DC Comics is Rebooting Major Titles!

[Bruce Wayne]

DC Comics is going to restart most of their popular titles at number one. This includes Action Comics, Superman, Batman, JLA & Dective Comics.

I personally don't care for this, but I will keep reading.

Thoughts? Comments?

[Doctor Strange]

What, they can't just kill off or unmask a major character this time?

Yet another gimmick purely designed to get mainstream press coverage and make marginal comics fans buy the number one issues.

Now mind you, I'm not going to say it isn't a good idea, as comics readership continues to fall and the very survival of this beloved medium seems unlikely. Young folks aren't reading comics: they're expensive and far less easily available then they used to be, and with the huge amount of entertaining stuff available free on the Internet, they seem awfully passe. The people still buying comics are largely older fans, and the number of issues a book has to sell to be deemed a successs is much smaller than it was even just a decade ago. It's entirely possible that DC and Marvel will stop publishing traditional comics and just be Internet-, movie-, and TV-based content providers someday soon.

As a lifelong fan of this American mythology and artform, it saddens me tremendously. But I haven't bought a comic myself in years, so I guess I'm part of the problem too...

[Lady Day]

Also a lot of people I know who wanted to start into a title didn't want to get involved in a 30+ year back story. Too much homework for most people. Marvel has rebooted their titles often over the last ten years. I personally don't see the point, especially if someone is reading a comic for a particular character.

Also comics are expensive. $3 $4 for a single issue. If you read a bout 10 titles monthly, and also the 'special editions' that seem to come out bi-weekly at a higher premium, then yeah, you're looking at $40 to $50 a month!

LD

[Pompidou]

Also a lot of people I know who wanted to start into a title didn't want to get involved in a 30+ year back story. Too much homework for most people. Marvel has rebooted their titles often over the last ten years. I personally don't see the point, especially if someone is reading a comic for a particular character.

Also comics are expensive. $3 $4 for a single issue. If you read a bout 10 titles monthly, and also the 'special editions' that seem to come out bi-weekly at a higher premium, then yeah, you're looking at $40 to $50 a month!

LD

This is largely why I never got into comics - not the price individually, but the steep uphill battle in catching up which includes both issue rarity, price and the volume of issues to bother with.

[Edward]

Well, rebooting and reduxing seems to me to have been going on forever in the comic world. [huh] It might well bring in a whole bunch of new readers, just as Smallville brought a whole new audience to Superman on TV (if only that had been the basis of Superman Returns, and not the tedium it was...). I stopped buying comics years ago because of the price - I prefer to wait for collected book editions now.

[Lady Day]

Yeah, the hype of collecting for the collecting is so old now, especially since only collectors collect now. Every issue cant be a collector's item, preserved for hundreds of years, though that is often the vibe in most comic shops. I have often waited to get bound volumes too. I read for stories, not for collecting.

I also like more indie story lines now, as some of the major companies seem so homogenized. And the art is getting lazy. Heck, Id rather read a novel version of the stories. Hence the rise in teen fiction :)

LD

[Mae Croft]

Rebooting of comic story lines is nothing new, we wouldn't have distinction between 'ages' (silver age, golden age) if that weren't the case. However, in entertainment in general I'm starting to get really sick of story and franchise reboots and am a little miffed at some comic story lines that tend to get really good (to the point where you're hooked, wanting to know what happens), then have a very shallow, predictable 'ending' so that the story can be rebooted. If they bother to end it at all. :/

[Derek Cavin]

I stopped reading new comics about two years ago. Too much grim and gritty and characters I no longer recognize. I am happy to go the comic shows and hit the dollar bin.
Another re-boot for nothing.

[Mahagonny Bill]

I personally don't care for this, but I will keep reading.
What DC titles are you still reading? All of the titles I read have been canceled to make room for Flashpoint (Doom Patrol, Batman Confidential, The Spirit, etc). It's almost like DC doesn't want my business.

[Bruce Wayne]

What DC titles are you still reading? All of the titles I read have been canceled to make room for Flashpoint (Doom Patrol, Batman Confidential, The Spirit, etc). It's almost like DC doesn't want my business.

Mainly the Batman family of comics: Batman, Dective, Red Robin, Batman & Robin, etc.

[Wally_Hood]

What DC titles are you still reading? All of the titles I read have been canceled to make room for Flashpoint (Doom Patrol, Batman Confidential, The Spirit, etc). It's almost like DC doesn't want my business.

Ahhh, the original Doom Patrol... tied with G.I. Robot for my all-time favorite titles that were sort of second-tier entries as opposed to men of steel and cowled crusaders. That, and Metal Men with Doc Magnus...

[Lady Day]

Isnt JLA the culmination of a lot of the Justice League titles, and arn't most readers really happy with that title? I thought that one was suppose to be the major success story. Its barely 5 years old, isnt it?

Why not just do serials. Titles of the same characters we all know, but in stories that run for 3-4 years only. Wouldn't that cut the silly 'reboot-itis'?

LD

[Derek Cavin]

It bums me that they are re-booting Action Comics. Ever since I began reading comics in the early 80s I've always dreamed of the day that Action hit issue #1,000. Oh well.
Marvel has rebooted all of their titles except X-Men multiple times.

[Bruce Wayne]

Marvel has rebooted all of their titles except X-Men multiple times.

I think that is going to change in the near future as well.