Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The Success of the New 52

Many people love to bash on DC Comic's New 52 initiative, mostly because they hate the fact that continuity got messed up with and DC did it at the wrong time, story wise. That is correct, completely correct. If DC waited two years, we would have gotten the ending to Batman, Incorporated that Grant Morrison intended and likely the ending to Green Lantern that Geoff Johns intended. Sure Court of Owls would not have had such a big impact, but the Batman continuity would be cleaner sure. However, DC was in rapid decline in 2010 and 2011, if they had not hyped up this reboot as much as they did or done it as quickly, have no doubt that it would have meant less later.
How many people even know why they have the underpants?
 

Profit wise, the first three months of the New 52 were a huge success, putting DC right back on top after a long time. However, the thing was that while half of the books were terrific, half were rightly horrific. That is to be expected. After all, half of an actor's movies are wonderful (Argo) whereas others... aren't (Gigli). Sure DC wasn't the top dog again by the end of the year, but they were certainly credible and beyond death, after all, most of the top 10 still belong to them.

Due to large events coming from the other companies, the early quarters of 2012 saw the market share and dollar market share fall for DC, not by much mind you. Some people claim that the numbers got back to where they were pre-N52, but we cannot accurately judge this. After all, New 52 continued to be labelled a success and considering the fact that digital sales cannot be tracked... well, lets just say a lot more people have switched to digital.
Wait? Is his watch bronzed?


Now, recently DC's market share and dollar market share have risen. Those numbers, print numbers are very good for the company. Bounding back in market share by eight percent and market dollar share in over six percent is a very good turn. Have no doubt that Superman Unchained owes to this and Villain's Month may or may not increase this.

Then there are the editorial controversies and the premature cancellations. While I do not regard Dan Didio's response to negative feedback as very good for public image, the fact that editors seem to interfere so much makes me more curious than mad. Then I think about it, several of the books that have controversies tend to be disputes with the direction of the book rather than editors interfering. For George Perez it was a lack of information, being unable to be let in on Grant Morrison's doings. With Rob Liefeld, that was all his fault. The fact that he got as pissed off about it as he did proves that. Yeah, editors have problems, but be a man and tell them your problems against them, don't just quit and shit on Snyder.
Where are t he feet Rob?

The Gail Simone Batgirl thing seemed to be more of an internal conflict. As for the JH Williams the III one, that is the only one I can really sympathize with and blatantly call wrong.

But aside from this, the New 52 has been a huge success commercially, critically (with a few busts) and has gotten a wider audience to DC. Editorially, it is a failure.

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MYK

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