What can DC Comics do to re-attain the original image of the New 52?

Hey, remember when DC decided to reinvigorate their line of books and the whole industry by getting rid of all the unnecessarily complicated continuity and getting brand new talent to create bold and promising premises?

Whatever happened to that?

The New 52 started with great potential by relaunching their classic properties with exciting concepts and stories as seen in titles like Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Batwoman, etc. While also giving the opportunity to some niche titles like Animal Man, Swamp Thing, All-Star Western, Captain Atom, I, Vampire among others and even creating new properties to fill some genres like Demon Knights, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. and Men of War.

This wasn't the only strong point from the relaunch since DC was also able to bring a lot of up and coming creators that could help to shape the new universe they have just introduced. Guys like Ivan Brandon, Nathan Edmonson, Josh Fialkov, Duane Swierczynski and Adam Glass were really interesting authors that brought a fresh and new identity to the company and helped to gain the attention from the public. The whole world was paying attention to DC and their rivals were quickly taking notes about how to improve their own lines.

However, over the course of a year things started to become troublesome. Stories being interrupted or just downright stopped, directions being changed at the last minute, continuity starting to become complicated despite of the supposed new beginning and most importantly, creative teams being replaced and leaving the company.

I have already talked a bit about this problem in What's the deal with DC's editorial these days? especially about how DC doesn't let their writers do the job they were hired for. I know that having to develope an universe from scratch is something that needs to have a certain amount of control but most of the time their interference just makes the development worse.

Of course, it doesn't help the fact that due to this overbearing control a lot of creator have left the company and were already hired for their competition where they are receiving much more freedom to tell the stories they want to tell.

Still, this is not the only problem that has appeared due that a lot of the most creative and unique titles that DC introduced at the dawn of the New 52 have been cancelled by this point. Series like Dial H, Demon Knights, O.M.A.C., Captain Atom, etc. are not being published anymore. Sure, this is mostly due to the low sales since despite of what people may say, they still want to buy their classic properties instead of new and innovative ones.

 

Nevertheless, it's necessary to mention how Marvel has been improving the quality and diversity of their books in comparison. Titles like Hawkeye, Daredevil, Young Avengers, Superior Spider-Man among others have been receiving a lot of critical acclaim as well as great sales. I believe that thsi has something to do with how Marvel has been much more successful at promoting their books and gaining attention from the press. However, I have to also give them props for bringing brand new talent to their lines and giving them enough liberty to expand their respective books.

Another current example I can think of is Image Comics. In recent years they have been doing a quite admirable job at attracting writers from the mainstream companies to bring

their creative-owned stories to Image. Grant Morrison, Jonathan Hickman, Rick Remender, Scott Snyder, etc. are already announcing their new projects and all of them sound pretty exciting and have quickly grabbed the attention of their fandom.

I'm making these comparisons because I truly love the DCU, it's my favorite fictional universe in enterteinment mediums and I want to improve their current state but how could they achieve it?

What can DC Comics do to re-attain the original image of the New 52?

I have a few suggestions about it:

Give writers the reigns of their respective titles

Yeah, this is an obvious one but it's also bears to repeat. If authors are not able to tell the stories they want to tell they will just end delivering an uninspired and even unfinished product when they need to do their best to create their best possible story.

Don't change directions at the last second, create a solid plan and stick to it

DC's editorial has a tendency to change their minds every two seconds but what they should do is just have a solid route about where they want to go their properties and guide the creators they ahve hired to accomplish it and try to interfere when it's absolutely necessary.

Hire new creative teams and try to keep the ones that already working for the company

Another problem that has been presenting is that DC thinks that they have the right to treat creators like they want to when they actually should try to support them into delivering a much better output. Plus, there are a lot of new writers and artists with compelling visions out there that are just waiting to be asked to work with them. Be proactive.

Give niche titles and lesser-known characters the right push.

*psst* DC come here, I want to tell you something:

Batman and Superman titles are going to keep selling no matter the amount of marketing you invest on them so why not try to put some of those efforts at making new, unique and obscure characters more popular by letting the audience know they exist, you know, for diversity sake.

Variety is the spice of life

I love plain old superhero stories as much as the next comic fanboy/girl but there's enough space for other kind of stories. Horror, drama, crime-pulp. mystery, sci-fi or just plain crazy, try to esperiment a bit. There are several DC franchises that can be exploited for those genres, Doom Patrol, Challengers of the Unknown, Strange Adventures, The Question, seriously, you just need to think a bit outside the box.

Anyway, these are some of the principal recommendations that I have and they will probably be never read by DC. Still, I really love them as a company and will continue to support their titles as long as they're great (Hell, you know how much I love the current Green Arrow).

There's always room for improvement though and I really hope that they're planning something unique for their next wave of books.