If I Were Orchestrating "The DC Reboot"

DC Comics Booth (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

As many comic fans know, DC  is planning on a major change in September, relaunching 52 titles with issue number 1.  In addition to this “reboot” DC plans on implementing a same day digital distribution, meaning that when the comic titles are released in comic shops, so are the digital versions online.  Needless to say, a lot has been said about this daring idea, both good and bad.  As much as has been said, not many have even approached the idea of what they would do.

If I were in charge of the DC Reboot…

1) Action Comics and Detective Comics will keep their original numbering – Considering how much was made of Action hitting 900, it seems wrong to celebrate that milestone, then restart the series at number 1.  The same goes for Detective, which is currently at 878 (as of this posting).

2) Make Action, Detective, and Green Lantern Corps anthologies – Both series began as anthologies, and should return to such.  Granted, Superman (Action) and Batman (Detective) will be the main stories in each.  Along with the main stories will be two or three “undercard” stories, a combination of shorter series and one shots focusing on the headliners’ “families.

3) Limit the family books – There are roughly 11 Batman related books.  Add them to the 4 Superman family books, and 4 Green Lantern family titles, it represents a sizeable chunk of titles tied in to these three properties (roughly 36.5%).  We can cut down on these titles (especially the Batman titles), rolling them into the anthology titles mentioned above.

4) Explore other “times” – DC has a gigantic wealth of characters to draw from, spawning from many different times.  All-Star Western will explore the one such time frame (the Old West), while Legion of Super-Heroes explores another.  So many more eras (World War 2, World War 1, Revolutionary War, Medieval times) can be explored, either through 1 shorts, quarterlies, or even ongoing series.

5) Watch sales figures – Often times, poor sales are the death of a book.  Now with the push for online sales as well as standard sales, it will be necessary to look at how these sales are generated.  A poor selling newstand book may be selling extremely well online.  I would weigh the the details of sales figures of the titles, and consider a half-cancellation (killing the poor selling newsstand title while keeping the hot selling digital counterpart).

6) Explore a digital reader – Looking at the Kindle/Amazon and Nook/Barnes & Noble concept, I would look for some sort of digital reader device.  This device (color because of the medium) should be affordable, and made available through comic shops.  Much like how the Nook offers in-store deals and options, deals can be cut with comic retailers to create in-store deals with them which would help push business into the comic shops.  I admit, this would be highly ambitious, but the payoff could be great for everyone involved.

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