The polybagged JLA #1 that comes with the digital redemption code will have a variant cover (it wasn’t announced who would do it however).

Dan Didio then matter of factly added “That comics had become too talky, too quiet & less exciting. That comics were losing ground too video games, movies and TV, and that it was time to plant a flag in the ground!, That when new customers or lapsed customers walk into our stores that more action and better accessibility would be ideal. That comic book movies were doing comics better than comic books.”

As an aside, around this time, he joked that he read a comic that had 15 pages of 9 panel grids of heads talking. I wonder what issue that was?

As they were discussing JLA they went into the 52 titles one by one slideshow and some interesting quips and insights were given about most including off topic anecdotes about planning and plotting this initiative. Of the 52 all but four will be $2.99. Action, All Star Western, & Men At War will be $3.99 each.

Dan Didio said “They had an unofficial curve chart no one would see in the offices where the higher the sales the less is changed.” This is why the Batman & Green Lantern titles will re-launch relatively unchanged story wise.

Geoff Johns stated “Three key elements to his JLA are “Heart, Humor & Heroics”, Lee & Johns added that the word Superhero doesn’t exist yet and that Batman at this point when the JLA first meet in the first arc of his book is more or less an Urban Legend that has been working behind the scenes for years.” Arc #2 would take place years later in the current timeline. JLA would be the book that is kind of the start of the DC Superhero universe.

Teen Titans - Tim Drake is Red Robin. When discussing this book and Hawk & Dove, Jim Lee joked about the jabs of its the 1990s all over again on the net, as a bash against Image styled art. He stated “There are only five of us that are in that style, Capullo, Lee, Booth, Liefeld & Finch” and that he would put the sales on those five books with their art, up against the other 47 titles.

Legion Lost - In Current DC timeline.

“There are only five of us that are in that style, Capullo, Lee, Booth, Liefeld & Finch” and that he would put the sales on those five books with their art, up against the other 47 titles.

To understand DC Comics’ move to day-and-date with digital editions of their print comics, you have to understand the intent behind their relaunch.

One crucial thing hasn’t changed. For as long as I’ve known him, Dan Didio has believed the key to a resurgent DC is reclaiming all the readers the commercial medium lost in the 90s. On the DC Retailer Roadshow, he’s been hammering this home. Recent statements about how commercial comics have gotten boring and that there should be more visual punch in the mode of 90s comics movements like the early Image Comics work and (unspoken, but certainly associated) the Marvel style of that general period… have made their mark, but have also misled a bit. It’s all about accessing that hypothetical lost fan base. The impression the recent statements have left is Dan saying “comics used to sell loads back then, let’s do that again.” And that can’t happen in print.

Comics used to sell loads back then, yes. But a big part of that — and this is the part he isn’t mentioning — is that there were ten thousand comics shops back then. And now there are, optimistically and rounding up, about two thousand. There simply aren’t the number of outlets left to sell the kind of volume comics could shift in the 90s.

The gamble here is this: that hypothetical lost fan base is older, has credit cards and disposable income, and an internet connection that can bring the DC Comics section of a notional comics store right to their desks. That, in fact, digital comics services will do the work of those eight thousand stores that don’t exist anymore.

It was in DC’s core DNA to protect and serve physical comics stores. To the point where every 18 months or so they’d pay for a hundred comics retailers to attend a special DC conference, where the retailers could moan at them for two days and then go home and order more Marvel comics. (In broad and crude terms, DC were the attentive suitor, while Marvel Comics treated retailers mean to keep them keen.) Now, there is a fascinating situation where DC will polybag special issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 with a digital-comic download code, a book that will cost an extra dollar. Comics are done on firm sale. Which means, as far as I can see, that the retailer is being charged extra money on each copy of that edition too. Maybe I’m wrong, and comics retailers aren’t being offered a reacharound while getting an mild yet unwelcome pegging. But it’s an interesting kind of support. DC are offering support to retailers in other ways and are making sympathetic noises, but other quotes from this roadshow — one from Bob Wayne, DC’s head of sales, boiled down to “if you’re not selling enough of our comics you’re not doing your job” — tend to suggest that someone at the company has realised that the comics retailers already have a girlfriend and never liked DC anyway.

(Also, Dan and Jim? I love you guys, and I’m greatly enjoying watching you start some shit. But you can’t keep talking about how the old comics were boring when you in fact were the old management too. Someone’s eventually going to call you on it, and you’re not going to have a good answer. That said: keep starting fires. It’s good.)

Dan Didio then matter of factly added “That comics had become too talky, too quiet & less exciting. That comics were losing ground too video games, movies and TV, and that it was time to plant a flag in the ground!,

That when new customers or lapsed customers walk into our stores that more action and better accessibility would be ideal. That comic book movies were doing comics better than comic books.”

Teen Titans - Tim Drake is Red Robin. When discussing this book and Hawk & Dove, Jim Lee joked about the jabs of its the 1990s all over again on the net, as a bash against Image styled art. He stated “There are only five of us that are in that style, Capullo, Lee, Booth, Liefeld & Finch” and that he would put the sales on those five books with their art, up against the other 47 titles.

Myth #1: "It's a total reboot"

Green Lantern books? Batman books? No reboot.

Superman books? JLA origin? Total reboot.

As Harras and Berganza told Newsarama, The Killing Joke stands. In fact, Berganza said Killing Joke "is really crucial to what we're doing." And Scott Snyder told Newsarama that Barbara's change from Oracle to Batgirl will be explained in story.