Originally posted by danteiscool
O.O Whoa... those changes to the DC characters... just whoa. What were they thinking?
Basically? Their editorial inner circle sucks.
Here, I'll let Hitler explain (note: When he says 'Wonder Woman is a murderous cyborg spider,' that's a real thing)
Dan Didio got into the top slot awhile back, things weren't entirely bad, he got more people of his type in high positions, sales slipped some, but he convinced the higher ups that he could solve everything with something he wanted to do for awhile: A big reboot. He did the Nu52 which *temporarily* got massive sales which helped him cement his position, he got more people who he liked- i.e. liked *just* the kinds of comics he did and managed in a similar way- and things went from there.
They like things their way- which is pretty much "Silver age characters, but darker and jerkier in the same vibe of the worst parts of 90s comics, cranked up," and treat most everything not their favorites as expendable (you're a fan of anyone else across DC's multiple eras of characters, be it golden age veteran heroes or newer younger heroes? Too bad!).
They also... just aren't very good managers, changing their minds, having the whole 'multiple bosses who don't talk to each other,' and confuse 'writers willing to put up with a bunch of changes' with 'good writers.' Or values 'loyalty' (i.e. putting up with crap) over other factors. Partially because, well, they're DC, they can get more writers to come to them from indy companies because they have money, but still. It's become a thing where writers are going to DC pretty more for the exposure and not expecting to stay.
Not one but multiples writers have famously swore off the big two saying, in short, "DC is a horrible, horrible place to work, they took advantage of my willingness to go for the wall for me and screwed me in return.... oh, and Marvel's fairly story-arc centric, which doesn't mesh with my style, but they're ok." Not little guys, veterans names, Greg Rucka and Paul Jenkins
Rob Liefeld quit DC off of three books, and he's a guy who gets work on the basis that, 'he may not be the best artist, but he always hits deadlines and he's super-easy to work with.'
They're very tone-def on a lot of issues, such as any issue on any group that isn't mostly older white males.
Like, in response to complaints that there weren't many very female writers or characters in the Nu52 launch? Didio announced, 'ok, I'm going to contact a lot of female creators and get them to do books!'. This turned out to be.... one book (Sword of Sorcery, staring Amethyst of Gemworld, which did have a real female writer), which wasn't overly female friendly (first issue had an attempted rape of a side character! That's totally what female fans want to read, right?), had a male-character backup story, and only lasted 7 issues before it was canned. That was it, their entire 'let's try and reach out to female fans' push.
Then there was the time they had a drawing contest to hype the Harley Quinn comic and find new talent... and the sample panels were of Harley about to commit suicide in a variety of sexualized ways, like holding a toaster over a bathtub she's in and such (see, she's supposed to get some healing powers or something...? But this wasn't specified in the contest, so....). The winner of the comic? Had worked for DC before.
Or the time they were doing a Superman anthology book and hired noted massive homophobe Orson Scott Card (You know prop 8, the measure to ban gay marriage in California? Yea, he was on the leadership council of the group behind that) to do a story because no-one bothered to do a little bit of checking about him.
Some parts of this- writers quitting before their books even start because they're asked to change so much even after their story is approved, not the tone-defness, that's still an issue- has declined a bit, but only because reports were getting out so much that corporate started leaning on them.
Oh yea, and Marvel's response to the Nu52 was called 'Marvel One'. Basically they did a massive relaunch... where they kept the continuity, but reshuffled the teams and such and started a bunch of comics at number 1, and started a policy of writers doing planned-out arcs to completion, ending that book, then starting a new book as a followup.
Marvel's doing awesome, because they have *managerial and planning skills*. Oh, and they figured out that women *like women in comics, especially if they kick butt*.
DC's awful because they don't even pretend to cater to more than a narrow audience any more, they just try and get as much as they can from that slice (and sure, while white males in a certain age range may be a large slice, it's much better to get money from many slices) and because they have a messed-up corporate culture.
