Thursday, June 16, 2011

Of the 52, not many seem popular

Over at Comic Book Resources they did a poll to see what fans thought of the 52 titles in the DC reboot. Even though I openly stated that I thought many of these books were destined to fail, I thought there would be more fan support for some of the titles.
If the results of the poll are any indication, fans aren't too keen on this reboot. Frankly the results are actually a lot more negative that I was about the DCnU, as it's being called. I think there were over 10,000 responses and although I'm sure many net dwellers responded multiple times (because they've just gotta do stuff like that), it still seems like the response is overwhelmingly negative.

I'm not against the reboot, or DCnU, but I'm also not falsely optimistic about books that just don't seem to have any staying power. Even though some of those books star characters I really like. I'm a realist and I know that many of the characters I dearly enjoy, just don't appeal to that many fans. No matter how much I prefer to read about Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Firestorm, the Atom, Captain Marvel or Captain Atom, they will never sell as much as the 100 Batman books that come out each month. That's why their titles just don't last as long, if they are lucky enough to get their own title. That's also why those characters get shot in the head, sent to another universe, or have other terrible things happen to them as they get swept under the run and forgotten for a while.

I've already done a quick book by book analysis(even though it was probably one of my longest posts) so I won't do it again here. What I am going to do is share the books I intend to pick up. Which really isn't that many.

I'm definitely getting: (*note the items in bold are books where I've already paid my yearly subscription so I'm getting them in the mail until at least January regardless of the reboot)
  1. Blue Beetle
  2. Capt. Atom
  3. The Flash
  4. The Fury of Firestorm
  5. Justice League
  6. Justice League International
  7. Legion of Superheroes
  8. Legion Lost
  9. Mister Terrific
  10. Wonder Woman
  11. Nightwing
  12. Green Lantern
  13. Green Lantern Corps
  14. Green Lantern: The New Guardians
  15. Superman
  16. Action Comics
  17. Superboy
  18. Animal Man

I might try:  
  1. Batgirl
  2. The Savage Hawkman
  3. Justice League Dark
  4. DC Universe Presents
  5. Grifter
  6. Red Lanterns
  7. Stormwatch 
As I've stated before I'm not a big Batman fan, but even I can be drawn in by the buzz. So I may give the two core Batman books a try. I definitely won't be buying any of the extra books like The Dark Knight, Batwing or Catwoman.

So I ended up with a list of 18 definite buys and 7 possibilities for a total of 25 of the initial 52. I'm willing to give about half of the books a chance. Of those 25 I'm betting only 1/2 will make it too far beyond the 1 year mark, if they last that long. Of course DC editors have already stated that the initial 52 are just the beginning. Other titles are on the way in the upcoming months. They aren't stupid. They know many of the initial 52 titles will fail.

Now I will resume purchasing Batman Beyond, which is supposed to be a relaunched later. I'll also buy the rumored Justice League Beyond book that I've heard mentioned if/when it comes out. Other than the ones I mentioned I don't plan on touching any of the other titles. Some just because I can't stand the characters (Aquaman) others because they just don't appeal to me (Sgt. Rock). It's a good thing I'm not a big fan of  Marvel books or I may have taken this opportunity to cut my DC purchases and pick up more Marvel. I wonder how many fans may end up doing just that?

There is one thing I am curious about regarding the reboot. I know that Green Ronin has been running pretty far behind schedule on the DC Adventures RPG. Could it be because DC is requiring them to take the DCnU into account? I haven't seen anything about it, yet, on the Mutants & Masterminds message boards (Atomic Think Tank). As a matter of fact I've hardly seen anyone discussing the reboot on those boards.

Now you can find tons of threads and posts about the reboot over at the CBR boards, the Paizo boards, and of course the DC message boards. I'm sure there are tons of other boards and blogs discussing the topic, but those are the ones I frequent the most.

1 comment:

Browncoat said...

I'm on my way back into comics after a 15 year hiatus. DC really caught me by suprise with the reboot. I may pick up and issue or two to see if any of them catch my eye, but on the whole I think taking your known characters and rehashing them is a bad idea. On the other hand we may end up with some newer fresher material. I'm still a marvel guy, but I'm curious where this is gonna go for DC.