PhantomStranger

I think the number ones are supposed to be a signal to new readers that this is a good time to jump in. DC and Marvel used to signal that by introducing new creative teams on a book and advertising a bold new direction for the character on covers, but that was probably easier to accomplish when there were only one or two Batman and Superman books on the market.

I do wish they would mark all volumes by year. It's virtually impossible now differentiating between early issues of any major character with new series happening all the time.

Xiroteus

Could Marvel and DC finally do volumes if they insist on this constant rebooting.

sven

My decision to drop the Big 2 is looking better by the day.

Xiroteus

Other companies are easier to keep up with and track of. Series tend to stay in their own. Still a few Marvel and Dc, so much of it is a convoluted mess.

BobO'Link

I pretty much jumped off the DC wagon when they launched the "New 52," keeping only a few books. I've since dropped all those when creative teams changed (a major pet peeve is the writer leaving, especially after 12 or fewer issues). I now only purchase "Gotham Academy" and "Batgirl" for my grandson and "Martian Manhunter" for me (but only due to a love of the character as I've not yet read any of them). This will make it easy to finally drop DC from my pull list. Before the launch of "The New 52" I purchased ~48 titles per month, mostly DC with some Marvel and Indies, but because of crap like this, annual cross-over "events", and revolving door "creators" at the "big 2", I'm down to ~18 (4 of which are for the grandkids) and they'll be all Indies once June hits. It'll be interesting to get the spin on this from the owner and manager of the LCS come Wednesday.

movieguru

They used to do volumes back in the 80's and 90's.

Marvel would start a new volume number if they started over with #1's. But when they did new #1's it often a number of years after the previous volume was cancelled and not the next month as it is now.

DC would continue the same numbering but change the volume number every January. They did away with their volume numbering before the mid 1980's.

Boba Fett

Looks like after this, the only series from the Big 2 I'll be continuing to get is Marvel's new "Star Wars"

fujishig

Until that one reboots.

madcougar

Yeah. I guess I wasn't clear. This may help me quit buying new comics.

ytrez

I don't know. I think the constant rebooting and related renumbering gives readers a jumping OFF point. You can argue that it's a great jumping on point too but we know that the comics industry has done a horrible job of attracting new readers. I'm guessing more jump off than jump on. I sure did when DC went to the New 52.

stingermck

I look at all the reboots and renumbering now adays as seasons like TV. Each season brings a new story line/change/etc.

I just dont have the energy to complain about this kind of thing anymore. They are going to do what they feel like doing. And I am going to read what I enjoy.

rocket1312

That's all well and good. The problem (for me anyways) is that if you step away for a while and want to get caught up on stuff, it can be really difficult to keep track of what is what. You might finish a run or volume or whatever and want to continue on to whichever series picks up the story. Sometimes that's easy and sometimes it's not. If the books retained the same titles and just came out in new volumes, that would be fine. Marvel, on the other hand, loves their adjectives. Every new volume has a new adjective in the title, but sometimes they reuse old adjectives and the new books may not have anything to do with the previous title that used that adjective. My solution is just not to read.

fujishig

When the new 52 came in, and I jumped off, it seemed like the move had attracted more new or lapsed readers than it lost; at least, sales were higher (though they were pretty abysmal pre-New 52, with Robinson's run on JLA being pretty bad and JMS's runs on Superman and WW being pretty lackluster). It wasn't for me, but if it kept the machine going I was fine with it, and it eventually produced some gems. I'm not sure that those guys stayed onboard, though, and the ones that left refused to come back (I though Convergence was a particular slap in the face to old fans, even if it wasn't intended as such).

The best stuff DC does are either out of continuity (All Star Supes) or isolated from continuity and doing their own thing (like Batgirl, Gotham Academy, etc.). My main problem with them, other than throwing away the rich history of the Teen Titans, LoSH, and JSA, is that they seem really editorially focused, and they don't seem to let creators do their thing (which is odd given how lackluster their continuity is held together). You can see the difference in how Marvel is able to collect omniboo basically by creator (Brubaker Cap, Waid DD, Bendis Avengers). Sure Morrison and Johns have their runs, and there are a few others (Batman, Batgirl, etc.) but I haven't really been wowed by any of the bigger New 52 storylines that I've sought out collections, at least not so far. I think that's the problem Marvel is facing with this constantly changing directions and teams thing too, though we'll see.

Navinabob

I just saw this today. I honestly don't know what the industry has to do at this point.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/01/...-and-dc-sales/

fujishig

I mentioned Brian Hibbs before but didn't link to his column, sorry about that:

December column about the recent DC and Marvel relaunches/mistakes:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/ar...on-the-horizon

January column about how there are just too many titles out there, in a desperate grab for dollars and marketshare:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=58338

Red Hood

The problem with the New 52 was simple: Lack of direction and consistency. The purpose of that re-boot was to bring in new readers. They failed miserably. Why? Because there was no one vision or direction for all books. Let's start with Superman. There was the main Superman title, done in the present time by veteran George Perez, and Action Comics done by "super-duper-mega-untouchable star" Grant Morrison that was to give us a re-telling of Superman's origin. What happens? Perez ask editorial of what Morrison is doing on his book so he doesn't contradict anything that Grant does. What does the veteran Perez get? An answer from editorial that what Morrison is doing is top secret and confidential. Oh, and Perez also received notes from the producers of the Man of Steel movie on what Superman needs to be doing in that book so it syncs with the stuff that was going to appear in the movie. This leads to Perez quitting the book very early on, Morrison doing a convoluted version of Superman's origin, using the most obscure references from the Golden and Silver Age and then leaving his book too.

And that was just the beginning. Batman and Green Lantern kept their pre-Flashpoint continuity, sort of, we don't know, we are not sure, etc..., that fucked up stories and continuities on other books like Teen Titans. First Tim Drake was a Robin, then he wasn't and then Drake's origin was changed to show that he wasn't Tim Drake at all. It was assumed that Batman had too many Robins in a 5 year span. Then the Justice League became the first superteam, not the JSA, as they didn't exist on the same Earth cause they were from Earth 2. And talking about the JSA, Alan Scott is now gay, making Jade and Obsidian disappear from the current continuity, Lobo has like 3 versions of the same character running around and for some reason Rob Liefeld and Scott Lobdell were given jobs in the company on multiple books even though most of the old and new fans can't stand anything they do. Things kept crumbling on and on, making the New 52 a completely unsustainable idea simply because management doesn't have a clue of what they are doing.

Basically, DC Comics is at the mercy of whatever Warner Bros wants to do with their properties. They continue to send mix messages through all their products. While I'm typing this right now, I saw Amanda Waller get killed on the Arrow TV show. I'm mostly certain that this was done so that it doesn't conflict with Amanda Waller being part of the Suicide Squad movie as executives think that fans are too stupid to see different versions of the same character on multiple medias. It doesn't help that DC Comics is run by some of the most inept people in the comic book business. Like I've said, this is the same people who brought Marvel down to bankruptcy. You guys know those stories of horrible CEO that keep going from company to company, sending all of them down the toilet and people can't explain why? Well, DC Comics is one of those companies.

The only way to fix this mess is to put 1 and only 1 person in charge and have strong veteran editors and no fucking notes from WB. Is either doing this now, or Warner will be looking to sell DC Comics down the road to Disney/Marvel just like they sold WCW to WWF.

The Valeyard

Josh-da-man

DC really doesn't have a clue what to do with the JSA, do they?

Really a good thing they had that Crisis three decades ago to clear everything up.

Red Hood

Had to search the forum to understand that. No, I'm not him

I'm speaking as a guy who partially owns a comic book store. It's something that I invested my money in as a collector and business partner. You guys should have seen the retailer summit in Baltimore this past September. The majority of retailers are simply extremely pissed at DC Comics. Is not being profitable for us to get the comics. My partners and I have simply decided to stop carrying books that don't sell from them at all like Teen Titans, Bizarro and Bat-Mite for example. So far, our store (and the ones in the area, from what colleagues have told me) is selling less DC Comics than most of the independent labels like Image and IDW. You know things are bad when artists and writers keep taking shots at DC for their overall mediocrity over the past 5 years.

PhantomStranger

I think the New 52 was a gamble that simply didn't work out. Supposedly the corporate overlords were unhappy with DC's declining sales at the time and wanted a reboot to lure in new readers. It worked for a little while until people got bored.

On the positive side of the ledger, it did give me my first monthly series in decades.

Preterite

You make it sound like WB cares one iota about DC Comics beyond being an IP source for them. They don't. And they would rather shut down the entire comics division than let someone go cowboy and jeopardize the films, tv shows, and underoo sales.

DC Comic's profits are peanuts to WB. Spanish peanuts. The kind you get at Woolworth's.

fujishig

The obvious solution was to flip the script, and have them be fledgling heroes that followed in the footsteps of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Because all the fans ever wanted from the JSA was to deage them, modernize them, and remove their history.

The Valeyard

For decades, DC hid itself within Warner's corporate structure. It wasn't until Warners was looking for a replacement franchise for Harry Potter that the spotlight shined on DC. Warner interfered with everything once they got noticed. There was a story floating around that DC dropped their licenses for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Doc Savage and the Red Circle books because the bean counters asked why were they spending money on licenses when they already had so many characters that they weren't using. You can see the shift as Levitz left and Nelson took over - The old guard got booted and the corporate new guard kicked in.

fujishig

I had always assumed it was the success of the cinematic Marvel Universe that led Warner to pay more attention to DC as more than just a Superman/Batman shop.

Red Hood

You are contradicting yourself there. They do care about DC Comics, especially their IP like you said. The stories are an integral part of the IP and by the looks of it, WB is using more and more what was written in the company over the past 25 years than what was done before Crisis. Yes, some pre-Crisis stuff is used here and there, but the main stories for the films and TV shows is recent material written by current writers. If WB decided to shut down the comic book division, then they will lose their best source for stories and scripts.

And right now WB is so blind that they are Didio and friends go all cowboy and are truly jeopardizing film, tv and under sales. For example, we can put partial blame on Geoff Johns for the horrible plot he had for the story. That cost WB and DC sales not only on the Green Lantern film toys and merchandise, but it made the GL animated series fail before even launching as retailers refused to carry any more GL related toys.