Good For Whatever Ails You

In the comments to this blog's recent scathing indictment of Dan DiDio's DC Universe, regular reader David very kindly asked to what do I attribute the recent lousy sales figures for DC titles, as well as offering a few ideas of his own. It's a fair question, and a good one, so here's my response.

I don't think DiDio and the rest of the decision-makers at DC have a clue how to develop sustained interest in their comic line. I get that they need to balance carefully between retaining existing readers and bringing new ones into the fold, and I applaud anything that any comic publisher does that accomplishes that. But it almost seems like DC is currently hellbent on doing exactly the opposite of that. Take the return of the Multiverse, for example. When it happened at the end of 52, I pondered how DC might use - or abuse - their old toy now that it was back. One thing I didn't anticipate, but which quickly became apparent, was that the Multiverse was prime material for wrecking, as far as DiDio was concerned. So let's consider that in terms of old and new fans, just as an example.

As a DC fan of almost 40 years now, I loved the concept of the Multiverse when I first encountered it in the very early-70s, was sorry to see it go in the mid-80s (in Crisis on Infinite Earths), but was thrilled with the way in which it went out in such high style. That was classy! Since its return, approximately a year ago now, what's been done with it? Well, a small group of 3rd- or 4th-string heroes have randomly hopped from Earth to Earth, willy-nilly, typically only staying for part of one issue. Virtually no character development of the people inhabiting those alternate Earths has happened, and in fact, the most common result of these visitations seems to be that the planet (if not the entire universe) gets destroyed! What kind of a moron brings that kind of story potential onto the stage only to smash it into little pieces? One lacking in imagination and a grasp of his audience, I suspect.

Things like that tend to turn off the grey-haired fans like me, so that part of the equation's busted. How about someone new, wandering into this without any kind of background in the characters? Would they not simply be confused as Hell, especially as alternate versions of Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, etc, are introduced without any explanation, and then quickly killed off a few pages later? What would possibly compel that young reader to ever come back? At least in the pre-Crisis days, when an Earth-2 (or Earth-3, or Earth-X) doppleganger was introduced, there was usually some description of what the differences between the various Earths were, and the variant stuck around long enough to display some personality traits so as to at least be recognizable if you, as a reader of that story, ever did come back again!

So I think DC is failing miserably in this department, among others. They need to give up on events and go back to the formula that made them # 1 in the 80s and early 90s: tell good stories! Hire the best writers, let them use the DC characters in any way they like as long as they don't break them. When someone has a killer idea that's, unfortunately, going to leave the heroes in what you believe to be an usable state, follow the Watchmen pattern and create new characters for him or her to use! (And even there, Moore's Watchmen heroes were still better equipped to be used effectively when he was finished with them than anything that's been done with the actual Charlton characters since!) Specific to the Multiverse, pick a few of them and have some of your best writers (like Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka) build up new universes for you to make money off of for the next decade or more! It's like a license to print money, if you do it right. Follow the Marvel Ultimate imprint's lead, if you have to... it's not exactly rocket science, although DiDio and his cronies sure make it look like it is!