Here's a reason why I don't like DC. Allot of their big titles makes an argument that you need to read all of their older comics in order for you to realize what's going on.

I recently came over a comic called Superman - World of New Krypton. Upon starting it I was immediately hinted that I wouldn't realize what was going on unless I started with a comic called Superman - New Krypton. Very well... I found that title only to realize that in order to figure out what was going on, I would need to read a comic called Superman - Brainiac.

...

It's just not that fun to pick up a book only to be told you need to look up a prequel to realize what's going on. Those mayor DC events are even worse.

Remember Infinite Crisis? There was a huge number of tie in issues leading up to, during and after that event. With 52 immediately following and Countdown to Final Crisis after that. There's at least 500 issues more or less depending where you start and stop.

You're pretty much safer to just read everything published by DC from about 2004-now, if you want to catch everything that's being referred to. I's easier that way. And of course you need to read Crisis on infinite Earths and all those tie ins to get the background for all of that. Of course to understand that properly you need to read a bunch of Silver age issues. And those had their roots in the Golden age.

Sigh... It's a silly rant, yes but it's something that really grinds my gears. I'm one of those who hate not knowing and thus I it annoys me it when I read through an interesting comic and instead of reading "Oh, there's that guy I don't like" they say "It's you!*"
*read issue 219 to figure out what's going on.

Marvel does it a lot better, for example the new female black panther series(which is probably the only female spin-off of an existing male superhero i've actually enjoyed) has a short little narration about what setting the story is in and through other characters, how celebrated Black Panther is.
In the back several pages it has a few paragraphs about how the Black Panther mantle is passed down from royalty, and the obvious symbol he stood for against racism in the states.
The story works even though Dr.Doom and Storm from X-men are in it.


There's only one DC comic i'm following right now and that's Morrison's batman and robin. The writing and art is excellent for starters but it's a universe where The previous Robin is now batman and batman's 10 year old son Damian is being trained as robin(he's very arrogant and violent) Not much knowledge is needed of previous batman because this is their story and villains.

I think this sums up my whole problem with published comics from DC and Marvel.
You have to read a million and ten comics to understand even a small part of the back story of everything that is happening.
Minor characters, sub plots, secret powers...it all jsut heaps up and up.
I wouldn't know where to begin to get into any of it.
Which is a shame, because I think super heroes are cool!

Skullbie female super hero equivilants are like Kryptonite to me! Sexist, ridiculous and lame all at the same time! Female black panther is going to have to be pretty special to over come this rule.
(Note before anyone lays into me, I don't have any issue with female super heroes, except when they are cheap knock offs of existing male heroes)

Well, you can't get a whole lot of story depth if you're assuming that every story needs to be totally accessible to new readers. They're not newspaper strips, a lot of their appeal is that they're invested stories. Imagine having a long-running webcomic that basically has to start over every 75 pages, you can't get very far.

I suspect that the majority percentage of their sales are people who were already readers anyway- so they're trying to appeal to those people, who don't want to have everything explained over and over. It is somewhat alienating to potential new readers, but from a business perspective, alienating current customers would be worse. I think that is why they do new spinoff stories and one-shots every now and then, those are what's intended to bring in new readers.

(Just arguing the other side)

Anyway I get around the 'too much backstory' issue by looking up plot stuff on wikipedia. :] Not that I read many paper comics any more.

skoolmunkee
Well, you can't get a whole lot of story depth if you're assuming that every story needs to be totally accessible to new readers. They're not newspaper strips, a lot of their appeal is that they're invested stories. Imagine having a long-running webcomic that basically has to start over every 75 pages, you can't get very far.

That I understand but what's really annoying are moments where Superman flies past a burned down building thinking "Boy! They really did a number on that one* " followed by " * read issue 217" in the bottom left corner.

And you remember when I mentioned Infinite Crisis? In order to properly know what's going on at the start of that event, you have to have read Identity Crisis, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Prelude to Infinite Crisis, Day of Vengeance, The OMAC Project, The Rann-Thanagar War, Return of Donna Troy and Villains United. Guess what? I read all of them and when I opened up the first chapter of Infinite Crisis, guess what I'm greeted with? The Justice League watchtower in smoldering ruins. No explanations given. Turns out I need to go through "JLA - Crisis of Conscience" in order to understand the reasons behind that.

I just wanted to read Infinite Crisis damit!

I don't have these problems with Marvel. At least not in this extent. Whenever I'm reading a Spiderman story, I'm not asked to read 15 different comics from later eras to understand what they're referring to. If somebody brings up that Spiderman once had 6 arms, they explain why that happened. I've seen them refer numerous amounts of times to when Peter's uncle got shot and that Peter blames himself for that due to his indifference to stop the robber who eventually shot him. It doesn't annoy me and even if it did, it certainly would not annoy me more then a scenario where they'd decide to just show Spiderman go all emo for no reason and a text balloon pops up in the corner going: "Please read Spiderman #1 to understand why he's feeling the blues".

The problem, I think, is that - whilst they'd never admit it - both DC and Marvel have given up on trying to attract new readers. They've grudgingly accepted that their overly-obsessive insistence on crossovers and continuity means that, at this stage, the number of new readers they can expect is going to be small, whatever they do.

With this as a starting point, the only rational business strategy for them to follow is to milk the existing fanbase as much as they can before it disappears all together. And that's what they're doing. A new reader isn't going to want (or be able to afford) to buy fifteen titles every month just to follow one story. An existing fan in his thirties or forties, however, already has an attic full of comics acquired over the previous twenty years and will manage to find the required $40 or $50 each month in order to keep his collection complete.

Knowing that, crossovers and "events" have now become the norm. Ultimately this strategy is, of course, just a way for the industry to commit suicide in a long, drawn out fashion but, unless and until they get a management/editorial team with some vision and imagination, there's no way out of the dilemma they've created for themselves.

Who knows? Disney managed to reverse its own apparently unstoppable decline, so maybe the management there will be able to revitalise Marvel before it disappears completely. (Then maybe DC will do its usual trick and follow suit!)

This is really the only reason I don't read paper comics and its one of the main reasons I don't get involved with long series in general.

It seems like novels don't have this problem as much.

I've heard it said and I agree, great super hero writers re-introduce their main characters in every story. It can be done subtly, we don't need to see the parents murdered by a mugger or gamma explosion origin every first page. However, the motivations and extraordinary circumstances should be addressed. Like any good story people take action for certain reasons. No reason, no story.
One of the problems with many of these read the prequel of the prequel, is a lack of reason. You can know everything leading up to Final Crisis and it still just doesn't come across as fitting or compelling. It's actually got better words than writing.

I agree with DAJB. However, even loyalists or fanboys or whatever tire of their heroes playing in a vacuum.

That's one of the reasons I really love some of the more original stuff that's come out lately. It's a heck of a lot simpler to find the starting point that's for sure. Plus, depending on the publisher, they keep the trade paper backs volumed in numerical Order(unlike a lot of Batman and Amazing Spider-man TPBs lately...)

I mean, take a comic series like "Invincible" by Robert Kirkman, you can easily find where the story starts with Volume one and go from there. Simple as that.

Maybe in the end, this just goes back to the long made point that the comic book industry needs to find more orignal works to start publishing? Create their own little universes instead of using the same burnt out one.

Yep, it's 1 of the big reasons why even when I did read American comics, I always stuck to the new stuff rather than the old stuff like X-men etc. I have no intention of trying to catch up with however many years of inbred history that only fanbois care about.

I don't understand why comics see fit to never retire their characters/stories. Even the most long-running soap operas end. Even the most popular broadway shows end. Even the most world-changing of mangas end. Even the mythologies of entire civilizations end.

Why does Marvel/DC think I care about stories and characters that never end???! I want Superman to END, Batman to END, Spiderman to END, Wolverine to END.

Is that unthinkable to you? Think about this: Astroboy, ENDED. Dragonball Z, ENDED. Gundam, ENDED (at the end of each war). Evangelion, ENDED. Etc etc etc.

At the very least, KILL the damned non-flagship characters! Why are people like Blue Beetle or Shocker still alive?!? They're still alive, right?

mlai
Why are people like Blue Beetle still alive?!?

Well... to be fair, the new Blue Beetle is an entirely different person. The last Blue Beetle died and had the courtesy of staying dead. It's more than can be said about some other heroes *cough*superman*cough*.

Then we have few superheroes who go through generations, like the Flash. Green Lantern is also about a force of peacekeepers so you don't need to focus on the same person all the time. I just wished that their dead champions weren't always coming back alive as well.

I remember reading a JLA comic where superman was attending a funeral of a slain superhero and he realizes that he's the only person who attended. The priest explains that the mentality of the public is that they don't want to bother coming to funerals of superheroes anymore because they're almost certain that they're gonna return in the end (this story occurred after Superman came back from the dead). Needless to say, I was amused.

Should they stop publishing superman today, I will shed no tears. There's 60 years of comics to go through so I think the fanboys can survive the fact that they're not gonna make more. It will also open up possibilities for other heroes to emerge and revitalize the market.

Product Placement

mlai
Why are people like Blue Beetle still alive?!?

Well... to be fair, the new Blue Beetle is an entirely different person. The last Blue Beetle died and had the courtesy of staying dead.

With the Blackest Night Storyline coming up I'm not sure how long THAT'S gonna last.

this is why kids dont read comics anymore

Hguyver
With the Blackest Night Storyline coming up I'm not sure how long THAT'S gonna last.

Oh right.... the storyline that's essentially a giant excuse to resurrect EVERY SINGLE superhero/villain who has ever died in the history of DC comics. No matter how insignificant or trivial they may be.

.... sigh....

I feel like you're overstating the problem. I picked up 52 without having read a dc comic, like, ever and was able to follow along fine. I was able to do the same with Batman RIP. The little throwbacks are like easter eggs, they don't really matter. If they're totally necessary to the story they're usually explained, usually they're just asides, little references to things that are going on simultaneously in the DCU that don't really affect the storyline. I've always found I've been given the information I need in whatever book I'm reading, and on the occasion where I don't really know who a character is because I'm really only familiar with mainstream superheros, I have wikipedia, which is good enough.

Honestly, I feel like I can pick up just about any graphic novel and be able to enjoy it for it's own merit, without reading a bunch of other stuff. All I have is a cursory knowledge of either DC or Marvel, and that's always been plenty.

And I don't think I'm particularly ahead of the curve in regards to following a story. Maybe you're just over thinking it and letting yourself get overwhelmed.

Also Blackest Night=Marvel Zombies, pretty much

kingofsnake
Honestly, I feel like I can pick up just about any graphic novel and be able to enjoy it for it's own merit, without reading a bunch of other stuff. All I have is a cursory knowledge of either DC or Marvel, and that's always been plenty.

Well there are definitely some graphic novels out there that are written in a way that it's perfect as a stand alone.

DC's "Kingdom Come" "Red Son" "Batman: Year One"(Great story by the way), "Batman: The Long Halloween" The quality of the writing is that you don't need to worry about reading a hundred issues of Superman or batman or look on Wikipedia to know what's going on and to understand the little inside details.

I'm a little more hard pressed for some examples for Marvel. Other than Alex Ross's "Marvels" "Spider-man Dark Reign" and um... hmm... that's all I got off the top of my head. I know there's more...

kingofsnake
Also Blackest Night=Marvel Zombies, pretty much

EXACTLY! Only it's worse because it involves the Lantern's "Rainbow of Feelings!"

Yeah, there are those that work. Identity Crisis and 52 can be enjoyed stand-alone. Identity Crisis is actually what brought me to appreciate DC; I had always read Marvel growing up. I've also suggested these to others and they've gotten it without being big-time comics readers.
The other crisis comics, don't translate well without some history, I think. I've read the entire Kirby 4th World saga and still couldn't justify Final Crisis. Some of the art was great and some of the narrative was inspired but at the end it just felt largely forced.
Infinite Crisis uses the history more or less as its premise by saying many of the older, independent story lines were taking place in different worlds. It's an explanation for the company(difference between Golden/Silver age versions, how character from other publishers got mixed in, etc.) with a pretty good story but probably not appealing enough for the casual reader.

I do think big events can be good but, as always, story first. Many airport type novels have been running a long time but they're written so that they can be picked up at random. It only takes a caption or two to give us a fresh sense of who the Question or Green Lantern is. You can almost do it with silent panels, given the right artist. The editors should actually work to make things a little less inclusive, even in the ongoing series.

kingofsnake
Maybe you're just over thinking it and letting yourself get overwhelmed.

I won't deny that claim. The thing is, I'm the type that has to know so whenever they make a point to say that something happened that isn't being covered in the story that I'm reading, it irks me the right way. I don't like being told that I'm missing out on something. DC comics are famous for doing just that.

Stories like Red Son, The Dark Night and Kingdome come are stand alone so they don't have those issues.

I also enjoyed Identity Crisis because it covered all the background stuff really well. Instead of pointing out what stories you had to read in order to understand what was going on, they actually told you the background story. That's how you're supposed to do it. Identity Crisis and Villains United are by far the best pre-crisis books out there btw.