I’d make Event Moratorium *10* years with the anniversery being the one and only exception. After that, only one every five years (if at all. Frankly I got sick of this shit the first time around with Crisis and Secret Wars) With one series and one creative team for it.

No alt. covers! That is an annoying hold-over from the 90′s speculator boom. For that matter the artists doing the interiors should be the artist doing the cover. Let me know what I’m buying instead of trying put an Alex Ross cover on a Bob Fillinguy issue.

Death is not an option. I totally agree. My addition would be that neither is gore. Reading a comicbook with Superman or Captain Marvel characters in it is not the place we should be seeing intestines and eyeballs being ripped out. It’s cheap, gratuitous, and stupid. If DC wants to gore that badly, they should pony up the cash for buying a horror movie property to license under a new banner.

Before anything is done with the Multiverse, decide who the hell the Earth (and the people in it)we’re reading about in mainline is. THEN I’ll be happy to travel the Multiverse.

All the deaths are really annoying and unnecessary. Blue Beetle-Ted Kord’s death was a blow, but esp. after reading the 1st issue of the new Booster Gold I see how effecting his legacy is. If you’re gonna kill off popular A or B-list characters, please just make it really mean something.

As for bringing back the dead, my friend said something to me last week that made perfect sense:
Why bring back Jason Todd when
the reason you killed him off in
the first place is because the fans
thought he was too annoying…then
make him even more annoying than
before?

‘NUFF SAID!

Just end All Star Batman & Robin. Stop the insanity.

Stop crossovers. Sorry, I can’t afford to chase down eveery issue of the crossover. Having an important event like a characters parent die happen in a book other than the title book is idiotic!

Multiverse? Ugh. Maybe I am like the cheese and I stand alone, but I could care less about the multiverse. I enjoy the kind of heroes and stories that take place in an almost “real world” where I can imagine a guy in tights swinging by my window outside the cubicle.

Finally-well, not finally completely but I’ll cut it short because I don’t want to bore you too much….

Reboot Robin. A potentially great character that has been for the most part driven right into the ground. I have the entire run. Love the character. But the stories have just painted poor Tim into a nothingness corner. Call it a day and start over with a Grade A (or even Grade B) team.

2. Put Geoff Johns into your DC dungeon and chain him there. Lord knows what will happen to your company if he somehow jumps ship. I mean, half of the quality books you put out each month is made by him, fer cryin’ out loud!!

3. If you wanna kick Marvel’s butt in sales ( or at least, TRY to ), promote the hell out of your Vertigo titles, like Fables, Y:The Last Man and Hellblazer because they seem to be the only good stuff you produce these days ( asides from All-Star Superman and the Sinestro Corps War series, of course )

Geez, Michael in comment 53 sounds like a total crackpot and I have really forgiving standards for allowing lots of conspiracy theories and inapt analogies.

Tell you what Michael; I’ll keep reading whatever entertains me and you can go rant at your local comic shop, which I’m sure so looks forward to your visits esp. now that you’ve quit buying product from one of the big two publishers.

Comment by del gorky — August 31, 2007 @ 4:31 am
#

I love that you think I’m a crackpot yet chose to respond to me not with any reasonable arguments against my points but just by calling names. Tell you what Del,if you can prove that A)Dan DiDio is not the worst editor DC has ever had in both sales and general critical response, and that Newsarama has ever given him a truly tough interview (and not his lackeys) then you can call me a crackpot. So far, I don’t see where I’m anything but the holder of an opinion you disagree with.

I agree with the importance of sticking to a schedule. That’s what a schedule is for.

I also agree with the comment made by one of the posters about collecting only those issues of JLA/JSA Classified that are of interest to you. JLA Classified is basically a nostalgia title so why buy an issue that doesn’t interest you? I dropped JLA Classified when they did the Detroit League arc.

“I love those three as much as anyone but it does degrade the likes of Green Lantern, Flash and the rest to be given a chance to fluorish.

And I’d love for other characters to survive long enough to be given a chance to prove themselves. Blue Beetle? Look at how Booster Gold is doing today! I’m glad they are supporting Manhunter and THAT is a step in the right direction. But a cursory look at the characters they’ve offed shows so much wasted potetntial: Kid Flash/Impulse, Azrael, Kon El, Ted Kord, The original Question… and now the New Gods.

So DC can’t sell a book without killing someone?

Also, please stop making all the other villains look stupid when they’re not in their own books. Why are Piper and Trickster looking like such incompetents in COUNTDOWN when they have proven quite capable in the past!? Trickster went head to head with NERON!

At least Marvel knows…

I don’t mind them being showcased as the premier super heroes but really, that the whole DC UNIVERSE revolved around them!?

I love those three as much as anyone but it does degrade the likes of Green Lantern, Flash and the rest to

At least Marvel knows how to develop other characters beyond Captain America, Hulk and Spiderman. If they thought like DC thinks, we wouldn’t have the likes of Wolverine, Daredevil, Iron Man and the rest enjoying the status they do today. They’d be expendable guys in the background.

DC has a diverse line-up. Space, Magic, Teens, Sci-Fi, Espionage, Adventure and Crime drama is all there in the main DC. DC making it does not mean fans will buy them. There are “fun” books at DC. Blue Beetle is a great book and it seems to be a book the fun seekers love to hate.

DC does a lot of diverse quality books that are on time. The problem is the fans focus on the late books that sell though the roof. When you look at fans buying habits this is what a diverse DC line – up would look like to many of them: Batman: Gotham King, Batman Kung Fu Master, Bruce Wayne in Love, Batman: Galaxy Quest, and Batman: Future Dawns. I would love Doom Patrol, Question, Omega Men, Tales of Suspense and Tracy 13 but I bet the 5 “diverse” Batman book would do better and would not anger some vocal “long time” fans. There is a small pool of bankable talent. They cannot do every thing. Even if you put the talent on the new stuff it does not mean fans well take a look because most have a narrow view of thing. Ever try getting a Daredevil reader to look at Criminal or a Birds of Prey Fan to read Welcome to Tranquility? It is almost impossible.

DC does need to get their best selling material out on a consistent schedule. Still, companies can diversify all they want but if the people they are selling to are not diverse in their buying habits it will not do any good.

BUY THE BOOKS YOU LIKE AND LEAVE THE ONES YOU DON’T ALONE.

The Sales stats you see are not the number of books you see the Fans actually buying, but the number of books purchased by the retailer, who as many of us know have those Outstanding Dollar Bins where the greater percentage of these books end up if they sit on the shelfs or bins after a period of time.

Everything but All-Star Superman

—

Stuff I buy:

All-Star Superman

And for JLA Classified, I would also think “historical” or “lost” tales of past leagues would be cool. Or do like JSA Classified and feature an arc on one character. It’d be a great way to feature a character who can’t hold a title on their own.

I would buy a “Classified” arc of Vixen (another character I didn’t know until recently with the cartoon and relaunch of JLA)

Lastly- lower the price or add more pages. 3 bucks for 32 pages is kind of a ripoff when Oprah gives you like 300 pages.

Assuming DC did impose a 5 year moratorium to these cross-overs, what will happen when Marvel rolls out its crossover events for the next five years? Assuming those Marvel crossover events are well-received by fans, readers will just flock to Marvel books while DC sales will take a beating. DC will be accused of being complacent, that their books have become boring, and that DC lacks foresight.

DC needs BETTER PLANNED and LIMITED crossovers. Nothing like Infinite Crisis or Countdown to Yet Another Crisis but more like Sinestro Wars. Put emphasis on good story telling and limit the tie-ins and the spin-offs.

Tell you what Michael; I’ll keep reading whatever entertains me and you can go rant at your local comic shop, which I’m sure so looks forward to your visits esp. now that you’ve quit buying product from one of the big two publishers.

After OYL hit, I stopped buying over 20 DC ongoing books (and a bunch of mini-series)… down to 5 (with only a couple of mini-series). As of the recent JLA/JSA crossover, I’m down to 2 Vertigo books… and that’s it.

I don’t like the direction DC is headed in. Not everything that came after the Crisis On Infinite Earths was crap. Stop throwing out the good with the bad.

Conversely, not everything about the old Multiverse was great either (IMO). If it was (IMO), I’d be more open to the notion of it’s return (and I’m not). Personally, I prefer the idea that all the characters are on the same Earth… but that just might be me.

I’m sick of watching DC kill off all the characters I liked. It’s only made me resent the “untouchables” like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman… and sends my interest in them into the toilet.

Stop all the tinkering from on-high. One sure way to take me out of your stories and your universe (making “suspension of disbelief” near-impossible) is for DC to continue making their “editorial mandates” less subtle than swatting a fly with an atom bomb. I WANT to keep the dream alive of seeing Barbara Gordon walk again and put on the batsuit. I don’t need DC to broadcast to the readers that they don’t like a character… especially when that character turns up dead a short time later. Don’t expect me to embrace your commitment to “diversity”… when for that diversity to happen, I have to lose a character I’d have listed as a favorite.

Every character has his/her fans. When a publisher kills or otherwise destroys a person’s favorite characters… it’s one less reason for them to buy that publisher’s comics. It’s also one more reason for them to NOT embrace the replacement character.