show some effort.
Dalarsco
May 10, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I’d love to see Wally and Barry both be The Flash somehow. It would be more work than having Hal and Kyle together, but it would be cool. Of course, I’d also be happy to see Wally semi-retire to raise his family, serving as a supporting cast for Barry. That last issue of JLA seems to be setting up him making a choice soon about his family or his super-hero career. In the end I’m not that big a Flash fan. I don’t have a real visceral connection to either Barry or Wally.
On the topic of captions vs. thought balloons, I prefer captions because it allows narration by off-panel characters. Thought balloons require a head in the panel.