Scans_Daily

Wonder Woman is interesting because she is developing. The story of Wonder Woman is the story of women in the modern world, and that story is always changing.

Batman is entirely stagnant. He is able to operate only because of editorial fiat. He is the best example of what Busiek is talking about, because even his villains don't change. No Batman related intellectual property can change in a meaningful way, precisely because he is the most popular intellectual property in comics, and nobody wants to risk that.

Superman was created of the champion of the common man during the depression. Then he became the comedic god figure of the Silver Age, then simultaneously the moral center of the DC universe and potentially the greatest threat to it Post-Crisis. He is -always- good. Even when he gets mad, he backs off and does the right thing.

Other new DC characters? You mean like Kyle Rainer and Wally West, who got retconned into the background by Johns in order to bring back Hal and Barry?

The last two new characters to gain any traction in the two big companies in recent years have been Deadpool and Harley Quinn, and they were both created more than twenty years ago. Every time a new writer takes over an old book, he creates new characters that the next writer completely ignores in favor of the classic characters and his own new creations.

Doubt me? Name the current roster of X-Men. Name me one that debuted in the new millennium. There have been dozens, but the most we get is a group shot once a year where Rockslide, Armor, and Anole are standing around looking shocked while the main team does something important.

Busiek is dead right: Everybody wants the same characters telling the same stories. Current events are too politicized to talk about, and whatever social commentary you make will outrage a dwindling audience and lose you sales.

This, of course, could be solved by telling new stories about new characters with the priority being attracting new (young) readers, rather than telling six issue story lines for the trade and slavishly devoting yourself to half-century old continuity that takes -literally- years of study (that is what we have all done, after all) to make sense of.

The big two are stale, and they are circling the drain. They could salvage themselves and the industry as a whole in the long term by taking short term risks, but that isn't the way American business works any more.

Make new characters. Tell stories that can be enjoyed in one or two issues. Distribute digitally to reduce operation costs and the price of entry to new customers. The American culture hasn't been this interested in superheroes since the 1950's, but the publishers are letting fruit wither on the vine rather than change their business model to take advantage of it.