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I don't get why they're going back to Batman Beyond (and *please* tell me they aren't going with Tim-Batman Beyond) and Deathstoke (why not Midnighter, who's book is way better?), disappointed that they're returning Dick to Nightwing (him being a spy was new and interesting!), and fingers crossed for a Wonder Woman without a horrible backstory, but for the most part it's a fairly conservative lineup and that makes a lot of sense considering how much they're faltering.
The problem isn't that they don't put out good stuff, it's that there's no continuity so when someone starts reading for the new stuff, in a year or two it's gone and so are they. They need to retain readers between authors and encourage people to move between titles, which requires more consistency and coordination than they've been showing.
Given that, though, a more conservative lineup of mostly popular name characters does make sense, even if it doesn't have anything that wows me. It'll be easier to reduce the churn that way.
The real question I guess is if they realize they need to reduce churn, or if they're just thinking "THIS rotation of titles will get all the sales back! And if it doesn't last, why, we can do this again in two years!" The problem could be higher up with Bob Harris and Didio and their approach to running things, after all.
Have you followed the latest stuff? Or, which incarnations of his books over the last several years have you picked up?
Batman Beyond- as in Terry McGuiness- was popular as a show. There were multiple Terry books, which had pretty stable, but I hate to say it, low, sales, and had a spinoff or two that did the same with Superman and the Justice League of the time. The first one of these books was noted for ditching Terry's gallery like Inque in exchange for future versions of characters like Hush to mixed reactions, but later ones were better and introduced a Batgirl Beyond and similar and I've heard good reviews.
After Future's End, they replaced Terry with Future Tim Drake in a post-apoc setting with some of Terry's cast. In 8 issues, it dropped from 50k sales (right out of FE) to 20k (as-of January, the last month I have sales info on), and is presumably still falling at a rapid pace. I don't think I've seen anyone speak any buzz about this one.
Terry and the Batman Beyond concept is *cool*, but it's not an easy sell based on an older show as it is, and they'd messed with the concept very heavily so I don't think it has heavy draw on it's own. I mean, you can of course do a pretty good Terry book, and tied to a relaunch it may have a chance, but it's by no means a natural safe bet is what I'm saying.
Current Batman Beyond book is surprisingly good, especially since Dan Jurgens hasn't written anything good in a while. I think they'll continue with that series.
Losing sales isn't new, but there's 'standard attrition' and 'sales freefall.'
Like, the previous series would normally lose a few hundred a month. Not ideal, but it's like, you can look at that and say, "We're at 20k, In 6 months, sales will be at, say, 18 if we're lucky, 15k if we're not." That is a fairly standard low-sales-but-has-a-following book that's not going to last indefinitely, but makes plenty of sense to keep going at least.
If you're at 20k and you lost 2k last month (which it did), you better hope that things level out fast or you could find yourself at single-digit thousand sales before long... in other words Batman Beyond looked to me solidly like it would be on the chopping block before this relaunch.
In the same time Batman Beyond dropped 9,000 (or in other words, October to January, 29k to 20k), Sinestro, another low seller in the same range, dropped 3k (23k to 20k) at the same time.
If it's restarting, I do wonder if they're going back to Terry and the non-post apoc setting- even if TimBB is a good story, it's sales resemble a sinking stone.
They killed him in a story involved time travel. Wouldn't be hard.
Yes, but the per-issue drop is much smaller and it was able to stay stable around those levels. And it's the modern times, not a decade and a half ago, that matter.
It started pretty low, but from issue 6 to issue 16- a whole year (and 16 being the issue where it ended)- Batman Beyond Universe, the latest Terry book, dropped three thousand readers.
You know, not far from what the current series does per issue.
Unless the current series stabilized hard before the reboot, as a publisher I'd be going, "Danger, Danger!".
Yes, even if it's good. Unless it's getting seriously good press in the news or graphic novel/digital sales way above that (I don't think it's graphic novel has even come out yet), it's not something that, business-wise, is justifiable to do much with other than wrap up the story (I also say publishing wise, it's almost always a good idea to wrap up the story because it creates fewer ill feelings than a sudden cutoff).
Even if it was Terry, I don't see the sales increasing all that much. The current storyline is actually pretty good, so I hope they keep the same team flowing.
Well, yes. Considering DC's dire need of stable good sales, going with a book that's prior version was in crashing low sales, and who's old ones were sub-20k stable sales, it's an odd business choice no matter how you slice it, no matter which Batman Beyond. Tim is just moderately more bizarre a chance than Terry, since fewer people are attached to him in the role, but neither seem a business choice.
Consider that there's characters like Starfire and Power Girl who can hold books at better sales. Or, heck, a modern Tim Drake book, 'Red Robin,' would leave me less head-scratchy.
Even if it's good, sales/business wise, it is bonko to include during an attempt to save DC from the threat of low sales.