Casstoons: My Take on the DC Reboot

[espanolbot]

By me

Comments

[superboyprime]

This is apparently from some completely anonymous person online, so take it as you will, but it's interesting:

Its actually worse than you think. I'm good friends with the owner of a major comic book chain (I'm not saying who cause I don't want to get him into trouble but trust me, no matter where you live, you have heard of his store) and he told me yesterday that a couple weeks ago Geoff Johns and Dan Didio called him to let him know about all this. They stressed that neither of them actually wanted this reboot done in this way. Didio has been wanting to do a reboot for a while, yes, but he wanted to build up to it better over the next couple of years. And neither he nor Johns wanted to do such things like making Barbara Gordon Batgirl again.

Almost everything coming out of this reboot? It comes directly from the corporate management of Warner Brothers. Yeah, so basically DC is now Marvel in the 90s. Morrison, Johns, Didio, all of them spent months arguing against this course of action. To no avail. They were told in no uncertain terms that not only was this going to happen but that if DC didn't start beating Marvel regularly in monthly sales over the next year, everyone, and I mean everyone, was going to be fired. The management at WB? They've finally woken up to the fact that they own DC and are through playing around. They are ready to shutter the whole damn comics arm of the company if it comes to that, though that is a last resort option. Its not like they need it after all. Its the characters and the merchandising that is valuable, not the comics they star in. They could easily just cancel everything and fall back on a few Earth One style graphic novels staring the big names every few months and be fine. They have over sixty years of stories to draw from after all.

The reason everything is so vague at the moment? Cause the people at DC know what kind of live grenade they have on their hands and they are trying every trick in the book to not set it off. They know this has the potential to set off a storm of geek rage that would make One More Day and everything surrounding it look like a mild, gentlemanly disagreement. Funny that we finally really do have a event that really is going to change everything, in the real world at least. Funny in the way that makes me not want to laugh at all that is. I know, I know, who am I, just some random guy on the internet typing all this away. But I swear to god to the trustfulness of all this, hard as it may be to believe. Creative is no longer in control at DC and god only knows how that is going to play out.

Is it wrong that I'm kind of wishing it will fail now, if it would mean the exit of DiDio and his merry band? If Warner really had balls, they'd hire fans to replace them. I think everyone would agree that it's become pretty evident that the average fan could do a better job than the current folks in power. Not that I'll be holding my breath for the corporate world to make such a sensible choice. Corporate is synonymous with coward; they'll play it the safe way and hire industry folks, instead of playing it the way that would actually work.

[arilou_skiff]

Isn't the point that the current heads of DC ARE your average fan, just promoted beyond their competence?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Pretty much and hell, Cass is proof of that.

Her series sold better than other series that were allowed to come back for OYL (and those same characters she outsold have gotten yet another shot in the arm) and while her series has sold only 5K less than Steph's, Cass has been in limbo for how long?

Cass has a dedicated fanbase, yet because the people at the top don't like her, she's never used.

[superboyprime]

By some definitions of that word, maybe. But DiDio has outright said that his main priority is sales. How much of a fan can he be if that's more important to him than the quality of the work?

Imagine how great it would be if DC hired folks who put artistic integrity before profit to be in charge? That's what I mean by fans.

WHY do I have to be Devil's Advocate...WHYYYY..?

[heckfire]

...please, do NOT make me defend Didio...ANYTHING but THAT...*sob*

*shuddering sigh* You have to realize that if the product isn't selling, you need to replace it with product that DOES. Yes, the "product" in question is an ongoing narrative universe full of characters that are, in many cases, beloved to thousands, but if those thousands don't translate into money in the corporate overlords' pockets, especially in this horrible economy (I don't honestly know how it is globally, but it still pretty much sucks donkey balls in the US where DC Comics is located), then Warners is gonna go looking to cut some dead wood.

This might be WHY someone as creatively bankrupt and morally suspect as Dan Didio was hired in the FIRST place: someone without the remotest shred of creative integrity, like Didio, would make the hard choices WB wants made. Meanwhile, if he was even the tiniest bit a fan of the DCU like he claims to be, he would still try and preserve, at the very least, the parts of it HE likes.

Basically, artist integrity doesn't buy company yachts and it doesn't pay the checks...there's a reason why the starving artist is one of the oldest and best-known stereotypes in existence. Successful artists EXIST, but typically as an exception to the rule. Didio may very well be trying to save as much of the DCU as he can, it's just the parts HE wants to save.

As someone who so desperately wants to write comics for a living it physically HURTS, I hope this measure succeeds, because as long as ANY of it exists, there's a chance that someone can either restore it, or shape it into something that WILL thrive and survive. IN the meantime...I dunno, pray. Or whatever.

[thehood]

You do know this is Business, right? Of course they will care about sales slick. People don't work for free.

[richardak]

I find this extremely hard to credit. First of all, Warner Bros. has no reason to care whether DC beats Marvel. They care that DC is profitable. Remember, it's entirely possible to be as or more profitable while moving less volume. Second, if DC is unprofitable, or they think it could be considerably more profitable than it is now, they might replace a few top executives, like Didio. They're not going to replace everyone, for the simple reason that they have no one with which to replace them. I also think it's very unlikely that Warner is going to get out of the comics business altogether.

[golden_orange]

And as much as they disagreed with it, wouldn't Didio and Johns calling up someone who would appear to be a relatively powerful and influential distributor to essentially bitch about their bosses only increase the threat of their being fired? I mean, it's pretty unprofessional and the bosses aren't likely to be too happy at their actively poisoning the potential sales before things have even been seriously set in motion.I can kind of see Warner Brothers deciding to take a more active role but this just seems way too over-the-top.

Plus, it's all a bit too "hey-I've-got-this-really-powerful-friend-who-knows-all-this-stuff-but-I-can't-tell-you-who-he-is-but-he-really-does-exist" for me, anyway.

[golden_orange]

"If Warner really had balls, they'd hire fans to replace them. I think everyone would agree that it's become pretty evident that the average fan could do a better job than the current folks in power. Corporate is synonymous with coward; they'll play it the safe way and hire industry folks, instead of playing it the way that would actually work."

To be honest, considering the mess that the current crop of fans-given-power have demonstrated themselves capable of making of modern mainstream superhero comics just to create their own fan fiefdoms, the very last thing I think we need is to create another crop of fans-given-power. Frankly, some corporate 'safe-option' stuff might be very welcome if it means cutting through some of the insufferable fan turf-war bullshit that's circulating around these days.

[darkblade]

Thank you for saying this better than I could. Fans make bad executives, as editors you need a certain level of emotional detachment to the product so you don't screw around with it to make it better in your fan eyes which will not go over well since fans are fickle and rarely see things the same way.

[golden_orange]

Thank you. :-)

It's also a problem because what's 'better' in a fan's eyes isn't necessarily 'better' in anyone else's.

[big_daddy_d]

I agree. I know creators are fanboys themselves but it tends to be that fanboy love and nostalgia that ends up a double edged sword and lately we've seen the negative edge. Need someone who is less bias and more professional.

[golden_orange]

I've always thought the ideal editor / writer for these kinds of projects was someone who knew and had a fondness for the characters, but not such a fondness that it overwhelmed everything else.

[heckfire]

Motto.

[themadcaplaughs]

Yes. A thousand times yes.

[mrstatham]

I call bullshit on that one, because I severely doubt Didio, Johns or Lee have the time to start calling comic store chains themself when DC has a publicity department to do this, and that they'd call a store chain owner up and go against their own product-line's direction is a complete farce, given it could be traced back to them.

Also, like the corporate management of Warner Brothers would actually know anything about characters or creative teams or anything along those lines. A corporate Wonder Woman wouldn't have fucking Azzarello writing or Chiang on art, it'd have Geoff Johns writing and Ed Benes on art. If this were a corporate takeover of the line, there wouldn't be books like Captain Atom or Firestorm that would have a limited audience - you'd have books solely based on DC's big five of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. And regardless of how sales are across the industry, and DC's market share versus Marvel's - As long as they're turning a profit, they'll keep on publishing them.

And yes, I think it is wrong that you wish this would fail. If the issue is THAT severe that they're ready to shutter the comics division if this reboot doesn't work, then that's it. You wouldn't have fans running the company - And that notion is fucking farcical anyway since it'd be as big a fuckup as it is now because no-one can agree on one set thing - You'd have the company gone. All this exposes is yet another case of fan-entitlement and thinking you know better than the 'industry folks'. They're industry folks because they know the industry, dubious decisions aside. The average fan's output is fanfiction-level drek.

[valtyr]

The average fan's output is fanfiction-level drek.

Step off fanfic. There's some damn good quality fanfic writers out there, and some shoddy professionals. Whether or not you get paid/authorised is no barometer of quality.

[darkblade]

You are correct but in terms of ratio fanfic has a lot more drek than proffesional stuff since you don't have to deal with editors, agents, publishers and other people who's job it is to tell you "This is a bad idea, don't do it."

Most of the published drek comes from the point where the creator is big enough they can skip those steps or those people do shoddy jobs.

[valtyr]

Oh, there's certainly a lower bar to entry for fanfiction, meaning there's a lot of poor quality stuff. But there's also plenty of poorly edited drek even from small creators - I read a book recently that could have been very good, if my face hadn't been continually meeting my palm at the jumping POV, infodumps, inconsistencies, and Queen Victoria being all casual-like and CANTERBURY BEING A PORT TOWN. First-time author seriously in need of a proper editor.

[darkknightjrk]

Nah, I'm calling bullshit on that, since there's this story from a more reliable source--JMS

[icon_uk]

Hmm, not too keen on that either, since it considers Superman: Earth One, a standalone graphic novel, as a good example of paving the way for a line wide reboot. Not comparable at all IMHO.

[darkknightjrk]

I don't think that's a good connection either, but that's beside the point--JMS, love him or hate him for what he's done lately, you have to admit is a far more reliable source for information on where DIdio and co. is right now than, no offense, some random yahoo on the internet.

[jaybee3]

I'm not sure I believe this either. I don't think WB cares what the publishing arm of DC does as long as they make a profit - it's the characters and their money making potential DC cares about. This reboot definitely sounds like something Didio would do to return basically everything to the Silver Age (with Barry, Hal, Ray, etc.). Babs as Batgirl is part of that - a reboot gives Didio the chance to make her Batgirl - which we know he wanted to do before - without people complaining how/why she was suddenly "healed". And Jim Lee has done basically this same kind of reboot before with Heroes Reborn so I don't think he would mind. Johns also is a company man, when Didio wanted Nightwing dead, Johns was prepping a NW death in Infinite Crisis despite his personal feelings on it and if Didio hadn't been talked out of it by folks like Levitz and Waid (and Johns) then Geoff would have done his job and killed off Dick. I don't think WB has anything to do with it.

[zechs80]

That was proven false. Someone I know contacted Rich Johnston and some others and this was the first they heard of this. Even though technically this is sort of my fault since I asked someone about this and posted the info on one site and it spread like kindling.

[q99]

Yea, I'm not buying it. I could see corporate saying, "Hey, you need to put Babs in!" maybe, but "You have one year to beat Marvel or you're all fired!" is just silly.

Also, a lot of the rebooting is stuff I can't see coming from WB. A Mr. Terrific book? Two Firestorms? Nah.