What is DC Comics doing wrong?

If you look at the big picture, DC really isn't doing a whole lot wrong when expanding to other media.

Dark Knight is in the top 5 grossing movies of all time. Although I dislike the Nolan Bat series strongly, they have been very successful and Dark Knight Rises is expected to do very well.

The Batman series that started in 1989 - especially the first one was very well received. The Batman TV series of the 60s had an undeniable impact on pop culture.

Smallville ran for 10 seasons. It was on a smaller network and as far as I know was never a ratings smash - but nearly 10 years is no small feat.

Superman Returns was not what anyone expected or wanted. The success of the Superman films (mostly 1 & 2) is undeniable.

It's hard to argue that DC has not had success or is not experiencing success right now (through Dark Knight/Rises).

Marvel got real lucky with Iron Man. And they had the foresight to start their Marvel Movie Universe with just a little add-on that ran after the credits. They gave a 'has been' actor a chance as Tony Stark, a pretty much unproven action movie director with Favreau and lucked out with Gwyneth Paltrow.

They got real lucky, I don't think anyone could've predicted the success of Iron Man - and the way the built on that success was just perfect.

DC never really looked at the big picture. The tenure of the heroes tends to be much longer and storied than Marvel. When Superman came out in 1978, most of the Marvel Universe was 17 years old - whereas Superman was already 40 and had several video projects already behind him.

DC just pieced out their properties. Superman and Batman were their big commodities and the minor players they could sell were sold to whomever would pay without much thought to any 'movie universe.'

Marvel did the same thing - that's why we don't see Spidey or the FF with the Avengers. But, they managed to scrape together a few things as contracts expired and by some miracle everything fell in place (almost) perfectly and we had Iron Man, Cap and Thor...
 
I think those that say "DC just isn't interesting" are pretty much spot on,face it you a handful of very interesting major characters:

Batman
Green Lantern
Flash

And then some o-kay ones:

Superman
Wonder Woman
Aqua Man

The rest are plain forgettable,and to top it off (to me anyway) DC's BEST are the oddballs:

Johna Hex
Hellblazer
Swamp Thing

And a whole host of others,they had some really good one-shots in 80's that I loved but probably no one remembers.

I liked the Hex and Hellblazer films,Batman is well done,Green Lantern was decent so in a way I hope they focus on the good and maybe do up some of the side characters more then anything.

And I'm calling it,JL will flop-hard.
 
One way Marvel has done better is by keeping the feel and pieces of the comics origins, but knowing that to translate it to the big screen you have to divert from some of the original story line. Hint at things in the movie that make you say, "Oh, I remember that from....." but it doesn't have to follow a specific storyline. Again, Nolan and Goyer have done great in this aspect as well.

You could do anything in a JLA movie. Villans could cross over into other heroes worlds so to speak. You could have Lex Luther as a minor villan as a political figure as he was in some of the comics, rather then a main villan. Using real life style political power to help his hidden agenda. Helping a greater villan for some reason. Brainiac could be the main villian, but not a giant spider robot. Make it similar to the smallville character. More human so to speak. Penguin could also be trying to gain political power for hidden reasons. Just not mayor, maybe congress with Lex, etc. Don't make him some crazy guy with flippers. He could be the penguin simply because of his old fashioned suits and eyeglass. Penguin tux. I always thought Philip Seamore Hoffaman would have made a great penguin.

You can add secondary villans in a JLA movie, they just can't have those over powering "main villan" feels. Then they are all battling to be the head villian.

Keep the foundation of the comics. Stick to the true characters origins and the reasons they are great, but play with the stories, characters and intermingle the villians. Hollywood changes stuff against what the fans want anyways.Why are they scared to think outside the box to make a good story now?
 
i wouldnt say Alan scott was lesser known. Just more old school.


He's the original Green Lantern, period.
I met his creator on 3 occasions before he died and believe me, he never intended for Alan to end up the way he is now.

(I can imagine his son isn't crazy about the changes, either...)

I accept that the 52 Alan Scott is another version of the character BUT he's not the original Green Lantern character. He's a badly thought-out revamp by a writer who has a mixed past history and a political agenda which is not a great recipe for long-term success...

And by the way, for a company that's wanting to introduce "ethnic diversity" (plug in in your favorite, politically correct cause into an existing character but make sure you completely destroy the legacy first!) into its line, the worst thing they could have done beyond bringing back Vibe ("DC's Dazzler") is making a gay character with "flaming green" powers!

The decision to do this was all at the behest of the writer of the new "Earth-2" comic book, James Robinson. Robinson hasn't had a great track record lately writing comics but he is a big rights advocate even at the expense of introducing controversy where it doesn't belong and retconning characters instead of creating new ones.

The E-2 retcon is dumb to begin with because it does away with so much rich DC History...
DC doesn't have a World War II era anymore and all these characters who were mentors and teachers for the JLA-era and beyond are now being recast as contemporaries....

... and if people thought the original JLA costumes were bad (I disagree-- they're classic Golden Age designs), the new Jim Lee-crew designs are godawful and "very 1990s". The worst aspects of the Image-style super characters are scribed all over those designs.

I'd hope for a return of common sense to the way DC heritage is handled but you shouldn't expect it with the knuckleheads in charge right now... and unfortunately, many fans are still collecting this swill because "they have to keep their collections intact!"

You have to go off the official DC sites, btw, to read ANY criticism of editorial and the direction DC is taking now. You just won't find it on those sites and many of the news sites that depend on DC news script releases (Comic Book Resources, Newsarama, etc.). "Everybody" seems to think 52 is a great way to restart/reboot an ENTIRE comic book publishing line!
 
Yea, there is no other reason to add that into a character other then making a political statement. Now granted, some older comics did make mention (and I mean just a mention) of controversial things back in the day, such as civil rights, womens rights, etc. They made a small statement just so people would know that, hey this issue is out there, most think its wrong and we do too. Making a character in the way the 52 has, serves no true purpose other then the writers personal and political views from my point of view. I will still read it. I've got no issue with the character being homosexual. I just don't agree with the fact that politics are being introduced into a comicbook story that much. It's not necessary.
 
Yeah, but you have to admit the "flaming" powers are an unintentional joke/slur depending on how you look at it...!

*******

As for me, I don't collect monthlies anymore.

I've had it with the editors and writers at both DC and Marvel.
There's only so much junk you can take when the price of a comic mag exceeds $3... I can remember 60/65/75-cent comics being much better than most of the junk priced over $2. Seems to be comics get less fun the more expensive they get!

The sad point of fact is that the only group doing the characters right (DC) are the animation crews. There have been several very good Batman series, Superman, Justice League, Brave & the Bold, Young Justice any maybe half the direct-to-video films are actually decent.

Can't say I've seen much from Marvel other than Spectacular Spider-Man that's been good. DC generally has better animation crews working on their characters. Mixed feelings on the current Avengers series (but still better than the 90s version) but I definitely don't care for the Ultimate Spider-Man series -- that's possibly the most expensive, poorly-written superhero show I've seen in the past 30 years!!! That's even counting Superfriends and Spider-Woman. (At least the latter two shows were cheaply made... There's some money going into Ultimate Spider-Man and it's just a craptacular show in spite of that...) It's that bad...!
 
As an ex comic store owner, I would like to chime in...In the end of the day, it is all about the money! Marvel comics for years tried to sell, sell, sell. They really did not care what they produced but looped every comic together so you would have to purchase every title just to read a complete story. DC attempted the same thing.

Marvel sold off rights to anyone with the right amount of $$$ and that is why we consistently saw so much garbage as far as films.

The reason why DC has so much success with their animated line is just the plain fact that the people that create those films are fans who grew up with the characters and now are in those positions that permit them to bring a good product.

The movie industry does not really care too much unless the people behind the funding really stay true to the characters and try to provide a great movie. Too many times the script is written by people who do not have the right vision and even when they did, it gets re-written so much that the end result is pure kaka.

This thread had some very interesting view points and ideas. Remember that we are all fans and have an idea of what we want to see and how our characters are viewed on the big screen.

I believe that the last Batman films were really successful for DC due to them really trying to stay true to the more dark and gritty version (what people want to see). What I have seen of the Superman film so far...I do not feel that it will be much of a success with the rout that they are taking.

JLA? will be rushed to compete with the Avengers and still will not be up to par. Look what happened with the Wonder women series? Smallville? I watched every singe episode and thought the show was going into the crapper season after season. As soon as a saw a really good episode and thought they they go their **** together, it followed by 2 - 3 really bad ones. Even the very last season go me really hooked and bummed out at the same time but I still feel that they ended it correctly.

Sorry for rambling but the only real way that DC can come out with a real good product is by going to the books that really had a great story and a good following by fans. Take that and make it into a great feature by the people who created that series and maybe even talk with the animated staff because they know how to make a good product. If I were them I would even read some of these posts to get a real opinion on what fans think, want, and need.

~J
 
Personally I think that the major problem DC have is that their characters are not as well known (over here in the UK, anyway). I mean my 5 year old loves Batman, Spiderman and Iron Man. I think it's fair to say that that would be safe bet for most kids over here.

Don't get me wrong I know the rest of the characters have got a following but I honestly think that if you asked the general public here the only DC characters they'd know would be Batman, Superman and maybe Wonder Woman but that would be about it.

Wasn't their talk of a WW reboot not long ago? What happened to that? I'm sure a WW movie would do ok here, but I don't think it would be massive.

Same with Superman, I know the CR movies were popular here but I don't think SR did well. Persoanlly (apart from on this board) I've heard NO talk of the MOS movie. I honestly think Superman has become irrellevant in this day and age but maybe that's just me.

The GL bombed (I'm not sure how it did in the US) I haven't seen it, I should watch it really but RR and the computer generated costume (is that true?) puts me off.

Now, I'd just like to add that I'm talking here purely as a comic book MOVIE fan, (I don't think I've read a comic book for maybe 15/20 years).

I've actually heard people say that they thought EVERY comic book character was a Marvel creation (and that Stan Lee created them all). When I was in the Avengers movie (before the movie started) there were a couple sat infront of us talking and the BF was telling his GF that the only reason Spiderman and BATMAN weren't in the Avengers was because they had their own movies coming out. The GF actually asked why SUPERMAN wasn't included. In saying all that about DC I've got friends that love the Blade trilogy but didn't know he was Marvel character.

I think a JL movie could and would work if done properly but it'll need the MOS movie to come out and do WELL, a Batman reboot (depending on how Nolan leaves it) a Wonder Woman movie and then have whoever else they're planning on having in the JL as background characters in these films to introduce them to the general public. Yes it's copying the Avengers format but in my opinion it's the only way they can do it. I can almost guarantee that A JL movie will need Superman and Batman to carry it.
 
I find the reboots to be tedious. I mostly read through TPBs anyway, but these continual crises/reboots to entire comics lines...I just have no interest in it. It's a great way to tell your older fans to **** off because you don't want their business.

Marvel lost me in the 90s with the launch of 27 X-titles where, as described above, you needed to buy ALL of them to read a single story. It was one thing when that was a once-in-a-while event. Quite another when that became the norm year-to-year.

DC I was never a huge fan of as a kid, but got more into them as I got older. I got heavily into Green Lantern a few years back, and have all the TPBs from where Hal returns as the GL up through Blackest Night. Good stuff in there and I quite enjoyed it. But, of course, none of it counts anymore since it's all be rebooted.


There's a reason why, in my teens, I started reading Dark Horse Comics, and later got into older independent stuff like Scout and Grimjack.
 
I think for the most part, DC doesn't know what they want.

Since Superman Returns, it feels like DC/WB are chasing success instead of doing a good movie and let things unfold naturally.

My overview of the (recent) movies so far:

Batman Begins - Good, solid film. But I can't see any cross-over of other heroes in this particular franchise.

Superman Returns - sorry, it was just the original Superman all over again (real estate? Really?) with no real bad guy to fight. (And I'm not a fan of the muted colors on Supe's costume) WB saw Batman Begins dark & gritty and got formulaic for this one and failed.

The Dark Knight - again, GREAT film. But see BB about crossover

Watchmen - great movie as well. Dark & gritty as well and very close to the original comic - however, outside the normal comic fanbase, no one really knows who they were. Plus, Watchmen was designed to be self-encapsulating with no cross-over either.

Jonah Hex - never saw it, but not really a 'Superhero' film to begin with

Green Lantern - they suffered from Batman & Robin syndrome and crammed too much stuff into it. If they just stuck with Hal being on earth and coming to grips to becoming GL, I felt this could've saved the movie. No OA, no Parralax, no Sinestro. Maybe have Kilowag help train him or similar, with at the end getting a message that the Green Lantern Corps summons him to planet OA, leading into a much larger world for GL2

TDKR - again, no real room for cross-over I feel.

And lets not forget so many failed attempts at Wonder Woman either on film or TV, including a new attempt to bring WW.

The higher-up-muckety-mucks feel the DC characters can't stand on their own merits and either have to change fundamental characteristics of them, cram everything else into the film or both (again, chasing that elusive 'success' dollar)

I don't know if it's DC or WB that's causing all the problems with this franchise (maybe both, after seeing the Puke 52) but to me, it seems they have their priorities all FUBAR.

All I know is, I want my Young Justice back on TV :cry
 
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TDKR - again, no real room for cross-over I feel.

Really? I think we'll get some Nightwing action in the years to come.


As for the whole "DC vs. Marvel" thing when I was a kid there was only DC. Never got into Marvel (still haven't). That said I stopped reading comics in '89.
 
Nightwing I can see, but I also view that as the same 'bubble' of the Nolan's Batman universe. I can't, for example, see Martian Manhunter show up in the movies.

Nolan's Bat-verse strikes me as a no super-powered people in it.
 
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