And as someone said, the constant events can really screw a book up. Why care about the new status quo which has been set up by a protracted, year-long event when it will be changed and kicked on a different path a few months down the track?

The only DC book I buy is Jonah Hex. And if they throw him into some post-apocalyptic future, I'll stop buying it. Just like I did the first time they tried that.

Marvel's no better, only they call it "re-interpretation" rather than reboot. Luke Cage - supercool Superfly or O.G. bad muthaf*cka? One and the same, baby. Sweet Christmas! Danny Rand - Kung-Fu'sploitation-wearing-little-yellow-booties or Full-On-Awesome martial arts comic? Both.

If you think Steve Rogers is dead, I have some real estate you may be interested in. The GIANT-SIZED MAN-THING lives there but I wouldn't worry about it too much. You're not afraid, are you? Because that would be a bad thing ...

"...give the lay of the land of the DCU and the various titles, and allow for the books to all have great jumping on points..."
They couldn't pull their s*** together for One Year Later, but they'll get it right this time! Promise!

I think marketing for these guys is making promises they don't even intend to fulfill. They acknowledge what they think the audience wants and say they'll deliver instead of just putting it in the damn comics.

"Here’s the way it works right now, and the reason why things will pick up from Final Crisis in March: where we stand right now in January, we’re addressing a common tonality in the DCU. That’s one of the reasons we created “Faces of Evil,” because we wanted to give a sense that the universe was coming back together again at the start of the New Year. Those stories are all stand alone, but tonally, address what it’s like to live in the DCU as a villain in regards to what’s happening in those issues.

In February, again, we’re bringing the line back closer together and working to bring the continuity back in synch. In that month, we’ll have a series of books – I think we’re up to about 19 in all now – that will have six page stories as backups, and each book will be branded “Origins and Omens.” What you’re going to see in those stories is a little of the origin of each character, what’s essential to know about each character to date, and more importantly, a little foreshadowing of what’s to come with the character. Each one of the “Origins and Omens” installments will have a common narrator, and that narrator has direct ties to Blackest Night later in the year.

So that’s why I said that the DCU will reflect ,b>Final Crisis starting in March – not only because we wanted to reach a point where we could give the lay of the land of the DCU and the various titles, and allow for the books to all have great jumping on points. Readers can get caught up with the six page stories, and then follow through in March and the rest of the year."

Case closed.

More sales drops, more apathy, more lateness, more botched events, more online outrage over tacky cannon fodder, gore and sex.

Business as usual under Didio."

"DC has already found a quick and easy way to alienate readers. It’s called Dan Didio."
I'd like to hear the reasoning behind these 2 quotes.

Sadly, mainstream press does pick up on what they are doing…"

I believe you mean, "unsurprisingly the mainstream press doesn't care about a small niche that at this point is only relevant to the mainstream as a Hollywood IP farm."

The superhero comic book industry has to give the rest of the world a reason to care. It's not everybody elses' responsibility to give a shit.

Superhero comics are very insular now, to the point where they've developed an "us or them" mantra, and the majority of people who have various entertainment options would rather turn to those than spend $3 (or now 4?) a pop for something that's completely marginalized and self-reflexive more than anything else. Look at the current product: you've got Final Crisis/Secret Invasion tie-ins, Ultimate universes that are basically just rehashes of the originals, Batman RIP, a weekly Trinity that you need to get in on the ground floor with to understand, a nearly-weekly Spider-Man that's just a rehash of the 70s stories, Captain whatshisnuts part 3 of 5 (which is part of a much larger arc), and when it all comes down to it, the most important point to grok, in my mind, is that QUALITY DOESN'T MATTER.

It doesn't matter how good your comic is if it's lumped in with a maelstrom of self-indulgent, nerd-servicing crap that's created merely to hit all the sweet spots, fulfill the requirements of the "summer crossover" or the "intelligent reader's superhero book" or "the cape and tights satire," etc, that exist merely to provide the current readership with a reason to get off of their asses and buy comic books. Because that's what the majority of the direct market audience appears to be: people who like buying comic books, and just need a reason to put their money down on the counter and leave the shop with a stack of books, no matter how many of them Jeph Loeb writes.

It doesn't matter how

DC is built on legacy superheroes, so how do you reboot, for example, Nightwing? Or any of the Teen Titans? Do you reboot Hal Jordan, but ignore Guy, Kyle, and John? Who is the Flash?

DC's solution post-Crisis was selective reboots: Superman and Wonder Woman started from scratch, Batman got darker (in part through John Byrne re-vamping his relationship with Superman). The Titans just kept rolling along. And the LSH and JSA were messes that never got better.

So you got yer choice (A) start the Universe from scratch, without any legacy heroes. You got yer choice (B) try to ignore what doesn't fit and just tell good stories, or you got yer choice (C) partial reboot, with an explanation of why everything's better now.

I'm betting on (C). I'd like to see what they'd do with (A), but it's a bad business move. I like (B) best, but it's not a very good ending for FC, is it?

Sadly, mainstream press does pick up on what they are doing...

To wit, the only viable solutions for improving the quality/profitability of a line of comic books involve one word adjectives.

"Darker." (A favorite among the current editorial heads of state.) "Lighter." "Tighter." (with regards to continuity.) "Looser." "Newer." (What Burgas advocates.) "Older." etc.

If the audience for mainstream super hero comics is truly shrinking (and despite what Greg Hatcher says, there's no direct public gauge on the number of superhero comics readers; unless you're a market analyst you're only getting parts of the picture), then it's ludicrous to suggest that applying a general fix to a one of a dozen specific problems is going to have any appreciable effect in the short run, much less the long run.

Suppose you make everything newer. New number 1 issues, new origins, new... whatever. Even if the project can turn a profit, despite the fact that most of the material will simply be rehashes of material that's already been rehashed more times than necessary, you still have to A.) keep the continuity straight enough that the project's original goals aren't completely in vain, B.) keep the project's quality high enough above the previous status quo to justify the reboot, and C.) find creators that are willing and able to bring relevance to characters that haven't had any cross-medium relevance in a decade and a half.

It's idiotic to expect that you can reboot Nightwing and it'll become a quality comic book; no matter what issue number you put on it Peter Tomasi's still a mediocre writer. And though he may be able to accomplish A; B and C are going to be ignored because Peter Tomasi just isn't that good. You can't improve your creative assets through editorial mandate, and if you think you can you might as well just cross your fingers or knock on wood for all the good it'll do.

Of course, that's just the creative problems. Nevermind that both of the major universes are still hamstrung by their distribution arrangements and facing hard competition from every other entertainment medium, we're going to fix everything through the power of #1 issues!

The reason why Dan Didio has largely failed as an Editor in Chief is that his changes have been simplistic and poorly thought out. True to form, the internet (which, much like the real world, is mostly populated by idiots) has agitated almost every step of the way for different simplistic and poorly thought out changes. Simply put, Dan Didio is a fanboy who made it big, who is now hounded by fanboys who have not. Mind you, there's no value judgment there, except that both Didio and his critics are by and large neanderthals.

As Grant Morrison would say, the comic book industry doesn't need to be saved. The Didio's and Quesada's of the world will play in their editorially mandated sand boxes, unnoticed by the sane world and underwritten by vast licensing empires perpetuated by the iconic strengths of their characters along with TV and movie adaptations. Meanwhile the worthwhile from both companies will rise above and find acceptance through other distribution mediums; Marvel will put out highly lucrative Marvel Adventures titles for the little ones, DC will squeeze out the occasional bit of literary superheroics (ex: All Star Superman) for the bookshelves, and the Rob Kirkman types will get indy street cred by raging against the mainstream superhero shared universe machine.

All will continue to be right and as it should be in this best of all possible worlds, except for the fact that people will still accept mediocrity as worthwhile reading material, but ain't that just the way?

Right, well, on the other hand that's a terrible theory unsupported by anything, ever.

Just thought I should bring that up.

You know, for balance.

With comic book readership dwindling - I haven't bought any comic books except for trades in years - giving a continuity clean reboot may open the door to that wider audience that made "The Dark Knight" such a huge hit, something that can't be ignored. It may cheese off the bird in hand but if it lures any of the 500 million or so birds in the bush, that would seem like a good business decision.

With 007 getting an enormously popular reboot, the reboot has gone mainstream and while unlikely a company wide reboot is probably not as frightening to DC corporate as one might imagine.

Ain't happening.

For one thing, "Darkest Night" won't be done with by February, will it? Will even the Superman New Krypton arc be done?

A partial reboot I could see. Another case of selectively changing what they need to (or just plain want to) and leaving the rest of the dreck.

It'd be pretty stupid of them to do so, IMO, at least while Johns is still in good form.

But you don't do it all at once. You create a new line, like "DC 2.0". You put a big "2.0" at the top of every book that takes place in the new continuity. And then slowly, over time, you migrate everything over to that line. It starts with Superman and Batman, and then over time, as other books reach a good ending place, you end them, and re-launch them in the 2.0 imprint (if they want to). So things like "Blackest Night" have time to play out.

@John: "Supergirl’s dead! The Flash is dead. Oh, wait, now they’re back. Jason Todd is dead and will never be brought back. Oh, wait, now he’s back… but from another universe. But the multiverse doesn’t exist any more. Oh, wait, it does exist. Let’s have another “Crisis” series and fix it… again."

You're ignoring the fact that in most cases, there were years and years of time between the "death" and the "rebirth". You make it sound like DC is constantly flip-flopping, when there are entirely different editorial teams dealing with the "death" and the "rebirth".