Why Batman vs. Superman Must Fail
If we
are to have any hope of reversing the New 52
Television
and film reach a far broader audience then comics. That is just a simple fact of the business,
and for any sensible franchise it’s a good idea to make the comic book,
television, and film versions similar enough for the broader franchise can draw
people to the comics.
They’re
calling it “Batman vs. Superman” but it isn’t… It really is the second title: “Dawn
of Justice”. If you look at the overall
makeup of the cast that’s been announced you rapidly realize this isn’t a
verses movie, at least not in the traditional sense. This is a movie aimed at launching the New 52
version of the JLA into the mainstream.
Just look at the announced cast…
Ben
Affleck as Batman
Henry
Cavil as Superman
Gal
Gadot as Wonder Woman
Jesse
Eisenberg as Lex Luthor
Amy
Adams as Lois Lane
Diane
Lane as Martha Kent
Jeremy
Irons as Alfred Pennyworth
Laurence
Fishburn as Perry White
Ray
Fischer as Cyborg
Okay, to
round out the New 52 JLA we only need Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman, think
about it… 4/7th of the New 52 JLA is cast for the movie, and it’s obviously New
52 otherwise they wouldn’t have had Cyborg, would they?
Why do I
want this to fail? Well because the New
52 SUCKS! Even DC Comics must realize
that any gains they managed to get off of their reboot/re-launch have crumbled
under Marvel’s response. In April of
this year, Marvel re-launched Ultimate and Superior Spiderman and blew the top
off the sales charts with reported sales reaching at least 500k units, with
some reports putting the figure over 700k, and DC called their 200k unit sales
on Justice League of America #1 record breaking in 2011... Don't make me laugh DC. They had over 40% of the market share in
April, and while Spiderman #1 was certainly part of the reason the market share
ballooned, DC Comic sales during the period are also artificially inflated due
to the Batman: Eternal weekly comic that’s going on right now.
There is
no doubt that the New 52 has serious problems.
It’s full of absolutely terrible editorial and marketing decisions: Cyborg on the Justice League for example,
Starfire on Red Hood and the Outlaws, and Raven and Beast Boy having to rewrite
their whole history as part of a different group of Teen Titans. The history of some characters has been wiped
clean, for others it’s been kept, and some characters have been assassinated by
the changes.
I want
Warner Brothers and its parent company to start losing money on DC Comics so
that it can be cast loose and bought up by someone that actually gives a damn. I want to see the DC Comics editorial staff
on the chopping block, either under new management by a band made up of older
fans or by Warner Brothers, the house cleaned, the shit they’ve done should be
thrown under the bus, and some real good editors and writers lined up to fix
this mess.
Right
now every single DC Comic story is now too dark, grim, and gritty to suit any
of the original superheroes besides fucking Batman. Like a lot of people in the ‘biz’ the people
at DC Comics seem to think that darker and edgier is the way to go, and have
forgotten that ‘Darker and Edgier’ is where series and franchises go to
die.
DC
Comics needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask if they’re going to
grow as a brand by broadening the fan-base or become a niche only known for Batman
and Superman. It’s not that they don’t have
recognizable characters to sell besides Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman… but
that they have destroyed the most recognizable characters that had appeal
besides those three: The Teen Titans. As
Janelle Asselin put mentioned in an article at comic book resources…
You know who loves Teen Titans?
People who enjoyed the early 2000s "Teen Titans" animated show, many
of whom are female and many of whom are teenagers or young 20-somethings today.
Market research could and does back this up. Graphic Policy's Brett Schenker
pulled together the Facebook stats for me for fans of the original "Teen
Titans" animated series. Currently in the United States, there are 500,000
self-professed fans of the show on Facebook. 260,000 of those are women. Yes,
that's right – more than half. The majority of male and female fans are ages
15-23 with the bulk being 17. This is just a quick review of the potential
market for these comics. Say a quarter of those fans actually tried a Teen
Titans comic aimed at their demographic -- you're going to have a significantly
higher number than the 26,000 copies "Teen Titans" is estimated to
have sold in March. One-tenth of those animated "Teen Titans" fans
buying a comic would result in a drastic increase in sales. Even if just the
17-year-old fans of the show bought the comic, you've got double the sales
numbers. I could keep going, but you get the point.
Janelle Asselin, Anatomy of a Bad Cover: DC's New "Teen Titans" #1
There
has been no group that’s been screwed over by the DC Comics editorial decisions
quite as badly as the flagship team from the Teen Titans series. Let’s just list what the New 52 has done with
these characters…
Dick Grayson a.k.a. ‘Robin or
Nightwing’ – A lone wolf throughout the New 52,
unmasked in a recent event and faked his death.
Is launching a new comic called Grayson where he’s taking the role of a super-spy.
Oddly I think this actually might work well as a limited run thing.
Rachel Roth a.k.a. ‘Raven’ – Relaunched as a dutiful daughter
of Trigon (No kidding, I guess that means she’s technically evil this time) and
is currently part of the Teen Titans lineup.
She got the worst costume redesign known to man. I mean just look at it.
Garfield Logan a.k.a. ‘Beast Boy’
– Relaunched as
a part of a team called the Ravagers but is now currently part of the Teen
Titans lineup alongside Raven. He
started out red for some reason.
Victor Stone a.k.a. ‘Cyborg’ – Relaunched as a founding member
of the Justice League of America, though I’m not sure if this is a promotion or
not considering he seems to be filling the role of the ‘token black dude’.
Koriand’r of Tamaran a.k.a. ‘Starfire’
– She suffered the worst handling
of any of the characters when she was relaunched as part of Red Hood and the
Outlaws where she was an emotionless bimbo.
Massive firestorms on the internet ensued, but she’s still on the team
three years later with only minor fixes. At least she’s not
quite as emotionless now, but DC screwed her over really badly. There are massive hints that not only did she have a relationship with Grayson, but that it ended badly and she's still hung up about it... but how the hell all that happened in a timeline without the Teen Titans as we now them? No idea.
Ugh… and
now they want their DC Cinematic Universe to use the New 52 as a template? God help us, if Darkseid shows up and it
turns out this is Justice League: War or something… This is going to suck for
fans, though as I said I hope it fails just so that DC could realize they’d
fucked up again.
Now, don’t
get me wrong… I don’t hate DC Comics. As
I told a DC fan, my views is this… Marvel has better writers and editors; DC
has better characters and history.
The New
52 was a gargantuan misstep because it threw those two things away. If superheroes have only existed for five
years in the universe (New 52’s official policy on the timeline) then there is
no legacy, no history. What’s worse is
the decision to try and keep some history with the Batman titles (and only the
Batman titles) has essentially broken the universes backstory and caused the
need for more retcons then God. If you
must reboot, you have to fully reboot.
DC needs
to learn you cannot sell your comics based on the legacy of their heroes when
you wiped that history from existence.
That was the basic idea behind the new 52.
Ironically,
as news begins to filter out it seems my hope of this being a complete failure
for Warner Brothers and DC Comics are beginning to come to fruition. Just take a second look at the cast they’ve
assembled. We’ve got people that are
obviously in the wrong damn role for them, I mean Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne
and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, what are they smoking?
The
kicker… They rolled back the release date a year, and by chance put it opposite
Captain America 3 in 2016. If those two
remain on the same release date, Marvel will kill DC. Admittedly they’ll probably hurt each other,
but Marvel can afford to lose some money since they have three movies out each
year. DC is lucky to have a movie out
once every three years.
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