Time to refine DC
To say that DC hasn't been "new reader friendly" would not be an unfair statement. Since the countdown to Infinite Crisis started back in 2005, there have been few "jumping on points" for those not quite familiar with the DCU. One Year Later's novelty depended on you knowing what had been before and therefore familiar with the references to how things had changed over the missing year. Before and past that point has been crossover, crossover, crossover. DC's plan seems to be to get readers to buy as many obscure titles as possible. The punishment for not doing so? You miss an important chuck of any ongoing story.
But last week, I saw a vision of hope for DC in the form of Trinity. I don't read reviews outside of Paul O'Brien's X-Axis, so I have no idea what the fanboys are saying about it, but I really enjoyed the first issue. New readers might be able to as well - all you need to know is who Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman are, that they are close friends, and that Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are the secret identities of Superman and Batman. Everything else is explained. It's pretty easy to assume that anyone interested in a DC comic will know these simple matters.
This is what DC needs - a point to take a break and let the universe catch its breath. Give a couple months without the crossovers, the mega-events and the endless tie-in mini-series and let the characters redefine themselves. As it is now, it's hard to tell what's going on with whom, as the characters are jumping around event to event at every turn - and with two consecutive weekly mini-series wrapped up, there have been a lot of places to jump.
Marvel's starting to show signs of this as well by linking Civil War to Secret Invasion, but I'll hold my judgment until after the event ends. More refined, the X-Men have been going full-tilt since Endangered Species started, but with Uncanny #500, the book hits its defining issue and moves forward.
But DC needs to do something badly after Final Crisis that lets the DCU become more reader-friendly. It's the entire reason Crisis on Infinite Earths was done to begin with.
4 comments:
I was reading in a comment thread an argument over which mini was more accessible, Secret Invasion or Final Crisis. Personally, I don't think either are. But, mega-events like those and Infinite Crisis, Civil War, Identity Crisis, or House of M are not really for new readers. They are for the followers of the characters to be excited about after a period of build up. With that being said, what should be done by both companies is more promotion about when new stories would be beginning, or a new creative team was taking over. These are good jumping on points, but few know when they are happening unless you already read the book. Issue #42 of Invincible was advertised as a jumping on point, because it was a nice break in what the book had been doing, and where it was going. It also gave a summary of everything that had happened before. While this is more difficult to do with a book that has quite a bit more history, just giving recent history would be better.
I'm not talking about mega events - I'm talking about the whole DCU. I think that Marvel is much more reader friendly at this point. None of the "this was undone by Crisis, but reinstated by Superboy punching a wall." At this point, individual books are far more refined at Marvel than at DC...Wolverine notwithstanding.
Reader Friendly? Quite possibly. I think DC's longevity hurts it in the area of reader friendliness. Combined with this was Crisis on Infinite Earths. Sure it tried to set the DCU on a new path, but in the end, it allowed for the Crisis retcon to happen whenever an editor wanted to change something. I think DC would ultimately be in better shape had they just allowed the characters to age a little and accept it, or make every EIC after that agree to never do that type of story again for 50 years. I agree that the DCU is a mess.
Had they set a post-Crisis plan to revamp the entire DCU, it would have worked fine - or made a mandate that using a pre-Crisis version would forfeit the possibility of revamping them later, possibly. But I hope Final Crisis gets DC to that point where it finally can stop fixing itself and move forward.
From what Morrison has been saying, I think he may just get the DCU to that point. Let's hope DC doesn't screw it up (fingers crossed).
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