So I read the nu52.

[FanboyStranger]

And Demon Knights... Demon Knights is just awesome.

Demon Knights is solid. I've been expecting more from it-- there's been a lot of excellent fantasy books the past few years, the most impressive being Chris Robeson's Elric: The Balance Lost-- but it definitely found a satisfying groove with its second arc.

[dmh3000]

What crossover are you talking about?

The Crises, Secret Invasion, etc. For example, I'm not going to buy Flashpoint or any of its tie ins until the trade has been out for at least a year. Not the hardcover, the trade. That's how I've always done things. I don't like the big crossovers as they're almost always pointless so I don't want to give DC or Marvel my money for them until it's too late to make a difference. They're more concerned about making money now rather than in a year, so I wait until that year has passed.

[C.B. Nerdlinger]

The Crises, Secret Invasion, etc. For example, I'm not going to buy Flashpoint or any of its tie ins until the trade has been out for at least a year. Not the hardcover, the trade. That's how I've always done things. I don't like the big crossovers as they're almost always pointless so I don't want to give DC or Marvel my money for them until it's too late to make a difference. They're more concerned about making money now rather than in a year, so I wait until that year has passed.

But what does that have to do with buying New 52 books? They haven't had an event yet.

[Patrick Gerard]

But what does that have to do with buying New 52 books? They haven't had an event yet.

From a "story crossover" perspective...? No. You're right. They haven't.

But when a lot of fans say they're against crossovers or events, they aren't talking about crossovers or events per se. You wouldn't have any story to read at all if there weren't "events" and most fans really do love seeing their favorite characters together in a book, be it Superman/Batman, Birds of Prey, Justice League, or an old favorite popping up in a book.

No, the sin they're talking about is a managerially coordinated publishing initiative. Something that isn't driven by writers and artists. If you ask people who hate crossovers and events what books they do like, you'll get a list that probably includes stuff like:

- The Hitman issue with Superman (A crossover, technically)
- Superman/Flash races
- The Great Darkness Saga (A crossover)
- Acts of Vengeance (A crossover but one where individual creative teams had broad latitude past the initial concept)
- Hush (An event story but one which had little impact aside from planting the Jason Todd idea and introducing Huntress' questionable fashion choices)

On the whole, people like this stuff. People like build-ups to a big issue 10 or 25 or 100 blowout. What people gripe about are comics written by committee, where the committee isn't synced up (52 operating like a TV writer's room being an exception but one where the writers did sync up) or where you have comics that strive to prove how important they are. Identity Crisis piggybacks off of a rape to prove it's important. Whereas an old gem like Doom 2099 had implications of mindcontrolled sex (Doom being the victim) but never once in my recollection raised an eyebrow and still gets cited as an old underrated gem by fans and pros. Why? Because it had sound writing and pretty good art and never used rape to hammer you over the head with how important it was. Hell, it didn't even use Doom conquering the U.S. and moving into the white house to hammer you over the head with how important it was. Things just happened, fairly organically, and a bunch of mysteries played out. At a reasonable pace.

You know what? The problem isn't crossovers or events. It's with comics striving to be important so hard that they forget to be anything else. Whether that's socially important, important to the history of the universe, the medium, or so important in your collection that the meaning of what happens dwarfs last month. It isn't event fatigue. It's importance fatigue.

And that's one thing really old DC books were good at avoiding before they decided they wanted to be Marvel. I really hold that the key to writing DC is to pretend that every issue is an anniversary issue. You can obviously have big stuff happen in that model but the key there is that every issue should feel like a celebration of the characters. Like when Alan Moore wrote "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" and said he wanted to do a story that Superman would be proud to read if he were real. I think you get that with something like All-Star Superman.

Reverent. Novel scenario done-in-one. Illustrates a facet of the character. Doesn't deconstruct anything it isn't prepared to reassemble by the final page, even if the action itself has a cliffhanger.

Some people think that's boring. I think it's the only way to go and that it simply requires craft. And if you can't muster the craft to make that approach interesting, you're being lazy.

And I think editorially micromandated marketing-driven hoohah underrates craft because it doesn't understand it. It understands its own craft and nobody else's and is selfish. I'm glad that some fans in the direct market are such fans of Bob Harras' writing but to that I say that if people love his writing so much, give him a book to write and let the other writers write their own damned books.

[dmh3000]

Pretty much what Patrick said. But also, because it means the stories that got me into comics have been rail-roaded and cast aside simply for a quick buck. So they don't get that buck until later down the line.

[Gail Simone]

I still have quite a few New52 books I am crazy about. There are some that have not yet fulfilled their promise for any number of reasons, but that's true of any publisher's line.

[Morrison_Lad]

Pretty much what Patrick said. But also, because it means the stories that got me into comics have been rail-roaded and cast aside simply for a quick buck. So they don't get that buck until later down the line.

DC is a business. It's their job to "make a quick buck."

[Patrick Gerard]

DC is a business. It's their job to "make a quick buck."

I don't think that attitude does consumers or firms any favors and it's a relatively new idea in modern civilized societies, one that these societies tried to beat back as they tamed the frontiers.

I say it's their job to "make a sustainable buck."

[C.B. Nerdlinger]

Pretty much what Patrick said. But also, because it means the stories that got me into comics have been rail-roaded and cast aside simply for a quick buck. So they don't get that buck until later down the line.

But you're obviously interested in some of the books, even if you're going to wait. Why "punish" a company for making books you want to read? It makes no sense to me.

[Morrison_Lad]

I don't think that attitude does consumers or firms any favors and it's a relatively new idea in modern civilized societies, one that these societies tried to beat back as they tamed the frontiers.

I say it's their job to "make a sustainable buck."

I agree with you. I was being a bit snarky by using the quote from his post.

But obviously DC felt that a (mostly) line-wide reboot -- or re-imagining -- would help their sales in the long run. So far, and it's only been what? Less than 2 years. But so far, it looks like they were right. But we won't be able to judge any of this until far into the future, really.

So, Flash probably knows how it all turns out. But so far, he isn't talking.

And, as you well know, how something works creatively and how it works financially are often two completely different things. How many people here LOATHE "Identity Crisis?" OTOH, it was hugely successful, in individual sales, HC sales, and trade sales. But in the short term since the "reboot" it seems that DC has improved sales.