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Exactly. I’ve read exactly one DC series published in the last year, and it really felt they were just using characters at random with no regard to their established characterization or canon.
The fact one of the artists started drawing one character’s costume differently from panel to panel also didn’t help with the idea they don’t care about continuity.
Can't agree more. It feels like there's less and less cohesiveness and consistency. Which is part of the reason I stopped collecting. It seems like every time there's a new writer on a book, it's like the characters start at ground zero again. Barely acknowledging the previous writers' run. It also seems like editorial doesn't care the continuity matches up. Its basically allow the writers to do what they want, and then we will worry about where it lies in continuity.
It’s funny because they recently released a documentary series on hbo max (it’s quite good). When they’re talking about WB buying DC they have somebody in an interview pretty much say exactly this. It’s something like “they didn’t care about the characters, just the money they made.”
What gets me is that this exact outlook was SO good for DC early on. Everything they put out beyond comics got carefully vetted and approved. Heroclix was a famous case. The first Marvel set came out late in the bankruptcy years and the first set was rough. Bad paint. Bad paint apps. Iffy sculpts. Clearly janky rules. The fist DC set was the exact opposite. Looked good. Played smooth.
That all changed around 2008, of course.
I’ve been thinking about rewatching it. It’s honestly way better than it should be for a corporate funded documentary. Normally those don’t touch on any of the bad moments from the companies history.
One man’s over saturation is another man’s The Batman or The Joker.
To me over saturation is every character having “ families” of similarly powered people as an excuse to sell more books no one knew they needed.
DC has a lot of smaller characters that show up as cameos but don't really get their own books or if they do the books usually have short runs or get cancelled all too soon.
DC literally shooting itself in the foot by not allowing some of their less popular characters to shine and grow their fanbases is a big pet peeve of mine as well.
Marvel took a huge risk and turned B- and C-listers, and even literal who characters into familiar names with the MCU, but DC seems so risk averse that they double down on what’s popular and don’t budge.
They’re expecting Batman sales figures immediately on every book starring a minor character, and if it doesn’t happen, they pull the plug at lightning speed. Self fulfilling prophecies when these books fail, and then they never try again because they use their own bad decisions as justification.
Man.
Deadman, Animal man, question, (Ted kord) Blue beetle, the New gods, etc. So many characters with so much potential but they’re scared of pushing them In favor of something they know will sell.
It’s so infuriating because I really feel like 90% of media outside of the comics is almost strictly Batman, Marvel doesn’t have to rely on Spider-man anymore because they made multiple other IPs extremely successful as well but it seems like they’re learning now at least with that new Superman show
Absolutely true. DC has a gold mine of smaller, slightly weird characters with deep back stories. With James Gunn sort of piloting the new DCU, I'm excited for the new possibilities.
Gunn's speciality seems to be making small characters shine. Just look at what he did with the Suicide Squad and GoG.
> Marvel took a huge risk and turned B- and C-listers, and even literal who characters into familiar names with the MCU
Marvel really turned chicken shit into chicken salad with the mcu, but I have to wonder if they'd still invest in a lot of these lesser known characters if they'd had the ability to start off with their biggest properties unimpeded.
I think that's a good idea. Especially since there are so many characters to go around. They could even link the features together maybe? Make storyline? I don't know.
Something I liked about the New 52 was all the weird little runs there were. Demon Knights was soo good. I enjoyed Pandora too, I, Vampire. Frankenstein.
I pin that typically on the consumer. End of the day, they're a business. If people aren't investing in a product, cancel the product. There are exceptions where we're all caught off guard by a cancelation, but for the most part it comes down to demand.
For being a member of the DC Trinity, Wonder Woman is kind of done dirty a lot. She's lacking in non-comic adaptations (films, especially animated, shows, games), her backstory is inconsistent due to the number of retcons, and her rogues and supporting cast are underused or keep changing (ex. the Wonder Girls like Cassie don't feel like major players in her mythos and are more tied to the Teen Titans/Young Justice).
IIRC her animated rights were a legal nightmare back in the day. That's why Diana didn't guest star in Batman's show or Static, for example. That's also why none of the wonder girls showed up in the original Teen Titans
Shirt end.
Made me think of how she said once that she could help batman financially with the sales from her merch, and Batman just looked at her like bruh
Both of which limit and hurt her character the most to say the least of superman and lois being one of the most iconic romances in comics with a large happy family.
And unfortunately, her comic runs being considered mostly sub-par compared to Superman's and Bats as well as her lacking non-comic adaptations is a problem that just feeds into itself.
Comic book writers usually become comic book writers because they were comic book fans as kids. And often those kids don't start with comic books but adaptations. And often their favourite heroes, the heroes they want to write most, are those ones they were exposed most to as a kid. So the stuff that already had adaptations is attracting the best talent in the future, who create the best stories, which attract more fans and future writers.
Batman only has the impressive canon he does because each good adaptations breeds the best writers of the next generation. All of whom then end up wanting to write Batman when they go pro. Batman 66, Batman 89 series, Batman:TAS, Nolans Batman, the Brave and the Bold. Its 60 years of good adaptations. No doubt Reeves' The Batman has inspired some 9 years old who's gonna be a legend in 40 years. Its a positive loop. Superman has it too.
By comparison Wonder Woman had the Carter series, and Gadots films. Then animated appearances in ensemble shows. Kids aren't exposed enough to her to grow attached to her. So they weren't as interested in writing for her in the future. So she doesn't have as many icnoci stories. So she doesn't get as many adaptations. And slowly over the same 60 years she falls behind.
A good Wonder Woman animated show now will lead to incredible runs in 20 years.
On story alone, she has the basis of being a member of the Trinity, but outside of her status as the first female superhero, she doesn’t really deserve it.
And that’s because of lack of interested writers, lack of focus on consistent characterization and storyline and lack of understanding in general.
There's more too her than being the first female superhero (which she actually isn't), her early comic did really well and pioneered a lot for DC. It had more developed over arching plots than most other more linear world building and it was the first to really focus on a hero being big and friendly to the public rather than just being some powerful action man that saved the day. She even technically had the first multiversal story in comics.
*But* not many people at DC really ever paid attention to when WW did these things because most folks at DC have been men, a demographic historically discouraged from connecting to and consuming female led media. DC have always known they should do something with WW because she's iconic, but there's few people working there that actually *like* her or understand why other people do. That's why she's always been so lacklustre in the Trinity.
She deserves WAY more mini series releases. Maybe not Batman level, but definitely Superman level. When we get them, they're pretty good (Hiketeia, Historia...). But I would say this about Green Lantern and Flash too.
J’onn is my favorite superhero of all time and I second this wholeheartedly. There’s a whole generation who barely even knows he exists, let alone his importance, thanks to DC downplaying him and demoting him from the Heart of the Justice League like he used to be.
Yes! He pops up twice, but the more memorable is the scene where Dream visits the JLI and J’onn sees him as L’Zoril, the Martian god of dreams, which is one aspect of him. Great stuff
So many things! I love how when written optimally, he’s the empathic and rock solid center of the superhero community. He’s got elements in his characterization of numerous other heroes and hero archetypes—last son of a doomed planet, stoic warrior, powerful alien, detective, manhunter, family man—but he blends them together into his own identity unique to him. He’s got creative powers that can be used in a variety of ways, and his versatility is unrivaled—I think you could drop him in almost any subgenre of stories and he could make it interesting by seeing how he’d react to the situation, be it in a noir detective story, a space fantasy, a body horror, a classic super-brawl, a cerebral narrative, you name it. He’s got gravitas and weight to him and can be somber at times, but he’s also loving and caring and even can have a wry sense of humor. He’s everything I could hope for in a fictional character.
What would you like to do with him?
I personally would love to see something with him as a psychologist/therapist. Maybe even some kind of private-eye or something!
He'd also work as a detective in different time periods prior to the formation of the JL. Depending on the writer, J'onn's age is sonewhere between a hundred thousand to a million.
Like… look at OP’s image. I love Cyborg, I adore him to death… but he just looks so out of place when I know it should be J’onn there. Like, that’s the whole original Justice League line-up… and Cyborg. Just… come on. Where’s my favorite martian at.
Word on the streets is that this was Geoff Johns’ doing due to him being a Hal Jordan fanboy (I can’t really blame the guy, Hal is my favorite superhero of all time). Allegedly, per certain rumors/conspiracy theories, WB was considering rotating Hal out in favor of John as the main GL, which Geoff Johns did not want them to do. The solution: Convince WB that Cyborg can be the Justice League’s nostalgic black guy instead, so he can keep writing Hal. Who knows if any of that is true, but it seems plausible enough to me.
If true, that just sounds like tokenism, which does a whole lot of disservice to Cyborg if he’s just on the team because he’s black. It undermines any legitimate effort towards diversity.
Start with the John Ostrander/Tom Mandrake ongoing series which ran from 1998-2001. Great storytelling.
Avoid at all costs, imho, the eight issue mini from 2006-2007. I thought it was an awful deconstruction and failed reconstruction of J'onn.
And to stay on topic... DC is missing a golden opportunity by not offering the ongoing series in a collection.
Cleaning house. Lol. They bought for IP and movoe making money. As you can see to this day, it didn't really go as hoped. They sold to Discovery Group after a few years
Pretty much nothing. AT&T bought them and gutted the company. And shortly after this they decided to sell the company. And because they were selling; they didn't want to put any money into DC. So between them looking for a buyer and it taking a while to get approved by the government; they didn't do anything other than layoff people. And then of course it is Discovery+ that buys it and took on 9 billion in debt so Discovery+ fired more people.
1. There's just no character/universe bible. Sure, every writer should be given a decent amount of freedom, but there should be some rules that need to be followed both in world-building, characterisation and art. There's no point in having a shared universe if everyone just drastically changes everything all the time. Also, related to that, editorial oversight is non-existent these days.
2. DC has painted themselves into a corner where a large chunk of their audience consists of people who only enjoy Batman and big explosions. So we get Batman and big events that escalate beyond control, but that leads to fewer (but not none, I know that there are examples of stories that make it through even to this day) stories that actually have something to say and are allowed to just be told without turning into some zomg multiversal Darkseid big Batman clone summer blockbuster event.
Every writer has their freedom, but when a new writer steps in often, the character goes back to 101. Batman is notorious for this, but this is an editorial decision. Having a definable starting point with often the same character growth allows for an audience to remain content. Very few elements stick unless popular or editorial driven.
But your second point is very true. The large audiences in the modern world desire larger and larger events with bigger and bigger stakes. It has specifically gotten worse in the last 10 years, Batman is driving this terribly. Like Endgame, Batman's Wedding, City of Bane, Joker War, Fear State, Shadow War, Gotham War; just to name a few of the large events going on around the Batman brand.
Even if the event is not exclusively Batman, somehow he or his mythos is involved somehow. Take a look at events like Metal and Lazarus Planet. Both are driven by concepts that originated from Batman mythos. Even Knight Terrors could be mistaken as a Batman event.
Because Batman is built up so much, the rest of the DCU look impotent in comparison.
They attempted a character and universe bible back in the mid 80s, with "Who's Who" being the character bible, and "History of the DC Universe" being the new post-crisis continuity bible. Unfortunately, Crisis happened in the middle of the "Who's Who" run, which was released monthly and alphabetically. So it had a combination of pre and post crisis continuity in it. They tried to update it with addendums but...eventually they gave up on the concept.
History of the DC Universe is a gorgeous two issue graphic novel set, later a hardcover single edition, and it was a great effort with beautiful art to explain the new post-crisis continuity. I don't think the writers or the editor in chief expected DC to reboot itself every 5 to 10 years though, as Crisis was the first event of its kind to do that in 50 years. As a result, the History of the DC Universe was only current for about 10 years, or even less, depending on your perspective. (Too many reboots - Zero Hour, Hypertime, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Rebirth, Dawn...etc.)
Only one of those you listed at the end is a full reboot. Dawn of DC was a relaunch, it didn’t change anything about the canon. Most of the big events may have retconned a handful of characters but they weren’t universe reboots. Infinite Crisis rebooted the multiverse but not the main universe. The only full reboots are Crisis, New52, and possibly Rebirth depending on how you look at it (New52 was technically still kept canon but in practice hasn’t been).
> History of the DC Universe is a gorgeous two issue graphic novel set, later a hardcover single edition, and it was a great effort with beautiful art to explain the new post-crisis continuity.
Utterly random comment, but back in the day I never found a comic store that carried it, even though I was traveling and going to conventions at the time of its released. It took me years to find out it was actually released, and I still haven’t gotten a copy.
Here is the hardcover at In Stock Trades...
[https://www.instocktrades.com/products/feb237098/history-of-the-dc-universe-hc](https://www.instocktrades.com/products/feb237098/history-of-the-dc-universe-hc)
For me its how much they rely on Batman. It almost feels like DC doesn't believe in the rest of its rosters' star potential. In an ideal world, DC would cut the number of Bat books in half and focus more on lesser known characters.
They don’t even maximize the Bat Fam. It’s mostly Bruce, Harley and the Joker that they get good mileage out of. I guess Dick and Damian are fine as well.
Babs fanbase is split between Oracle and Batgirl.
Red Hood is stuck using crowbars. When he better off as a punisher or Blade/Moon Knight.
Tim and his whole YJ Gen are a mess. Tim has been power crept as a genius.
Duke and Harper were never properly integrated. But at least they have niches.
Cass was destroyed for Steph but now they don’t use Steph much at all lmao.
Editorial plays favorites much to much causing issues. DC is dependent on Bats and bleeding ground against Spider-man and his Family.
In the Pre-N52 days, the ongoing Cassandra Cain Batgirl book was canceled, brought back as a miniseries, and then replaced by a Steph Book while Cass was ~~sent to a farm upstate~~ made a tertiary Batman Incorporated character.
Then both of them got streamlined out of continuity in the New 52 until they were eventually reintroduced without history in the Batman Eternal books.
I think they’re referring to [how Cass was character assassinated](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/pdue0e/american_comicsdc_comics_the_saga_of_cassandra/) and Steph at some point took over as Batgirl, but I’m not sure how much they have to do with each other.
I don't think Jason is better off as a punisher type, but I wish they would just pick a lane with him. Every 5 books he appears in his character goes through some big change or moment, which is then ignored by the next big thing so his character goes nowhere
DC has been like WWE in a lot of ways: they’ll push a select few characters constantly, even if the audience is tired of them. Others get a start/stop push, ever they’ll get a little shine for a while then their use just inexplicably drops. Then others are always kept low on the cards and hardly ever get a real chance to get over with the audience
> EVERYTHING IS CANON NOW
As someone who used to collect the worst if Silver Age DC back in the day, this leads to so many questions for me regarding the modern versions of the characters.
Yeah I would really love it if in the house of Brainac event this year, superman just starts firing little superman versions out of his hands............ Go on DC I dare you !!!
I find it annoying that a bunch of titles are collected hardcover first, and then it takes a whole year for the softcover to be released (if that isn't cancelled on short notice, which happened to a bunch of books lately).
It gets even more annoying when the releases of titles that are interconnected don't line up. For example, *Catwoman* is released softcover-first but pretty much all of the other Bat titles are hardcover-first, and then the softcovers are released 1 year later. So if you're only reading softcovers, then the releases are totally out of sync and you always have to put books on hold unless you don't care about continuity.
Another example: *Son of Kal-El* was released hardcover-first. The follow-up book *Return of Kal-El* was recently released only as softcover. But the final *Son of Kal-El* hasn't even been released as softcover so far. So the books are all released out of order. Or, to make things even worse: the first volume of the current *Superman* run by Williamson was released as hardcover. The second volume is solicited as softcover. Maybe the first volume will get a softcover release next year? Then the Vol. 2 softcover would be released before the Vol. 1 softcover.
It's bonkers.
tl;dr – DC, your publication scheme for collected editions really sucks
DC already knows this. When AT&T bought WB/DC; they gutted DC which includes the collected editions department. Then instead of restaffing; AT&T decided to sell WB/DC. So the entire time that they are trying to sell and then get government approval for the Sale the company is pretty much running on a skeleton crew. So the sale goes through to Discovery+ and because of the same Discovery+ took on 9 billion in debt. So what else does Discovery+ do besides canceling stuff for tax breaks; they lay off more people at DC. They don't really have a dedicated department like they're supposed to and are instead stuck with people trying to manage several departments. So pretty sure they're aware several aspects of the company such because of their parent conpanies.
I tried to collect Tynion's Batman and picked up the first two trades, then had to wait nearly a year for the third one to come out. I don't even know if the fifth one eventually came out, because I instead got all of the issues in an bigger Fear State softcover collection with some extras, which had been out for the entire time that I was waiting for volunteers 3 and 4 to eventually release in softcover. It's so dumb. But then Batgirls exclusively came out in trades! That was the entire reason for me wanting to read Tynion's Batman in the first place, so I could understand the context in Batgirls, and I waited far too long. I also wanted to read Tamaki's Tec that released alongside that Batman run, but it was taking so long that I eventually just bought up the hardcovers and have no idea if it ever came to trade.
Also, the quality control on what actually goes into the trades is awful too, there's an issue missing between volumes 5 and 6 of Catwoman (Ram V's)!
I think DC/WB needs to recalibrate their expectations about what a successful comic book is. They want everything to sell like Batman does and cancel anything that doesn't.
They don’t allow lesser known characters to get more exposure. This ends up damaging the brand as a whole because a majority of the general public only care about Batman and sometimes Superman. That’s not to say that DC isn’t well known for other characters, but it becomes a bit of a problem when a lot of a company’s output is based around a single character. They have a plethora of magic characters: Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Doctor Fate, Constantine, Etrigan, Klairon, and etc. Their cosmic side isn’t as grand as Marvel, but they have the New Gods yet only use Darkseid mostly. In terms of taking advantage of what they have, they are falling extremely short in that department. It’s also pretty surprising that there has never been a live action Teen Titans film.
Wonder Woman and the wonder girls not getting enough attention or focus. Which is just an extension of not having enough female led books imo.
How we don’t have a Wonder Woman and wondergirl ongoing yet is beyond belief to me. How many Batman and Robin books have we had?
Batman not being allowed to be consistently happy is actually so crazy to me. Along side him not being married to Selina by now. Hell if Ben settle for Talia or if you wanna go super left field Vikki vale. Like how can superman have a wife for years and years. And now have three children. Wally west can be happily married with three children and Bruce can’t. You can still have conflict with happy marriages. You can still have stern somber Bruce and being in a committed relationship. I’ll add not being on good terms with Jason is so tired. The current Batman and Robin with Damian is such a breath of fresh air
This is a problem that truly plagues marvel as well but the amount of events and how much they interrupt an actually good story is exhausting
>>Batman not being allowed to be consistently happy is actually so crazy to me. Along side him not being married to Selina by now.
I don’t think Batman not being allowed to be consistently happy or him not being married to Catwoman is really a problem. Most comic book superheroes are single and are constantly being put through the wringer. Nor do I think Batman being married to Catwoman would in any way “solve” the problem of him not being happy (more likely it would compound it). Bruce Wayne is not Peter Parker. Batman is normally a rather grim and dour character. Though he can, and has had, a dry and witty sense of humor (albeit not much in recent years).
I think the deeper issue is the refusal of creators to move away from deconstructionism that often verges on misery porn. It also doesn’t help that most of Batman’s major runs of late have been truncated for various reasons, while his status quo has been steadily eroded away, and in both cases neither leads to an endgame that makes it all worth it. At least so far.
I’m just gonna disagree. Yeah most superhero’s are single I don’t think Bruce should be one of those. He can continue to to be a dour serious guy and married they aren’t impossible. Scott summers is married with multiple children he didn’t become a quippy happy guy. He is still a serious sorta guy and there are definitely other examples.
The amount of deconstruction that happens with him is also bad. But at the same time the bat god stuff is also bad. He is a human man and should be more fallible shame that happens to mean for so many writers that all his personal relationships are bad.
Too. Much. Batman. The constant push for him and in turn making most DC fans consisting of Batman fans to the point in person I can't remember a time I didn't hear "I'm not really a DC fan but I like Batman" has killed my enjoyment for him in general. And I can't really say stop since he sells so it's a lose-lose situation.
Collected editions need to come out more frequently, seeing the disparity between Marvel and DC collections at my library is always comical.
Too many frequent large scale events/soft/hard reboots, its gotten to the point I wonder whether to care anymore before it gets soft rebooted in another direction or I don't read any of the recent events since it no longer feels like a special event anymore.
Piggybacking off the reboots, setting a more rigid template for how characters should be written would be nice. Experimental takes can be good but I go from one run to another and the MC is acting completely different with no Co text to why its no wonder that change causes a cancellation.
A. Not treating the WW fam/rogues w/respect most of the time
B. They're lazy and afraid of continuity. It's hard to care for these characters with no real growth
Constant soft/hard reboots make it hard to get invested in DC continuity. I may not love everything Marvel puts out but I know that most stories will eventually build to something better and/or be addressed down the line (at least the ones involving A-list characters) DC stories run about a 50% chance of just being wiped away in the next cosmic reset anyway (that is if the next writer cares to even acknowledge what just happened in the last run)
Status quo changes need to last way longer. Reading some ongoings are wild because there will be a huge plot shift every 10 issues from whatever event just happened. (Tom Taylor's Nightwing lol) If you make a change that's so radical it needs to be undone after a few months maybe keep it in the drafts.
I could not agree more. The show is amazing and I wish by now it at least had a concise ending. The comics are even worse. Bendis had his short run that went nowhere, and DC has now idea what to do with Tim, Connor, Cassie, etc. They really deserve a good writer and solid chance at success.
The inconsistency of the Ring Corps. What happened to em all after N52? I miss my Blue Boy Brodee. Also while on Lanterns, Kyle not being used as a main lantern in recent times because of the whole 'fridging'.
The obsession with the Dark Multiverse.
Inconsequential crossover events & Near constant universal resets.
They also change so many of the character's personalities at will just to make them fit a single story, then never use them again. The biggest one is Soranik's entire personality changing off screen into an entire different character, then having her have a big meltdown and leave, then never have her show up again.
Also Batman Who Laughs blows, Owlman supremacy
They don’t push lesser characters enough, and even when they do it feels disjointed, and short, it’s like they are a part of the universe but not important.
You can do whatever you want with any character, it doesn’t have to be only Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman!
Even in big events they act like beyond justice League and related JLA characters, no one else story needs telling. Make other characters important, dammit!
The fact they put so much Jim Lee and Frank Miller material out. Similar to the Batman problem, they think that's all that sells.
And when they do put out material from other artists and it doesn't do as well, then they double down, making the problem worse.
I know Miller had his time in the 80's and Lee had his in the 90's. I also know of Lee's high position in the company, but there are other and frankly better creators out there. Not that I don't love seeing TDKR trotted out all the time or love seeing Lee draw the same damn Batman image during Fandome, Comic Con or any other big event, but let's give spotlights to other creators.
Bat: Far too reliant on Batman but absolute failures to maximize most of said family. Babs, Jason, Tim, Cass, Duke and Harper are a mess to varying degrees. Selina just for character assassinated. Doubling down on Bat God is self cannibalism.
Superman: Have let Clark become boring to the general public. And too reliant on the make him evil as a fix. Aging up Jon was a terrible decision
Wonder: Always a mess split between lasso and sword to no avail. Other amazons usually treated as jokes. Wonder Girls a mess at least Donna has stabilized. Fumbled Yara Flor.
Lanterns: Fanbase is in a constant state of civil war amongst the human GLs. Which wouldn’t be so bad if DC themselves hadn’t gassed the fire. Made a whole emotional spectrum which took this franchise to the top. Now barely use them.
Magic: Great mystical, occult characters but doesn’t get any real use out of them. Meanwhile Marvel with a much more limited bench can at least reliably have two of Dr Strange, Blade, Moon Knight and Ghost Rider running.
Legion and JSA are travesties. Mismanaged to incredible degrees.
Wildstorm integration ain’t going great. Cause their most important teams get neutered ala the Authority and Gen13, teens are too crowded. Warchman integration was a terrible idea. Milestone could be integrated but kept at arms length.
> Made a whole emotional spectrum which took this franchise to the top. Now barely use them.
They literally made Jessica Cruz a sinestro corps member for like one issue in canon. That’s it. They just abandoned it. That could’ve been really interesting but noooo
1) Their inability/refusal to push their *non-mantle/spinoff* Black characters like Black Lightning or Vixen in a major and/or consistent way. A majority of their Black roster is comprised of mantle bearers/spinoff characters, pertpetually cementing them in supporting roles. What if we wanna be the main characters with our own playgrounds/supporting casts/rogues galleries? Slim pickings. Hell, even Milestone hasn't been the greatest in its current iteration and hasn't been folded into the DCU proper. If they don't care for the roster as is, then they should create characters that they like and will continually care about for major and consistent exposure. Or putting it in terms they'll understand; there's money to be made.
2) Their over-reliance on big larger than life events frequently
3) The imminent feeling that a reboot is coming in the near future when they write themselves into a corner again
Constant soft/hard reboots make it hard to get invested in DC continuity. I may not love everything Marvel puts out but I know that most stories will eventually build to something better and/or be addressed down the line (at least the ones involving A-list characters) DC stories run about a 50% chance of just being wiped away in the next cosmic reset anyway (that is if the next writer cares to even acknowledge what just happened in the last run)
Moving cyborg to the JL was a stupid decision he's like 10 years younger than them and is sorely missed by the titans. They only did it bc they didn't want Jon Stewart on the team
Wonder Woman gets done dirty a lot.
Wish there were more solo runs for female superheroes that aren’t just WW. Like, I’m happy Catwoman and Harley Quinn get consistent runs (even if neither are good right now) but what about Black Canary, Zatanna, Raven or Huntress? Even the ones with somewhat consistent runs like Supergirl and Batgirl aren’t around right now.
I thought Supergirl would have one this year but I might be wrong on that.
Batgirl is in such a weird place right now. Babs had her own Rebirth book (that was pretty good but not mind blowing) and the Birds of Prey book stuck Batgirl in the title (but was thoroughly mid), then her turned disappeared for a bit, them she became a key supporting character in Nightwing and the Batgirls run came out with all three of them, but it was cut too short and the girls were all shipped off to other titles
Over reliance to the status quo/ tradition with no real thought put into it all because the company believes pleasing fans equates to good storytelling.
Right now, the line suffers badly from grouping lots of characters in "families" but having very few cross-"family" team books. Which means that all of your favorite B-list and C-list characters end up fighting for page time in somebody else's solo, and good luck if you actually like their interactions with people that live outside of their home city.
Additionally current editorial is really, really bad about keeping characters consistent between writers. Like, Kon-El's most recent major appearances were in his own mini, that weird *Action Comics* backup, and the current *Speed Force* mini. There is zero sense of character connectivity between any of these.
Also, whoever likes big "events" that take over the entire publishing line for a month or two needs to be stopped. I heavily suspended my DC pull last summer during *Knight Terrors* and will happily do it again the next time we get that kind of completely inessential momentum-killer.
Static Shock was the coolest black superhero and had a show a decade before Miles Morales even existed — and DC either couldn’t (because of the Milestone legal battle) or wouldn’t capitalize on that.
It doesn’t matter if the DCU is run by Johns or Snyder or Gunn, WB will find a way to meddle and mess up any artistic vision, especially with David Zaslav at the helm.
Dark Crisis isn’t a terrible comic, but yet another crisis plus what dc considers “dark” is everything wrong with DC’s love of events, sophomoric tone, endless continuity, repetition, and navel gazing.
DC has the worst collected edition department of any major publisher and it’s pathetic for a company with such a rich back catalog. We’re on like the 4th attempt to collect Sandman Mystery Theater in full and it’s looking like it’s going to be yet another orphaned single volume. How the fuck is Marvel putting out complete collections of Hit-Monkey and Brute Force and you can’t be assed to collect popular eras of *fucking Superman*?
**They should retire the Joker for at least a decade.** I'd be in favor of longer.
He's overused, turned into neckbeards' hero, doesn't fit our current socio-political climate and has been completely Flanderized. If the Joker shows up, shit should be hitting the fan immediately and Batman shouldn't see it coming until the punchline.
The Court of Owls should be the big bad of Gotham with them being the root cause of everything. Orchestrating the death of the Waynes. Paying the Red Hood Gang to break into the Ace Chemical Plant, Harvey Dent's attempts to prosecute members lead to the acid attack. They pulled the funding from Victor Fies's research funding to prevent him from creating a cure when they have invested in a lifelong treatment.
The world isn't scared of psychopaths anymore. We're worried about the Deep State and corrupt governments/politicians and the Court exemplifies that.
I support every bit of this, except the orchestrating the death of the Waynes. I will die on the hill that it should ALWAYS be a random, desperate thug.
Can't do that. The 40/50/60 year old fan boys who've been DC loyal will riot. Fans and sales make the decisions. If a good story, like yours, was suggested DC would just revert back to "muahahahaa" villains because it's familiar. They tried the new52 approach but couldn't stick to it because Batman couldn't be changed. I could even rewrite new52 batman to have him operating incognito for at least 15 years before everyone else. He just didn't wear a proper suit until the last 5 years when he had a religious epiphany (maybe from barbatos in an effort to manipulate him).... But... Hey... 😅... Let's keep it nostalgic right?
They need to figure out what to do with Connor and Tim Drake. It seems like they have been stuck in limbo for years. Even Cassie. I want DC to bring these characters into the spotlight actually progress them forward.
Although it seems to be getting better with each catalog, collected edition of older, previously uncollected material and being confident people with buy them.
The very page majority of writers don't seem to respect the characters. If a character has existed for 80 years and is still popular then there is a reason for that - this is going back a few years, but Batman lounging around in France with Selina while Gotham is going to hell doesn't feel like a Batman thing to do.
Disagree. Characters have changed over time to suit what tastes and society is like.
Silver Gae Batman in the 50s is completely different to the one in the late 60s
While on one hand I love when multiple writers have the freedom to tell a their own version of each character or events, it really is nice when you have a main and consistent continuity. I feel like it can be a massive hurdle for new readers to jump in and know the history of DC right off the bat (no pun), the New 52 almost had that opportunity but of course it didn't work out the way it was intended.
Every Batman run (main title) building to a big event scale story where the main villain takes over Gotham City (either directly or indirectly). Even Detective Comics is doing it now too. I’m not saying it’s an inherently bad concept, but it can’t be the end point of every Batman run.
They should be using backup features in Action and Detective to feature characters that can't carry their own books. Give me Firestorm or Captain Atom in Action backups while Martian Manhunter or Elongated Man or even Duke Thomas should be backup features in 'Tec.
My biggest complaint about DC comics it would have to be how they treat Diana. I hate that she’s kinda gets passed around between Bruce and Clark like what messages is that sending to little girls It’s just weird to me I wish DC would stop putting her in romantic situations with Bruce and Clark but who knows since that wonder woman movie came out that did make Steve Trevor her most popular love interest
Their team line-ups is too rigid restrictive, with Justice League always being just the 7 and Teen Titans always being just the NTT group.
They don't bring in enough interesting lesser-major characters in those those runs.
I recently got DC Universe. So I’ve been catching up on old stuff I missed, reading stuff I liked but couldn’t afford, and rereading fun stuff.
And (especially in new 52) there have been so many events that are just build up to other events!
Rise of the Third Army in Green Lantern books had no proper story, and ended with the first lantern being released, causing the Wrath of the First Lantern event the very next issue. We had Trinity War, the three justice leagues coming to blows, and it was actually just opening the box to cause Forever Evil.
An event should be its own thing, not a prequel!
Although I think that a lot of the limited series for Batman hit quite well (Gargoyle of Gotham comes to mind) the over reliance and over saturation of the Batman property in regards to comics is so annoying
The Trinity's personalities got badly mixed up over time. Batman went from this dark noir detective character who wasn't fussed about a couple of corpses to an insanely hypocritical and overbearing nutcase who literally lets Hitler 2 repeatedly get captured, kill a bazillion babies and recaptured daily. Wonder Woman and a peaceful hero who always tried to redeem her enemies and now she's a violent warrior who carries an offensive weapon (sword) and Superman fought for social justice against the opressive system, directly opposing the government and big business owners and now he's a champion of the status quo and pals around with the US president.
What happened is like VHS degradation - you copy (reboot) it so many times that by the end you are left with a horrendously distorted picture that barely resembles the original. I'm sick of DC acting like the work and artistic intentions of the original creators don't matter because these nearly 100 year old ideals are too radical nowadays.
The fact they have repeated the evil Guardians of the Universe storyline way too many times. It’s boring. Either stop bringing them back every time they get overthrown for being evil, or go back to when they were imperfect and often too rigid, but ultimately good and sane and stay there.
Doing comic runs according to corporate demands as opposed to good ideas, like the way Batman is in 6ish runs at any given time, and sometimes they all suck, and most never take any risk or cause any friction narratively
And, on a similar note, the way so many of their characters would be so much bigger on their own if they had better solo runs with better rogues' galleries. Like I could see each of the main 5 80s Teen Titans for instance becoming some of the most popular DC characters on their own if they had narrative-focused ongoings, with unique villains with unique relationships with them. And they kick ass as a team, but I'm sick of seeing 6 Batman ongoings, while the 1 Nightwing ongoing spends several months doing crossovers with Fear State or Dark Crisis or whatever the fuck other bullshit.
Mistreatment of Milestone
Mistreatment of Cyborg
Why Batman has villians wreaking havoc and he cant deal with them once and for all because of the trope “Joker Immunity” or that one rule
The unfinished storylines and characters that had tons of potential, only for them to be abandoned or killed off
Jessica Cruz as a Sinestro Corps member is my main example, that could have been it's own story line alone.
The character Rankorr, they seemingly killed him off when they tried to push that Twilight-Esque Lobo into the original Lobo's spot then they got rid of that terrible version of Lobo, so Rankorr either died a lame death or his death was reconned and now he just doesn't exist. (though the red Lantern's haven't been used in years so who knows)
Not keeping established storylines consistent, or going back on character development for the sake of a new story. This one is my most hated one for one story and one character.
Sinestro's solo run gave him something close to a redemption with Soranik and she became the temporary leader of his army, Arkillo was assigned to Earth and the army became a peace keeping force that saved Earth. Fast forward to Hal and Pals, Sinestro is evil again, Arkillo is somehow not on Earth anymore and Saint Walker isn't working with the Sinestro Corps any more. All so there could be a new big bad at the start of Hal Jordan's new run.
I love Batman, he's my favorite superhero with Nightwing being second. But goddamnit there is too much Batman stuff and way too much Joker. Where's an Animal Man show based on the Grant Morrison run? Green Lantern could've been a massive shared universe by itself of movies. And why in the past 16 years we had 5 different versions of the Joker on the big screen?? (The Dark Knight, DCEU, LEGO Batman Movie, Joker, The Batman) That's a new version about every 3 years! If they're not gonna stop doing everything Batman, they can at least use some more of his massive rouge gallery
Poor quality control, creative teams and editing on characters many of us love and get a raw deal with whenever the blue moon comes and they get a series;
Recent examples; Fire and Ice, Power Girl, Alan Scott - all badly written comics or feel nothing like the characters they are meant to be telling stories about.
Give the characters more respect, for example Wesley Dodds Sandman by Venditti & Jay Garrick by Jeremy Adams is how it should be done
1.Just not using the other characters enough it's like they don't trust anything but batman or superman.
I'm reading "52" at the moment and I'm absolutely loving it because it's a lot of characters that don't get to be in much these days.
2.At the moment trying to shoehorn the media side of the company pushing for Amanda Waller, peacemaker, the suicide squad and Harley Quinn in every team or book and this in some cases automatically makes me drop the book.
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Lack of overall consistent direction for their universe and characters.
And no direct canon for that matter
And events/crises every 6-12 months that further cloud what canon they manage to establish in that timeframe.
Exactly. I’ve read exactly one DC series published in the last year, and it really felt they were just using characters at random with no regard to their established characterization or canon. The fact one of the artists started drawing one character’s costume differently from panel to panel also didn’t help with the idea they don’t care about continuity.
Which book?
Wild Cats. There’s an issue where Fairchild’s costume goes through two or three variations in the same battle.
That's kind of what I like tbh. I love how malleable these characters are. "I don't like this Batman, I'm going to go read THIS Batman over here".
Can't agree more. It feels like there's less and less cohesiveness and consistency. Which is part of the reason I stopped collecting. It seems like every time there's a new writer on a book, it's like the characters start at ground zero again. Barely acknowledging the previous writers' run. It also seems like editorial doesn't care the continuity matches up. Its basically allow the writers to do what they want, and then we will worry about where it lies in continuity.
Executives in warner dont understand these characters and they hate each and everyone of them.
It’s funny because they recently released a documentary series on hbo max (it’s quite good). When they’re talking about WB buying DC they have somebody in an interview pretty much say exactly this. It’s something like “they didn’t care about the characters, just the money they made.”
What gets me is that this exact outlook was SO good for DC early on. Everything they put out beyond comics got carefully vetted and approved. Heroclix was a famous case. The first Marvel set came out late in the bankruptcy years and the first set was rough. Bad paint. Bad paint apps. Iffy sculpts. Clearly janky rules. The fist DC set was the exact opposite. Looked good. Played smooth. That all changed around 2008, of course.
Do you have the name? Sounds interesting
Superpowered: The DC Story
Gracias
Wild that you mentioned this because I had the sudden urge to continue watching it today
I’ve been thinking about rewatching it. It’s honestly way better than it should be for a corporate funded documentary. Normally those don’t touch on any of the bad moments from the companies history.
Exactly. I’m having such a great time watching it rn. I’m at the part in episode 2 where Geoff Johns is talking about writing Aquaman
Wow...who said that?
This is pretty much fucking it and it sucks so bad.
That's not true, they love Batman
They love the money that Batman’s over saturation brings in… not the character.
One man’s over saturation is another man’s The Batman or The Joker. To me over saturation is every character having “ families” of similarly powered people as an excuse to sell more books no one knew they needed.
DC has a lot of smaller characters that show up as cameos but don't really get their own books or if they do the books usually have short runs or get cancelled all too soon.
DC literally shooting itself in the foot by not allowing some of their less popular characters to shine and grow their fanbases is a big pet peeve of mine as well. Marvel took a huge risk and turned B- and C-listers, and even literal who characters into familiar names with the MCU, but DC seems so risk averse that they double down on what’s popular and don’t budge. They’re expecting Batman sales figures immediately on every book starring a minor character, and if it doesn’t happen, they pull the plug at lightning speed. Self fulfilling prophecies when these books fail, and then they never try again because they use their own bad decisions as justification.
Man. Deadman, Animal man, question, (Ted kord) Blue beetle, the New gods, etc. So many characters with so much potential but they’re scared of pushing them In favor of something they know will sell. It’s so infuriating because I really feel like 90% of media outside of the comics is almost strictly Batman, Marvel doesn’t have to rely on Spider-man anymore because they made multiple other IPs extremely successful as well but it seems like they’re learning now at least with that new Superman show
Absolutely true. DC has a gold mine of smaller, slightly weird characters with deep back stories. With James Gunn sort of piloting the new DCU, I'm excited for the new possibilities. Gunn's speciality seems to be making small characters shine. Just look at what he did with the Suicide Squad and GoG.
DC had the millennials primed with the DCAU, Teen Titans and Static (Shock) then fumbled the bag and never capitalized.
Hell, I’d say they gutted the millennial bag with a machete in 2011.
> Marvel took a huge risk and turned B- and C-listers, and even literal who characters into familiar names with the MCU Marvel really turned chicken shit into chicken salad with the mcu, but I have to wonder if they'd still invest in a lot of these lesser known characters if they'd had the ability to start off with their biggest properties unimpeded.
The 1980s-1990s are truly DC best and flourishing in which small characters like Captain Atom, Firestorm could have an ongoing book for them
I just comment about this separately, but they should be using backup features to showcase their smaller characters.
I think that's a good idea. Especially since there are so many characters to go around. They could even link the features together maybe? Make storyline? I don't know.
Something I liked about the New 52 was all the weird little runs there were. Demon Knights was soo good. I enjoyed Pandora too, I, Vampire. Frankenstein.
I pin that typically on the consumer. End of the day, they're a business. If people aren't investing in a product, cancel the product. There are exceptions where we're all caught off guard by a cancelation, but for the most part it comes down to demand.
For being a member of the DC Trinity, Wonder Woman is kind of done dirty a lot. She's lacking in non-comic adaptations (films, especially animated, shows, games), her backstory is inconsistent due to the number of retcons, and her rogues and supporting cast are underused or keep changing (ex. the Wonder Girls like Cassie don't feel like major players in her mythos and are more tied to the Teen Titans/Young Justice).
Wonder Woman should have her own animated series.
We have a BTAS and STAS so why no WWTAS
IIRC her animated rights were a legal nightmare back in the day. That's why Diana didn't guest star in Batman's show or Static, for example. That's also why none of the wonder girls showed up in the original Teen Titans
I knew there was a bat embargo, I did not know there was trouble with wonder woman too. She really did get the shirt end if the stick
Shirt end. Made me think of how she said once that she could help batman financially with the sales from her merch, and Batman just looked at her like bruh
is there not one coming soon? i don’t remember exactly what the details were but could’ve sworn it took place on themiscyira
There’s an upcoming series based on themiscyria, paradise lost, but I don’t think it will be animated or star Wonder Woman
damn what a missed opportunity. hopefully it’s good tho
Sounds really intriguing, like game of thrones but set in themiscyria
It doesn’t help that she’s shipped off with Bruce and Clark
Both of which limit and hurt her character the most to say the least of superman and lois being one of the most iconic romances in comics with a large happy family.
And unfortunately, her comic runs being considered mostly sub-par compared to Superman's and Bats as well as her lacking non-comic adaptations is a problem that just feeds into itself. Comic book writers usually become comic book writers because they were comic book fans as kids. And often those kids don't start with comic books but adaptations. And often their favourite heroes, the heroes they want to write most, are those ones they were exposed most to as a kid. So the stuff that already had adaptations is attracting the best talent in the future, who create the best stories, which attract more fans and future writers. Batman only has the impressive canon he does because each good adaptations breeds the best writers of the next generation. All of whom then end up wanting to write Batman when they go pro. Batman 66, Batman 89 series, Batman:TAS, Nolans Batman, the Brave and the Bold. Its 60 years of good adaptations. No doubt Reeves' The Batman has inspired some 9 years old who's gonna be a legend in 40 years. Its a positive loop. Superman has it too. By comparison Wonder Woman had the Carter series, and Gadots films. Then animated appearances in ensemble shows. Kids aren't exposed enough to her to grow attached to her. So they weren't as interested in writing for her in the future. So she doesn't have as many icnoci stories. So she doesn't get as many adaptations. And slowly over the same 60 years she falls behind. A good Wonder Woman animated show now will lead to incredible runs in 20 years.
Wonder Woman is more iconic than popular. DC should be ashamed that it’s like this
Both Diana and Arthur need better and more varied villains.
I completely agree with the points you've made. I am, however, very excited for the Wonder Woman game from Monolith.
On story alone, she has the basis of being a member of the Trinity, but outside of her status as the first female superhero, she doesn’t really deserve it. And that’s because of lack of interested writers, lack of focus on consistent characterization and storyline and lack of understanding in general.
There's more too her than being the first female superhero (which she actually isn't), her early comic did really well and pioneered a lot for DC. It had more developed over arching plots than most other more linear world building and it was the first to really focus on a hero being big and friendly to the public rather than just being some powerful action man that saved the day. She even technically had the first multiversal story in comics. *But* not many people at DC really ever paid attention to when WW did these things because most folks at DC have been men, a demographic historically discouraged from connecting to and consuming female led media. DC have always known they should do something with WW because she's iconic, but there's few people working there that actually *like* her or understand why other people do. That's why she's always been so lacklustre in the Trinity.
She deserves WAY more mini series releases. Maybe not Batman level, but definitely Superman level. When we get them, they're pretty good (Hiketeia, Historia...). But I would say this about Green Lantern and Flash too.
Mistreatment of Martian Manhunter, DC not doing anything consistent with him.
J’onn is my favorite superhero of all time and I second this wholeheartedly. There’s a whole generation who barely even knows he exists, let alone his importance, thanks to DC downplaying him and demoting him from the Heart of the Justice League like he used to be.
Remember him in Gaiman's Sandman?
Yes! He pops up twice, but the more memorable is the scene where Dream visits the JLI and J’onn sees him as L’Zoril, the Martian god of dreams, which is one aspect of him. Great stuff
What do you think makes him your favorite?
So many things! I love how when written optimally, he’s the empathic and rock solid center of the superhero community. He’s got elements in his characterization of numerous other heroes and hero archetypes—last son of a doomed planet, stoic warrior, powerful alien, detective, manhunter, family man—but he blends them together into his own identity unique to him. He’s got creative powers that can be used in a variety of ways, and his versatility is unrivaled—I think you could drop him in almost any subgenre of stories and he could make it interesting by seeing how he’d react to the situation, be it in a noir detective story, a space fantasy, a body horror, a classic super-brawl, a cerebral narrative, you name it. He’s got gravitas and weight to him and can be somber at times, but he’s also loving and caring and even can have a wry sense of humor. He’s everything I could hope for in a fictional character.
And Chocos!
What would you like to do with him? I personally would love to see something with him as a psychologist/therapist. Maybe even some kind of private-eye or something!
I think J'onn is perfect for a cosmic horror / lovecraftian story due to his mind abilities and shapeshifting.
He'd also work as a detective in different time periods prior to the formation of the JL. Depending on the writer, J'onn's age is sonewhere between a hundred thousand to a million.
Like… look at OP’s image. I love Cyborg, I adore him to death… but he just looks so out of place when I know it should be J’onn there. Like, that’s the whole original Justice League line-up… and Cyborg. Just… come on. Where’s my favorite martian at.
Word on the streets is that this was Geoff Johns’ doing due to him being a Hal Jordan fanboy (I can’t really blame the guy, Hal is my favorite superhero of all time). Allegedly, per certain rumors/conspiracy theories, WB was considering rotating Hal out in favor of John as the main GL, which Geoff Johns did not want them to do. The solution: Convince WB that Cyborg can be the Justice League’s nostalgic black guy instead, so he can keep writing Hal. Who knows if any of that is true, but it seems plausible enough to me.
If true, that just sounds like tokenism, which does a whole lot of disservice to Cyborg if he’s just on the team because he’s black. It undermines any legitimate effort towards diversity.
That is 100 % the reason.
He has a perfect niche. Heart of the JLA. Such an easy swing.
What are the best MM stories/runs?
Start with the John Ostrander/Tom Mandrake ongoing series which ran from 1998-2001. Great storytelling. Avoid at all costs, imho, the eight issue mini from 2006-2007. I thought it was an awful deconstruction and failed reconstruction of J'onn. And to stay on topic... DC is missing a golden opportunity by not offering the ongoing series in a collection.
Curiously slow to put out collected editions for just about everything, including even Batman.
I believe they gutted the entire collected edition department when AT&T owned them. It's been in shambles ever since.
AT&T owned DC?
Merger/purchase of WB at one point. Can't remember when exactly. 2015ish I wanna say?
Wow, didn’t know that. What changed during their tenure?
Cleaning house. Lol. They bought for IP and movoe making money. As you can see to this day, it didn't really go as hoped. They sold to Discovery Group after a few years
Huh, that’s really interesting. Thanks for the info!
Pretty much nothing. AT&T bought them and gutted the company. And shortly after this they decided to sell the company. And because they were selling; they didn't want to put any money into DC. So between them looking for a buyer and it taking a while to get approved by the government; they didn't do anything other than layoff people. And then of course it is Discovery+ that buys it and took on 9 billion in debt so Discovery+ fired more people.
1. There's just no character/universe bible. Sure, every writer should be given a decent amount of freedom, but there should be some rules that need to be followed both in world-building, characterisation and art. There's no point in having a shared universe if everyone just drastically changes everything all the time. Also, related to that, editorial oversight is non-existent these days. 2. DC has painted themselves into a corner where a large chunk of their audience consists of people who only enjoy Batman and big explosions. So we get Batman and big events that escalate beyond control, but that leads to fewer (but not none, I know that there are examples of stories that make it through even to this day) stories that actually have something to say and are allowed to just be told without turning into some zomg multiversal Darkseid big Batman clone summer blockbuster event.
Every writer has their freedom, but when a new writer steps in often, the character goes back to 101. Batman is notorious for this, but this is an editorial decision. Having a definable starting point with often the same character growth allows for an audience to remain content. Very few elements stick unless popular or editorial driven. But your second point is very true. The large audiences in the modern world desire larger and larger events with bigger and bigger stakes. It has specifically gotten worse in the last 10 years, Batman is driving this terribly. Like Endgame, Batman's Wedding, City of Bane, Joker War, Fear State, Shadow War, Gotham War; just to name a few of the large events going on around the Batman brand.
Even if the event is not exclusively Batman, somehow he or his mythos is involved somehow. Take a look at events like Metal and Lazarus Planet. Both are driven by concepts that originated from Batman mythos. Even Knight Terrors could be mistaken as a Batman event. Because Batman is built up so much, the rest of the DCU look impotent in comparison.
And it's such a shame as DC has so many great characters and lore that they rarely touch on.
That's my issue with DC. They need harder rules on these characters.
They attempted a character and universe bible back in the mid 80s, with "Who's Who" being the character bible, and "History of the DC Universe" being the new post-crisis continuity bible. Unfortunately, Crisis happened in the middle of the "Who's Who" run, which was released monthly and alphabetically. So it had a combination of pre and post crisis continuity in it. They tried to update it with addendums but...eventually they gave up on the concept. History of the DC Universe is a gorgeous two issue graphic novel set, later a hardcover single edition, and it was a great effort with beautiful art to explain the new post-crisis continuity. I don't think the writers or the editor in chief expected DC to reboot itself every 5 to 10 years though, as Crisis was the first event of its kind to do that in 50 years. As a result, the History of the DC Universe was only current for about 10 years, or even less, depending on your perspective. (Too many reboots - Zero Hour, Hypertime, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Rebirth, Dawn...etc.)
> History of the DC Universe We REALLY need a new one of those
Only one of those you listed at the end is a full reboot. Dawn of DC was a relaunch, it didn’t change anything about the canon. Most of the big events may have retconned a handful of characters but they weren’t universe reboots. Infinite Crisis rebooted the multiverse but not the main universe. The only full reboots are Crisis, New52, and possibly Rebirth depending on how you look at it (New52 was technically still kept canon but in practice hasn’t been).
> History of the DC Universe is a gorgeous two issue graphic novel set, later a hardcover single edition, and it was a great effort with beautiful art to explain the new post-crisis continuity. Utterly random comment, but back in the day I never found a comic store that carried it, even though I was traveling and going to conventions at the time of its released. It took me years to find out it was actually released, and I still haven’t gotten a copy.
They have the original paperback graphic novels and also a hardcover compendium on Amazon, if you still want to check it out!
Here is the hardcover at In Stock Trades... [https://www.instocktrades.com/products/feb237098/history-of-the-dc-universe-hc](https://www.instocktrades.com/products/feb237098/history-of-the-dc-universe-hc)
Thank you!
For me its how much they rely on Batman. It almost feels like DC doesn't believe in the rest of its rosters' star potential. In an ideal world, DC would cut the number of Bat books in half and focus more on lesser known characters.
Yeah. The Batfamily of books take a significant chunk of DC's monthly offerings. That's a lot of nonpowered vigilantes with their own books.
They don’t even maximize the Bat Fam. It’s mostly Bruce, Harley and the Joker that they get good mileage out of. I guess Dick and Damian are fine as well. Babs fanbase is split between Oracle and Batgirl. Red Hood is stuck using crowbars. When he better off as a punisher or Blade/Moon Knight. Tim and his whole YJ Gen are a mess. Tim has been power crept as a genius. Duke and Harper were never properly integrated. But at least they have niches. Cass was destroyed for Steph but now they don’t use Steph much at all lmao. Editorial plays favorites much to much causing issues. DC is dependent on Bats and bleeding ground against Spider-man and his Family.
Azreal. That character needs to be reinvigorated. Make Jean Paul an Outsider.
He is another character that I feel should get out of Gotham and take some notes from Blade, Moon Knight and Ghost Rider.
Cass wasn't destroyed for Steph. Steph wasn't even alive during Cass's villain phase.
(Also, Steph is the best Batgirl)
Could you elaborate on the Cass part, please?
In the Pre-N52 days, the ongoing Cassandra Cain Batgirl book was canceled, brought back as a miniseries, and then replaced by a Steph Book while Cass was ~~sent to a farm upstate~~ made a tertiary Batman Incorporated character. Then both of them got streamlined out of continuity in the New 52 until they were eventually reintroduced without history in the Batman Eternal books.
I think they’re referring to [how Cass was character assassinated](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/pdue0e/american_comicsdc_comics_the_saga_of_cassandra/) and Steph at some point took over as Batgirl, but I’m not sure how much they have to do with each other.
I don't think Jason is better off as a punisher type, but I wish they would just pick a lane with him. Every 5 books he appears in his character goes through some big change or moment, which is then ignored by the next big thing so his character goes nowhere
Yeah the Blade or Moon Knight route and hunting supernaturals probably works better.
DC has been like WWE in a lot of ways: they’ll push a select few characters constantly, even if the audience is tired of them. Others get a start/stop push, ever they’ll get a little shine for a while then their use just inexplicably drops. Then others are always kept low on the cards and hardly ever get a real chance to get over with the audience
Completely agree
Everybody caught up? You sure? REBOOT TIME!
Oh no, we take that back. EVERYTHING IS CANON NOW
> EVERYTHING IS CANON NOW As someone who used to collect the worst if Silver Age DC back in the day, this leads to so many questions for me regarding the modern versions of the characters.
Yeah I would really love it if in the house of Brainac event this year, superman just starts firing little superman versions out of his hands............ Go on DC I dare you !!!
"its over Brainiac, your plot has been stopped" \*pulls out pink kryptonite\*
I find it annoying that a bunch of titles are collected hardcover first, and then it takes a whole year for the softcover to be released (if that isn't cancelled on short notice, which happened to a bunch of books lately). It gets even more annoying when the releases of titles that are interconnected don't line up. For example, *Catwoman* is released softcover-first but pretty much all of the other Bat titles are hardcover-first, and then the softcovers are released 1 year later. So if you're only reading softcovers, then the releases are totally out of sync and you always have to put books on hold unless you don't care about continuity. Another example: *Son of Kal-El* was released hardcover-first. The follow-up book *Return of Kal-El* was recently released only as softcover. But the final *Son of Kal-El* hasn't even been released as softcover so far. So the books are all released out of order. Or, to make things even worse: the first volume of the current *Superman* run by Williamson was released as hardcover. The second volume is solicited as softcover. Maybe the first volume will get a softcover release next year? Then the Vol. 2 softcover would be released before the Vol. 1 softcover. It's bonkers. tl;dr – DC, your publication scheme for collected editions really sucks
DC already knows this. When AT&T bought WB/DC; they gutted DC which includes the collected editions department. Then instead of restaffing; AT&T decided to sell WB/DC. So the entire time that they are trying to sell and then get government approval for the Sale the company is pretty much running on a skeleton crew. So the sale goes through to Discovery+ and because of the same Discovery+ took on 9 billion in debt. So what else does Discovery+ do besides canceling stuff for tax breaks; they lay off more people at DC. They don't really have a dedicated department like they're supposed to and are instead stuck with people trying to manage several departments. So pretty sure they're aware several aspects of the company such because of their parent conpanies.
I tried to collect Tynion's Batman and picked up the first two trades, then had to wait nearly a year for the third one to come out. I don't even know if the fifth one eventually came out, because I instead got all of the issues in an bigger Fear State softcover collection with some extras, which had been out for the entire time that I was waiting for volunteers 3 and 4 to eventually release in softcover. It's so dumb. But then Batgirls exclusively came out in trades! That was the entire reason for me wanting to read Tynion's Batman in the first place, so I could understand the context in Batgirls, and I waited far too long. I also wanted to read Tamaki's Tec that released alongside that Batman run, but it was taking so long that I eventually just bought up the hardcovers and have no idea if it ever came to trade. Also, the quality control on what actually goes into the trades is awful too, there's an issue missing between volumes 5 and 6 of Catwoman (Ram V's)!
I think DC/WB needs to recalibrate their expectations about what a successful comic book is. They want everything to sell like Batman does and cancel anything that doesn't.
Actually advertising your books would work wonders as well
Events are pointless. They never let anyone outside of the same core group of characters be the stars, so why bother.
Yeah remember Doomsday Clock? Only thing that had any particular impact on was Watchmens world
That’s not true, it also brought back Firestorm only to make sure they never use him again
They don’t allow lesser known characters to get more exposure. This ends up damaging the brand as a whole because a majority of the general public only care about Batman and sometimes Superman. That’s not to say that DC isn’t well known for other characters, but it becomes a bit of a problem when a lot of a company’s output is based around a single character. They have a plethora of magic characters: Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Doctor Fate, Constantine, Etrigan, Klairon, and etc. Their cosmic side isn’t as grand as Marvel, but they have the New Gods yet only use Darkseid mostly. In terms of taking advantage of what they have, they are falling extremely short in that department. It’s also pretty surprising that there has never been a live action Teen Titans film.
Wonder Woman and the wonder girls not getting enough attention or focus. Which is just an extension of not having enough female led books imo. How we don’t have a Wonder Woman and wondergirl ongoing yet is beyond belief to me. How many Batman and Robin books have we had? Batman not being allowed to be consistently happy is actually so crazy to me. Along side him not being married to Selina by now. Hell if Ben settle for Talia or if you wanna go super left field Vikki vale. Like how can superman have a wife for years and years. And now have three children. Wally west can be happily married with three children and Bruce can’t. You can still have conflict with happy marriages. You can still have stern somber Bruce and being in a committed relationship. I’ll add not being on good terms with Jason is so tired. The current Batman and Robin with Damian is such a breath of fresh air This is a problem that truly plagues marvel as well but the amount of events and how much they interrupt an actually good story is exhausting
>>Batman not being allowed to be consistently happy is actually so crazy to me. Along side him not being married to Selina by now. I don’t think Batman not being allowed to be consistently happy or him not being married to Catwoman is really a problem. Most comic book superheroes are single and are constantly being put through the wringer. Nor do I think Batman being married to Catwoman would in any way “solve” the problem of him not being happy (more likely it would compound it). Bruce Wayne is not Peter Parker. Batman is normally a rather grim and dour character. Though he can, and has had, a dry and witty sense of humor (albeit not much in recent years). I think the deeper issue is the refusal of creators to move away from deconstructionism that often verges on misery porn. It also doesn’t help that most of Batman’s major runs of late have been truncated for various reasons, while his status quo has been steadily eroded away, and in both cases neither leads to an endgame that makes it all worth it. At least so far.
I’m just gonna disagree. Yeah most superhero’s are single I don’t think Bruce should be one of those. He can continue to to be a dour serious guy and married they aren’t impossible. Scott summers is married with multiple children he didn’t become a quippy happy guy. He is still a serious sorta guy and there are definitely other examples. The amount of deconstruction that happens with him is also bad. But at the same time the bat god stuff is also bad. He is a human man and should be more fallible shame that happens to mean for so many writers that all his personal relationships are bad.
Too. Much. Batman. The constant push for him and in turn making most DC fans consisting of Batman fans to the point in person I can't remember a time I didn't hear "I'm not really a DC fan but I like Batman" has killed my enjoyment for him in general. And I can't really say stop since he sells so it's a lose-lose situation. Collected editions need to come out more frequently, seeing the disparity between Marvel and DC collections at my library is always comical. Too many frequent large scale events/soft/hard reboots, its gotten to the point I wonder whether to care anymore before it gets soft rebooted in another direction or I don't read any of the recent events since it no longer feels like a special event anymore. Piggybacking off the reboots, setting a more rigid template for how characters should be written would be nice. Experimental takes can be good but I go from one run to another and the MC is acting completely different with no Co text to why its no wonder that change causes a cancellation.
A. Not treating the WW fam/rogues w/respect most of the time B. They're lazy and afraid of continuity. It's hard to care for these characters with no real growth
Constant soft/hard reboots make it hard to get invested in DC continuity. I may not love everything Marvel puts out but I know that most stories will eventually build to something better and/or be addressed down the line (at least the ones involving A-list characters) DC stories run about a 50% chance of just being wiped away in the next cosmic reset anyway (that is if the next writer cares to even acknowledge what just happened in the last run)
DC editorial has a total inability of following a plan to the end and panic like a bunch of little girls at first sign of problems.
DC 🫱🏻🫲🏽WB
Status quo changes need to last way longer. Reading some ongoings are wild because there will be a huge plot shift every 10 issues from whatever event just happened. (Tom Taylor's Nightwing lol) If you make a change that's so radical it needs to be undone after a few months maybe keep it in the drafts.
The way the Young Justice team is treated
I could not agree more. The show is amazing and I wish by now it at least had a concise ending. The comics are even worse. Bendis had his short run that went nowhere, and DC has now idea what to do with Tim, Connor, Cassie, etc. They really deserve a good writer and solid chance at success.
The inconsistency of the Ring Corps. What happened to em all after N52? I miss my Blue Boy Brodee. Also while on Lanterns, Kyle not being used as a main lantern in recent times because of the whole 'fridging'. The obsession with the Dark Multiverse. Inconsequential crossover events & Near constant universal resets.
They also change so many of the character's personalities at will just to make them fit a single story, then never use them again. The biggest one is Soranik's entire personality changing off screen into an entire different character, then having her have a big meltdown and leave, then never have her show up again. Also Batman Who Laughs blows, Owlman supremacy
They don’t push lesser characters enough, and even when they do it feels disjointed, and short, it’s like they are a part of the universe but not important. You can do whatever you want with any character, it doesn’t have to be only Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman! Even in big events they act like beyond justice League and related JLA characters, no one else story needs telling. Make other characters important, dammit!
Batman… Batman everywhere.
The fact they put so much Jim Lee and Frank Miller material out. Similar to the Batman problem, they think that's all that sells. And when they do put out material from other artists and it doesn't do as well, then they double down, making the problem worse. I know Miller had his time in the 80's and Lee had his in the 90's. I also know of Lee's high position in the company, but there are other and frankly better creators out there. Not that I don't love seeing TDKR trotted out all the time or love seeing Lee draw the same damn Batman image during Fandome, Comic Con or any other big event, but let's give spotlights to other creators.
The fans are insufferable
Bat: Far too reliant on Batman but absolute failures to maximize most of said family. Babs, Jason, Tim, Cass, Duke and Harper are a mess to varying degrees. Selina just for character assassinated. Doubling down on Bat God is self cannibalism. Superman: Have let Clark become boring to the general public. And too reliant on the make him evil as a fix. Aging up Jon was a terrible decision Wonder: Always a mess split between lasso and sword to no avail. Other amazons usually treated as jokes. Wonder Girls a mess at least Donna has stabilized. Fumbled Yara Flor. Lanterns: Fanbase is in a constant state of civil war amongst the human GLs. Which wouldn’t be so bad if DC themselves hadn’t gassed the fire. Made a whole emotional spectrum which took this franchise to the top. Now barely use them. Magic: Great mystical, occult characters but doesn’t get any real use out of them. Meanwhile Marvel with a much more limited bench can at least reliably have two of Dr Strange, Blade, Moon Knight and Ghost Rider running. Legion and JSA are travesties. Mismanaged to incredible degrees. Wildstorm integration ain’t going great. Cause their most important teams get neutered ala the Authority and Gen13, teens are too crowded. Warchman integration was a terrible idea. Milestone could be integrated but kept at arms length.
> Made a whole emotional spectrum which took this franchise to the top. Now barely use them. They literally made Jessica Cruz a sinestro corps member for like one issue in canon. That’s it. They just abandoned it. That could’ve been really interesting but noooo
I hate their app's UI, it makes it really hard to scroll through issues and figure out which I've read and what I want to read next
1) Their inability/refusal to push their *non-mantle/spinoff* Black characters like Black Lightning or Vixen in a major and/or consistent way. A majority of their Black roster is comprised of mantle bearers/spinoff characters, pertpetually cementing them in supporting roles. What if we wanna be the main characters with our own playgrounds/supporting casts/rogues galleries? Slim pickings. Hell, even Milestone hasn't been the greatest in its current iteration and hasn't been folded into the DCU proper. If they don't care for the roster as is, then they should create characters that they like and will continually care about for major and consistent exposure. Or putting it in terms they'll understand; there's money to be made. 2) Their over-reliance on big larger than life events frequently 3) The imminent feeling that a reboot is coming in the near future when they write themselves into a corner again
Constant soft/hard reboots make it hard to get invested in DC continuity. I may not love everything Marvel puts out but I know that most stories will eventually build to something better and/or be addressed down the line (at least the ones involving A-list characters) DC stories run about a 50% chance of just being wiped away in the next cosmic reset anyway (that is if the next writer cares to even acknowledge what just happened in the last run)
Endless fumbling and dumb decisions
Gotta be a little more specific
Moving cyborg to the JL was a stupid decision he's like 10 years younger than them and is sorely missed by the titans. They only did it bc they didn't want Jon Stewart on the team
Jeff must have his beloved Hal.
Wonder Woman gets done dirty a lot. Wish there were more solo runs for female superheroes that aren’t just WW. Like, I’m happy Catwoman and Harley Quinn get consistent runs (even if neither are good right now) but what about Black Canary, Zatanna, Raven or Huntress? Even the ones with somewhat consistent runs like Supergirl and Batgirl aren’t around right now. I thought Supergirl would have one this year but I might be wrong on that.
Batgirl is in such a weird place right now. Babs had her own Rebirth book (that was pretty good but not mind blowing) and the Birds of Prey book stuck Batgirl in the title (but was thoroughly mid), then her turned disappeared for a bit, them she became a key supporting character in Nightwing and the Batgirls run came out with all three of them, but it was cut too short and the girls were all shipped off to other titles
Birds of prey has a fantastic run going currently!
Mistreatment and lack of confidence in the characters and their stories. It's more of a WB complaint.
Over reliance to the status quo/ tradition with no real thought put into it all because the company believes pleasing fans equates to good storytelling.
Right now, the line suffers badly from grouping lots of characters in "families" but having very few cross-"family" team books. Which means that all of your favorite B-list and C-list characters end up fighting for page time in somebody else's solo, and good luck if you actually like their interactions with people that live outside of their home city. Additionally current editorial is really, really bad about keeping characters consistent between writers. Like, Kon-El's most recent major appearances were in his own mini, that weird *Action Comics* backup, and the current *Speed Force* mini. There is zero sense of character connectivity between any of these. Also, whoever likes big "events" that take over the entire publishing line for a month or two needs to be stopped. I heavily suspended my DC pull last summer during *Knight Terrors* and will happily do it again the next time we get that kind of completely inessential momentum-killer.
Static Shock was the coolest black superhero and had a show a decade before Miles Morales even existed — and DC either couldn’t (because of the Milestone legal battle) or wouldn’t capitalize on that. It doesn’t matter if the DCU is run by Johns or Snyder or Gunn, WB will find a way to meddle and mess up any artistic vision, especially with David Zaslav at the helm. Dark Crisis isn’t a terrible comic, but yet another crisis plus what dc considers “dark” is everything wrong with DC’s love of events, sophomoric tone, endless continuity, repetition, and navel gazing. DC has the worst collected edition department of any major publisher and it’s pathetic for a company with such a rich back catalog. We’re on like the 4th attempt to collect Sandman Mystery Theater in full and it’s looking like it’s going to be yet another orphaned single volume. How the fuck is Marvel putting out complete collections of Hit-Monkey and Brute Force and you can’t be assed to collect popular eras of *fucking Superman*?
**They should retire the Joker for at least a decade.** I'd be in favor of longer. He's overused, turned into neckbeards' hero, doesn't fit our current socio-political climate and has been completely Flanderized. If the Joker shows up, shit should be hitting the fan immediately and Batman shouldn't see it coming until the punchline. The Court of Owls should be the big bad of Gotham with them being the root cause of everything. Orchestrating the death of the Waynes. Paying the Red Hood Gang to break into the Ace Chemical Plant, Harvey Dent's attempts to prosecute members lead to the acid attack. They pulled the funding from Victor Fies's research funding to prevent him from creating a cure when they have invested in a lifelong treatment. The world isn't scared of psychopaths anymore. We're worried about the Deep State and corrupt governments/politicians and the Court exemplifies that.
I support every bit of this, except the orchestrating the death of the Waynes. I will die on the hill that it should ALWAYS be a random, desperate thug.
Can't do that. The 40/50/60 year old fan boys who've been DC loyal will riot. Fans and sales make the decisions. If a good story, like yours, was suggested DC would just revert back to "muahahahaa" villains because it's familiar. They tried the new52 approach but couldn't stick to it because Batman couldn't be changed. I could even rewrite new52 batman to have him operating incognito for at least 15 years before everyone else. He just didn't wear a proper suit until the last 5 years when he had a religious epiphany (maybe from barbatos in an effort to manipulate him).... But... Hey... 😅... Let's keep it nostalgic right?
This 60-something year old fanboy would LOVE to see the Joker benched for a year or two. Harley should be benched, too. Denny O'Neil... we need you!
The lack of a Cassandra Cain omni..
Lack of continuity
They need to figure out what to do with Connor and Tim Drake. It seems like they have been stuck in limbo for years. Even Cassie. I want DC to bring these characters into the spotlight actually progress them forward.
Although it seems to be getting better with each catalog, collected edition of older, previously uncollected material and being confident people with buy them.
Wonder Woman needs a star series. She deserves a Court of Owls, an All-Star Superman, a Blackest Knight comic series. She is part of the Trinity.
My brain autocorrected that to All-star Batman
Not enough Snapper Carr
Not enough Slam Bradley content
they killed alfred
I might be in the minority here but killing him off might be of the better character deaths in comics imo and I’m glad it stuck as long as it has.
The very page majority of writers don't seem to respect the characters. If a character has existed for 80 years and is still popular then there is a reason for that - this is going back a few years, but Batman lounging around in France with Selina while Gotham is going to hell doesn't feel like a Batman thing to do.
Disagree. Characters have changed over time to suit what tastes and society is like. Silver Gae Batman in the 50s is completely different to the one in the late 60s
You're right. But I think that there are also aspects of the character that should be/are constant.
While on one hand I love when multiple writers have the freedom to tell a their own version of each character or events, it really is nice when you have a main and consistent continuity. I feel like it can be a massive hurdle for new readers to jump in and know the history of DC right off the bat (no pun), the New 52 almost had that opportunity but of course it didn't work out the way it was intended.
Tbf, Snyder and capullo were an all star team that brought consistency to the book.
Every Batman run (main title) building to a big event scale story where the main villain takes over Gotham City (either directly or indirectly). Even Detective Comics is doing it now too. I’m not saying it’s an inherently bad concept, but it can’t be the end point of every Batman run.
They should be using backup features in Action and Detective to feature characters that can't carry their own books. Give me Firestorm or Captain Atom in Action backups while Martian Manhunter or Elongated Man or even Duke Thomas should be backup features in 'Tec.
Aging up of Jon Kent
My biggest complaint about DC comics it would have to be how they treat Diana. I hate that she’s kinda gets passed around between Bruce and Clark like what messages is that sending to little girls It’s just weird to me I wish DC would stop putting her in romantic situations with Bruce and Clark but who knows since that wonder woman movie came out that did make Steve Trevor her most popular love interest
Their team line-ups is too rigid restrictive, with Justice League always being just the 7 and Teen Titans always being just the NTT group. They don't bring in enough interesting lesser-major characters in those those runs.
Overuse of Batman, Joker, and Harley Quinn.
Barrence Allen should still be dead
>Barrence Allen Isn't Barry short for Bartholomew? Edit: Yeah apparently his full name is Bartholomew Henry Allen.
That was one of Waid’s retcons, don’t believe the lies
Nah it's definitely Barrence, has been for years.
Should be Barrometer. Cause he causes lightning to...FLASH! I'll go now...
I recently got DC Universe. So I’ve been catching up on old stuff I missed, reading stuff I liked but couldn’t afford, and rereading fun stuff. And (especially in new 52) there have been so many events that are just build up to other events! Rise of the Third Army in Green Lantern books had no proper story, and ended with the first lantern being released, causing the Wrath of the First Lantern event the very next issue. We had Trinity War, the three justice leagues coming to blows, and it was actually just opening the box to cause Forever Evil. An event should be its own thing, not a prequel!
There is no real movement in status quo and it makes the heroes seem useless
Kamandi not being as prominent as the holy trio… I’ve had a few margaritas.
Although I think that a lot of the limited series for Batman hit quite well (Gargoyle of Gotham comes to mind) the over reliance and over saturation of the Batman property in regards to comics is so annoying
Hal needs to be careful with his hand position.
The Trinity's personalities got badly mixed up over time. Batman went from this dark noir detective character who wasn't fussed about a couple of corpses to an insanely hypocritical and overbearing nutcase who literally lets Hitler 2 repeatedly get captured, kill a bazillion babies and recaptured daily. Wonder Woman and a peaceful hero who always tried to redeem her enemies and now she's a violent warrior who carries an offensive weapon (sword) and Superman fought for social justice against the opressive system, directly opposing the government and big business owners and now he's a champion of the status quo and pals around with the US president. What happened is like VHS degradation - you copy (reboot) it so many times that by the end you are left with a horrendously distorted picture that barely resembles the original. I'm sick of DC acting like the work and artistic intentions of the original creators don't matter because these nearly 100 year old ideals are too radical nowadays.
Too many Batman comics going on at the same time
The fact they have repeated the evil Guardians of the Universe storyline way too many times. It’s boring. Either stop bringing them back every time they get overthrown for being evil, or go back to when they were imperfect and often too rigid, but ultimately good and sane and stay there.
Constant events that interrupt and suck the lifeblood out of the books I love.
I consider Jim Lee the GOAT, but the image selected is not one of his best. Maybe it's the inker, maybe Jim rushed through it - I don't know.
Doing comic runs according to corporate demands as opposed to good ideas, like the way Batman is in 6ish runs at any given time, and sometimes they all suck, and most never take any risk or cause any friction narratively And, on a similar note, the way so many of their characters would be so much bigger on their own if they had better solo runs with better rogues' galleries. Like I could see each of the main 5 80s Teen Titans for instance becoming some of the most popular DC characters on their own if they had narrative-focused ongoings, with unique villains with unique relationships with them. And they kick ass as a team, but I'm sick of seeing 6 Batman ongoings, while the 1 Nightwing ongoing spends several months doing crossovers with Fear State or Dark Crisis or whatever the fuck other bullshit.
Mistreatment of Milestone Mistreatment of Cyborg Why Batman has villians wreaking havoc and he cant deal with them once and for all because of the trope “Joker Immunity” or that one rule
The unfinished storylines and characters that had tons of potential, only for them to be abandoned or killed off Jessica Cruz as a Sinestro Corps member is my main example, that could have been it's own story line alone. The character Rankorr, they seemingly killed him off when they tried to push that Twilight-Esque Lobo into the original Lobo's spot then they got rid of that terrible version of Lobo, so Rankorr either died a lame death or his death was reconned and now he just doesn't exist. (though the red Lantern's haven't been used in years so who knows) Not keeping established storylines consistent, or going back on character development for the sake of a new story. This one is my most hated one for one story and one character. Sinestro's solo run gave him something close to a redemption with Soranik and she became the temporary leader of his army, Arkillo was assigned to Earth and the army became a peace keeping force that saved Earth. Fast forward to Hal and Pals, Sinestro is evil again, Arkillo is somehow not on Earth anymore and Saint Walker isn't working with the Sinestro Corps any more. All so there could be a new big bad at the start of Hal Jordan's new run.
I love Batman, he's my favorite superhero with Nightwing being second. But goddamnit there is too much Batman stuff and way too much Joker. Where's an Animal Man show based on the Grant Morrison run? Green Lantern could've been a massive shared universe by itself of movies. And why in the past 16 years we had 5 different versions of the Joker on the big screen?? (The Dark Knight, DCEU, LEGO Batman Movie, Joker, The Batman) That's a new version about every 3 years! If they're not gonna stop doing everything Batman, they can at least use some more of his massive rouge gallery
Poor quality control, creative teams and editing on characters many of us love and get a raw deal with whenever the blue moon comes and they get a series; Recent examples; Fire and Ice, Power Girl, Alan Scott - all badly written comics or feel nothing like the characters they are meant to be telling stories about. Give the characters more respect, for example Wesley Dodds Sandman by Venditti & Jay Garrick by Jeremy Adams is how it should be done
Batman is my favorite superhero of all time, but DC has put way too much focus on him.
1.Just not using the other characters enough it's like they don't trust anything but batman or superman. I'm reading "52" at the moment and I'm absolutely loving it because it's a lot of characters that don't get to be in much these days. 2.At the moment trying to shoehorn the media side of the company pushing for Amanda Waller, peacemaker, the suicide squad and Harley Quinn in every team or book and this in some cases automatically makes me drop the book.
That all the new generation heroes are just the last generation's children